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Was at my local GW store and over heard non GW minis cannot be used there... What do you folks this about this? I understand where they're coming from but a good example are these amazing warp spiders: https://wargameexclusive.com/shop/space-elves/light-side-eldar-spiders-5u/

it seems unfair given the current warp spiders... anyway I think it's bogus and wanted to see how some of you felt about rules like this.

The store has the right to make its own rules on this.

You have the right not to play/patronize at the store if you don't agree (From what I've heard about GW stores, don't think I'd ever step foot in one for gaming, myself). Personally, I've been eying those Wargame Exclusive figures and have been strongly considering picking up the Tau models.

A Games Workshop retail store is, first and foremost, a sales location. They sell GW products. When and if you game there, you abide by their rules and their limitations - because while you might be enjoying a game for the sake of the game, you're advertising in practice. Tough bananas if you think it's bogus. You could easily show up to someone's house and they could say "no plastic Orks in my house". Their property, their rules.

Rewind to 2004. Our local GW store in Charlotte, NC (well, Concord) only allowed gaming on Thursday nights - the usual 1,000 point bring-n-battle. After becoming buddies with the manager I asked him if myself and a retired Vietnam vet could come in during the week and play some big games. The vet was in bad psychological shape so I liked to get him out and gaming whenever I had the chance. He has a fully painted Chaos army, I had a painted Eldar army.

He let us set-up shop in the middle of the week, pushing all of the tables together etc. It was a win-win. We got to play big 2500-3000 point games and he had something to show customers when they game in, in place of the intro game (a few Space Marines vs. Dark Eldar at the time?). During the game he'd show customers our models and let them watch the game for a few minutes, etc. We were very much selling GW product for him. It would have been silly to expect to run non-GW products when he was letting us use his table and terrain.

Valid points. Though obvious why they would be opposed to playing non GW minis but in this context I spend quite a bit of money at the store and seems like a stretch to say I can't play let say one non GW model because they no longer make it or it's hard to find. I completely understand if a player shows up with an army of non GW minis but that's not what I'm talking about.

Also I'd like to put out there the growing cancer of local people buying Chinese GW and forgeworld and bringing them in. Honestly that's worse to me... Had a dude string me along on buying a wraith host I had laying around. brought it for him and he said " I can get these all from China for half what you're asking" . Pretty horrible.

I heard a guy in my local store say something about 'Non GW' mini's. He was whispering it to a customer. He was allowing them to use their non-gw minis but the way he said it sounded like the higher ups were on his back about it

 Stormonu wrote:
The store has the right to make its own rules on this.

You have the right not to play/patronize at the store if you don't agree (From what I've heard about GW stores, don't think I'd ever step foot in one for gaming, myself). Personally, I've been eying those Wargame Exclusive figures and have been strongly considering picking up the Tau models.

The ork Mek and those spiders are amazing minis ...

 Skymate wrote:
I heard a guy in my local store say something about 'Non GW' mini's. He was whispering it to a customer. He was allowing them to use their non-gw minis but the way he said it sounded like the higher ups were on his back about it

I can confirm this.At least when I was in UK there would visits from regional manager to check the store for things. Non he models were prohibited (this was 5 years ago).

Personally I think it's more than reasonable.

I'm perfectly fine with the 75% GW rule. It allows space for conversions but doesn't force us to use only Games(tm) Workshop(tm) Products(tm).
I still strongly oppose any rule that limits usage of Forgeworld.

Really really depends on the store cause games are a form of advertising and it comes down to the attitude of the store manager about that. Really though, I've used some nonGW in a GW in the past and been fine with it; having them as small parts of a horde of course but it's kind of in poor taste to do it too much.

They are fine with you using older OOP GW models in general, sometimes you need to tell the younger staffers that they used to be GW models...

But I'm with the others, it's a Games Workshop store, they want you to use Games Workshop products so that if someone comes in and thinks it looks cool, they can turn round and sell it to them, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

The way I understand it is general worldwide rules is only GW models allowed (75% conversion limit) in store for perfectly understandable reasons, Forgeworld models only allowed to be played in store at the desecration of the store manager which is not so understandable and your not allowed to build Forgeworld in store that's a given.

