Day @ Battle Bunker

Well spent the day at a GW today. Used a variation on the 1500 SW list for tourney I'm trying out because the staff were a bit uppity about proxying which I can understand and at the same time not... anywho list was:

Rune Priest w/Lightning & Hurricane

2x Dreadnoughts w/2x TL Autocannons

3x 10x Grey Hunters w/flamer, melta and Rhino

5x ISTs w/2x meltaguns

2x 1x Land Speeder w/MM and HF

Land Speeder Typhoon

2x Dakka Preds

3x LFs w/2 missile launchers

Only played one game (another SW list, hybrid) with a mate from out west who had come in, helped in another game and watched a few others. The game I played I won quite handily, the list had a lot of midfield firepower but I'm not sure if I could handle a true mech army with that list but might have a fiddle with it...

Onto the experience! It's been years since I've gone to a hobby store to play and many more since I've played at GW but it seems things haven't changed. It was great for my friends and I as we didn't need to go running around asking people questions on how to do things but I'd hate to be an aspiring gamer. As I mentioned earlier they didn't allow proxying (one kid tried to pull off a big banner the size of a cell phone as a hammerhead, I mean what?) which I compeltely understand for sales but at the same time, when your box sets are $50 AUD and up, I'm not going to buy something because I THINK it might be good. I know most of the time with some list testing and running battles through my head that I can tell whether a unit is going to be effective or not (a lot of people do it better) but a lot of people, particularly new guys, can't. So having armies out that others can play is a great way to cover up for that to encourage people to buy your products (and letting players use a couple models here and there) but please, please get the rules right.

Example: Beasts means you can fleet and charge 12". ICs have to be targetted in close combat before to hits are rolled unless with a retinue. AP1 affects the damage result, not the to pen result. Etc.

I know the GW staff try and show really quick examples of games to people or guys starting up but seriously? If I was new to the game and came in and watched what they were doing or asked them to take me through it. Wtf? Lost as a puppy.

In the end a lot of the kids there were simply coming up to our table to ask for rules simply because we didn't get a 10 minute speech on it. I don't know if they are told "you have to give silly fluffy reasons for why the rules are that way" but ya. High prices and scary staff would put a lot of people off.

This isn't a rage against GW prices btw (I dislike them but I get them cheaper elsewhere and they just get less money and customer support) or against their staff just you can see why there is so much forum raging and name calling online. The younger kids are going to believe the GW staff. For the most part the staff are adults and should know their product back to front. Whilst they are essentially sales staff having a 99% knowledge of the rules would be appreciated.

Ahem end "mini rant" :P. Again it was good fun, nice to use some terrain that was a bit different (though we still played on a cityfight board they were just more open than what I'm used to) and to see the types of armies some people are hanging out to dry outside of my locale. One army I really found amusing was a half decent IG army. He had some really good things in there backed up by infantry platoons w/Grenade launchers (no ACs? :() and everyone who played him was complaining to no end and saying his list was too tough to beat. Ugh. Versus a real IG list! Then complain when you get rolled. Now this kid from what I saw was a better tactican than the others (i.e. he knew what he had to kill and he killed it first) and their armies were never great (let's footslog across the board Marines!) but I'd love to borrow my friends IG when he updates and go back.

*drops 12+ AV12+ tanks and 70 infantry* This is an IG army lads.

=D

There was no real point to this post btw but my feet hurt.