This topic is about the GW staff and customers.
Name and shame bad one or give greadit to good ones. Also talk about GW as a whole.

1 think i will start on is that a few years ago they told me that inorder to be enployed as a counter worker i would have to know the 3 main systems, 40K, Fantasy and LOTR(SBG). Fair enought. Back then i didn't play 40k and han't played fantasy for many years however not to long ago they hired a girl!!!!! (A female at GW! The Apocalypce is coming!) and she siad she didn't knwo how to play eaither SBG or WOTR! I was rather shocked at this really as alot of customers and even staff treat me as an unofficial staff member and the expert on SBG (I am often left in charge of SBG mega battles!!!). I can she why they wanted her to work there as she is a fantasic sculptor and her Chaos Vindicator is fantastic! but i does bother me that some of the GW staff can't even play LOTR esipically since many people say that WOTR is better than Fantasy.

My personal opinion on people who work directly with games, be they store employees/managers to the top executives of Games Workshop (I'm not counting the people working in the production plant, since to them it's probably just a job) is that they should know how to play all the games they sell and have at least 1 army/card deck/character made for play/display. Too often it is that games are rubbish because the executives think an idea will be cool and fresh, but when it's translated to the game, it's utter rubbish.

LordFenrir wrote:

Too often it is that games are rubbish because the executives think an idea will be cool and fresh, but when it's translated to the game, it's utter rubbish.

I couldn't agree more. A while ago I went along to a semi-campaign my GW tried to run accross a few weekends and every week it was a scenario with the rules made up on the day - without consideration of how many players were on each side, who was playing, what their armies were. Most games I just ended up in charge of running it because A: I seemed to be the only player there with any sort of comprehansive understanding of the rules and B: the GW staff couldn't be bothered to stick with the game they started, or keep the peace between the six or so 13-year-olds that seemd to constitute the rest of the players.

More recently I went in to see what had changed since my last vistit and ended up talking the two memebers of staff on duty that evening. When conversation got round to SBG they both burst out laughing - they thought I was joking when I asked them if they normally had anyone playing it on their games-night. I asked them if they'd be up for a game at all sometime and they both winced telling me how boring a game it was, how I should play WotR instead (read:buy a £35 rule-book and lots more models), how I should invest in a 'Battle for Skull Pass' boxed set, how I should get a WD subscritption blahblahblah...

We got talking about the books and films themselves (I believe in the context of 'how good a portrayl of them WotR is') and they both displayed a disheartening amount background knowledge on either. At one point one made the classic statement with a proud ' look at my vast intelligence' manner; "I don't think the elves actually go Helm's Deep in the books"....

Really, the staff at GW aren't bad - most are are pretty nice and you can't blame them for trying to sell you their products, or for not all being Tolkien boffs. But I wish they did more than just palm SBG off with sweeping generalisations and practically ignore the literature behind it, part of what makes it such an enjoyable game.

Right, whenever a GW employee says it will be an "investment" to get this army, or to "invest" in this system, that's your cue to run the other way.

I hear this company called Wolf's Den Games is releasing a wonderful game system sometime in a year and some months...maybe ye should look into that

GW employees' atitude toward LotR is just dire. Several months ago (before WotR was released), I participated in a multiplayer battle 'organised' by GW Swansea. No points limit was given, just bring what you got. The employees didn't know the rules that well one one (who's LotR army is supposedly Gondor) told me not to be a rules lawyer when I declared that I was using Boromir's horn of Gondor. When I told him I wasn't being a rules lawyer, but using a special ability Boromir had he sulkily said 'fine', rolled for his courage test and when he failed it moodily said 'Fine I run away' and went to remove the models fighting boromir at which point I corrected him and he merely said 'oh'. About halfway through the game him and the other employee just wandered off (fair enough earlier in the game when now and again one of them left to go ask people who'd just walked in the door if they needed help, but at this point they just walked off and stat chatting at the other end of the store), which effectively left me running the game. What was worse was that not only were there kids on my team that only had a basic grasp of the rules, but the opposing side which both the employees had been on now consisted of a little kid who didn't know the rules at all (fair play to him, it wasn't a case of him being an idiot kid, it was a case of him never having played the game and having been roped in by the employees).

