Transition

Today was about further expansion of the miniatures department into the toy section. It started with getting a pallet of toys ready for return to the the manufacturer. They've got a return policy that allows us to ship back anything that doesn't sell, with the caveat it needs to be shipped via a freight company, an expensive and complicated endeavor. 400 pounds of toys comes to about $2,000 in product and cleared up enough space to remove an aisle from the toy department.

The miniature department gobbled up that space, allowing us to expand the walls of minis. Flames of War got another blister rack and we added two racks for Lord of the Rings miniatures. I'm convinced that War of the Ring, the mass battles game for LOTR, will be at least semi-successful. Even if our local crowd digs in their heels and resists, I'm sure the local GW store will do a lot of promotion for us. We'll be adding a good amount of Lord of the Rings miniatures between now and the April 4th release.

I've read through the book briefly and I'm no expert, but I like what I see. It reminds me a bit of AT-43 meets Warhammer Fantasy. It's got an I go-you go system of play. I go in my move phase, then you get your move phase, etc. The game seems like it would be fast, and includes both a movement and a charge phase. There should be a lot of flanking and maneuvering, and with sequence of play seems more engaging than other GW games. I'm thinking of a Harad army.

As for the toys, the pallet will be transformed into toy credit. We'll likely bank some of that for restock of popular toys, but I'm also thinking we'll expand our jigsaw puzzle section. We've had a steady stream of customers for puzzles since the holidays.