The Weekender XLBS: Survey & Gaming Awards Coming Soon!
September 28, 2014 by dignity
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XLBS before work. Check. Just a shame gamesday was cancelled, because it would have been today…
I’m just happy the giraffe mug has returned!
I’m getting a few buildings from Warsenal for my Relic Knights tables so happy to hear a good review. There are a few clubs around here and they generally meet in a specific place at a specific time, usually in church halls or community centres. I’m pretty sure the Durham wargames club have a dedicated gaming space that they can use at any time, though they have a weekly gaming night and it isn’t something you can just wander into and play.
There are around four gaming stores here in Hawaii on Oahu…that’s where most clubs meet. Each store has a night of the week where they have most of their games nights for specific genres. Jellys has 40k all day Saturday and the games manager plays on his days off. The Other Realms has Monday night gaming where they rent out conference rooms and host every kind of game, a few dedicated nights for specific various games at the in-store table. The Armchair Adventurer hosts specific games on specific nights…Thursday night is board game night, Tuesday is D&D, etc… Westside Comics and Games has specific events…although I don’t go there, so I’m not sure when or what they are.
#whyishouldrunGW
Space Hulk.
This is from my own perspective. Who am I to question the wargaming rumour mill and the current trend of GW scaremongering? I have both copies of space hulk (2009 and 2014) and there is no difference quality wise. They are both of very high quality. It is a superb kit. The details are fantastic and the card is still sturdy and very well printed.
Also I bought mine from a small local hobby store which got a delivery of 28 kits. I also visited my local GW the same weekend through chance (shopping trip with wife) and was chatting to the manager and he told me his store had 92 copies.
So I would have to strongly disagree with what you heard Warren. But this is from my own perspective.
Usual spin/hype. Don’t forget that GW stores shift loads on pre-order (collect from store). Maybe a few spares after allocated stock for each store.
Good to hear that, we’ll be sure to mention that in next weeks show. This is exactly why we keep this stuff for XLBS 🙂
In my GW store (french city) they had 12 boxes, while the FLGS had about 6.
GW Manchester Central, one of the larger stores in the North West and the largest in the Greater Manchester region, received 20 copies. GW Stockport, a one-man centre just down the road, received 6.
I don’t know how this compares to the 2009 run as it was just before my return to the hobby
Some places have really high overhead charges which can difficult for smaller games clubs. Also promotion which isn’t too difficult for you lads at BOW. Shame we don’t have what America has designated Gaming Cafes 🙁 but there is no harm in investigating what options are available out there 😀
At what point does a brood become a horde? 😉
Yet again another thought provoking show…..Excellent keep it coming. Thank you
My local club is a bit like the club Warran is describing, but it does allow some video games (just arcade style games). It is fun, the club it self is open 6 days a week, different groups meet up different nights and there is some cross over between the different groups.
“If they spend time there, they will consume.”
Anyone wanting verification of this should watch me at the chip van at the next Mantic day 😉
Me stuck in Cyprus on tour for a couple of years and no gaming community out here. Me and the boy getting our 40K armies painted and look to pick up games when we go back to the UK on trips.
We do play together, but variety just adds that edge, so we come up with all sorts of fluff and different scenario’s to keep it interesting.
Like 2000 pts game, however prior to deployment random 500 pts don’t turn up.
Whom knows might go 10th edition by then
Too early to look for furniture, you need the location first and more often than not, they will already have furniture and a kitchen. My club, Medway Wargames Society use a scout hall and supply coffee and snacks. I also think a weekly meet is best as this allows members to get into linked games or campaigns and arrange games for the following week.
When I start going to GW in the early 90s The Bretoinans where a defunct army until 4th Edition (I think it was 4th) lol
They were one of the starter box armies for 5th ed along with Lizardmen. They weren’t so much a defunct army as the new GW hadn’t gotten round to doing them for the rebooted WFB till that point. In the 80s they weren’t much more than an army list and some re-purposed HYW minis.
It was 5th edition lol wasn’t to far out. At the time you couldn’t get the miniatures of the Brets – when they did re-release them I collected a sizeable force. The Skaven army I collect back then was full of the old 80s miniatures – still have them 🙂 I came in then at 4th edition (high elves vs goblins starter set) – sigh I remember those days well.
Jes’ Skaven are still among my favourite GW minis. The Marauder Skaven minis from the 90s were good too.
As always interesting show:-) On the idea of this Club….sorry call me pessimistic…but Crazy idea…it won’t work. My view is that you either have a club or you have a business that supports a club.
