 Today we're in Japan and not only are we in Japan, we're in Akihabara checking out the newly opened Warhammer store and cafe in Tokyo. This is the flagship store in Asia and the only one but they do some unique things inside as well as well as a kind of given. They do drinks and food but not only do they do stuff like that but they've got unique themed areas, things that you can only find here as well as stuff online like resin stuff from Forge World. So why don't we just get this in for over with and let's have a look inside. And as you can see there are so many amazing things but I can't do this by myself. I might know some things about Warhammer but let's be honest there's a lot to know here. I'm going to take a tour with James. Welcome! How you doing? Hey James, welcome in. Oh this is going to be fun too James's. I know right? Would you mind taking me on a tour of what you expect in this cafe? Yeah well we're really glad that you can make it today. Oh thank you. Obviously the pre-opening tomorrow is the grand opening. That's right. Right let me show you. Sure why to stop? At the store and cafe is an immersive experience for anyone to come enjoy across Asia. Although based in Tokyo Japan this store was actually designed for all of Asia. Right. Everyone can come in and immerse themselves in the worlds of Warhammer. So here we have our start here section where people get to experience Warhammer for the first time if they've never experienced it before. And you can see just the giant scales. Yes, yes. The titan might be overpowering things here but... I don't know I think they're the Orc by the start of chance. Yeah exactly. So this is where people would get to test out the game? Yeah absolutely. In the tutorials. The way we've designed this particular experience is we've got our Warhammer 40,000. Right. The Space Marines fighting off against the Necrons in interior of a city. Whilst on the other side you have a skirmish battle going on taking part in the kill team setting. The deathcore creed fighting against the Orc commandos. And what I love about this is that you see the models all painted. Yes, yes. And what you know you can do because the box art looks absolutely fantastic. We can show the techniques that'll get your models on a table. Oh okay, okay. Painting tutorial though maybe. Painting tutorial maybe. And you've got all of this up here as well. We've added these archways with various characters within the universes. So these characters all come from the Age of Sigmar universe. Which actually fall kind of within the Age of Sigmar. And as we walk down further we can see a few more. And I see in the middle you've got the Dark Angels. All the cafes have a particular theme. Right. So we do have two other cafes in the US. So LA has got an Imperial Fist theme. Whilst the Dallas Cafe has a Blood Angels theme. The Tokyo Cafe is themed after Dark Angels. I've never seen this before. An astromilitarium candle. Candle. Candle yeah. You see because I saw the green I thought oh no if that's deathguards. I don't know if I want to smell it. Well we have a tear dude. Well really? Yes, yes. When we walk over to that side we'll have to look at that. Oh hell yeah. Yeah I didn't realise just how big this is as well. How deep that is. I thought there was multiples on there. But no it is just one. And you said this is bigger than the box itself. I believe it's slightly bigger than the box. Are these Japan exclusives as well? So Space Marine Heroes was a Japan exclusive many many years ago. And we've reintroduced them into the Blood Angels theme. And it was actually just recently released globally. Oh okay. And I see you've also got weapons here. We do. We do. Is it alright if I... You're gonna try one? Can I hold? Can I hold? Hold on sure. Plasma pistol. Oh yeah. I'll leave that to you. There's less things going wrong with this one. I feel that's better. This is more my forte. Although I wouldn't force myself with this either. Thank you. After having my fill of exploding weapons, it was about time to see what differentiated this place from other Warhammer stores and cafes. A series of drinks all themed around various characters. We've been working really hard to make some fantastic drinks. We have a particular specialty drink called the Rafiq Caliban. It has a secret menu hidden within there. And we actually have a few lined up for you to... Oh wow, look at that. I mean, it's as if it was not scripted at all. That's not what I know. Is it alright if I try? Yeah. Oh okay. This is your Rafiq Caliban right here. Themed after Dark Angels. Stasho Frappuccino. Ooh, that's good. I like my Frappuccinos. Okay. I'll take all these with me. And the next one is effectively the same drink, but it's had chocolate sauce. Right, because this is a different Ravenwing. Allegiance to the Ravenwing. Ooh, these are also good. Mmm. And the final one. There's an existence of a fallen within the Dark Angels. So this is a combination of chocolate sauce and white chocolate sauce to give that dark effect. And the blue on the top is actually the plasma Frappuccino. Ooh, the forbidden one. I