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 Backspacehacker wrote:
Can you be a bit more spicific, are you talking about 4x4 feet, or 4x4 tiles?

Because my store we run 2x2 tiles all the time for 1000 point games or 1500 point games. But we use a lot of terrain.

Obviously 4'x4'. It would be a nightmare trying to play on an 8'x8' board regardless of game size. You wouldn't be able to reach the middle of the board.

4x4 for 1500 isn't too uncommon, but obviously 6x4 is ideal. My local gaming shop had 42"x42" boards. THOSE were tight for 1500, and that one tourny they tried to squeeze 2000 onto those boards.....lol no.

I dont think ive ever seen a 1500pt game played on a 4x4 that wasnt an old game of cities of death. Thats just way too small a board

The largest game I've ever played on a 4'x4' was 1250pt. Even that was a major squeeze.

This isn't a space thing guys. Their tables the big heavy duty metal ones. They straight up take 2 tiles off their 4x6 board to turn it into a 4x4. The table is still large enough for a 4x6.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Lockark wrote:
All the Indy stores close to me that hosts games close at 5PM on Saturday. The GW store is the only one that stays open till 9PM. The only indy store that is open till 9PM is like a 30min drive from me. Trust me, I would rather be playing at a FLGS. Only being able to play GW games all the time can get abit boring.

...

How do these stores stay in business? That seems absolutely insane to me, even the store in my area that closes early is open until 10pm on weekdays, 11pm on the weekend.

3 words.

Friday. Night. Magic.

Wargamers get throw under the bus by most FLGS in my area, because magic and card games are much more profitable. One FLGS stopped selling all warhammer/warmachine stuff and just sells magic and other TCG's. They have been doing fine and healthy with out wargameing. Another still sells mini's and wargames, but stopped hosting wargamers and got rid of all their gameing terrian. They only host magic/pokemon/yu-gi-oh events at the store now. They once in a blue moon host a steamroller event, since in warmachine you can play with flat terrian.

Even the stores that actually hosts wargamers, have leases that makes it so they are not allowed to be open past 5PM on saturdays and sundays. Trust me when I say it's very.... frustrating, trying to get a game at times.

Like I said their is only 1 store that's open 9PM on saturdays, and it's on the otherside of the citiy meaning a 30min drive as long as traffic isn't bad. It's also not exactly in a nice part of town.... It feel wired playing in a FLGS with bars on the windows.

I play on a 4x4 table.

The 4x4 table was old "demo table" model that the stores used to have for teaching new players and introductions like the Battle for MacCragge. Most GW stores can only fit that size anyway...

I think most commonly games of 1500 are played on 6x4 tables however and even the rulebook suggests that table size.

It's been said ad nauseam

Many stores (including four I know of) Use 4x4 tables. These tables are for doing demo games and to showcase terrain and other things you can buy.

The store managers sometimes let people play on them but their actual purpose is for introducing new players. It feels like a case of 'Get 'em in, get 'em hooked, get their cash then get 'em out'. The mantra seeming to be to encourage you to buy your own battleboard and terrain and to sod off elsewhere and not to clog up the place too much - nothing worse for sales than some weighty neck-beards arguing over rules

 General Kroll wrote:

Grief wrote:

 General Kroll wrote:

Grief wrote:

 Crimson Devil wrote:
Just a passive aggressive way to get you to play else where.

GW doesnt care about wh40k players.

They are trying to turn wh40k into a garage box game. Look at all the recent box games, Renegade Knights, Deathwatch: Overkill, Betrayal at Calth, Assassinorium: Execution Force, etc...

They dont want you coming to play in their store. The tables are there to demonstrate the game to new CUSTOMERS not for you to play on. GW stores are not a place to hang out and socialize with friends. Its a place to do bussiness. Their attitude is that you should buy their board and terrain and play at home.

Considering the amount of 40k events that are arranged by my local store, your post is demonstrably nonsense. We are actively encouraged to play there, it advertises the game to potential customers. In fact there is almost always someone playing in there, even during the weekdays, and we are talking about a small store in a fairly rural location.

If I call yo to book a table, I tell the manager what size I want. End of.

Could it be that the store the OP goes to is just trying to maximise their space? I suggest asking for a bigger table.

Is your GW store a one man store in a tight space or was it big enough to have multiple staff and more room to fit four or more 4x6 tables?

My local is a tiny one man store. They've always been very accommodating. I couldn't ask for a better manager.

I wonder how much money have you given the manager for him to be so accommodating.

 Wulfmar wrote:
It's been said ad nauseam

Many stores (including four I know of) Use 4x4 tables. These tables are for doing demo games and to showcase terrain and other things you can buy.

