Games Day UK 2012 - Armies on Parade

It's difficult to ignore that the main highlights of this year's Games Day were the CSM and Horus Heresy models on display and their respective books. However, there was plenty of other things to look at! Let's start with the Armies on Parade entries. There were some incredible dioramas on display here. Whilst some had just thrown a few models onto a board others had commited those models to stay there rather than just recessing them in. Anyway, here's a selection:

The harlequin entry above looks pretty nice but the main reason it was attracting attention was the razorwing on top of the building that was floating with the aid of magnets!

I really loved this Orky entry, in particular because one of the pilots had misjudged slightly and ended up like this:

The following Tau entry was probably my second favourite out of the lot. The army was themed as a Farsight breakaway faction and featured a flyer conversion, lots of flying suits and generally lots to look at.

The entry above was the eventual winner. This is the only shot I got of it however as to be honest I wasn't particularly blown away by it. Don't get me wrong it was brilliantly done but I felt there were better offerings out there. The next one shows that money can't buy taste. Whilst there's a disgusting amount of expensive Forgeworld models on there they aren't particularly stunningly painted and seem to have just been thrown onto the board. I'd have been disappointed if this one had won as it would belittle the tremendous amount of effort others had put in.

Finally, here's my favourite entry of the lot. I must say I'm surprised it didn't win as there was a huge crowd around it for the entire day. Perhaps everyone was too busy studying it to remember to vote! The thing I liked about this one was how it felt like an actual scene from a battle rather than just an army on a display board. The falcon emerging into realspace is beautifully done. There are also some lovely details like the wraithlord trampling a marine to death and the jetbikes zipping along.