It seems to surprise everybody but I’ve never been to Warhammer world the apparent mecha of tabletop gaming in the UK, But I haven’t, it was always a dream when I was a child.

So as a birthday treat my beloved took me their with a hotel stay and everything.

Getting there was easy enough, not easy by London standards for public transport but not bad for most of England, we just got the tram which are nicer than buses and then it was a 10 minute walk to the place, there is car parking spaces and all that kind of stuff

Once you have paid and got in, its pretty much a free roam, there is an order that people tend to do things in, but you don’t have to, We did the traditional order, which is to do all the galleries, then the main play area, then food, then the shop but you can revisit any part you want as you like.

The galleries were the highlight and the main reason we went

The scenery and dioramas are the bits I love the most as they tell the best tale, but nothing beats Necromunda, I want my Grim Dark with extra Grim Dark, and Grim Dark sprinkles on top.

The galleries were everything I could have hoped for, Starting on the real historical stuff, The first miniatures and where game workshop came from, all the way up to absolutely epic sized dioramas that you could look at for days and still not see everything, I can see people coming multiple times and seeing something new each time.

A lot of amusement can be had by listening to other people talking to their friends and family as they walk through the galleries, some trying to explain what this all is, some getting a little bit too over excited about the lore, some trying to justify being there and why they are dragging the whole family round, a personal favourite was the comments of some overly zealous geeks at some small kids who were running around screaming excitedly at all the pretty toys and that they “weren’t toys” and getting wound up.

Food turned out to be excellent, A full spread of everything you want from beers to interesting drinks, vegan and non vegan solid food all catered too,  A little bit slow on the delivery service  but they did seem to be working confidently, it was just busy that day, mind you there was plenty to do even while you’re waiting, books and games to play and you know as long as someone held onto your table you could just wander around the shops and visit other parts so there was no dead time.

I know for a lot of people the store is the THING because it is the biggest Warhammer store and it has everything in it, Every Forge world model and miniature available like that but for me it was a passing interest, I already have a storage unit of shame so I didn’t need to buy any more models, though it did reinvigorate me to go back to some of the models that I bought in excitement and had not got round to, so that’s a good thing and it’s nice to see a lot of the forge world models in real life before you actually do anything

It was a shame that the one item I did want to buy which was the coffee table book of Warhammer world itself was missing but it was on backorder

Also there is the great big play area where the serious tournaments are held. This did not have the attraction to me that it does for some people. As I’m mainly interesting in the the painting and not the game but it was nice to see it there.

A Selection of the awesome painting in the galleries

Nearly all of these photos are by my beloved, and i was so happy to see she enjoyed it as much as me, even for none Warhammer fans its a good place to see, the lore and amazing painting skills on show may it a fun time for just about everybody, give it between 2 and 5 hours for the full trip.

One of the big problems we hit when my office shut down was finding a location to do painting, we had originally moved to my office when the pandemic hit and GW stopped all painting nights and since they have shown no sign of starting them back up we had to find another venue , homes were not really a solution given that we live in London and space is a premium, plus its nice to get out and make a real day of painting.

The obvious place in central London is the Bad moon cafe (somewhere I had never been) it is the most well known gaming place in London and has been so since before the pandemic, but you would normally go there for a couple of hours of gaming, would they tolerate people turning up and painting for a near full day?

It turns out the answer is yes, I emailed to enquire and they had no problem with me reserving a table for us in the cafe area

Even the smallest cafe table was perfect for our painting case, they provided water for the pots and pallets and even a painting mat so we did not wreck the tables (not that we would have), the light is good and we happily made good progress for the near whole day.

The facilities were excellent with the obvious one being you have paint supplies there in case you need them (and not just GW ones), their excellent miniature and book selection was a constant temptation when ever you go to the back of the cafe, so if you are looking for inspiration its a good place( though I was surprised that corvus belli did not have any models there )

Food and drink were also excellent with something for everybody’s taste, meaning you did not have to leave (always a problem when I used to paint at GWs store)

All in All it was perfect and as long as they put up with us, I intend to go their most weekends.

Now lets address the unsaid part, Bad moon is a business and as such they cant do this for free, when I asked about renting the table, they just said “food and drink” and brushed it off with a smile, but I like to provide guidelines to such things so no one takes advantage of their generosity

In this situation I feel their are 2 “rates” you should be spending at:

“Desk Rate” : this is what I feel you should be spending if they have spare tables and non one is waiting, an office space desk in London in that area would cost you between £25 – £35 for the day so you should be spending this much at least to “rent” your painting space (actually more towards the high end of this range as food and drink has a higher overhead than just desks)

“Coffee Rate” : This is the rate I feel you should be paying if you are actually in the way of normal customers, so lets estimate it, lets make a normal customer turnover guess at “a drink and a sandwich” per 30 mins during the day and “2 drinks” in the evening, in both situations, that is about £7.5, so if you are in the way you should be spending about £15 per person per hour.

Again bad moon staff did not mention any of this, this is just my interpretation of what a business would need to keep running if the cafe was full of painters.

Other things I would note from the trips

1) People are curious, you will get people asking what you are painting, so bring at least one complete mini that you are proud of to show them rather than the half done one you are working on.

2) Don’t block off visibility, first time I set up my case with its back facing the room so no one could see the painting, and frankly it looks boring.

3) Painting after cocktail hour is not a fab plan…. 

A sweet Idea from “Malice2158” on the Squat discord server was to individually name all of your new Squat/Kin models just like the old model were, and thankfully there is already a Dwarf Name generator