# So just what are Games workshop teaching in their shops?



## Azezel (May 23, 2010)

Over the last few days I've played several games againt my nephew. He has the AoBR army (Marines, natch) with an additional tac-squad, and I've been fielding some rather sub-optimal lists (Footslogging Battle Sisters for the lose) and occasionally making a key tactical blunder to keep things interesting.

A good time is had by all, you know the sort of thing.

Thing is - he says that he was taught to play in Games Workshop by a staff member and 'graduated' whatever that means. I get the impression this was some sort of official thing rather than a demo game.

I was therefore suprised when he couldn't work out to-hit or to-wound, had no idea about rolling for mission/deployment/initiative* doesn't know what half the rules in his codex means and couldn't build an army list.

Obviously, he can do all of those things _now_ - but what the hell happennd in GW, if they didn't teach him anything about playing the game?


Anyone have experience with GW staff teaching the game to youngsters?

*Bizarely, despite not knowing about the standard missions, he has apparently played Planetstrike. It baffles the imagination...


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## KingOfCheese (Jan 4, 2010)

GW Rep:
_"This Ultramarine moves here and goes *pew pew pew* and kills the bad guy. Congratulations, you win! Now all you need to do is buy this battleforce and you can win even more!"_


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## Boc (Mar 19, 2010)

KingOfCheese said:


> GW Rep:
> _"This Ultramarine moves here and goes *pew pew pew* and kills the bad guy. Congratulations, you win! Now all you need to do is buy this battleforce and you can win even more!"_


_Ohh... but you'll need more than that! Here take this Land Raider... no make that three, and six boxes of terminators, and you can't forget drop pods and dreadnoughts and..._

I've only been to a GW shop once, so I can provide nothing worthwhile to this topic. My most sincere apologies.


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## Sethis (Jun 4, 2009)

Never go into GW on Sat or Sun, so couldn't tell you. Sorry.


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## coke123 (Sep 4, 2010)

In my local store, they don't really teach gaming, but they do offer painting and modelling lessons. They usually do a demo game with AoBR (heavily stacked in the marines favour, who are controlled by the newbie) and then just sell them an AoBR. Perhaps this is what he 'graduated' from?


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## the-ad-man (Jan 22, 2010)

any chance hes making it up to try and get in with his cool uncle?


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## Reported (Apr 2, 2011)

They usually do introductory battles there for noobies, I'd say more than likely he completed an introductory game, but being a child he was probably not paying attention, or forgot it all.


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## the-ad-man (Jan 22, 2010)

Reported said:


> They usually do introductory battles there for noobies, I'd say more than likely he completed an introductory game, but being a child he was probably not paying attention, or forgot it all.


they also tend to simplify the rules alot so they can burn through a game using the aobr stuff in about 15 minutes.

ive seen many times the rules for rapid fire weapons being played as assault 2 haha


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## Scathainn (Feb 21, 2010)

A friend's kid did this, AFAIK they are only taught modelling and painting in the "Academy", not the rules themselves. 

Then again, my Games Workshop seems to defy the norm by being an actually enjoyable place to play 40k in (with great staff I may add) so perhaps my hearings are outside the norm.


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## Azezel (May 23, 2010)

Boc said:


> _Ohh... but you'll need more than that! Here take this Land Raider... no make that three, and six boxes of terminators, and you can't forget drop pods and dreadnoughts and..._


He was surprised that he could field his Force Commander as a Chapter Master without buying an official chapter Master mini. _That_ is something I can believe they won't mention in GW shops.



coke123 said:


> In my local store, they don't really teach gaming, but they do offer painting and modelling lessons. They usually do a demo game with AoBR (heavily stacked in the marines favour, who are controlled by the newbie) and then just sell them an AoBR. Perhaps this is what he 'graduated' from?





Scathainn said:


> A friend's kid did this, AFAIK they are only taught modelling and painting in the "Academy", not the rules themselves.


That's most likely it then. Which I actually fully support. Nothing bad can come of a good grounding in modeling and painting.


