The Horus Heresy Weekender 2019

The 2019 Horus Heresy Weekender has been and gone, so as usual I wanted to write a little bit about the Black Library elements of the event specifically, and my thoughts about the event overall. As with previous years, my focus (while there, as well as in this article) is on the Black Library side of things rather than the models and the game, so I’m not going to talk much about those aspects here. There are plenty of people out there covering those sides of the event in LOADS of detail, so I’ll keep things focused on the books as usual.

I should give a caveat here that I’m inevitably comparing things with the BL Weekender in November last year, which was (for me) a brilliant event. I went into this particular event well aware that the focus is more on the game than the books, and that there would me a much-reduced BL presence compared to November’s event. Nevertheless, while I’ve still got some reservations about a few things regarding the overall event and I’d have liked just a bit more from BL this year, I did have a good time.

I’ll cover the BL stuff first before moving onto the overall event stuff. Feel free to skip the later sections if you’re not interested!

Books to buy
A big part of the appeal for any event like this is the chance to pick up pre-release goodies (alongside the usual backlist titles and bits of merch), which for this event took the shape of three new books:

The Buried Dagger by James Swallow
– Book 54 in the main Heresy series, and the final volume before the Siege of Terra.

Angron: Slave of Nuceria by Ian St. Martin
– The 11th Primarchs novel, available in limited edition hardback.

Scions of the Emperor
– An event-exclusive Primarchs anthology, in the same vein as last year’s Sons of the Emperor.

That’s a similar selection to last year’s Horus Heresy and Necromunda Weekender (although obviously much-reduced compared to the BL Weekender), albeit slightly reduced – no new audio drama this year, and no Black Library Live tickets, sadly. I don’t think you need me to talk much about The Buried Dagger or Slave of Nuceria, other than to say that I’ll have reviews of both available for you to read around about the release date for both of them – the 23rd February. I’ll cover a little bit of what was discussed in the relevant seminars in the next section.

I do, however, want to talk a little bit about Scions of the Emperor, which contains the following stories:

  • Canticle by David Guymer (Ferrus Manus in his earliest days on Medusa)
  • The Verdict of the Scythe by David Annandale (Mortarion trying out mercy for once)
  • A Game of Opposites by Guy Haley (Jaghatai Khan proving he’s not just about speed)
  • Better Angels by Ian St. Martin (Sanguinius and one of his sons considering the purpose of art and beauty)
  • The Conqueror’s Truth by Gav Thorpe (Konrad Curze being uncharacteristically accommodating towards a remembrancer)
  • The Sinew of War by Darius Hinks (Guilliman in his youth, learning to be more than just a warrior)
  • The Chamber at the End of Memory by James Swallow (Dorn figuring out just how far he’ll go, and tangling with Malcador…again)
  • First Legion by Chris Wraight (Lion El’Jonson and the Alpha Legion during the Rangdan Xenocides)

As you can see there’s quite a variety of stories in this anthology, with almost all (barring Canticle) written by authors not usually associated with their respective Primarchs. I’m a big fan of getting as many stories as we possibly can about the Primarchs as while the novels are great, there’s just so much more to tell about these characters – and short stories are great ways of tackling interesting little character studies which might not work in longer stories. Scions is a bit shorter than last year’s Sons of the Emperor was (182 pages compared to almost 250) but there should still be plenty to enjoy amongst these stories.

As with Sons of the Emperor – which is due for a wider release in March, I gather – however, the issue that’s inevitably going to have over this book is the fact that for the time being at least, it’s only available at events (and possibly, though I’m not certain, at Warhammer World). Not only that, but there was no per-person limit on the number of copies that could be bought, meaning people were buying SO MANY copies it was clear that they were going straight on eBay. It came as no surprise, then, to hear that Scions sold out long before the event finished – no surprise, but a fair amount of disappointment.

I’m obviously saying this as someone who’s able to attend events, but personally I’m ok with the idea of event-only anthologies…as long as they’re made widely available at some point. It’s a nice way of rewarding fans for attending events, although I think it would be good if BL were clear on when the wider release will happen, to help manage fans’ expectations and try to mitigate the risk of scalpers. A clear message on social media and the Community site saying ‘Scions of the Emperor is currently only available at events but will get a wider release within 6/9/12 months’ would do the trick, and surely wouldn’t be hard to provide.

