GAMES WORKSHOP Manager, what was it like? 

I really, really enjoyed this! I'd love more Games Workshop stories from behind the scenes.

I was a teenager when Peachy was the manager of the Derby store and Duncan worked there too. Height of the LotR releases, and a great little community. I remember weekends sat painting at the back of the shop with wonderful joy.

These need to be podcasts. Perfect to listen to while painting.

These two have such insightful and matured ideas on the different topics they go through, What a Fantastic discussion.

I was one of those kids that was dropped off at Games Workshop a lot in the 90’s. My Dad would drop me off in the morning and pick me up in the evening most Sundays. Although we spent quite a bit of money in the store, the manager eventually got sick of it and told me I couldn’t do it anymore. I totally get where you guys are coming from and understand it must have done your head in being being expected to look after random kids. But being one of those oblivious kids, it was awesome! I still have fond memories of gaming, painting and just chatting Warhammer and other nerdy stuff with other players and the super friendly staff. As nerd culture wasn’t as accepted then as it is now, being a nerdy kid and having a place to go and be able to be myself meant a lot. I’ve no doubt that experience is what cemented me into being a lifelong Warhammer fan. Salute to all the GW staff that have random kids dumped while they’re trying to do their actual job but go out out there way to make those kids welcome. I assure you, we remember you.

I started listening to this episode thinking "yeah let's hear some stories from inside GW" and by the end I'm blown away by how well Peachy balances a love for the hobby with top notch corporate professionalism. Recruiters should watch this episode and offer him big $.

The importance of a good manager/staff at a GW store is invaluable. I remember when I got into the hobby when I was about 12 and the local GW store were so welcoming. I still remember my first intro game of WFB. The staff member made it come alive with a narrative and everything. Games Night on Thursday was even better with massive narratives where you could bring and play or just the store armies. Suffice to say they made me a life fan of wargaming and GW to a degree as well.

As someone who's been looking at jobs at GW I love hearing about what the environment is like. Keep the stories coming!

Absolutely agree Peachy! The old squad leader/sergeant courses were brilliant & created really great store managers. I was on Dante course years ago & it was so much fun & we all learned so much! It’s crazy how the stores now (save some of the older managers) are staffed by almost non hobbyists now. The passion & drive has disappeared a lot sadly.

I was a kid back in the 90's, picking up this hobby even before my teens :) ever since I've been creatively active and now since 8 years fully self-employed as a tattoo artist, with tattoos in my neck/hands, none if which ruined my job chances during the last epidemic having to go back to retail :) happy the world is evolving over this

I’ve always like getting a peek behind the curtain of Geezy Weezy, but it’s even better hearing Peachy outside the corporate constraints of GW 🙂 Great video guys, and here’s to many more!

Speaking of handling and breakages, I remember getting a guided tour of the now museum/diorama bit at Warhammer world in the late 00s and the lady showing us around opened up the glass cabinet to let us hold the chaos warhound titan and it fell to bits in her hand before we could even lay our hands on it.

Quality content as always guys! Loved hearing Geoff's defence mechanism of "I'm painting Infinity at the moment, it's a great game! Have you heard of it?" At the end of the day they're doing their job so you can respect it for sure, really nice conversation and enjoyed this a lot.

I was throwing this up before bed and got sucked into watching the whole thing. Really interesting insights and good laughs ☺ Am now officially a peachy fan 🍑

Another brilliant discussion guys, thanks! Hope to see many more! :D

These are honestly great - warm and conversational with some lovely little stories and asides.

This absolutely fantastic guys, would lap more of this up for as long as you're both happy to do them!

Loving these, the insight is brilliant and the format is very watchable.

I was a key timer at GW Oxford for almost two years. When Peachy mentioned the poor hygiene and kids being dropped off for the day like a cheap day care centre I realised it wasn't just our store! Hahaaa!

So funny that comments made from the experience of just two men about the environment of a certain store or chain in their area, are indicative of an actual culture because those experiences are shared by others across the nation at their local stores of the same name! I'm enjoying all the content you're all making at the Painting Phase and hope your reach and community go from strength to strength. Sensible people who like miniatures, not just from GW. Trying different model lines is so rewarding. I'm currently working on my Song of Ice and Fire Greyjoy army box using contrast paints for the first time and am thrilled to be able to call so many minis done in such a short time compared to the process I've grown used to learning from GW.

