Dreadball League Kicks Off

In the second of our Bi-Monthly posts, we are going to look at what's going on in store here at Asgard Wargames.

First up this, our Dreadball league kicked off with an impressive 8 teams participating so far! Having sold almost every single team box this month, I had been considering picking up the last remaining set, the Judwan, simply because I like the miniatures and felt kind of sorry for the big headed hippies! So I set to painting them up as quickly as I could. Unfortunately they have disappeared and so I can't show you them, so I'll show you the shops demo teams instead:

"Foul?! Iz you blind Ref??!"

"Where the hell is my backup?!"

Needless to say we are having great fun playing Dreadball- most of us have only played a handful of games but with Dreadball (as with all Mantic Games), the rules are so easy to pick up that anyone can quickly become a coach!

Currently at the top of the league are the Krustaceous Krew, a Nameless team with a nasty habit of ganging up on players and slamming them! My poor Judwan lost 2 members of their team (permanently) to the Sticky/Hard Guard Tag Team, and I'm not looking forward the rematch!

Elsewhere, the Asterians (RossCo's Redcar Rocket Raiders) suffered at the hands of a lucky event card making fouling much harder! Still the poor Z'zor team (The Pym City Wasps) did have their only Guard sent off in the first rush due to Asterian trickery so theres no sympathy wasted on them here! The Robot team (Brilliantly named, The Sentinels), convincingly beat the Judwan (the 3rd Way) in 2 rushes thanks to a crippling inability to dodge or steal the ball (Long Arms my backside!)

Earlier in the month we had a lot of interest in Warlord Games Bolt Action, a WWII skirmish game. Despite not having terrain for historical miniatures (yet), the guys happily took to the fields of Europe (which looked distinctly like those of the 41st Millennium):

Personally I'm loving the order dice mechanic; basically in Bolt Action each unit generates an order dice. Said dice are put into a bag along with your opponents dice and a randomly drawn each turn to decide who gets to move their units! Of course this means you could move your entire force before your opponent which makes for a very fast paced game!

We are looking forward to more Bolt Action in the coming months, indeed the Redcar Ironbeards, a local club, are visiting the store on the 26th of April to demo the game, which should be exciting!

Finally its more Mantic Games fun here, with the first games of Deadzone being played! Again this is a fast paced, simple game that I'm sure will be very popular in the coming months:

Marauders vs Marauders! These guys have some serious firepower with those Ripper Suits!

So our first month has passed and now we look to the future. It is clear we have a lot of support for Mantic Games here, not only is the Dreadball League likely to last throughout May, but we have a Kings of War tournament in June, as well as a planned Deadzone Campaign shortly after. Bolt Action is gathering pace and so we will be investing in some historical scenery for the guys to play over. Finally, its my hope that the other systems will start gathering some support. We have a Dropzone Commander day planned to coincide with some future releases, but I'm keen to see some Warhammer/40k and Hordes/Warmachine played in store too (particularly because I'm an avid 40k fan!) so if you ever fancy a game, pop in store, I'm always happy to roll a few dice!

Until next time....

Up and Running

Ahoy and Avast ye Hobby web-lubbers!

Ahem...

So, its been a while since my first post, I suspect you might want an explanation.

Setting up a hobby store and website turned out to be everything, and nothing like I expected. After my last post things seemed to be bang on course, but as ever, the best laid plans of mice and men...

So what went wrong? Well finding a property was a big hurdle. Just after my last post I had secured a deal on a small shop and begun legal proceedings. With Christmas in the way, things took a while to kick off so I waited until the new year. Solicitors kept in touch but no news was forthcoming. By the end of January, nothing had moved and I was now offered a second property. With nothing to lose, I went for a viewing and then took up the lease. The new shop is bigger and is over two floors.

So every cloud has its silver lining. Now Though I had to wait another month for legal to resolve the lease. By the beginning of march I was tearing my hair out with stress, but thankfully I was in the shop before I went completely bald!

It took me 10 days to refurbish the shop. The previous tenant left a good deal of mess and furniture (some of which I re purposed!). The shop now has 3 gaming tables (2 Realm of Battle set ups and 1 board game set up), a coffee/tea station, a sofa, mini library as well as shelving for stock and a paint station! In the near future I'm planning on turning upstairs into a gaming centre, but I'm looking at getting settled with the business before I go mad and build a club too!

So thats where we are now. The shop has a steadily growing crew of customers, both new and old, and the webstore is finally complete 

I hope that you'll enjoy Asgard Wargames as much as I am, whether it be as a customer, a gamer or browser! Stay tuned for future updates as we progress with the club, including this months Dreadball League!