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Just wondering but have never really gotten answers, I have some general questions for the European wargamers across the Atlantic. I was wondering what is more popular over there, WHFB or 40k? Also how big is Privateer Press relatively to GW gaming systems. The last question I had is how expensive relatively is it to get a decent sized army over there in Euro. From what I heard it seems likle GW makes it a little more expensive in places they have to ship their products too like Australia and here in the USA for example.

This is subjective and based on my own observations in the UK:

40K is definitely the big boy here- loads of players compared to Fantasy.
Fantasy has had a resurgence due to 8th edition and in the areas I play is much more popular than it was previously.

PP games are played for sure and it has a small presence in independants and game clubs I've seen.
I could probably count on 1 hand the number of PP gamers I know...

Price is definitely better here than anywhere else in the world. While in my local GW I see a lot of foreigners stock up on toy soldiers before heading home. The UK is considerably cheaper than mainland europe too.

Well, I haven't been there in 10 years, but in general most of the employees were right prats. They acted like they were doing me a favor by allowing me to purchase their rare and wonderful merchandise. Not all of them of course, but I'd say 75%.

It wasn't just GW either. It was England-wide. I don't know if anything's changed in the last decade, but the Brits have always had a bad reputation for poor customer service and my two visits reaffirmed that the reputation was generally well deserved. Don't feel bad, Americans generally are fat and dumb. We prefer "fat and happy" though.

No offense to the Brits, I love Britain and I'd love to go back before it's gone. Sorry, but Multiculturalism is social acid and you've allowed your politicians to hose you down with it. Man, I'd love to go back just one more time....

It's just a weird observational truism, the word "Please" is far more important in England than the words "Thank You". In the States it's the other way around. If you don't know this when you go over there, it can be mistaken for rudeness both ways.

I am 110% serious, that poster that I have up on eBay right now (John Sibbick's classic 1987 WH:40k RT cover) the chick behind the counter WOULD NOT sell it to me unless I asked "Please" and apologized. Apologized for what you may ask? For having the audacity to not say "Please!". If I hadn't wanted that poster so bad, I'd have pointed out her tampon was in the wrong...

Sorry. I'm still mad about it. Poster is awesome though. Wish my wife wasn't making me get rid of it.

Not to hi-jack this thread, but in the same spirit, is GW well known in the UK? I think I could mention 40k to anyone at my college, for instance, and they would have no idea what I was talking about.

Everyone plays it, and it is REALLY popular.

I've gamed in the US and France and the scenes really are remarkably similar. The 40k to Fantasy ration was pretty much the same where I've played and Privateer Press really wasn't all that big a deal.

The biggest difference I saw was that there were less FLGS with gaming space and there were clubs that would rent out space once a week for gaming, which was really strange for me as an American. There also seem to be a lot more GW stores than in the US. Before going to France for the first time I'd never actually seen a GW store but they seem to be in every medium sized city in France.

GW has presence in pretty much every city and a large number of market towns. In my experience the shops are pretty friendly and staffed by nice blokes. 40K seems overwhelmingly popular, some people only play 40K, very few play only fantasy and my rough guess would be that locally about ten 40K games are played for every fantasy one. But that's just my observation and I suspect fantasy is a bit more popular nationally than that.. I've never had and hassle from them, despite buying very little (maybe two or three shop purchases a year) and they're always happy for people to turn up and play on the 'public' tables in the shop, using shop terrain and even trying out new armies with shop models. The company has some ideas I think are a bit strange (though I can sort of see where they're coming from) but there's no doubt they provide a social service to geeks in the UK that is unmatched (and in fairness that's because they have lots of shops, but also because the company policy is -- shockingly -- to encourage gaming).

Searching through the local clubs near me, either they're mostly playing 40k, or a huge amount of non-GW games. One or the other.
Fantasy is the one GW that the non-40k clubs might play.
PP is not listed heavily, but gets a mention.
These are the scout-hut, church-hall, pub-backroom type clubs.
A LFGS might host games, and these would be generally what the shop sells most of. Warhordes seems quite big in these.

This is from browsing though find-a-game forums, and I've not been to see any yet :(

But, as mentioned, GW is everywhere. Most towns of 30,000 people or so will have a GW shop. I've seen 2-3 tables in most GW shops I've seen recently. We're generally not more than 20 miles from a GW, from most places in the UK.

