Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hey gang,

So my sister and family are going to visit her husband's family in England.  While she is there I was going to ask her to maybe pick up some GW Legions Imperialis stuff for me.  I know the price in pounds is generally much better than what we play in the US when we purchase GW stuff here.  From my own trip to England, I know about the GW store in London that lets you buy and ship direct from the warehouse in the US at English prices.  But I also see people talking about other shops around that discount GW stuff.  So if I was looking for some cheap prices for my sister to buy kits and bring home in her suitcase, where would I best send her?  

She will be visiting London and Glasgow in Scotland, but most of her time will be with her husband's family in Runcorn.  Does anyone have suggestions for those areas to go shopping?  Alternatively, might it be a better deal to order something from an English online shop and have it delivered to Runcorn and then have her bring it home?  Obviously I can't get a lot of stuff (unless I pay suitcase fees and provide one...).  I just want a chance to get some sweet, sweet cheaper English prices. 

Thanks for the help brothers across the pond.

In London, Darksphere are probably your best bet, or at least the one I’m most familiar with. They also have pretty responsive mail order times in addition to bricks and mortar stores.

They’ve currently got a Summer Sale with a selection of LI boxes currently at £22.00. Provided your sister is staying with family (not always the same thing as visiting!), they might be willing for you to buy now and have posted to them for collection by your sister?

If you are willing to ship to Runcorn, the big online stores are Darksphere, Element Games, and Wayland Games in my experience. Other online retailers are around too. Be careful though, some stuff might ship quite late if they are waiting on fresh stock from GW so best to avoid those items. Also I've not personally used Wayland in awhile but they tended to be the least reliable but often a smidge cheaper.

Further to what MDG said about Darksphere in London, Element Games is in Stockport, close to Manchester, so probably the nearest big discounter to Runcorn (as far as I'm aware). Could work depending on how your trip is structured and whether you have access to a car (it is pretty easy to reach from the motorway network having been there myself before).

Having spent a few weeks working in the GW Stockport store, there’s not enough to do in Stockport other than visit Element though.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Having spent a few weeks working in the GW Stockport store, there’s not enough to do in Stockport other than visit Element though.

Stockport is a lot nicer than it used to be, but I was more thinking it would be on the way through. If they are driving to Runcorn from London, then visiting Element is a pretty short detour from the M6 before going back down the M56 to Runcorn. You can come off the M6 northbound at Knutsford (before the M56 junction at Lymm) and take the new(ish) connecting dual carriageway to the M56 eastbound, get onto the M60, come off at Stockport and it isn't far to Element. Then just back up onto the M56 and follow it down to Runcorn. Adds about 40 minutes to the route (more if you hit rush hour of course).

Could combine it with a trip to Manchester proper though if going the tourist route.

Dark Sphere is in London proper but it is in zone 2. So either a pain to be carrying bulky boxes on the tube or an even bigger pain with inner London driving and parking (and parking charges). Looking at the map, I just realised that last time I was in London I went to within about 50m of Dark Sphere and had no idea. Damn.

If taking the train across the UK then yeah, Element doesn't work, Dark Sphere is much better.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Thinking about it, there are a lot of "what ifs" based on the OP's London plans and transportation choices

Yarp. I’d definitely argue have a wee shop around our more familiar online discounters, and XPG.com as my mate’s Dover FLGS is associated, so it would be rude not to pimp them, and see if it’s ok to have stuff delivered where your sister is going to be.

Thanks everyone for the help, sounds like maybe I should get and order shipping to her in-laws house if they don’t mind. Just need to figure out how much she can carry home.
Looking at the discounters web sites, it is easily a 30%+ savings over US discount options. Sigh.

 vadersson wrote:
Thanks everyone for the help, sounds like maybe I should get and order shipping to her in-laws house if they don’t mind. Just need to figure out how much she can carry home.
Looking at the discounters web sites, it is easily a 30%+ savings over US discount options. Sigh.

Just be mindful, you may buy $300 of products using better conversion rates, saving yourself $90 over buying for yourself in the US, but your sister is carrying all that product in baggage for you, and extra baggage costs about $50 per suitcase to check on an airplane. You must also consider that your sister's time is valuable and that she would be taking at least 1 hour if not 2 out of her Vacation to save you, at this point in our hypothetical, forty dollars. So she's basically spending an hour or two working in order to save you $40.

That might plainly not be worth it for you and/or your sister, so I would take those factors into consideration.

 ph34r wrote:

 vadersson wrote:
Thanks everyone for the help, sounds like maybe I should get and order shipping to her in-laws house if they don’t mind. Just need to figure out how much she can carry home.
Looking at the discounters web sites, it is easily a 30%+ savings over US discount options. Sigh.

Just be mindful, you may buy $300 of products using better conversion rates, saving yourself $90 over buying for yourself in the US, but your sister is carrying all that product in baggage for you, and extra baggage costs about $50 per suitcase to check on an airplane. You must also consider that your sister's time is valuable and that she would be taking at least 1 hour if not 2 out of her Vacation to save you, at this point in our hypothetical, forty dollars. So she's basically spending an hour or two working in order to save you $40.

That might plainly not be worth it for you and/or your sister, so I would take those factors into consideration.

I agree. Getting from Central London to Darksphere is sometimes a 45-min trip each way if caught in the rush hour. Once you add browsing time you're taking a couple hours out of her holiday. I'd just be inclined to order it online.

Don't bother with Glasgow, I live near and frequently check out all the gaming stores and none of them and I'm including GW store carry much LI models.
We visited all the stores close to opening after latest release and between them they had nothing from release as most people ordered direct from GW as most of the stores don't give much if any discount.

 vadersson wrote:
Thanks everyone for the help, sounds like maybe I should get and order shipping to her in-laws house if they don’t mind. Just need to figure out how much she can carry home.
Looking at the discounters web sites, it is easily a 30%+ savings over US discount options. Sigh.

If she clips it off the sprues you can fit loads. But...

 ph34r wrote:

 vadersson wrote:
You must also consider that your sister's time is valuable and that she would be taking at least 1 hour if not 2 out of her Vacation to save you, at this point in our hypothetical, forty dollars. So she's basically spending an hour or two working in order to save you $40.

Especially if she's not a gamer you want it to involve as little time/effort on her part unless she's got nothing better to do. Getting some stuff with a huge price discrepancy, or UK exclusives and having it shipped means it shouldn't cost her any time.


It's also worth pointing out that if she comes back with loads of it she might get to pay enough in customs charges to annihilate your savings.

For London contact HLS models in Erith (they are on facebook). Often cheaper than Darksphere, but less convenient to get to. They do ship as well. Contact and they could do a package deal.

In terms of transport if you don't wan the boxes and their is a forumite nearby they could clip things up for you? Certainly if I was about I wouldn't mind spending an hour making the sprues smaller, but they would have to match my schedule and location.