The store managers sometimes let people play on them but their actual purpose is for introducing new players. It feels like a case of 'Get 'em in, get 'em hooked, get their cash then get 'em out'. The mantra seeming to be to encourage you to buy your own battleboard and terrain and to sod off elsewhere and not to clog up the place too much - nothing worse for sales than some weighty neck-beards arguing over rules

Thank you!
Exactly what i said and then Gen Kroll tells me I am "demonstrably nonsense."

GW sales men dont give you the right amswer. They try to sell you the stuff they cant get rid off. I had a newbie sales boy try to sell me multilators and warp talons when 6th ed first dropped. He almost got me sold because the models are so cool looking but after doing research both units where duds amd completely useless. Do not confuse helpful and accommodating with salesmanship.

Grief wrote:I wonder how much money have you given the manager for him to be so accommodating.

They can't just be good people who accommodate their customers?

To be a good sales men you expect good customer service.

Our GW (Denver) is staffed by good people and attended by regular players (not just first-timers). They have 3 tables, all of them 4x6, one of which is always set up with new release product, an AoS demo game, a 40k demo game, and a demo painting station. The other two tables are open for pickup games and are always busy. The shop standard point value is 1500 per player, but because of demand, games are almost always 2-on-2. That means 3000 points per side on a 4x6 table, even more points per square foot than the original poster. It feels extremely dense, blob armies can't maneuver at all, assaults result in huge multi-unit brawls, and fast-moving objective grabbers don't always get to use their speed, but somehow we make it work.

As far as tabletop gaming is concerned, we don't even know what anything smaller than a 6x4 looks like here

I'd consider 4x4 fine for small games, 500 or 750 points. For 1000+ points games, 6x4 at least. And considering the current points costs for most armies, when you start getting closer to 2000 points (1850 and the like) even the 6x4 table begins to feel a bit small.

We have to play on 4x4's at my local purely because of a space issue. Only two tables are ever used at once, the other one for starter games and showing new standalones (like Deathwatch), and the 4th one is for painting.
Even then, the 2nd table is often taken up for painting, depends on what people get up to.

1500 on a 4x4 feels real fine and dandy to me. Using small guys makes the board feel very big.
Even then, I had a Knight on it.

Heck, I'm even playing a 2000 point match on a 4x4 tomorrow.

The GW I visit is always 6x4, and I play 1500 points for quick games. It's a small shop too, there's like 3-4 tables. Plus, I've never seen people at other game stores and in my group do that. I think who ever is running the place is a bit odd. Do you buy stuff while you're there or just play a game? If you're not helping their business you're just taking up room, and they probably want your game over with so you can leave or buy stuff. (I usually pick up a unit whenever I go to play, which isn't often, shows that you support the store)

Grief wrote:

 General Kroll wrote:

Grief wrote:

 General Kroll wrote:

Grief wrote:

 Crimson Devil wrote:
Just a passive aggressive way to get you to play else where.

GW doesnt care about wh40k players.

They are trying to turn wh40k into a garage box game. Look at all the recent box games, Renegade Knights, Deathwatch: Overkill, Betrayal at Calth, Assassinorium: Execution Force, etc...

They dont want you coming to play in their store. The tables are there to demonstrate the game to new CUSTOMERS not for you to play on. GW stores are not a place to hang out and socialize with friends. Its a place to do bussiness. Their attitude is that you should buy their board and terrain and play at home.

Considering the amount of 40k events that are arranged by my local store, your post is demonstrably nonsense. We are actively encouraged to play there, it advertises the game to potential customers. In fact there is almost always someone playing in there, even during the weekdays, and we are talking about a small store in a fairly rural location.

If I call yo to book a table, I tell the manager what size I want. End of.

Could it be that the store the OP goes to is just trying to maximise their space? I suggest asking for a bigger table.

Is your GW store a one man store in a tight space or was it big enough to have multiple staff and more room to fit four or more 4x6 tables?

My local is a tiny one man store. They've always been very accommodating. I couldn't ask for a better manager.

I wonder how much money have you given the manager for him to be so accommodating.

 Wulfmar wrote:
It's been said ad nauseam

Many stores (including four I know of) Use 4x4 tables. These tables are for doing demo games and to showcase terrain and other things you can buy.

The store managers sometimes let people play on them but their actual purpose is for introducing new players. It feels like a case of 'Get 'em in, get 'em hooked, get their cash then get 'em out'. The mantra seeming to be to encourage you to buy your own battleboard and terrain and to sod off elsewhere and not to clog up the place too much - nothing worse for sales than some weighty neck-beards arguing over rules

Thank you!
Exactly what i said and then Gen Kroll tells me I am "demonstrably nonsense."

