Post by Uktabi on Oct 6, 2008 7:17:06 GMT -5
Hello, my names Garrett, and Id like to tell you a story. We can call it:
So Ive been playing miniature games for over 18 years now. One day I stumbled into the back room or my local comic shop and.. well.. like I said Ive been playing miniature games for over 18 years. I love all games really, role-playing games, card games, even the occasional board game, its all good. Now I find myself running a Game Store. Games & Gizmos in Redmond, Washington. (if you wanna check it out, they use it in the Playmagic.com videos) Part of my job is to decide what we carry. To this end every year I go to Las Vegas and attend GAMA, a convention for retailers to meet manufacturers, learn about new products, and sit around and bitch about everything.
It was at GAMA I first met Matt. He was next to the Vallejo paint booth, sitting at a tiny little stool like table, with a few pieces of terrain and some models. He gave me his sales pitch as I checked stuff out. I thought worst case i could give em a try and sell them to my Flames of War players. I walked away and checked out the rest of the con. Sadly, besides the unveiling of the new WOW miniature game from Upper-deck, there wasn't that much interesting stuff. Eventually I went back to the Vallejo booth to check out those WWII minis. While there I started just talking to Matt, eventually it came out he had just moved to my neck of the woods, so I invited him to come check out the store, he gave me a miniature to take back and stir up some hype. It was a Lab Rat.
It took less then three days for my guy at the store to paint up the lab rat and get people talking. Now the hard part, I had to find wall space for this new game. Matt stopped by like he said he would. We talked about getting a AE night established and how he was looking for a place to play himself.
Over the last few years Ive gotten involved with the people at PAX. Mostly I bring people from my store to run demos, this year we were also adding a store to sell dice and other stuff people would need. I was planning on running some Flames of War demos, others where running everything from 40k to Anima Tactics. When I saw Matt at Gen Con I asked him if he would be interested in running demos at PAX too. After several phone calls and emails, we can say things worked out. I brought a table full of terrain from my store, found him a great centerpiece and put him in a busy hallway next to my store. He did the rest. I have to say it was a pleasure to watch him work. Matt gave demos all weekend long mostly without rest or a break. At one time he was running two guys through a demo and had 17 other people standing around and in chairs, watching, and listening to Matt go. When Matt gets going it seems nothing can suppress his bug-eyed enthusiasm. My favorite part was hearing Matt get louder and louder and adding more and more sound effects as Saturday drug on. After about 14 hours of demos terrain started exploding, I think GI's were charging Apes and dice and counters started flying around the hallway. I was pretty sure Matt had lost it.
The response from PAX was great. The store was sold out of stuff before the weekend was over. I put AE on the calender and Matt started coming in. Every week we've had more people. It took me a while to decided what to play. I really liked what Matt had told me about the ROA, and had had this great idea to model a little white bat on the shoulder of my prophet, like Rasputin had with him in the movie Anastasia. Matt even let me check out the ROA rules early. Then while I was at home reading through the rules I had an epiphany, there was only one thing I could play. Now my question was could the rules support my idea. It didn't take too long to see the true beauty of this game. The next day I took my copy of Ultimates book 1 and Wolverine: Origins 4 Our War to work with me. That night I made my Captain America and Bucky from AE models. My German playing buddy followed suit and made up a Redskull. The ease at with which the game represented these models is incredible.
This game is truly awesome. I think this game is really getting ready to snowball, the occult book is gonna be great. I feel bad for Robert and the demand hes going to have to deal with. For now I gladly extol the virtues of this fabulous game not only to my friends and customers, but to other retailers and the distributors I work with. Being from the birth place of Warmachine and seeing that game grow from nothing but 4 little starter boxes to the gaming juggernaut it is today, I think this game could see similar growth. Who knows maybe in five years well see the miniature room at Gen Con split in half. One side Privateer, one side AE WWII. That would be a sight.
Matt you asked me to get on the forums, so here I am. Oh and Buckys got some grenades with your name on em.
