This is just too funny not to share:


From Natfka at Faeit 212:

"US Customs turned back all of the Games Workshop folks. Someone mentioned 'working a convention' and they didn't have work visas"

While the source is solid, I have no additional information or confirmations. I would imagine it was figured out, and the GW guys got there.

Things like this happen, its called.... life.


Updates: Also I cannot verify the info here in this update. I know that these kinds of things happen though. Travel can be difficult and tedious at times. I know it stresses my family out when we travel to Edmonton every year, but it's the trip back that to the US, not into Canada that causes stress.

The worst is when they pulled my then 2 1/2 year old over and checked him for bomb residue. (pockets, hands, etc). While that is bad in itself, since he refused as only a toddler can, and caused a huge scene, the biggest problem is that the scanners they were using to swab his hands and clothing were apparently new and no one knew how to use them. We had to wait for a manager to come over, and eventually just pass us through.

I also recall that while following the instructions of the agent telling me to put it through the scanner, my wallet got ahead of me, and separated from me. Took us almost 3 hours to get through security.


Here is the Update
via another source today
Someone at head office messed up the visa application, rather than travelling on a Business Visitor Visa they travelled to the US on a Holiday Visa. Not only were they denied entry, they were immediately deported back to the the UK and will not be able to travel to the US for a while. If they can get a team together in time there will be US staff at Gencon drafted in as emergency cover instead of the dedicated team that are meant to be touring the conventions.

Guess they follow the rules the same as they write them

There is a huge AoS display there, who set that up then?

So wait, is GW so cheap that they didn't want to pony up for a work visa?

 Ferrum_Sanguinis wrote:
So wait, is GW so cheap that they didn't want to pony up for a work visa?

Do you actually think they're that stupid? Someone fethed up.

 Mymearan wrote:


Do you actually think they're that stupid?

This is the same company that is PROUD of the fact that they do no market research and have no idea what its customers want.

So yes, I do believe they are that cheap and stupid.

It absolutely wouldn't surprise me if someone at HO went "Well it's only a convention, it shouldn't need a *work* visa"

Remember that this is the same GW that does almost no advertising outside its own stores, doesn't do market research, forgets to actually make sure it has the rights to artwork it claims copyright on and up until relatively recently had no presence at all in conventions outside Games Day, it is completely believable that they cheapskated on the visas

Maybe the real reason that GW have frozen salaries is things like this

It's their first time, so a little bit more sympathy would be nice......

But you know, AoS is not about playing games but telling stories. So they have the best story at the Con now.

 kodos wrote:
It's their first time, so a little bit more sympathy would be nice......

They are a multi million £ international company and a self proclaimed industry leader; professionalism is expected. Its not as if they don't already have a US branch.......

It's not like they don't have another sales division that seems capable of handling international visas on a yearly basis.....Forge World are at GenCon, did they get through all right?

As someone who has had close friends who have fallen victim to some of the mini-hitlers you seem to get working in border control, I have a lot of sympathy for the people this happened to.

Interesting if they now have a dedicated team for touring conventions, that was absolutely nonsensical that they weren't doing that kind of thing. Wonder if they are planning on doing some of the bigger EU shows, or if it's just for the AoS launch period?

It's absolutely amazing how GW repeatedly keeps failing as a business.

 kodos wrote:

But you know, AoS is not about playing games but telling stories. So they have the best story at the Con now.

Yeah, they're forging a narrative here, hard ...

 Pacific wrote:
As someone who has had close friends who have fallen victim to some of the mini-hitlers you seem to get working in border control, I have a lot of sympathy for the people this happened to.

Surprisingly, if you inform yourself beforehand and bring everything you are supposed to bring, you run into little to no problems. Weird, huh?

 Ferrum_Sanguinis wrote:

 Mymearan wrote:


Do you actually think they're that stupid?

This is the same company that is PROUD of the fact that they do no market research and have no idea what its customers want.

So yes, I do believe they are that cheap and stupid.

GW do a tonne of market research, the kind the makes people feel like they've been taken advantage of when they find out about it, so publicly, they say we don't do market research. But they do.

Well at least we know that their lawyer team that protected their IP still works in some capacity at hq, I just didn't know they had a travel coordinator

I am pretty certain that if they arrived for a conference, they didn't need a visa, under the Visa Waiver program.

You need Visas for some work, including mine, which I have. It's a ludicrous process. But a quick look at their site indicates Business Conferences are covered by the Visa Waiver. And yes, I've had friends thrown out for no real reason by some Immigration Hitlers.

In some locations in the US, it's like traveling into some bizarre African or Kafka-esque regime, dealing with uniformed officials who've never left their home state in their life.

The guy who deported them probably ended up being the guy who burned all his war hammer stuff :p

The Division Of Joy wrote:
There is a huge AoS display there, who set that up then?

The US GW team had a stall at GenCon last year and presumably are running it again this year.

 Pacific wrote:
As someone who has had close friends who have fallen victim to some of the mini-hitlers you seem to get working in border control, I have a lot of sympathy for the people this happened to.

According to the US government website, if you're attending a US convention/trade show in which you are involved with an exhibit and are being paid a salary by a non-US company then you need a B-1 visa.

 kodos wrote:
It's their first time, so a little bit more sympathy would be nice......

But you know, AoS is not about playing games but telling stories. So they have the best story at the Con now.

Exalted for distilled win.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

nagash42 wrote:
The guy who deported them probably ended up being the guy who burned all his war hammer stuff :p

That would be some poetical justice right there...

