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Thanks
In which case GW staff are caught between a rock and a hard place and ought to be given a bit of slack.

However the worst stories above are exempt from sympathy. Don't like hard sell, and the guy who earns my trust is likely to get my pennies. (Does that sound euphemistic? )

imho Asking if you need "batteries" or accessories is a valid question as Solo said.

Yeah, the quotas (targets) are not only real but a PITA for staff. When boxes are out they HAVE to offer them with all sales, pretty much - moronic directives from GW HQ, sadly.

I solve this problem by having never entered a store since the 2nd edition launch day. Interestingly it makes it rather hard to 'upsell' (what an awful travesty of a word that is) to me.

The only thing I get is the website ramming their 'Free Delivery in May/June/July/August.....' down my throat. Bloody faceless corporate slave masters!

My local games workshop in Amsterdam never does this. Thankfully.

I one time complained that my spay gun pot fell right out of the spray gun and they gave me a new pot

The LOTR box set!

Bleekch!

The books bored the hell out of me, the movies were cool, but I've got too many fantasy nut friends who love it and have had to sit thru the nineteen hours of deleted scenes of frodo scratching his belly lint too many times to care.

When I remarked something along these lines he kept trying to plug it for about ten minutes even after I steered the conversation back to IG because I guess I hit a nerve with him.

Awkward...

Thankfully he doesn't work there anymore, and I make sure never to stand between a LOTR fan and his ring!

@Darth Bob

Wow, I'm sure glad I've never been to that GW

I've never bought anything bigger than an SM Bike in-store (not since 2003 or something). Usually I just stop-in to either play or buy a paint pot.

I've certainly never been made to feel bad though I can remember one time going into a Games Workshop when I turned up in a town early to meet my friends (I had brought my 40k because I knew I'd be early) and it was just the manager and his apprentice-manager or w/e they call the trainee. I sat in there, said I had nowhere to go and asked for a game despite the fact they were quite busy (no customers meant an opportunity to paint some Skaven they needed to do for some event with another store)

So yeah, I did get a game from the manager, who left his slave painting; but gee did he make me feel uncomfortable.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I should add that I have been in that store a few times and whilst I think the manager can be a jerk (I got in a few arguments with him about pricing strategies)... I never really had a bad experience there.

Me - "Well i have a fully painted Empire army"
GW Worker - "Maybe you'd be interested in the Colors of the Empire book ... it has some some great ideas for Empire color schemes"
Me - " .... maybe not"
GW Worker - "Are you sure because the artwork is fantastic"
Me - "... i'm not sure your hearing the fully painted part"

You guys actually pay retail?

tgf wrote:You guys actually pay retail?

If you go into a LGWS regularly and play games you kinda have to, its not fair to use the facilities of a local store and not contribute to its running. Maybe its just me, but I would rather pay 30% extra and have somewhere to game, paint, and people to talk to.

But to be fair I think if you take out a £600 Marine Army then the store manager should leave you be bar nagging you to perhaps try a new army...

When there was a GW store near where I live in Colorado (the Colorado mills mall, it closed down before I got back from college in California which kinda sucked), I only ever went there to game because the store was a good 45 minuet drive away, although I did go there when they had this one really big sale where they were auctioning off a bunch of blisters and such (that was back in...'04-'05 I think). The staff was usually informative and friendly and of the 1 or 2 times that I did buy something there the guy at the cash register would say "got every thing you need?" with paint, brushes and stuff like that. A lot like making sure to ask if I would like to get batteries for the camera I'm going to buy kinda thing.

Unreal Toast wrote:Ive actually never experianced a GW staff trying to sell me anything, ive always found them to be incredibly friendly and very helpfull. either their trained in mind manipulation of they really are friendly helpful people.

Yep. Me too.

I dont have any GW's in like a 300 mile radius of my town, so i go to different hobbyshops to buy my GW stuff. When I first got into the hobby, i went downtown looking for a rulesbook or a starter set. I go into a store and talk to this woman at the cash register. she says that she will order a copy of the 40k rules book for me. I agree and she writres it down on a note pad and tells me to come back in a week. A week later i come back to the store to pick up my rules book. I go to the cash register and she hands me a large book that says Dark Heresy on the cover. I stare at it for a second and try to tell her that this is clearly not the book I was looking for, but she insists. I glance at the back of the book and then hand her my money and walk out the door. Right about then I open up the front cover and read "a Warhammer 40000 based game" and see on the index a section called "character creation" I go into the store and demand a refund. after about an hour of aguing and hearing that "the Warhammer 40000 rulebook is out of print" and I get my refund.

