Forge World Releases/News etc.

That dragon and the rider look very bad,
The dragon pose, the skulls coming out from the skins the axe mug are all silly details

Dude, I experienced a very similar thing to my local GW store--
Their arrogance, their hubris, their haughtiness.

What I actually said was "If I pre-order, do I get a discount? Or any extra freebies"
They said "No"

I said "Well, I could just order it myself, online from GW.com, order in in my pajamas and have it delivered to my door"
They follow up with "If you did, you'd be a real dick" (at least that's how I took it)


I retort with, "I could buy this LotR Boxed Set for less money elsewhere... lower that you, lower than GW.com"
And they replied with some version of "Well if price makes that much of a difference to you, then you aren’t the sort of customer we are looking to market to"...

I actually laughed out loud.
I had my 3-year old daughter with me. I went 20 minutes out of my way (well, 2 ways, 40 minutes) to buy a box of GW product and some GW paint.
It's basic economics. Consumers have limited dollars and ever growing options on where to spend it. I feel no obligation to hand them my money.

I mean, after that point I started mentioned Reaper Minis, Bones, CMON, Old Glory, Kings of War, etc etc.
I bought my $57 worth of GW crap, but I don't think I am welcome back, FYI.

THAT ATTITUDE DRIVES ME AWAY QUICKLY.
Also, FYI it's easy for me to turn on "Dickhead Mode"

--Bitter 

I really like the proportions of the dragon. It looks properly bulky - strong and tough, without being chubby like the Magma Dragon. The High/Dark Elf dragons are cool but look a bit weedy for S/T/W 6 monsters. The Carmine Dragon is the only other modern GW one that I think got the proportions right (Zombie Wyvern doesn't count). Of course, none of them could fly without magic, but whatever. They're dragons.

I guess it wouldn't be hard to replace the rider with something more impressive, but when you're spending so much on a model, you don't want to be doing that.

Regardless, I hope it sells well enough for them to keep making fantasy monsters, particularly dragons.

I feel pretty bad for the managers of GW stores.  They aren't allowed to give prizes, incentives, or anything away to attract business or create loyal customers.  It's actually the opposite.  They don't want groups of guys hanging out in their stores.  That's why they have very limited space and only two game tables (once of which is usually covered up with display models.  They want return customers in and out since they will most likely be only getting one box and a few paints during each visit.  No, they want to cater to those young  new players looking to drop hundreds of Mommy and Daddy dollars trying to build up a new army and game.  THAT'S where they make their money, and the market that they're trying to cater to.  It's also why some managers, just won't give you the time of day.  They're not encouraged to take care of all customers (even basically told not to - to a degree) so they don't.  

I knew a GW manager who told me as much.  He was trying to help build local loyalty at his store (at the time) by hosting events, tournaments, holiday specials, etc., but stopped.  I noticed that he was "getting help" from regional managers soon after, and soon after he was "let go" and replaced with those same regional managers (they'd rotate weekly until they hired someone else), who'd rush you to find your stuff, purchase it, and then rushed you out the door.  VERY obvious that they didn't want me staying in there long (which seemed ridiculous to me since I was spending hundreds of dollars in the store weekly!).  I ran into that same manager weeks later at a local tournament and I asked him what happened.  He said that (aside from not really wanting to continue working for a company like that) they didn't like him giving any "extras" to customers and that he shouldn't be catering to that type of customer.  They told him to scout for young early teenagers, especially those with parents in tow.  Also, basically everything I wrote above.  He was rather bitter about it, and understandably so.  They were virtually tying his hands to help people who actually cared about his business.  It's really a shame.  That was about the time I stopped going to GW stores.  I pretty much only shop online now, and VERY RARELY from GW.  If they don't care about my loyalty, then I don't care if they're successful.  There will always be a company who produces miniatures and they don't support the game I want to pay anymore anyway.

But what mottdon is saying is that it goes both ways. If you don't appreciate customers, you lose customers. I am not sure you need to give away stuff for free to do that, but it is one way to build loyalty and showing it. I think it's more about showing appreciation. It can never be the customer's fault a store goes out of business.

All in all, this review of “It’s 2018, what do I think about the local GW store” exercise has made me realize on thing: I was super lucky as a kid.
Just so lucky. It’s all about the “Community”. It really is…

We had a local game store. Privately owned and operated. We started going there at age 10, 11ish. Magic the Gathering was the gateway drug in case anyone cares. Best guess, there were about 10 kids of varying degrees of interest and commitment to start with, all +/- a year or two from each other. we were almost all Middle Schoolers. By the time we were 12, 13 we had you know maybe $5 for mowing the lawn here and $20 for a birthday there… enough to contribute somewhat to the FLGS economy.

The local game store grew and prospered as much as something like that could. Mine was in a full blown - and at the time, very nice - mall (the new defunct Camillus Mall in case anyone cares). In addition to Magic the Gathering, Warahmmer, and 40K, they also made some bread and butter via comic books, action figures, and collectibles. This store remained open and essentially unchanged from 1994 to 2002. A golden 8 years that, in retrospect, mattered a whole hell of a lot to me.

