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Hopefully this is not in another thread...

Lonestar Comics based in the Dallas/Fort Worth recently had a 50% off GW sale in order to clear out all GW product. Lonestar has the most Comic book stores in the area and I've shopped with them for over 20 years. This is the first time I've seen this, however,

While there, I spoke with one of the managers who stated the reason why they were getting out of GW: they couldn't meet the expectations GW was making as far as cost. On top of that, he in good conscience couldn't sell to parents who were buying "for little Timmy" when the cost of having a viable army to play was close to $500. He stated that there were other game systems that were more friendly cost-wise to their customers on an entry level basis and thus were easier to sell. While I know many people who sink hundreds to thousands of dollars in Magic, Yu-gi-oh, Pokemon, etc., the key seems to be what is easy to plunk down price wise and can still be seen as a value from the customer's point of view: $5 for a pack of cards ready to play or $30 to $35 for a box of plastic toy soldiers that still have to be built, painted, and in a few months the rules for them change.

This saddens me. While I got a bunch of great deals at half-price, essentially if the minis aren't selling, and a store whose sole purpose is to sell said games/toys/comics bails out because it's too expensive, will GW actually listen or will they say "oh well."

I can't blame the FLGS. They must make a living in selling a niche product. Many GW players complain that Magic or other games take over the playing space but who can blame the FLGS? If a product bring in the cash and pays the bills, that's who they're going to cater to.

I am not bashing GW nor am I an apologist for them. I do love the game and the minis but for two years now I've purchased exclusively from ebay or elsewhere as the prices continue to rise. Will they finally start listening with their pocket books? Will they finally realize that one of the largest marketplaces for them now said "enough" and GW will have to depend exclusively on only a handful of other stores?

Playing Magic works out far more expensive for a person than playing GW, so it's a bit silly to compare them. In fact, your magic cards go out of standard every year, rather than the rules change that GW might have (Which won't make your models obsolete).
Magic also has a terrible margin for stores and the ones who make money on it do it through singles, not through actual booster sales

GWs requirements for a store a very very low, you need to stock their Module 2 to get free shipping.......that's it. They are items that a store should be selling weekly anyway and should not be an issue to stock.

As far as selling to "lil timmy". I tell people straight up that an army averages about $600 and that they need to prepare for that, but to also consider the amount of playtime that $35 box will give in building painting and playing. Compare it to say paintball, where you go out and blow $50-$75 a day and that's it, its done.

 Sergeant Horse wrote:
Playing Magic works out far more expensive for a person than playing GW, so it's a bit silly to compare them. In fact, your magic cards go out of standard every year, rather than the rules change that GW might have (Which won't make your models obsolete).
Magic also has a terrible margin for stores and the ones who make money on it do it through singles, not through actual booster sales

Magic is as expensive of cheap as you want to make it. An entry deck and a few boosters is going to be about $50 and will allow you to play. It only gets expensive if the person wants to compete at the highest level and also wants to maintain their card collection. Once the cards rotate out of standard, they are still viable for modern and legacy tournament formats as well as other casual formats.

Boosters have the same margin in them as all the other product in the store. The under cutting from online retailers is currently much less than before for the current sets. GW has the same issue with their online retailer competition.

 Sergeant Horse wrote:
GWs requirements for a store a very very low, you need to stock their Module 2 to get free shipping.......that's it. They are items that a store should be selling weekly anyway and should not be an issue to stock.

I have heard from several retailers that the initial product buy-in is pretty steep. GW also won't tell them what the upcoming releases are and want the store to order blind. Most retailers laugh at this and don't order unless they have a heavy GW population. GW product also moves really slow in some FLGS, so it will set for years. I just bought some OOP NIB bloodletters from a store that was going out of business. They are what 10+ years old.

 Sergeant Horse wrote:
As far as selling to "lil timmy". I tell people straight up that an army averages about $600 and that they need to prepare for that, but to also consider the amount of playtime that $35 box will give in building painting and playing. Compare it to say paintball, where you go out and blow $50-$75 a day and that's it, its done.

Some people don't consider building and painting fun time, only time actually playing the game. Instant gratification is a bigger and bigger hurdle as video games become more immersive.

Are you a GW employee?

Just to clarify: I don't play Magic so I have no idea how much the cards are or anything like that.

However, when the manager of the largest Comic Book/Game store chain in the Dallas area is no longer dealing with GW and says he can make more money selling another line of product, that is what makes me sad about GW's way of doing business.

