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Author Topic: Tales From the Nerd Store.  (Read 19272 times)

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McDohl

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Re: Tales From the Nerd Store.
« Reply #60 on: July 05, 2008, 06:41:36 PM »

In Fort Worth, just off 35W at Sycamore School Road, south of I-20.
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MadMAxJr

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Re: Tales From the Nerd Store.
« Reply #61 on: September 20, 2008, 04:36:45 PM »

It's time for another thrilling episode of Tales from the Nerd Store.

A week ago, I witnessed a Warhammer 40k tournament.  About eight players, using up 4 double-tables. (Each game uses a 8 foot by 4 foot area.)

I normally do not mingle with this group of players at the store.  They play on seperate nights than us, and typically each group (mine and theirs) tends to refer to the other as 'That other game'.  People like their game, and think it's better than the other.  Almost like arguing over the kind of sports bracket you prefer (AFL / NFL, etc.)

I had bought the new 40k starter box.  It's called Battle for Blackreach, and it's a damn bargain.  You get a pocketsize version of the rulebook minus the cool stories and art.  You get some dice, plastic measuring sticks and:

One Space Marine Captain
Two ten man space marine groups w/ rocket launcher
One five man team of terminators
One dreadnaught (with MELTA gun!)

One Ork Warboss
Five Ork Nobs
Twenty Ork Boyz, and I think there's two big-shootas in their mix
Three Deff Koptas (With ROKKIT LAUNCHAS!)

I don't even play this game!  I quit, I sold 50% of my eldar and all of my orks to Kayin and his friends to fund my moving away from mom and dad.  What the HELL could have compelled me to buy this?

The box is $60.  You might ask why that's a big deal.  Those five terminators up there?  A retail box of terminators sells for $49.99.
The models in this box are SLIGHTLY lower quality.  You can snap these models together, you don't even need freaking glue.  As a result some models have noticable seams.  Big fucking deal.  Those Deff Koptas don't even have actual retail models last I checked.  So giant advertising blitz aside, this is a great box for you and a friend to play 40k for $60.

Back on topic.  I came in today to hang out with the store owner.  There's a lot going on in the store, I'd like to help him keep an eye on things, and I consider myself very much his friend by now.  We just wanna assemble and paint.

Oh, did I paint.  Made a fucking awesome Deff Kopta.  I watched some of the others play.  The Blood Angels guy is playing with a bunch of older rhinos, a ton of marines, a dreadnaught, and a few other toys.  They're all bright eyesore red.  No shading, all one flat color.  Somewhere inside me the art minor I earned is crying.  But that's no the point I suppose.  They're playing and having fun.  Across from them there is a younger boy, maybe 12-14 or so.  Playing some Chaos against some Necrons.  They have a rules arguement.  Voices don't get raised, but it slowly became a contest of who can quote what rules, what FAQ rulings, etc.  They couldn't come to an agreement.  After a moment, this boy had a Phoenix Wright style 'I found the hole in your logic' smile.  He didn't Phoenix-point at the guy, but he pointed at the model in question, and cited something I didn't quite hear that made the people gathered by their table kind of quiet.  The Necron player looked like he wanted to react like a defeated lying witness on the stand.  In my head I heard the gavel and victory music.

This nerd-boy has sprouted his first neckbeard hair, and has become nerd-man.

I get my chuckle and continue painting.  I have declared my marines will become angry marines. (Future post, with pictures, I promise.)

I talk some more with the game shop owner, and agree to run an upcomming Warmachine event (Also future post, though I just did that event today.).  The shop owner has to leave and one of the people not playing 40k hovering about comes to sit with me.

We small talk a bit, and I start to notice a trend.  He's an older fellow, played 40k in the older days when space marines could actually throw grenades, and fire NERVE GAS into their enemies for pretty much auto-kills.  And orks had 'The foot of Gork' template which was an actual foot, crushed tanks, and then afterward that area counted as an entrenchment.  Well, I began to notice he would take any comment of mine and use it to lead into one depressing story or another about his experiences with the game.  His head would nod down and he'd sigh.  I said I had played Eldar before getting fed up with the game.  He replies with a comment about how he loaned an army to someone and then their car got broken into and it was all stolen.  There were a few other bits like this too, again mentioning his space marines don't play like they used to, or you can't do this anymore, and they made this less fun.

Jesus christ, why do you even come here?  You aren't playing.  I'm not even sure if you're a friend with one of these players.  AUGH!  LEAVE ME ALONE.