Not GW related but puts things into perspective if you think some Redshirts are bad, ages ago my godparents were visiting and popped to the corner shop for a block of icecream.

They said they did have some cabbages.
Apparently this is 100% true. kid you not

How the mind doth boggle!

Radi87 wrote:

tgf wrote:You guys actually pay retail?

If you go into a LGWS regularly and play games you kinda have to, its not fair to use the facilities of a local store and not contribute to its running. Maybe its just me, but I would rather pay 30% extra and have somewhere to game, paint, and people to talk to.

The LGS around here all have some sort of discount club/program to get around 20/25% off on the big purchases.

Space Hulk.
Whilst buying Space hulk.

Little lord Fauntleroy wrote:Space Hulk.
Whilst buying Space hulk.

one to paint, one to save?

they tried to make me buy a baneblade and a shadowsword and a Battle Company
I swear they thought i was full of money when i said I have 350 marines.

battle Brother Lucifer wrote:

Little lord Fauntleroy wrote:Space Hulk.
Whilst buying Space hulk.

one to paint, one to save?

I don't even know, I just gave him a 'Son, I am disspoint' look, handed over the cash, and left without a word. I suspect it was one to paint and one to save, but I am only a sad little 14 year old and not made of cash. Hell, I have only painted one terminator (badly) and one Genestealer (badly) from my first copy. I guess I kind of brought it on myself, as I hadn't even intended to buy Spulk. Sadly, they discovered my one weakness.

That I am weak.

From my experiences with every official GW store here, I would advise people to never accept the advice of a GW store worker without checking what they're saying out online or with your head.

I've been told:
"Sentinels are amazing, plasma cannons and they cost like what, 40 points? Anything that could ever kill them costs more than that anyway!" (In fact, sentinel costs 75 points.)

"Island of Blood is amazing, putting your lord on a griffon is great because no one is gonna shoot it because it's not a dragon. High Elf Reavers are hard to kill, they've got a 5+ armor save (they're also T3 and EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE OF TOUGH.) They can take bows (S3 one shot.) Lothern Sea Guard aren't overpriced at only 13 points each and you get a spear and a bow. (I tell him I already have enough spearmen) Yeah man, but these have bows, we've never made Sea Guard models before. (Sea Guard are just holding spears, they're just spearmen with a symbol on the shield.)

"An IG squad can take a chimera, it has 6 fire points and they can fire like 5 blast templates wounding on 2+" (Someone "I think it has 5 fire points") "No it has 6."

"Nah, apocalypse is balanced, you can bring just some infantry against a titan, it'll just ignore you so you can get stuff done."

(Someone asks how much each Leman Russ is)
"Oh, I think they're around the same price, they all cost exactly the same points in game." (150 for basic russ compared to 230 points for Executioner with the 5x plasma he was talking about in actuality.)

"Storm Troopers are AMAZINGLY good. S3 AP3 lasguns? Incredible. I don't care how high I need to roll to wound because I'm ignoring that armor, so strength doesn't matter. I'm taking a whole dice away." (8 ST + 2 meltas is 185 points. 7 Vets + 3 meltas is 100 points. F that nonsense.)

Some other stuff as well, this is from 2 different official GW stores. It frightens me that I know people who ask rules questions to them and say "His answer must be right, he works for GW" about the guys who try to sell everyone the worst units ever made.

TheBloodGod wrote:
From my experiences with every official GW store here, I would advise people to never accept the advice of a GW store worker without checking what they're saying out online or with your head.

I've been told:
"Sentinels are amazing, plasma cannons and they cost like what, 40 points? Anything that could ever kill them costs more than that anyway!" (In fact, sentinel costs 75 points.)