-Garrett
"DR A.E. and How I Learned to Love the Game."
So Ive been playing miniature games for over 18 years now. One day I stumbled into the back room or my local comic shop and.. well.. like I said Ive been playing miniature games for over 18 years. I love all games really, role-playing games, card games, even the occasional board game, its all good. Now I find myself running a Game Store. Games & Gizmos in Redmond, Washington. (if you wanna check it out, they use it in the Playmagic.com videos) Part of my job is to decide what we carry. To this end every year I go to Las Vegas and attend GAMA, a convention for retailers to meet manufacturers, learn about new products, and sit around and bitch about everything.
It was at GAMA I first met Matt. He was next to the Vallejo paint booth, sitting at a tiny little stool like table, with a few pieces of terrain and some models. He gave me his sales pitch as I checked stuff out. I thought worst case i could give em a try and sell them to my Flames of War players. I walked away and checked out the rest of the con. Sadly, besides the unveiling of the new WOW miniature game from Upper-deck, there wasn't that much interesting stuff. Eventually I went back to the Vallejo booth to check out those WWII minis. While there I started just talking to Matt, eventually it came out he had just moved to my neck of the woods, so I invited him to come check out the store, he gave me a miniature to take back and stir up some hype. It was a Lab Rat.
It took less then three days for my guy at the store to paint up the lab rat and get people talking. Now the hard part, I had to find wall space for this new game. Matt stopped by like he said he would. We talked about getting a AE night established and how he was looking for a place to play himself.
Over the last few years Ive gotten involved with the people at PAX. Mostly I bring people from my store to run demos, this year we were also adding a store to sell dice and other stuff people would need. I was planning on running some Flames of War demos, others where running everything from 40k to Anima Tactics. When I saw Matt at Gen Con I asked him if he would be interested in running demos at PAX too. After several phone calls and emails, we can say things worked out. I brought a table full of terrain from my store, found him a great centerpiece and put him in a busy hallway next to my store. He did the rest. I have to say it was a pleasure to watch him work. Matt gave demos all weekend long mostly without rest or a break. At one time he was running two guys through a demo and had 17 other people standing around and in chairs, watching, and listening to Matt go. When Matt gets going it seems nothing can suppress his bug-eyed enthusiasm. My favorite part was hearing Matt get louder and louder and adding more and more sound effects as Saturday drug on. After about 14 hours of demos terrain started exploding, I think GI's were charging Apes and dice and counters started flying around the hallway. I was pretty sure Matt had lost it.
The response from PAX was great. The store was sold out of stuff before the weekend was over. I put AE on the calender and Matt started coming in. Every week we've had more people. It took me a while to decided what to play. I really liked what Matt had told me about the ROA, and had had this great idea to model a little white bat on the shoulder of my prophet, like Rasputin had with him in the movie Anastasia. Matt even let me check out the ROA rules early. Then while I was at home reading through the rules I had an epiphany, there was only one thing I could play. Now my question was could the rules support my idea. It didn't take too long to see the true beauty of this game. The next day I took my copy of Ultimates book 1 and Wolverine: Origins 4 Our War to work with me. That night I made my Captain America and Bucky from AE models. My German playing buddy followed suit and made up a Redskull. The ease at with which the game represented these models is incredible.
This game is truly awesome. I think this game is really getting ready to snowball, the occult book is gonna be great. I feel bad for Robert and the demand hes going to have to deal with. For now I gladly extol the virtues of this fabulous game not only to my friends and customers, but to other retailers and the distributors I work with. Being from the birth place of Warmachine and seeing that game grow from nothing but 4 little starter boxes to the gaming juggernaut it is today, I think this game could see similar growth. Who knows maybe in five years well see the miniature room at Gen Con split in half. One side Privateer, one side AE WWII. That would be a sight.
Matt you asked me to get on the forums, so here I am. Oh and Buckys got some grenades with your name on em.
-Garrett