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First off let me start by saying I haven't been into the hobby for very long and have very little experiance at LGS.
I have been to this store around 7 times now and am still undecided on if I will continue to go there. The store holds the bare minimum stock for 40k, I'm talking on or two blisters per army. They do have Jester paint but don't carry GW paint. They have an "upstairs" that has two tables that are wonderful. The only huge issue I have is some of the other customers and some of the staff. This week a buddy and I were about ready to play a game of 40k, some kids where using one of the table so we took the 2nd one, when the manager came up and told us that we needed to be off the tables by 6pm because they would be having a Pathfinder game up there, No problem. About 5 minutes later a staff member came up and said one of us needed to get off our table because some regulars and the manager needed to play Pathfinder early. Then another staff member proceded to come up and rudly say to my buddy and I, "Well this is my table I guess!" No eye contact nothing!! We then proceded to pack up and head downstairs to the card tables to set up. Adam the manager said, "hey don't worry about we are just going to play down here" the icing on the cake was the staff member coming back up stairs while we are playing going, "I guess Adam gave away our table again" very smugish.
While I applaud the manager, Adam, for doing the right and being a good guy, his staff is rude and overbearing.
Anybody had any incidents there?? Should we stay with it, or move on??

I took a look at their site. I'd give up. They're focused on CCG's and RPG's. In my experience you will never get good tabletop support from these kinds of stores.

Check out Showcase Comics at the Granite Run Mall in Media. They just opened a huge battle bunker. Showcase is focused on tabletop games and is like Disney World with boltguns and lascannons.

oni wrote:Check out Showcase Comics at the Granite Run Mall in Media. They just opened a huge battle bunker. Showcase is focused on tabletop games and is like Disney World with boltguns and lascannons.

This. Showcase is an excellent store and is an example of how independents should be run.

I have been to showcase a few times and am impressed with thier HUGE stock. It's 20-30 min away but it's starting to seem it's worth it.
Is the "bunker" in the same space as the retail store??

Castonguay's buddy here. Anytime I've been in Red Caps Adams always been cordial. but yeah, these other guys. I really wanted to knock "no-eye-contact-can't-cut-my-hair-right" in the lip. It put us off a bit, and thing is I don't believe Adam knew what his staff did cause when we went downstairs it seemed as though he thought it was odd that we weren't playing upstair. You should know that these table upstair are wargaming designed. built in shelves for books and models and such. and You should know that downstair they got about 10 table for RPG and Cards. These were just Regulars using the staff to stiff arm us.

I live in Philadelphia, didn't even know Red Caps even existed until this! Showcase is a really good option if you are local to the Philly area. The bunker is a seperate store inside the same mall that the own has rented out. Basically the bunker is for tournments and events, the store is for pickup games and during the week events.

Clark's got everything you really need in that store already, and order's are done regularly. My suggestion: register on his website www.showcasecomicsandgames.com. There are plenty of people on there. You will be able to arrange games fairly easily even during the week. Based on the website: Red cap looks like a card game shop which are typically not very wargamer friendly.

that's what's it's looking like too. Alex just came in today. he's headed over this morning for terrain. We're goign to be focusing at buying from Showcase and a cross between playing there and at my house. Thanks for the heads up. I was really hoping that Red Caps would pan out. I live 5 blocks from it. now it'll take about 20/30 minutes to showcase...it's cool though especially if it's like you all say

Heard of red caps but never been there. Here is another vote for Showcase. Mike runs the best shop around, for reals.

I used to live 10 minutes away, I moved and now I'm 50 minutes away. There's FLGSes that are closer to me but I still go to Showcase instead just cuz I know what I want will be in stock and if it isn't I can ask for it and have it in a couple days. I don't get the chance to play there often but it's still a great place for in store playing

If it's more convenient for you, Showcase has another shop in Bryn Mawr. It's not quite as big as the battle bunker in Media, but it's still a pretty nice place. We've got a core group of gamers (and not too many stereotypical cheeto-laden gamers either!), and the guys who run the place are great.