I have been involved in several war gaming clubs over the years and the one thing that they have in common is that most of them are run by people willing to put the effort in, and run the damn things.You will always have those that turn up and play, those that turn up and say they will do and will always find an excuse why they cannot do something this time and those that turn up and actually put the effort in. The last will always be the same people and they are in the minority. It is always the way with volunteer organisations no matter what the are. It is one of the reasons (and I have this on good authority) Colour’s did not go ahead this year, it was because the usual organiser said enough I can’t do this anymore and no one stepped up to the plate.
So if your going to set up this gaming Mecca then it will have to be a solid business not a “club” which means all the overheads that will bring…good luck with that guys but not convinced really.
Agreed 🙂
I also think if we were convinced about the sustainability of such a venture we probably would have done it by now!
Good post.
Given that you want quality food and drinks combined with a tabletop gamer Valhalla wouldn’t it be a better idea to partner with an existing catering venue, instead of wanting to do both the consumables and the games yourself. Working together with a willing partner offers other kind of challenges I’m sure, but at least it allows each to do what they do best.
I’ve been part of a fairly large gaming club that could make use of a community center every Sunday. We had wargamers, Magic players and a few roleplayers coming together every Sunday for their weekly gaming fix. At one point the club was also opened up on Wednesday evening. It was fun for a very short while, but quickly ended up with just me and a friend getting together for a game of Warhammer Fantasy each week. Other members would only join about once every quarter.
So to keep a club open at all days of the week it should have a very big membership. People also need to be focused on the same game(s) to allow every visitor to find someone to play their favorite game with.
If the club is smaller (and I guess most are) I think it’s better to stick to one or two fixed days a week.
With John sitting there wearing the *#@$ing t-shirt you didn’t mention a World of Tanks Clan?
Do you want to do one?
Gimme a chance – only been playing it since Friday evening! Wouldn’t know how.
I was just waiting for John to chip it in as an idea – but I suspect he’s already in at least one.
I currently run a clan called “That One Bounced” T_O_B
@warzan
I have a few thoughts on how to get a hold of some cheap furniture, if the Beasts of War coffee shop ever took off. I have just recently moved to London with work and rented an unfurnished apartment. I found finding cheap good quality used furniture so hard, until I stumbled upon the British Heart and Stroke Foundation furniture stores. Their selection is great and so cheap, and a great plus point is the profits got to the organisation. Now I don’t know if you have BHSF in Northern Ireland but if you do its a great place to start looking. Same can be said to anyone in the UK who are looking to flesh out their game rooms, give them a looks.
Don’t know about Ireland but in the UK councils & churches sell second hand furniture from donations or abandoned houses people should try that to stay on budget?
Happy sunday!
@warzan – I mentioned it before when you were talking about gaming cafes http://www.thirstymeeples.co.uk
How about next time you’re back on the mainland, come down to Oxford and we can have a backstager meetup here? 😀
In terms of gaming clubs I have 2 – one that meets alternate mondays in the local village hall, and currently looking at expanding to every week alternating between historic and 40k nights (as they’re the main games being played). Also have a club that meets in a pub in Oxford city centre on a wednesday night – their upstairs function room is perfect in terms of space and tables available for multiple games/systems.
Our current issues for both clubs is getting GCN-registered – since the untimely passing of their head, GCN seems to have effectively stopped running as we can’t get a response from anyone connected to it. In turn this is affecting potential memberships as it’s preventing us advertising in the local GWs (no GCN = no advert policy)
Forgot to mention – both my local GW’s have copies of Space Hulk left. Oxford started with 24, and still have 4 left. Banbury still had some mid-week but don’t know how many they started with
This place looks great – looking at the web site it seems busy. Have you been there? Is it that busy IRL or is it just the promo shots?
Hi warren my club meets every 1st and 3rd Sunday evening at a village hall we have storage there and a fully equipped kitchen so we can run tournaments and all day events.
Dane
Happy Sunday. Just ordered myself a Mat-O-War from Antenociti’s workshop.
I’ve probably not been paying enough attention, I usually watch XLBS on Sunday afternoon with a coffee and a (multiple) bloody mary(s), so sometimes things pass me by. It seems you are planning a gigantic tank battle. I’d happily watch that and all of the vids on the preparation for said battle. My favourite BoW content is the bat rep or play through video. I always enjoy them but there haven’t been so many of late so a huge tank battle sounds rather exciting.
Speaking as a “not really a miniatures gamer” type of gamer the comments on the different materials used in casting miniature models has intrigued me. Could one of you minis experts explain the benefits/disadvantages of using resin, metal or plastic? Thanks a lot!
Cheers and happy Sunday,
Brian
P.S. Bloody Mary no 2.