Charax wrote:
It absolutely wouldn't surprise me if someone at HO went "Well it's only a convention, it shouldn't need a *work* visa"

Remember that this is the same GW that does almost no advertising outside its own stores, doesn't do market research, forgets to actually make sure it has the rights to artwork it claims copyright on and up until relatively recently had no presence at all in conventions outside Games Day, it is completely believable that they cheapskated on the visas

Actually, this isn't quite true. GW DOES attend conventions. They've been attending the NY International Toy Fair for the past several years. So, they should've already known that they needed those work visas.

I don't think there's any reason to mock these guys, they're probably already embarrassed enough... these are just some regular dudes who got thrown out of the country and probably a secretary who made a mistake when planning the trip. Try to stay classy guys.

So.. wait?

Two different sources.

One at a US airport listening in on the conversation between GW staff arriving and the US border guys?

Another source in Nottingham HQ, hearing a confession from a travel person in the company?

Those are some serious inside connections right there.

Unfortunately, the “leak”, if it exists, should be pinned down ridiculously easy with this. How could more than .. uh .. 5 people in the world know the conversation going on between a GW guy and US security guy at the immigration booth and have a chat with the GW office assistant doing travel for these guys?

 Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:
I am pretty certain that if they arrived for a conference, they didn't need a visa, under the Visa Waiver program.

That was what I was thinking.

I have done this exact same trip (Heathrow to Gen Con) for Mongoose many times, have been very open to the border guard why I was there, and never had an issue going into the US as a tourist. True, you get treated like a criminal when you go to the US as a non-citizen these days, but aside from that, no issues.

Maybe someone tried to be smart with the border guard?

On the other hand, I presume all/most of the GW staff got shipped over there in cattle class, so I have a lot of sympathy for them. Not a nice trip.

The US government site, under the B-1 visa definition, states that if a country participates in the Visa Waiver program, a visa is not required:

http://london.usembassy.gov/niv/b1apply.html


Look at the bottom para. I've done this, and not needed a Visa, altho I have an i-Visa now for media work, which is slightly different.

I love seeing the display of ignorance here, combined with superiority re GW, it's always entertaining But go on, side with the little Hitlers if it makes you happy!

 Ferrum_Sanguinis wrote:
So wait, is GW so cheap that they didn't want to pony up for a work visa?

Work visas like this don't cost anything, and take all of 30 seconds to apply for via the ETSA (ESTA?) program.

Worse is that the FW guys managed it fine, and GW has been sending people over to the US to work for decades. I really don't understand how a company this big can feth it up so spectacularly.

From what I can tell you don't need a visa but you must register your trip with ESTA ( http://london.usembassy.gov/dhs/esta_info.html ). And that was probably what was missing and the reason they were denied entry to the US. Some people still call the ESTA registration "visa", even though it isn't actually one - it's just what replaces the visa.

*edit* Another possibility is that the ESTA registration wasn't filled out correctly (e.g. called the trip a holiday in ESTA but then talking about working during the quick interview)

Herzlos wrote:

 Ferrum_Sanguinis wrote:
So wait, is GW so cheap that they didn't want to pony up for a work visa?

Work visas like this don't cost anything, and take all of 30 seconds to apply for via the ETSA (ESTA?) program.

Worse is that the FW guys managed it fine, and GW has been sending people over to the US to work for decades. I really don't understand how a company this big can feth it up so spectacularly.

It's not free, but the fee is VERY low, less than $50 IIRC. Considering how much flights from Europe to America cost, the fee is clearly not an issue - if it was, you wouldn't travel anyway. Must'Ve been someone new who messed it up.

I would not be surprised if this is a made up rumour

I would not be surprised if it's real but the border guard involved was just having a bad day and decided to be a git without any real legal justification

I would not be surprised if somebody in GW admin messed up and told the team they needed paper work X instead of Y

 Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:
) But go on, side with the little Hitlers if it makes you happy!

Stopping with the whole equating a genocidal maniac with some guy whose job involves processing people through border security is what would make me happy.. ..

nekooni wrote:
From what I can tell you don't need a visa but you must register your trip with ESTA ( http://london.usembassy.gov/dhs/esta_info.html ). And that was probably what was missing and the reason they were denied entry to the US. Some people still call the ESTA registration "visa", even though it isn't actually one - it's just what replaces the visa.

A reasonable theory, but it does not match the conversation that Natfka’s inside sources at the US immigration booth overheard.

Thing is, they don't need Visas, assuming they came from the UK they are covered by the VWP, Visa Waiver Program.

Maybe some official got the wrong end of the stick is all.

Well the requirement information is on the website, and some of us have travelled for conferences before.

I forgot there was a charge, as it was something trivial, certainly not worth cheaping out on.

I suspect no-one told them they needed to do it, or the left it too late, filled out the form on the plane saying it was a holiday and then when the immigration officer asked them the purpose of the visit they said they were working at a convention. On a tourist visa waiver that an automatic deport.

Worse is they will not be eligible for the waiver for a while either, if they aren't banned outright.

I also heard about this from another source before it went up on Faeit, so I reckon it probably is true, or at least in part.

I was told the GW guys at customs just said all the wrong things so I suspect it was either a miscommunication or they knew their paperwork was not correct and had been coached what to say but didn't.

I wasn't aware they had been deported, I was told they were held up for so long that 3 guys had to set up a massive display on their own at the last minute which was a bit of a nightmare.

I am very surprised by this though, this is not the sort of mistake GW would normally make so I do think this was an unusual incident but it is really embarrassing and GW have banging on about heavily pushing AoS at major conventions all over the world.

To miss Gencon is a big deal.

I cannot understand however why they would be sending staff from the UK when they have more than enough staff in the US unless these were studio staff or UK head office staff. If that's the case it really is a balls up.

 Sigvatr wrote:

 Pacific wrote:
As someone who has had close friends who have fallen victim to some of the mini- you seem to get working in border control, I have a lot of sympathy for the people this happened to.