GW sales men dont give you the right amswer. They try to sell you the stuff they cant get rid off. I had a newbie sales boy try to sell me multilators and warp talons when 6th ed first dropped. He almost got me sold because the models are so cool looking but after doing research both units where duds amd completely useless. Do not confuse helpful and accommodating with salesmanship.

I can only give an indication of my experiences. And my experiences most certainly do not match this sentiment. The fact you seem to make blanket statements about the attitude of GW staff shows that what you are saying IS "demonstrably nonsense" the fact that I have had different experiences, and the fact that others in this thread have had different experiences proves that to be the case.

Am I saying you've not had a bad time with your local store? No. But the way you are talking is as if ALL GW managers are mindless sales drones who don't give a crap about the hobby. That's frankly insulting, and disrespectful. I know my local manager, he has to make enough sales to justify the store, how he gets those sales is up to him. He doesn't push people into buying models they don't want or need, what he does do though is lay on events, encourage people to play games both in store and at the various local clubs, and then helps people choose the products they want. And for the record, I probably only spend around 10-15% of my hobby money in his store. He's most certainly NOT a mindless sales drone who's only accommodating to those who spend money in his store.

You've clearly got a chip on your shoulder about GW which is prejudicing your view.

From that I got:
Grief is insulting
Grief is disrespectful
Grief is prejudice
Grief has a chip on his shoulder

#GWarepeopletoo
#moraloutrage
#standupforcapitalism
#personallyattackgrief

Bad grief, how dare you express such a generalist opinion - you should have quantified it with a number so as not to have a vendetta against someone's favourite shopkeeper. Tsk tsk.

Look, the long and short of it is this: GW is a company which exists to make money for its share holders. Like any company, they require sales and profits. Managers need to make sales to validate their continued employment. As is the nature of modern day business ventures like this with 'employee monitoring' and 'performance management' - those that push sales are the ones that seem to survive. This incidentally is why I tend to avoid GW and go to FLGS instead...

... I'm big and ugly enough to know when I want to buy something without an excitable GWuahua humping my leg for sales and calling me 'buddy'.

It's awesome you have found a good manager, but sadly it's not like that for many others.

 Wulfmar wrote:
From that I got:
Grief is insulting
Grief is disrespectful
Grief is prejudice
Grief has a chip on his shoulder

#GWarepeopletoo
#moraloutrage
#standupforcapitalism
#personallyattackgrief

Bad grief, how dare you express such a generalist opinion - you should have quantified it with a number so as not to have a vendetta against someone's favourite shopkeeper. Tsk tsk.

Look, the long and short of it is this: GW is a company which exists to make money for its share holders. Like any company, they require sales and profits. Managers need to make sales to validate their continued employment. As is the nature of modern day business ventures like this with 'employee monitoring' and 'performance management' - those that push sales are the ones that seem to survive. This incidentally is why I tend to avoid GW and go to FLGS instead...

... I'm big and ugly enough to know when I want to buy something without an excitable GWuahua humping my leg for sales and calling me 'buddy'.

It's awesome you have found a good manager, but sadly it's not like that for many others.

Oh get over yourself. I wasn't personally attacking anyone, though you certainly seem to be doing a good job of that....

How about instead of making trolly posts we stick to the subject at hand? Hmmm?

Like you said, everyone will have different experiences. Blanket statements are demonstrably nonsense, as I originally said. You have a sucky manager in your area? Well boo hoo. It's not like that for everyone, I know it's fashionable on this site to bash GW but some of you guys really need to get some god damn perspective. The managers are just doing their job, some of them recognise the best way to drive sales is to have a good community using the store and enjoying the hobby...some of them don't. But there's no point just saying that back and forth, because with a company like GW, everyone is bound to get different experiences. That's life.

Frankly though this is getting away from the topic, it's more than likely that the op was given a small table because of space constraints. That's the way it is when you have stores on the high street, space is going to be at a premium. it likely has nothing to do with GWs business ethos, well aside from the fact that they want to maintain a presence on the high street that is.

I must be really weird. I've been playing on 4' X 6' deploying on the long ends - until recently, where after playing in a small tournament my son and I have started deploying on the short sides.

We don't use armies greater than 1250 pts.

 Lockark wrote:


3 words.

Friday. Night. Magic.