like this one the most. I think I prefer that one. I mean, they're all super nice. That's my favorite though. Yum! I might just take this one. You want me to take this one? This is something that I have not seen in any of the Warhammer stores, even in the UK, this sort of setup. Yeah, well all of our stores tend to have some sort of painting station or area, right? Yeah. And what we've done here is we've taken that concept and we've added a bit more to that experience. Okay. So this is effectively a painting counter. You can come here and you can build your models, paint your models while you're enjoying New York. Right, the Caliban, of course. We've inset some extra little fun things. So we've added some ceramic tiles for painting. Yeah, that's a really good touch. So really easy to clean. Paintbrush is in here. You can put some paint pots in here so you don't necessarily fall over. Oh, so it's not going to end. You just knock it. It doesn't spill over. We thought about everything I said. I wouldn't say that. And then obviously you got your light and then the fun little bit here, this also acts as a charging station. I'm seeing this looks absolutely amazing. One of the centerpieces that was done by the studio for us and shipped over directly from the UK. So we've got the crew of boys facing off against the Stormcast Eternals, kind of a murky swamp. Oh, you've got loads of them. Yeah, so this is the Astro-Militarium. That's really nice. That's nicer than I was expecting it to smell for some reason. So what you've got like Tyroneed, you've got Astro-Militarium Space Marines, Slamnash and Tau. Oh, so far, I hate to admit it. My favorite is the Tau Empire one, but Space Marine. Yeah, it's Tau Empire. They're all so good though. So one of the things that is special about this store is that you guys have Forge World stuff, which is stuff you can only buy online. Yeah, typically, or it's been available in the other cafes of Warhammer World specifically, but this is the first store in Asia, Japan specifically, to carry a range of Forge World products. The majority of the character series, Warlord Titans, Thunder Hawks, a lot of some of your bigger kids actually available to purchase right on the shelf. I think the biggest one we have in store is going to be our Warlord Titan. These two boxes? These two boxes, yes. So it's so big that it has to come in two boxes? Yes. Ah, okay. That is one hell of a project. Now that it's here and you don't have to wait for it like shipping or anything, it's tempting just to be like, ah, I might just take one of those. But there was still one more Frappuccino I had yet to try and that was the Slanesh one. Can I continue the challenge here? Oh, yes, yes. Oh, God, that's sweet. That's nice. Oh, that hit you straight away. Okay, that's my favorite. This one, yeah. Yeah, you're going to have to wait for me to finish this. Even though this cool little section that mimics the inside of a Rhino, complete with Bolt Pistor and all, that's a lot of talking, Warhammer, but I think it's about time we've got to do some hands-on learning. So I am now with Sven, the store manager. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. So what are we going to be learning here today? Let's go. We are going to learn how to paint this base marine like the basics on him. Right. And we paint him as an ultramarine, blue off-scene. The blue, right. We are now going to get this pot. Okay. It gets just a fair ball up on your brush. So a little bit on the brush. Yeah, and then on the palette. Okay. Now, if this is your first time getting into the hobby, then you can book a painting tutorial. And there you'll be guided through how to paint one of the models. In this case, a space marine. It's been months since I've painted a miniature. Yeah, this is bringing back. Oh, yeah. I remember this is so satisfying. Well, that's it, isn't it? That's the fun thing with paint. You don't have to worry about making a mistake because you can just paint back over it. There is no better way to get into this hobby than the painting. It's how I started with it. And once you get that paint onto the model, you start to realize just how easy painting really is. But like everything, you get better at it the more you do it. I know you've painted one arm before. You just tried another experience. I did. Yes. What's that for you? Easy. Easy. Very easy. I haven't painted for six months now and stepping back into it, it's quite daunting. A lot of people collect the miniatures and then just, it's like, well, painting is a whole other beast. But this is something that you guys offer that is completely free and you even get to keep the model. Absolutely. Which I didn't even know about. We've got a little box that we're going to pop them in for you. Oh really? Oh. You can continue to paint in my home as well or bring them back. So this is what my Space Marine looked like after my brief painting session. Now, I know what you're thinking. This is an amazing paint job. You are so talented. And I know they say you can't improve on perfection, but let's give it a little bit of a shot. I