I'm gonna throw my two cents in. Red Cap is a great store to pick up something real quick, maybe some paint or a model or something, but other than that its the pits for playing wargames. Its always chock full of card gamers or role players who stick to those tables and chairs like they're glued there.
Showcase at the granite run mall is the tops though. Lots of space, great terrain, so much stock you need several trips there just to look at all the minis and a great staff.

acastonguay if you ever want to get a game in during the week i'm unemployed and live in south philly, about 10 mins from the gray's ferry bridge. I don't have a car but am always willing to chip in for gas.

I live about 10-15 minutes from Bryn Mawr. is that shop called Showcase too or does it go by another name? I'll have to check it out. As of now AC and I are going to start playing at my crib and pop ins to showcase and see where that leads us. Dagger, you'd be welcome to join if you like. i'm off Baltimore Ave. Around the corner from the 64 bus.

That shop in Bryn Mawr is indeed Showcase Comics as well. I'm not quite sure of the whole relationship between the two stores, but they share stock, a message board, and one employee, who goes back and forth between stores.

There is also a Showcase in Philly, but it's completely unrelated to these two, and doesn't sell wargames of any kind. :(

Went to showcase yesterday and man o man what an experiance. The owner is by far a cut above the rest in terms of shop owners. Bye Bye red caps, hello showcase!!!

Dagger PM me your info and I'll let you know when me and Mughzee are playing.

acastonguay wrote:Went to showcase yesterday and man o man what an experiance. The owner is by far a cut above the rest in terms of shop owners. Bye Bye red caps, hello showcase!!!
Dagger PM me your info and I'll let you know when me and Mughzee are playing.

Was this in Media or in Bryn Mawr?

This is the one in Media. Just got back from there this evening. Yeah, in 17 years of gaming I've been to 3 stores that are a 10 in gaming experience and Showcase is one of them. I was soooooo pleased it's not evening funny. Just a sampler. on Cottman they got a GW and this nifty little program for new cats where you pay some cash and get a starter paint set and once a week 2 hour learning session for 4 weeks and then get a "price" at the. It's cool, not gouging and new cats, I'm sure, will learn alot. Showcase says, Hey, come on Saturdays, 10-1 every week. bring your minies and paint with us. Our paint, your minies, our experience....free. and after, we play. anyway, yeah, Showcase will be my gaming hub.

AC, so he walked me over to the bunker.....Someone else said it earlier. Disney world with Boltguns. And it's a 25 minute ride from my house.

There's a reason Showcase Comics has been a fixture in the Philadelphia area for decades now, and the owner is it! I've seen comic and game shops come and go and he is a constant success, because he doesn't just sell the games and books he lives them. So I'm fairly certain you're going to enjoy yourself there.

Hey guys! This is Benn, one of the owners of Redcap's Corner. Someone just forwarded this thread to me, so even though I'm a few months late, I thought I'd chime in. You all have a lot of valid complaints, and hopefully I can address most of them to your satisfaction. First of all, I can't apologize enough for coming across as rude with the Pathfinder incident. I don't believe it was me who asked you to stop playing, but either way it was inexcusable and whoever it was should have known better, and certainly should have explained better why they were asking you to do what they were.

The issue is that the tables upstairs were designed both for roleplaying and for miniatures gaming. The loft is mixed-use for those two purposes. The tables downstairs work much better for card games and board games, and we've explicitly banned the playing of card games upstairs because we know the card gamers can be both rowdy and spread out. Roleplaying downstairs is nearly impossible when there are card gamers around, because it relies so heavily on talking and being able to hear each other comfortably, so in general all roleplaying is done upstairs. Further, we maintain a calendar of events, and certain space is reserved for those events during the scheduled times. I don't understand why we started Pathfinder early on the day in question, as it was not appropriate for us to do so while the tables we needed were occupied, but thank you for understanding that on Pathfinder night, Pathfinder takes precedence. Starting with next month's calendar, it's going to be very clear about which programs are taking place upstairs and which downstairs, and space is always available in either room on a first-come, first-served basis for other uses when one of those rooms isn't reserved.

