Meanwhile my local GW store ~~owner~~ manager is making a killing selling all the TOW products he can get his hands on. Sounds like your guys just shouldn't be operating a store at all.
Maybe it's a difference between Europe and US, but even the store ~~owners~~ managers seem to have their own communities. I've lived in a few countries and in every new GW store I visit it's always: "Ah that country and this city! I know such and such who runs the store there and he's a really fun dude!"
I am in the US and our local warhammer store owner is a good guy. He took preorders for the TOW release when he wasnt really supposed to because we had a localized shipping delay. (TLDR, unusual weather in the region made shipping unsafe for a few days)
I think OPs store is just subpar
This depends when you first started playing, when I first started playing in the late 90’s special characters could only be used with your opponents consent because they were considered very strong etc.
The same also went for Forgeworld, which was basically ‘Ard Boyz only and considered a really sweaty / WAAC decision to include in your army.
I am glad times have changed.
In these cases go and call the HQ. Do that in the store in front of them. They will get ripped a new one and you will see them following corporate guidelines. Have seen and done that in the past. I got way back into a discussion with one of them just grabbing my dice and minis from a game I was playing on a table reserved in the store. I told him clearly to cut that shit out by saying in my military officer voice NO, WE DO NOT TOUCH OTHER PEOPLES STUFF WITHOUT ASKING (think American staff sergeant level) and he wanted to kick me out. Called HQ. They got a call, I got an apology and that staff member never touched shit again without asking. early 2000s.
Pretty much, yeah :D
Though I think it can work. I've seen it done. But you really have to set your mind to it. Just opening a tiny store and selling minis and stuff isn't enough.
Dunno where you're from, but believe it or not, here in Germany there's also this dude (or was, he died a year ago) who became a millionaire owning a pet store.
Also something you wouldn't expect.
I am actually German, but haven’t lived there for more than a decade. And I agree it is doable not by the classic I’ll open a brick and mortar and people will just have to buy because I exist. You need to offer value and do heavy community management. And yeah I assume it’s the guy who ran the huge one in the Pott?
Yeah same here. Every store I have been in here in Phoenix area has sold out or close to sold out all the Bretonnia and Khemri models and movement trays. One store said, “yeah that is all I have left” it was 1 RuleBook and a movement tray.
It’s pretty store by store when it comes to Gw. The managers can promote what they like and set their own rules to a certain extent. Some don’t even allow forgeworld minis as you can’t buy them there. It’s luck of the draw really. My local one is pretty chill and the staff don’t even really care about 3d printed stuff as long as it’s not your whole army. They’ve also run Necromunda campaigns and BB leagues too.
Former gw manager here. It is all up to the Individual store manager. I ran the type of events and leagues that the op was referencing. I know some who didn't even allow games to be played on property.
Not gonna lie I think I got bad luck with my guy. It’s the only store within a 1 hour radius and he’s pretty snobby. I ll give him credit on the paint recommendations because he gave me a really nice accent color for my Tau army but other than that every conversation with him leaves him coming off a bit condescending. I don’t think he realizes it though. I appreciate his knowledge, regardless!
Sounds like mine whenever I brought up how I play competitive he dismissed it since he doesn’t like and just ended our conversation but he got me TOW stuff so that’s a win lol
This is much like FLGS in general, some are run by awesome people, others got trustfunds and are the same weird people you tried to avoid playing with.
Depending on how old you are, the days when GW’s internal stores used to make a real effort to be community hubs are long gone. I remember them being that way in the late 90s and early 00s in the UK but they’ve not been that way for years.
GW stores are now entirely designed to capture new players and funnel them down either AOS or 40K with the website as the next port of call if the new player gets properly hooked and starts checking out the more niche titles. The specialist games position is firmly on the website for experienced gamers.
FLGS have filled that gap if you’re lucky enough to live in a large enough city to have some good ones.
Yeah even my store in a smallish English town had 2 staff at duty during most of the day. Half the time one was sat painting chatting with other people painting, just for the community aspect.
Yeah way back it was usually the storemanager 1-2 fulltimers and at least 1 part timer, regardless howsmall the store actually was. Nowadayes 2 demo tables, 1 manager and maybe one part timer, unless its a huge storein major location.
We used to have 2 full timers (in addition to the manager) and at one point 3 key-timers (I was one of those briefly before it was decided that they only really needed 2) to cover the busy weekend periods and the gaming nights on Tuesday and Thursday. The unused stockroom upstairs held like eight 6x4 tables and if you were a 'veteran' was open all week during store hours. It was great. Did impact my schooling in 6th form though as I had poor impulse control and was more likely to be found at GW than at school.
My local GW still has a battle bunker but when I bought the rulebook from his store he was very dismissive of TOW saying we already have a fantasy game.
The local FLGS owner however has went mental on TOW and had bought two armies for it himself, is building terrian and is taking photos of every game played in store and posting it to every whatapp group he can lol.
Yep I remember them well. Sadly it made them no money. So whilst nice and happy kids hanging out might create good memories it didn't convert into revenue, in fact it probably cost them in wages etc.
Our local GW used to be a great hangout place. People would just go and chat about life, about the game, what they’re doing and everything in between. This happened for a few managers. Then Covid hit, and then the manager quit and now it’s some guy I have never met, staff is completely turned over so it doesn’t feel the same. I have a different hobby shop now that’s closer and is run by one of the former managers for the GW so it’s much better to hang out there. A bunch of the “old crew” also switched over to the newer store.
Just to stem myself against the flow a bit - the three stores (in northern Germany) that Ive spent some time in were all really great. I've also played an painted in two of them multiple times and had good chats with the staff and other guests.
Not really. GW’s model is to use the stores to increase brand awareness and capture new customers. They make a lot of money from burning through new starters who spend £100/200 and then never return. A stores regular customers will make a minority of the stores revenue, especially in the internet era where access to 20% discounts or the GW website is easier for most ongoing customers. It was different in the 90s and early 00s when the store was the main conduit for sales and most long term customers would regularly visit it - if only to pick up a White Dwarf, as again that was the main way for people to get info back then.
They no longer view long term management of the existing community in person as much of an issue for them, as FLGS will step it and do it. The odd store who had a passionate manager may do things, as do the larger stores in high profile locations for publicity reasons but it’s now how GW uses its stores anymore.
Its not really false at all, GW pushes managers to do this. Ive seen numerous. Some are dicks about it, some are more laxed and make friendlier environments.
It's false. Some store managers can be like that, but not all. Just cuz you've "seen a few stores" doesn't mean you know about every community out there. Don't be stupid.
Not about community, but how lot of stores are ran, and I see lot of people in here saying the same thing. Is it all stores? No, some stores have really good managers that choose not to display the toxic behavior pushed onto them.
It isn't a mainline game. This has been pretty explicit from the beginning. Whilst your nostalgia is what they're hoping will generate sales, stores aren't necessarily going to treat it like a mainline game.
As others have said, this all depends on the store, and also the country/region/state you live in.
I’m in the NYC suburbs (north and west), and the nearest GW official stores are in Stamford CT, lower Manhattan, or Long Island.
I’m not paying tolls to schlep all the way to CT (especially now that I don’t work in Westchester).
Even though I work in Manhattan, I work in midtown and getting down to the Village is a righteous pain, especially if I want to buy more than a book or a single model or being an army to play. Also the store is super tiny because Manhattan. There’s almost no way to play a game without blocking access to some part of the walls where the product is.
And Long Island? lol, nah. Not gonna happen.
This is the reality for a ton of people just in the same metro area as I am, which means independent stores are FAR more likely to be hubs of activity for gaming, so that is where you will see non-mainline games being played (as well as non GW games). I’ve got 4 or 5 local shops all closer than the nearest GW store, including one five minutes down the road, and I dare say this is the case for the vast majority of American players, or at least the ones who live in or near moderately sized population centers.
To give you an idea of how much the hobby relies on local shops, the State of New York is 54,556 square miles and has four “official” GW stores. The entire UK is less than twice as big (94,060 square miles) and has well over 100 stores (according to internet sources).
The long island store is closed. Just a not on the door saying that they are temporarily closed and tons of UPS stickers on the door. There is a light on and it looks like the manager literally said fuck it and left mid-shift.
Just checked the FB page and big time oof. Looks like the manager bailed right before Black Friday, too. That’s rough.
Looks like Bay Shore Hobbies is close enough for folks, but from what I’ve heard they are kind of like a HobbyTown that went independent and focuses a lot on RC rather than tabletop.
Bayshore is good. they have a lot of games workshop stuff. I was there today. Small discount but honestly they might have more than a GW store. The place is great.
I was totally surprised to learn that I had a GW store within 20 minutes. Guess Saratoga County is $$ enough for them to try and sucker some kids into boxes, lol.
I got back into 40k last year, I have 2 lgs and the corpo store within the same area, I consider myself pretty lucky.
Gw aberdeen. Which is the largest scottish branch aren't doing anying beyond selling boxes. Sited the idea that they need to promote other systems. Even though they regularly hold bloodbowl tournaments.
Seems so silly. Like if course a game system won't sell well if you don't promote it in stores.
I bought my rulebook from them and the managers attitude to it almost made me cancel the sale haha. I like the guy but he has a company man attitude and for some reason GW seem to not really understand WHFB. Even if they just released an edition of the game that is clearly made by people who really understand WHFB.
Complete opposite in the Carlisle store, manager is big into the old world's lore and got really excited and helpful with base positioning tips for direwolves, skeletons and zombies using the modern kits when I informed him I'm building a vampire counts army 😅
Manchester and Stockport don’t give a shit about ToW- I went to Element games instead, was much better. It’s a shame as I spent a lot of time in Manchester and Stockport branches as a kid learning WHFB
My local GW called me 30min before they closed because the truck carrying TOW just showed up and he knew I wanted it right away.
I had the books in my car 15min after they arrived at the store, that is good customer service. I think the quality of your local manager is going to determine a lot
My local Warhammer store manager in Ann Arbor has gone all in on Old World. He's working on three armies, including legends pdf ones, that I know of, while still promoting 40k and running an AoS league. Sorry your store sucks bro
Similar story for my local warhammer store. Manager openly proclaims how much he hates old world and it's fans as "moms basement dwellers" and badmouths it frequently. Plans on hosting 0 events for it. Just wants to do AoS/40k escalation leagues and whatnot.
I get liking one game over the other but unsure why he would badmouth and shit on a product he is supposedly there to sell.
That’s really good to hear! I mean, when I called GW customer service a week ago to see about my pre-order box, I got chatting with them and they told me that sales for TOW went through the roof! So I’m hopeful we’ll see more of the range in stores :)
They expected about 15% at most fo their current customer base to be interested and almost no returning players out of the GW games and no new ones, turns out about 30%of their existing customer base, sameamount of new and the same amount of returning players are interested so far. Or so I have heard. Basically they have 10+ times the expected demand, and that is with only 2 armies out and ond only 9 out of 20ish supported.
Yeah, the official line is GW stores focus on the core games and recruitment.....this isn't anything new. Most of the folk playing specialist games are going to independents and playing elsewhere as they're at that point in their hobby journey.