Having been one of peachys customers at derby back in the day he was an epic manager. And top bloke 🤘

This was an excellent talk, thanks for letting us in on a quality chat!

Absolutely love these casual discussions that lift the veil of our hobby

Enjoying these little chats. Small issue, Peachy sounded a little quiet

What an interesting discussion, love these sit down and chat style videos

I used to love/hate getting the same speech every GW i visited up and down the country, I'd often mention non-GW games or when asked what army i collect i tended to say "everything" and just give awkward replies that would kill conversations.

Such a fascinating video, hearing how the army painting team works thank you for taking the time to sit down and make it!

Great info about the 'back of house', especially how the photography shop worked - and explains the fact that there is a Blood Angels symbol on the Ultramarine landspeeder storm on the box art

I just started a job as a manager at a very large, well-known company, and I have to say that the stories he gives of being a manager is just so relatable... no one likes you and no one wants to let you manage the people that you have to manage. Everyone needs you to fix their problems, but doesn't want to allow the resources to let it happen.

Very interesting. Got a lot of useful info about painting out of your conversation. Thanks a lot.

I remember the Warhammer Fantasy 30th Anniversary day at the store. That was a great event, with the lucky dip, Duncan's fizzy pop concoctions and just a great atmosphere. I ended up spending a fortune, and I pulled out several sprues of the new Flagellants from the lucky dip. They ran a great store…

really interesting hearing what happened behind the scenes, decent questions too! I like how the answers are respectful as well

When I was a kid I used to go to the Doncaster store over summer as my gran lived there and there was a manager called Tristain who was a legend and there was a lad in the shop called spoon. Those guys bent over backwards and I always appreciated everything they did. I’m from Nottingham and my local is WW but the Donny store was always my fave

A very insightful conversation gentleman

I remember the first time i walked into an actual GW shop 3 years ago vs the game shops i went to growing up. Huge difference in how helpful they were and it got me back into Warhammer!

Amazing insight, it would be awesome to sit with an army painter for a week and see things moving along. Thanks for sharing.

That'd be a great episode, have the lads try to live paint to army standard following a peachy instruction.

Great video, nice to see folk not just taking a easy cheap shot to bash Workshop. Also as Peachy said, it always seems amazing to do your hobby for a job but no-one likes to see the inside of the sausage factory.

I really enjoyed this video. I've been playing 40k for just over 30 years and it was interesting to have a better view of how things are behind the scenes. It often seems to me that GW can't tell it's ar$e from it's elbow. However, they make lots of money so maybe it is me that doesn't have a clue. Still, I think the sales are often despite GW. I'd hate to be a shop manager, I never buy from a shop these days; why buy at 25% more when I can buy online. Sure kids and parents will buy from shops but the people with the real money are players with jobs, and we don't have time to visit shops nor do we "waste money" when we can buy things cheaper elsewhere. Ripping off people and kids buying into the hobby for the first time is a dangerous long-term strategy, but that is effectively what the shops are now aimingbto do.

Great insight, especially when highlighting it was not all "just a fun job making models and painting" all day.

its called "gamer Funk"!! and the best moment i had in the HQ store was "what are you painting" my reply was bolt action and it stumpted them and stood there for 20 seconds before he responded haha

Fantastic content! More of these!

I loved this shoptalk vid. I always wondered what the process was like for the painting teams at GW. I wish GW would make a No Clip-style documentary on the whole process of developing one of the big starter set releases or something.

Was a store manager around same time as peachy, in fact I remember visiting the Derby store on the Squad leader program with the other trainees and peachy and Duncan were working that day and we had to critique the store, it was the first store of 3 we visited that day and we absolutely ballsed it up, Nick C was fuming with us lol I left when became one man store, as it utterly changed how one was to manage Miss it sometimes, miss the folks at GW

I really enjoyed watching this!

Fantastic podcast

I've loved the insight to behind the scenes of GW 👍 Peachy Hammer this is the way 😂

What a great convo. Enjoyed this one ❤

Question for Peachy... what happens to all the old Warhammer World dioramas, white dwarf gaming tables and old models/armies? Are they in storage or given away/sold to staff?