As a small businss owner, when something hits my pocketbook, I change the way I do business to make sure the cash flow keeps growing.

I love my FLGS and everyone i talk to has an 40k and/or Fantasy army not too many people play. Granted my store is more RPG but he does stock all the main units for 40k and fantasy and anything else he gets real quick. When a major place stops selling it will be harder to find people who want to play. Especially if he ships to a game that is inexpensive either in the short term or the long term. I have never seen someone at my store come in and get a whole new starter set for himself, meaning dark vengeance, paint and maybe a few extra boxes.

We all pretty have our armies and get a box here and there but we do constantly buy from there.

If he stopped selling GW we would not play 40k there at all and i think most of us might have a hard time getting together and play. If he moved to say something inexpensive like mantic i think most of us would pick it up and play that as well.

As a business if GW products are not paying their way then it makes sense for an independant business to dump them

(in the same way as I suspect they dump CCGs or comics nobody buys)

but as an independant business I wouldn't expect to set prices for the companies that supply me that's just odd.

And as to a full viable army costing a lot, that may well be so, but you can have lots of fun/enjoyment collecting/painting to get there, playing smaller games in the mean time.

I don't know if the store supplied gaming space, but if he did and was concerned with the cost aspect for newer players he could have said for example 2 days a week smaller points value games only

CCGs are just as prone to cost explosion, yes you can play with a starter deck, but once your opponants start buying singles to boost their decks you have to follow suit or you'll pretty much always loose

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
CCGs are just as prone to cost explosion, yes you can play with a starter deck, but once your opponants start buying singles to boost their decks you have to follow suit or you'll pretty much always loose

And most people who purchase these products prefer to bleed slowly, than in giant buckets. $4 for a booster pack is very meh. $20 for an independent character is starting to get steep in their mind and $75 for a Land Raider is a big deal. I've seen people buy a booster box over a month by the pack, yet get all out of joint about buying a whole box at once. Perception beats logic many times.

I can speak fairly directly to my experienced with Lone Star in this regard. I live in the D/FW Texas Metro area and I'm very, very familiar with the chain as a customer.

All the other shops in the area have gone to a 25% off GW all the time and there's at least two GW stores I know of in the Metroplex area. Lonestar Comics is also a 7 store chain (formerly 8) that has to compete with all of them due to spread out, smaller store locations.

This is also not the first time that the general manager has stopped carrying GW products completely. I think there was a 3-4 year gap starting back in 04-05 when they stopped. Magic, Yugioh, and Vanguard rule the scene in Dallas from what I can see with miniature wargaming being more niche than usual (though there is one shop totally dedicated to mini gaming - Texas Toy Soldiers).

The Lone Star stores are also small and don't really have space to support gaming within them, having moved out of larger venues into progressively smaller spaces (and closed down their store nearest downtown Dallas). It's hard to run a tourney with only 2 tables, and I haven't seen the local Outrider scheduling anything in them for a while. Their Yugioh and Magic tournies will usually net a couple temporary tables and some of the shelving pushed to the side, but you literally can't go into the store as a regular customer when there is a tourney running.

In short, I think there are instances where stores are going to make decisions based on their own needs. I don't think Lone Star was set up to be a good retailer for GW and they definitely weren't make an effort to compete with online retailers. So they got out. It's not the first time they have.

Sounds like he wasnt ordering enough. Most stores here must put in at least $400 worth (last time I checked) of product in order to get it shipped, some places can wave that, but you must order within a certain time frame. My guess is he either wasnt ordering enough or wasnt selling enough for it to be worth his time, that and GW isnt the best when it comes to sales reps, Ive met a lot of good ones and even more bad ones. If he had to order that same amount 7 times over I dont blame him.

Barfolomew wrote:


Are you a GW employee?

no, but he owns a store that does significant GW volume in Atlanta

If you get shop owner talking they will all tell you the same: you earn your salary with books and MTG, not with tabletop. When the biz is okay, then you can afford to invest in tabletop stock, but stock is dead money, and you need quite a lot to be attractive for the tabletop customer. Throw in investments in scenery etc... quite a money bag, that table top stock... So if winds start getting rough and you have to turn the coins twice over, you will have to liquify that, you simply cannot afford to have so much money lying around in the shelves.

 Hruotland wrote:
If you get shop owner talking they will all tell you the same: you earn your salary with books and MTG, not with tabletop.

Not in my experience.