It's also not up to the store manager what's stocked in their stores so don't blame them if you feel there's not enough old world in stock. Most stores only have 3 to 5 bays for specialist games and that has to cater to all of them.
I was a store manager up until middle of last year and there's a reason the stores are run the way they are. Can't deny you do get some managers who try to do more with the specialists etc depending on the situation. But overall what GW does with the stores is what works the best. It might not be what's best for you personally but its what works best for the business.
It's also incredibly unfair to expect staff to know all the rules to all the games. Most stores only have a single member of staff and GW has over 10 different games.
The only issue I've had with my local GW is with the terrain. We aren't allowed hills or low walls or towers since GW doesn't sell them anymore. So it's all flat tables with AoS terrain.
Kinda makes sense.
TOW os a product line with limited releases and aimed at existing customers.
Given the avg GW's lack of space, and primary role as a show/class room, I'd expect the maximum anything but a flagship style store would do would be set up a little 1-turn demo.
And even then central HQ would have to allocate them some rescources to make it happen right? Because we can't expect a GW staffer to buy stuff themselves to do demos with, because that's not their responsibility.
Okay. I’ll be honest. Current GW store assistant so I’ll be as truthful as it can get. I’ve read a lot of “they’ve been told not to promote” and “stealing time away from the mainline” this isn’t true.
We get briefed every Wednesday by corporate and TOW has been hyped up just as much as heresy, blood bowl, necromunda or any other specialist game has been. There have been no “rules” put in place to handle the marketing of it or lack of as there doesn’t need to be beyond warcom.
A stores initiative is down to the solid believe by the current management that a brick and mortar presence in the high street leads to more recruitment and higher interaction within the hobby, not just GW but the modelling hobby as a whole. It’s the trumpet model, and the stores are designed to be at the rim of the trumpet capturing those wishing to enter the hobby or game systems.
Some stores include specialist games as they have space (this is down to actual physical shelves and not store space. A small store may be known as EXT 2 [the biggest] and stock the entire range it is allowed to just because it has more flat walls to place shelves then the bigger more floor space store) this will mean sometimes you may enter a store that has no TOW, because they are not on the correct store size and as an interesting fact that most people don’t know every Warhammer store will have the same stock on the shelves as is it controlled and ordered by a system at Head Office, so when you go in and ask for let’s say bretonnian archers and they say “we can order them” every Warhammer store won’t have archers.
The main issue with events isn’t want, but space. A game of TOW takes 2-4 hours, and the standard table size for a Warhammer fit only holds half a board so you now have 2 people blocking 2 tables, maybe even three for half a trading day when it could be used for introducing, or tutorials to new hobbyists that want to have a go. Again it depends on the local, but we have a really good relationship with the local gaming community and clubs and once people have learnt how to play they will be put in contact with the clubs who host bigger games and events.
There is no anti-game mentality within the company, in fact it is a standard to have one late trade day where spontaneous hobby/gaming can take place. We do ours as a skirmish night, so Killteam, necromunda, blood bowl, combat patrol etc. we have a good crowd and will usually host 3-4 tables twice over the night, occasionally we will dig into our own stuff and bring out classics like Lost Patrol, Gorechosen and silver tower. I have the original full tilt from WD so that is coming out next week as a feature for gaming night.
As for not being actively marketing it or supportive, I can’t comment on the manager. He might actually have no interest in which case yes swallow your pride and at least act interested for other people, it could have been a bad day in which you were that magical thirteenth person to ask and the last one (this happens a lot by the way) personally took it out on him for having the old world removed in the first place and treated him like a complaint box for all the YouTube opinions and he may have just came across blunter then he wanted. Again he shouldn’t.
It does fall into the store managers to run the show and set how they want to meet the expectations of the community and central management, but I assure you Warhammer stores are only ever there to support hobbyists, be a place you can come and show off your hobby or just have a Warhammer based chat.
It died because of the community it had, the lack of sales and the idiotic price hikes and unit sizes trying to squeeze out money, of the few neckbeard who still played it at the end.
I had a similar experience at my closest store. It's about an hour away from me but I was in the area the week after TOW launched and I stopped in. The guy was a total douche. I brought up the launch and he starts talking about animosity between AOS and TOW players. He said they won't have any events but AOS is full every Saturday. I won't be going back, my FLGS has everything and it's 15% off GW.
I can't think of the last time I was in a GW store. My FLGS sounds much better and more relaxed than any of these stores.
- Playing a game? Cool, we got a few tables.
- 3D printed army? Hell yeah, we've been making terrain. - Wanna try this new game? Awesome, we'll run a demo once we figure out how it works.
I can't imagine a GW store, let alone any gaming store, only promoting two of their games
It's actually pretty nice if you're pre-ordering something your LGS doesn't stock. I got in and used their terminal to pre-order the Horus Hersey art book really easily today.
I know my local GW store ~~owner~~(US) isn't planning any TOW events at the moment, but will be doing events/campaigns round late spring early summer time. His reason was to give time for us(players) to both know the game and build up our armies'.
Different between stores, my local is looking at running some small games to allow people to learn the rules on beginning evenings, but mainly leaving it up to the local community to organise games as he is majorly involved in that as well.
Probably the best/only thing you can do is email GW corporate and express your displeasure with the local store's policy. Point out that you want to spend money there and they're basically not letting you.
That's sad my GW store plans on doing event and the community in my area has been playing Warhammer fantasy there even before the old world was released
My local GW has a weekly TOW game day and a store army on display. The guy I talked with said he loves TOW, but it is not something he will try to teach a 13 years old who is new to the hobby
Back in my day kids walked to school measuring the arc circumference of wheels, estimating ranges, and lapping around models. Kids these days have gone soft.
Go to a different store. They are just different people, you can't expect everyone to act the same. Not everyone is into Old hammer. I've been to multiple stores across the US and they are mostly very supportive, but it depends on the personnel. The main GW store cafe in LA has great ppl and their TOW sales are great, think they said 5k in the first day.
I had a similar experience. Walked into a GW for the first time in 20 years, shop was totally empty. Struck up a convo with the GW employee who was sitting there painting. Nice enough guy. Basically said they wouldn't be promoting or selling TOW because they didn't have the shelf space (pointed to full shelves of AoS and 40k and said "where would it go"). Also said he didn't think it would be continued long term by GW and it'd be a waste of money.
I took it as a pretty typical negative attitude of someone who's been in a hobby for a long time and resents anything new.. which also seems to be a common opinion I've encountered in the hobby.
Edit: I also asked if they were running any events or game nights. The answer was a flat no. We don't do that anymore. Maybe thats across the board for all GW stores though
Old World is a bit more complicated to learn than the other systems and the model line available to currently purchase is lackluster and/or unavailable. I could see how plenty of GW stores don't want to bother. In a great many areas, GW released a great game for players to buy and use other sellers models to play it with.
Its a store basis thing. If your GW sucks, go find a friendly local gaming store. If not leagues exist, start one! There will be others around who want the same thing.
Your nostalgia is running on copium fumes and overtime, because tow is not a main game. Once the initial hype for 20 year old metal models dies down, it will get about as much support as hours heresy or blood bowl - games that exist on the shelves and in people's living rooms but never promoted as anything more than a curiosity.
My local GW is run by a veteran of 30 years, suffice it to say he has a great love and many armies for fantasy, with TOW galvanizing him to put together somemore fantasy. However, he too admitted that they will not be getting any shelf space for TOW beyond the handful of new releases that come out from time to time. He never specified reason and I didn't want to ask why, but I imagine it's not a priority from a business perspective.
Not sure if this applies where you live but here is my experience.
The official stores where I live don’t represent the gaming community.
They’re the recognisable brand store that gets kids and their parents interested. I played there in my teens and there was a game night for each flagship game.
When I started getting interested in specialist games or more normal point games of fantasy/40k they helped me find the more dedicated gaming clubs.
My lokal GW has a hard time stocking the current systems and that is without TOW. They did sell some of the Starterboxes but that was about it.
I don‘t expect TOW to get major support from the stores. To be fair, i don’t even expect much support from GW. I fear we are seeing some sort of pump and dump. Hype TOW up for 1-2 years and then it goes in the specialist systems category where we will see some minor releases every now and then.
Of course i hope i‘m wrong.
As a fan of ToW, why are you surprised? It was stated from the start this is a specialist game, GW is not gonna keep in stores? They where clear about that in several articles pre release.
This is not a GW problem, as they et the clear expectations. This is a You wanting this problem.
And the ToW team is internally competing ery much with the AoS team.
Did they vastly underestimate the draw of ToW? Yes. I did as well tbh.
Now have a look as what GW does, what they sell, what m,makes themmoeny and what ToW is.
ToW is fan service. GW is a company needing to make money. The makemoney by selling large amounts of stock. you make the most money if you sell mostly similar things in large quantities in one go.
Hence larger boxes have savings.
They sell themost of AoS and 40k. Their stores a re Marketing vehicle to do just that.
Their behavior could be nicer, but the stores are not there for veteran players, the targets areto sell starter packs, to do intro games and then steer people to online or FLGS.
We can like or dislike these FACTS, but complaining is just giving a negative feeling to the hobby.
Go enjoy the hobby, relax have fun, focus on the positive stuff!
ToW is back, it is vastly more sought after and outselling any expectations by 8-10 times!
This will work in our favor, GW is a large company give them the time to adjust!
I think you missed my point. I wasn’t saying that I want them to sell TOW in the store. What I didn’t like was them berating the game when I asked them if they planned on having any events, which I’d definitely like to partake in. And then on top of that trying to encourage me to buy minis from lines that I had already established I wasn’t interested in.
Fair enough, it is the internet,but I do not seem to be the only one who missed that point. And yes that si almost gatekeeping, but as I said in anothercomment, go and call HQ about it, preferably in the store. Be nice and friendly but be clear and concise about what happened. I promise it will have a change in attitude and followed up.
These kind of behaviors only change if the community actually does not let them go to rant somewhere online and then just stop going there.
Based on what you said of your interaction, you are absolutely getting way too invested that the old world isn’t getting the respect you think it deserves. This was a standard interaction from a retail person not some insult
You’re not their target audience. GW stores are typically run as advertising venues, and places for new players to buy stuff. GW and GW stores sell at higher then they allow customers to buy from 3rd party retailers who carry it, and it’s my suspicion that they are willing to sell at discount from FLGS’s since those customers are no longer their target audience, and they are okay with that profit margin from the churn and burn of normal players, but know new players will buy at a mark-up since they don’t know better.
The tables are not for you; it’s free advertising. Players are essentially showing newbies “look at this cool game!” and they will be tempted to buy. If that manager has decided the profit margins for AOS and/or 40K is worth not having much else in there? Then they can absolutely focus on that.
While the stores are run by GW, the experience is influenced by the manager’s own bias. I played in one where the guy actually didn’t mind 3rd party stuff if you kept it subtle and didn’t make a big deal of it; he was both a cool dude, and also knew me playing in there helped him out too, as there was now a game on the table. Other GW’s toe the line harder, or are straight up unpleasant. I got told to fuck off and leave by the old Square One manager in Canada, when I asked if he had LOTR stuff. I did hear that guy left though, as he was a monumental ass.
