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I got one
Apocalypse game, it was a random event in store. They pitted us against a bunch of people and we had a team of 4 on another team of around 4-5.
Some guy deploys two revanant titans and a gigantic demon from forgeworld.
Thats cool, it is apocalypse after all.
Then all that guy shoots at with his rev's is me.
I ask why he is only shooting at me.
He says "Because you are a kid"
Ruined a lot of the fun for me.
In same battle; Less of a horror story more of a funny thing.
Another guy on the table with a bunch of marines. Hes known in my store as being annoying, WAAC, a cheater and thats just a few things on the list.
He demands that we let him go get a milkshake in the middle of the battle.
We try to convince him otherwise but he still goes.
All of a sudden half the board is shooting at him, and without him there all his shiny tanks and marines are instantly destroyed due to no one there to roll the dice (They wouldnt let me oversee it)
He returns asking "Where have all my minis gone? I told you to look after them blood_lance (Not using my real name for purposes of the internets)" And I simply reply with
"No one here to roll dice, you should of stayed"
He looked so ticked, it was actually pretty funny.

You utter bastard, yet you utter legend at the same time. if he was a good guy, then I'd have rolled his dice for him no matter what. However, seeing that he was a cheater, he got his just deserts. Top show, top show.

I wanted to roll the dice for him. They wouldnt let me D:

But mostly cus this marine player had approx 30-40% of our overall total in stuff.

blood lance wrote:I got one
Apocalypse game, it was a random event in store. They pitted us against a bunch of people and we had a team of 4 on another team of around 4-5.
Some guy deploys two revanant titans and a gigantic demon from forgeworld.
Thats cool, it is apocalypse after all.
Then all that guy shoots at with his rev's is me.
I ask why he is only shooting at me.
He says "Because you are a kid"
Ruined a lot of the fun for me.

Whaa?
Don't get it. Im not gettin something

-Loki- wrote:

DarknessEternal wrote:

-Loki- wrote: for free access to the whole range of paints

They let you paint with their paint for free? I'll just add this to the list of reasons I find it mind-boggling that people complain about this company.

Every FLGS I've found, if it has a paint station, lets you use it for free. GW stores do it for free, because they're GW stores. They all have from as far back as I can remember. I haven't found an FLGS yet with a paint station that doesn't let you use it for free.

It's not like you're going to use hundreds of dollars worth of paint unless you're sitting there painting an entire army in a few days.

Emphasis on 'paint with their paint', though not every GW stores does that. Fortunately mine does

Henners91 wrote:

-Loki- wrote:

DarknessEternal wrote:

-Loki- wrote: for free access to the whole range of paints

They let you paint with their paint for free? I'll just add this to the list of reasons I find it mind-boggling that people complain about this company.

Every FLGS I've found, if it has a paint station, lets you use it for free. GW stores do it for free, because they're GW stores. They all have from as far back as I can remember. I haven't found an FLGS yet with a paint station that doesn't let you use it for free.

It's not like you're going to use hundreds of dollars worth of paint unless you're sitting there painting an entire army in a few days.

Emphasis on 'paint with their paint', though not every GW stores does that. Fortunately mine does

That's stupid if a GW stores does not do that, it would make it harder for the Red Shirts to be good "Hobby Developers".

Meh when I asked to be shown how to base a mini they made me buy the stuff first


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Hooray for £15 spent on PVA Glue, Sand and Flock..

blood lance wrote:I wanted to roll the dice for him. They wouldnt let me D:

But mostly cus this marine player had approx 30-40% of our overall total in stuff.

Sorry, we have guys at our FLGS like that, and I still would've insisted on giving their army the best chance possible.
Those people treating a WAAC player like crap, is only going to encourage him.

Last I checked, official GW store policy is to let beginners use the store paints, to get them into the hobby / bolster them till they get their own paints.

The beginners can have their first X models undercoated by staff, get access to the stores paintbox etc.

Vets must provide all their own materials.

It's fair enough to a degree - and often the staff will let you use a little of their paint here and there (i.e. when I was painting my harlies they let me borrow half the case for the 1-2 strokes of each colour I needed, rather than me spending £50 on 20 strokes of colour.) but generally it's a nono.

I'm generally allowed to use some store paint at their paint stations, provided it's not going to get used too much.

As a side note, these stories are hilarious! and a little weird...