On top of that, it seems only sensible (and fair) to limit the numbers that can be bought – I picked up a few copies for friends who couldn’t make it, but I’d have been happy to wait until the Sunday afternoon, for example, before buying those so that everyone actually attending the event could have the chance to buy one. I’m certainly not keen on the idea of anyone buying 30 copies in one go, as soon as the event opens…

The one GLARING absence, in my opinion, was John French’s The Solar War, the limited edition hardback of which I had hoped was going to be available to buy as well. I can’t help thinking it’s a bit odd that this is due out in March, just a few weeks after the event, but wasn’t available. I don’t know if it was to try and avoid overshadowing The Buried Dagger, or some other reason, but for the main dedicated Horus Heresy event of the year to not feature the biggest BL Heresy release of the year…it does seem a bit odd, and I was a little bit disappointed. Ah well.

Black Library seminars
Speaking of The Solar War, it wasn’t part of the seminar schedule either. There’s no point speculating on what might have been, however, so instead I’ll focus on what did happen – below you’ll find a list of the Black Library-specific seminars that took place. You’ll notice that there’s some duplication, with two similar seminars featuring James Swallow and another two similar sessions with Ian St. Martin (in both cases there was one per day).

I heard people suggesting that the duplication was so that people who missed a seminar one day would have the chance to see something similar the next day, which does make sense. Mind you, that’s not something I’ve seen before…so take that with a pinch of salt. There was also a seminar called ‘The Art of Necromunda & Horus Heresy’ which I didn’t make it to, but in which I gather the cool new map of the Sol System was shown. I think this is going to be included in the LE hardback of The Solar War, so there was at least something relating to that book on offer!

I didn’t go to all of the BL seminars, but I did my best to live tweet during as many of them as I could, so you can have a read back through those tweets to see what I managed to cover – click on the underlined seminar names above to go to the first tweet for each one. If you can’t be bothered reading through all of those tweets, here are a few tasty snippets:

The Buried Dagger and the Death Guard

  • James wanted to look at why Mortarion would bend the knee to Nurgle, so he looked back to the Primarch’s youth on Barbarus (cheekily referred to as “toxic Yorkshire”) to help explain.
  • We’ll get to see the first time Calas Typhon and Erebus (“everyone’s favourite dick”) meet.
  • Mortarion and the Death Guard fear weakness and decay – hence why it’s Nurgle who brings them low.

Nathaniel Garro and the Knights Errant

  • The Buried Dagger features Garro, but won’t quite cover the end of his arc – there’s still something left for him to do afterwards.
  • Garro’s arc wasn’t planned out from the beginning, but grew in the telling (there was no grand plan).
  • Someone asked if we’ll see Revuel Arvida in The Buried Dagger, and James’ response was pretty much just a wry smile…

Angron and the World Eaters

  • Slave of Nuceria looks at the World Eaters before they had the Butcher’s Nails, and deals with how different elements of the legion felt about the idea of the Nails.
  • Ian wanted to depict the pre-Nails World Eaters as honourable and noble, so there’s greater impact to their fall.
  • The book poses the question of what would happen if a legion defied its Primarch – what would happen, and what would people outside of the legion think about it?

The Primarchs

  • Lots of discussion around how to write Primarchs, including comparisons with Greek gods whose strengths AND flaws are magnified beyond humans’.
  • The first Scions seminar developed after a while into an intriguing exploration of the authors’ working processes – these group seminars are often great for that sort of discussion!
  • The second seminar featured a lengthy discussion on the importance of art and beauty to the Blood Angels, including Ian expressing his hope to see Forge World create a model of a Dreadnought doing needlepoint! It makes sense once you’ve read his story…
  • There was also a discussion of how cool it would be if BL were to produce an anthology of ‘what if?’ stories looking at alternative outcomes of certain Primarchs’ origins being swapped/reversed. I’d buy that, for sure…

Sadly there was no ‘Coming Soon’ seminar (which is odd, as you’d have thought BL could have revealed at least a little bit about the Siege…ah well), however I did pick up just a few little snippets of interesting info about upcoming stories:

  • There’s a short story coming in February called Lantern’s Light in which James Swallow explores how Mortarion got his cool gun (sounds like the Emperor gave it to him).
  • James has submitted a pitch for the Sanguinius Primarchs novel, although I don’t think it’s anywhere near finalised yet.
  • Ian has an Angron short story coming up soon – Ghosts of Nuceria – looking at how Angron deals with the Emperor denying him his ‘destiny’.

So there you have it, that’s my recap of the BL seminars. Lots of interesting stuff across the various conversations, and some pretty decent questions from the audiences. As always the authors were all on good form, and likewise the BL editors who did all of the compéring.