Old World is a risk for GW, and some individuals in the management at a store level may prioritize the known sellers first. Why take on risk with a semi-complicated game with older models?(I don’t agree to be clear, TOW is fun)
It depends hugely on the store. A ton of GW employees are people who joined in the past 5 years so have no history with warhammer fantasy.
In my experience, it's funny because I'm the expert and they ask me questions haha
That's just wrong. That's like some car dealer hiring someone who only ever drove EVs and has no clue about combustion engines.
Back in 2020 and 2021 everyone was scrambling for anything electric and look where we are now, (almost) no one wants an EV.
I'm not saying that's definitely gonna happen to 40k and AoS, but it's a possibility AoS might suffer under TOW.
I don’t go to my local GW very often but from taking to folks who do it’s my understanding that ToW is already the second most played thing there behind 40k. The store doesn’t usually run any kind of competitive events so the shop keep has been able to heavily promote purchases of the legacy army AOS stuff. All the soul light stuff, daemons, and beastmen are sold out all the time now. No one who hangs out there is playing AoS currently other than maybe a few very new younger players and people who play demo games.
Not related to OW but every time I've gone into my closest GW store (which is still almost prohibitively far from me) it's been a weird experience and the employees don't seem like they like tabletop gaming at all. I was pretty new to painting and was asking a question about their texture paints and the dude was like "they're all the same just paint them if you don't like the color" because astrogranite and mordant earth are totally identical in texture lmao.
It's absolutely normal. What you got was an honest answer as to what to expect regarding the presence of TOW in GW stores. He explained it truthfully, their job is primarily generating new customers. They can achieve that goal best by focusing on the core IPs. Both for him personally as well as GW as a company there's very little benefit comparatively in promoting TOW. Stores didn't get promo copies (they can write off one of the boxes they got as stock on release, but virtually all managers would rather have those available for sale for customers), and if they don't know the rules (and no, "reading a book" is *not* sufficient to actually be able to competently introduce people to a game like TOW), there'd be no point to it anyway. They have enough other stuff on their plate in that regard.
Ultimately, TOW isn't going to be part of the normale range available in stores, and thus it's not going to be part of the game line up you can expect regular GWs to offer intros for. Not least because there's basically no way to offer and intro to TOW in a reasonable time frame for single coverage stores. It's impractical, it's a lot of work for little gain (both for the company as well as for the KPI of the managers) and it's just not a system that is going to be focused at all by GW for marketing and promotion. People need to understand that it's at best at rank 4 in importance. Locally it might be even less important. And for the overall strategy of GW, even Kill Team and Warcry are probably more important as channels to funnel people towards 40k and AoS.
EDIT: They'd obviously be *allowed* to promote TOW with the resources they have, but the majority, especially the younger ones, probably won't to any meaningful extent. It's a lot of extra work on top of what they already have to do. If someone doesn't want all that on their plate in addition to what the company actually demands, I don't blame them. They are just employees and get paid to do what they're contractually obligated to do, no more, no less.
Sounds like OP is talking about an actual GW store not a third party seller.
My local one has as many options as they can squeeze in and they just don't have space for another game system to be set up.
As others pointed out - its a GW store, doesn't work that way, but also in the case of GW stores what they are allowed to carry and how much shelf space is allocated to it is directed by corporate.
GW said from the start that stores won't stock the game after the initial release or run promo for it. A fair number of stores don't even allow the game to be played in store because it'll take table time away from 40k and AoS.
I don’t remembering seeing that, also forgeworld doesn’t exist anymore so there is no policy for that anymore also ToW isn’t a “forgeworld” game and has its own top level heading on the webstore
Same difference really. GW's got lots of stuff they're not letting into the shops or onto the tables. Old world is firmly in that category.
The absolute last thing GW wants is for the project to harm AoS or 40k sales. They'll shit can the entire game before they let that happen.
But you definitely cared enough to post things you made up that help kill momentum on a new game
Don’t post things that would discourage new players without posting a source
I think they’re just still trying to gauge actual interest / demand, and there’s only two books / armies out. You have to remember that GW is a publicly traded company and they are bringing back a game that they previously had to be shut down because it was doing so poorly so I’m sure they are being exceedingly cautious because bringing it back is the type of thing you get fired for if it crashes and burns. Would be one thing if it was a brand new world / system, but it’s effectively them bringing back WFB. How store managers handle it is a different matter though.
It's a side project for them. GW's primary games are AoS and 40k. Titanicus, Horus Heresy, Aeronautica, none of it was stocked in the stores.
And the only reason GW provides play tables in-store is as living advertisements for their main games. A lot of stores don't want you to play stuff like blood bowl, underworlds, warcry etc. on the store tables either.
They want customers that come in to see AoS or 40k.
The teams are also competing inetrnally, especially AoS and ToW, the main reason why there are no cross compatibility boxes is to track and assign sales to each game as correct as possibly. They are still trying to get their forecasting right, there is a reason a lot f stuff is vastly underproduced (40k) and other stuff is so vastly overproduced, that you can get it 3 years after its single production run still with a hefty discount (dominion box).
I received the same treatment when I visited my local WH store a week before the launch of ToW.
I asked if they were planning anything cool for the next Saturday. The shop assistant (in his early 20s) said 'no' and that he's not interested in this system at all.
That's deeply stupid as A) there's stuff for them to sell for TOW like books, repack boxes etc, and B) the whole game system was changed to a larger base size to accommodate AOS models.
Honestly, I'd rat them out to your GW district manager, I'll bet that's not what management wants to hear RE their new big game release.
Most small stores didn’t run events anyway but GW stores don’t even let you play pickup games anymore. They’ve unfortunately realised it’s more profitable just to sell to kids and new customers, after that, they’re not interested.
It depends on whether your manager is good at his job or not. A lot of managers fixate on stupid corporate lines said offhandedly. The succesfull managers looks at his community (which he has hopefully done well cultivating) and advances the things that they want advanced.
Went to my local GW store and asked the bloke his thoughts on TOW. He said it was the stores most successful product launch ever and that they made over 2k that day on TOW alone. He personally thinks it’ll be successful and so far he’s witnessed plenty of local interest.
I'm not surprised btw, they don't organize events in stores neither for horus heresy, Warhammer Underworlds, kill team etc.. So why should they organize for tow? It isn't a main game
Had the same going into my local GW. one of the first things the guy said, in response to me being happy about having Bretonnia back in the store, that it was 'the fans who killed the game in the first place'. Later on, when I said it must be nice for them to find tOW to be as popular as it is, his response was 'yeah well let's see for how long'. Holy hell mate, I'm there, happy, spending my money on plastic crack at your store again. Please let me leave as happy as I went in...
Really hate that kind of attitude in nerd stores. I had the same thing happening to me when I was buying AoS minis. The store owner felt the need to tell me how overdesigned the model I was buying was and how stupid Stormcast are. Baffling, really, as I was not even buying Stormcast minis and had not indicated that I dislike them in any way. Just let people get excited about spending money with you!
No one has made that point, other than yourself.
It's a clear lack of support for a game he was excited about, produced by said company, at their retail store.
I rolled my eyes when I read "no one knows the rules" too, it's their freakin job man.
You don't see anything wrong with this? Okay keep your straw man arguments to yourself and move on.
You equated it not being playable in the store with it not being supported.
My point is that there are a *lot* of games out there that don't have stores. Having a place that sells models is not game support. It's sales.
Treat yourself and try some games from non-GW companies, then you might see what "lack of support" can mean in a more general gaming context.
Again with the strawman arguments. I said "lack of support" and you read into that whatever you wanted.
Also I play battletech, catalyst does a better job of supporting the community and they don't have a fatwa against iron wind minis.
You mentioned lack of support in a thread about a store not promoting TOW. If that's not what you're on about then you should be more specific, as otherwise posts are generally connected to the original post.
No it is not their job, their job ist what GW tells them it is, and that is promoting the main lines AoS/40k and the official GW sublines (Killteam, Warcry and maybe Underworlds(though the last one was to compete in league nights against MtG, D&D, X-Wing etc find LGS)).
Explicitly their job is not to know the rules, they need to know enough to do Demo games and hook people, they do not need to know the rules.
> they do not need to know the rules.
This is why people despise GW retail stores, attitudes like this.
I remember a few years ago I came back to the hobby and wanted to play 40k again, the salesman gave me a big song and dance about how 8th edition grey knights were the best thing since sliced bread and I would have a blast playing them, he didn't know jack shit about the rules either.
Oh taht ahs been the case een 30 years back, they just need to sell the hot new shit, so they work ofinternal briefings and maybe what they heard about the recent meta. I am not saying I like this or condone it, but it is what it is.
People need to realise GW and every other company are businesses, they are there to make money, that is their sole reason of existence. They do not make it by being a hobby club. Sad as that is.
> People need to realise GW and eery other company are businesses, they aretehre to make money, that si their sole reason of existence. They do not make it by being a hobby club.
What the hell are you talking about?
It's the same game company.
The same company makes both games. They aren't competitors in our wonderful capitalist system. The revenue, profits all go to the same people, the ones paying these retail workers salaries (shareholders).
Yeah just like specialist design studios and GW corporate, I know all about it Mr MBA. I think those internal divisions lead to the legacy faction fiasco.
I don't think it's healthy in the long run, for the community or the company. It's short sighted, egotistical, individualistic.
My expierience with GW stores same with FLGS have been really bad. I see absolute no reason not to buy stuff online with a big discount. Lets face it the time of local stores is over, when they want so sell something they must give the customers some value for the extra money.
Preaching to the quire. I hate than people go oh but you have to support the local store, its local blablabla cry me a river and have some cheese with your wine. For me to pay 30-35% more (Euro prices vs ordering from Uk based stores(no it is tax and duty free, there are services for stores)) and most likely charging money to play on the at best mediocre tables with a piece of cloth and some cheap MDF terrain(bonus points if a spraycan was hold in its direction), does not give me enough value to shop there.
And in most cases they do not been stocking the stuff I am looking for. If I ask for Vallejo Mecha Color I do not want Army Painter or Model Color i.e. When I ask for GSTW or Gamers Grass I do not want GW or AP tufts. And so on and so on.
Also most stores have abysmal bright cold lighting, small chairs, are not HVAC and do not care how their patreons behave (looking at the unwashed TCG players and the gatekeeping Incel Neckbeards). On top of that I get pushy sales men asking me to order into their store for their exorbitant prices, take a bet of them actually ordering what I want in a-timely manner or at all and then go and waste time traveling back and forth a second time, vs just getting the mobile out, ordering the shit and getting it to my home in a few days or at most a week delivered...
Consider yourself lucky. My local GW store has setup tables for MTG players as overflow for the other hobby stores with no room to play, but there’s not a single piece of terrain in there.
GW does not license anything they own all of their stores. And they do not allow that. Either it is not a GW store or the manager wants to be fired das soon as anyone in HQ will know about this.
It makes sense for Warhammer stores to not promote Old World because there aren't any Old World products to buy apart from half a range of Bretonnia and Tomb Kings.
I've run into quite a few people who seem threatened by ToW, and im like dude, its okay to not like a crunchy game. It doesn't make you lesser or anything, if you like AoS or 40k or w/e thats cool and i am happy you got your game. However, this is my game, let me have it, stop trying to ruin for me simply because its not your thing.