Wargamers get throw under the bus by most FLGS in my area, because magic and card games are much more profitable. One FLGS stopped selling all warhammer/warmachine stuff and just sells magic and other TCG's. They have been doing fine and healthy with out wargameing. Another still sells mini's and wargames, but stopped hosting wargamers and got rid of all their gameing terrian. They only host magic/pokemon/yu-gi-oh events at the store now. They once in a blue moon host a steamroller event, since in warmachine you can play with flat terrian.

Even the stores that actually hosts wargamers, have leases that makes it so they are not allowed to be open past 5PM on saturdays and sundays. Trust me when I say it's very.... frustrating, trying to get a game at times.

Like I said their is only 1 store that's open 9PM on saturdays, and it's on the otherside of the citiy meaning a 30min drive as long as traffic isn't bad. It's also not exactly in a nice part of town.... It feel wired playing in a FLGS with bars on the windows.

In all fairness if war hammer was selling like it used to, we would probably see a lot more space dedicated to it. However the market has changed, the warhammer demand went soft, in part due to saturation, and in part due to GW having a bad string of management. AoS could have been big, but they absolutely misunderstood their audience, and the summer of sigmar will be too little, and too late to save it. You only get one chance to make a first impression, and they blew it with rules about peoples facial hair, and having to ask nicely if you can use an ability. That said maybe GW can turn it around before they become the next fasa games, in which I expect FLGS to start to start making tabletop players a priority again.

General Kroll, your experience is what is best as described as "Anecdotical." Just because your little story happened to you doesn't mean it will happen to everyone. Just like my Anecdotical story of service happened to me doesnt happen to everyone. And to be frank I really dont think anyone cares about my Anecdotical stories as much as i care about yours.

Insulting? Is it insulting when a customer only buys $4 paint pots and show up with a 2000pt army he already collected and plays for 3-5 hours on GW's tables? Is it insulting that the staff makes remarks about my minimal purchases compared to the guy who drops $500 per visit?

So what is 10%-15% of your hobby money? For all I know that could be $500 per week.

Going back on subject.
If the OP visits a GW store with wide open space and they give him a 4x4 table to play his 1500pt army vs another guy who has 1500pts then I am certain they are trying to send him a message. That message is, "Buy our terrain and play some place else so we can demonstrate to new customers on this table."

Grief wrote:
If the OP visits a GW store with wide open space and they give him a 4x4 table to play his 1500pt army vs another guy who has 1500pts then I am certain they are trying to send him a message. That message is, "Buy our terrain and play some place else so we can demonstrate to new customers on this table."

Not that it's unreasonable that they're trying to send the customer that particular message, but it's still a bit of a stretch. There could be plenty of other reasons why they only have 4'x4' tables available for use that are equally as likely. For example, it could be the case that in a particular store, they have 3x 4'x4' tables instead of 2x 4'x6' tables to accommodate more people playing games.

If it is their intent or not to send that message, their protocol and rules of conduct whereby the Staff must set up the table reflects a need to safety due to an incident where a customer injured themselves setting up the table could be possible. I am betting GW lawyers won or settled that case easily.

Then that brings me to the next point. Why repeatedly set up the table to be 4x4 taking off the 2 tiles from a 4x6 table. If I read the OP correctly, he srated that the staff purposely took away 2 of the 2x2 tiles to turn the 4x6 into a 4x4. At that point, floor space does not matter. The store could have 8 tables that are 4x6 but they force you to play on 4x4 tables is a clear indication they want you to play with less models and get out faster.

From my understanding of the original post, what happened was the OP took a break from 40K and when they came back, the store they went to had changed the way they did things. I think it's that simple. If it's not that simple, then who are any of us to say what the reasoning behind it?

I think it's fair to say that maybe a handful of other members of this forum (if any at all) go to the store in question, meaning we can only speculate to it not being that simple and we can only speculate even further as to the reason. This is speculation built on speculation, so what's the point.

People play 1,500-Point games on 4'x4' tables. I don't think it's unusual or bad in any way. And if it's not a case of the store "Moving with the times", then we are only in a position to make blind stabs in the dark with a blunt knife as to why (which serves no purpose anyway, especially since this speculation won't change anything, least of all at the OP's store).

Wait a minute...did the OP ever think to just ask the GW staff to please let him use all 4x6 tiles? If he is a paying customers no matter how thrifty or generous, the staff should say Yes Sir! and if not then they can give him their excuse I want to hear.

Grief wrote:
Wait a minute...did the OP ever think to just ask the GW staff to please let him use all 4x6 tiles? If he is a paying customers no matter how thrifty or generous, the staff should say Yes Sir! and if not then they can give him their excuse I want to hear.