I might pitch a sitcom to Warhammer plus set in a Games Workshop in the 00's. I think it would be a great show! :D

Interesting concept with the tertiary stores. I remember the Edinburgh GW used to be on the Royal Mile, was that treated more like the Meadowhall stores? Seems like they moved away from the primary location stores and are focusing entirely on the tertiary locations now, is that correct?

yeah the manager of my local store is always disappointed when he hears me say that i just print everything theses days, and that i'm just popping in to have a look at some of the books

I always feel so nervous going into my local store. I just want to get my shiny things and then run away again :-D My husband and I met Peachy at the 2019 games day in Coventry. He was so nice to speak to.

Fantastic video , I really enjoyed this. Just one criticism the volume is really low I had to crank my volume super high and sub titles just to assist. Keep up the great work 👍🏻

I love these two just talking away, can watch/listen to it for hours! I’d love to find out what it was like in the studio and in stores when the decision came to kill off fantasy and bring in The End Times. What was the atmosphere like there, was there kick back, did people in the studio agree/disagree?

"space marine sergeant head" I can't unsee it

This is fascinating

Didn’t realize The ‘Evy Metal and Army Painters were different teams.

Great talk, interesting to hear. Cool to hear they like Lego, I do too. That is probably the one hobby I spend more money on than Warhammer.

Peachy definitely looks a lot healthier now that he's not working for GW.

Nice to hear about the issues with photography. We totality got a bad wrap, huge workload and no consideration. Although 5 days for a double page spread is over egged. Should be two days tops. But the publishing photographers were let’s say very demotivated.

Incredible content ❤

Oh, I hated how they used to come up to me in GW and ask me a load of questions :D All I could think is 'I started this hobby because I'm shy and don't like dealing with people...' (we basically played between friends we already knew for years, so none of that awkward talking was needed :P).

Best memories were a Sunday in 2005 playing LotR and the 40k beginner games without fail every week. Then moving into Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday gaming. Such a shame that gaming is going the way of the Dodo.

I love you guys especially Peachy! I can't wait for Warhammer: The old World to arrive and hope you guys are doing many great tutorials to paint armies quickly. @Peachy: I know you love WFB too - whats your army you grad and paint as first?

Interesting conversation, being a big fantasy fan and looking back at it now, I'm kind of glad they blew it up when they did. 8th edition certainly wasn't for me, played it more for the community than the game itself. The game got too big, the scale was far bigger than it was in 5th-7th edition and the buy-in was insane. I got into fantasy at the arse end of 5th and really got into it in 6th edition, most armies from memory (with exception of skaven and goblins of course) would be around the 80-110 model mark at 2000-2250 points. Once 8th edition hit, hordes were introduced where you had units of 40+ models. I'm getting a bit older now and have less hobby time on my hands, finding time to paint 40+ models for one unit seems kind of crazy to me nowadays. Back when I was younger, I use to replace all my old miniatures with newer sculpts, and I had the time to paint them, but not anymore. I simply don't have the time to repaint 40 new spearmen that do the same thing as my 40 old spearmen. If you are one that replaces all your models that's cool, it's just not for me. The size of the 8th edition units makes me think of warmaster, which doesn't work particularly well at 28mm. The units become unwieldy, it became more about pushing blocks of troops forward and less about maneuvering which is one of the things I loved most about warhammer fantasy. Anyway, I'm off on a bit of a tangent now, GW blew up the scale of the game, the barrier of entry was high and they wonder why it flunked? I am hoping they turn back the clock for the old world, and reduce the entry cost by reducing the size of armies required to play. I'd personally be more inclined to buy a 2nd or 3rd army instead of paying an arm and a leg for one army. Fingers crossed they can actually write a decent ruleset.

I'm so glad I've been recommended this channel by RU-vid. Just plug in my earphones and paint away on my sylvaneth army. I totally agree about woman that goes into a games workshop. It's even more shocking when they go in on their own free will and not dragged in by their husband 😂

Smelly prople in the hobby are very real, my gf said she wouldnt play at the local store cause the basement reeks of unwashed sweaty nerds to the point you get a headache down there, i dont know how hard it is to shower before you leave for a social event but it is very common

Was Egyptian Death Metal Friday by any chance listening to Nile's back catalogue while painting tomb kings? Really enjoyed this :)

Good content. Peachys audio is much quieter though

I go to WHW every year for some reason and saw Peachy once but me being a typical British man couldn’t bring my self to go and speak to him as he was having what I suspect was a break in Bugmans bar

I'm dead laughing at 12:15 great video gents

You still don't have any goblin green in for me Peachy 😂 remember you being at the Meadowhall store

“What are you painting currently?” “The back bedroom”

So that's why the missus keeps getting me stuff from the shop for birthdays etc. it's the creche fees.