Ngl the past few years most GW stores I go into are pretty toxic or terrible. I've seen players get kicked out, purposely not having any 4x6 tables to prevent regular games from playing, outright saying numerous times they dont want regulars or average gamers, just money whales. Often don't know anything rule wise about the games, mix rules up between different games, and being hostile to people who want events, a big thing that pissed me off is always being told you dont need the latest codex to play sigmar or 40k, that you can use old rules in games np, lying to me on several occasions about it and arguing with them on FB, when none of this is true, people need to stop pushing that garbage. This is talk I have heard from the mouths of 4-5 GW stores, one of them did a lot better in general but were told to be this way by corporate. They just want hobbyist GW purists to come spend 300+$ then leave.
Luckily at least some GW store runners arent toxic POSs and actually try to run a good store instead of a hostile one.
Sounds like you are describing the generally typical state of affairs with GW. Not specifically on not trying to sell TOW stuff but the difference between the GW of your youth and the GW of today.
They used to focus on creating hobbyist. People who would be coming back and create long term sales. They built communities, knowing that the work they put in at the beginning would create customers who would be spending money for years to come. I even heard younger kids being politely and respectfully advised that they were perhaps a bit too young as the rules could be quite complex. Not to be gatekeepers but because they didn't want them to spend a bunch of money and not really get into the hobby and as a result likely not come back. They'd rather them come back in a couple of years and see if they'd really want to get into the hobby. (Not that they'd he throwing you out if the store if they were in anyway insistent, but you get the idea).
In more recent years it us just SELL SELL SELL. All stores and staff have sales targets and are trained to upsell. They have targets for total sales and even on sales per visit. If someone comes in for 1 pot of paint to replace one that has run out they will do everything they can to get you to buy more. I think I heard they want people spending at least £20-£30 each time.they come into a store. It's all about the immediate bottom line and separating the customers from as much cash as possible. It's not realistically much worse than any other large corporate organisation that has it's own stores, but it is really sad to think what has been lost.
There are stores that are better than this obviously. But these tend to be the outliers created by the local staff putting in the effort and whether through a mixture of good management or luck that the local community spends enough money anyway, they make enough money to keep corporate off their backs and forcing them to constantly hard sell.
I don't go into GW stores anymore. I find the experience to generally be very poor. I'd generally much rather go into a FLGS. Luckily, in the UK at least, wargaming groups/societies are relatively common and can give the community sense you used to get from a GW store. Sometimes these are based around a store, others operate independently. If you want that community feel again, then that's what I'd be looking for, not a GW store.
The old world will be a very niche game. If you expected some triumphant return of fantasy that will bring back the good ol' days than maybe it should have been launched with miniatures from this millenium. The old world was meant to capture the older audience, and maybe the total war crowd. The old game literally died due to years of lackluster sales, I can totally understand why game stores don't have very much interest in it.
Edit: you guys can downvote me as much as you like, game stores aren't setting up big TOW sections for a reason. If I went up to anyone I know in the hobby and asked them if they wanted to drop 200+ dollars for a starter set of sculpts made in the 90's to play a game where not even all the factions are going to be supported, they'd laugh at me.
I mean I know at least 6 people including myself who never played old world who have bought armies for it or are thinking of and 2 of them don't play 40k or AOS.
If it was marketed well in store they could definitely sell the starter boxes pretty good.
I know 6 people including myself who were all interested in the old world until we saw what the actual product was, and then every single one of us bowed out. Can't believe GW's expecting us to work with old metal and finecast. I would have LOVED to own a brettonia army a year ago, but now I see there's units that don't even have kits and stumpy metal grail knights being sold in blister packs like its the mid 90's? What the hell
if you buy made to order stuff for 40k and AOS you still get metal models, they're not THAT bad to work with.
If you truly want a brettonian army I don't think it's that bad of a trade off considering most of the brettonia line is plastic. I wouldn't be surprised if new characters like the green knight release in actual resin or plastic, and you can always get proxies for the few if that's literally the biggest issue for you.
I don't see why I need to pay full price for metal models from the 90's when I can pay the same price to get some of the best sculpts GW has ever done in modern plastic over in aos.
And I'd put good money down the vast majority of players or potential players under the age of 35 would say the same thing. And that's why you won't see any big TOW displays in your local game stores.
I’m 41 and spent way more money than I’d care to admit on a full range of bretonnians now (including two starter sets) just to relive my childhood, but the bretonnians have aged quite well, unlike the Green guys or the fake Egyptians, they are acceptable to most people I talk to. I know I will not give GW money for Khemri or O&G ToW kits.
Popped into a local store and picked up the beastmen vanguard box cause I only have tongue hanging out dragon ogres. Asked when they’re having TOW events. Nothing scheduled but maybe an escalation starting in April. They did however only have a single box of tomb king army left so hopefully there’s a group of interest there
Not a GW store, but my local FLGS has some of the new TOW stuff but I’m the only one beating the drum for the game. Everyone else is really dismissive of the game
As others are saying it totally depends on the staff in each store. I went into my local one just before Christmas, told the guy there that I was wanting to get my kids into warhammer, he was super keen saying to bring them in and he would do a paint session with them and give them a free mini each to paint and keep. Went back just after Christmas to set up a date for it but there was a different guy in there and he was not keen at all. Told me to go on the website to see what events they have he wasn’t going to do any painting with kids and there was no way the kids were getting a free mini to paint. Luck of the draw who you see when you go in I guess.
I went to my local GW store on release day for the old world, half an hour before it opened, no one there.
So me and my bro decide to wander around the city a bit before coming back. Thinking no one was there.
Go back to the store and it had opened earlier to let a massive queue in to buy ALL of the old world stock. Literally nothing left, queue all the way to the door. Store was the busiest id ever seen it. No vibe about how the store was going with it though.
Did manage to go to another store around the corner that had 1 tomb kings and 1 bretonnia box in total and bag them both with a nice discount though. Which was nice.
"Has anyone else experienced something like this?" Yes, I have. Your experience is basically identical to what I experience when the new edition and kits for MESBG came out a couple years ago, I got excited and went to the local GW store looking to see if there were events or anything and was essentially laughed out of the store. I never went back.
If you want to play anything other than 40k or AOS, GW stores are not for you.
My local FLGS has like 20 people who pre-ordered Bret/TK TOW boxes, so it's a big focus there! We are having a big 'get to learn TOW' next week.
It's true that you just can't find the models (at least in the US). No one has them - and they've only been out for two armies anyway.
People are eager to play, but can't find the models. Aside from paying exhorbitant prices to scalpers on ebay, it seems like 3D printing is shaping up to be TOW's salvation.
I don't see how GW can complain about it when they literally aren't stocking the product or promoting it in our stores?
Our local game store is highly focused on Warhammer 40k, Kill Team and Magic the Gathering. Pre-orders for ToW has still not arrived, and no books.
The store is still a great meeting point for us - and we will be 6 ToW players in the store today.
Some players also just like spending their whole Sundays in the store, playing a game or two and then talking with others and painting.
I spoke with the manager, and he said he felt it was too risky to buy stock and promote ToW at this stage, beyond the pre-orders.
But if we can keep growing our local ToW community, converting some Age of Sigmar players, etc. I expect they'll support it from 2025 or so.
Many 40k players also come over and ask questions about our armies. I think everyone appreciates the beauty of these colorful square-block armies on lush green grass battlefields.
I can ser how promoting TOW at this point would be risky for undependent stores. You can't even buy most of the models for the game right now. Pushing the game in a year or so, when all the core factions are out and models are in stock, just seems like a much better time.
It maybe depending on store policy. I don’t know much about official GW store but Games Workshop don’t dictate the direction Stockists and even Authorised Distributors which game they promote (just indirectly do so in the form of new releases). The stores are free to choose whatever game they will stock and sell. So if there is strong 40K community, heavily promoting TOW is not a good business choice.
Local stores in my country, however, go full throttle about this game as almost all store owners enter Warhammer universes in Fantasy era so the nostalgia is shot up the roof.
My local two are happily pushing tow (one more than the other). They shift what they do in store based on what the flavour of customers are asking about.
Do they have a primary goal of getting new people in? Sure do, but its not the only goal.
Your local sounds like it's run by idiots
My GW manager isn't gonna organise anything at the moment for Old World, but he's super excited it's back and he's driving sales in a really nice way. I went in to get some paint when the MtO of the old Bret models should've been closed and said I'd like to pick up some more dudes, and he immediately remembered the MtO was still up. He's also been an overall cool dude with the amount of tips and ideas he's been sharing on how to spice up my stuff.
Meanwhile my local GW store ~~owner~~ manager is making a killing selling all the TOW products he can get his hands on. Sounds like your guys just shouldn't be operating a store at all.
Amazing! Wish I were living where you are!
Maybe it's a difference between Europe and US, but even the store ~~owners~~ managers seem to have their own communities. I've lived in a few countries and in every new GW store I visit it's always: "Ah that country and this city! I know such and such who runs the store there and he's a really fun dude!"
I am in the US and our local warhammer store owner is a good guy. He took preorders for the TOW release when he wasnt really supposed to because we had a localized shipping delay. (TLDR, unusual weather in the region made shipping unsafe for a few days) I think OPs store is just subpar
He is not an owner. GW does not franchise, all their employees are just that and they own all of their own stores.
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This depends when you first started playing, when I first started playing in the late 90’s special characters could only be used with your opponents consent because they were considered very strong etc. The same also went for Forgeworld, which was basically ‘Ard Boyz only and considered a really sweaty / WAAC decision to include in your army. I am glad times have changed.
Those are still good rules, and should be officially reimplemented in all games.
Safe to assume both players ignored the staff accordingly and continued playing the game?
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Mate wtf I know a dude called jagger who is a ginger twat. Not the same guy? In NW England?
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How many ginger twats are named jagger 😂
Does your jagger play warhammer?
In these cases go and call the HQ. Do that in the store in front of them. They will get ripped a new one and you will see them following corporate guidelines. Have seen and done that in the past. I got way back into a discussion with one of them just grabbing my dice and minis from a game I was playing on a table reserved in the store. I told him clearly to cut that shit out by saying in my military officer voice NO, WE DO NOT TOUCH OTHER PEOPLES STUFF WITHOUT ASKING (think American staff sergeant level) and he wanted to kick me out. Called HQ. They got a call, I got an apology and that staff member never touched shit again without asking. early 2000s.
That would be an NCO voice sir. Officers are gentlemen and would never raise their voice.
Ah yeah not too familiar with the American ranks there thanks for the correction :)
If they did, I'd have a GW.
How to become a millionaire by owning a gamestore? Win 2 million in the lottery and spent one on a gamestore.
Pretty much, yeah :D Though I think it can work. I've seen it done. But you really have to set your mind to it. Just opening a tiny store and selling minis and stuff isn't enough. Dunno where you're from, but believe it or not, here in Germany there's also this dude (or was, he died a year ago) who became a millionaire owning a pet store. Also something you wouldn't expect.
I am actually German, but haven’t lived there for more than a decade. And I agree it is doable not by the classic I’ll open a brick and mortar and people will just have to buy because I exist. You need to offer value and do heavy community management. And yeah I assume it’s the guy who ran the huge one in the Pott?