Surprisingly, if you inform yourself beforehand and bring everything you are supposed to bring, you run into little to no problems. Weird, huh?

i wish this were true...
i am American, and every time i come back to my own country it is a massive hassle...
immigration does everything they can to try and turn me away, and have done for the last 20 years...
i don't know if it simply the way i look, or if they suspect i am always up to no good, but they sure don't let me straight back in, and i'm a citizen with an American passport...
things usually end up getting pretty heated at customs...
those guys can be real jerks...

as someone who has been deported from a couple of countries, i can tell you that there is no talking your way out of any small mistake...
once the officials have anything to go on, they love doing their job...
saying the wrong thing, having the wrong papers, or even having stayed one day over a visa on a previous visit gets jumped on real quick...

at least these guys will have a good story, if this is true...
i know i have gotten a lot of milage out of my deportation stories...

cheers
jah

I travel from the UK to the US a lot for scientific conferences, and getting an ESTA is very very easy - it takes a few minutes, can be done almost up to the point that you leave for the airport, and costs very little. This is really quite a silly mistake to make.

In order of likelyhood:

1) Natkfa pulling stuff out of his rear for his tabloid

2) Border guy power-tripping

3) GW paperwor screwup

It seems the oft touted GW maxim of "We hire for attitude and not skill" seems to apply to both parties here.

Looking at the status of their dirty ugly booth compared with their competitors...they had a lot of problems

any pictures of the GW stand from Gen Con going about? Unusual that so many are sitting on their hands with such a chance to show up GW.

Charax wrote:
It absolutely wouldn't surprise me if someone at HO went "Well it's only a convention, it shouldn't need a *work* visa"

Remember that this is the same GW that does almost no advertising outside its own stores, doesn't do market research, forgets to actually make sure it has the rights to artwork it claims copyright on and up until relatively recently had no presence at all in conventions outside Games Day, it is completely believable that they cheapskated on the visas

And don't forget - the same GW whose Head of IP doesn't actually know what copyright is.

 Rick_1138 wrote:
any pictures of the GW stand from Gen Con going about? Unusual that so many are sitting on their hands with such a chance to show up GW.

Torn between sympathy for the poor mugs who flew across the atlantic only to be sent back in such a humiliating and probably stressful way, and amusement at the discomfiture of the GW high management, who I dislike.

That dude on the right. The 70s metal band you stole your mutton chops is calling and wants them back.

I had to write a letter of apology when I entered Japan to work years ago because someone in the Japanese embassy in Korea spilled something on one corner of the document. Immigration in Tokyo finally let me through after sitting in a holding area for several hours and two meetings about it. So yes, immigration in any country can be tedious, even when you have proper paperwork.

Not to worry. GW can always pull all the extra staff from local stores within 100miles and cover the CON

But I could see them trying to exain exactly what they were coming to the U.S. for and say something along the lines of "teaching war tactics" and the border guard thinking "terrorist"

Sounds to me like GW was finally treated the same way they treat their customer base. No sympathy for them.
@reds8nt. In that picture it looks like the GW backdrop display is falling down. Is it designed that way or falling apart?

I wonder if they offered to just d6 it with the immigration official when they couldn't come to an agreement...

It seems that they should have hired for skill not attitude in the corporate travel department amongst others.

 reds8n wrote:

 Rick_1138 wrote:
any pictures of the GW stand from Gen Con going about? Unusual that so many are sitting on their hands with such a chance to show up GW.

Thats actually quite sad, falling down rack, a tiny booth, AoS to the exclusion of all else, game encased in perspex case and a rather unprofessional looking rep.

All in all, probably not what GW wanted to do after fanfare of bigger attendance.

Shows you how serious US immigration takes stuff, and are well within their rights to go 'tough titty' and send thm back on the plane they came on.

Bet thats going to be a fun debrief.


EDIT: Looking at this more, why are folk saying that GW weren't alllowed to get into US, as that appears to be a lot of stuff already there and a GW staff member.

Is it just a few key staff guys got stopped or is this a rumour thats growing arms and legs and is in fact not true??

 warboss wrote:
I wonder if they offered to just d6 it with the immigration official when they couldn't come to an agreement...

It seems that they should have hired for skill not attitude in the corporate travel department amongst others.

You don't actually need to know the immigration laws when travelling to the US, right? I mean, they were probably just written to prevent people stealing hogs from one another (and fleeing with them to another country).

PhantomViper wrote:

 warboss wrote:
I wonder if they offered to just d6 it with the immigration official when they couldn't come to an agreement...

It seems that they should have hired for skill not attitude in the corporate travel department amongst others.

You don't actually need to know the immigration laws when travelling to the US, right? I mean, they were probably just written to prevent people stealing hogs from one another (and fleeing with them to another country).

Have an exalt for the Kirby dig.

Its true but you didn't have to join just to point that out. There's loads of other things to post about too. Welcome!

wow, he was deleted before I had finished typing! :-S


It's seems GW isn't the only people to get rough treatment by US customs today;

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-33731489

Perhaps they also got felt up by an over zealous officer and turned back voluntarily?

 Rick_1138 wrote:

 reds8n wrote:

 Rick_1138 wrote:
any pictures of the GW stand from Gen Con going about? Unusual that so many are sitting on their hands with such a chance to show up GW.

Thats actually quite sad, falling down rack, a tiny booth, AoS to the exclusion of all else, game encased in perspex case and a rather unprofessional looking rep.

All in all, probably not what GW wanted to do after fanfare of bigger attendance.

Shows you how serious US immigration takes stuff, and are well within their rights to go 'tough titty' and send thm back on the plane they came on.