He's confirmed already that if he asks, they let him use a full sized table. They just thought smaller games worked better on a 4x4. So it's clearly not a case of nasty old GW trying to push players out of their stores. I know that's a shame for the narrative that you are trying to push, but oh well.

Fwiw I've played 1500 on a small board like that and it worked just fine, I would have rather had more room, but sometimes needs must. I definitely wouldn't want to go any bigger than that though.

 Grimgold wrote:
That said maybe GW can turn it around before they become the next fasa games, in which I expect FLGS to start to start making tabletop players a priority again.

I'm actually wondering if such events will come to pass. My new FLGS has about 20 purpose built 6x4 tables and 12 card/boardgame tables. When I arrived about 6 of the 6x4 were occupied by 40k players. Now 10 months on, I rarely see even one. Everyone is playing Malifaux, Starwars or Bolt Action (with a growing group of Saga and Frostgrave as I introduce people.) EDIT: almost forgot, Guildball is super popular though I haven't played it

The FLGS has also put all their GW stuff on sale and have said they won't be stocking it in future as it's not selling very well.

 Lockark wrote:
This isn't a space thing guys. Their tables the big heavy duty metal ones. They straight up take 2 tiles off their 4x6 board to turn it into a 4x4. The table is still large enough for a 4x6.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Lockark wrote:
All the Indy stores close to me that hosts games close at 5PM on Saturday. The GW store is the only one that stays open till 9PM. The only indy store that is open till 9PM is like a 30min drive from me. Trust me, I would rather be playing at a FLGS. Only being able to play GW games all the time can get abit boring.

...

How do these stores stay in business? That seems absolutely insane to me, even the store in my area that closes early is open until 10pm on weekdays, 11pm on the weekend.

3 words.

Friday. Night. Magic.

Wargamers get throw under the bus by most FLGS in my area, because magic and card games are much more profitable. One FLGS stopped selling all warhammer/warmachine stuff and just sells magic and other TCG's. They have been doing fine and healthy with out wargameing. Another still sells mini's and wargames, but stopped hosting wargamers and got rid of all their gameing terrian. They only host magic/pokemon/yu-gi-oh events at the store now. They once in a blue moon host a steamroller event, since in warmachine you can play with flat terrian.

Even the stores that actually hosts wargamers, have leases that makes it so they are not allowed to be open past 5PM on saturdays and sundays. Trust me when I say it's very.... frustrating, trying to get a game at times.

Like I said their is only 1 store that's open 9PM on saturdays, and it's on the otherside of the citiy meaning a 30min drive as long as traffic isn't bad. It's also not exactly in a nice part of town.... It feel wired playing in a FLGS with bars on the windows.

This. 100% this. The only game shop in my town is a Magic-centric place and you better think twice about playing any other game there. There's just no room for it half the time. Hell, they barely try to move board games because Magic is all that really matters. YGO stopped getting played because Magic sort of pushed it out the door. The only other game getting any sort of traction is Force of Will.

Then 20 minutes away is another game store that actually has minis/wargame stuff, but I say that lightly. They barely have anything. They have a few tables because they get some 40k and Warmahordes players once in a while, but typically it's just Magic and a resurgence of Pokémon. The third store, an hour away, has a bit of everything in their store, but only hosts Magic and Heroclix events.

Needless to say, my pool of places to play anything OTHER than Magic is quite nonexistent.

There is a new card game called Conquest with Wh40k stuff. I have never played it and when the clerk told me its not just another tcg it is a libing card game. I dont care. I want to play wh40k with dice rolling and not depend on a deck. I want the cards to represent squadrons on the battle field without having to draw from a deck. Just use the cards to represent minis.

I genuinely don't think I could even fit 1,500 points in the deployment zone of a 4x4 board, much less play on one. They must be expecting folks to play the more elite armies with fewer models.

 General Kroll wrote:

Grief wrote:
Wait a minute...did the OP ever think to just ask the GW staff to please let him use all 4x6 tiles? If he is a paying customers no matter how thrifty or generous, the staff should say Yes Sir! and if not then they can give him their excuse I want to hear.

He's confirmed already that if he asks, they let him use a full sized table. They just thought smaller games worked better on a 4x4. So it's clearly not a case of nasty old GW trying to push players out of their stores. I know that's a shame for the narrative that you are trying to push, but oh well.

Fwiw I've played 1500 on a small board like that and it worked just fine, I would have rather had more room, but sometimes needs must. I definitely wouldn't want to go any bigger than that though.

He has to ask them for the 4x6 otherwise they will assume he would want 4x4. Less room, less models, less moving, less time. This type of play favors deathstars that tournament scene fosters.