The rule is 75%???
Bloody hell, that ruins some of the stuff I have Guess I'm going to have to add more Aquilas or skulls to things

What really annoyed me about one of the GW policies was that the red shirts would storm into the local hobby centre and scream at the manager for having non GW products on shelves. It was an independent store. The manager SHOULD be allowed to have what he wanted on the other walls.
Now think about it Where would GW be if it weren't for the model kits they used to make early models and prototypes from?

All this is fair. I guess I'm salty because of things like the warp spiders models are so outdated and not to mention the options for cadians. Oh wait I mean imperial guard ...

This is the common policy of GW.
A few years ago, they won't let to you play with unpainted GW models.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The above Warpspiders look awesome.

Personally I'd only take the exarch, those Death Spinners for the rest of the squad have rather poor proportions IMO.

The Exarch is the one I wouldn't take honestly. Having no helmet is weird.

 gainsay wrote:
Valid points. Though obvious why they would be opposed to playing non GW minis but in this context I spend quite a bit of money at the store and seems like a stretch to say I can't play let say one non GW model because they no longer make it or it's hard to find. I completely understand if a player shows up with an army of non GW minis but that's not what I'm talking about.

Also I'd like to put out there the growing cancer of local people buying Chinese GW and forgeworld and bringing them in. Honestly that's worse to me... Had a dude string me along on buying a wraith host I had laying around. brought it for him and he said " I can get these all from China for half what you're asking" . Pretty horrible.

You're touching on a completely different subject there. Those models are still GW models, they're just recasts.

Ruin wrote:

 gainsay wrote:
Valid points. Though obvious why they would be opposed to playing non GW minis but in this context I spend quite a bit of money at the store and seems like a stretch to say I can't play let say one non GW model because they no longer make it or it's hard to find. I completely understand if a player shows up with an army of non GW minis but that's not what I'm talking about.

Also I'd like to put out there the growing cancer of local people buying Chinese GW and forgeworld and bringing them in. Honestly that's worse to me... Had a dude string me along on buying a wraith host I had laying around. brought it for him and he said " I can get these all from China for half what you're asking" . Pretty horrible.

You're touching on a completely different subject there. Those models are still GW models, they're just recasts.

Yeah but to me its a lot worse.

But to the store, it isn't.

I think the store would be against recasts, obviously but it's pretty darn hard to confront someone when you "think" somethings a recast (particularly if the person bought it wasn't aware it was, etc.). That's a whole other bag of worms the average employee doesn't want to touch.

Strictly from the perspective of "non GW models in a GW store," the reasoning behind that is a) to try and trap people in the ecosystem and b) prevent onlookers seeing a product that the store doesn't sell and deciding to go elsewhere.

Recasts don't work for a) but they have little impact on b). Therefore, while not desirable, the presence of recasts in store are unlikely to negatively impact the purchases of others, and may in fact inspire purchases, whereas third party models may not.

That's assuming the recast owner isn't dumb enough to mouth off about them in store, but that should result in sanctions anyway.

My GW store tries to enforce a 90% GW model force or 50% GW bitz in conversions (a bit more leeway on this one). A cool non-GW character is fine, a horde of 60 mantic zombies is not. I'd say it's just common courtesy to use mostly GW models in a GW store.

It really is a douche move to be cool with knowingly buying and playing with counterfeit recast models. I get it, they are cheaper and they look just like the real thing, but only losers do that, and karma is a b*tch. Enjoy your knockoff gucci handbags, and know that knockoffs often contain toxic fillers. The crappy part is when you get tired of your army and sell it on ebay, and some poor soul buys your toxic, counterfeit bs, thinking it is the real deal. Real classy!

As for playing with GW models in a GW store, I really can't imagine how people could become filled with such a sense of entitlement that they resent a hobby store for restricting people who play there for free to playing with models that were manufactured by the company that owns the store.

