Land Rights

One of the painting projects I have ongoing is a Warlord Imperial Roman Starter Army, that I picked up for a song, as their apparent deal with Boyes was not a success.

Here's the Auxilleries...

They are slightly more than half finished. The wood needs doing, and the metal needs highlighting and a few bits of detail work need attention. And obviously the transfers need to be applied to the shields.

But it's eye candy....

Anywho...

Before Christmas the missus was shopping for toys for the kids. The oldest wanted Hobbit Lego. Upon her return the missus observed that it was a pity he was not older because the Hobbit starter game was ten quid cheaper than the Lego.

I mention this because I noticed this thread on Warsneer. The main discussion of the thread concerned changes to the Games Workshop branch in Cambridge which meant that people can't generally hang about the shop - I am sure people are aware of the specifics of this policy, and if you are not the link will fill you in.

The thread was full of the expected interweb memes about GW only wanting to recruit new gamers, and not caring about the 'vets', and all of the side arguments surrounding this, with the expected general level of whinging one comes to expect from an interweb discussion about GW - one needs a heart of stone not to laugh when reading such material.

What interested me was the intervention of Rachelbraund, who apparently signed up just to make this point...

"Speaking as a mother to a 12 year old boy that visits the cambridge store i am glad of these changes.
Having witnessed these groups of older players in the store they clearly make the younger players feel uncomfortable including my son, also when lessons are being taught the older players feel the need to interupt and take time away from the lessons for the younger ones learning.
I was concerned how these changes would effect my son but having spoken to the new manager/staff they have made it clear they are already in the process of setting up clubs within the schools and local community. Some people on here need to concentrate more on supporting the store to do this rather then spend the entire time complaining and causing problems.
Having seen some comments on here from people and them saying they will not visit the store again this actually makes me happier to let my son go to these clubs as I would not be comfortable with the idea of him mixing with those types of people. Im glad my son showed me this website and he is smart enough to make up his own mind and know that change isnt always bad."

Now obviously this sort of thing will inflame the nerd-rage of those who hate the 'Little Timmy's', and the parents of 'Little Timmy's' spending their money on 'Little Timmy's' toys, but she does have a point, and from a business standpoint so do GW.

Not least with regard to the issue of child protection. In the words of Adam from the, apparently now defunct, No Gaming in Mississippi podcast, 'would you let one of your gamer buddies babysit your kids?' And hence why there is the whole issue of criminal record checks for people looking to join the GCN, if the intention is to allow under 16's to play at the club.

Now obviously, for reasons of libel, slander, and customer relations GW cannot go around accusing it's customers of being peados, or demand that they have a criminal records check prior to entering their shops when children are present, and so they have adopted the policy of encouraging parents to shop in store at full price (with the additional bonus of raking in the cash with the baby sitting service of the Summer School), and potential peadophiles to join clubs and buy from discount retailers on line (though in fairness they could do more to support and promote the clubs).

Which seems to be a good solution for everyone.... you would have thought...

Speaking of people cluttering up the painting table, talking overloudly of unit nerfing and high prices, and insisting that the rules must be played precisely to the latest FAQ, I listened to an interview with some ex-Outriders on the Second Founding podcast.

Now I have no idea how old these people are, but they sounded really, really old.

And when they started complaining about how the skill had gone out the game with the advent of pre-measuring and doing away with the 'skill' of guessing ranges, I figured that they had obviously been skimping on their pension by eating cat food (known in the UK as Waitrose pork and beef meatballs ;)).

However the part of the interview that really had me laughing was when, without seeing the irony, they slipped into the anti-British thing that is the kneejerk reaction of Know Nothing jingoists. According to them, GW went out of it's way to exclude Americans from the decision making process, and they never liked the American style of play, or that Americans broke their rules (and presumably are the best at the game).

Now obviously I run the risk of a drone strike at this point, the rules being different for foreign nationals as president George W Obama recently made clear when addressing the issue of drone strikes on American soil, but would that be the American wargaming culture that gave the world hordes of grey plastic in 'ardboy events? Or introduced rape and fluff, into the language of toysoldiers? That insists .that any deviation from the rules, or the proscribed scenarios, is heresy? That only winning matters?

Now I know that these grognards were not promoting the consumerist culture of grey plastic nihilism, as they made clear painting and modeling was very much part of their hobby. But, I found their bitterness odd.

And they certainly had that streak of conformity, they didn't miss a meme, so prevalent in the land of 'free' (unless you want to die in mysterious circumstances with an AR15 at your side) .

A conformity which the modern corporate GW does not have - though curiously the early GW did have, and which it's various offshoots, Warlord, Mantic, etc have in spades.

peace:)