The Dragon's Lair, Comics and Fantasy

Grand opening was a couple weekends ago, Kobe and I have been there twice now.
http://dlair.net/bellevue/

The inventory is bigger now than the week before the grand opening.
Mickey, there's a rack of about 250+ unpainted single D&D minature lead-like and plastic figures. I picked up about four new ones that I liked.
Ross, a rack of HeroClix sets but no single figures, sorry. One of the other customers overheard my question to the worker and told me that there's a wargaming store in Tacoma that sells singles, he couldn't recall the name of the store. The store worker said he'd also heard that there was a store to the south that sold single HeroClix...
Kevin, lots of dice, if you need more.
It's an okay store, we'll go there once every other month or so to see if they have anything new, close enough to home and they're open late (until 10 PM on some days). Would we ever consider holding a gaming session there? I asked and we could reserve one of the gaming tables for a private (only us) 4.0 D&D session. Playing in the store would be free of charge and we could bring in our own food, drinks and gear. Unless all of you guys want to try it, I'd rather play at one of our homes.

More info...
Mick especially -
The figures come in three different materials, combined with the figures I bought last time, I now have nine total figures from the store, at least two in each of the three materials. There is "bright metal", "duller metal", and "plastic". After looking at the figures really closely, here are my thoughts...
The "bright metal" figures have detail that approaches the duller metal figures but the metal is much more brittle. You won't be able to reposition arms or legs or bend weapons as they will break. The figures would be just fine, depending largely on the thickness of the ankles, for gaming. I would stay away from women figures and gnomes, anything with slender ankles and I would stay away from weapons that are held far from the body; thrusting slender swords, longer pole arms, chain type weapons, etc.

The "duller metal" figures have very good detail but tend to be a bit larger than 25mm. You can bend the figures (slowly) into position just like you could the old lead ones. This is my material of choice.

The plastic figures (they have pre-painted and unpainted) are nice but the figures, especially the arms and weapons are quite floppy. If a sword or arm is out of position, you can attempt to bend it into the position you want, but it won't stay there, I'll go right back to how it was. The plastic basically has structural memory. The paint jobs are adequate for gaming but not up to the standard that we can do. The poor laborer in China who makes 10 cents an hour does a pretty good paint job.

Oh, they do have a very wide selection of paints, but the selection at the Warhammer store in Factoria's Lomen's Plaza is a slight cut better.

I wouldn't mind playing at a gaming store.

To mold the plastic figures into place you simply throw them into boiling water for a few seconds, then take them out, hold them into the position you want them in, and run them under cold water.

hmmm...wonder what that would do to painted plastic figures?

No adverse effects that I've noticed. I've been doing it for months.

Ross wrote:I wouldn't mind playing at a gaming store...

Me neither. Further, I think it would make a nice change of pace. Something new to try.

What are the pros/cons? Is it costly and what hours/days are we limited to? What outside foods/drinks are permitted?

Pro's - lots of free parking, don't have to clean up the house either before or after guests arrive, we can be as loud as we want, it is totally free, we can bring in any kind of food or non-alcholic drinks we want, plenty of gaming stuff and comic books to look at if we're bored, we could pick up a really good additional player if we want to.

Con's - we have to be playing a game they sell in the store (yes, they sell D&D 4.0), we are limited to 11 PM (when the store closes on Fri/ Sat), if there is a Magic tourney we might have to make a reservation to get a table, the chairs looked a little low, outsiders will be watching us.