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## KhainiteAssassin (Mar 18, 2009)

KingOfCheese said:


> GW Rep:
> _"This Ultramarine moves here and goes *pew pew pew* and kills the bad guy. Congratulations, you win! Now all you need to do is buy this battleforce and you can win even more!"_


sad thing is, this is not a joke, they really do that at the one at my place more or less, its hard to deny it.


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## bitsandkits (Mar 18, 2008)

when did it become GW's responsibility to teach people how to play the game? isnt that for the players to work out for themselves?


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## liforrevenge (Oct 6, 2009)

Scathainn said:


> A friend's kid did this, AFAIK they are only taught modelling and painting in the "Academy", not the rules themselves.
> 
> Then again, my Games Workshop seems to defy the norm by being an actually enjoyable place to play 40k in (with great staff I may add) so perhaps my hearings are outside the norm.


I believe my GW is a pretty enjoyable place too (though I admit I haven't gone much in the past year, and they seem to have had a few staff changes, though the new staff is all people I know from going in the past so hopefully not too much is different.)

I also took the academy thing. The last session of our course was an introduction to the game itself. About half of the "students" played fantasy, so I imagine that they could only cover the very basics of the game. I couldn't actually attend that lesson, so they let me do a makeup lesson, and since I know how to play already, I basically just played a skirmish with the "instructor" where he gave me some advice on some more intricate strategy. I thought the Academy was a pretty good deal, and I actually learned a lot.


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## Azezel (May 23, 2010)

From the sound of it it mightn't be as bad as I thought. If it's mostly about painting and modeling (and don't forget collecting official citadel(R) miniatures, boys and girls) then that excuses a glossing over of the rules to an extent.


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## Ghost792 (Jan 6, 2010)

bitsandkits said:


> when did it become GW's responsibility to teach people how to play the game? isnt that for the players to work out for themselves?


Good point. The intro games are probably more to give new players a taste of the game. At my GW they give the kids the choice of faction. Most pick the space marines.


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## C'Tan Chimera (Aug 16, 2008)

I've only been in a GW shop once, but those guys might as well be Car Salesmen with their relentless product pushing. My friend in wanting a single box of Chaos marines and wound up hauling out a whole battleforce, a massive paint set and even a Defiler. Guess who told him that was all a good idea?


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## Unforgiven302 (Oct 20, 2008)

bitsandkits said:


> when did it become GW's responsibility to teach people how to play the game? isnt that for the players to work out for themselves?





Ghost792 said:


> Good point. The intro games are probably more to give new players a taste of the game. At my GW they give the kids the choice of faction. Most pick the space marines.


Exactly. This is why they sell rule books, so the person can read it and learn for themselves. GW and its store employees are not there to hold a persons hand through the entire aspect of the hobby and game, but to give them a rudimentary taste of the hobby in general if asked for and then the person should have to put forth some effort of their own to figure out the game themselves. 

I must say that my local GW is quite a great place. The manager is top notch, knows his stuff about the armies and the games and is very genuine to all the customers. He genuinely enjoys the hobby and the games and it shows. He is really helpful to new customers and explains the game and the different armies quite well all while not "forcing" or pushing a customer towards one army over the other unless he knows that army is due for an update in the near future and will tell the customer that. That is why I go there and shop there.


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## Lord Sven Kittyclaw (Mar 23, 2009)

This "academy" is actually something where the intent is you go, you learn to build, paint, and play, and last time I checked learning to play involved learning the rules. My little brother did it though, and he learned jack.


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## Kettu (Nov 20, 2007)

I remember way back, what eleven, twelve years ago, when I first started to get into the GW hobby, they had a thing going in store where they gave you a small business card with five or six boxes on the back.
Each time you had a lesson in how to play they would put a stamp on one of the boxes. The idea being you would get taught more and more advanced rules each time. Upon completion of the training course you got a free squad/regiment box of your choice for basic army troops.
I got my first bunch of Wood Elf archers that way.

Sadly, this stopped just a few weeks after it had started and they never seemed to have anything like it since.