Are the Heresy Weekenders worth it for Black Library fans?
The short answer is yes, as long as you’re aware that they’re not the same thing as the BL Weekenders. The longer answer is probably…it depends. If you’re not interested in the game/rules/miniatures/artwork at all, and you only want to know about the BL stuff, then you’re probably going to be a bit disappointed – especially as you’re paying £75 for the ticket PLUS travel PLUS accommodation PLUS food. It’s definitely not a cheap weekend. However, if you’ve got at least a passing interest in the wider Heresy picture then I’d say there’s enough to enjoy even though the BL side of things isn’t the main focus.

From a seminar perspective I’d love if next year there was just a bit more variety, with maybe a couple more authors involved in more than just the one seminar (Guy Haley, Darius Hinks and David Guymer were each only in a single seminar) and perhaps some discussion of wider topics/questions in the Heresy rather than just the focus of the new releases (I’m being deliberately nitpicky here). I’d also really like to see a return to the ‘Coming Soon’ sort of seminar to give a little insight into what’s in the pipeline, and if it’s a joint event with Necromunda next year then ideally at least one Necromunda-related seminar looking at recent or upcoming BL titles. I’d have loved to have heard Mike Brooks talk more about his Necromunda stuff, for example.

As I said, I’m being nitpicky in places – if you’re interested in BL fiction and the Heresy, chances are you’re going to find things to enjoy in the seminars. Don’t forget, seminars are your opportunity to ask questions and steer conversations onto the things you’re interested in! Beyond that, it’s also worth pointing out that you don’t just get the insight from sitting in on the seminars (although they’re great) but you also have the opportunity to chat to authors one on one, whether in signing queues (just don’t talk for too long and annoy everyone behind you), while wandering around the event or in the evenings at the bar. For example I spent a happy few hours chatting with Guy, Ian and Jim in the bar on the Saturday evening – thanks chaps for the excellent company!

If that sounds good – remember that there’s also (hopefully) Black Library Live and the Black Library Weekender to look forward to. You don’t get the hobby side of things so much, but there’s even more BL-specific fun to be had!

Anyway, if you’ve read this far and are up for a bit more, read on to see my thoughts on the event overall – specifically the communication around the event, the organisation on the day(s), and the new venue.

Communication
I want to talk a bit about the communication around the event, which I have to say wasn’t very good. I bought my ticket on the 10th November, with the event just under three months away, so I wasn’t expecting a lot of information about guests, seminars etc. at that point. I was hoping to find out more over the coming weeks – the BL Weekender tickets had gone on sale a bit closer to the event, but ALL the details had been made available in advance, which was really helpful. I know they’re quite different events, run by different teams, but I’d hoped for similar timings.

Some of the info about the BL Weekender that was made available as soon as tickets went on sale.

As it happened, the first piece of additional information was released a little under two weeks before the event (details of some of the available models) and the schedule wasn’t revealed until the Monday before. In the twelve weeks between tickets going on sale and the event happening, there was nothing else – no information about which guests were going to be there, and nothing about the fact that – despite previous assurances to the contrary – the Weekender would, like 2018’s event, feature Necromunda as well as the Horus Heresy. That’s all just a bit disappointing in my opinion.

For me personally, I don’t really mind Necromunda being part of the Weekender, although unlike 2018’s event there was no Black Library involvement on the Necromunda side this year. I do, however, understand how dedicated Heresy fans might be disappointed that what was promised to be a Heresy-only event was changed without any notice, and likewise that hardcore Necromunda fans might have chosen not to attend on the assumption that there wouldn’t be anything for them…only to find out at the last minute that they’re going to miss out. This feels like basic expectation management, and really shouldn’t have happened.

To be honest though, I was more concerned with the fact that even on the Monday when the seminars were announced, not only was the schedule riddled with misspelled guest names but it also didn’t give any information about what each seminar/session was actually going to be about. It’s all well and good telling us there’s going to be a session called ‘Age of Darkness forum’, for example, but it doesn’t help much when we don’t know what a ‘forum’ actually involves – is it a Q&A session? A roundtable? An in-depth exploration of something specific? Just a sentence about each session would have resolved that, and helped us plan that bit better.

The event itself
By the week of the event I was a bit concerned about whether I was going to enjoy it, considering the poor communication and the fact that it was at a different venue to previous years (more on this below), which comes with its own challenges. It was with some trepidation, then, that I arrived at the Radisson Blu Hotel on the Friday to check in and take a look around – bearing in mind there had been no instructions regarding where in the hotel the event was going to be taking place, where and when to register, or anything like that. As it happened the hotel wasn’t very big so it was pretty obvious what was going on, but I’d have liked the reassurance of some advance information.

