Valhalla, October 2013
by J.D. Welch
I was fortunate enough to go to Blue Table Painting’s Valhalla last week, the October Valhalla for 2013, and let me tell you, it exceeded my expectations!
I first heard about Valhalla here on Faeit 212 last March, when Natfka posted that he would be going to the May event. Living in the Phoenix area, and being very familiar with Utah (having lived in a Salt Lake City suburb for 10 years previously), I knew that I could drive up there and attend one of the (then) upcoming events, either August or October; I’d made the drive many times before, and by driving knew I could transport all of the armies that I wanted to use while I was up there without having to worry about airline baggage handlers and TSA. However, rather than retell the story of my journey from discovery about Valhalla last March to attending it last week, you can check out the blog I maintained as I was frantically painting up about 4,500 points of Death Guard, Night Lords and Nurgle Daemons at theroadtovalhalla.blogspot.com.
I promised Natfka that I would take pictures and report from Valhalla while I was up there, but I ran into two major problems accomplishing this: First, the Wi-Fi up at the “cabin” where Valhalla was held this year is sketchy at best, and frequently either I couldn’t get on, or couldn’t get on without bumping someone else off. Second, I got so wrapped up in enjoying myself, playing games of 40K, eating, hanging out, taking classes, etc., that I completely forgot that I’d promised Natfka that I would take pictures during the week and report back while I was up there! Valhalla is so much fun, you just get “lost in the now”, and before you know it it’s time for bed so you can get up as early as possible to get in as full a day of gaming, classes and more fun as possible the next day. And before you know it, the week had (nearly) slipped by.
It wasn’t until I finally managed to get on the Wi-Fi with my iPad and checked Faeit 212 that I saw that Natfka had posted about Valhalla, that it was going on “right now”, and remembered that I was supposed to take pictures. *Sigh*. Frankly, the pictures that Natfka provided in that post last week were as good or better than I could’ve done in terms of showing you what goes on up there. However, I did manage to get a few photo opportunities of two special models that I came across.
The first is a Grey Knights Land Raider that was painted by multiple Golden Daemon winner and BTP employee, Sam, for one of the guests, named Joe (“Jersey Joe”, as I like to think of him, as he’s from my home state of New Jersey, and I didn’t catch his last name). Joe had commissioned a full Grey Knights army from BTP for the event, which included a lot of Inquisitorial Henchmen and other models that he had built and converted, then shipped to BTP to paint for him. Joe had requested that the Land Raider be painted to “Level 7 or 8”, and Sam didn’t disappoint!
The free hand work on that Land Raider is just fantastic!
Part of the week of being at Valhalla included free classes on a variety of hobby-related subjects. The first that I took was a painting class with none other than Sam, and it was simply fantastic to get one-on-one time with a multiple Golden Daemon (and Privateer Press, and GenCon, and Crystal Brush) award winner like Sam. Here’s a shot of his collection of trophies, proudly displayed at the Blue Table Painting studios:
Another class that was offered, and which I took advantage of, was an assembly class by none other than Thomas of BTP. Those of you who watch BTP’s videos on YouTube will know who I’m talking about. Thomas is a great guy, and a tournament junkie, too; a very skilled and experienced 40K player. I was able to get in not just one, but two 2,000 point games of 40K with Thomas during the week, but more on that later. The assembly class was also great, and I learned a bit about handling a Dremel that I’ll be able to use with mine (which has been languishing in a corner of my home office for over 8 years).
The third class I took was an airbrushing class with Chung Chow of WarGamers’ Consortium fame, and you can see his airbrushing tutorials the WGConsortium YouTube channel. Chung is a master with an airbrush, and I learned a few new tricks that I can’t wait to try out with my own airbrush.
(Part 2 coming soon)