I don’t have the space here to go on and on about how great this store was. They had a large gaming area. We were left mostly unsupervised to play huge sprawling games of Warhammer on 8ft x 4ft tables. The store had as many as 4 of those tables going at once. There was an older (lets says mid 20s) group that actually all chipped in to buy the lumber, screws, and paint to build these tables. It was so key to have both “Us”, the youngish but lovable (and oftentimes annoying) dweebs AND “Them”, the adult folks with paychecks and their own place and own car and so forth.

We could bring in food. The store had a cooler with cold beverages. A can of mountain Dew was $0.65, maybe up to $0.75 around 2000. What with inflation and all. We’d split Little Caesars (walking distance), we’d all combine for an order of Chinese Food. We weren’t slobs, we self-policed. If the room was left dirty, all involved would be read the riot act. We would work within ourselves to correct the slobbery. Like I said, we were in a mall which gave the option of walking 600 feet to a Burger King or even going and spending dollars at the arcade and/or Movie Theater. Spending even $1 on a non-GW product? Sacrilege, I know.

But, rewind to 1998. There weren’t 73 options for Fantasy Miniatures. There was GW/Warhammer and there were a bunch of smaller places that sold 1-of blister packs with 1 pewter miniature in them. Typically, these were meant as a RPG type character, not a unit. If you wanted good quality, unit-based, rank & file, 25mm scale fantasy miniatures in 1998, you had GW/ Warhammer. I can’t remember any good “Alternative” options. And even if there were, the concept of the time was a local stockist. You had available to purchase what the local store had in stock. There were not catalogs with 100’s of pages of pictures. There were not yet web pages with 1000’s of model images. More on this later. Pretty much, in 1998 if your local store has wall space dedicated to Reaper or Ral Partha or another alternative miniature range, that was cool. In fact, this type of offering led to me convincing my parents to drive over an hour to “Crazy Igors” in exchange for 1 month of doing the dishes.

It was a public store, in a nice mall. That was a big deal. Nonetheless, here’s a tidbit that’ll blow your mind: we left our miniatures in the store. Overnight. For weeks at a time. For months on end. If your stuff was “tabletop ready” you could keep it on one set of shelves. If you stuff was primed and barely base coated, you were related to the wooden shelves in back. If you have a certain miniature that was really well painted, you could be eligible to keep it in the store but in the glass well-lit highly visible display case. Looking back, it seems so unbelievable that I left my army of 200+ metal dwarfs and war machines out in the open like that, so to speak. They weren’t locked. Anyone could take them, I suppose. But I guess it was a different time… nah, not really? I think it boils down to the fact that we had a really good group of people that cared and helped and for the most part weren’t dirt bags.

We could stay late. I’m talking til midnight, which as a 14-year-old, was a big deal. The owner and the store employees were reasonable humans. My parents would pop in every 3 or 4 months and make sure there were no true degenerates hanging around. I mean, we had kids in black leather trench coats. We had a couple smelly kids from time to time. i.e. NeckBeards. Is that what we might call them today? Without getting too off topic, the hobby (and hobbies) mentioned tend to draw persons from certain social segments. Certain personas. We did not draw in the Starting Quarterback or Lead Cheerleader is what I am trying to say. But we did have a soccer player, a lacrosse player, a farmer, a nerd, a cowboy, a goth, and more. Fundamentally good kids with good morals.

In the interest of time, I’ll stop waxing nostalgic on our little community. It was a group of people in a place for a period of time. My memories may be over fond. I think the important part is that everyone contributed financially. We bought stuff from the store. We treated the store with respect. The store, in turn, allowed us some leniency.

If it was a known thing that you had purchased miniatures, you were more than welcome to come in and hang, play a 4-hour game, and make no purchase. There were no rules or even guidelines to that.
RE: Economics… I know me, for my part, I was 15 and had no bills of which to speak, and I worked two different part time jobs plus chores and chore-like-things in the summer (no proper allowance). Ex: Kitchen job, washing dishes, $70 take home pay a week, give or take… you know $50 of that went to Warhammer minis. Mow Gramma’s lawn, get $10, boom, 3 new pots of paint. I mean, disposable income is a really cool thing. Especially so as an adult with a family nowadays. Yaaaargh, they were carefree days.

RE: Economic Disruptors… It’s worth mentioning that all of this took place 1994 to 2002 before Amazon was such a prevailing force of purchasing. We didn’t have 73 options to BUY NOW. We had [Option 1] friendly local game store, and [2] GW Mail Order / Phone. The local stockist was loved. For what it’s worth, I have crystal clear memories of placing orders with GW Mail Order trolls and having to convince my mom that I could use her credit card for a $62 order and pay her cash right then and there to offset. The powers of Amazon et at are felt everywhere. Our hobby is just 1 of 100 industries that was impacted from 2001 on, continuing to the current moment (as I place an order at reapermini.com oooops).

I just wanted to say [in writing] that I appreciate that store and the people that made it possible for so many years. I hope one of them reads this. I’ve kept in touch with some of those folks. Some still play Warhammer. Some don’t. I wish I was in touch with more. I’d say once a month I start daydreaming about finding like 20 of the 30 people I know and trying to do a reunion of some sort.

TL; DR: I was super lucky as a kid. I love the Warhammer Fantasy setting and lore. I like the miniatures. I am agnostic to the rule set… they’re all pretty good and comparable to me. Eighth is good (as good as most others) and I am now part of a community playing 8th, EEFL. I couldn’t be any prouder. It’s all about the concept and the community.