"Island of Blood is amazing, putting your lord on a griffon is great because no one is gonna shoot it because it's not a dragon. High Elf Reavers are hard to kill, they've got a 5+ armor save (they're also T3 and EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE OF TOUGH.) They can take bows (S3 one shot.) Lothern Sea Guard aren't overpriced at only 13 points each and you get a spear and a bow. (I tell him I already have enough spearmen) Yeah man, but these have bows, we've never made Sea Guard models before. (Sea Guard are just holding spears, they're just spearmen with a symbol on the shield.)

"An IG squad can take a chimera, it has 6 fire points and they can fire like 5 blast templates wounding on 2+" (Someone "I think it has 5 fire points") "No it has 6."

"Nah, apocalypse is balanced, you can bring just some infantry against a titan, it'll just ignore you so you can get stuff done."

(Someone asks how much each Leman Russ is)
"Oh, I think they're around the same price, they all cost exactly the same points in game." (150 for basic russ compared to 230 points for Executioner with the 5x plasma he was talking about in actuality.)

"Storm Troopers are AMAZINGLY good. S3 AP3 lasguns? Incredible. I don't care how high I need to roll to wound because I'm ignoring that armor, so strength doesn't matter. I'm taking a whole dice away." (8 ST + 2 meltas is 185 points. 7 Vets + 3 meltas is 100 points. F that nonsense.)

Some other stuff as well, this is from 2 different official GW stores. It frightens me that I know people who ask rules questions to them and say "His answer must be right, he works for GW" about the guys who try to sell everyone the worst units ever made.

That Reminds me of my brother
They tried to make him buy more elven spearmen. When he had over 275 Spearmen. and 100 Archers XD. He loves sales.

Asherian Command wrote:they tried to make me buy a baneblade and a shadowsword and a Battle Company
I swear they thought i was full of money when i said I have 350 marines.

Asherian Command wrote:That Reminds me of my brother They tried to make him buy more elven spearmen. When he had over 275 Spearmen. and 100 Archers XD. He loves sales.

If I didn't know better I'd think you were trying to rub in our faces that you're fabulously wealthy? ;P

Henners91 wrote:

Asherian Command wrote:they tried to make me buy a baneblade and a shadowsword and a Battle Company
I swear they thought i was full of money when i said I have 350 marines.

Asherian Command wrote:That Reminds me of my brother They tried to make him buy more elven spearmen. When he had over 275 Spearmen. and 100 Archers XD. He loves sales.

If I didn't know better I'd think you were trying to rub in our faces that you're fabulously wealthy? ;P

no. Unlike most people I work for my money. Plus. 350 marines i got from my friends in total i spent 400$ on them. My brother he spent 700$ on his elves.
I just think it is funny that they would want use to buy stuff like that. Seriously I have enough stop attacking me XD

They bugged me about buying stuff until they met my dad. Now they leave me alone.

Reminds me of one of the staff at the GW I previously mentioned. (I think he might work at a different GW now though) He'd been playing tau since they came out. I went in with some stealth suits that I'd bought and painted up on an impulse. We got to talking about the colour scheme I'd used, he asked me if he could use it on his quite large tau army (containing a lot of stealth suits) that was still almost totally unpainted. I said sure. Then I asked about his list, went something like:

GW: Crisis commander with bodyguard, guns etc
Ktulhut: Yip
GW: Second crisis HQ with bodyguard etc
Ktulhut: MmmHmm
GW: 3 crisis suits
Ktulhut: Yip
GW 3 crisis suits
Ktulhut: (to myself) must be only 6 stealth suits then...
GW: 3 more crisis suits
Ktulhut: O rly?
GW: [tells me about his 6 troops choices]
Ktulhut: Ok.
GW: Fast attack; 6 stealth suits-
Ktulhut: Wait, WHAT?!
GW: I have three units of six stealth suits for fast attack.
Ktulhut: *shows staff member tau codex*
GW: Oh, @%#&!!!

He'd been working for them since the start of 3e, playing tau since they came out, and simply hadn't noticed his mistake in the what, 9 years since he'd started playing the army. Great guy, but no one should think the red shirt makes them any better or more knowledgeable with the rules than any of us are.

I'd also like to add that I don't mind being "upsold" paint, glue etc because I often do need it, and too many times have I gone home only to discover I'm out of spray/poly cement/whatever. The funny thing about my local GW is that the "regular" staff just ask me if I need any glue or paint (because they can see the $300 stack of minis already on the counter), but the manager will see that, and then spend ten minutes plus extolling the virtues of whatever it is he's got too many of on the shelf this week in the hopes he can unload it onto me. He's a tool if ever there was one.

