Heresy & Heroes

If you missed yesterday’s post on Day 1 of the Horus Heresy and Necromunda Weekender, you can find it here. Now let’s take a look at Day 2.

We arrived at the Belfry early on Sunday morning in the hope that some more new stuff had been put up for sale, but no dice. Well, not only no dice, but also no new miniatures. Although, actually, I believe there were some dice so… Anyway, the day there started with a quick mooch around, and a chat with a few people before  attending our first seminar.

Tales From Necromunda

Nick Kyme was giving a seminar on what we can expect to see from Black Library in the coming months that will deal with Necromunda. However, Nick was running late, so fellow esteemed author Josh Reynolds kept us entertained with a tale that had us all in stitches, or shocked, or a mixture of the two – ‘enthralled’ is probably the best word for it. I won’t try and tell it myself, but if you ever meet him, ask him about the grave digging story. It’s a classic tale of grave robbing, tax avoidance, shotguns, beer bottles and a wild hog with a grudge. He made growing up in South Carolina sound like a lot of fun.

Eventually Nick turned up and the intimate seminar (there were only about 8 of us patrons in attendance as everyone else was talking titans in the main room) began.

By the end of the month, we should see at least the first of six short stories about life in Hive Primus. What struck me was how much scope and freedom the writers had been given, and that they were really having fun with the new setting and narratives. With Necromunda, they could write stories that they’d never be able to write with 40K or AoS, including romances, comedies, heists and detective fiction.

Among the works to come are tales of Ratskin juves seeking to see the sun and pass an ancient initiation rite, tales of enforcers chasing thieves and fighting Eschers, and even Nick Kyme’s own interpretation of Romeo and Juliet featuring a cast of Goliaths and Eschers in fair Hive Primus where our play is set. Nick actually read some of this to us (and Josh read some of his own work too) and it was very funny, and very well done – I look forward to giggling and remembering his voices when I read it all myself.

And they were very interested in our suggestions and ideas. Films like Gangs of New York and Warriors are ripe for parody in this setting, and they seem very keen to bring old characters like Kal Jericho back into the mix – a character that many wanted to hear more about.

Josh and Nick were great to hang out with in this session, and if you ever get a chance to chat to them, I heartily recommend it.

The Orlocks Appear

When we got out of the session with the authors, we noticed a line starting to form towards the sales area. Instinctively we joined it, and were then told that there were 100 boxes of the new Orlock gang, and 100 copies of Gang War 2 now available! They were 1 per ticket holder and had we taken a few more minutes in that seminar, we might have missed out as we were around 40th in the queue and it grew very quickly after that.

So, I did bag something that I wanted after all. I was very pleased to pick these up, but before going to have a read, we swung by Golden Demon to see if any judging had taken place. It had, and what’s more, I had been given a pin! Only my second time at Golden Demon, and I had earned a pin for my Blood Angels Veteran Tactical Squad! Though I wouldn’t make it to the podium, I was absolutely overjoyed with this. I went in just wanting to see my work alongside the work of some truly talented painters, but I actually finished 4th in the squad competition that had some pretty stiff competition. Made my month. And obviously, the plinth did it most of the work. 😉

The Siege Of Terra

After a spot of lunch and a flick through the Gang War 2 book (more on that in another post – it’s too good to shoehorn in here). It was time to hear from the Black Library authors (Nick Kyme, Gav Thorpe and Guy Haley) about the Siege of Terra – the final chapter of the Horus Heresy series.

They are planning a number of books, full of lots of surprises, to cover the most momentous part of the Horus Heresy. They wouldn’t say how many, but it sounds like it could be up to 10, and there won’t be huge waits between each book. Gav Thorpe, Guy Haley, and Dan Abnett have all been confirmed as contributors, though they wouldn’t confirm if Dan would be ending the series (as, after all, he did start it all).

