Some how in my first half century on this planet I’ve never been to Nottingham. I have to say I was pretty impressed with the city centre from the little of it that I got to see. I think I nearly liked it more than Guildford or Peterborough. But then again there are not many cities for me to compare it with. I’m not a big city type of person.

I had some spare time before my appointment that had bought me to Nottingham, so while drinking a cortado in Costa I googled “board game shop Nottingham”. One of the top results was a Warhammer shop (I’m assuming these are rebranded Games Workshop establishments) real close to where I was consuming hot milky coffee.

So while taking the unintended long winded route to the place (I literally just had to cross the road) I saw a familiar name from The Dice Tower coverage of their trips to the UK for the UKGE, the Ludorati board game cafe. Which was by luck round the corner from the Warhammer shop.

Although not teaming with customers the Warhammer shop did have a couple of young lads sitting painting miniatures. It was nice to see. I bought this new collectable magazine published by Games Workshop and only available from their stores. For the £1.99 it was worth getting for the paints alone, it also had a brush and 3 models to build and paint. The magazine was a bit disappointing on the how to front considering this is aimed at beginners. If it had been better I may have got future copies, but there isn’t enough in the magazine to justify buying it. If you like or are interested in the lore, and playing Conquest then this might be worth looking at. But these collectible magazines are a scam, and in the long run over priced for what they are.

While handing over paper tokens, I also exchanged them for coloured stuff that’s meant to be grass! to cover the bases of my figures with.

Sadly there wasn’t enough time for me to visit the Forbidden Planet opposite from the Warhammer shop. My wallet and bank account breathed a big sigh of relief.

But I did get to look quickly inside the Ludorati gaming cafe. It also wasn’t overly busy. It looked like a good selection of games to chose from if you were there to game, and lots of play space. But I thought they might have a bigger selection of games to browse and buy. It was a bit disappointing on that side. But I was able to buy a recent issue of Tabletop that I was interested in getting. Who would pay £5.50 for that “free” gift I don’t know? I certainly wouldn’t.

Next time I need to plan things better, because I think Nottingham is the stamping ground of an ol’ college friend from many many moons back. It would be good to touch base with him again after all these years.