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I am moving to Kensington/Knightbridge area near Hyde Park in January for a year and I'm planning to bring one of my armies. I want to continue the hobby after I move to England but I need some advice and help.

1) Cultural differences - I heard most British only play 1500 points and not 2000. Is that true?

2) What's the best GW store/place to play 40k in London? Any recommendations? Surprisingly when I just did a quick google search there aren't that many GW stores in London at all.

3) Do you ever paint your model inside the GW stores in the UK or is that Taboo?

4) I heard most players in the UK play for fun and with fluffy armies - vs. the 10 Rhino, Mephiston, max-out the cheese, play to win lists that Americans are obsessed with. Is this true or are most people just as competitive there? I'd welcome playing some causal people for fun.

I'd very much appreciate any tips from any Brits on this forum. Thank you!

DorianGray wrote:2) What's the best GW store/place to play 40k in London? Any recommendations? Surprisingly when I just did a quick google search there aren't that many GW stores in London at all.

There's quite a few in the London area but I know Covent Garden is supposed to be quite nice.

3) Do you ever paint your model inside the GW stores in the UK or is that Taboo?

There are usually places to sit and paint.

4) I heard most players in the UK play for fun and with fluffy armies - vs. the 10 Rhino, Mephiston, max-out the cheese, play to win lists that Americans are obsessed with. Is this true or are most people just as competitive there? I'd welcome playing some causal people for fun.

It depends on the crowd, like most stores.

As far as I know there are no real 'cultural differences' in the sense you mean. Any preferred points level or degree of competitiveness is likely to vary between small groups of people, it's not something you can apply to a country. My group generally plays at 2000 points with competitive lists. There are quite a few GW stores in London, the one in Oxford St should be pretty easy to get to from Kensington.

Do you guys play at any of those stores? It'd be great to run into another Dakkaite I got real world advice from. Heh

I don't really play but I'm planning to move to London in the next month or so.

Anyone else? It looks like I'm going to be close to GW Kensington and GW Covent Garden. (Right in the middle)

Any Dakkaites frequent those stores?

GW aren't a great place to play, period. And the fact that in London they're really busy all the time only compounds this.

You can't play in the Covent Garden store, it's too small.

I personally recommend finding a local gaming club and only playing there.

I cant help with the London aspect of your question but I can with the British part.

2000pts is played here quite a lot but most people tend to bring 1500pts if they don't have a game already organised as it is the most common size of game played. However it might be quite different where you end up playing as each gaming group will have its own preferences.

From my personal experience the average British gamer is less tournament orientated and more fun orientated however as I said before you might find that your gaming area happens to be very competetive. You will just have to find out.

Painting in GW stores is outright encouraged by the staff. Most shops have dedicated painting areas in them for this very purpose. However bare in mind that London is very crowded and the stores are quite small compared to most of the rest of the UK.

Not masses of help i know but i hope it helps a bit.

Thanks for the replies. I'll have to check out the Plaza on Oxford Street.

My tiny closet @ Imperial won't have any space for me to paint anyway so good to know I can still paint a model or two at the GW store.

Lunarman, you're in London, any good clubs around Hyde Park/Kensington area you might recommend?

Brits play with 1500 rather than 2000 because we're much poorer than Americans.

Joey wrote:Brits play with 1500 rather than 2000 because we're much poorer than Americans.

Erm... I doubt that. That explains why unemployment in the states is at 8.6% and we're trillions in debt.

Anyway 1500 points means less parking lot Chimera spam and faster games. win win

DorianGray wrote:

Joey wrote:Brits play with 1500 rather than 2000 because we're much poorer than Americans.

Erm... I doubt that. That explains why unemployment in the states is at 8.6% and we're trillions in debt.

Anyway 1500 points means less parking lot Chimera spam and faster games. win win

Ours is 8.3%, 20% for under 24s.
Anyway you have $11,000 per capita GDP on us, that's about 30% more than us. Since most people don't live in the bloated economic distortion that is London, it's even bigger for most folk.