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## Katie Drake (Nov 28, 2007)

Lord Sven Kittyclaw said:


> This "academy" is actually something where the intent is you go, you learn to build, paint, and play, and last time I checked learning to play involved learning the rules. My little brother did it though, and he learned jack.


Yup, my friend's brother did the same thing. The "academy" isn't overly useful for teaching people how to play the game (though honestly I think the game is too complex for most twelve year-olds anyway). It does help an awful lot with the modelling and painting side, though.


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## unxpekted22 (Apr 7, 2009)

Actually I have an issue with GW's push for 'speed-painting' which, at least the time I was informed about the academy, was how they were teaching kids to paint. 

I can understand how speed painting can be cool/fun at tournaments and stuff, but usually thats by people who actually do know how to paint for real when they take their time. 

They talk about speed painting in the stores for the same reason they show you the speedy version of the rules, to buy more models and supplies without fully understanding what you're doing. The GW staff is trained to tell kids that speed painting is whats cool, so they fly through models and buy more without every actually becoming very good at it. I stayed up through entire nights in the garage painting my first few models and I had a lot of fun doing it and learning on my own.

I agree with 12 year olds often not being able to fully grasp the rules. Me and my father play against each other. He's been playing board games his whole life, and so naturally I have as well. We've been playing for months and we still get caught in arguments over the rules or stuck with things we dont know the answer to, and thats because we try to make sure we play the game as the rules are written as accurately as we can. There is NO WAY 12 year old kids who are going to GW stores every weekend playing games with eachother are following even like, half of the actual rules. I've watched them, especially their apocalypse games. they make no sense. But they usually look like they are having fun anyway. Lets face it arguing over complicated rule technicalities isnt very fun, but knowing you were able to win by following all of those complicated rules is more satisfying in the end for me.


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## VX485 (Feb 17, 2011)

I went to the nearest GW to my place on game night to try out a new 1000pt army list that i was intending to use at my FLGS in the next few days (my FLGS is not a GW and does card games most nights)

When i got there i met the staff who were great and promptly played a game with me, after that was over the 'other' hobbyist came over (kids ranging from 10-14) with barley any grasp on the rules, tried to teach them some basic rules but it was just tradgic, thankfully the manager came over and said game over store is closing.
What i noticed was that these poor guys working there were pretty much being used as free child care by these kids parents while they went to the movies or dinner etc.


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## effigy22 (Jun 29, 2008)

Running Sunday beginners isnt all sunshine and smiles - your dealing with adolescent boys who on the most part are quite boisterous when it comes to games.

Staff try and teach the kids the rules - not how to play. The academy is a good idea as the kids get to learn the modelling and painting side of things.

And believe it or not - most staff couldnt be bothered if someone kid has gone for a wander around town. Staff are salesmen not child minders - they teach your kids games with the basics so the kids then want to go "MUMMY! DADDY! BUY ME THIS! IT WILL MAKE MY ARMY AWESOME!" - which is good for a number of reasons, 1 - the company makes money. 2 - the kid is really getting in to the hobby. And yes, that is the priority GW see it as. 

These guys do a job - they sell sell sell. The reason being, if they fail to make targets they get fired fired fired! 

and on one other note - most of the beginners are 12 to 13 years old, do you know any child that age that actually listens to what adults have to say?


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## Muffinman (Aug 31, 2009)

Yeah, from wat I've seen at my Local GW they spent most of their "Academy" time learning how to paint and model rather than how to actually play and I actually like that because they you don't have all these 12 year olds playing with they're grey Ultramarines. 

I do have to disagree when people say that if you're under 12 you won't fully understand the rules, I think it is more dependant on the kid rather than their age. I started when I was 10 and I actually spent the time learning the rules and how my army worked, though now most the Academy kids I see just go by what people have told them. In my opinion it's how dedicated they are rather than they're age.


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## effigy22 (Jun 29, 2008)

As a general rule for the southern regions - not sure on others. Sunday beginners must be in secondary school. We dont put them off from collecting by any means - we just explain to the parents that we think they are too young to be left in the shop on their own. 