Bet thats going to be a fun debrief.


EDIT: Looking at this more, why are folk saying that GW weren't alllowed to get into US, as that appears to be a lot of stuff already there and a GW staff member.

Is it just a few key staff guys got stopped or is this a rumour thats growing arms and legs and is in fact not true??

GW has staff in the US. They also had AoS stuff for the launch.

 Rick_1138 wrote:


EDIT: Looking at this more, why are folk saying that GW weren't alllowed to get into US, as that appears to be a lot of stuff already there and a GW staff member.

The staff there are apparently American, and the staff yesterday were from FW.

So it sounds as if the UK staff failed to turn up, FW covered for them whilst they brought in some US staff to cover properly.

Hopefully they had some briefing beforehand, and at least the stuff was already in the US.

Maybe reading actual rules would help them write better ones?

That makes more sense. So the stand we see in pics IS the stand that GW are taking to Gen Con, does seem a tad small, and tbh, VERY AoS centric.

But its their rodeo

MongooseMatt wrote:

 Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:
I am pretty certain that if they arrived for a conference, they didn't need a visa, under the Visa Waiver program.

That was what I was thinking.

Gen-Con isn't a business conference. It's a trade show, at best.

Business conferences are not things that sell tickets to the general public, and where you're trying to sell or advertise stuff.

Though, that's immaterial. The travel people at GW probably just didn't have all their ducks in a row.

 MWHistorian wrote:
Maybe reading actual rules would help them write better ones?

narrative forged

 Rick_1138 wrote:
That makes more sense. So the stand we see in pics IS the stand that GW are taking to Gen Con, does seem a tad small, and tbh, VERY AoS centric.

But its their rodeo

Well, yeah?

AoS is "the big thing" this summer. People know how to play 40k and The Hobbit, the stockists know what products they have, etc.

AoS is an unknown quantity as of right now.

God, GW is so Incompetent. Not the first time embarrassing stuff like this has happened.

Saldiven wrote:
The travel people at GW probably just didn't have all their ducks in a row.

Which is a little wild since the FW people apparently made it....

This silliness is exactly why GW needs to actually be on social media - to either dismiss things like this with a simple "I assure you, we're still rolling dice at GenCon", or take it in stride, "Well, customs doesn't want to let Khorne into the country".

Their lack of any outward facing social media other than a fantastic painting personality on youtube, helps spur the toxicity towards them. :/

So im kinda confused about the FW/GW relationship. Both seem to do their own thing and seem to have completely different styles for selling and marketing. So is FW actually run and governed by GW? or is it just a thing where GW labels their name on something and give them freewill?

Forgeworld seems to have most of their gak together.

FW = GW. They're just set up to deal with the more veteran side of GWs universes.

I believe Tony Cottrell is still at the helm of Forgeworld, and tells GW main where to get off now and then. It's certainly been mentioned to me in the past that there were (and presumably still are) occasional... differences of opinion, and clashes of planning.
As it's a division that is both publicly very popular and (IIRC) reasonably profitable in its own right, messing with it too much is difficult.
It's hard to say exactly why FW is so popular - the models are nice designs, sure, but the quality is sometimes spotty. (Yes, their service is excellent and they will make sure you eventually get models that are to the standard you want). However (and I think this is a major point in how this market works), there is a definite impression that they all LOVE what they do. Everyone knows Tony's a complete and utter treadhead. He can't hide it - and he doesn't attempt to. You can't read an Imperial Armour book and not be grabbed by *something*. There's a lot to be said for this cult of personality and sheer enthusiasm in appealing to niche markets. Especially when those personalities do their best to actually show you what they like, what they're working on and so forth. GW used to be like this way back when, but they're lost. And damned, it appears.

http://www.beastsofwar.com/eventslist/gen-con-2015-live-blog/

GW at GenCon selling Age of Sigmar...

 jah-joshua wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:

 Pacific wrote:
As someone who has had close friends who have fallen victim to some of the mini- you seem to get working in border control, I have a lot of sympathy for the people this happened to.

Surprisingly, if you inform yourself beforehand and bring everything you are supposed to bring, you run into little to no problems. Weird, huh?

i wish this were true...
i am American, and every time i come back to my own country it is a massive hassle...
immigration does everything they can to try and turn me away, and have done for the last 20 years...
i don't know if it simply the way i look, or if they suspect i am always up to no good, but they sure don't let me straight back in, and i'm a citizen with an American passport...
things usually end up getting pretty heated at customs...
those guys can be real jerks...

as someone who has been deported from a couple of countries, i can tell you that there is no talking your way out of any small mistake...
once the officials have anything to go on, they love doing their job...
saying the wrong thing, having the wrong papers, or even having stayed one day over a visa on a previous visit gets jumped on real quick...

at least these guys will have a good story, if this is true...
i know i have gotten a lot of milage out of my deportation stories...

cheers
jah

Feel for you about this and agree 100%, from personal experience. Maybe saying 'little hitlers' is a bit strong, what I will say is that the guys you get in history putting on brown shirts and smashing shop windows under orders seems to be the same kind of people you seem to get working in border security, at least here in the UK.

That's what happens when the goverment throws £4 billion at something in a knee-jerk bit of politicking, without really conceptualising what the money is used for other than 'get results'.

End result is that you get situations like with a friend of mine who, visiting the UK (and despite having the correct visa) can get stopped and locked alone in a room for 6 hours with no contact allowed with the outside, cold, hungry and scared, and with me having to practically beg to some bitch to let her into the country (completely this person's decision, who was able to detain anyone they saw fit with no grounds other than 'suspicion'). Obviously a female 30-something, 5'2" teacher with a cello is in the 'high risk' category.