Lots of game stores are too small to have gaming tables, so they might help with the game clubs. Even my local GW has said to go to my LFGS for games, as it has to shut at 5 pmwhen the mall it is in shuts.

Around here, the big player is 40k.
However, the veterans are bleeding out of the hobby. Nowadays, only rabid fanboys and kids are left, for the most part.
On the other hand, PP Games are clawing their way up, and other game systems start to take off.

Norway is a tiny country, so we have one GW store, and that is in the capital. It seems like a fairly nice place, although since the Oslo FLGS relocated last year and now provide excellent minature wargaming support (somewhat of a rarity; earlier, like in the UK, Norway was very much a "club culture" when it came to minigames), I don't go there too often - earlier it was not too frequent either: all I really need from them is metallic paints and some of the Foundation paints.

40k is quite popular, as is WHFB, and WM/H is seriously making its mark these days, with the largest showing at the FLGS miniatures evenings - typically twice the number of other systems, at least. There are a few Epic enthusiasts. LotR I really don't know about. Flames of War isn't so visible, but they pull in a decent number of people at the tourneys held at the FLGS and do not lose players. Some people (me among them) are experimenting with Spartan Games' offerings, Malifaux, and Infinity. As far as I know, the historical scene is almost dead, although I guess people might be playing at home.

When I came back here in 2009, there was a definite sense that the wargaming community as a whole, which had always been dominated by GW games, was on a slow wane. The historicals, that were quite big 10-15 years ago, had disappeared. Tourney attendance at the really big GW tourneys were 20-40 people, where it had once had perhaps been double that, and some tourneys were struggling to get useful numbers of players in. It was not a rapid downshift, though: attendance at the biggest tourneys sometimes rose to 40-50 players. WM/H has, since then, brought in a lot of people to the tourney scene that had quit it entirely, and it seems like the rising visibility at the FLGS, spearheaded by WM/H, is bringing new people into miniatures games. I hear the trend is similar in the other cities I have contacts in.

Hi there

Having spent a bit of time in the US, and played the odd game there, I find the scenes remarkably similar.

40k is the most popular GW game by far. Other systems exist and are played, but aren't nearly as big - I don't know anyone who actually plays PP games, though I've seen them on sale in stores.

There is much less of a FLGS culture here than in America - partly because GW are UK-based and partly because distances are so much smaller, more people live 'close' to a GW store than in the US. There is a GW store in pretty much every large town, and every city. There are only two FLGS in the whole of central London, and only one of those (Darksphere) sells GW.

Maxim C. Gatling wrote:I don't know if anything's changed in the last decade, but the Brits have always had a bad reputation for poor customer service and my two visits reaffirmed that the reputation was generally well deserved. Don't feel bad, Americans generally are fat and dumb. We prefer "fat and happy" though.

Regarding general customer service, the UK has a weird culture of service, based partly on the remnants of a class-based society. Essentially, there's a sense that a shop assistant, for example, shouldn't have to adopt a 'servile' attitude, and that the customer should be as polite as the assistant. I worked in various shops when a student, and the idea of calling anyone 'sir' just because they wish to buy something would leave a bad taste in my mouth. It's not rudeness - just an idea that the two people are both equals and should be polite, rather than 'the customer is always right so pretend you're cheerful and be servile'. (This is most evident in pubs). Generally, in Europe, the whole smiley, 'have a nice day', 'customer is always right' service culture thing is seen as insultingly false.

Well as the OP I'm going to be inclined to talk about my own personal wargaming tendencies here in the US. I am fortunate enough to be able to go to 2 FLGS one in Akron OH and one in Morgantown WV because I am at both places at different parts of the year. However I am more inclined to say I prefer my Akron FLGS as I see its done right there.

At the Akron FLGS everyone really knows each other and the shop owners are great guys. They stock a lot of GW stuff, Warma/Hordes, Infinity, Battletech, Reaper and Maulifaux. The gaming atmosphere is like a club culture there pretty much because every night of the week some game is highlited that night to be played. You can walk in anytime to get a game. But our forums really make it easy to arrange a game for any day.

I confirm that it is quite easy to find a GW shop in each medium-sized cities in France. There is a lot of other game stores also, which provide GW products but often lack of space for games. Cities centers are somewhat old and I guess it is hard to get large store for a reasonable price when you want to be in.