My local store doesnt mind hosting kids birthday parties either! which i think is awesome! too bad they didnt when i was that old


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## Katie Drake (Nov 28, 2007)

Muffinman said:


> I do have to disagree when people say that if you're under 12 you won't fully understand the rules, I think it is more dependant on the kid rather than their age. I started when I was 10 and I actually spent the time learning the rules and how my army worked, though now most the Academy kids I see just go by what people have told them. In my opinion it's how dedicated they are rather than they're age.


I started putting in effort to learning the rules to 3rd edition 40K when I was 12. I'm not a genius but I learn best by reading instruction manuals (or rulebooks) and I couldn't come close to getting the rules even close to correct 75% of the time until I was about 14 or 15 (and I spent *a lot* of time learning them). In all my time in the hobby (I'm nearly 23 now, so ten years) I've never once met a 12 year-old that could even come close to fully grasping the rules for 40K. Dedication doesn't really matter much in this case unless we're talking about a 12 year-old that spends every free moment memorizing the rulebook.


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## Kreuger (Aug 30, 2010)

I haven't been into a GW store in years. The closest one to me is about an hour away.

From what everyone says it sounds like they mostly offer "buying lessons".

We have a few chapter approved retailers though, all of whom are top notch. I worked at one for a while running a warhammer league. Our goal was always to make it fun and accessible. We weren't a factory. We were a craftsman shop. Making high quality new gamers! :grin: Because, hey, the most rewarding parts of the hobby are the ones that last a while: learning and improving at painting, becoming a better player, and socializing.



bitsandkits said:


> when did it become GW's responsibility to teach people how to play the game? isnt that for the players to work out for themselves?


While I agree it isn't their 'responsibility', I'm going to disagree with you otherwise, B&K. It isn't GW's responsibility but it IS in their better interests. GW stores exist to sell the product and indoctrinate new players into the game. Those stores better service the bottom line (And the gamer community) by supporting continued playing, offering a welcoming environment, teaching people the rules, and supporting life long interest (obsession).

I understand full well that there is a pretty steep gradient expressing the buying habits of most players. Even if the initial investment is high and the residual investments taper off over time, an active gaming center creates a culture and cultivates a dedicated group of repeat-buyers.

The league I oversaw, had the same aspects. High initial investment, followed by the now proverbial 'long-tail', which only spiked up during major rereleases and new releases. However, without that culture of players centered on the store as a gaming environment, the residual reinvestments in new armies and editions are much less likely.

Further, I recognize buying patterns have changed since I ran a league. EBay was practically embryonic by comparison. Presently, I believe a decent portion of the initial investment will still happen at a GW store, but a higher proportion is likely to follow at either a lower overhead online retailer or from eBay. I can't bring myself to sympathize with GW for that. 

It's symptomatic of a problem in their distribution model, that for instance, veteran-player who frequents a GW store might buy their models elsewhere rather than patronize the local establishment.

I think I am missing a piece in my understanding of their distribution model, because I would expect that GW would position themselves so that the fiscal cost to the player for continued new investments should be more reasonable at GW's local establishment than on the secondary/web market.

Anyway, if you can fill that gap in my knowledge, please do so!


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## asianavatar (Aug 20, 2007)

What he probably went through was what GW used to call the Academy. It was pretty much 4 lessons that someone got if they bought a whole bunch of products.

The lessons consisted of building models and terrain, painting, building an army list and playing a game. It was a way for GW to provide an "incentive" for buying a whole lot of product at once without having to actually give away material.

The quality of the "lessons" really depended on the staff. They usually give the typical paint and build lesson. The actual game can really depend, if you get a good staff who has time they will teach you how to actually use the charts. A crappy staff will just tell the kids what they need to roll and do without providing any background and reasons. It sounds like your nephew got a crappy lesson.



> Actually I have an issue with GW's push for 'speed-painting' which, at least the time I was informed about the academy, was how they were teaching kids to paint.


I don't think its that bad. Its the basics that the kids needs, if they want to go further and get better its up to them, but with so many different people GW has to pan to the lowest common denominator. There is no point trying to teach a kid blending when all he wants to do is roll dice and play the game. At least in that case they are getting the kid to at least try painting instead of him just having a plain grey army.