I know people who used to go to GW every lunch time and paint. I've never seen an Aussie store that didn't let you paint with their stuff.

Arm.chair.general wrote:What's with all the GW bashing threads? I thinks that there should be a new DakkaDakka rule:

'thou shalt not make a thread to bash Games-workshop '

You have an entire thread where anyone who posts anything nasty about poor little GW gets their post removed and a warning.

Here's a post I made in a similar thread:

Lordhat wrote:So having made BEAUTIFUL tables for the FLGS I worked at, I have one that isn't about models. Here's the item in question:



So this table was never expected to remain in pristine condition, but one day I find somebody's little snot poking the end of his measuring stick into the board as deep as he could. Rage ensues, threats of broken fingers commence, parents are called. After much heated discussion about threatening children I do agree that it was the wrong way to approach the situation and proceed to tell the parents that it was THEIR fault for treating me like a babysitter (the kids were brothers, the oldest was 10), without as much as giving the children a 'behave yourself and listen to the adult in charge'. They were suitably chagrined and apologized, and asked how much to replace the table. After calculating costs (which wasn't hard because we had already done that for tax purposes), adding in my labour on it at $10.00/hour and standard retail markup, then adding a discount because the kids WERE regulars, I told them $350, to replace it. They were undestandably upset. I then told them that the table did not need replacing, but only because I caught the kids in the act, and that telling their kids to act like human beings or else they would be banned for a month would be recompense enough. This worked only because the parents liked to drop their kids off at the shop while they went to the bar (in the same strip mall) and relaxed with THEIR friends; the bar owner was the Mom's brother, and a friend of ours as well. Reaching the parents was a matter of a phone call and a 2 min walk, and even if the parents weren't there, the kids uncle or aunt usually was.

Did you fix the damage with putty or something?

No, the gameboard itself is sitting in the grage waiting for me to make time to refurbish it. The damage from this incident was actually fairly minor; It was just the last straw in a string of "spoiled brat moments", and it was time to let the parents know that their children's behavior towards the other customers and staff needed to change. One time when NOT working for a corporate chain was a benefit.

feth that's a nice board.

Do you have any logs on how you made it?

Lordhat wrote:No, the gameboard itself is sitting in the grage waiting for me to make time to refurbish it. The damage from this incident was actually fairly minor; It was just the last straw in a string of "spoiled brat moments", and it was time to let the parents know that their children's behavior towards the other customers and staff needed to change. One time when NOT working for a corporate chain was a benefit.

That's a beautiful table you've crafted there!

I did my fair share of the terrain projects when I worked at the GW store. So freaking annoying when snot-nosed, moronic, disrespectful little terds ruin them. I found a wonderfull solution for fixing my woes however; base all terrain in a mixture of sand+glue = skin-ripping goodness!
After the first incident where a kid poked his hand and realized it wasn't just plain foam+paint anymore, there was ALOT more care and respect towards our tables & terrain!


Other fun times with bratty kids and/or unwanted goobs;
- Had a kid ask me if his 'conversion' of a tyranid prime was okay for use in a megabattle. Said 'conversion' involved taking a pokemon toy, ripping it's arms off, then gluing on a single scything talon and little bits of cut-up sprue.
And this was a teenager, not some 8 or 9 year old like you'd expect this from!

- Had another kid, (one of the wee ones this time), actually glue every. single. arm/weapon option. onto his space marine captain. Plus add a jump pack that had a heavy bolter, and additional power fist, a storm bolter and a plasma gun glued on top of it!
We called him "Captain Epic-man!" and let little timmy use him just once for fun. All of us who saw that model cried a little inside though at the thought of all those choice bitz gone to such waste...

- Kid who informed us he was home from school because he had a serious case of the flu, but was wanting to hang out while he waited for his perscrip to be filled. Parents were summoned post-haste to remove the foul little scab before he could 'bless' us all with his filthy disese.

- The "I'm the greatest at this game" guy. The guy who'd come in for hours on end and spout nothing but how amazing they are at playing & painting. And then rail about how kids are ruining everything and they'd honestly come in for a game if we'd outright ban all the stupid kids. Or else goes about how moronic the newest rulebook/codex is and how the game was so much better "way back when" and that GW is only pandering to dumb people so they can play too, and that the game would so much better if *they* wrote the rules.