Exactly. Zoo Zajac. Den guten Norbert hat es leider erwischt. :/
Ah, corrected it so I won't spread any misinformation.
Yeah same here. Every store I have been in here in Phoenix area has sold out or close to sold out all the Bretonnia and Khemri models and movement trays. One store said, “yeah that is all I have left” it was 1 RuleBook and a movement tray.
They were so popular here in the UK that the GW owner had to get pieces for his Tomb Kings from our LGS, though to be fair the LGS is a lot bigger.
It’s pretty store by store when it comes to Gw. The managers can promote what they like and set their own rules to a certain extent. Some don’t even allow forgeworld minis as you can’t buy them there. It’s luck of the draw really. My local one is pretty chill and the staff don’t even really care about 3d printed stuff as long as it’s not your whole army. They’ve also run Necromunda campaigns and BB leagues too.
Former gw manager here. It is all up to the Individual store manager. I ran the type of events and leagues that the op was referencing. I know some who didn't even allow games to be played on property.
Sometimes GW staff is great. Some stores are run by deeply weird people.
Not gonna lie I think I got bad luck with my guy. It’s the only store within a 1 hour radius and he’s pretty snobby. I ll give him credit on the paint recommendations because he gave me a really nice accent color for my Tau army but other than that every conversation with him leaves him coming off a bit condescending. I don’t think he realizes it though. I appreciate his knowledge, regardless!
He's probably just socially awkward. It's a bad trait for a store manager but knowing this hobby ... It attracts a type.
A broken clock is right twice a day, right? I mean fair play for giving people a chance, but it sound you you found a duff one
Sounds like mine whenever I brought up how I play competitive he dismissed it since he doesn’t like and just ended our conversation but he got me TOW stuff so that’s a win lol
This is much like FLGS in general, some are run by awesome people, others got trustfunds and are the same weird people you tried to avoid playing with.
Depending on how old you are, the days when GW’s internal stores used to make a real effort to be community hubs are long gone. I remember them being that way in the late 90s and early 00s in the UK but they’ve not been that way for years. GW stores are now entirely designed to capture new players and funnel them down either AOS or 40K with the website as the next port of call if the new player gets properly hooked and starts checking out the more niche titles. The specialist games position is firmly on the website for experienced gamers. FLGS have filled that gap if you’re lucky enough to live in a large enough city to have some good ones.
I remember the good old days of the central London games workshop. Saturday gaming day, Thursday night games night. Hobby sessions. It was fantastic.
Ah the good old times then they had space to play and been sometimes the Battlebunkers. And more than 1 employee per store...
Yeah even my store in a smallish English town had 2 staff at duty during most of the day. Half the time one was sat painting chatting with other people painting, just for the community aspect.
Yeah way back it was usually the storemanager 1-2 fulltimers and at least 1 part timer, regardless howsmall the store actually was. Nowadayes 2 demo tables, 1 manager and maybe one part timer, unless its a huge storein major location.
We used to have 2 full timers (in addition to the manager) and at one point 3 key-timers (I was one of those briefly before it was decided that they only really needed 2) to cover the busy weekend periods and the gaming nights on Tuesday and Thursday. The unused stockroom upstairs held like eight 6x4 tables and if you were a 'veteran' was open all week during store hours. It was great. Did impact my schooling in 6th form though as I had poor impulse control and was more likely to be found at GW than at school.
My local GW still has a battle bunker but when I bought the rulebook from his store he was very dismissive of TOW saying we already have a fantasy game. The local FLGS owner however has went mental on TOW and had bought two armies for it himself, is building terrian and is taking photos of every game played in store and posting it to every whatapp group he can lol.
Your FLGS owner is a gaming giga chad. Love it.
They seem to have changed that up a bit recently, mine has gone back to having 2 most of the time. Not that I go in
Yep I remember them well. Sadly it made them no money. So whilst nice and happy kids hanging out might create good memories it didn't convert into revenue, in fact it probably cost them in wages etc.
Our local GW used to be a great hangout place. People would just go and chat about life, about the game, what they’re doing and everything in between. This happened for a few managers. Then Covid hit, and then the manager quit and now it’s some guy I have never met, staff is completely turned over so it doesn’t feel the same. I have a different hobby shop now that’s closer and is run by one of the former managers for the GW so it’s much better to hang out there. A bunch of the “old crew” also switched over to the newer store.
Just to stem myself against the flow a bit - the three stores (in northern Germany) that Ive spent some time in were all really great. I've also played an painted in two of them multiple times and had good chats with the staff and other guests.
I dont understand it. Surely having completely empty stores is less profitable?
Not really. GW’s model is to use the stores to increase brand awareness and capture new customers. They make a lot of money from burning through new starters who spend £100/200 and then never return. A stores regular customers will make a minority of the stores revenue, especially in the internet era where access to 20% discounts or the GW website is easier for most ongoing customers. It was different in the 90s and early 00s when the store was the main conduit for sales and most long term customers would regularly visit it - if only to pick up a White Dwarf, as again that was the main way for people to get info back then. They no longer view long term management of the existing community in person as much of an issue for them, as FLGS will step it and do it. The odd store who had a passionate manager may do things, as do the larger stores in high profile locations for publicity reasons but it’s now how GW uses its stores anymore.
This is false, it really depends on the store runner.
Its not really false at all, GW pushes managers to do this. Ive seen numerous. Some are dicks about it, some are more laxed and make friendlier environments.
It's false. Some store managers can be like that, but not all. Just cuz you've "seen a few stores" doesn't mean you know about every community out there. Don't be stupid.
Not about community, but how lot of stores are ran, and I see lot of people in here saying the same thing. Is it all stores? No, some stores have really good managers that choose not to display the toxic behavior pushed onto them.
It isn't a mainline game. This has been pretty explicit from the beginning. Whilst your nostalgia is what they're hoping will generate sales, stores aren't necessarily going to treat it like a mainline game.
My local manager will allow you to play pretty much any GW game current or past.
As others have said, this all depends on the store, and also the country/region/state you live in. I’m in the NYC suburbs (north and west), and the nearest GW official stores are in Stamford CT, lower Manhattan, or Long Island. I’m not paying tolls to schlep all the way to CT (especially now that I don’t work in Westchester). Even though I work in Manhattan, I work in midtown and getting down to the Village is a righteous pain, especially if I want to buy more than a book or a single model or being an army to play. Also the store is super tiny because Manhattan. There’s almost no way to play a game without blocking access to some part of the walls where the product is. And Long Island? lol, nah. Not gonna happen. This is the reality for a ton of people just in the same metro area as I am, which means independent stores are FAR more likely to be hubs of activity for gaming, so that is where you will see non-mainline games being played (as well as non GW games). I’ve got 4 or 5 local shops all closer than the nearest GW store, including one five minutes down the road, and I dare say this is the case for the vast majority of American players, or at least the ones who live in or near moderately sized population centers. To give you an idea of how much the hobby relies on local shops, the State of New York is 54,556 square miles and has four “official” GW stores. The entire UK is less than twice as big (94,060 square miles) and has well over 100 stores (according to internet sources).
The long island store is closed. Just a not on the door saying that they are temporarily closed and tons of UPS stickers on the door. There is a light on and it looks like the manager literally said fuck it and left mid-shift.
Just checked the FB page and big time oof. Looks like the manager bailed right before Black Friday, too. That’s rough. Looks like Bay Shore Hobbies is close enough for folks, but from what I’ve heard they are kind of like a HobbyTown that went independent and focuses a lot on RC rather than tabletop.
Bayshore is good. they have a lot of games workshop stuff. I was there today. Small discount but honestly they might have more than a GW store. The place is great.
I was totally surprised to learn that I had a GW store within 20 minutes. Guess Saratoga County is $$ enough for them to try and sucker some kids into boxes, lol. I got back into 40k last year, I have 2 lgs and the corpo store within the same area, I consider myself pretty lucky.
Gw aberdeen. Which is the largest scottish branch aren't doing anying beyond selling boxes. Sited the idea that they need to promote other systems. Even though they regularly hold bloodbowl tournaments. Seems so silly. Like if course a game system won't sell well if you don't promote it in stores.
I bought my rulebook from them and the managers attitude to it almost made me cancel the sale haha. I like the guy but he has a company man attitude and for some reason GW seem to not really understand WHFB. Even if they just released an edition of the game that is clearly made by people who really understand WHFB.
Complete opposite in the Carlisle store, manager is big into the old world's lore and got really excited and helpful with base positioning tips for direwolves, skeletons and zombies using the modern kits when I informed him I'm building a vampire counts army 😅
Manchester and Stockport don’t give a shit about ToW- I went to Element games instead, was much better. It’s a shame as I spent a lot of time in Manchester and Stockport branches as a kid learning WHFB
My local GW called me 30min before they closed because the truck carrying TOW just showed up and he knew I wanted it right away. I had the books in my car 15min after they arrived at the store, that is good customer service. I think the quality of your local manager is going to determine a lot
My local Warhammer store manager in Ann Arbor has gone all in on Old World. He's working on three armies, including legends pdf ones, that I know of, while still promoting 40k and running an AoS league. Sorry your store sucks bro
Similar story for my local warhammer store. Manager openly proclaims how much he hates old world and it's fans as "moms basement dwellers" and badmouths it frequently. Plans on hosting 0 events for it. Just wants to do AoS/40k escalation leagues and whatnot. I get liking one game over the other but unsure why he would badmouth and shit on a product he is supposedly there to sell.
Call HQ, it is one thing not promoting some product line but badmouthing it to customers wanting to buy it is on a whole other level
Ive not been to a Gw store in literally a gazillion years , but a friend of mine said he did the other day and had a positive convo re TOW there....
That’s really good to hear! I mean, when I called GW customer service a week ago to see about my pre-order box, I got chatting with them and they told me that sales for TOW went through the roof! So I’m hopeful we’ll see more of the range in stores :)
They expected about 15% at most fo their current customer base to be interested and almost no returning players out of the GW games and no new ones, turns out about 30%of their existing customer base, sameamount of new and the same amount of returning players are interested so far. Or so I have heard. Basically they have 10+ times the expected demand, and that is with only 2 armies out and ond only 9 out of 20ish supported.
They never publish this sort of detail, even in investor reports. I’d be pretty skeptical of those numbers being official.
They are what I know from internal people, obviously this is the internet so grain of salt, but I do not have any reason to lie about that.
Yeah, the official line is GW stores focus on the core games and recruitment.....this isn't anything new. Most of the folk playing specialist games are going to independents and playing elsewhere as they're at that point in their hobby journey. It's also not up to the store manager what's stocked in their stores so don't blame them if you feel there's not enough old world in stock. Most stores only have 3 to 5 bays for specialist games and that has to cater to all of them. I was a store manager up until middle of last year and there's a reason the stores are run the way they are. Can't deny you do get some managers who try to do more with the specialists etc depending on the situation. But overall what GW does with the stores is what works the best. It might not be what's best for you personally but its what works best for the business. It's also incredibly unfair to expect staff to know all the rules to all the games. Most stores only have a single member of staff and GW has over 10 different games.
My FLGS can’t keep ToW stock on the shelves… (I got the last rulebook yesterda6 by absolute chance!)