This, again? I like within 10 miles of 3 LGS, and three of them only stay open because of MTG/Yu Gi Oh cards. They don't make enough from Wargames in general to stay open.

I agree with the above points. Not every lil' Timmy who's parents pick up a Space Marine army is going to play competitively, just like not every kid who picks up a MTG intro deck is going to. Magic is easily cheaper to get into, since £12 can get you a basic deck, as opposed to upwards of £70 for an army.

 CIsaac wrote:


All the other shops in the area have gone to a 25% off GW all the time and there's at least two GW stores I know of in the Metroplex area. Lonestar Comics is also a 7 store chain (formerly 8) that has to compete with all of them due to spread out, smaller store locations.

Which stores in the D/FW area?

I live in Fort Worth and none of the one store chains (Y2K, Evo, Gen X, Sci-Fi Factory) that I've frequented have done this. I know of one in the Dallas area that does this (TTS), though, I'll admit that I'm only aware of Comic Asylum, Gunslinger, and TTS. When I've ordered in the past, I've bought online because of the 25% discount...all prior to learning that TTS does a discount.

A little exaggeration to make a point?

I pre-ordered both 6th edition and the Chaos Codex from LS in Hurst because they offered a 20% discount to do so. Discounts are motivators.

Magic pays the rent, the other stuff is just bonus, if what I've heard is to be believed.

 kcwm wrote:

 CIsaac wrote:


All the other shops in the area have gone to a 25% off GW all the time and there's at least two GW stores I know of in the Metroplex area. Lonestar Comics is also a 7 store chain (formerly 8) that has to compete with all of them due to spread out, smaller store locations.

Which stores in the D/FW area?

I live in Fort Worth and none of the one store chains (Y2K, Evo, Gen X, Sci-Fi Factory) that I've frequented have done this. I know of one in the Dallas area that does this (TTS), though, I'll admit that I'm only aware of Comic Asylum, Gunslinger, and TTS. When I've ordered in the past, I've bought online because of the 25% discount...all prior to learning that TTS does a discount.

A little exaggeration to make a point?

I pre-ordered both 6th edition and the Chaos Codex from LS in Hurst because they offered a 20% discount to do so. Discounts are motivators.

Magic pays the rent, the other stuff is just bonus, if what I've heard is to be believed.

I don't go to the Tarrant Co. region at all really. But in Dallas both Texas Toy Soldiers and Gunslinger Games are 25% off all Privateer and GW items at all times. Gunslinger even goes so far as all accessories, too (paints, brushes, books, etc). It's rather nice for the consumer. I know for Gunslinger, though that it's Magic (and their vast array of singles and packs of all languages) that pay the bills as the owner's mentioned it in passing a couple of times.

The only independent store in my area relies on mtg to pay the rent. And has said so to me.
He has a wargaming table upstairs, but most of the action is down stairs, people playing card games.

Before the sale, I had only ever been to the Lone Star Comics in Fort Worth, which was definitely a tiny store and had barely enough space to put in a small table or two for Magic or D&D events, so I can't really judge Lone Star as a whole. But, from what little I saw of two other locations (yes, I hit 3 locations and blew through $600 during their sale), I didn't see much gaming space for wargaming. Looked more like a place to sell wargames, not to play them.

I'm also not as aware of other locations in Fort Worth (despite being a resident) as my gaming is done at a friend's place. But, the store close to him (Area 51 in Grapevine), while being a store dedicated to gaming and comics (they have a huge gaming table area), they don't even stock GW products. They'll order them and sell them to you at 25% off, but they don't carry them (admittedly, they are just down the street from a GW store).

By the way, an interesting sidenote regarding the sale: the 40K stuff appeared to be flying off the shelves, while the WFB stuff was mostly untouched.

Magic helps pay the rent but if you run a tabletop business correctly, miniatures can do so as well. We have been in business for 5 years and focus primarily on tabletop with Magic as the side.

You can say all you want about it, and it is off topic, but I RUN a gamestore, so I kinda know Not saying Magic doesn't help, but its not the be all and end all.

This is the second time that Lone Star has stopped selling GW. The first time was due to Games Workshop product being stolen quite often (mostly the staff at the time) and the chain being HORRIBLY behind in their bills. Lone Star got angry when GW stopped sending new product to them....which often happens when you are six months behind on your bills. I heard through the grapevine (or geekvine) that this time is similar. Lone Star is down to 5 stores, most the stores moving into smaller and smaller spaces over the years, with none actually in the city of Dallas. Shame really. Lone Star has a sad history of making questionable business decisions, like when they got rid of most of their science fiction novels.