I actually convinced one of these Sad Pandas to throw down - my pure Drop Guard vs their 'unbeatable' Sisters army... 5 turns later, there wasn't a sister in sight and over half a guard army snickering about were women in 40k *really* belong! (someting about sisters all having watches on their stoves and the real reasons behind their chains!?!)
He called me a dirty cheater and claimed i had a broken/OP list because I took my culexus assassin, and used a dirty trick to keep my inquisitor out of combat who then proceeded to holocaust all but 2 repentia!
(note: this was back in 4th ed and there was no rule forcing IC's to always engage, so I simply surrounded the inquisitor with his 4 lackies who died epic deaths in service to their master!)

- Our 'favourite' customer... You know, the super inapropriate one, who I could smell from down the hall during the summer, who thought they were the most popular and all that... The one who's so foul you feel the need to immediately run home and shower for an hour to feel clean again... Who makes snorting pig sounds and spouts on and on and on about their favourite anime character... The one who who only ever bought models from us through auctions, and their 'weekly contribution' was a pot or two of paint while they bought almost their entire collection off of ebay and such...
The one who gives us a heart attack by trying to priate an internet signal from a near-by Bell Store and brings 'adult' toys into the store thinking it'll be a great laugh?!!

Every. Single. Day. Monday to Friday, we'd dread that time. The time another little part of your soul died as you were forced to endure a torment even your worst enemy wouldn't deserve.

Experiment 626 wrote:

- Our 'favourite' customer... You know, the super inapropriate one, who I could smell from down the hall during the summer, who thought they were the most popular and all that... The one who's so foul you feel the need to immediately run home and shower for an hour to feel clean again... Who makes snorting pig sounds and spouts on and on and on about their favourite anime character... The one who who only ever bought models from us through auctions, and their 'weekly contribution' was a pot or two of paint while they bought almost their entire collection off of ebay and such...

Yes I have met several of these bacteria incubators first hand over the +40 years in this hobby (games and modeling of course) in GW and LFG stores. You can even "taste the odor" as well.

CthuluIsSpy wrote:I got a story of my own, though it is fairly old (and poorly remembered)

When I was starting WHFB, around the age of 14 or so, I was playing a game at the games workshop over at Melbourne central (I was in AUS at the time). Anyway, its a fairly small store in a mall, and one of the tables was like halfway out. Not on the street obviously, it was in a mall after all, but anyway.

So yeah, I was playing with someguy, and then I felt something poking me. So I turned around and I saw these kids looking at me. I didn't say anything and went back to playing, and I thought nothing of it. Anyway, at the end of the game I noticed that I was missing a skink. I asked the store staff, and after looking under the tables and such we didn't find it. I forgot what happened next, but I think the one of the staff members suspected that it may been been those kids. Said he thought he saw them teasing me or something. So yeah, some bastards may have nicked one of my skinks.

And there are more nasty stories. We always got jerks passing by GW over in aus. We had jocks walk by calling us satanists and whatever. The fact there's no bloody door doesn't help matters.
I am sure there are more, but I can't remember them that well.

Really? We don't have much of any religions present in Australia as a whole, and for someone to mention 'satanists' in public is very... odd. Although we do have a lot of d'bag kids, and Melbourne Central isn't a mall, it's a train station (although that GW moved up near Parliament station IIRC).

Now there's 7 stores left in the state, all very close to Melbourne and only 1 store that does W40k in the Southern metro. Although thankfully the FLGS is near the shopping area but it's very inconspicuous, and he stocks a lot of 3rd party products like GF9 etc.

Gymnogyps wrote:My horror story is from many years ago. A new GW was scheduled to open up right on my drive home from work. I was super excited because at the time, this was the closest FLGS, and dropping by would break up my brutal commute.

So, I placed a web order, paid online, and requested pick up at the new store (Order was for the newly released Chakax and another new lizardmen blister). A few days later, I checked my order online and saw it was ready for pickup. This was prior even to the "Grand Opening", so I was expecting the normal very friendly / enthusiastic GW atmosphere. In fact, I was looking forward to it, due to the crappy drive.

So I get there, and the immediate atmosphere is stand-offish. No greeting, GW guy looks up with neutral expression. Regardless, I am cheerful and happy, and go straight to the counter, super excited to pick up my order. I say, "Hi, I'm so happy you all have opened in this location!" Response: "OK"

I kinda tilt my head and continue, "So I have a web order for pickup." Response, "We don't have it." Immediate response, no bother to look. I said, "No, I checked, my web account says it was delivered here".

