UK Games Day OK!

So, Sunday was Games Day UK and I woke early, excited at the prospect of catching up with old friends, enjoying all the news things GW has to offer and generally thrilling at the thought of immersing myself in the worlds of Warhammer and 40K for a few hours.

I arrived at the NEC before 9am, fully prepared to queue for a goodly while and then - wonder of wonders bumped into Mark of My Favourite Books. He ushered me along to join him and his wife Liz at the very front of the queue* which also happened to be in site of the Black Library stands.

At 9.40am, we were actually let in early and so I hurried with Mark to the BL sales stand, picking up a signed copy of Jim Swallow's Bloodline**. while I was there I picked up Clint Werner's latest, Wulfrik***, and Darius Hinks' Warrior Priest, along with two new audio dramas, Jim's Garro: Oath of Moment and Waiting Death by Steve Lyons.

I spent a while chatting with Christian Dunn and the Black Library Digital stand and saw my short story The Relic presented as part of an eBook on an iPad. I also caught up on all the news with Head of BL George Mann. I then dropped by the author signing stands and met Chris Wraight (author of the excellent Iron Company) for the first time but missed editor/author Nick Kyme, who was busy being interviewed at the time. I waved at Dan Abnett (which is not unusual at these things) and got to admire Xhalax's Titan Crew costume posse firsthand.

Other highlights of the day were catching the new trailer of the CGI Ultramarines movie (scripted by Dan Abnett) and seeing a tantalising sculpture on the Forgeworld stand of a Necron Tomb Stalker. The new Dark Eldar Codex looked pretty tasty too. I also had to fight to resist parting with a shed load of cash for the new Deathwatch book from Fantasy Flight Games and Forgeworld's Imperial Armour Volume IX - The Badab War Part 1.

But for me Games Day is all about the Black Library and this year's (my fifthteenth!) was awesome. So roll on Games Day 2011!

You can read more about other people's experiences of the day here, at Dan's blog, and here, courtesy of Liz of My Favourite Books.

* It's all about who you know!

** An exclusive chapbook produced especially for the day.

*** Anything by Clint is a must for me - especially if it's one of his Bad Guy Books.