What's hilarious is that years ago I got stopped from going into China (without the correct visa) and was treated that much better. I was even given a cup of tea while the one person they had there that spoke a few lines of English explained everything to me. And to think we are meant to be a bastion of liberty, it boggles the fething mind.

 notprop wrote:
FW = GW. They're just set up to deal with the more veteran side of GWs universes.

And with US customs as well, apparently.

FW has for the longest time done conventions on their own across Europe and the like. So chances are each division of the company looks to its own travelling arrangements.

 Qcbob wrote:
http://www.beastsofwar.com/eventslist/gen-con-2015-live-blog/

GW at GenCon selling Age of Sigmar...

How dare you post a link to a site where they don't say anything negative about GW's booth or how their staff doesn't look professional! That's just crazy!

winterdyne wrote:
I believe Tony Cottrell is still at the helm of Forgeworld, and tells GW main where to get off now and then. It's certainly been mentioned to me in the past that there were (and presumably still are) occasional... differences of opinion, and clashes of planning.
As it's a division that is both publicly very popular and (IIRC) reasonably profitable in its own right, messing with it too much is difficult.
It's hard to say exactly why FW is so popular - the models are nice designs, sure, but the quality is sometimes spotty. (Yes, their service is excellent and they will make sure you eventually get models that are to the standard you want). However (and I think this is a major point in how this market works), there is a definite impression that they all LOVE what they do. Everyone knows Tony's a complete and utter treadhead. He can't hide it - and he doesn't attempt to. You can't read an Imperial Armour book and not be grabbed by *something*. There's a lot to be said for this cult of personality and sheer enthusiasm in appealing to niche markets. Especially when those personalities do their best to actually show you what they like, what they're working on and so forth. GW used to be like this way back when, but they're lost. And damned, it appears.

Most of the personalities have been weeded out of GW which seems to be the way they like it. The design studio is just faceless to me now rather than having the run by hobbyists-you'd-like-to-meet feel.


I'd chalk this up to poor organisation. Someone at GW just didn't think you need work Visas for a convention. Years ago one of my dad's friends worked on the GW novel range and was to attend a weekend convention with a huge stock of their latest books. The stock didn't arrive until the Sunday evening or Monday morning when it was as good as over, not sure who was to blame, GW or Boxtree. They ended up handing the stuff out free or abandoning it because provision wasn't made for 100% stock return.

Oh cmon guys. The TSA are fethheads but,if you do your research, respect foreign customs (in this case ours,) and do your research it is easy.

I mean they already have a U.S branch. All they should have needed was a work, B-1 visas, or... kept their mouth shut and just used a tourist one.

Edit: Now that I have had my coffee, pretty sure our tea-loving father of a country likes us enough to have a waiver program.

Does anyone else find it weird that in this instance people have decided that anything from Natfka must be the gospel truth?

Natfka says something about a rules rumour and it has to be taken with a mountain sized pile of salt, but as long as it's possibly embarrassing to GW then it's absolutely fine and must be 100% true, even though there's evidence to the contrary in the form of them actually being at Gen-Con.

 Goliath wrote:
Does anyone else find it weird that in this instance people have decided that anything from Natfka must be the gospel truth?

Natfka says something about a rules rumour and it has to be taken with a mountain sized pile of salt, but as long as it's possibly embarrassing to GW then it's absolutely fine and must be 100% true, even though there's evidence to the contrary in the form of them actually being at Gen-Con.

The British GW staff is at GenCon?

As amusing as the irony would be, I think Blackfang has it right.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
In order of likelyhood:

1) Natkfa pulling stuff out of his rear for his tabloid

2) Border guy power-tripping

3) GW paperwor screwup

Is this really news? GW are at gencon. Who cares about who did or didn't make it through customs

Honestly I don't really believe this rumor but, this is from the same company that brags about no research and royally messed up with chapterhouse.

Then again thanks for pointing out it is Natfka. That guy has always rubbed me wrong for some reason.

 Stormwall wrote:
Honestly I don't really believe this rumor but, this is from the same company that brags about no research and royally messed up with chapterhouse.

Then again thanks for pointing out it is Natfka. That guy has always rubbed me wrong for some reason.

Yeah their boasts about market research and their legal case with CHS don't have any relevance to their travel arrangements unless I'm missing something

PhantomViper wrote:


The British GW staff is at GenCon?

- Was there British Non-FW staff at GenCon last year?
- Why would they fly/paperwork separate to the British FW staff present?
- Did somebody ask the guys for their nationality?
- Why is the burden of proof on GW, showing Natfka is making gak up, rather than the other way around?

 Bull0 wrote:

Yeah their boasts about market research and their legal case with CHS don't have any relevance to their travel arrangements unless I'm missing something

Merely evidence of institutional incompetence.

 Silent Puffin? wrote:

 Bull0 wrote:

Yeah their boasts about market research and their legal case with CHS don't have any relevance to their travel arrangements unless I'm missing something

Merely evidence of institutional incompetence.

Yeah, because HR make all the legal and commercial decisions in addition to making travel arrangements

GW has been on a cost cutting spree when it comes to administration over the last couple years. The person who organized tthe trip probably had the task dumped on them in addition to their day to day job. Anyone who's been at an office with tons of layoffs knows what it's like.

Also remember that GW made an author and game designer head of intellectual property. A guy with zero legal experience or training. So yeah, definitely institutional incompetence combined with greedy cost cutting of admin (and salary freezes don't help with morale either). I'm not surprised cracks can start to show in such a situation.

 Bull0 wrote:

Yeah, because HR make all the legal and commercial decisions in addition to making travel arrangements

You are aware of what institutional means in this context?

Well, they certainly forged a narrative there.

This kind of stuff happens - most likely the person doing the job hadn't done it before, and screwed up.

