thats wat u get 4 bein a h8er

Rolled down to the local GW this afternoon to pick up my pre-ordered 40K "Gamer's Edition".

Guess what? It wasn't there. Despite pre-ordering (and pre-paying) last weekend on the GW website, despite "it will be ready for pickup on release day", sign of it was there none.

Manager Mark explained that the pre-orders "overwhelmed FedEx" and that was why many of them hadn't arrived on the promised date. He was kind enough to give me a copy of the rulebook today while we wait for the misdirected pre-orders to arrive. I guess it will be sometime next week when they do, which means another 25 minute drive from my house to the store.

In the meantime, at least I have the rules tome to peruse. I suppose this is karmic payback for all my criticism of tabletop wargaming's Evil Empire. But in my defence, I splashed out full retail for the latest 40K product, isn't that worth something? ;-)

Attention Games Workshop: This Is How It's Done

OK Games Workshop marketing bods, listen up. This - not this -  is how a promotional video is done.

And there's more great news: to find out how, all you have to do is walk across the shop and talk to whoever produced this cracking video for Forge World. Hosted by the very personable and well-spoken Tony Cottrell (also an ace designer at FW), this video promotes the new Proteus Land Raider and Deimos-Pattern Rhino models from GW's Forge World division. Note how Tony explains the rich history of the original designs and how this history informs the new sculpts. Some prototypes are shown off, as well as excellent 360-degree views of unfinished and finished versions of the models.

Yes, we're well aware from watching the video that we're being sold something. But the video treats its audience like adults and enthusiasts, not like spastic excitable children. I love hearing some of the history of my hobby and how that connects with the new products. Unlike many of these videos, this one appears like it's actually intended to inform a buying decision, and to me, anyway, it works. I am anticipating coming back from Salute 2012 with a Land Raider MkIIB at least.

More Madness from Games Workshop..."145"

Like many of you, I am on the GW email marketing list.

For the most part, the emails I receive are rather unremarkable. Pictures of new models, announcements, that sort of thing.

[rant]

Then today I got an email announcing a "teaser trailer". "Servitor 13... has managed to intercept a new transmission"!!! Cool, I think. Perhaps a sneaky look at some new models or something.

Then I click through to the video... *SPOILER ALERT* the video consists of the numerals "1", "4", and "5" floating about in a rather dull way. "145"... what could it signify?

a) The number of price increases visited on GW customers in the last 5 years?
b) The number of people worldwide who think Finecast is actually an improvement?
c) The number of meltagun shots possible in one turn from a listhammer 2k points Space Marine army?
d) The number of skulls sculpted onto the latest uber-Chaos Lord model?
e) The number of paints in the new Citadel Colours range?

Correct answer... (e). You can read about the latest Citadel paint rumours all over the Web, but suffice to say that it is the end of the line for Skull White and all of our other old favourites. Gotta change things up a bit to get the old cash flow freed up again, eh? Why have a range of 70-odd paints when you can have over 140... with a corresponding price rise in the "mega paint set" kit. (As an aside, does anyone buy the Mega Paint Set other than single parents trying to buy the love of their child?? or perhaps the same benighted souls who lay out $16 for a can of Citadel primer?)

Anyway, the paint rant is one for another day. This rant is concentrating on an epic fail in GW's marketing department on what is a neat idea (teaser video) executed lamely. I know that some marketing bods would say that any press is good press and the fact that I'm blogging about their piece of **** video is a "win" for the brand. But to me this "teaser trailer" is just more evidence demonstrating the Culture of Fail at GW.

[/rant off]

ps "Adding Comments" was disabled on YouTube... I wonder why??

All Your Base (can be obtained quite inexpensively)

The mailman cometh...

Most of my 28mm figures are based singly on Games Workshop-style plastic slottabases, either 25mm round or 20mm square. I like the uniformity of these bases and ease of handling figures by them. Problem is I've run out, and with some 28mm projects coming up too!

GW: $11.93USD*

GW pack of 31 round bases, $12*. This includes a 60mm round, 5 each 40mm round and "bike" bases, and 20 25mm rounds: $0.385USD per base (counting each base equally, and ignoring the fact that I neither want nor need large rounds or "bike bases").

Unwilling to pay the extortionate prices GW want for their bases I turned to the global sourcing market in the form of eBay... and found what I consider a deal.

eBay: $13.99USD

eBay pack of 100 25mm rounds: $13.99USD. I don't get any extraneous stuff I don't want or need, and free shipping: $0.1399USD per base. One-third less - purchased on 24 January, arrived on 3 February. Sorted. 

*I converted GW's Canadian pricing into USD to make it an equivalent comparison. Conversion calculated using http://www.xe.com/.

Games Workshop Retail Fail (again)

 

Like many of you, I received the regular email blast from Games Workshop last Thursday announcing the "Storm of Magic" expansion for Warhammer Fantasy to be in stores on Saturday.  Although the little I've heard about it makes Storm of Magic sound pretty silly (a spinner?  really?), as a long-time WHFB enthusiast I thought I would check it out if I was in the neighbourhood of the local GW.  I wasn't planning to splash out the mega-bucks that the book is sure to cost, but thought that perhaps if there were new wizard models released, I might pick up a Finecast Grey Seer for my Skaven, and blog a review of the new resin.

So, on a sunny Sunday afternoon, I found myself in the vicinity of our local and decided to drop in for a look-see.

And the shop was closed.

A note on the door told me that it closed on 4 July and would reopen on 13 July.

As I noted last year, our local Games Workshop store has one (1) employee, "Pete".  Nice guy, enthusiastic, and a great ambassador for the brand.  I don't begrudge Pete a vacation for one minute.  He works hard and has to deal with crap that I can't even imagine.  The man needs to take a holiday.  In fact, the man needs some relief on a day to day basis.  How stressful would it be to have to close your store to go have lunch or even drop a deuce, for the love of God??

Anyway, GW didn't get any of my money on Sunday and they might have.  Or maybe they wouldn't have, depending on what they had there.  In any case, we'll never know.  It's just rather annoying that they have a retail presence that's not actually "present" much of the time.  Quaere whether this is better or worse than not having a shop here at all...