was given this poster when I left the store and on the back of it, it shows a whole bunch of the Space Marine chapters. So why settle for Ultramarines? A Space Marine chapter that's heavily favored by Games Workshop. I mean, look at all of this. It's everywhere. So after taking a hard look at this poster, I decided to settle upon these guys, the White Templar. In fact, when I Google them, I can't find like anything about them except for they're part of like Imperial Fist and that's about it. So the perfect models to paint. So the first step was to get this model repainted. I could have achieved this with a spray can or a paintbrush, but because I have an airbrush handy, I thought I'll just use that. I started by spraying the model a mix of gray and white. This would allow me to add white highlights to the model without it being lost. While I was doing that, I also sprayed some regular gray onto the under parts of the model, allowing for a natural gradient to build up, something that you can only really achieve with an airbrush or a lot of dry brushing. Now with that all done, I decided to paint the recesses of the model. For this step, I used an enamel wash and then cleaned it up with an enamel thinner. You can use Games Workshop's washes such as Null Oil and Agrax Earthshade. And in the end, I ended up using them anyway. Next, I moved onto the bits that weren't going to be white, like the gun and bits of material in between the armor pieces. And let's not forget the Aquila now. After that, I painted all the bits of the model that would be metal black, as well as the shoulder pads. And now onto the miracle worker that is the Null Oil. I slopped this onto all the bits that I had painted gray. This will get into all of the recesses. And as that wash dries, it'll make a gradient adding that extra layer of depth. I used Mournfang Brown to paint the satchels and paper parts of the purity seal on the shoulder pad. Now it's time to paint metal onto all of those gun and backpack parts. Then I used Agrax Earthshade wash to the brown parts and Null Oil again for the metal. For the Aquila on the gun, I drybrushed some gold as to not accidentally paint over the recesses. Then came the fiddly part of highlighting the model. I mixed the original colors with a little bit of white and slowly ran the edge of my brush along the sides of the model that I wanted the highlights to be on. The white isn't as noticeable as the other highlights, but it'll make a difference in the end. At least that's what I kept telling myself. For the eyes, I picked up this trick while painting some of the death guard I'd done in the past by using a very fluorescent orange as a base coat and then a very watered-down yellow paint to put over the top. With one final drop of white in the eyes, we were done. At this point, I had completely forgot to paint the red of the purity seal. So I quickly did that, washed it with Agra's Earthshade again and then used a lighter color to add highlights. And finally, I fixed up any areas that I thought needed it. Mainly here, I pinwashed all of the recesses again with Null Oil to make them stand out more. Finally, I added the arrow to the shoulder, painted the base black, and we're done. And here's the side-by-side shot, a paint job that took around about 5 minutes and a paint job that took around about 5 hours. I mean, there's a tiny bit of an inference, but it's hard to see really. What would be a good starting point for someone who's just getting into the hobby? Maybe they're a bit, you know, it's not been getting into painting and they don't want to paint something that, you know, is very complicated. What would be the best sort of army or faction to start with, would you say? We have multiple different options on how you can start the hobby. For example, if you want to get into a really big army with plastic terrain and lots of miniatures, so this space for your necrons, or you want to go a little bit smaller, but even a smaller set that allows you little less miniatures, similar contents, a little more digestible initially. I mean, those things with the necron, the space marine, well, the space marine we've just painted, so if you feel quite confident with that, then you can launch into something like this. Or I mean, even you've got the painting sets there. What's great about this place is that sometimes your favorite unit or favorite army has drinks that are named after them. That is a thing, yes. So you can paint them while drinking the thing of them. That is absolutely a thing. So that was my experience at the Warhammer Store and Cafe in Tokyo. Completely exclusive sort of thing. I just want to say a big thank you to Warhammer for inviting me down. If you want to buy Warhammer stuff, even the Ford World stuff you can only get on the internet is here. Painting tutorials, you know, a lot of people find it daunting to get into. And rightly so, it is quite a big investment to be honest. But it is so easy and you even get to take the stuff away. This is great. So if you've enjoyed this video, maybe like it until next time. I'll see you guys later. Bye-bye.