Forge World likely had somebody on the job that has done it before - knows to dot the i and cross the t.

It seemed simple, so the new guy just didn't look to see what was really needed - likely didn't know that anything was needed.

I've seen this kind of thing happen before, even with just the US/Canada Border.

They'll know better next time, and in the meantime... will probably just call in somebody stateside to handle it for them.

The Auld Grump

 Stormwall wrote:
Oh cmon guys. The TSA are fethheads but,if you do your research, respect foreign customs (in this case ours,) and do your research it is easy.

I mean they already have a U.S branch. All they should have needed was a work, B-1 visas, or... kept their mouth shut and just used a tourist one.

Edit: Now that I have had my coffee, pretty sure our tea-loving father of a country likes us enough to have a waiver program.

I don't know, they can get touchy about really random stuff. I have traveled abroad for academic conventions and had to be really careful about what I say about "presenting", as in "I am talking about a paper I wrote in front of some folks". They want to know that you are not being paid, and not selling anything, and get really sharp eyed as soon as anything remotely to the contrary comes up. This on the outgoing and incoming (home) side of the deal. Some of the officials are really cool, and some are just nuts, like "the rules here are different from every one of the other 25 American airports you have passed through in the past year" nuts.

There is a lot that can go wrong, especially if you are offering information that gets the officials confused because you don't know what they are looking for.

I got deported from Canada for doing work without a proper visa. (I just had a standard passport) The company I used to work for did electrical inspections for industrial facilities and I was up in Montreal, one of the employees was cheesed off that there were dirty english speakers working in the plant, (filthy american english speakers no less) so he called up whoever it is that's like the Canadian INS and had us arrested. He made a big scene about it and was boasting to all the other employees about it, most of which were basically facepalming like wtf since the company we worked for is Canadian owned and we were just part of a US branch.

We'd already finished our work and were about to head back to the airport, so we were escorted by the police and had to stay in the airports holding cell for 3 hours while we waited for our flight, we weren't allowed to sit in the terminal to wait and were escorted onto the plane in hand cuffs. As part of the "generous condition of our release" I wasn't allowed to re-enter Canada for 7 years, not really a big loss eh?

In GW's case its likely somebody with a grudge called it in, or somebody answered wrong at customs when they were asked why they were here could have said to "work" a convention, because if there's one thing both Canada and the US hates is dirty foreigners "takin' err jobs!"

Work is apparently a dirty word round these parts.

 Fishboy wrote:
Sounds to me like GW was finally treated the same way they treat their customer base. No sympathy for them.
@reds8nt. In that picture it looks like the GW backdrop display is falling down. Is it designed that way or falling apart?

Jesus Christ, these are just some poor people who work at GW and were thrown out of the the country because some admin missed their morning coffee and made a mistake... This has nothing to do with GW as a company or their games. But of course any opportunity to gak on GW can't be missed, got to get some more "otiose", "forge the narrative" and "marketing research" "jokes" in there and laugh and pat each other on the back.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
In order of likelyhood:

1) Natkfa pulling stuff out of his rear for his tabloid

2) Border guy power-tripping

3) GW paperwor screwup

One of each please

The funniest part is UK border control refused to let them back in, so now the team live on in a sort of airport limbo, devoid of foundation, logic or grounding in reality. They now dwell in the space between the four airport "realm gates", forever lost. Thus ends the old times, and thus begins the Age Of Heathrow.

 insaniak wrote:

 Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:
) But go on, side with the little Hitlers if it makes you happy!

Stopping with the whole equating a genocidal maniac with some guy whose job involves processing people through border security is what would make me happy.. ..

That's what I'm saying! If anything, this guy is more like a Joseph Stallin' amirite?!

@paulson games: that is a bit like what happened to me recently...
a guy didn't like my partner, so called immigration on me...
i had to spend 10 days in jail waiting to get deported...
a week later i was back in Mexico with a new visa...
the guy who turned me in, plus the immigration officials that snatched me up, were pissed to see me back with the right papers, but they couldn't do anything about it...

getting deported sucks, but it happens...
any little discrepancy is jumped on hard...

@Stormwall: TSA is one thing, but US Customs is a whole other level of bad attitude...
give someone a gun, and they suddenly think they are a badass...
US Customs have always been a hassle, in my experience, even as an American...

cheers
jah

 jah-joshua wrote:
@paulson games: that is a bit like what happened to me recently...
a guy didn't like my partner, so called immigration on me...
i had to spend 10 days in jail waiting to get deported...
a week later i was back in Mexico with a new visa...
the guy who turned me in, plus the immigration officials that snatched me up, were pissed to see me back with the right papers, but they couldn't do anything about it...

getting deported sucks, but it happens...
any little discrepancy is jumped on hard...

@Stormwall: TSA is one thing, but US Customs is a whole other level of bad attitude...
give someone a gun, and they suddenly think they are a badass...
US Customs have always been a hassle, in my experience, even as an American...

cheers
jah

Did your partner not have the right documentation?

Good laugh material if it is true.

@Alpharius: my partner had the right papers, and our shop did, but i had an out of date visa...
the guy working at a rival business next door knew he couldn't do anything against her, or the shop, so i got targeted:(...
it was one of those situations where you think you are talking with a friend, but they turn out to be an enemy, because he had beef with my girlfriend/partner...
luckily, a week and a half in jail, and a free trip back to L.A. doesn't phase me...

losing my girlfriend, my house, my pets, and my shop, when i got back did suck...
she was so pissed at me for getting deported, that i got cut off from everything...
oh well, life likes to throw hurdles like that in front of me all the time...
i just carry on enjoying myself, surfing and painting commissions...

cheers
jah

 Desubot wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:
In order of likelyhood:

1) Natkfa pulling stuff out of his rear for his tabloid

2) Border guy power-tripping

3) GW paperwor screwup

One of each please

Exalted! Also, at Jah... Customs is just as bad, if not worse than the TSA.