I am playing for the most part with my friends, at home, so I can't really evaluate the ratio between 40K and WFB but I would go with an advantage for 40k.
Many people know about wargames but I am not sure about their capacity to quote "warhammer" or "40k" if asked.

GW is well-knowed for very high-prices, but since Euro is strong, it is affordable to buy miniatures and products from foreign sellers, on Ebay or so, specifically from the US :p

I'd say due to the number of stores around the country it has more brand recognition.

I can mention GW to folks at work and they have often known what I am refering to, even if they have never stepped foot into the store. It's hard to miss, black borders, big yellow letters and wierd little models in the window.

If I mention tabletop RPG's, even D&D, I rarely get any kind of recognition.

Thats been the same in both Cornwall, where I used to live and now over here in Suffolk on the opposite side of the country.

The only GW shop I know in Ireland is located in the nation's capital, Dublin. At least it's a large one, though. The relative absence of stores may be due to this nation still "catching up" on international trends - Ireland basically transformed from a backwater country into a modern state over the course of 50 years, with sheep farmers becoming company managers and villages developing into cities and all. Quite amazing, if you look at it from an outsider's perspective (i.e. mine as an immigrant).

The potential for more is definitively here, especially considering how many people from other European countries have come to Ireland to benefit from the economy's boom over the past decades (which only now has subsided tue to the ongoing financial crisis). In my office, we have loads of people who are into 40k, and our internal chat client keeps a permanent channel for tabletop gaming (RPGs and TT). We even used to play 40k in the office itself, setting up boards in the cafeteria.
Granted, my company is pretty much 99% geeks, but still.

As for Germany, I know there are more GW shops, about half a dozen or a few more if I remember correctly from the list in White Dwarf. Most of it is located in former West Germany, though - the ongoing social and monetary division between the two parts of the country makes former East Germany stand at a slight disadvantage as a breeding ground for future wargamers. Still, as a whole, the German scene is strong. Which may even explain why the German version of Lexicanum contains more articles and information than the English version (which is rather surprising, considering that it's the other way around for just about any other wiki).

Morathi's Darkest Sin wrote:I'd say due to the number of stores around the country it has more brand recognition.

I can mention GW to folks at work and they have often known what I am refering to, even if they have never stepped foot into the store. It's hard to miss, black borders, big yellow letters and wierd little models in the window.

If I mention tabletop RPG's, even D&D, I rarely get any kind of recognition.

Thats been the same in both Cornwall, where I used to live and now over here in Suffolk on the opposite side of the country.

It is the same everywhere.
Scotland, Cornwall, Greater Manchester and any other corner of the country. GW can be found just about everywhere either in LGS (that are rarely very large normally just sell models and paints) to their own stores that are in just about every Market town and above. The club system is set up in public services like Libraries and Scout huts. I have been on here for a while and do find the way that US members discuss things to be quite different from the wargaming experience I have grown up with.

Grenat wrote:I confirm that it is quite easy to find a GW shop in each medium-sized cities in France. There is a lot of other game stores also, which provide GW products but often lack of space for games. Cities centers are somewhat old and I guess it is hard to get large store for a reasonable price when you want to be in.

I am playing for the most part with my friends, at home, so I can't really evaluate the ratio between 40K and WFB but I would go with an advantage for 40k.
Many people know about wargames but I am not sure about their capacity to quote "warhammer" or "40k" if asked.

GW is well-knowed for very high-prices, but since Euro is strong, it is affordable to buy miniatures and products from foreign sellers, on Ebay or so, specifically from the US :p

I beg to differ. Every 40k experience I've had in France has been terrible, from tournaments to friendly games. I think it really depends where you are, but here in Alsace, GW is really bad. There's only two or three GW in the region, all of which are tiny compared to the smallest UK shop. Not to mention the people who work there are right , but maybe that's just my luck.

To give an example: I went down to GW Mulhouse, which is a lovely medium sized city [sarcasm/ it's a terrible place], to see if I could find a finecast Eldar Shadowseer. As there is none in the shop, I ask the manager if he would mind ordering a couple and reserve one for me. He says the only way he's going to order some is if I pay for shipping, to the shop which needs restocking anyway.

The gaming space is tiny, the painting space is tiny and now I prefer to play in an independant retailer in Basel. But there is much more 40K here than Fantasy for sure.

Also: France's GW shops aren't even listed in WD.

The irish GW scene is very much homegrown. There is a shop in Dublin City Centre and another in Blanchardstown shopping centre (if it's still open!).