The GW guy says: Did you get a call from us?
Me: No.
GW guy: Then we don't have it.
Me: But here is my printout saying it is here to pickup.
GW guy, rolling eyes: Oh, that is you. Your order didn't have a phone number. You should learn how to enter it.
Me, stunned: Uh, I did. I don't know why it didn't go through, maybe something is wrong with the system. Anyway, can I have my order?
GW guy, with contempt: Fine, I'll get it. But you need to enter your phone number.
Me: Uhh... why? I'm here. You have the items. Can I just have my stuff please?
GW guy sneers. He walks to the back.

I'm really, really puzzled at this point, but chalk it up to dude having a bad day, whatever. So I go talk to another guy in street clothes, sitting near by, painting the newly released Stegadon. I try to strike up a convo, about the new lizardmen, excitement about the new releases, about painting, the mini, anything. Nothing but monosyllable responses, snotty, condescending. As it turns out, this is another GW employee, in on personal time.

Other GW guy comes back, and I'm still trying. I ask if they had heard anything about some rumor on the internet- completely light and open, just a, "Hey, have you guys heard anything about..." (can't remember what, now)

GW guy: WHERE DID YOU HEAR THAT?
Me: Dakka or Warseer... kinda interesting, that is all.
GW guy: The internet is for losers. Anyone on the internet is a troll.

He's is clearly targeting this comment directly at me.

Other guy: Heh heh yeah, internet is for losers.

Again, targeted directly at me.

These guys are so nasty they don't even get the irony that I was lambasted for not working the internets correctly (phone number), but then I'm a troll for being on the internet. At this point, I am completely offended. I silently pay and leave. I am ready, right then, to quit and sell every last GW product I own, and if I can't sell it, burn it.

I talk to a friend, who knows the regional manager. Regional manager asks me to come to lunch, apologizes, and comps me a Stegadon. I find out later that both were fired, not because of this, but I still am relieved they aren't around anymore.

That regional manager kept me involved in GW, but I still will not step foot in that store. It can rot for all I care.

says the 2 guys who probably live online


the interwebs have made us a more connected species if nothing less

DIDM wrote:

Gymnogyps wrote:
...These guys are so nasty they don't even get the irony that I was lambasted for not working the internets correctly (phone number), but then I'm a troll for being on the internet. At this point, I am completely offended. I silently pay and leave. I am ready, right then, to quit and sell every last GW product I own, and if I can't sell it, burn it.

I talk to a friend, who knows the regional manager. Regional manager asks me to come to lunch, apologizes, and comps me a Stegadon. I find out later that both were fired, not because of this, but I still am relieved they aren't around anymore.

That regional manager kept me involved in GW, but I still will not step foot in that store. It can rot for all I care.

says the 2 guys who probably live online


the interwebs have made us a more connected species if nothing less

Well, I recall as a lowly redshirt there were the few times we'd get told to outright deny internet rumors, such as the rumors for 8th ed that were being touted over a year before the release. Why? Because it was over a year away and we wanted to keep selling the current rulebook that was on the shelf that was still current for another 12-14 months!
Of corse, by March/April it wasn't even possible to pretend like nothing was forthcoming. But 6-12 months before the release? Damn stait we didn't want people coming in and trying to tell everyone, "don't buy 7th right now man, 8th is coming out in like only a year from next month!" (such a comment earned you a very quick and uncerimonious exit along with an invite to stay away for a few weeks!)

When pestered about rumors and what was the next release, I'd simply say, 'well, I read what you read on warseer/dakka and know that you know that I know what you know!" Pretty much lightened the mood and then I could continue discussing things like, "damn strait I hope that's true... Would be awsome if they do that" and similar.



There is honestly no such thing as a 'bad' GW store or FLGS - only d-bag staff who pollute the place and work against what should be the store's goal of fostering the hobby to garner & grow the community & the sales that come with it. (okay, bad stores exist, but typically only when they're located in the middle of malls undergoing massive renos and/or when disaster strikes!)

There were plenty of utterly s staff at the Burlington store throughout its ten year lifespan. I never hated 'the store' however, just those staff that made the place poisonous. When I'd walk by, if I saw one of the staffers I really couldn't stand and who treated me like dirt, I just kept walking on by. Next time, if the one or two staffers I really liked and were always cool to pretty much everyone were on shift, I'd go in, spend some time painting, maybe play a game and then purchase what I wanted.