If you are looking for a good comic books store, try Zeus Comics or Titan (I prefer Zeus, but that's just me). On stores that sell Games Workshop, I'd suggest Texas Toy Soldier, Gunslinger is expanding more and more into GW, Area 51 has a ton of playing space and they'll order anything you wish and the Grapevine Mills GW store is about 2 miles down the road and runs quite a few events. Right now the GW store are playing quite a bit of Kill Team on Zone Mortalis boards and may be setting up a league. They also have a Blood Bowl league with some 20 players or so.

 Sergeant Horse wrote:
Playing Magic works out far more expensive for a person than playing GW, so it's a *snip*

You seem to not understand the idea of entry barrier. Yes, having played magic back in the day it can very much work out to be expensive. But getting INTO magic, or warmahordes or most other games is not that expensive. Its the start up costs that make GW hard- rulebook plus new hardcover codex OR basic box set plus hardcover codex is $125 and $150 respectively. We havent even started on models, units, paints or glues yet. But even putting aside paint and glue you dont even have a 500pts of models unless you bough the starter set.

How many starter packs or booster packs can you buy for that? You can buy most of a 35 pt army in warmahordes(again, depending on what you buy, starter box plus couple other jacks/beasts and a unit or two and solo or three) for the higher end buy.

carmachu wrote:

 Sergeant Horse wrote:
Playing Magic works out far more expensive for a person than playing GW, so it's a *snip*

You seem to not understand the idea of entry barrier. *snip.

Actually, I do, and I work around it by explaining to the potential customer all the benefits that they are getting out of it, as anybody with a bit of business sense should. Of course Magic/Warmahordes etc have lower entries, that's how they nab people, GW does it by being the biggest brand. Come to my store any day of the week and you can get a GW game. The other games, it will depend on the day.

It's easy to get people INTO a game, the secret is KEEPING them in it, and GW does it better than any other company.

 Sergeant Horse wrote:


It's easy to get people INTO a game, the secret is KEEPING them in it, and GW does it better than any other company.

Not really they dont. They deal with churn. They've pretty well over the years turned their back on veterans. They dont keep them nearly as well as you think. Many veterans have walked away from GW into other areas. Due to GW's actions or inactions.

Actually, I do, and I work around it by explaining to the potential customer all the benefits that they are getting out of it, as anybody with a bit of business sense should. Of course Magic/Warmahordes etc have lower entries, that's how they nab people, GW does it by being the biggest brand

Yes GW is the biggest brand. So what. D&D is the biggest brand too, and their market share, much like GW's has shrunk. competition is nicking them one wound at a time. Being the biggest doesnt always count as much as you think.

Most of those benefits you can get from various other miniature games just as easily, with an easier barrier of entry. Again, that entry is a problem, because almost ANY argument you use by explaing benefits is gained by playing other miniature games.

Math and list buildingf? Any other game.
social skills? Again, same any game.
The list goes on. great models? Reaper and others have just as good and none of that finecast.

Biggest is really their only benefit.

 Sergeant Horse wrote:

carmachu wrote:

 Sergeant Horse wrote:
Playing Magic works out far more expensive for a person than playing GW, so it's a *snip*

You seem to not understand the idea of entry barrier. *snip.

Actually, I do, and I work around it by explaining to the potential customer all the benefits that they are getting out of it, as anybody with a bit of business sense should. Of course Magic/Warmahordes etc have lower entries, that's how they nab people, GW does it by being the biggest brand. Come to my store any day of the week and you can get a GW game. The other games, it will depend on the day.

It's easy to get people INTO a game, the secret is KEEPING them in it, and GW does it better than any other company.

GW themselves don't do much to keep people playing. What keeps people playing is the population of the community. For all people love to call the death of GW as imminent, they still have by far the most amount of players out of tabletop games. That's why on any given day you will find people playing GW games, because there simply are more people playing them. And thats the reason people start playing GW games - they see other people playing them. It's not somethng specific GW did to attract them to the game or keep them there.

And GW have this population from the goodwill of previous years. The years where they were actively making customers happy. Now? The population is just self perpetuating, and GW just does nothing to attract the new gamers.

Giving GW themselves credit for the larger population of GW gamers these days is misplaced credit. New players these days aren't coming in because of GW, and old players aren't staying because of GW. They're coming in and staying because of the people they're playing games with.

