Game Loot

I just got back from the annual family SoCal vacation.  Every year for the 4th of July we go to Seal Beach for some much needed relaxation.  I love this trip as it is a chance for me to visit some great game shops.  This year my friend Tim and his wife Shannon went with us.  Tim and I were able to sneak off on Monday to hit a few great shops.

The first stop was The War House in Long Beach.  This is a little hole-in-the-wall place that looks like it has been there for a hundred years.  When you go in you are sure it has been there that long.  The place is small but it is literally stacked floor to ceiling with game stuff.  This is one of those places that, if you had the time to dig, you could find some real treasures.  It is obvious that once a product comes  in and is priced it is never touched again until sold.  I found some nice bargains on some Flame of War packs that were a couple of price increases old.  My friend Mike W would love this place.  They have the largest stock of GHQ micro armor I have ever seen and the prices were cheap.  This shop really reminded me of shop that used to be in Gilbert AZ called Waterloo Games.

Next up was the must see shop of the trip - Brookhurst Hobbies in Garden Grove.  I have been going to this shop when ever possible for about 10 or 12 years and it is always exciting.  In the last few years they have made a lot of improvements in the store.  When I first went there it was a hug mess and you were lucky if you found what you were looking for.  Now it is much more organized and much cleaner but you are still lucky it you find what you are looking for.  Tim and I have a running joke about how you should never make a list before you go to Brookhurst because as soon as you write it down they won't have it.  This trip was no exception.  Tim basically found nothing and I was able to find a few things but not as much as I was hoping for.  I did find an OOP Large Desert Hill for FoW as well as a couple packs of 15mm Peter Pig.  I found an OOP FJ Artillery battery and some Zvezda KV-1.  I also got a box of Plastic Soldier Company Shermans for my British 8th Army.

The last stop was the Games Workshop Bunker in Westminster.  This is a nice GW store that I always find a reason to stop by when I am in town, though I rarely spend any money there.  This time was different as I really wanted the new 40K rules and the new Ork Bommer kit and none of the other shops had either.  The staff was really nice and they gave me a free copy of the June White Dwarf that has the rules for the Ork Bommer since I bought the kit.  Turns out I would get a chance to test their customer service.

Monday afternoon, after all the shopping was done, it was time for the first visit to the beach.  Tim took the opportunity to check out the new 40K rules.  He found several pages in the Miniatures Showcase that had some very bad print alignment issues.  The pictures were very bad and you really couldn't make them out.  Needless to say I was a bit annoyed.  Nothing like paying $75 for a book that is touted as being beautiful and then finding it is not.  I knew that I could just call GW once I got home but I was not sure how they would handle the issue so I decided to stop back on Tuesday to see if the GW store would exchange it.  They were very good about exchanging the book and insisted they had never seen anything like it.  The fact that they were so insistent and the fact that they have a return code for print alignment told me otherwise.  The new book was much better but a few of the same pages still show some very minor issues.

All in all it was a great time and I found some cool stuff.  Now it is time to get back to the new 40K rules.