In brief –
Plastic – Very expensive to make the moulds, very cheap material to cast in, has some limitations on the detailing you can put on a sprue, which either means less detail on the mini or a lot of parts (and a lot more cost).
Metal – Making the moulds is much cheaper than for plastic, but the material is expensive.
Resin- Very labour intensive to produce, holds a lot of detail, a lighter weight material than metal.
To make plastic work economically means you need to sell a lot of a given mini to offset the upfront cost. Traditionally that has meant rank and file minis were the only ones you saw in plastic. Minis you wouldn’t sell as many of would be in metal (your character models, elite units, monsters, and so on). Many companies couldn’t afford to produce in plastic at all. The cost of plastic tooling has come down in recent years (mainly thanks to Chinese production and in GW’s case, moving their plastic production in-house), the quality of plastic minis has improved a lot in that time, and metal has become more expensive, which has meant many companies have stopped using metal (GW, PP, Wyrd, and Mantic).
Resin is usually used either for large models, for which metal would too heavy and plastic too expensive, or for very detailed models as per the likes of Forge World, Kingdom Death, and Mierce Miniatures. Because of how labour intensive it is to cast, a resin mini usually costs more than a metal counterpart. There has been increase in recent years of companies spin casting resin rather than casting by hand (examples include Finecast, Prodos, Raging Heroes, and Avatars of War). This doesn’t give the same amount of detail as casting by hand, but is much cheaper and faster.
Thanks a lot @redben filled in the gaps for me!
Yesterday my local GW still had 8 copies of space hulk. (I don’t know how many he received.) My local independent game store ordered and received almost 80 copies (and on Wed of last week still had 18,)
Does not seem to be tightly limited.
has anyone got over the past few weeks the vibe that Warzan is thinking of opening a gaming environment , it just seems the past few weeks he has been very lyrical about gaming spaces , provision for promotion of the games to the public , but it a very very detailed fashion…
Care to comment Warren
No plans to do this.
The subject interests me anyway ( both personally and professionally) as I would love to see a replicable model that would benefit the industry.
Where we are located has its merits for sure but sustaining a gaming venue is most likely not one of them, without a very heavy and sustained amount of effort.
In saying all of that we do look to the future (and yes, we wear a lovely set of rose tinted glasses) and do wonder about bigger studios with a public gaming space etc.
But we’re allowed to dream right lol 😉
“(and yes, we wear a lovely set of rose tinted glasses)”
And what a wonderful thing that is!
How Games Workshops stores get there stock amounts now a days is based on how many presales they do in store. So the more they sell the more stock they receive. This is a way control stock levels and to make sure stores don’t become micro warehouse like they were in the past. This is the same reason why a lot of low selling boxes (plastic or finecast) have disappeared off Games Workshop store shelves and only are now sold on the webpage. If it doesn’t to sell the stores don’t get em anymore.
Independent retailers are allowed to order as many of them as they like but have a minimum and maximum value. So if they are gunna bring in space hulk they will have to order a certain number and can order up to a certain number based on their needs. This is how it works in North America anyways.
BoW, just out of curiousity: do you guys have any plan to cover Essen Spiel 2014?
Would be interested to hear that to. If you think about going there, I life 20 minutes by car from the venue and would be glad to meet you in person.
I’ll be there blogging like I did last year.
http://darkerdaysradio.blogspot.de/search?q=essen
the 3 nearest game shop, to me (where one is a GW) got 30+ coopies of SH
To make the gaming café work I would think that you would have to have an existing café that remains as such during the day then switches over to gaming in the evenings outside of normal business hours. I think that a stand alone gaming café would struggle but if you could extend a business that would normally close around 4-5pm that may work?
I would join a Beast of War clan for World of Tanks in a heartbeat 😉
Yeah, those internet rumor mongers can’t be trusted, my local store had at least 40 copies. Though I don’t know about the quality dropping, I only have a new copy! It looks pretty nice.
And who wouldn’t want to have their own club??? I think this is why so many guys build bars in their basement. It’s awesome to have a space like that for you and the people you know (and probably then the people they know) to gather together and have fun.
Battlequest Games in Horham. My Friendly Local Independent Gameshop got 12 copies in and I think is down to his last 1 already. Even with 12 in Customers, including me, had put up their hands to say. Yes please.
Now what I need is a .. Return to Paint tutorial for 43yr Old Dads who have just bought their latest Spacehulk and having painted a miniature in over 25 years.
Videogames shouldn’t be in the same place as tabletop games, i already saw a few local places that i go and they don’t give any space to boardgames or wargames at all, only cardgames and roleplaying games thrive at a similar level to Videogames.
