LGS on the Road - Le Beginner

By: Dozer

I've always believed that our hobby needs the Local Game Shops (LGS) to keep our games healthy. We need to support the LGS to keep our games on the shelf. We need our games on the shelf to keep the games alive.

Canada has a healthy relationship with their game shop and I want to post about my experience about the many shops that dot Canada.

This year I am travelling all across Canada  for my day job. When I stop at a new city, I will be visiting and playing at as many LGS as I can. 

This was my third time back in Montreal since November and my last trip was so busy I didn't have time to link up with the local players so I made an effort to reach out this time since I would have some down time on this trip.

Le Beginner is a great joint on the east shore of Montreal in Longueuil. Coming off a main street I pulled onto the parallel side roads and parked across from the shop. In the dark I saw folks playing in the front play area with screens on the one wall showing movies and pairings for Magic the Gathering. I popped my trunk and walked up the short flight of stairs and entered into what I thought was going to be a small space but instead turned out to be a well lit, clean, and organized shop that had a dozen smiling faces of folks playing games.

Well stocked front cash with all the goods.

The shop also boasted a great selection of Manga that was well placed on the side with it's own dedicated area. Great selection of mangas that brought me back to my younger days working in a comic shop. The one owner has a great taste in older manga and we chatted for a bit about some of my favorites like Berserk, Gun Smith Cats, and Battle Angel Alita. 

Right away past some display cases and shelves I saw the dedicated table top game area where Martin and two brothers were setting up a table with one of the store owners Etienne. Passing the well stocked front cabinet I saw drinks, snacks, and plenty of cardboard crack and supplies. At first glace this place looks small, in reality it's much larger and the space is very well organized making products easy to access and create more space to play.

The dedicated play space past the comics and the front game area

The place space was so well put together. Three tables side by side with a fourth off to the side. Spare folding seats were available for players at longer games. Players were surrounded by displays of great selections of Infinity and Warmachine/Hordes. There were well labeled bins of terrain that we neatly placed for players to use. I was very impressed started to get excited for the night.

Well organized and clean play area. 

I had met Martin last year at Capital Conflict. On my first trip he showed me L'Abyss but this time I was free on the regular Friday night game at Le Beginner and boy was I happy to show up and see a familiar face. As we set up I told stories of Rumble and GENCON and we went on about how Infinity was evolving, excited about new factions and upcoming releases.

Martin introduced me to the two brothers, Alex and Richard and we split the sibblings pairing off against one each. I was paired with Richard. I recommended the ITS scenario Capture and Protect because it was so much fun as the last game at Rumble. The finished setting up the boards as I grabbed a snack and a Dr. Pepper. The candy selection was very large and their was plenty of different drinks. I was trying to avoid candy and sugar but my weak will was no match for a classic night of snacks, sodas, and dice rolling.

Two tables ready and set to play 

Capture and Protect is a very simple mission that can fall to pieces very quickly.

Each player has a beacon that sits centered along the edge of their deployment zone. You need to get any unit to beacon, pick up the beacon as a short skill (attack), and for extra points get it back to your designated datatracker and/or into your deployment zone. Their is one point for a classified objective adding a bit of a twist to the scenario.

Since I was packing up my hobbies getting ready for a move in less than two months time I had only packed up my Battlefoam Beta Bag and had one of my two Rumble Lists. I was sporting three camouflaged forward observers, my Lizard, an Interventor, my Mobile Brigada LT, and three remotes. It was a tight list representing the best that Nomads had, plenty of strong hacking options, plenty of dirty tricks, and some solid tech. Richard was playing a Yu-jing force with some Monks, Line Troopers, a Tiger Soldier that would pop in round 2 to ruin some fun, and a few other excellent reps to the Imperial Courts. He also added two Krakot Renegades to trip me up and slow me down.

He won the roll and took deployment and me to setup first. I wanted to try my list out in a more aggressive manner and decided to go first. At Rumble when I played this game I took second because I wanted to have my opponent waste orders going through my speed bumps while I kept the scoring units out of sight ready to run up and grab the Beacon once the way was clear.

Richard hid everything from my view so I walked Kipling, my Lizard TAG with Heavy Grenade Launcher up into the middle of the board and starting engaging with units. I followed up with Arthur my Seraph knifing Mobile Brigada going up the middle under cover. Richard followed up my advance with some careful but aggressive fire. My dice continued to roll high and Kipling was down to two wounds but with the last shot Arthur died crouched next to some stairs in the center of the board.

Kipling has 2 wounds and enemies surround it
Kipling is right where he needs to be

The second round was not looking good. My LT was down and I forgot to use a command token to call in my Hellcat that I had off board. I wasn't ready to reveal my camo tokens because Richard was still well in cover with little LOF for my Forward Observers. Using my irregular orders Kipling died from return fire. Z3RO tagged one of the Renegades twice earning my Classified Objective and I fired a guided missile to only see the Morat dodge it. My turn continued to go wrong when I moved my Interventor down the side street and suddenly seeing from the far end of the board Richard's Hsien with HMG. The dice rolled high but now it cost me my next LT, I was going to be in loss of LT on my last round.

Richard brought in a his Guilang and it killed Z3RO. His Tiger soldier dropped in but was stopped in his tracks with a Flash Pulse from my Zond. His turn quickly went south and he was left with off his guys on the back end with few orders left. It was getting late and we talked about how he could gain points. We were tied and he did not look like he could take my Beacon so in an effort to tie the game he took a long shot to medic one of his Morats Mercs.

My last turn was quick, using all my command tokens my Hellcat landed and we discovered that he would not be able to take the beacon. Richard had only two units outside of his deployment zone, the Tiger Soldier and Guilang but not enough orders to be able to rip through my scattered speed bumps of units. A quick count realised that it was over and the game came to an end. Richard and I shock hands on a tie and a great game against a great opponent.

Le Beginner is more than a game shop it's a gamer community. The name of the shop advertises the casual place space and welcoming atmosphere to new players. Etienne was really passionate about the attitude of the shop and the folks who play there. We agreed on fun and competitive are not exclusive to each other.

I stayed on a few more mins after we all cleaned up and chatted more about where Infinity was going and the excitement of the new Uprising books before heading back into the cold and driving back to our homes and hotels.

If you are new to the Montreal area and Longueuil hit this place up. Take up a table or join in one of the many regular events posted on the board.

- Cheers

Dozer