Austin GW Store Opening Day 10/26/13

I went to the opening event ("First to the Fight") at the new Austin Games Workshop store (their facebook page) in the Brodie Oaks shopping center. It's a relatively small store but, as far as I could tell, is laser focused on showing off the goods with product shelves, display case, small demo table for the three main games (40k, WFB, and LOTR), painting bar, and two tiled tables with the GW plastic terrain. I think they had all their staff there to talk to folks, give plenty of demos, and run the First to the Fight events. Obviously loads of people that play 40k love to bitch about the font of their folly, as it were, but presentation is one of the main reasons I play this game, and the store is all about presentation. Fully painted armies look great on their tables. The walls are lined with their beautiful merch. Nicely painted demo armies displayed in glass cases. That's the kind of shit that turned me on when I started playing this game back in '95, and though I do indulge quite a bit in the competitive aspects of the game, I still enjoy closely-fought games the most, win or lose.

For the opening day, they had a painting contest, a conversion contest, and a little 40k skirmish contest. Not knowing what to expect, I brought my Saim Hann Eldar. Basically you could play up to three games using a simple scenario: pitched battle, purge the alien, at 500 points. They added up your points at the end and picked a couple winners.

Their was some confusion on the points you could score, but it was just for fun so I really didn't chase the wins too hard. I pulled a small force out of my collection: a farseer on jetbike with singing spear, 3 guardian jetbikes, 9 dire avengers, 5 rangers, a scatter laser/shuricannon vyper, and a double-scatter laser war walker. I was honestly just trying to throw in a bunch of little things so I could use a variety of models, but it ended up being really shooty and I apparently won the little challenge. Scored a sweet certificate even.

First game was against Trent and his nurgle CSM: a nurgle bike lord, 2 squads of about 15 cultists, and a heldrake (!). It came out about how I expected - I shot up the cultists and lord really good, and then the heldrake came on and wiped out about two of my units each turn. Lost that one. Then I played Tyson and his necrons: an overlord, 2 squads of warriors, and an annihilation barge. The annihilation barge was winnowing me down until it came within range of the Farseer's spear and charge. After that I pretty much just shredded what was left and took a win. Third game I played against a guy with a nicely painted ultramarines force: a librarian, one squad of sniper scouts, one squad of assault scouts, some tac marines in a rhino, and a whirlwind. Again, my shooting carried the day and I just worked my way through everything with S6 guns.

All in all, I think it is a nice addition to the Austin 40k community and will hopefully bring some new folks to the local tables.