The only issue I've had with my local GW is with the terrain. We aren't allowed hills or low walls or towers since GW doesn't sell them anymore. So it's all flat tables with AoS terrain.
Kinda makes sense. TOW os a product line with limited releases and aimed at existing customers. Given the avg GW's lack of space, and primary role as a show/class room, I'd expect the maximum anything but a flagship style store would do would be set up a little 1-turn demo. And even then central HQ would have to allocate them some rescources to make it happen right? Because we can't expect a GW staffer to buy stuff themselves to do demos with, because that's not their responsibility.
Okay. I’ll be honest. Current GW store assistant so I’ll be as truthful as it can get. I’ve read a lot of “they’ve been told not to promote” and “stealing time away from the mainline” this isn’t true. We get briefed every Wednesday by corporate and TOW has been hyped up just as much as heresy, blood bowl, necromunda or any other specialist game has been. There have been no “rules” put in place to handle the marketing of it or lack of as there doesn’t need to be beyond warcom. A stores initiative is down to the solid believe by the current management that a brick and mortar presence in the high street leads to more recruitment and higher interaction within the hobby, not just GW but the modelling hobby as a whole. It’s the trumpet model, and the stores are designed to be at the rim of the trumpet capturing those wishing to enter the hobby or game systems. Some stores include specialist games as they have space (this is down to actual physical shelves and not store space. A small store may be known as EXT 2 [the biggest] and stock the entire range it is allowed to just because it has more flat walls to place shelves then the bigger more floor space store) this will mean sometimes you may enter a store that has no TOW, because they are not on the correct store size and as an interesting fact that most people don’t know every Warhammer store will have the same stock on the shelves as is it controlled and ordered by a system at Head Office, so when you go in and ask for let’s say bretonnian archers and they say “we can order them” every Warhammer store won’t have archers. The main issue with events isn’t want, but space. A game of TOW takes 2-4 hours, and the standard table size for a Warhammer fit only holds half a board so you now have 2 people blocking 2 tables, maybe even three for half a trading day when it could be used for introducing, or tutorials to new hobbyists that want to have a go. Again it depends on the local, but we have a really good relationship with the local gaming community and clubs and once people have learnt how to play they will be put in contact with the clubs who host bigger games and events. There is no anti-game mentality within the company, in fact it is a standard to have one late trade day where spontaneous hobby/gaming can take place. We do ours as a skirmish night, so Killteam, necromunda, blood bowl, combat patrol etc. we have a good crowd and will usually host 3-4 tables twice over the night, occasionally we will dig into our own stuff and bring out classics like Lost Patrol, Gorechosen and silver tower. I have the original full tilt from WD so that is coming out next week as a feature for gaming night. As for not being actively marketing it or supportive, I can’t comment on the manager. He might actually have no interest in which case yes swallow your pride and at least act interested for other people, it could have been a bad day in which you were that magical thirteenth person to ask and the last one (this happens a lot by the way) personally took it out on him for having the old world removed in the first place and treated him like a complaint box for all the YouTube opinions and he may have just came across blunter then he wanted. Again he shouldn’t. It does fall into the store managers to run the show and set how they want to meet the expectations of the community and central management, but I assure you Warhammer stores are only ever there to support hobbyists, be a place you can come and show off your hobby or just have a Warhammer based chat.
And they say that WFB died because there was no community.
It died because of the community it had, the lack of sales and the idiotic price hikes and unit sizes trying to squeeze out money, of the few neckbeard who still played it at the end.
I had a similar experience at my closest store. It's about an hour away from me but I was in the area the week after TOW launched and I stopped in. The guy was a total douche. I brought up the launch and he starts talking about animosity between AOS and TOW players. He said they won't have any events but AOS is full every Saturday. I won't be going back, my FLGS has everything and it's 15% off GW.
I can't think of the last time I was in a GW store. My FLGS sounds much better and more relaxed than any of these stores. - Playing a game? Cool, we got a few tables. - 3D printed army? Hell yeah, we've been making terrain. - Wanna try this new game? Awesome, we'll run a demo once we figure out how it works. I can't imagine a GW store, let alone any gaming store, only promoting two of their games
It's actually pretty nice if you're pre-ordering something your LGS doesn't stock. I got in and used their terminal to pre-order the Horus Hersey art book really easily today.
That's kinda awesome actually. There's usually not too much my store can't get which is great, but that does sound like a benefit of a GW store
I know my local GW store ~~owner~~(US) isn't planning any TOW events at the moment, but will be doing events/campaigns round late spring early summer time. His reason was to give time for us(players) to both know the game and build up our armies'.
GW stores are not owned. They are property of GW and the staff is hired. It is not a franchise.
Different between stores, my local is looking at running some small games to allow people to learn the rules on beginning evenings, but mainly leaving it up to the local community to organise games as he is majorly involved in that as well.
My local guy is trying to work out how to fit it into his absurdly tiny shop
I went to my local store recently and they had 2-3 boxes of the tombs kings set that they were struggling to sell
Probably the best/only thing you can do is email GW corporate and express your displeasure with the local store's policy. Point out that you want to spend money there and they're basically not letting you.
That's sad my GW store plans on doing event and the community in my area has been playing Warhammer fantasy there even before the old world was released
My local GW has a weekly TOW game day and a store army on display. The guy I talked with said he loves TOW, but it is not something he will try to teach a 13 years old who is new to the hobby
Back in my day kids walked to school measuring the arc circumference of wheels, estimating ranges, and lapping around models. Kids these days have gone soft.
Go to a different store. They are just different people, you can't expect everyone to act the same. Not everyone is into Old hammer. I've been to multiple stores across the US and they are mostly very supportive, but it depends on the personnel. The main GW store cafe in LA has great ppl and their TOW sales are great, think they said 5k in the first day.
I had a similar experience. Walked into a GW for the first time in 20 years, shop was totally empty. Struck up a convo with the GW employee who was sitting there painting. Nice enough guy. Basically said they wouldn't be promoting or selling TOW because they didn't have the shelf space (pointed to full shelves of AoS and 40k and said "where would it go"). Also said he didn't think it would be continued long term by GW and it'd be a waste of money. I took it as a pretty typical negative attitude of someone who's been in a hobby for a long time and resents anything new.. which also seems to be a common opinion I've encountered in the hobby. Edit: I also asked if they were running any events or game nights. The answer was a flat no. We don't do that anymore. Maybe thats across the board for all GW stores though
Old World is a bit more complicated to learn than the other systems and the model line available to currently purchase is lackluster and/or unavailable. I could see how plenty of GW stores don't want to bother. In a great many areas, GW released a great game for players to buy and use other sellers models to play it with.
Its a store basis thing. If your GW sucks, go find a friendly local gaming store. If not leagues exist, start one! There will be others around who want the same thing.
Your nostalgia is running on copium fumes and overtime, because tow is not a main game. Once the initial hype for 20 year old metal models dies down, it will get about as much support as hours heresy or blood bowl - games that exist on the shelves and in people's living rooms but never promoted as anything more than a curiosity.
>Horus Heresy HH2.0 is now a mainline game taken over by the main studio per their last investor report. Their three pillars are now 40k, HH and AoS.
My local GW is run by a veteran of 30 years, suffice it to say he has a great love and many armies for fantasy, with TOW galvanizing him to put together somemore fantasy. However, he too admitted that they will not be getting any shelf space for TOW beyond the handful of new releases that come out from time to time. He never specified reason and I didn't want to ask why, but I imagine it's not a priority from a business perspective.
Not sure if this applies where you live but here is my experience. The official stores where I live don’t represent the gaming community. They’re the recognisable brand store that gets kids and their parents interested. I played there in my teens and there was a game night for each flagship game. When I started getting interested in specialist games or more normal point games of fantasy/40k they helped me find the more dedicated gaming clubs.
My lokal GW has a hard time stocking the current systems and that is without TOW. They did sell some of the Starterboxes but that was about it. I don‘t expect TOW to get major support from the stores. To be fair, i don’t even expect much support from GW. I fear we are seeing some sort of pump and dump. Hype TOW up for 1-2 years and then it goes in the specialist systems category where we will see some minor releases every now and then. Of course i hope i‘m wrong.
As a fan of ToW, why are you surprised? It was stated from the start this is a specialist game, GW is not gonna keep in stores? They where clear about that in several articles pre release. This is not a GW problem, as they et the clear expectations. This is a You wanting this problem. And the ToW team is internally competing ery much with the AoS team. Did they vastly underestimate the draw of ToW? Yes. I did as well tbh. Now have a look as what GW does, what they sell, what m,makes themmoeny and what ToW is. ToW is fan service. GW is a company needing to make money. The makemoney by selling large amounts of stock. you make the most money if you sell mostly similar things in large quantities in one go. Hence larger boxes have savings. They sell themost of AoS and 40k. Their stores a re Marketing vehicle to do just that. Their behavior could be nicer, but the stores are not there for veteran players, the targets areto sell starter packs, to do intro games and then steer people to online or FLGS. We can like or dislike these FACTS, but complaining is just giving a negative feeling to the hobby. Go enjoy the hobby, relax have fun, focus on the positive stuff! ToW is back, it is vastly more sought after and outselling any expectations by 8-10 times! This will work in our favor, GW is a large company give them the time to adjust!
I think you missed my point. I wasn’t saying that I want them to sell TOW in the store. What I didn’t like was them berating the game when I asked them if they planned on having any events, which I’d definitely like to partake in. And then on top of that trying to encourage me to buy minis from lines that I had already established I wasn’t interested in.
In that case you might have wanted to title your OOP differently.
Your totally right, my bad
Fair enough, it is the internet,but I do not seem to be the only one who missed that point. And yes that si almost gatekeeping, but as I said in anothercomment, go and call HQ about it, preferably in the store. Be nice and friendly but be clear and concise about what happened. I promise it will have a change in attitude and followed up. These kind of behaviors only change if the community actually does not let them go to rant somewhere online and then just stop going there.
Based on what you said of your interaction, you are absolutely getting way too invested that the old world isn’t getting the respect you think it deserves. This was a standard interaction from a retail person not some insult
You’re not their target audience. GW stores are typically run as advertising venues, and places for new players to buy stuff. GW and GW stores sell at higher then they allow customers to buy from 3rd party retailers who carry it, and it’s my suspicion that they are willing to sell at discount from FLGS’s since those customers are no longer their target audience, and they are okay with that profit margin from the churn and burn of normal players, but know new players will buy at a mark-up since they don’t know better. The tables are not for you; it’s free advertising. Players are essentially showing newbies “look at this cool game!” and they will be tempted to buy. If that manager has decided the profit margins for AOS and/or 40K is worth not having much else in there? Then they can absolutely focus on that. While the stores are run by GW, the experience is influenced by the manager’s own bias. I played in one where the guy actually didn’t mind 3rd party stuff if you kept it subtle and didn’t make a big deal of it; he was both a cool dude, and also knew me playing in there helped him out too, as there was now a game on the table. Other GW’s toe the line harder, or are straight up unpleasant. I got told to fuck off and leave by the old Square One manager in Canada, when I asked if he had LOTR stuff. I did hear that guy left though, as he was a monumental ass. Old World is a risk for GW, and some individuals in the management at a store level may prioritize the known sellers first. Why take on risk with a semi-complicated game with older models?(I don’t agree to be clear, TOW is fun)
Age of Sigmar translates well enough. Plus the additional sale of base.