If a staff memeber was a *real* tool to me, I'd call HQ when I got home and give them my side of the story. Only had to do that a couple times honestly... Once was when a staff member made some sexist comments about me and what they thought of 'girls hockey' which was insanely demeaning. The other time was when I was trying to rehab a knee injury I'd suffered in a hockey game, and I asked if I could sit down for a minute at the table as it was the middle of the day and the store was empty - staffer told me to go gimp-walk to the food court or else use a pay phone to call an ambulance!

Experiment 626 wrote:

DIDM wrote:

Gymnogyps wrote:
...These guys are so nasty they don't even get the irony that I was lambasted for not working the internets correctly (phone number), but then I'm a troll for being on the internet. At this point, I am completely offended. I silently pay and leave. I am ready, right then, to quit and sell every last GW product I own, and if I can't sell it, burn it.

I talk to a friend, who knows the regional manager. Regional manager asks me to come to lunch, apologizes, and comps me a Stegadon. I find out later that both were fired, not because of this, but I still am relieved they aren't around anymore.

That regional manager kept me involved in GW, but I still will not step foot in that store. It can rot for all I care.

says the 2 guys who probably live online


the interwebs have made us a more connected species if nothing less

Well, I recall as a lowly redshirt there were the few times we'd get told to outright deny internet rumors, such as the rumors for 8th ed that were being touted over a year before the release. Why? Because it was over a year away and we wanted to keep selling the current rulebook that was on the shelf that was still current for another 12-14 months!
Of corse, by March/April it wasn't even possible to pretend like nothing was forthcoming. But 6-12 months before the release? Damn stait we didn't want people coming in and trying to tell everyone, "don't buy 7th right now man, 8th is coming out in like only a year from next month!" (such a comment earned you a very quick and uncerimonious exit along with an invite to stay away for a few weeks!)

When pestered about rumors and what was the next release, I'd simply say, 'well, I read what you read on warseer/dakka and know that you know that I know what you know!" Pretty much lightened the mood and then I could continue discussing things like, "damn strait I hope that's true... Would be awsome if they do that" and similar.



There is honestly no such thing as a 'bad' GW store or FLGS - only d-bag staff who pollute the place and work against what should be the store's goal of fostering the hobby to garner & grow the community & the sales that come with it. (okay, bad stores exist, but typically only when they're located in the middle of malls undergoing massive renos and/or when disaster strikes!)

There were plenty of utterly s staff at the Burlington store throughout its ten year lifespan. I never hated 'the store' however, just those staff that made the place poisonous. When I'd walk by, if I saw one of the staffers I really couldn't stand and who treated me like dirt, I just kept walking on by. Next time, if the one or two staffers I really liked and were always cool to pretty much everyone were on shift, I'd go in, spend some time painting, maybe play a game and then purchase what I wanted.

If a staff memeber was a *real* tool to me, I'd call HQ when I got home and give them my side of the story. Only had to do that a couple times honestly... Once was when a staff member made some sexist comments about me and what they thought of 'girls hockey' which was insanely demeaning. The other time was when I was trying to rehab a knee injury I'd suffered in a hockey game, and I asked if I could sit down for a minute at the table as it was the middle of the day and the store was empty - staffer told me to go gimp-walk to the food court or else use a pay phone to call an ambulance!

not sure what you quoted me for

I was saying that the guys at his local GW were just trolling, and then I get a wall of text that I honestly can't be bothered to read since, what I said is not worthy of 1000 plus characters

The ONLY GW store in my area (New England, Conn.) closed down a couple years ago, the redshirts there were pretty nice. I annihilated nearly ever player who came in w/ my necrons

-Loki- wrote:feth that's a nice board.

Do you have any logs on how you made it?

No, but there's a tutorial on here (I JUST saw it the other day) on making a lava board. Despite some aesthetic differences, it's exactly how we made the one in my post.

EDIT: Here's the link: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/243963.page

Not a GW story but a LGS story.

Go in to buy cube o dice. They are out so I ask if I could order some. Their response we don need to place that order we have chess ex dice! What?

Go in to buy some brushes and of course their out. Ask if I could order some. Their answer "no". Nothing else. I stand their for a second then ask why. He says they won't be making an order for sometime. Something to do with how GW requires them to make a certain size order each time. Sounds possible but anything this particular guy tells me is suspect since I've caught him lying to me before.