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## IanC (Sep 3, 2010)

Well in my local GW they do try to teach the basics of the games. Usually in the form of 4 "lessons". If it wasn't for that I wouldn't know how to play, lol....


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## Stephen_Newman (Jul 14, 2009)

At my local GW beginners Sundays are used to introduce new people to the hobby although for the ease of moving on to gaming in other days of the week they make sure they know the rules. I went once and just saw the manager almost dish out what some might call homework by making sure the undergraduates learnt the rules before they finished.

If the didn't listen they were banned. After all it makes it so much easier for others to game since the store is for multiple people and not the one teenager being a jerk.


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## Samules (Oct 13, 2010)

Some game stores are better than others I see. I took the academy (2 weeks before they no longer offered it I might add) and learned a lot. I already understood many of the things he taught (I am a 5 year D&D veteran and have been hobbying for half of that) but I still learned quite a few new things. I didn't understand the majority because i didn't own a rulebook but after I got an eldar codex for my birthday 3 weeks later I made 10 army lists in 2 days. I later traded the Devestator box i got with the academy for my first army! (14 dire avengers and an Autarch). Chris (our Gamestore manager) taught me plenty and now I am the proud owner of 1500 pts of eldar.


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## Azezel (May 23, 2010)

I confess a small measure of pride that my nephew now knows how to calculate to-hit/to-wound without charts, build an army list, resolve close combat, and what all his units' special rules and wargear do.

I also ran him through elementary green stuff and magnetisation and helped him start his own bitz box.

He's ten and he picked it all up very fast as soon as I told him what and how, rather than just rolling dice and stating an outcome, as i susect the staff at GW did.


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## Maidel (Jun 28, 2009)

For my sins I used to work in GW as a weekend job. This is all from 99-01 so everything could have changed since then (but from reading the responses above not THAT much has changed).

Sunday used to be split into 4 sessions of an hour with 30 minutes in between to set up and clear out each group.

Group 1 - 1 troop choice. Werent allowed into group 2 until they had a copy of the codex and 1 troop choice + something else.

Group 2 - 1 Troop choice + 1 other + character - most people turned up with a tank. You werent allowed out of this group until you had the rule book and a legal army (HQ and 2 troop choices)

Then the other groups were for fantasy battle, and then there was one session for LOTRs a bit later on.

When you 'graduated' from group 2 you were allowed to come on Saturdays and play in the big games.

Problem was, there was only so much you could 'teach' them. They should have known how to move, shoot, and do assaults before getting to group 2, but the thing was they were always directed by a staff member, thus, they didnt actually 'know' the rules because there was always someone to tell them when they were doing something wrong. Not to mention it was often unbelievably boring for the staff members to do the SAME mission week after week after week and thus would add in bits here and their to keep themselves entertained - bit of take and hold and such like.

In the same way, group two would introduce the kids to tanks and penetration rolls and such like. But when they left the group they would never have played with any of the more 'exotic' rules, chances are they wouldnt have come across deep strike or psykers or special characters or all manner of stuff that they had models for, because the staff member had to make the game fun, and letting one kid use calgar, a landraider and 10 marines against another kid with a guard command squad, a 10 man guard squad and a chimera was just plain silly and you had to work around it - thus players often had terminators on the board which were 'count as' marines because they wanted to use their new shiny models and it was our job to keep them interrested.

All of this was made a million times worse when parents used you as a day care centre and would drop off little johny at 11am and come back and get him at 5pm and when you said you had no idea where it was everything would kick off, they simply didnt understand that we were in no way legally responsible for their children and had never promised to be so and that, in fact, they had lied to us when they said that little johny was over 14 and could thus be left alone in the store with a bunch of 20 year old geeks who enjoy playing with toys.

The same went for teaching them to paint - frankly if you could teach a 12 year old to paint, while at the same time running a game for 15+ other 12 year olds AND manning the till AND watching out for 20+ people in the show potentially shop lifting... well, you are a better man than I.

