Im opening a gaming store! Update 1

Hi

Yup, the plans are underway... now before I get the neighsayers telling me of the lack of profit etc, etc.. I already own a shop.. in the centre of a very busy market town... I have a full first floor empty (or at least I need to empty it!). It pretty much just needs painting/cleaning and a small counter making. Oh yeah and all the boards making etc. I already have all the shelving and display stuff... so Im pretty much set... or am I? I came to a crossroads, as I do have a budget to kick this off, a pretty small budget as it happens and I have made what in my mind is a brave (hopefully not stupid) decision not to stock GW. This for me is a difficult thing to do as Im trying to create a store in a way that I feel a GW should be.

Ok theres not a lot I can do about the price of the product all companies minis are expensive its just how it is. I'll offer a discount naturally, but what I want to do is sell the hobby and then hopefully the hobby will sell the product and customer loyalty to me. These days the GW alternatives are actually pretty good and by all accounts popular... with potential to reach out to new gamers or gamers already embroiled in the usual systems. Other company sculpts are no longer worse (lets be honest GW have had that in the bag for a long old time!) and Im not going to say better, because their is good and bad things about every range so to start saying all the products are so much better would be wrong.

I would have liked to have had the chance to stock some 40k stuff, but the way GW wholesale isnt as mainstream as usual distributors and I feel I would be tied to buying dead stock so I could reap the benefits of stocking their product. Now I could be wrong and I may change my mind, but for me to make the store into what I want my budget wont cover everything. It has come down to just GW or the other ranges, not both which is ideally what I wanted...

That said customers will be welcome to use the gaming boards, paint bar etc to paint GW products so actually it may not end up being such an anti establishment vibe...

Anyway here are my start pics... I have a lot of work to do so I will keep adding the pics to the blog.

I have enough room for 3-4 6x4 boards and 3-4 4x4 boards the paint/model bar is already installed... Im both nervous and excited by the venture. I have no competition for this in the town and unlikely to get any knowing how much rent is. I am in a unique position here I hope I can use it!

Winter is coming, time to dust off the Raven Guard!

Yello! whats poppin?

Well, I have been so distracted with Infinity that my Raven Guard have pretty much been ditched. I was looking at the pics last night and realised I had some nice Forge World stuff. Now I'm not going to lie, I watched a few 40K bat reps on Mini Wargaming last night, and, MAN, the game is SLOW, even when played at a fast pace! I hate the turn sequence, its so boring compared to the reaction based shooting in Infinity!! So the game is not drawing me in, and actually neither are the standard Marines... the models are meh compared to the magic that Corvus Belli can produce with metals. Unfortunately I'm a completionist and  I feel they are there at the back of my mind, constantly niggling me to get them done... so I think I'm going to blast on and get them shifted! I hopefully have a desert FAT mat arriving over the next week or so, so I may be able to talk someone into a game in the next month or so.

I want to try something out I saw on Beasts of  War... basically completely nicking the turn sequence off Bolt Action.You place tokens in a bag for the amount of units you have and randomly activate a unit once you have drawn it out of the bag. The units then complete the move shoot - or whatever the hell the sequences are now. I don't think it will alter the balance of the game and actually might make it more tactical. The bat reps I saw were pretty much rolling a lot of dice!! I haven't actually played since 5th ed and only tried 6th once and I found it to be totally bogged down with rules.. We shall see. 

Oh a quick tip on standard Marines, to make them look more anatomically correct use a small amount of green stuff to create a spacer for the abdomen off the legs and the same for the helmet... only needs a few mm but it takes that squashed look away... it looks better IMO...

Infinity, I'm almost fully painted and can whack paint jobs together as I need them now without to much bother. I have a Pan 0 force, but I'm going to wait until next year before I set to on that. My Combined army including the Morats can be added to and painted as and when. 

So updates soon...!

EDIT***

I have been digging around my cupboard and I think I have decided, Im not going to concentrate efforts in one area, instead do a little of everything. So this week im planning to get a couple of Raven Guard donw, and some Pan Oceania glued up... thats the plan...