Recce Report - Nottingham, the home of GW
Good Morning All
This is the 2nd of my Throne of Skulls GT related posts. Quite simply, observations about Nottingham, that may be of use to people who visit the centre of the GW universe,either randomly or for the purposes of tournaments.
Background
Nottingham is a city in the North of England. The North of England is very grim, very dark and so quite appropriate to be the place where grimdark originates from. The people have strange accents, wear flat caps, and mercilessly abuse whippets which are battery farmed in more rural areas of the north. Famous inhabitants are limited to Robin Hood (who technically lived in a forest outside Nottingham anyway) and the Sheriff of Nottingham - an inept lawman who failed to stop the proto-terrorist/freedom fighter Robin Hood from cocking a snook at the establishment (YMMV - stick with it.).
Places to Stay
I have now attended last and this years GTs, requiring overnight stays. The first year, I stayed in a Travel Lodge. This was actually one of the nine known entrances to Hell, and was populated by screeching hen parties wobbling their way up and down the corridors on white high heels, having shoe-horned their pasty flesh into the smallest inappropriate lycra constructions. The Horror, The Horror! Imagine you saw a Great Unclean one in a costume stolen from a Daemonette - you are about there.
This year, we succumbed to the power of advertising and stayed in the Premier Inn, Millenium West. Some 5-ish miles from Warhammer world, it was quite salubrious, the attached pub was good if basic, the staff were attentive, helpful, semi-human in most instances, and even let me behind the desk to print out an army list - awesome! Not once did Lenny Henry appear and molest me, which was quite a disappointment. Not only that but there is a tram system 50m outside that takes you directly into town. As they say in 'Deadliest Warrior': 'Edge - Premier Inn'.
Warhammer World
Warhammer World should appeal to the inner geek in all of us. As you approach, there are full size space marine statues everywhere, and huge aquilas on some of the buildings. You go in past a 5 foot tall diorama of Tyranids attacking a Space Wolf stronghold, in past an UrukHai and a Chaos Warrior, then up past another marine, into the main hall. Around 100 tables of gaming goodness, most with quality but basic terrain that you can rock up and game at, and some theme tables set out, that you have to rent - there is planet strike tables with all the bastions, skyshields etc you could want. Also a city fight-esque table in an orky junkyard. The hall is set out as the courtyard of a castle, with towers, battlements, etc. One door takes you into a GW where on the spot I belive you can order forgeworld and pick up later if it is in stock. Another door takes you into Bugmans Bar, where you can order actual Bugmans XXXXXX. Whilst it is quite amusing, the atmosphere was somewhat lacking last year (too competitive perhaps?) so we chose to venture into town. That said, the layout of bugmans is cool, any bar that sells absinthe is only for hardcore drinkers and if you get in a fight (if geeks were ever that aggressive) you can always grab a full sized warhammer off the wall and start laying it about.
Going Out
Nottingham has a good reputation for the lash (no not the cheesy spam that keeps CSM heads above the 5th ed water, I mean the booooze). Luckily the tram goes direct to Old Market Square, the main quarter for boozing. Now, Northern Girls often take better care of themselves than some southern equivalents, in terms of time spent scrubbing up before they go out. Consequently, the reality can be shocking should you wake up next to one sans make up. However, the amount of cheeky young things was in a good proportion to the Northern Blokes and their flatcaps. Worryingly, large proportions of these acknowledged tough hardcore drinkers were wearing knitted jumpers, or even cardigans. This might be acceptable in metrosexualsville, but shouldn't be seen in a manly Northern town. As a university town there are also loads of hard up studes - this means cheap beer offers. I seem to remember being in the imaginatively named 'Reflex' - an 80's club. As a child of the 90's this was somewhat wasted on me, but the music was better than the current R&B/X-Factor/poppy crap in the charts. And I did feel like the king as I waltzed in to 'Eye of the Tiger'. In reflex was a party of girls out for a nineteenth birthday party [;)] all wearing burlesque kit - I was complimented on my awesome dancing skills (her words, my friends, not mine) as beer and vodka assisted me in getting my foot to kick higher than my 5'11 friend's ear. Just make sure you take plenty of wonga as it can cost a lot some places.
Food
The food provided as part of the ticket price is pure stodge. Good, but stodgy. So think of your evening meals, I can recommend the pub restaurant back at the Premier Inn - Also Kelly's Kitchen around the corner from Warhammer World does a mean fry-up. Bugmans does good but quite pricey bar food.
Other Things
The only other things I can think of is that there seems to be plenty of reasonable parking at Warhammer World. Interestingly, as I left it was dark - looking up to the 4th+ floor window of an office, the light was on, and a shelf covered in various miniatures was clearly silhouetted - and I could clearly make out the unmistakable shape of a Necron Monolith. Why this is placed in easy reach on an open shelf and not in an archive is anyone's guess…
So I hope this helps should you choose to go to Warhammer World or even to the so-called GT - a good experience marred only for me by a pants scoring system.