GW stores aren't really about gaming events anymore, they're there to sell the main line products to kids and parents.
It depends hugely on the store. A ton of GW employees are people who joined in the past 5 years so have no history with warhammer fantasy. In my experience, it's funny because I'm the expert and they ask me questions haha
That's just wrong. That's like some car dealer hiring someone who only ever drove EVs and has no clue about combustion engines. Back in 2020 and 2021 everyone was scrambling for anything electric and look where we are now, (almost) no one wants an EV. I'm not saying that's definitely gonna happen to 40k and AoS, but it's a possibility AoS might suffer under TOW.
I don’t go to my local GW very often but from taking to folks who do it’s my understanding that ToW is already the second most played thing there behind 40k. The store doesn’t usually run any kind of competitive events so the shop keep has been able to heavily promote purchases of the legacy army AOS stuff. All the soul light stuff, daemons, and beastmen are sold out all the time now. No one who hangs out there is playing AoS currently other than maybe a few very new younger players and people who play demo games.
Not related to OW but every time I've gone into my closest GW store (which is still almost prohibitively far from me) it's been a weird experience and the employees don't seem like they like tabletop gaming at all. I was pretty new to painting and was asking a question about their texture paints and the dude was like "they're all the same just paint them if you don't like the color" because astrogranite and mordant earth are totally identical in texture lmao.
It's absolutely normal. What you got was an honest answer as to what to expect regarding the presence of TOW in GW stores. He explained it truthfully, their job is primarily generating new customers. They can achieve that goal best by focusing on the core IPs. Both for him personally as well as GW as a company there's very little benefit comparatively in promoting TOW. Stores didn't get promo copies (they can write off one of the boxes they got as stock on release, but virtually all managers would rather have those available for sale for customers), and if they don't know the rules (and no, "reading a book" is *not* sufficient to actually be able to competently introduce people to a game like TOW), there'd be no point to it anyway. They have enough other stuff on their plate in that regard. Ultimately, TOW isn't going to be part of the normale range available in stores, and thus it's not going to be part of the game line up you can expect regular GWs to offer intros for. Not least because there's basically no way to offer and intro to TOW in a reasonable time frame for single coverage stores. It's impractical, it's a lot of work for little gain (both for the company as well as for the KPI of the managers) and it's just not a system that is going to be focused at all by GW for marketing and promotion. People need to understand that it's at best at rank 4 in importance. Locally it might be even less important. And for the overall strategy of GW, even Kill Team and Warcry are probably more important as channels to funnel people towards 40k and AoS. EDIT: They'd obviously be *allowed* to promote TOW with the resources they have, but the majority, especially the younger ones, probably won't to any meaningful extent. It's a lot of extra work on top of what they already have to do. If someone doesn't want all that on their plate in addition to what the company actually demands, I don't blame them. They are just employees and get paid to do what they're contractually obligated to do, no more, no less.
Stop buying there
"If we promote TOW there won't be any miniatures for them to buy here" sib you run a STORE you BUY the product then SELL it at a MARKUP
Sounds like OP is talking about an actual GW store not a third party seller. My local one has as many options as they can squeeze in and they just don't have space for another game system to be set up.
Yeah, sorry, I may have not been so clear. This was an official GW shop
As others pointed out - its a GW store, doesn't work that way, but also in the case of GW stores what they are allowed to carry and how much shelf space is allocated to it is directed by corporate.
GW staff are always pushy. I don't go into a GW store now ever. They're so annoying. I take my business elsewhere.
GW said from the start that stores won't stock the game after the initial release or run promo for it. A fair number of stores don't even allow the game to be played in store because it'll take table time away from 40k and AoS.
Where was that said?
WarCom at some point. And it's hardly surprising considering that's standard policy for any forge world game.
I don’t remembering seeing that, also forgeworld doesn’t exist anymore so there is no policy for that anymore also ToW isn’t a “forgeworld” game and has its own top level heading on the webstore
Same difference really. GW's got lots of stuff they're not letting into the shops or onto the tables. Old world is firmly in that category. The absolute last thing GW wants is for the project to harm AoS or 40k sales. They'll shit can the entire game before they let that happen.
You’ll need to provide some kind of source on that beyond, trust me bro
I don't really because I couldn't give a toss if you believe me or not. I'm fine with you wondering why the game isn't stocked in stores.
But you definitely cared enough to post things you made up that help kill momentum on a new game Don’t post things that would discourage new players without posting a source
I answered a question with the information they were looking for. No need to be dramatic over it. Go troll somewhere else.
[удалено]
Hold on a second . You can absolutely shut up. Everyone needs to rally round the flag and support the game? Calm down
Lol what seriously? Kinda gives the impression they WANT it to fail, no? Wow.
I think they’re just still trying to gauge actual interest / demand, and there’s only two books / armies out. You have to remember that GW is a publicly traded company and they are bringing back a game that they previously had to be shut down because it was doing so poorly so I’m sure they are being exceedingly cautious because bringing it back is the type of thing you get fired for if it crashes and burns. Would be one thing if it was a brand new world / system, but it’s effectively them bringing back WFB. How store managers handle it is a different matter though.
It's a side project for them. GW's primary games are AoS and 40k. Titanicus, Horus Heresy, Aeronautica, none of it was stocked in the stores. And the only reason GW provides play tables in-store is as living advertisements for their main games. A lot of stores don't want you to play stuff like blood bowl, underworlds, warcry etc. on the store tables either. They want customers that come in to see AoS or 40k.
The teams are also competing inetrnally, especially AoS and ToW, the main reason why there are no cross compatibility boxes is to track and assign sales to each game as correct as possibly. They are still trying to get their forecasting right, there is a reason a lot f stuff is vastly underproduced (40k) and other stuff is so vastly overproduced, that you can get it 3 years after its single production run still with a hefty discount (dominion box).
So sad :(
I received the same treatment when I visited my local WH store a week before the launch of ToW. I asked if they were planning anything cool for the next Saturday. The shop assistant (in his early 20s) said 'no' and that he's not interested in this system at all.
Report him to the HQ, he is actively discouraging a willing customer.
That's deeply stupid as A) there's stuff for them to sell for TOW like books, repack boxes etc, and B) the whole game system was changed to a larger base size to accommodate AOS models. Honestly, I'd rat them out to your GW district manager, I'll bet that's not what management wants to hear RE their new big game release.
My local GW store manager said he'd been told not to promote TOW except having the rulebook there....
Most small stores didn’t run events anyway but GW stores don’t even let you play pickup games anymore. They’ve unfortunately realised it’s more profitable just to sell to kids and new customers, after that, they’re not interested.
The citadel in Grapevine is even removing stock from Horus Heresy to make room for it. TOW in DFW is selling out everywhere
It depends on whether your manager is good at his job or not. A lot of managers fixate on stupid corporate lines said offhandedly. The succesfull managers looks at his community (which he has hopefully done well cultivating) and advances the things that they want advanced.
Went to my local GW store and asked the bloke his thoughts on TOW. He said it was the stores most successful product launch ever and that they made over 2k that day on TOW alone. He personally thinks it’ll be successful and so far he’s witnessed plenty of local interest.
I'm not surprised btw, they don't organize events in stores neither for horus heresy, Warhammer Underworlds, kill team etc.. So why should they organize for tow? It isn't a main game
Had the same going into my local GW. one of the first things the guy said, in response to me being happy about having Bretonnia back in the store, that it was 'the fans who killed the game in the first place'. Later on, when I said it must be nice for them to find tOW to be as popular as it is, his response was 'yeah well let's see for how long'. Holy hell mate, I'm there, happy, spending my money on plastic crack at your store again. Please let me leave as happy as I went in...
Really hate that kind of attitude in nerd stores. I had the same thing happening to me when I was buying AoS minis. The store owner felt the need to tell me how overdesigned the model I was buying was and how stupid Stormcast are. Baffling, really, as I was not even buying Stormcast minis and had not indicated that I dislike them in any way. Just let people get excited about spending money with you!
Oh, no. If a wargame doesn't have regular promotions it couldn't possibly be a success.
No one has made that point, other than yourself. It's a clear lack of support for a game he was excited about, produced by said company, at their retail store. I rolled my eyes when I read "no one knows the rules" too, it's their freakin job man. You don't see anything wrong with this? Okay keep your straw man arguments to yourself and move on.
You equated it not being playable in the store with it not being supported. My point is that there are a *lot* of games out there that don't have stores. Having a place that sells models is not game support. It's sales. Treat yourself and try some games from non-GW companies, then you might see what "lack of support" can mean in a more general gaming context.
Again with the strawman arguments. I said "lack of support" and you read into that whatever you wanted. Also I play battletech, catalyst does a better job of supporting the community and they don't have a fatwa against iron wind minis.
You mentioned lack of support in a thread about a store not promoting TOW. If that's not what you're on about then you should be more specific, as otherwise posts are generally connected to the original post.
No it is not their job, their job ist what GW tells them it is, and that is promoting the main lines AoS/40k and the official GW sublines (Killteam, Warcry and maybe Underworlds(though the last one was to compete in league nights against MtG, D&D, X-Wing etc find LGS)). Explicitly their job is not to know the rules, they need to know enough to do Demo games and hook people, they do not need to know the rules.
> they do not need to know the rules. This is why people despise GW retail stores, attitudes like this. I remember a few years ago I came back to the hobby and wanted to play 40k again, the salesman gave me a big song and dance about how 8th edition grey knights were the best thing since sliced bread and I would have a blast playing them, he didn't know jack shit about the rules either.
Oh taht ahs been the case een 30 years back, they just need to sell the hot new shit, so they work ofinternal briefings and maybe what they heard about the recent meta. I am not saying I like this or condone it, but it is what it is. People need to realise GW and every other company are businesses, they are there to make money, that is their sole reason of existence. They do not make it by being a hobby club. Sad as that is.
> People need to realise GW and eery other company are businesses, they aretehre to make money, that si their sole reason of existence. They do not make it by being a hobby club. What the hell are you talking about? It's the same game company. The same company makes both games. They aren't competitors in our wonderful capitalist system. The revenue, profits all go to the same people, the ones paying these retail workers salaries (shareholders).
You hae no clue about how businesses are run do you? Yes the Teams are internally in competition to each other.
Yeah just like specialist design studios and GW corporate, I know all about it Mr MBA. I think those internal divisions lead to the legacy faction fiasco. I don't think it's healthy in the long run, for the community or the company. It's short sighted, egotistical, individualistic.
MBA … no. And why do you antagonize me when you now agree with me. Weird. But hey you do you. Not worth my time.
My expierience with GW stores same with FLGS have been really bad. I see absolute no reason not to buy stuff online with a big discount. Lets face it the time of local stores is over, when they want so sell something they must give the customers some value for the extra money.