If I could ask Peachy anything, it would be if he knew anything about if and why GW made Cursed City doomed to fail?

This chap looks like Jim Royle.

It's good to listen to some real people talk about real things, to much fakery in the hobby recently

Trying not to snigger at the rimming comments, but failing.

sounds like H&S done you over there.

Stereotypes exist for a reason

Interestingly, this hobby attracts many with a variety of mental health issues which sadly cause decline in personal hygiene. Very often a subtle approach is received with thanks and by subtle I mean not humiliating them in public.

Quiet audio

leaving your kids at a gw sounds like a good idea until they start asking for gw product's for birthdays

Man, 2 days to paint 1 space marine? The heavy metal paint schemes fucking blow. Edge highlighting is not that good looking.

can we get an edited version without all the waffle from the dude on the right?

I'm betting they don't say anything negative at all. They say one bad thing about GW and they are black banned for life. No chance if going back if this RU-vid thing doesn't work out.

29:54 - Hilarious! I was thinking the exact thing about the change to 4K! I led an art team as a concept artist once, and I enjoyed designing characters and their color schemes and textures for the other artists who would flesh out concepts I’d made. It was fun making these “fact sheets” and visual imagination igniters for them to help understand what I was thinking of and hoping for. Quite a cool pipeline we had. One thing is for sure… your manager will never allow the amount of time a project really should take when they are scheduling work for the week and month! They really should ask the guys doing the actual work, who can tell them “realistically, this is going to need 20% more time to not be rushed”. And deadlines was pretty much always that same 15-20% too soon. Fun memories of working in a creative field, with other artists , and I think I can relate to what Peachy must have experienced.

Glad Peachy found sense and left the design studio. Having known him he was one of the few genuine people there. GW studio and the HQ in general, has some of the most entitled idiots I’ve ever had the displeasure to work near (and I think peachy was fairly tame not to call them out in the video 😂) The culture may have changed recently, but it’s good to see some of the decent people now seem to be leaving in droves and doing well in their lives afterwards 🫡 👊🏻🤙🏻 I’d love to see an uncut video 😂 can only imagine the opinions that would match up with mine 😂

Peachy can you send me a message. Got some sad news buddy

We need a podcast with Peachy and Northern Exile sharing their stories and perspectives.

I was a teenager when Peachy was manager at Derby. I have very happy memories of the fantasy release. Peachy waving round bottles of fizzy pop stuffed full of jelly snakes claiming it was a night goblin potion. Thanks for all the happy memories.

Listening to Peach's time at GW makes me realize how great he must have been as a manager.

Again, awesome interview. I don't know how to say this without sounding like a nob, but it's nice to hear people having a conversation about Warhammer and it not make me cringe. Two normal people talking about a shared hobby without yelling and shouting. Like, the lore is fun and silly but it's nice hearing you two just having a chat about it without trying to go over the top.

I was a poor kid in a minority neighborhood here in the states and I would have given anything to go to a GW store or to even talk with other kids my age about Warhammer. I was so lonely and only had a model catalogue, a couple of white dwarfs, and about 6 dwarves. But man...I used to daydream about having a big group of friends and models to play with and an adult that wasn't a piece of crap to help us along. Love hearing these stories and if you were a kid that got to experience this... I'm envious.

Peachy brings so much joy and laughter to this hobby. I love it.

on the topic of two painters using the same recipe but getting different results; you guys should try this! Peachy writes a painting guide then he and Geoff get painting and compare the results

This really brings back the memories. I managed a GW store many years ago and agree the squad leader manager training was top shelf. It really set me up for my future career understanding P&L and the financials. I had a great team, and really have fond memories of Saturday mornings, painting new releases and pumping the team up prior to rolling up the doors on events. Thanks for sharing guys, great chats.

Any plans on releasing this content as a podcast? Be fun to listen to this in the gym or what have you.

I really loved the honesty of the box art conversation. It shows why I am loving this channel more and more. I love that we are highlighting realistic expectations and ways to get there for regular people.