Second of all, I know our miniatures gaming and roleplaying space is limited, and that's a serious bummer for everybody. We're in negotiations with our landlord to expand our loft further back over the rest of our play area, since the bowling alley next door is going out of business, and when that happens we'll be building another four or five tables, at least, after which point I don't anticipate any space issues or conflicting uses of those tables for a very long time.

And now on to the issue of our stock. I know our stock sucks. This is something I've tried to address numerous times at the store, but I'm not in charge of ordering, and I haven't been able to make a convincing enough argument yet, so hopefully this thread will help change that. What it boils down to is this: we've seen very little enthusiasm from the 40K (and miniatures gaming) community at-large. We opened last year on a really, really limited budget with a bare minimum of stock all-around, and we've been expanding mostly in the directions where people have shown interest. Our board game selection is much better now than it was when we opened, our card game selection is much better, and our roleplaying selection is a little better, because those are the areas of interest our customers have primarily shown. We all desperately want 40K to do better than it is, and I've argued repeatedly that we need to widen our selection in order for it to do that, but my partners' trepidation has been due to the poor show of support. This is not to say that I or any of us believe people should be buying products from us that they already have or don't really want, just so we get the hint, but I think if we had 40K gamers in the store regularly, taking advantage of the table space and giving us suggestions, it would go a long way. Even people who come into the store and tell us "here's what I think you should have in stock, because I want to support the store five blocks from my house, but you're doing a lacklustre job" are helping! We buy where the signals send us, and it may take a few whacks on the head for the signals to come into focus. I hope this all makes sense! 40K product is really expensive, and we're still a first-year store with a reasonably limited budget. We can't afford to dive in headfirst without a reasonably good notion that such a huge investment will pay off in the long-run.

That all being said, Showcase is a great shop. They've been around a really long time, they're incredibly knowledgeable, and they run a fantastic store. The four of us who run Redcap's are all hardcore gamers, who love these hobbies and these games, but we're not business men. We're 20-somethings who wanted to do something positive for Philadelphia and build a community space within city limits. We're trying really hard, but we definitely don't have experience on our side, and all I can promise you is that we're learning from our mistakes, and striving to be better all the time. I would never try to steal business from Showcase, because I have nothing but love and respect for those guys, but I hope some of you can find it in your hearts to pop in some time and give us a second shot too, especially considering we have a 40K league we've just started up which will be on June's calendar and which I hope will be a lot of fun. Even if you're only coming in to tell us how inadequately stocked we are, it's going toward a positive end. (:


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, and one quick addendum. We know that the unruly card customers have become a big problem for most non-card gamers, and we're working to address the problem, first of all by reserving (as I mentioned before) certain areas and certain times for specific activities. It's worked really well so far on Tuesdays for board games. We just don't allow people in the downstairs area on Tuesday evenings unless they're playing board games, which makes the overall atmosphere more relaxed and the space more available. Our next big initiative is going to be asking people to leave when they're being too loud and continuing to be vigilant on this issue to the point where the problem customers simply shape-up or stop coming by. It's not okay for a few Yu-Gi-Oh! or Magic customers to ruin the atmosphere for everyone else, and we realize that. Know that it's being addressed!

Nice response!

Your situation sounds very similar to another store I know. Customers inquired about GW products enough that the owner budged and got a limited stock, a very limited stock, but his stock isn't his issue.

The fact is, if people really want GW product, they can get it and fairly easily. It's certainly not a rare commodity.

The problem is support. It is extremely hard for most GW gamers to play at home. A 6'x4' table is rather large and making terrain is usually an irritation and an expense most gamers don't care to incur. So they look to game stores to supply this fundamental need.

It's not a large stock of product that draws them in, it's having a place to actually play the game. Once they have a place to play, purchases then become incidental.

@RCC- If I lived closer I'd swing by out of respect for your post.