As time went on, I kept an ear on the 40k games.  There are so many times I hear these guys talk about a few rules and either someone doesn't know how it works, or they come to mutual agreement on how to resolve something.  I understand that no game covers everything, but this is occuring semi-often here, and is why I no longer play 40k.  The rules are fucking rubbish.  They tell you how to play, but there are certain interactions of army specific rules that don't make sense.  Half of this has to do with the fact some armies have rulebooks that are 5+ years old, and aren't even written for the current ruleset, so you have to make some leaps of logic to make it work.  Not everybody makes the same leaps of logic in the same way.  This inconsistency drives me insane.  Warmachine keeps a massive FAQ for odd interactions, or when something is simply not clear.  There's even an official rules answer forum where approved regulars in their community get to issue answers and they keep a public tally called 'The list' of specific rules issues with no immediate answer.  And they WORK on those!  Last I checked, the 40k message boards were shut down by GW, and the only way you get rulings is through asking questions at tournaments, or second-hand forums that I question how 'official' those can be.

But I keep my mouth shut.  Damn this Deff Kopta looks good.  Oh Fffffffff--- I dropped it..  Okay, no damage.  Fuck, I forgot to paint the handlebars and his little tiny guages on the dashboard there.

Oh well.  Time to go home.  These 40k guys are starting to creep me out.  Wow.  That ork player has 250+ models on the table.  That's fucking determination.  In my warmachine games, I think I peak out around 30 models.  Guy has what looks like a padded rifle case to carry them around in.

Next story:  Max runs a Warmachine tournament, with all the fixings.  BUT THIS TIME, HE IS NOT PAID FOR DOING SO. D:
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MadMAxJr

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Re: Tales From the Nerd Store.
« Reply #62 on: September 20, 2008, 05:07:24 PM »

I read back through the thread, and I think I'll ask again.

Any questions about how or why, in terms of nerd shops and our games?
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Mongrel

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Re: Tales From the Nerd Store.
« Reply #63 on: September 20, 2008, 08:12:18 PM »

"Why are you such a masochist?" comes to mind...
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Brentai

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Re: Tales From the Nerd Store.
« Reply #64 on: September 20, 2008, 08:14:27 PM »

Why.
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Saturn

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Re: Tales From the Nerd Store.
« Reply #65 on: September 20, 2008, 08:35:58 PM »

i'm not even gonna try to comprehend how much those 250+ orks Cost that guy. he's probably :richiam:
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MadMAxJr

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Re: Tales From the Nerd Store.
« Reply #66 on: September 20, 2008, 09:11:30 PM »

I think he's played for a long time.  He had some really old grots.  And a fucking lot of them.  Very low power models like grots are less then ten points a pop, so you need a metric ton of them to field.
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Saturn

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Re: Tales From the Nerd Store.
« Reply #67 on: September 20, 2008, 09:57:24 PM »

I meant in Dollars, not game points.
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JDigital

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Re: Tales From the Nerd Store.
« Reply #68 on: September 21, 2008, 03:41:11 PM »

As I discovered when researching miniatures for D&D, Warhammer orcs are maybe $1-$2 apiece, even in bulk, before painting. Other models are more expensive.

My former DM was a big Warhammer player, and aged maybe fourteen he was offered £300 for his orc army at a convention. He sold, and used part of the money to buy D&D books. The local Games Workshop let him play D&D there, which drew players away from Warhammer and into the much cheaper field of fantasy roleplaying. The shop ended up closing down.
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Spaco

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Re: Tales From the Nerd Store.
« Reply #69 on: September 21, 2008, 04:59:41 PM »

Yeah, I'm really tempted to buy that box and trade the marines for more orks. Unfortunately you need to buy several other things before fielding even a decent small ork army. The marines are a way better deal, imho.


Aaaaah, I just got out of this hobby!
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Kazz

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Re: Tales From the Nerd Store.
« Reply #70 on: September 21, 2008, 05:50:14 PM »

It'd be fun if the people who played didn't take it so fucking seriously.
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Re: Tales From the Nerd Store.
« Reply #71 on: September 21, 2008, 05:56:48 PM »

It took me a couple years before I realized Warhammer was a serious game. I thought it was just some elaborate joke everyone was playing on me.

"Wait, I need to spend a ton of money on these figures, and nothing else but these offical figures count?"
"Yes"
"But that's several hundred dollars!"
"That's how true gamers play!"
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Kazz

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Re: Tales From the Nerd Store.
« Reply #72 on: September 21, 2008, 08:01:26 PM »

At the very least, that's what GW has brainwashed a select few into believing.
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Royal☭

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Re: Tales From the Nerd Store.
« Reply #73 on: September 21, 2008, 08:03:38 PM »

If you just spent $500 to have a bitching army with anti-man guns, do you want your opponent to equal you with some twigs and scraps of paper?

Kazz

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Re: Tales From the Nerd Store.
« Reply #74 on: September 21, 2008, 08:21:29 PM »

I'd want to shoot myself for being a huge douchebag.