Even i’ll go as far as cut out TCG ( not CCG or Living Card Games… but maybe too ). The rule should be simple : If it has minis then is allowed. Why ? Because we need to build the hobby culture and that’s the hardest part. Buying, building, painting and playing with miniatures, plus all the extra stuff ( terrain, learning rules, etc ) is very time consuming and you need new people see that and only that in order to get immerse into it. The reason is that fun comes in many ways, and some times if you don’t pass the heavy work and just want to have fun you end up going to not as hard as The Hobby, i have a few attempts that end up like that and people went into card games or roleplaying games ( i love both, i enjoy playing Hearthstone a lot and a few local card games. Vampire the Masquerade and Mage: The Ascension are amazing! ).
I know is hard to go elitist or try to tight the scope in order to be more cohesive, but if you survive and grow during a few years in the long run you won’t end up people having tabletop as a side thing that not much people care.
Hi guys, i got my box of space hulk from my local GW store. He had alot in store on display and alot in the back room. The shop guy gave me a little game before i brought it. Got to say i liked it but dont see what all the fuss is about. I also brought a 40K starter set from my store over a year ago and have yet to have a game. Got to say i get a lot of joy from the model making and painting side. Would be nice if you guys could do more videos for people who like me are fresh to the hobby and need to learn how to play. Love the site keep up the good work. 🙂
@warzan
Nobody else has really said anything here about the awards. Now I’ve only been back at this for about 10/11 months but I haven’t heard of any other awards (this side of the Atlantic at least) along the lines of what you are suggesting. If you went at this big style for a couple of years then the industry would become interested and show off when they win a la motor companies “winner of best car of the year award 2013” etc. But I think to do that then winners need more than just a “badge or something”. I know the cash is tight but actual awards that you can give to companies will give it a presence in the community and the industry hopefully and really put BOW front and centre in the long run.
Fun XLBS as usual will be interesting to see what GW will be like with someone new at the wheel that is if they let them try new things? Or just a new target for sniper shareholders to aim at.
I love the sound of this gaming cafe idea. For me locally, I think it would mesh really well with the growing cafe culture we have here in Australia; both in terms of giving gamers a dedicated space and recruitment from people wanting to check out the quirky new place in town. If I wasn’t already trying to get a (sadly, non-gaming) business off the ground, I’d be seriously considering it.
Don’t know if someone mentioned this before: To widen the player space and be more open it would be a good idea to get inspired by Apple shops. Yeah many anti Apple people now say “oh common” but seriously, Apple did set the standard for a very open an appealing electronic shop concept, so Microsoft and others copy that. And they developed it in times were a lot of this discount electronic shops were around. And even worse this small electronic shops with a bunch of electronics and cables all around and a lof of of posters and stickers shouting “twice as fast”,”XXL Super Large Pixel …” and so on … . Reminds me on all this small dark game shops with a pile of game boxes around and nerdy people sitting on a table covered with layers of old paint. You know what I mean. Let’s vision a gaming shop that is bright, open, very focused, without posters all around, with really beautiful gaming tables in the center. Same as a gaming club, get inspired by coworking spaces.
imagine the table in the front as a really nice gaming table and some boxes in the background. That has a lot to do with personal taste, I know. But at least shops are more successful with a straight clean interior design vs. this chaotic you get everything in one small shop concepts. That’s a fact.
In Germany, in Bochum, the FLGS got some 18 copies, 5 preordered, and the rest seem to sit about.
On seeing those nice model tanks on the table, I was hoping more on TW than GW in this episode.
Any news on what TW week going to be showing? Any chance of a overview of the rule book (have not got it yet) or order of battle that can be taken, before TW week? So those of us that might want to go along with it, can and do some prep for?
Can those M4’s models be used a British army Sherman’s, do you know what version those M4’s models are?
The local store here was only able to acquire two sets of Space Hulk. They ordered their copies from distributer instead of thru GW which may explain why they got so few.
I would suggest that you have separate categories for the type of game, for the awards. I really don’t think card games should be up against a miniatures game. I’m a relative noob here but if I were to come to Beasts of War to know what they think is the best sci-fi game, I’d want to know which miniatures game it is.
There are a ton of awards for board and card games already. There’s the big ones (Speile de Jahres) and the bigger enthusiast-based stuff (Dice Tower awards) already. There’s nothing wrong with having your own as well, but really – where else are there going to be awards for miniatures games, other than here?
Space Hulk.
My local GW got 27 and still had 8 left on Friday. As to the expansions, I heard that the iOS ones were released as they were ready, and the other formats would be released soon.
Did wonder were the talk of tescos was going
Keep up the good work
I only own the latest edition of space hulk but the quality seems fine. The brood lord’s claws were sharp enough to cut me when I slipped drilling his base for a magnet.