Again, I can't help with the London part and only with the British part.
I live in Newcastle, (way up North) and my local games workshop has a specific night for gaming. On these nights, you can generally find people to play at almost any points level. I know people who want to play at massive points levels or only 1000 points. I'm assuming that London will be similar.
With regards to competitiveness, there are a lot of people at my local store that play for fun, but there are still a few people that play with razorspam blood angels or leafblower guard. I myself always try and be as competitive as possible, so you will be able to find some competitive games if you look.
Tournaments generally run at smaller points levels but after some searching I've found a local tournament that runs for two days, with the first being 1750 points and the second being 2000. There is less of a focus on competitiveness over here but that doesn't mean it can't be found!

I hope my personal experiences give you a good idea about the variety of gaming that happens here in England.

The Plaza, Oxford Street shop has two decent size tables. I think they have a veterans' night on Thursdays. Check their Facebook page for more info.

I think Dark Sphere in Waterloo has tables. It's not hard to get to from Kensington.

Lots of Brits play in local clubs and pubs rather than shops.

The standard for the UK GT used to be 1,500 points and no Comp scoring so people would bring whatever armies they liked.

The main thing is that moving around London by tube you want a fairly portable army.

Kilkrazy wrote:The Plaza, Oxford Street shop has two decent size tables. I think they have a veterans' night on Thursdays. Check their Facebook page for more info.

I think Dark Sphere in Waterloo has tables. It's not hard to get to from Kensington.

Lots of Brits play in local clubs and pubs rather than shops.

The standard for the UK GT used to be 1,500 points and no Comp scoring so people would bring whatever armies they liked.

The main thing is that moving around London by tube you want a fairly portable army.

What about the Kensington GW? I can get there by walking. I heard there are no tables at Covent Garden.

Having a Battlefoam PACK 720 Case solves the transportation problem. Battlefoam is really a god-send (I'll cost you though)

GW Kensington is very small from what I remember of it. I haven't looked in there for several years.

Wow, well if the largest GW store in Central London is the Plaza and they only have 2 tables I can guess how small the other stores are.

My main focus is now to find a 40k gaming club in Kensington. Anyone have any recommendations?

The Oxford Plaza store isn't that small, I've played one quick 1000pt game on their smaller table and there was enough space to play your game and not have anyone jostling you. They're usually quiet enough on weekdays if you want to have a game from my experience (when I've been there it's usually been quiet) and the staff are friendly.

My main store experience in London and the one I tend to go to most when in London is the Angel store which is seriously tiny. Like shoebox small. But, has a good group and feel attached to it and the gaming and painting area is in it's own shoebox and believe it or not there's space for 3 4'x4' boards I think, or one 6'x4' and two 4'x4', can't remember as they combine and shift boards. Haven't played a game there yet but there's enough space. The manager there is pretty cool (not that you heard this from me lol ), and a damn good painter who's more than happy to help you out or show you techniques if you want. Staff from the Plaza cover that store too when needed.

Stores in the States tend to be bigger from what I know, but I've never been in one whenever I've been over there.

Hope this helped somewhat.

Thanks MadMunky, I guess the Oxford Store is the only place to do any decent gaming. Pity because I would live like 4/5 blocks from the Kensington GW store.

I'm just surprised that there are only 4 stores in all of London and 3 of 4 of them are tiny (Kensington, Covent Garden, Angel)
:( I expected that there would be many more. I guess downtown area of cities are not the best places for GW stores.

Any Londoners here have recommendations for gaming clubs/groups?

Central London Wargames Club might be worth a visit.

http://www.madaxeman.com/main/club.php

They tend to play more historicals than 40K but someone might be up for it.

No problem DorianGray, chances are that when you visit the Kensington store (and others) you'll find people who're part of a gaming club or flyers for them up and about most stores in London. Also the stores own gaming nights should be fine. And yeah it's surprising about the size of the stores in London but I guess that's what expensive rent and older buildings gets you. Worst comes to worst I can always put you in touch with people I know in London who play, see if they know of any clubs (as I'm sure they would), or what stores they play at and so on.