One thing that the schedule did cover was the fact that some parts of the event would be kicking off on the Friday night, in advance of the main event starting on the Saturday morning – from 5pm onwards there would be gaming tables available, and the sales stand would be open. I’m a big fan of opening the sales stand on the Friday, as it (in theory) takes some of the pressure off the inevitable Saturday morning crush, and seeing as a big part of these events is the social aspect I’m all for giving gamers the chance to get stuck in nice and early.

As it happened, I think the setup of the sales stand must have overrun as the ENORMOUS queue snaking through the foyer and bar of the hotel didn’t start moving until nearer to 6pm, which was a shame. That queue took a LONG time to go down as well, probably as a result of there only being a single till open on the sales stand, which seems like madness to me. Thankfully the Black Library sales stand (which was in a separate room) didn’t have anything like the same size of queue, although it would have helped if there had been signage pointing out that the big queue was only for the main sales stand, or at least a member of staff letting people know!

It all worked out in the end, but I’m glad I didn’t have anything else I specifically wanted to do that evening as I did spend a long time just standing around and waiting. I find myself coming back to the question of communication here, as well as organisation and (realistic) planning. I know it was a new venue being tested out for the first time (by GW at least – I’m sure it’s used for events all the time), but it just felt like some of the small but crucial details hadn’t been worked out, and certainly hadn’t been communicated to attendees in advance.

For example, rather than there being a clearly signposted registration desk where we could show our tickets and collect the usual goody bags/lanyards etc, we were given little plastic wallets for our tickets on the Friday night (while waiting in the queue). We weren’t given the lanyards for them, as they were in the goody bags…which were handed out on Saturday morning when the foyer filled up with a milling crowd of people even bigger and less organised than the queue on Friday. While waiting in the crowd, staff were wading through handing out raffle tickets for the chance to win a prize during the closing ceremony, which can’t have been much fun for them!

A little while later, before the seminars had started, a different set of staff members began to circulate through the chaos of the foyer crowd with wristbands which I think were intended to give some sort of priority access to the seminars taking place in the biggest of the rooms. Not only was that a completely disorganised way of sorting out wristbands (which we didn’t know in advance that we’d need) for a room which I never saw completely full (as opposed to the small rooms which filled up quickly), but I couldn’t get a straight answer about how they were supposed to work, and I’ve a feeling they were basically just ignored in the end. To be honest I think using wristbands to control access to seminars is fine – it works great at Warhammer Fest, for example – but it needs to be organised a bit better!

These are relatively minor details on the face of it, which actually end up having an unnecessarily large impact right at the beginning of the event – which is exactly when you want to be giving attendees the best possible first impressions! Thankfully everything did work out in the end, but I definitely felt some tension in the air over the course of the Friday evening and Saturday morning. Add that to the issue of the big Forge World black book not being available (not FW’s fault, but still a problem), and I’ve a feeling that just one more issue or problem could have tipped things over into genuine dissatisfaction – which would have been a massive shame. Thankfully the opportunity to order Malevolence with free delivery was a good call, and I think that helped keep everyone positive.

If this all sounds negative, don’t worry – as I hope it was clear from the BL-specific section earlier, I did actually enjoy the weekend, despite the lack of information and the chaotic scenes early on. It’s important for us fans to remember just how much work goes into putting something like this on, and how much effort the GW/FW staff put in – as always, everyone I spoke to at the event was brilliant, and as helpful and positive as you’d expect from Games Workshop staff.

In case you’re wondering, I can’t talk about the quiz on the Saturday because I decided not to attend – I’ve been burned by too many terrible quizzes in the past, and couldn’t face the possibility of having to make yet another plasticine sculpture (I’m sure you can imagine what THOSE usually look like). Instead, I hung out in the bar and ended up chatting to BL authors (as I mentioned earlier) for the rest of the evening! That’s what these events are all about, in my opinion – the chance to meet people and just hang out and chat.

The hotel
As I’ve mentioned earlier in the article, this was the first year that one of the Weekenders has been held at the Radisson Blu Hotel – previous Weekenders (of both varieties) have all been held at the Nottingham Belfry, which has become a very familiar setting for people like me who’ve been to lots of Weekenders. I don’t know the details of why the venue has changed, but it does look as though we’ve seen the last of the Belfry – in my opinion that’s a bit of a shame, as while it has its problems (terrible bar staff, for example) I did like the overall setup there.