I've only shopped in a GW store once, and had no problems. 5 years ago I went to the Carousel Mall in Syracuse, New York to bring my sister to her first year of college. I stopped in, found the store and hung out for about a half hour or so, just pouring over the racks of boxes and blisters. I chatted with the store workers for a bit, saw them demoing the battle of maccragge boxset and was asked if I wanted to try it out-I declined because I had no interest in 40k at the time. After that I picked up 3 blisters of chaos minotaurs for the chaos army I was starting, was asked politely if I needed anything else, told them that I only had 40 in cash on me (minotaurs were still 12 there at the time) and received the words "thanks, have a great day and enjoy" when I was leaving. Excellent experience. It was a real shame when it closed down, because after I went there I constantly wanted to visit my sister at school, just to go to the mall-I even offered to pick her up on winter break just to take a trip, but then went in the mall to find out the store had closed and a rip-off game store took its place-sold GW with a lot of models at least 20% marked up. Some were normal price, some overly expensive. New plastic black orcs at the time were 40 bucks there instead of 25 because the store owners couldn't tell the difference between the old metal and the new plastic. When I asked him about it, he just responded with "That's the price. Take it or leave it." I left it. Got me some $8 mounted Diaznettes instead

Not exactly selling but just the overall attitude and cluelessness of some GW employees.

This is back in 7th edition fantacy.

There was this one GW manager at my local store who had been doing the hobby for I think 8 years or something, and within around 6 months of starting fantacy I beat him on a regular basis. We really didnt see eye to eye but he knew I was good at list building so one day he asked for my opinion on his Vampire counts list (sorry for those of you who dont know fantacy well, you might not get half of this)

GW: Hey man check this list out for me?
Zee: Sure. (*Looks at the first 3 things he has written down*) Ok, problem.
GW: What?
Zee: The only magic you have in your entire army is a Lvl 2 Vampire.
GW: So?
Zee: ... Youre playing VAMPIRE COUNTS.
GW: Well man, see I have these 2 units of Blood Knights here so I dont really need the Magic, I'll just run through things.
Zee: Ok but what if they get tarpitted?
GW: Nah they wont.
Zee: (thinks to himself) "Yes they will..." (*Looks at rest of the list*) Hey good news you might be able to get the points for another wizard after all.
GW: Why would I take something out this list is great?
Zee: Really, well you only have 1 core choice so you better start removing a blood knight unit.

My friend once came to GW really early as soon as they opened, sat down at the painting station which can seat 6 people total and starts reading a Codex. The same GW manager comes over to him.

GW: Hey man what'cha doing?
Friend: Oh, just checking out the Tau Codex.
GW: Yea... see, this is a paint bar, you gotta be working on models to sit here, sometimes this bar gets flooded.
Friend: (Looks around: the only people in the store are him, one other guy who is painting, and the manager) You're kidding right?
GW: No, sorry this bar gets very crowded sometimes and we have to make space for people who need to paint.
Friend: *Bursts into Laughter, then slowly stops laughing because the Manager is looking at him angerly.* Wait, you really are serious?
GW: Yea.
Friend: WTF. Are you blind?

One tried to sell me an over priced measuring tape even though I told him I own one . Then tried to sell me a brush again which I already have. Then when he tried to sell me gk For my space marine army I just went home.

Ktulhut wrote:Went to buy 3 copies of space hulk (one to paint/play, one to put up the back of a cupboard and another as a gift), so ALREADY going to give them a ton of cash.

GW manager saw me looking at the new space wolves boxes, and spent the next half hour trying to sell me a $1500 space wolf army complete with 5 thunderwolves and drop pods for every unit, despite me telling him straight up it wasn't happening when he started and again every 2 minutes after that, and doing everything in his power to not sell me my space hulks without any space wolves. If there had been ANY other way for me to get those 3 space hulks I'd have walked out of the store (as I have before when dealing with this guy), but I needed them and the only other staffer was busy running an apoc game for all the kiddies and couldn't help.

So a GW manager tried to sell you a complete army with a unit that GW doesn't even produce ?

Probably meant the Canis model Irdiumstern-5 copies of that bugger....