Complaining that teaching them to speed paint is wrong, well thats unfair. GW staff members will teach you to paint properly, I was very proud of some of the models I helped them produce, but that was always with the slightly older kids (15/16/17) and mostly when they had bunked off school and the store was quiet and you could actually spend time working with them, teaching someone to paint on a sunday was a non-starter. Not enough time, not enough space (how many children can you sit around something the size of a tea tray?) and then they dont have enough patience, they want to play games, the painting side is more of a nusance to them.

One thing I am very happy is that I worked their at a time where 'pressure selling' really wasnt on the agenda. We were told to actively perswade people NOT to buy things they didnt need or try and get them to buy something that would work for them, rather than because it looked nice. EG - parents would come to the till with a box of terminators, a wraithlord and a hive tyrant - it was then our job to work out if it was all for 1 kid actually had a tau army and in fact they would be better off with a couple of criss suits, a hammer head and a box of fire warriors.

The one thing we were told to 'push' was paints, brushes and glue, because if you could, on average, persuade every customer to buy one of them, then across the week that was often the difference of hitting target and not hitting target, and it pushed up the average sale and all sorts of things that made the manager happy.


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## Scathainn (Feb 21, 2010)

Sounds like some of you guys have some shitty GW's around you.


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## Stephen_Newman (Jul 14, 2009)

Scathainn said:


> Sounds like some of you guys have some shitty GW's around you.


Mine is awesome. Just never say the Ultramarines are smurfs and that Stormpidgeons exist and you'll get on great there!


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## Lord Solar Macharius (Oct 5, 2010)

Stormpigeons?


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## Samules (Oct 13, 2010)

Hmmm, it is entirely possible that I had a better experience because my store it about 8 feet by 15 feet and this is probably a little larger than it actually is. When I came in on wendsday at 3 there were probably 5-6 other people there and it was very easy for Chris to check on me during the painting every 5 minutes. If the store were twice as big with 20 people there I would have had a far inferior experience.


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## IanC (Sep 3, 2010)

Solar Lord Macharius said:


> Stormpigeons?


A silly immature nickname for the Stormraven.


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## Muffinman (Aug 31, 2009)

Scathainn said:


> Sounds like some of you guys have some shitty GW's around you.


Wouldn't say that about mine, except for when we had that homeless guy who would keep coming in for about 3months. Since the store I go to is still a Bunker it's not a one man show so most of the time there at least 2 staff there which helps wen you want some tips on painting or stuff like that.

@Katie
Ok I think I might have worded that wrong. Now that I think about it it isn't dedication rather than the fact your willing to learn. You are right that until your 12 it is hard to learn the rules but I didn't end up learning them by reading the rules, I just played a lot of games against people who were willing to teach me, I found it a lot easier to learn when the stuff was actually happening. It did take me a long time to start getting the hang off some of the wierder and more difficult rules and by the time I'd learnt most of them 5th ed cam around and I had to start over again...


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## Orochi (Jan 28, 2009)

IanC said:


> A silly immature nickname for the Stormraven.


Agreed.

Adults use the term 'Space Guppy'


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## Kinglopey (Sep 10, 2008)

I put my son into the Academy, he got a free Case and the 6 sessions. The main focus is on assembling and painting the models, and building a your own terrain. the last session they play a game in 1.5 hours. Like others have said it's an overview of the rules otherwise they wouldn't make it through a game.

I also take my son to White Shields, which is a club for kids under 17 to play and learn. That is almost pointless in terms of learning the rules and IS the excuse for parents to dump their kids off... I'd go and paint my mins, and after the 1st or 2nd session I learned I couldn't do that because I was watching the game and trying to correct the kids.

It's really tough for the GW staff to manage, at my local GW they're wrangling 20+ kids usually 30+ with 2 staff, trying to play some sort of Mega Battle in a 2 hour period and order pizza, it's crazy, I give them lots of props for trying it, but the kids don't get the individual time they'd need to actually learn the game.

I've been teaching my Son the rules, and its complicated, he's got a Daemon army and they're complicated on top of that, alot of the kids that hang out at the store don't have someone that will sit and give them the time to actually play a game to teach them.


