Australian Games Day and Golden Demon 1999

By Andrew Lum

Fresh off my digital camera are pictures from the Australian Games Day and Golden Demon Awards, held 4th July at the Darling Harbour Convention Center, Sydney. If you want to see them, just click on the links! And if you can't be bothered scrolling down, here are some links to the image directories:

Miscellaneous: Pictures of Darling Harbour and the Crimson Fists display.
Golden Demon: Mainly entries and a photo or two from the prize giving.
Black Library: Artefacts, Weapons and display tables.
Studio: Artwork, 3-up models, sprues, metal miniatures as well as some of Fat Bloke's stuff.
The Fang: The massive display table that featured at last year's Games Day.
Jungle Fighter: Close ups of the Jungle Fighter 3-up and the new Jungle Fighter sprue.
Eldar Guardian: Same as above, except it is the new plastic Eldar Guardian.

Games Day

My first Games Day (I missed it last year!), held at Darling Harbour this year. There were many games tables (including a 3D versions of Arena of Blood and Orky Bar Brawl, as well as a 40k scale version of Bommerz Over Da Sulphur River). Unfortunately I did not manage to participate in any of the games (my excuse is the hordes of tiny children around each table!).

Funnily enough there was an amazingly long line of people waiting to enter the retail stand (no doubt seeing all tables and Golden Demon entries whetted their appetites to spend money and wait several hours in the queues). It would have probably been quicker for them to walk to the Sydney GW store and walk back...

Golden Demon

I woke up in the morning with nothing painted up specifically for the Golden Demon, so it was time to loot my miniatures cabinet. After a couple of minutes pondering I decided to bring along my Escher Gang (I had to finish flocking their bases in the Sydney Store when I got off the bus! Oh, and rub of the numbers on the bases from the previous campaign). To my surprise I ended up winning first place for the Team/Mob/Gang category! I don't have a photo of myself holding the trophy, so you'll just have to wait a couple of months to see my picture in White Dwarf ;-)

Some of the entries were absolutely amazing! You can check out my (odd and sometimes blurry) collection of Golden Demon photos. And in case you were wondering, the absolutely massive Dwarf ship won the Opens category. Another impressive prize winning entry was the "Altorf: City of Adventure" diaroma, it was exactly like the picture!

The Studio Stand

The first thing I noticed when I saw this stand was "Fat Bloke" Paul Sawyer. After having a little chat to the studio staff they opened the cabinet so I could take some nice close up shots! I was really impressed by the 3-up scaled Jungle Fighter and the Eldar Guardian (I also have photos of the sprues if you follow the links, notice that the Guardians have seperate left and right legs). There were also some of the new Mordheim and undead metal miniatures, plastic Orcs, and lots of sprues that I couldn't make out! Fat Bloke also had some of his miniatures on display, including his Beastman army from Tale of Four Gamers.

Apart from miniatures they also had lots of artwork on display, including the cover for Codex Space Wolves, and a really nice Imperial Guard one too (didn't notice too many Warhammer Fantasy artwork). Click to see the full collection of studio photo.

The Black Library

The 60cm tall Wolf Guard Terminator was awesome, made from plasti-card, das modelling clay, and assorted bits and pieces. The Fang from last year's Games Day was also on display, which looked quite amazing as well (but I'm a Space Wolf player so I'm biased ;-) There were many full sized weapons from the Warhammer 40,000 universe, as well as some 90mm scale models and 40k scaled Titans. Follow this link to see my full set of Black Library photos.

But the main attraction had to be the entire Crimson Fists chapter battling it out across an absolutely massive display table. Unfortunately I couldn't get any particulary clear shots because of the limitations of the digital camera and the barricades stopping people from getting too close... guess we'll have to wait till White Dwarf shows it!