In case you’re not aware, the Radisson Blu is not actually in Nottingham but about 12 miles away by East Midlands Airport, and better served by East Midlands Parkway train station than Nottingham station. Location-wise it’s a lot further away from other amenities than the Belfry was – you’re out by the airport so options are limited for things like supermarkets, while it’s quite a long journey over to Warhammer World if you’re thinking of paying GW HQ a visit. That being said, in actual journey time there’s not a huge amount of difference – according to Google Maps it’ll take 20 minutes in the car to do the 12 miles from the Radisson Blu to Warhammer World, compared to 24 minutes to travel the 5 miles there from the Belfry. Not much difference in terms of time, but possibly a more expensive taxi journey, for example.

Once you’re at the hotel, it’s a perfectly nice example of your typical modern airport hotel. The rooms are pretty good actually (probably better than the Belfry) and the food – whether from the bar or the restaurant – is definitely better than the Belfry. The decision to only offer lunch to attendees who bought specific ‘lunch deal’ tickets in advance still seems a bit weird (I imagine it was to help plan for how much would be needed), and I’m not sure if the bar was offering food for guests who weren’t attending the Weekender, but while £25 for two meals does feel a bit steep, the food was genuinely really good. I do wish we’d been told in advance that we needed to pick up lunch wristbands, too – that would have been helpful!

Food and service are where the Belfry fell down as a venue – the food options were pretty poor, especially the ‘packed lunch’ offer, and the overall level of service at the bars was…not great. In those respects the Radisson Blu was a big step up, however I did find that the Radisson’s bar didn’t quite have the atmosphere in the evenings that the Belfry did. The bar is essentially the foyer of the hotel, and while it’s perfectly nice it does feel a bit like an airport lounge…it’s comfortable and probably more spacious than the Belfry, but it didn’t quite have the friendly buzz that the best events at the Belfry always generated.

I’ve talked already about the queues that formed over the weekend, and while communication and organisation were big factors in those, I think the layout of the hotel – and how the event was set up – affected things as well. If you look at the map provided with the schedule, you’ll see that the seminar/gaming/studio rooms are laid out either side of a corridor which opened out from the foyer onto first the sales stand and then, at the end, the signing station. That meant there was pretty much always a queue at one end of the corridor (for sales) and often at the other end too, plus a constant stream of people moving in and out of the various rooms, which resulted in everything feeling rather cramped and chaotic.

At the Belfry the various rooms being used were all off to one side of the hotel, separate from the sales stand which was a fairly large ring of tables in the foyer. This meant that the event did pretty much take over the whole hotel, but it also meant that queues could be kept separate and there was space for several tills to be working at once. I think a second till did open up for Saturday and Sunday this year, but having everything on one long table really wasn’t a good option in my opinion – and I think that caused a lot of the problems with big queues and confusion. If the hotel are happy with it, I’d imagine that having the sales stand in the foyer/bar area would be the only real alternative option.

The layout of the venue notwithstanding the seminar rooms were fine – nothing special, but they worked perfectly well – even if the Studio area could probably have done with being just a bit bigger. The larger of the rooms did feel very much like you were in a business conference, but at least the microphones worked properly (when people chose to use them). If there had been somewhere else for the main sales stand to be, I’d have said the overall setup was pretty good – if that can’t be fixed then personally I’d suggest that the venue just falls down as a location for this sort of event, but if the space in the corridor could be freed up to make movement between the rooms better then I’d certainly be happy attending more events at the Radisson Blu.

Overall
Like I said earlier, I know it sounds like I’ve been pretty negative throughout a big chunk of this article, but while I did have some frustrations with the venue and the event’s organisation I did – overall – have a good time. I got the sense that quite a few of the other attendees had similar frustrations, but the atmosphere was pretty positive overall, despite the absence of the black book and a few grumbles over other bits and pieces. I think GW got away with including Necromunda despite previously saying that they wouldn’t, and ultimately I suspect that’s because of the positivity and friendliness of the staff at the event, which really went a long way towards making everything fun and valuable.

Are there things that could be done better next time? Of course – that’s the way it works with events. My feeling is that if whoever organises this event makes genuine efforts to listen to the fans and try to resolve the most obvious problems – communication, organisation at the start of the event, layout etc. – then there’s no reason why 2020’s Horus Heresy Weekender can’t be a big success. Hopefully there will be just a little bit more of a Black Library involvement next time as well!

If you’ve got any thoughts, comments or questions then as always please let me know in the comments below, or on Facebook or Twitter.

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