@Stormwall: exactly...
it is the Customs people that the GW guys would have been turned away by...
they love to flex their power...

TSA basically just tells you to throw your drinks away when passing through security, and searches for explosives...
oh, and they make sure you don't have any of those highly deadly nail clippers...

cheers
jah

 Mymearan wrote:

 Fishboy wrote:
Sounds to me like GW was finally treated the same way they treat their customer base. No sympathy for them.
@reds8nt. In that picture it looks like the GW backdrop display is falling down. Is it designed that way or falling apart?

Jesus Christ, these are just some poor people who work at GW and were thrown out of the the country because some admin missed their morning coffee and made a mistake... This has nothing to do with GW as a company or their games. But of course any opportunity to gak on GW can't be missed, got to get some more "otiose", "forge the narrative" and "marketing research" "jokes" in there and laugh and pat each other on the back.

As someone who has been stuck in a crappy airport for days because of a feth up that wasn't my fault.... I have no sympathy for the "poor people who work at GW" and laughed slightly when I first read it

Yeah, it probably just came down to some random admin error, but it's just the sort of admin error you expect from a company that likes to start litigation against other companies without even knowing what they have trademarked and copyrighted, the sort of company that releases rules without proof reading them and doesn't even correct mistakes from one edition to the next and so on and so forth. It may not be a direct reflection on the company, but it's one of those things you think "couldn't have happened to a more deserving company" sort of things.

If it had of been an individual person on their holidays getting deported on a simple mistake, sure, I'd feel sorry for them. Even if it was a representative of a small company who was struggling to pay the airfare to begin with and struggling to maintain a stall at the convention, yeah, I'd feel sorry for them.

But this is a group of people from a company that has over $180 million yearly revenue, employs hundreds of people globally and presents themselves as the kid who has grown too big for their own boots.... yeah... I can't help but giggle.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 jah-joshua wrote:
@Alpharius: my partner had the right papers, and our shop did, but i had an out of date visa...

Do you normally expect to get through customs with an out of date visa? That seems to be one of the things customs from most countries are quite pedantic about, they don't want people outstaying the welcome prescribed by their visas.

If they forged the narrative hard enough it would have been a holiday.

I feel bad for the actual employees who got deported/sent home.

I do not feel bad at all for GW, and enjoy the stupid mistake that led to it.

These two things are quite possible to do together.

This thread title reads like a buzzfeed article.

 Stormwall wrote:
This thread title reads like a buzzfeed article.

Pretty much. It's unfortunate, but stuff happens lol.

Nuwisha wrote:
I feel bad for the actual employees who got deported/sent home.

I don't really feel all that bad for them, half of what makes this sort of stuff stressful is not knowing what might happen, perhaps being on your own, having invested a lot of your personal time and money, potentially losing money if you aren't able to work or aren't able to show up to man the stall at the convention.

The GW guys are still getting paid, they are there as a group (which massively reduces the stress in such situations), they have other people they can call on to man the stalls and overall a lot of the things that makes getting stuck like that distressing isn't going to affect them.

The only person I feel bad for is the poor bastard who made the error in the first place, he or she is probably feeling like gak at the moment.

Can't you visit the U.S. from a civilized country (not Africa, Russia, India,etc) without needing a VISA for three months.

I do the same as a U.S. citizen to the UK

DorianGray wrote:
Can't you visit the U.S. from a civilized country (not Africa, Russia, India,etc) without needing a VISA for three months.

I do the same as a U.S. citizen to the UK

It's been a while since I travelled to the USA using the VWP, but from what I remember, even though you don't need a visa you still need to register for the visa waiver program, you can't just rock up in the country.

jah-joshua wrote:
oh well, life likes to throw hurdles like that in front of me all the time...
i just carry on enjoying myself, surfing and painting commissions...

This is a great attitude to have towards life

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Mymearan wrote:

 Fishboy wrote:
Sounds to me like GW was finally treated the same way they treat their customer base. No sympathy for them.
@reds8nt. In that picture it looks like the GW backdrop display is falling down. Is it designed that way or falling apart?

Jesus Christ, these are just some poor people who work at GW and were thrown out of the the country because some admin missed their morning coffee and made a mistake... This has nothing to do with GW as a company or their games. But of course any opportunity to gak on GW can't be missed, got to get some more "otiose", "forge the narrative" and "marketing research" "jokes" in there and laugh and pat each other on the back.

As someone who has been stuck in a crappy airport for days because of a feth up that wasn't my fault.... I have no sympathy for the "poor people who work at GW" and laughed slightly when I first read it

Yeah, it probably just came down to some random admin error, but it's just the sort of admin error you expect from a company that likes to start litigation against other companies without even knowing what they have trademarked and copyrighted, the sort of company that releases rules without proof reading them and doesn't even correct mistakes from one edition to the next and so on and so forth. It may not be a direct reflection on the company, but it's one of those things you think "couldn't have happened to a more deserving company" sort of things.

Yep, it's a bit of karma, which is probably why there are a few Nelson 'Ha Ha' type comments. It's just a shame it's 'collateral damage' and has bounced back at individuals who would have had nothing to do with launching legal attacks on fan sites, Spots the Space Marine or Chapterhouse.

*If it happened actually that is.....

 Stormwall wrote:
This thread title reads like a buzzfeed article.

Then it would be

"GW Team Arrives in USA for GenCon. What Happens Next Will Astound You!"

