Today I decided to do something I haven't ever done before, and that's walk into another local game store on their 40k night and see how they did things (and maybe even get a game in). I visited Collectormania on Parker and Cottonwood in Parker.
When I walked into the store, I was greeted with a brief "hello" by an employee who was sorting comics into boxes. I noticed a four-player game of 40k and a two-player game of 8th edition fantasy in progress, with several other people painting and modeling.
I approached the 40k table and noticed the teams were Tau and Ultramarines/Blood Angels vs Dark Angels and Space Wolves (apparently one player was using two different space marine forces). The game seemed quite intense, as there were three land raiders on the table, over 15 terminators, The Sanguinor, an HQ Crisis Suit with bodyguards, and Azrael all in the same 24" space of ruined buildings and rubble. I stood by and watched, then as the game was wrapping up I asked if people were going to stick around for more games. One of the players explained that two of the four players were going home but that the other guy and himself would be staying for more games. He asked what army I was playing, and I explained "Blood Angels", and he let out a sigh and moan of discontent and then proceeded to explain that he was done playing 40k for the evening. As some of the other players in the game sat down to play Magic the Gathering, one of the players complained that if tonight was a 40k night, why weren't all those people breaking out their armies and playing me? He was confused since he said if he didn't have to leave that he would have played me or anyone else that was staying.
Over the next hour, the store seemed to empty out and people started settling into card games or painting/building new models. I resorted to Plan B which was playing Amy in a 2,000 point game of 40k (Blood Angels vs Necrons), which went amazingly in my favor by the way.
The players at this store a very tight-knit group of players that refused to play newcomers because they owned an army that recently got a codex (even though I don't run a traditional Blood Angels list and I have been playing with this army since 1996 so I'm not a codex-jumper). This is called being "elitest" and basically just rude.
Here is my rating of this store on a scale of 0-5 stars:
Attention to the customer: 4/5 (they set up a table for me as I was waiting for the 4-player game to finish)
Quantity of Product: 4/5 (they had a lot of the best of each product line in stock, which made my home store look bad)
Player Base: 0/5 (Apparently one of them is a thief but not wanting to play someone because they say two words is just retarded)
Quality of Terrain: 2/5 (unfinished Cities of Death buildings, welcome mat cut-outs for "difficult terrain")
Store Hours: 3/5 (Their store closed early at 9pm though they let us play until 9:30 to finish our game since the employee on duty was deep in a 4-player Magic game)
Total score: 13/25
Stay tuned, as I will be attending the 40k night at several other hobby shops in Colorado to see what other Games Workshop enthusiasts are doing and how other stores compare to my home store (which will be the last review).