Another time, a couple of months back, I went in and they had a new employee there. Usually if you tell the staff "I'm just browsing" they leave you alone, but this guy didn't. He asked me if I'd seen the new Space Hulk stuff and was horrified when I said I'd only seen pics on the internet and immediatly scampered off to go get the store copy (and this was after I told him I was only really interested in LotR). Over the next few minutes he followed up with the basic "oh wahat army do you play" etc etc. I was getting really anoyed with him when he asked if I'd seen the new wood elves, and when I told him I hadn't really looked at them and wasn't that interested he asked "why not?" and went to grab a box at which point I told him to cut out the pushy sales spiel, to which he replied "But I'm not, I'm just asking what you're interested in - that's not pushy sales." To which I relied, "Yes it is. You're going 'have you seen this? have you seen that? Look at this' even though I'm clearly not interested. That's pushy sales technique." To which he replied dejectidly "Oh okay." and shuffled off. I've only been to GW once or twice since then, and only after checking that he wasn't on duty, and only if I actually wanted to buy something rather than just browsing like I used to do.

I used to really enjoy spending an hour or two just browsing in GW when I was younger. The staff were all pretty nice and would let me flick through scource books, check out display models or ones from their collection, sometimes they even got unreleased stuff out for me to get a peak at. Nowadays that doesn't happen. Partly that's down to the blitzing of LotR shelf-space which takes up about as much room as the 'paint' section. The store has a limited selection of boxes and blisters and no longer even attempts to keep up to date with the newest releases - the books are even worse. SBG is no longer even featured on the gaming tables, even WotR only gets a 48" by 24" flat board.

At Canterbury, the staff are rarely insufferably pushy but it gets on my nerves how, whenever an article in a WD takes my eye I get hounded about subscribing. And they still pester you about buying the latest LOTR book/box/blister even though they'd rather mock you for playing it than offer you a game.

Also whenever I mention the word 'ebay'. I can see a big red flare go up in their head and they start lecturing me on how a $20 Brand New LOTR SBG Rulebook (off ebay) isn't as good as the $96 one they sell at the store.

alot do do that (He he do do). I'm am rahter lucky as everyone at my local knows me by name and know what i do and do not collect so they almsot never even bring up Fantasy. I'm also good friends with 1 part timer who is in uni at the mo so isn't there till Christmas.
I still love how that most Customers treat me as if i was staff and that they will oftne ask me about SBG/WOTR tho thoses are few and far between. I'm also rather shocked that i know more about 40k than some other people and i only learned the ruels 1 month ago tho becuase of my learnign difficualts i do get confused.

I would actually be there more often but tryign to transport 1 large army in a shoe box on my moped is almost impossible so i have to get the bus and that means i have to take that 1 once a hour bus at 11 at night to get home for vet night.

I klnow what you go though D. I ahve been left in charg eof so many games it has been insane. The worst was then we where doign helms deep and the person in charge thought "May don't we play WOTR outside the walls and SBG in the wall all on the same board" That was a dissater espically as i hadn't learnt the WOTR proppaly yet byt then and tryign to orginaise a total 7 kids was a nightmare and in the end i jsut said. "Last turn not matter what happens"

Just head on over to GW Peterborough. It's the most relaxed GW there is apparantly, our staff actually know the rules, we have a decent LOTR section and we actually have LOTR models around. Not to mention the fact all our staff are really chilled out, not in your face all the time and great people. I don't go in to GW when I do to game or to paint but now it's more just to hang out with the staff and a couple of mates, get some drinks and food in and just have fun in general. Of course we try and squeeze some gaming/hobbying in there too still

Seriously though, I hate GW staff more than anyone else in the world, the guys at GW HQ in Nottingham actually know not to ask us how we are if we go there because they just get blanked. Thankfully though the idiots from our store are gone and we have cool staff now, one of which I go Airsofting with now. And the best thing about it is, our staff at Peterborough share my same hatred for the common GW employee

I rarely go down to my local GW (15 mins away by car), so I don't really know the local employees. It seems every time I go down there there's introductions again. LotR isn't big down there. I've seen games of it infrequently but now WotR gets the table and everything seems aimed at that. When one of the employees was telling me about it just after its release he seemed fairly knowledgable of the game system (or maybe it was my lack of knowledge in comparison). Anyway I've gotta go down sometime to buy stuff for my 'project' so I'll report back after that.

Red, that sounds like a GW in heaven...

I wish they were all like that.

Are you sure it's a GW RC, and not an indy?

eaither that or they pumpted a hursnagenic drug into the air con.