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Mymearan wrote:

 Fishboy wrote:
Sounds to me like GW was finally treated the same way they treat their customer base. No sympathy for them.
@reds8nt. In that picture it looks like the GW backdrop display is falling down. Is it designed that way or falling apart?

Jesus Christ, these are just some poor people who work at GW and were thrown out of the the country because some admin missed their morning coffee and made a mistake... This has nothing to do with GW as a company or their games. But of course any opportunity to gak on GW can't be missed, got to get some more "otiose", "forge the narrative" and "marketing research" "jokes" in there and laugh and pat each other on the back.

As someone who has been stuck in a crappy airport for days because of a feth up that wasn't my fault.... I have no sympathy for the "poor people who work at GW" and laughed slightly when I first read it

Yeah, it probably just came down to some random admin error, but it's just the sort of admin error you expect from a company that likes to start litigation against other companies without even knowing what they have trademarked and copyrighted, the sort of company that releases rules without proof reading them and doesn't even correct mistakes from one edition to the next and so on and so forth. It may not be a direct reflection on the company, but it's one of those things you think "couldn't have happened to a more deserving company" sort of things.

If it had of been an individual person on their holidays getting deported on a simple mistake, sure, I'd feel sorry for them. Even if it was a representative of a small company who was struggling to pay the airfare to begin with and struggling to maintain a stall at the convention, yeah, I'd feel sorry for them.

But this is a group of people from a company that has over $180 million yearly revenue, employs hundreds of people globally and presents themselves as the kid who has grown too big for their own boots.... yeah... I can't help but giggle.

Not saying you can't laugh, or that you can't find it funny... But theres no reason for schadenfreude or hostility. Some people are way too serious about the "evil empire" stuff (not talking about you obviously).

This kind of thing is just a mistake, do you really think a company would deliberately send employees using the wrong visas? It would just mean they waste money sending people to America for twenty minutes.

I've heard American customs are the most horrible and obnoxious in the world. I know they're trying to defend their country but they don't have to be morons about it.

 Pacific wrote:
And to think we are meant to be a bastion of liberty, it boggles the fething mind.

You are? I never knew.

From where does the idea of the UK as a bastion of liberty come from? some 1800-s thinker?

The tea-pot strategy of the police during riots in London, police shootings of people on the subway, brutal and oppressive enclaves of oriental immigrants, sharia courts and camera orwellian nightmare of London as well as few civil liberties such as being allowed to own more than a single shotgun always made me think of UK as a rather authoritarian democracy. Going back all the way to churchills use of soldiers against strikers, the maggie era strikes and of course the whole police/soldier state of affair in Northern Ireland.

Not being sarcastic here, just wondering where the stereotype of UK liberty comes from?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mymearan wrote:


Not saying you can't laugh, or that you can't find it funny... But theres no reason for schadenfreude or hostility. Some people are way too serious about the "evil empire" stuff (not talking about you obviously).

US customs controll is not exactly run by the brightest bulbs in the chandelier... Its enough to mention that perhaps you'll study a little while there (meaning reading for your exam back home) and they'll deport you, no matter how much you try to convince them what you really ment. Meanwhile, people cross by the millions illegaly into the country and nothing is done.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 jah-joshua wrote:

getting deported sucks, but it happens...
any little discrepancy is jumped on hard...

@Stormwall: TSA is one thing, but US Customs is a whole other level of bad attitude...
give someone a gun, and they suddenly think they are a badass...
US Customs have always been a hassle, in my experience, even as an American...

Can second this. Just stick to the same story consistently. Vacation vacation vacation if you are going to the us. Customs makes TSA look like mall security in comparison in bad attitude.

@Skink: it depends on the country, really...
over 25 years of globetrotting, i've overstayed my visa in a few countries...
some places, like Holland, Mexico, and Italy, it wasn't an issue...
other countries, like Costa Rica, and a lot of other Latin nations, they are happy to charge a fee and let you leave...
other places like Japan and New Zealand, there are strong repercussions to overstaying, so i make sure to leave on the right date...
the Germans are sticklers, too, unsurprisingly...

coming back into America, US Customs doesn't check the visas that Americans travelled with, just your Declaration Form about what you are bringing back in...
for foreigners, though, it's a different story...
the USA is very strict, especially since 2001...

i sure as hell wasn't expecting to get turned in over someone else's beef, but i'm not saying i was surprised to be deported once Mexican Immigration nabbed me...
Mexico is slowly changing, and becoming tighter...
up until 2005, an American tourist didn't need a passport to enter, let alone a visa...
now you need a passport and visa, but if you walk back across the border, the Mexican authorities don't even check you on the way out...
you do need a valid visa to leave on a plane, though...
after 30 years of surf trips to Mexico, and growing up with all the corruption and lawlessness there, i was pretty dismissive of their "rules", and in the end paid the price for that...

so yeah, some places are a lot more lax than others...
the USA, however, is quite strict these days, so i wouldn't be surprised if this story is true...
hopefully, they were just turned around on the next flight out, and nobody got in any real trouble...
if they were held for any amount of time at the airport cells, at least that would be nicer than Mexican jail...

cheers
jah

jah-joshua wrote:
if they were held for any amount of time at the airport cells, at least that would be nicer than Mexican jail...

Can you verify that? American prisons (unlike those in civilised countries) are afterall known as rape and gang centrals.

having had the dubious privilege of visiting a few jail cells around the world, yes, i can say that an airport holding cell is much nicer than a Mexican jail...
boredom is the biggest issue in a holding cell...
now, U.S. county, state, and federal prisons are a different story...

i'll let the "civilized countries" dig slide, but i'm sure someone will be along to take offence shortly...

cheers
jah

I think we're done with this now really.

Let's hope lessons have been learnt and so on.