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## Caliban (Nov 27, 2010)

my cousins 11 and she kicks arse; plays as DA which makes this all the more staggering. then there's the fact she's been playing for 2 years. sure she started crap but as the moleman says if you've got dedication you'll learn. it can take a while but then it is far more complicated than picking up a controller and button mashing.


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## Muffinman (Aug 31, 2009)

Caliban said:


> my cousins 11 and she kicks arse; plays as DA which makes this all the more staggering. then there's the fact she's been playing for 2 years. sure she started crap but as the moleman says if you've got dedication you'll learn. it can take a while but then it is far more complicated than picking up a controller and button mashing.


Hey!!! :ireful2:
Names Muffinman thank you very much !!! :laugh:


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## Caliban (Nov 27, 2010)

damned it!


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## Alsojames (Oct 25, 2010)

I kinda agree with the daycare thingy VX845 said. At least in some cases.

My FLGS isn't THAT bad sales-pushing wise, but they are guilty of it. I remember the first time I got Lizardmen (before the store moved, though i can still go to it) this one guy would ask me (and my mum who came with me, I was only 12 at the time) if I was getting this or that or the other....It really pissed me off.

As for the Academy, my FLGS does 4 weeks: 1 modelling lessons, 1 painting lessons, 1 gaming lessons then a tourney. I think it's a pretty good Idea. The only reason I went was so I had an excuse to get some new models, a case and pwn some noobs haha.

But then they 'closed down' the Academy for reasons unknown, so I never got my lessons. Oh well. Got my Tau that way.


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## jaws900 (May 26, 2010)

it is very much "do what i suggest and this way you can only learn by contantly asking me how to play"
I often help people out at my local and some of the staff actualy get annoyed when they ask me about the rules while i'm playing instead of the staff who are doing nothing. *they have the right idea*
My suggestion to anyone if find out how you learn. I'm a person who learns by playing and then conferming it in the book latter. Some can learn with the book alone while others will pick it up from watching and askign questions. Find out how he would best learn the game and then try and give him some help baced on that. Eaither way a rule book would be useful for him to look over even if you get a cheap as chips one of ebay or somewhere (Wonders if Bits and Kits sells them)


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## Azkaellon (Jun 23, 2009)

I find it funny they don't even try to sell me anything if i go somewhere........Once they see a huge army of marines in armor they havn't seen before they give up trying to sell me more assault squads.  (Go Go Pre-heresy jump packs!)


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## Cypher871 (Aug 2, 2009)

Stephen_Newman said:


> At my local GW beginners Sundays are used to introduce new people to the hobby although for the ease of moving on to gaming in other days of the week they make sure they know the rules. I went once and just saw the manager almost dish out what some might call homework by making sure the undergraduates learnt the rules before they finished.
> 
> If the didn't listen they were banned. After all it makes it so much easier for others to game since the store is for multiple people and not the one teenager being a jerk.


Same at my store, or at least it used to be. I can't stand GW shops anymore (mainly because of the smell of un-washed adolescents). I can buy all I need on-line, so visits to smelly shops are few and far between. :laugh:


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## Azkaellon (Jun 23, 2009)

Cypher871 said:


> Same at my store, or at least it used to be. I can't stand GW shops anymore (mainly because of the smell of un-washed adolescents). I can buy all I need on-line, so visits to smelly shops are few and far between. :laugh:


Ya i like buying in store.....i can waste there paint on my Blood Angels  (hey its adds up when you have a titan...or two)


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## aboytervigon (Jul 6, 2010)

The games workshop I go too has a very long and thorough Teaching session bout 8 weeks I think all on gaming....Of course I couldn't be bothered with that and took to the learning the game myself only took 2 weeks .


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## VX485 (Feb 17, 2011)

my advice for younger kids when i play is "read your codex/rulebook" its well written and easy to understand but i dont expect them to remember it all, i certinely cannot. I don't mind helping them with the rules but after a couple of months doing the same thing it gets quite annoying.


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