Thanks for the responses! I know (or I guess I hope) that at the end of the day, space and play-support is the bottom line, and honestly that's why we're starting the league. And if people have other suggestions we're more than happy to cater to them in terms of other programs we can run to support 40K play. We do, however, already have the space and the terrain. We have (as previously mentioned) two tables upstairs built specifically to cater to the miniatures gaming crowd (as well as roleplayers) and we have extra 6'x4' tabletops to put on top of the downstairs tables if there are too many people here at once for the upstairs area. We also have terrain enough to support several tables, and all of this is free to use!

We're trying, I promise! And our stock can only get better the more people come and play! The big issue is just making sure to keep our calendar in mind, because we do have to reserve the tables upstairs for other programs sometimes.

Anyway, thanks again!

Benn-
I will be coming up to the store next weekend and I am hoping things are. The only reason for the change of heart is because of your post. It takes balls to say you were wrong. I look forward to the June league and will do what I can help make the 40k scene flourish there.

Benn-
Don't forget you can always swing by and talk if you need help with anything. I've helped a lot of stores over the years from layout, budgeting, and the business end of things to how to run leagues and make scenery on the gaming end.

I started Showcase at about the same level you guys have started your store. I was 23, new nothing, and had to learn it all over the next couple of decades. I don't mind sharing, and it's a hell of a lot cheaper to learn from other people's mistakes.)

The biggest piece of advice I can give any store is: Can't sell what you don't have.
The best way to increase both number of gamers in the store and your sales numbers is by increasing the stock of your 40k section. You don't need the amount I carry, which is quite a bit more than the average GW store, but the more you have, the better chance there is that what the customer is looking for matches what you have on the shelf, and you get the sale.

Give me a call at some point, or stop by and chat.

Mike at Showcase

Alex, good to hear from you!

I just caught this thread; I've actually been meaning to put up a thread about the 40k league @ Redcap's for the past couple days. The plan is to start in June (next week!) w/ Thursdays being 40k night, and encouraging people to enter the league and play then. 1500 pts, $5 cash or a $15 purchase to enter, with 1st and 2nd place at the end of the month taking $3 and $2 of each registration in store credit. Matches will be rolled randomly from the standard rule book missions with some simple battle point criteria and bonuses for scoring.

Should be a good, low key affair. I'm hoping that helps bring more people together and starts building more of a 40k community at the store and here in Center City. You can see it developing a little bit over the past year. I've enjoyed seeing people slowly come into the fold between the '09 and '10 'Ard Boyz runs, the winter Combat Patrol tournament, and so on, with a slowly emerging kernel of repeat people.

I think with the store committing to Thursdays being 40k night, that should help a lot with some of the space and atmosphere issues and provide a good weeknight time for 40k gaming. Like Benn said, some of the boardgamers I know that have been playing on Tuesdays have noted that things are pretty good now that the store's gotten aggressive about controlling the card players and making space for boardgames on Tuesdays. I'm hoping for similar results on Thursdays, which should hopefully resolve most of the kinds of the problems you guys had.


As somebody not affiliated with the store, and with just an interest in seeing more good 40k opportunities and players here in Center City, I would say the store's actually very eager to build up 40k and miniatures gaming. Adam's obviously a fan and player, and Benn's been very eager as well to get more 40k going on. I think they've done a great job with efforts so far like the 'Ard Boyz tournaments, making space for the CP tournament, and providing good tables and a solid selection of terrain. Hopefully the ongoing league will slowly pull in more people, and justify both more stock and more dedicated space/time. Personally I'm definitely looking forward to continuing to meet more people around CC & West Philly to play with.

In any event, Alex & Mughzee, I'm planning on being there next Thursday, so I hope you are as well!

Alex and I are going to support. No worries there. what does stink is I work every Thursday in June. 2 i work in the the day time - unfortunately this thursday isn't one of them - so as long as you're playing after 6 i should be able to attend those two. Anyway, if i'm off on a thursday i'm coming.