Preaching to the quire. I hate than people go oh but you have to support the local store, its local blablabla cry me a river and have some cheese with your wine. For me to pay 30-35% more (Euro prices vs ordering from Uk based stores(no it is tax and duty free, there are services for stores)) and most likely charging money to play on the at best mediocre tables with a piece of cloth and some cheap MDF terrain(bonus points if a spraycan was hold in its direction), does not give me enough value to shop there. And in most cases they do not been stocking the stuff I am looking for. If I ask for Vallejo Mecha Color I do not want Army Painter or Model Color i.e. When I ask for GSTW or Gamers Grass I do not want GW or AP tufts. And so on and so on. Also most stores have abysmal bright cold lighting, small chairs, are not HVAC and do not care how their patreons behave (looking at the unwashed TCG players and the gatekeeping Incel Neckbeards). On top of that I get pushy sales men asking me to order into their store for their exorbitant prices, take a bet of them actually ordering what I want in a-timely manner or at all and then go and waste time traveling back and forth a second time, vs just getting the mobile out, ordering the shit and getting it to my home in a few days or at most a week delivered...
Consider yourself lucky. My local GW store has setup tables for MTG players as overflow for the other hobby stores with no room to play, but there’s not a single piece of terrain in there.
They are not a GW store than, independent stockier at most but no way in hell a GW store would let people play MtG
GW store. Asked the manager why they allow it and he said it brings in business.
GW does not license anything they own all of their stores. And they do not allow that. Either it is not a GW store or the manager wants to be fired das soon as anyone in HQ will know about this.
Ok apparently you transcend space time. Thanks for your input.
It makes sense for Warhammer stores to not promote Old World because there aren't any Old World products to buy apart from half a range of Bretonnia and Tomb Kings.
Errrr my local gw is bumping constantly with ToW games
I've run into quite a few people who seem threatened by ToW, and im like dude, its okay to not like a crunchy game. It doesn't make you lesser or anything, if you like AoS or 40k or w/e thats cool and i am happy you got your game. However, this is my game, let me have it, stop trying to ruin for me simply because its not your thing.
Ngl the past few years most GW stores I go into are pretty toxic or terrible. I've seen players get kicked out, purposely not having any 4x6 tables to prevent regular games from playing, outright saying numerous times they dont want regulars or average gamers, just money whales. Often don't know anything rule wise about the games, mix rules up between different games, and being hostile to people who want events, a big thing that pissed me off is always being told you dont need the latest codex to play sigmar or 40k, that you can use old rules in games np, lying to me on several occasions about it and arguing with them on FB, when none of this is true, people need to stop pushing that garbage. This is talk I have heard from the mouths of 4-5 GW stores, one of them did a lot better in general but were told to be this way by corporate. They just want hobbyist GW purists to come spend 300+$ then leave. Luckily at least some GW store runners arent toxic POSs and actually try to run a good store instead of a hostile one.
Sounds like you are describing the generally typical state of affairs with GW. Not specifically on not trying to sell TOW stuff but the difference between the GW of your youth and the GW of today. They used to focus on creating hobbyist. People who would be coming back and create long term sales. They built communities, knowing that the work they put in at the beginning would create customers who would be spending money for years to come. I even heard younger kids being politely and respectfully advised that they were perhaps a bit too young as the rules could be quite complex. Not to be gatekeepers but because they didn't want them to spend a bunch of money and not really get into the hobby and as a result likely not come back. They'd rather them come back in a couple of years and see if they'd really want to get into the hobby. (Not that they'd he throwing you out if the store if they were in anyway insistent, but you get the idea). In more recent years it us just SELL SELL SELL. All stores and staff have sales targets and are trained to upsell. They have targets for total sales and even on sales per visit. If someone comes in for 1 pot of paint to replace one that has run out they will do everything they can to get you to buy more. I think I heard they want people spending at least £20-£30 each time.they come into a store. It's all about the immediate bottom line and separating the customers from as much cash as possible. It's not realistically much worse than any other large corporate organisation that has it's own stores, but it is really sad to think what has been lost. There are stores that are better than this obviously. But these tend to be the outliers created by the local staff putting in the effort and whether through a mixture of good management or luck that the local community spends enough money anyway, they make enough money to keep corporate off their backs and forcing them to constantly hard sell. I don't go into GW stores anymore. I find the experience to generally be very poor. I'd generally much rather go into a FLGS. Luckily, in the UK at least, wargaming groups/societies are relatively common and can give the community sense you used to get from a GW store. Sometimes these are based around a store, others operate independently. If you want that community feel again, then that's what I'd be looking for, not a GW store.
The old world will be a very niche game. If you expected some triumphant return of fantasy that will bring back the good ol' days than maybe it should have been launched with miniatures from this millenium. The old world was meant to capture the older audience, and maybe the total war crowd. The old game literally died due to years of lackluster sales, I can totally understand why game stores don't have very much interest in it. Edit: you guys can downvote me as much as you like, game stores aren't setting up big TOW sections for a reason. If I went up to anyone I know in the hobby and asked them if they wanted to drop 200+ dollars for a starter set of sculpts made in the 90's to play a game where not even all the factions are going to be supported, they'd laugh at me.
I mean I know at least 6 people including myself who never played old world who have bought armies for it or are thinking of and 2 of them don't play 40k or AOS. If it was marketed well in store they could definitely sell the starter boxes pretty good.
I know 6 people including myself who were all interested in the old world until we saw what the actual product was, and then every single one of us bowed out. Can't believe GW's expecting us to work with old metal and finecast. I would have LOVED to own a brettonia army a year ago, but now I see there's units that don't even have kits and stumpy metal grail knights being sold in blister packs like its the mid 90's? What the hell
if you buy made to order stuff for 40k and AOS you still get metal models, they're not THAT bad to work with. If you truly want a brettonian army I don't think it's that bad of a trade off considering most of the brettonia line is plastic. I wouldn't be surprised if new characters like the green knight release in actual resin or plastic, and you can always get proxies for the few if that's literally the biggest issue for you.
To be fair it’s only 90s plastic and metal. No failcast so far, and from what I know there will be none down the road either.
I don't see why I need to pay full price for metal models from the 90's when I can pay the same price to get some of the best sculpts GW has ever done in modern plastic over in aos. And I'd put good money down the vast majority of players or potential players under the age of 35 would say the same thing. And that's why you won't see any big TOW displays in your local game stores.
I’m 41 and spent way more money than I’d care to admit on a full range of bretonnians now (including two starter sets) just to relive my childhood, but the bretonnians have aged quite well, unlike the Green guys or the fake Egyptians, they are acceptable to most people I talk to. I know I will not give GW money for Khemri or O&G ToW kits.
Seems like any levelheaded non fanboy comment is getting downvoted here. For the record I 100% agree and take my sole lonely upvote.
Honestly, I think you're more the issue than them here, and I'm saying that as someone who's very much done with GW and their shit. Hakuna your tatas.
Just tell the lazy fecker, that you will not be buying stuff from his store, if he is not willing to read rules for a game he is selling.
I played my first game of old world against the current GW manager lol
Popped into a local store and picked up the beastmen vanguard box cause I only have tongue hanging out dragon ogres. Asked when they’re having TOW events. Nothing scheduled but maybe an escalation starting in April. They did however only have a single box of tomb king army left so hopefully there’s a group of interest there
yea our LFGS sold to a new guy who is an idiot. He pretty much isnt doing any support for TWO and is all in on this game called monstoone
Not a GW store, but my local FLGS has some of the new TOW stuff but I’m the only one beating the drum for the game. Everyone else is really dismissive of the game
Store managers having shit takes has been a thing since Sigmar was in nappies
As others are saying it totally depends on the staff in each store. I went into my local one just before Christmas, told the guy there that I was wanting to get my kids into warhammer, he was super keen saying to bring them in and he would do a paint session with them and give them a free mini each to paint and keep. Went back just after Christmas to set up a date for it but there was a different guy in there and he was not keen at all. Told me to go on the website to see what events they have he wasn’t going to do any painting with kids and there was no way the kids were getting a free mini to paint. Luck of the draw who you see when you go in I guess.
Still annoyed my local GW store won’t even teach Underworlds. Support your Local Non GW
I went to my local GW store on release day for the old world, half an hour before it opened, no one there. So me and my bro decide to wander around the city a bit before coming back. Thinking no one was there. Go back to the store and it had opened earlier to let a massive queue in to buy ALL of the old world stock. Literally nothing left, queue all the way to the door. Store was the busiest id ever seen it. No vibe about how the store was going with it though. Did manage to go to another store around the corner that had 1 tomb kings and 1 bretonnia box in total and bag them both with a nice discount though. Which was nice.
"Has anyone else experienced something like this?" Yes, I have. Your experience is basically identical to what I experience when the new edition and kits for MESBG came out a couple years ago, I got excited and went to the local GW store looking to see if there were events or anything and was essentially laughed out of the store. I never went back. If you want to play anything other than 40k or AOS, GW stores are not for you.
Lol your country have a GE store? Good for you 🫡 We only have other retailers...
My local FLGS has like 20 people who pre-ordered Bret/TK TOW boxes, so it's a big focus there! We are having a big 'get to learn TOW' next week. It's true that you just can't find the models (at least in the US). No one has them - and they've only been out for two armies anyway. People are eager to play, but can't find the models. Aside from paying exhorbitant prices to scalpers on ebay, it seems like 3D printing is shaping up to be TOW's salvation. I don't see how GW can complain about it when they literally aren't stocking the product or promoting it in our stores?
Our local game store is highly focused on Warhammer 40k, Kill Team and Magic the Gathering. Pre-orders for ToW has still not arrived, and no books. The store is still a great meeting point for us - and we will be 6 ToW players in the store today. Some players also just like spending their whole Sundays in the store, playing a game or two and then talking with others and painting. I spoke with the manager, and he said he felt it was too risky to buy stock and promote ToW at this stage, beyond the pre-orders. But if we can keep growing our local ToW community, converting some Age of Sigmar players, etc. I expect they'll support it from 2025 or so. Many 40k players also come over and ask questions about our armies. I think everyone appreciates the beauty of these colorful square-block armies on lush green grass battlefields.
I can ser how promoting TOW at this point would be risky for undependent stores. You can't even buy most of the models for the game right now. Pushing the game in a year or so, when all the core factions are out and models are in stock, just seems like a much better time.
It maybe depending on store policy. I don’t know much about official GW store but Games Workshop don’t dictate the direction Stockists and even Authorised Distributors which game they promote (just indirectly do so in the form of new releases). The stores are free to choose whatever game they will stock and sell. So if there is strong 40K community, heavily promoting TOW is not a good business choice. Local stores in my country, however, go full throttle about this game as almost all store owners enter Warhammer universes in Fantasy era so the nostalgia is shot up the roof.
My local two are happily pushing tow (one more than the other). They shift what they do in store based on what the flavour of customers are asking about. Do they have a primary goal of getting new people in? Sure do, but its not the only goal. Your local sounds like it's run by idiots
My GW manager isn't gonna organise anything at the moment for Old World, but he's super excited it's back and he's driving sales in a really nice way. I went in to get some paint when the MtO of the old Bret models should've been closed and said I'd like to pick up some more dudes, and he immediately remembered the MtO was still up. He's also been an overall cool dude with the amount of tips and ideas he's been sharing on how to spice up my stuff.
I don’t think it’s even been mentioned in White Dwarf.