Nick Kyme White Dwarf Layout Designer

Nick: A revolution is at hand. In fact it's already begun. Gaming Rooms are the next stage of evolution for Games Workshop Hobby Centres. Aimed at veteran gamers, these new facilities, accommodated in the basement levels or upper floors of existing Hobby Centres, are areas dedicated to hobby activities alone. Something that a standard Games Workshop store, filled as it is with tons of awesome miniatures, games, books, introductory gaming tables, cabinets and painting tables, just can't be.

One of the first things you'll notice upon entering a Gaming Room is the amount of space purely for gaming. In fact, Gaming Rooms are all about the gaming. There's loads of room to store your abundant figure cases and array your forces. You don't need to worry about bumping into other players or dodge the end of a flailing pointy measuring stick anymore. At last you can relax in comfort as you and your opponent attempt to pound the living Troll dung out of each other in civilised surroundings.

Gaming Rooms are a great way to meet new players. If you've ever moved to a new town, you'll know it's not always easy to find new opponents to play with or maybe you're just bored with hammering your little brother with your all-conquering Chaos army of spiky death and want to expand your gaming group. Since they are only open to veteran gamers, age 16 and above, you can be certain of finding some suitable new opponents. There are some great benefits in meeting new opponents. As well as gaming, being able to discuss tactics, army composition and unit combinations can really improve your gaming skills and there's nothing better than a hard-fought battle against an experienced and challenging player.

Even with games and activities going on upstairs, players can still use the facilities in the store.

A green blanket, some trees and a thick book for a hill, doesn't sound much like the Empire, or any battlefield of the Warhammer world for that matter. It's true, while most of us gamers are all too ready to brandish clippers and glue to assemble our armies and then paint them up magnificently it seldom leaves enough time to make scenery. From trees to temples and hills to hovels, Gaming Rooms have a wealth of well-constructed, high quality scenery for your games. There is also a host of excellent tables, ranging from the generic green type where players can devise their own battlefields with scatter scenery to awesome modular and themed boards. Here battle-scorched city ruins, sun-seared deserts, barren ice worlds and many more potential theatres of war await you.

Another great aspect of a Gaming Room is the sheer number of Games Workshop and independently organised events going on there. They are a free venue for tournaments, campaigns and, in fact, any kind of gaming event you might want to get involved in or even set up yourself! All tastes are catered for with Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000, The Lord of The Rings and all of our Specialist systems like Epic, Blood Bowl and Battlefleet Gothic. Simply chat to the staff or consult the events board to find out what's going on.

As well as a gaming area, Gaming Rooms also provide a place to paint and model. We've all worked long into the small hours, crouched over a cluttered desktop, having been banished from the kitchen table, striving to finish that awesome showcase unit for a coming battle. Our rewards for these sterling endeavours? Waking up to the sensation that your entire body has been folded in half like cardboard during the night. Meanwhile, the unit you were working on has transformed by the cold light of day into something resembling a child's effort at finger painting. Gaming Rooms to the rescue. Their painting rooms, in keeping with the ethos of these establishments, are spacious and relaxing, with some venues providing music for a chilled-out experience. You can take your time, chat to other gamers, learn new techniques safe in the knowledge that your miniatures will turn out how you have envisaged.

Gaming Rooms certainly have a lot to offer. There are already 14 throughout the country with many more planned for the future. With free entry and regular, reliable opening times, they are the changing face of Games Workshop Hobby Centres. They are here now, and here to stay. Check out our trip to Games Workshop Shrewsbury's Gaming Room below to find out what you could be enjoying.

A Genestealer head, your first sight upon entering Shrewsbury's Gaming Room.

Games Workshop Shrewsbury's Gaming Room has been open for just over a year. From store level up a winding stairway, bedecked with cool images of the Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 universes, I set foot upon what Richard Taylor, the store manager, refers to laughingly as the foyer. Suddenly, I was face-to-face with a Genestealer head – I guess the Ultramarines had visited before me.

The Shrewsbury store, much like the rest of the town, has an ancient heritage and the building is over 300 years old. As such, Games Workshop Shrewsbury has a unique layout. It has the advantage of the gaming action being split between two rooms. One way lies the ravaged industrial battlefields of Warhammer 40,000. This room has three tables, including an impressive scenery-crammed Cityfight board where Black Templars fight toe-to-toe with servants of the Ruinous Powers. Great scatter scenery is available for players to use on the two generic tables for creating their own battlefields. Across the corridor lies the Old World and the tumultuous conflicts of Warhammer. Three more battlefields beckon here, where, on the night I visited, Wood Elves clashed with the Empire over an Imperial farmstead. Other generic tables are available for Warhammer and The Lord of The Rings.

As well as two games rooms, Shrewsbury also boasts a separate painting and modelling room, dubbed the ‘chill out room' by its occupants. In there is a CD player and generous table space for hobbyists to engage in all-manner of modelling activity. You can chat with other gamers about tactics, army building or pretty much anything that takes your fancy. The whole place is pervaded by an air of calm that even soothed us after a week of frantic endeavour having reached the White Dwarf deadline!

Paul Bridges, a first-timer at the Gaming Room told me about what he thought of the gaming rooms, "It's a nice area, peaceful, where you can just get on with your games." Paul, who plans to make a regular visit to the Gaming Room every Tuesday, was most impressed with the great tables available to play on and the fact that there was so much room to battle.

Two players fight it out over an awesome ruined city-scape battlefield.

One regular is James Sherry, the chairman of the local Games Workshop registered Shrewsbury gaming club – The Gate Keepers. "I like coming to the Gaming Room because I can get an extra game in the week," he told me.

Stephen Farrington, another gamer at the store, commented on the varied terrain and space afforded to gamers with the introduction of a Gaming Room. "I come here once a week and I really like the relaxed atmosphere," he said.

As the players became engrossed in their games I took the opportunity to speak to Richard Taylor, the store manager. "Our goal is to create a really good atmosphere for the players," he explained. With their six tables upstairs, and the tables downstairs in the store available as an overspill, the thirty players who attend a Tuesday Veterans Night can usually play at least one game and between battles can build their models in the chill-out room. Richard has grand ambitions for the future. "We want to have two themed rooms," he told me. "A Cadian Regimental Mess and a White Wolf Knights Lodge." These rooms will specifically cater for Warhammer 40,000 and Warhammer respectively, functioning in much the same way as they do now but adorned with netting, ammo boxes and company banners in the Cadia Room and wolf pelts, hammers and ragged standards in the White Wolf room to create an even more involving atmosphere.

Richard Taylor GW Shrewsbury Store Manager

Richard and his team are currently hard at work creating more boards and scenery for the Gaming Room including an Epic table complete with a large dam, a desert board with an Imperial Warhammer 40,000 research station and a Warmaster board, ensuring that every player's taste is catered for.

"We want people to play as many games as they can," said Richard. Shrewsbury is a town with a strong gaming community and with this in mind, Games Workshop Shrewsbury is helping Games Workshop clubs too. Working with such groups as The Gate Keepers and the Shrewsbury Wargame Society, as well as ten school clubs, Games Workshop Shrewsbury's Gaming Room is a free venue for tournaments and campaigns for gamers across the region. The good news is that this is a pattern that will soon be adopted up and down the country.

Related Links:
Find a list of Gaming Rooms on the Hobby Centres page
The Warhammer World Section