My favorite though. I go in to browse he metals rack to see if there's any metal orks (I don't care for finecast) and I'm in luck there's a captain bradukk on the rack. First thought is woot. Then I flip it over and see the price. 45$. So I go up to the counter to see if it's a mistake. Of course it's the same guy again. Always the same guy even though they have other workers, I'm cursed with this guy. It's not a mistake so I just kinda stare at him for a sec and try to put something into words and all I can get out is why? His response is that's what it cost them to get it. Huh? GW only charges 25 for it. So unless somebody straight up hosed you how did it cost 45 dollars. I put the fig back and left.

Where is the customer service. Hello, you are a store. I assume you want to make money. I am new to this hobby true so maybe dealing with hobby stores is a different beast than other stores. I'm just not used to being told No by clerks/owners of retail shops when my request are not unreasonable. What makes it worse is I'm stuck with this place as my only local store. There are 2 others if I dive an hour north or south but that's a little difficult with gas as high as it is now :(

Unfortunately a lot of LGS are owned by people who were gamers long before they were businesspeople. Slightly worse are the ones owned by people who are still gamers and will never be businesspeople. Worst of all are the ones owned by people who used to be gamers, and are now so jaded at having realised they will never be businesspeople, that they also hate games, gaming, and gamers.

Shaozun wrote:

CthuluIsSpy wrote:I got a story of my own, though it is fairly old (and poorly remembered)

When I was starting WHFB, around the age of 14 or so, I was playing a game at the games workshop over at Melbourne central (I was in AUS at the time). Anyway, its a fairly small store in a mall, and one of the tables was like halfway out. Not on the street obviously, it was in a mall after all, but anyway.

So yeah, I was playing with someguy, and then I felt something poking me. So I turned around and I saw these kids looking at me. I didn't say anything and went back to playing, and I thought nothing of it. Anyway, at the end of the game I noticed that I was missing a skink. I asked the store staff, and after looking under the tables and such we didn't find it. I forgot what happened next, but I think the one of the staff members suspected that it may been been those kids. Said he thought he saw them teasing me or something. So yeah, some bastards may have nicked one of my skinks.

And there are more nasty stories. We always got jerks passing by GW over in aus. We had jocks walk by calling us satanists and whatever. The fact there's no bloody door doesn't help matters.
I am sure there are more, but I can't remember them that well.

Really? We don't have much of any religions present in Australia as a whole, and for someone to mention 'satanists' in public is very... odd. Although we do have a lot of d'bag kids, and Melbourne Central isn't a mall, it's a train station (although that GW moved up near Parliament station IIRC).

Now there's 7 stores left in the state, all very close to Melbourne and only 1 store that does W40k in the Southern metro. Although thankfully the FLGS is near the shopping area but it's very inconspicuous, and he stocks a lot of 3rd party products like GF9 etc.

Well, he didn't say "satanists" exactly. But I am sure he mentioned the devil/black magic/hell. Something along that bullgak. As I said, it was a long time ago.
And yes, melbourne central was a train station. It was also a commercial center, due to the heavy presence of stores, hence me calling it a "mall"

Experiment 626 wrote:I actually convinced one of these Sad Pandas to throw down - my pure Drop Guard vs their 'unbeatable' Sisters army... 5 turns later, there wasn't a sister in sight and over half a guard army snickering about were women in 40k *really* belong! (someting about sisters all having watches on their stoves and the real reasons behind their chains!?!)

Aww, why'd you go ahead and ruin such a nice story.

My relationship with GW staff has always been one of respectful coldness. I ask for my wares, pay for them and politely say my goodbyes. Sometimes I'll make a nice remark on their minis or their tables, but that's about all. I'm not there to make friends.

I've never been too big on this "shopping as an experience" and "emotional capital" corporate mumbo-jumbo. I just buy my things and leave as quickly as I can. And often, when I see them wrestling with hordes of the annoying spawn of the well-off, I think I'm actually doing them a favor.

Now don't get me wrong, I DO socialize around wargames. It's just that GW stores make me slightly uneasy, as if I was invading someone else's workplace. Gaming or painting there feels like throwing a wild party in the middle of a call center.

I think the stories of bad GW (or LGS) employees is the age old folly of giving nerds the illusion of power. It's not always true, but when you give someone who's been in an outcast-type social group the idea that they 'outrank' you, they either become a good mentor, or Dr. Evil.