If an entire group moves to another system completely, you'll see people coming in start that game, because the population is playing that game.

I think they made a good decision to stop selling GWs gak. There are 3 mayor flaws with games workshop. 1 Unbalanced rules, 2 They dont officialy suport tournaments, why see number 1. 3 They dont suport their customers long time, they want the 12-15 year olds spending mommys money (horrible practice targeting childrean to make more money), but there is zero suport or effort to for us older players. If you are over 25 years old GW do not want you.

That they have stayed on top of the Industry this long is only because they have such a cool IP, but they have slowly deluted that and made it less and less cool. It's like they are trying to run themselves into the ground..

Lucky for other gaming companies us old dudes have deep pockets and are willing to spend it on such a cheap hobby that Miniature gaming is. 600-700$ is not that much for a household with 2 people working even if you have childrean, unless you are dirt poor but you shouldent spend your money on any hobby period then. Point I'm making is this; when my parents grew up people had a much more limited way of spending their free time. Now there are alot more alternative lifestyles. And people stick to their hobbys even when they get older. Miniature wargaming might have been for childrean druing the 80s, but guess what many of those childrean have now grown up and are still playing. GWs policy of only trying to get little kidds playing, wont work longterm. and i think 2010 was the year it slowly started to show, that neglecting your old customers will sooner or later come back to bite you.

Also little kidds play video games these days, league of legends, starcraft, WoW,, world of tanks and many others. And the Video game industry is always about one thing BALANCE.... they wont take GWs crap play for fun anymore, the world has changed but GW is still living in the 80s when people played boardgames with their families and dident care about competetive gameplay... Newsflash those times are gone, the 21st century is about balance, balance and more balance. And frankly there are alot better companies out there that do balance way better then GW...

I wish them good luck in the future but miniature wargaming will survive their downfall, I would not have said this 10 years ago. But now I think its true, There are just so many good alternatives out there these days..

Maxstreel wrote:
While there, I spoke with one of the managers who stated the reason why they were getting out of GW: they couldn't meet the expectations GW was making as far as cost. On top of that, he in good conscience couldn't sell to parents who were buying "for little Timmy" when the cost of having a viable army to play was close to $500.

I believe the first sentence. I'm prettty damn dubious of the second one, though - it stinks to me of all the businesses doing layoff and then blaming it on "Obamacare" when it later turned out they had planned the layoffs well in advance. I don't want to make this a political thread, it's just handiest analogy I could come up with - bottom line, the $500 figure for a army has been true for many years and should not come as news to a store owner.

I definitely see alternatives... video games, ccgs, etc. that have an easier entry price or entry into the game (fun) itself to get into.

I also see Sergeant Horse's pov in that he's the salesperson and does a good job selling the client on their investment. Perhaps (and this is just speculation) Lonestar management didn't see it that way and decided to cut their losses. Hey, man, that's business!

Lonestar has little to no gaming area in their stores and after having visited 3 different locations to get discounts (Hurst, Arlington and Ft. Worth) I got 3 different answers on what was discounted and what wasn't. I also saw that there were boxes and boxes of Fantasy stuff while most of the 40k stuff had been wiped out.

If a large chain dumps a product like GW brand of models, it would appear more difficult to saturate the market and get it to the consumer. It makes me sad. I do love the 40k universe!

Every store I've visited that had space always wants players with painted armies because they are real advertisement! Nothing like having gamers having a good time when a customer looks at it and thinks "hey, I want into that game." and plunks down some hard-earned cash.

As stated, I am neither GW basher nor apologist. It just makes me sad.

GW themselves don't do much to keep people playing. What keeps people playing is the population of the community. For all people love to call the death of GW as imminent, they still have by far the most amount of players out of tabletop games. That's why on any given day you will find people playing GW games, because there simply are more people playing them. And thats the reason people start playing GW games - they see other people playing them. It's not somethng specific GW did to attract them to the game or keep them there.

And GW have this population from the goodwill of previous years. The years where they were actively making customers happy. Now? The population is just self perpetuating, and GW just does nothing to attract the new gamers.

Giving GW themselves credit for the larger population of GW gamers these days is misplaced credit. New players these days aren't coming in because of GW, and old players aren't staying because of GW. They're coming in and staying because of the people they're playing games with.

