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Hi everyone.

I wanted to address an issue which i suppose i can't be the only one struggling with. That is being a wargamer (W40K) while living in a country with no gaming store/retailer or even a hobby store of any kind where i can buy miniatures.

I have always had an interest in the Warhammer universe and around 2 years ago i was abroad and came across a Games Workshop store, i went inside and I was sold! All the brilliantly painted armies and scenery, really got my inner geek worked up. There was a game of 40 being played aswell in the shop which looked like so much fun. I had no clue how to play the game nor did i know anyone else who played, but i just knew that i wanted to learn how to play and hopefully get some friends into it aswell, so i bought the Dark Vengeance starter set.

After i bought the set i started to read the rules and boy was i overwhelmed.I must have read the book atleast twice and still couldnt fathom how to get a game really up and running. Thank god for youtube and especially Miniwargamings simple yet great tutorials for beginners.

I have since managed to get a friend to invest in a space marine army and we play weekly games now which is great fun. I have a Dark Eldar, CSM and Tau army, both of which are 2000-ish points.(70% were bought second hand)

Having this hobby in such a remote area has not been easy. There is nobody to teach us how to play or anywhere where we can go to play except in my basement. Getting models for a reasonable price is hard. When ordering from GW there is a 30% tax added and the packages cost around 30£ to send and it takes about a month for them to arrive and thats an uninsured package with no track n' trace.

This has lead to us looking for alternative online retailers which offer some discounts and often cheaper postage, mostly this has been through ebay but even there there are issues because of our remote location. Our last attempt to get som cheaper miniature ended in disaster when we tried ordering from Totalwargamer and Waylandgames. Both retailers still had not shipped our order 2 months after our purchase and we are now trying to get a refund from them.

I guess this is a bit of a rant or just something i needed to get out there.I just wanted to tell someone, anyone. Because too often do i see people whining about little things like having to wait 1-2 weeks for an order which would save them 10% of the cost when they have a retailer in their own town/city 10 mins away. It just flips my switch when considering my own situation. I don't even have a store in my entire country and any and every purchase is most times atleast 3 weeks away and atleast 30% ontop of GW's retail price if i choose to buy from them directly. But enough about that.

Me and my m8 have tried for some time to get people interested and have had some of our other friends observe our games with hopes of them getting interested and perhaps start investing in an army, but most times the cost of the hobby steers them away and difficulty in obtaining models not to mention time invesment. So there are still just the two of us. We are having fun and will most likely keep going as we both love most aspects of the hobby except the above mentioned issues ofcourse. We would love to get a community up and running and hopefully get someone else interested in playing as i would love to play against something other than space marines.

If you have read this far I would like to ask a few quick questions too if you don't mind.


- Which website can be considered reliable AND cheap which ships warhammer 40K products worldwide(atleast cheaper than GW)
- Has anyone any tips to starting up a wargaming community from scratch?

Thank you for reading.

Sephi

Crikey! I feel for you Sephi, I too grew up in a remote location without a GW or any form of gaming/hobby store within easy reach and faced the exact same problem but nowhere near as extreme as your example, of course! These days I'm fortunate enough to be in a more civilized neck of the woods, something I've started to take for granted I think.

Other than my sympathy I can recommend the following stores as being reputable and popular alternatives to Wayland and the infamous Total Wargamer

http://giftsforgeeks.org.uk/
http://www.triplehelixwargames.co.uk/
http://www.darksphere.co.uk/
http://www.firestormgames.co.uk/
http://elementgames.co.uk/

(Darksphere is the cheapest for 40k I believe)

As for getting more people to play, again I was in the same situation with a friend back home. High prices meant a lack of interest and unfortunately we just had to go it alone, still a lot of fun but I understand the frustration of wanting more out of your hobby. Good for you for sticking with it though, I hope the suggested stores are of use to you. Good luck!

I really have no idea as to the economics, but I've had the idea so I'll put it up for consideration.

If you and one friend already play, and you have other friends who have expressed an interest but have been put off by price, would it be economically viable to split the cost of a plane ticket to London, where you could visit Darksphere, pick up a bunch of stuff your friends ordered at 25% off UKRRP and then fly back, splitting the cost of one ticket and overnight accommodation if needed, between all of you?

I'll leave it to you to assess if the numbers work, but sometimes the craziest ideas initially, actually make sense.

I'd suggest making a club so you can your pals can all pitch in and get your stuff en-masse, so you save plenty of cash on purchase and shipping.

Either that or try and get a flight to Aberdeen or something, maybe they have a GW there!

feth me but the Fareo Islands is out of the road, good luck!

Greetings from the twin island republic of Trinidad and Tobago!

Where the nearest player is in Puerto Rico... or maybe Miami...

First off I strongly recommend using the Dakka player finder

http://www.dakkadakka.com/core/player_finder.jsp

You just never know when someone will spot you. Starting a thread in 'Find a Game' also works, it's how I found a group in Beijing a few years back, even if they did contact me a year later!

Sounds like you're also doing well starting your own group.

I wish I had better advice but I've lived in Guyana (no players), Beijing (eventually found a group) and now TT (no players). Frankly I'm now married and have kids so gaming is just not the priority it once was. If it was... I'd look to start another game like Hero Clix or Star Wars Minis (RIP) where the background is better known and people can play out of the box.

Or try and get people to play Dawn of War or another 40k computer game.

GW's games have a lot to recommend them, but price and accessiblity are not among them.