If it's just a strategy game, it shouldn't matter what the fuck you spend.  Clearly it is a crafts hobby with a strategy game tacked on.
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Kashan

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Re: Tales From the Nerd Store.
« Reply #75 on: September 21, 2008, 08:24:26 PM »

I'm not actually sure where the confusion comes in. I mean other than warhammer being an overpriced under-supported piece of crap. But, what you described is pretty much the nature of every competitive tabletop gaming hobby ever provided you replace the word figures with cards or pogs or whatever.

I don't think that "free of financial burdens" or "Perfectly balanced" are universal traits required for something to qualify as a strategy game Kazz.
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MadMAxJr

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Re: Tales From the Nerd Store.
« Reply #76 on: September 21, 2008, 08:43:34 PM »

I think you're forgetting the part where the games are one part game, and one to two parts marketing scheme.

40k has the hooks in DEEP on the die hard fans who have played it for many many years.  They think it's the most hardcore thing ever.  The fact for an offical event, you have to use their models only, with a certain requirement on paint and basing?  They think that makes it even more hardcore, and overlook the part where they make money, lots of money when you comply.

You wanna play the games with penny guardsmen, coke can sentinels versus green-army men space marines?  Go right ahead.  But you probably won't be doing this at a store.  Because the same people who abide by the standards these expensive games have set turn into magical marketing devices by the simple act of playing with their assembled $50 five man terminator units.  Because (varying by opinion) they look fucking awesome compared to your penny and nickel soldiers.  If your power of imagination blurs the line to where these are identical for you?  Congratulations, you have defeated the entire hobby games industry.  You are victorious, and the companies would like for you to quietly buy their books and go away before your radical ideas spread.

I for one enjoy collecting the odd array of models.  That's kind of why I bought the 40k box, even though I don't really intend to play.  The orks inspire my imagination in new ways when I look at the models, both offical ones and the homebrew ones people come up with.  Your every day toolbox items, if you just add a few spikes and stabby bits, is a perfectly good weapon for an ork.  A piece of sheet metal and some rivets is what we call a prosthetic arm.  Then we add a car battery and a couple motors and you have a power-klaw.  It shouldn't work at all, but for orks it does.  And it encourages me to think of other bizzaro things they might come up with.

Also I'm one of those evil assholes who can afford to set aside some money to pay the absurd prices for little metal men.

EDIT:  And assemble them with an array of hand tools.  And paint them.  And most importantly /enjoy/ the entire fucking process.
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Re: Tales From the Nerd Store.
« Reply #77 on: September 21, 2008, 11:11:38 PM »

GRRRR


Whoa whoa. I played Magic something fierce. I don't deny that it takes quite a bit of cash to play any hobby game. But the sheer expensiveness of 40k is what made me think it was a joke. You can put together a decent magic deck for barely $20-$30. And you can make something that can headstop tournaments for well under $50. Halve those costs if you have a group of people whom you can trade with.

I don't deny that some of the shit looks AWESOME. Hell, frequently I keep coming within two steps of buying a D&D Mini set just because I like how it looks. And given how much you guys talk about the 40k stuff, I'd probably cave on some of the cooler models.

But then I find out that you need SEVERAL of these. ANd it's $20-$50 a pop. And I need MULTIPLE boxes of these? AND these books? AND these even MORE expensive vehicles?

And yet every other day I hear you bitching about how you can't fill your car up? Jesus christ!
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Mongrel

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Re: Tales From the Nerd Store.
« Reply #78 on: September 22, 2008, 03:54:02 AM »

GRRRR


Whoa whoa. I played Magic something fierce. I don't deny that it takes quite a bit of cash to play any hobby game. But the sheer expensiveness of 40k is what made me think it was a joke. You can put together a decent magic deck for barely $20-$30. And you can make something that can headstop tournaments for well under $50.

LOL I've played magic for 15 years. We now live in a world where the chase Type 2 rares (i.e. the number one constructed competitive format) have hit as high as nearly $50. For a single rare card. In a set currently in print. In a smaller expansion no less. The days of the $50 deck will never disappear, but no truly competitive player can survive without massive expenditure.

Actually, the problem has become so bad that WotC has started tinkering with rarities, set sizes and frequencies of sets coming out in an effort to avoid driving players away from the game due to the sheer cost.

Of course if you don't like constructed, you can always play the #2 competitve format - draft (where you open and play from new product every game). But again, a player actually playing in tournaments will be expected to play both anyway, so you're fucked regardless.

Thank god I just play Type 1. It's all I can afford*.



*The joke here is that Type 1 is an eternal format where nearly every card ever printed is legal. Some cards in that format can be worth as much as $1000. But it changes very little overall as new sets come out - and if you already have the retardedly expensive older cards, well...
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MadMAxJr

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Re: Tales From the Nerd Store.
« Reply #79 on: September 22, 2008, 04:21:04 AM »

Yeah, Type 1 tournaments occur about once every other moon, unfortunately.
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