If an entire group moves to another system completely, you'll see people coming in start that game, because the population is playing that game

I dont agree with you here. GW has never really suported the OLD customers, but many have stayed with them anyways for lack of anything better to play. And they work like crazy to get new gamers into the industry, If they are 10-15 and look to have parents willing to dish out the money. But Old gamers, and I'm talking abut younger people here also who have played the game for a while start to notice the cracks in the foundation(Unbalanced crap rules). So GW wants them to go away.. So they dont sit in their stores badmouthing, this Faction or this minature. They want exiteted little kidds to look at a cool photoshoped(yes they do this now) BOX of some cool looking miniatures, and say mommy mommy i want that, buy it and never come back..

I have never played with any oldtimers group that dident have House rules to make the game atlest decent to play. THIS IS EPIC FAIL. Games like Backgammon, Poker and chess has not been around for centuries because they had unbalanced gameplay, 2 of them are luck based, but they are hardly unbalanced. To keep a game competetive it has to have balance and a competetive scene without it, it just becomes a JOKE. Sports also have a luck factor , but all games, sports or boardgames need to have a level of skill or people wont stick with them longterm. And here GW FAILS hard... They were the top dog in a nich industry for years but they are not alone anymore. More and more people are converting, here in stockholm sweden more and more independent sellers are dropping them. Its just a mather of time before only their Own store is left selling them. And its full of little kidds, their will be no more community...

They never really did much to encourage 40k players in their stores. If I'm not playing at your store whats the motivation to shop there, I'd rather buy online at that rate. They over bought and didn't develop any kind of community that was worth a damn. They ran our group off almost every time we went to the central store. The Fort Worth store always has nice folks at it, but nowhere to really play unless you like magic or board games. There are far better alternatives and lately some new contenders that I hope stick around like Evo and SciFi Factory.

Maxstreel wrote:
I definitely see alternatives... video games, ccgs, etc. that have an easier entry price or entry into the game (fun) itself to get into.

I also see Sergeant Horse's pov in that he's the salesperson and does a good job selling the client on their investment. Perhaps (and this is just speculation) Lonestar management didn't see it that way and decided to cut their losses. Hey, man, that's business!

Lonestar has little to no gaming area in their stores and after having visited 3 different locations to get discounts (Hurst, Arlington and Ft. Worth) I got 3 different answers on what was discounted and what wasn't. I also saw that there were boxes and boxes of Fantasy stuff while most of the 40k stuff had been wiped out.

If a large chain dumps a product like GW brand of models, it would appear more difficult to saturate the market and get it to the consumer. It makes me sad. I do love the 40k universe!

Every store I've visited that had space always wants players with painted armies because they are real advertisement! Nothing like having gamers having a good time when a customer looks at it and thinks "hey, I want into that game." and plunks down some hard-earned cash.

As stated, I am neither GW basher nor apologist. It just makes me sad.

Dont be sad man It's evolution at work. Survival of the fitest, GW is no longer the top shark. My sugestion is that you drop them like many of us have done. I had Alot of GW stuff going back 2 decades, my first army was Squats haha, nobody remembers them now in the 40k universe. It hurt a litte at first but then I picked up a much better game and I whent from just painting minatures, had been doing this for years because it was more fun for me then playing the game. To starting playing again, and my whole gaming group were suddenly doing the same. Nobody cared about painting models we just wanted to play this new awsome Balanced game. This was about 1,5 years ago, and we are still playing this new game like crazy. So much more depth, Terrain rules that work. And Updated rules for evry faction NOBODY GETS LEFT BEHIND..

Best advice drop GW, they dont care about you if you are a grownup anyways. Pick up a better system, and there are alot of them out their. Find a group of people who like to play that (internet is great for that hehe). And start having fun playing Table top games again..

alqadim wrote:
They never really did much to encourage 40k players in their stores. If I'm not playing at your store whats the motivation to shop there, I'd rather buy online at that rate. They over bought and didn't develop any kind of community that was worth a damn. They ran our group off almost every time we went to the central store. The Fort Worth store always has nice folks at it, but nowhere to really play unless you like magic or board games. There are far better alternatives and lately some new contenders that I hope stick around like Evo and SciFi Factory.

Those've been my experiences with Lone Star as well. I won't mourn their passing as they were always a comics shop first and a games store second. And if they're having to close stores (there were 8 stores 2 years ago. Five now according to another poster), then they're having money problems and I wouldn't be surprised if the owner once again had a snit and blamed GW products that they can't be bothered to do anything to try to promote on their own.