There's some good games stores though, one in each city and a lot of toy shops sell GW. The main form of play is in clubs who either rent space or congregate at shops. There's a fairly thriving tournament scene but it is almost all organised by private individuals or university societies (I'm organising one in Kilkenny if anyone is interested). GW don't do much to support the scene at all.

I beg to differ. Every 40k experience I've had in France has been terrible, from tournaments to friendly games. I think it really depends where you are, but here in Alsace, GW is really bad. There's only two or three GW in the region, all of which are tiny compared to the smallest UK shop. Not to mention the people who work there are right , but maybe that's just my luck.

I must admit I don't play tournaments and I don't play in store neither ! So my point of view is only about the avaibility of GW in France, not about the state of mind and friendship of the staff or players.

Also: France's GW shops aren't even listed in WD

I think they are, seriously. I have some french WD issues right before my eyes and the "points de vente" part seems pretty extensive, with many GW store and more FLGS.
What makes you think otherwise ?

I had some less than wonderful gaming experiences in Angers but I have nothing but good things to say about the gaming scene in Brittany, specifically in Rennes and Vannes.

I have the November issue of the French WD and it lists all of the stores I know about in Rennes. It even has a little box talking about l'Amusance, which is where I shop in Rennes.

How the shop is.. its a very meh factor.

In the same town we have 3 Game shops that ive visited.

1st shop: Id say its very good.
2nd shop: Its ok, but its not bad.
3rd shop: Terrible staff and players at this shop. From my experience there (not all of them but most)


Your gaming experience may vary... depending on what shop your at.

Somone could come to the UK and go to shop 3 and think gaming in the US is terrible.

Or somone could go to shop 1 and think its very fun and good.

Lynata wrote:
As for Germany, I know there are more GW shops, about half a dozen or a few more if I remember correctly from the list in White Dwarf. Most of it is located in former West Germany, though - the ongoing social and monetary division between the two parts of the country makes former East Germany stand at a slight disadvantage as a breeding ground for future wargamers. Still, as a whole, the German scene is strong. Which may even explain why the German version of Lexicanum contains more articles and information than the English version (which is rather surprising, considering that it's the other way around for just about any other wiki).

GW stores are spreading here and actualy about 46, most of them focused at their "base" in the west.
Still our south is financially strong but has less GW stores.... must be the other hobbies ....
Their traders list (3pages in small font) also lists austria, swiss, liechtenstein and belgium...wait Belgium?
I'd understand if it contained all of the "registered" sources who may sale that localized WD.
Thought Belgium would be either listed in a french or northern europe (thus english) WD.

For now, GW moved WHFB into the primary spots on the shelf and 40k back to the secondary (ie cramped between shelf and tables) space in those 2 shops I know. From 2 "under an hour drive away" locations there is only 1 useful ( the other overrun with kiddies ) and strangely GW seems to like locations around Railroad Stations and not even good ones.

Certainly GW expects to have their share of "hobby-investments" since they open new shops and haven't closed one yet.
But there is lots of competition.
- historical plastic kits available almost everywhere ( but maybe on the decline )
- railroad and RC-controlled vehicles really available anywhere ( railroads nearly ruined themselves with price hikes...)
- consoles,pc gaming in general unlikely to feed small shops but big enough to be found in every mid sized/large shop that sells entertainment and multimedia equipment.
Wargaming compared to that is small and widely unknown. OTOH, if some here would find out about the "violence" in wargames,
our localized stuff would be "pacified" to reprimanding heretics, suing xenos, and generally using harsh words instead of bullets..
Not sure if more spotlight would be good.


Lexicanum is a German project and its english and french variants are there to enlarge the user base.
It could have more english content. Just contribute to it.

Thanks for the update, it's been a couple years.

Also: Ouch @ localization. I know what you mean. On the other hand ... when you look at DSA, it's astonishing what they get away with. The elaborate descriptions of Bel'kelel and her cultists/daemons/activities make Slaanesh look tame! Then again, it's always been a bit funny how eroticism is muss less of a problem in Europe than violence, whereas in the US it's exactly the other way around.

As far as Lexicanum is concerned ... I'll think about it.

In my little, forsaken by God country
about 65% for 40k.
Mostly I visit a game center there always are some 40k battles.
Fb are a rare sight.
I don't know for rest of the Poland, but in Cracov 40k rulz
WAAAGH!!!