The authors are terrified but also very excited about this project and we did get a couple of tidbits on what we can look forward to. We will see an ending to the Perpetuals story, and we will see Angron walk to the walls of Terra alone to demand the Emperor’s surrender. And they have confirmed that in one book, we will see a fight between the Khan and Fulgrim – which sounds just awesome. All of these books will be set within the Sol System and on Terra itself. And you’ll be able to tell when these books are due to come out as the tale of the Death Guard turning fully to Nurgle will be the penultimate book before the Siege of Terra begins.

And the Heresy series will end when the Emperor gets placed on the Golden Throne. They may return to the setting to fill in some gaps in the future, but everything else that follows (the scouring, etc), will not have the Horus Heresy stamp on it. All in all, there’s a lot of good reading to look forward to.

New Miniatures On Display

There were some shiny, new minis added to the display cabinets by this point, including everyone’s favourite Squat who is looking fantastic with this simple but awesome paint job (along with another very cool looking bounty hunter):

Lots of new weapons options for Goliath, Orlock and Escher gangs will be coming from Forge World very soon we hear, and there are some stunners in this collection – that Orlock Heavy flamer in particular is a real winner.

Animals! Yes, the Underhive’s pets made an appearance with Croco-Dog being by far my favourite – the Jagged Aggressors will definitely be adding one of these to their ranks some time soon.

And a termite too!

Golden Demon Awards

This was a very special Golden Demon as I got to see my mate, who I’ve been painting and playing toy soldiers with since we were knee high to a squig-hopper, pick up his first Golden Demon statue. Henry South picked up silver for his Kal Jericho (as pictured above) and, though I may be a little biased here, I thought he deserved gold. Was a pleasure to see my oldest pal pick up a gong.

Everyone was in good spirits, but perhaps none more-so than @Kenkenwf (worth following on Instagram) who was literally jumping for joy when he picked up gold in the vehicle category for his Night Lords dreadnought. He’d come all the way from Tokyo, Japan to enter, and apparently he’s only been painting since 2016 (which is really impressive, as well as being a little depressing too for veterans like me!)

The best of the Single Miniature category also scooped up the Slayer Sword, and it was no surprise to anyone that it was Andy Wardle’s magnificent Magnus the Red that won. Andy not only has a track record of picking up these prizes, but his work on Magnus was frankly mindblowing. Seriously, check him out on Instagram too if you’re not already aware of him – it was an amazing piece.

When I went to pick up my miniatures, I got the chance to ask the judges what I could have done to turn a 4th place into 3rd or better. He was very nice and said that there wasn’t much in it, and that it came down to a few brushstrokes, but they do judge you on your mistakes as much as they do your successes (and there were more than a few tiny mistakes on mine – I’ll admit to that). He also gave me a good tip for future Squad competitions – paint 5 instead of 10, but spend as much time painting those 5 as you would have done 10 before. I shall take that on board, and try again next time.

Only slightly galling was overhearing him say “yeah, we don’t really look at the plinths” and I could have kicked off then and there.

You may see my entry in print, or on the Golden Demon website, but you also may not – who knows if 4th place is good enough…

Warhammer TV

Finally, I should bring it to your attention that I have made my initial Warhammer TV appearance. You can see me (large, hairy guy in the black/red hoodie which says ‘Heresy & Heroes’ on it – that the damn camera didn’t even pick up!) and others talk about the weekend.

In the initial cut, I even made a howler of a mistake – I said “Age of Sigmar” when I meant to say “Alpha Legion”. Warhammer TV have thankfully spared my blushes by not including this in the latest cut, but I maintain it was a ploy by an Alpha Legion operative located somewhere in the building who didn’t want me talking about Age of Si- Alpha Legion! See; they’re still doing it! 😉

And That’s That

When the awards were over, so was the weekend. A quick trip to the pub, followed by a long journey back to London. But we were in high spirits. Awards and pins in tow, we left Nottingham happy, monetarily poorer, experientially richer, and sleepy. It was something else to wake up on Monday morning and see my pin on my bedside table (it’s now on my desk so I can look at it every time I paint). It’s on to the next project for me now, but you’ll have to wait to find out what that is. I hope your weekends were just as wonderful as mine, and that you have a great week. Onwards!

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