By all means argue against recasts, but do try and be factual when doing so. "They're toxic" is often thrown out as an argument, but with absolutely zero evidence to support it, no logical reason for it to be true, and, in fact, evidence to the contrary (a Dakka member actually paid to have the material tested, no meaningful difference in toxicity to FW resin.)

Equally, buying recasts and knowingly selling them without disclosing the fact are very different situations.

Toxic gets used in more ways than just being poisonous these days; it can mean like it's draining to the company like a figurative toxicity as the recasts steal potential sales from the company itself. Or when someone pays a price reasonable for a real model, but is instead getting scammed with a fake; which as the buyer is unaware they may again sell it on later on still unaware that it's a fake.

All recasts can be considered figuratively toxic, however thankfully extremely few if any literally are.

I'd say "knock offs contain toxic filler" is intended literally!

Equally, if someone believes an item is genuine and buys and is sold it as such, then that's counterfeiting and is a whole other ball game, it's a criminal activity. Buying a knock off in the knowledge that it's a knock off is "merely" a matter of IP infringement and a civil case.

But we digress, this is OT, and if anyone wishes to start a thread about recasts, I suggest they search for the previous threads on the subject and only do so if there's something new to discuss.

Oh my bad I skimmed over that and saw the second mention where it seemed more figurative.

 Azreal13 wrote:
By all means argue against recasts, but do try and be factual when doing so. "They're toxic" is often thrown out as an argument, but with absolutely zero evidence to support it, no logical reason for it to be true, and, in fact, evidence to the contrary (a Dakka member actually paid to have the material tested, no meaningful difference in toxicity to FW resin.)

Equally, buying recasts and knowingly selling them without disclosing the fact are very different situations.

I didn't say every knockoff contains toxic fillers, but are you really saying that there is no track record for Chinese manufacturers (manufacturing knock-offs or not) using toxic fillers in their products? I mean sure, some guy on this forum told you he paid money to get his knockoff tested, so they all must be pure.

Nevermind, you just want an argument, and it is Christmas Eve, and I have better things to do.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 n0t_u wrote:
Oh my bad I skimmed over that and saw the second mention where it seemed more figurative.

It's been well recorded that Chinese manufacturers have used toxic fillers in things from toothpaste, to children's toys, to dog food. There's nothing figurative about that. It's a fact. Google it.

It's not just that. Nobody, to date, has put forward a convincing argument as to why they would do so. Ordinary non toxic materials aren't exactly expensive, and these aren't a vast number of producers, there's perhaps half a dozen who make their own product, and then a variety of resellers and alternative store fronts.

They're functioning like any other business, with the added handicap of not being able to publicise themselves, and therefore are heavily reliant on repeat business.

The intrinsic cost of making a resin model is pennies, it just isn't logical for a producer to save a tiny amount of that cost by using a toxic material over a non toxic alternative. That's assuming there is a toxic alternative that's cheaper, I've never even seen a compelling argument that such a material is available, let alone being used.

But, yes, just because I'm making an argument and supporting it with facts and logic, rather than throwing around prejoratives, I must be looking for a fight.

It's been well recorded that Chinese manufacturers have used toxic fillers in things from toothpaste, to children's toys, to dog food. There's nothing figurative about that. It's a fact. Google it.

None of which is cheap as chips resin. We aren't talking tech here, where the cost of manufacture of the item is significant, and corners need to be cut in order to make enough to be worth doing, nor are we talking about counterfeits where the intent is to deceive the buyer from word one, and therefore not a penny more than necessary will be spent beyond what's needed to dupe the mark. We are talking about reproductions that are sold and priced as such.

EDIT

I actually googled "Chinese toxic toys" and not only are most news stories 5 or more years old, but they're not generally in the least bit connected to fake product any more than they are legitimate ones, so I'd say, if it's a concern, it's more an argument against products made in China than against recasts specifically.

Well Forgeworld resin is toxic as well, but that's not what this post is about.