The Battle Barn

So here is a list of the various locations for the 'Ard Boyz preliminary round here in Michigan. GW only provides their name and phone numbers so I tried to look all of them up to find out where they were. A couple of them I couldn't find out anything about.


Cobblestone Crafts and Hobbies 616-396-3029 Holland
Pandemonium 734-427-2451 Garden City
RIW Hobbies 734-261-7233 Livonia
T&B Hobbies 517-937-4281 ???
BC Comix and Games 810-208-7100 Fenton
Get Your Game On 734-786-2746 ???
Hall of Heroes 989-773-8464 Mt. Pleasant
Gamers Sanctuary 810-720-8280 Flint
Family Hobby Shops 269-323-1010 Portage
Grandiosity 231-740-6503 Muskegon
T.C. Paintball 231-943-0248 Traverse City
Titan Games 269-963-3773 Battle Creek
The Odyssey 269-345-0227 Kalamazoo
Evolution Games 517-323-8600 Lansing
The Boardroom Game Center 989-295-0522 Saginaw
J&L Mini’s 989-224-8935 ???

I'm surprised that no one in Lansing is holding it. Fortress and Evolution are big enough to hold qualifiers I would think.

Still, a decent spread of locations that are in easy driving distance of Grand Rapids. Muskegon might be an odd one to go to though, based on a conversation I had with John awhile back. Apparently, the crowd up there plays with a decent amount of house rules, and thus any outsider showing up might be caught blindsided by a ruling we are all used to and just assume is correct, yet to them is correctly wrong and won't be played in such a way.

Still, Cobblestone will be nice with their new store. The Kalamazoo store isn't bad, although a little small. Battle Creek isn't that far away. Gamer's Sanctuary in Flint is a great store and I'd highly reccomend that. Pandemonium in Garden City is also a great store with tons of space.

Those are the only ones I have first hand knowledge of, but looks to be plenty of locations that players can scatter too to all have a chance at winning spots in the semi's.

Evolution is on the list, but I was also a bit surprised to find that the Fortress wasn't.

Kalamazoo's Odyssey Store (formerly Titan Games) is hosting it this year, but with a slightly different tournament layout than standard Ard Boyz. There is a $10 entry fee to compensate for a larger than usual prize money fund. Point value is still 2500, and missions will still be whatever GW comes up with this year.

Discussion thread is here.

Last year, I went to Titan Games, Battle Creek for very easy competition relative to what we are used to. I think they had 5 tables, maybe 6, distributed across 2 rooms. More recently, they have opened up the basement for gaming. Lousy lighting, but a lot more room, although I can't remember exactly how many tables were going.

The year before last I went clear down to Fantasy Games in South Bend, IN. 8 or so well lit, well spaced tables in the back, and a great bunch of guys. Several from down there showed up at WMU's most recent Marmalade Dog gaming convention and proved that it wasn't a fluke that they were good people two years ago. Except for the distance from Grand Rapids area, I recommend it.

I spoke with the guy from Titan Games in BC. He said that they have room for 42 players!! Dang. But if you say that its comparatively easy competition compared the GR norm, then this should be fun

Technically, I said that's what I found down there last year. I've only been there once since, so it's possible that they're all 40k masters now, but I doubt it. Most places I go these days I find the competition less difficult than here. (Which would segue nicely into another good rant about how GW is pushing away their veteran players, but that's for another thread. )

It is a very large place now, since they moved about a year ago. Now that I think about it, the 5 or 6 tables I remembered from last year were actually at the older location. The new one is much bigger, but most or all of the miniature game tables are in the basement. It is a large area, so it's entirely possible that they have 21 down there. I would be surprised if they actually end up using more than 6-8, but maybe the game has really taken off down there.