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Ok, so I have all the right ideas and logistics for starting a local gaming group, but how do I get it started?

My goal is to bring in brand new players and get them started in 40k. To that end I want to have regularr game nights and hobby nights. The goal is to start small with "kill team" armies and building up through CoD and eventually tourney sized lists. I am not a great painter, but I am a solid painter with enough grip on the basics to help a new player get off on the right foot. I am also reasonably able to explain basic game consepts to someone who has never played a table top before.

What I lack is the knowledge of where to find prospective players. I plan on making flyers for the few and scattered game stores, and checking with local high schools and universities for gaming clubs. After that, however, I am at a loss. Where would you look for prospective new players? The market is here, if you will forgive me that turn of phrase (this is not for profit, just fun), but how do I tap it?

All ideas are welcome.

Demoing games at the shop is one way.

A local message board is another.

I met both my gaming groups through localized message
boards. You might want to check if there already is a
group in your area with an active message board.

start with gaming stores, talk to the owners, someone must understand the scene.

What you're looking for might already exist, or it might just need a little initiative to get going.

1st. Good on you. The more Gaming clubs the better I say.

2nd. Lurk. Lurk. Lurk. The FLGS will either let you sit there and paint away for four hours on a Friday afternoon, during which time you can ear-bash all and sundry. Or play games with other 'walk ins'.As an added bonus, your painting will improve,(Not saying it isn't good, just practice makes perfect!)-and you get more games!!

3rd. Do not go down the road of designating any restrictions whatsoever regarding points/missions etc. Just make a 'Club Motto' which involves rules regarding politeness (sobriety!?!), or simply a code of conduct.
This way, if there is a Gamer just down the road with an Apocalypse sized Army he/she(hopefully-not enough girls play 40k-cunning Generals they can be!) might be put off contacting you. Just promote the 'Idea' of a Gamers Club. All are welcome. The more the better. If hopefully, you get to the point where it's too crowded, stagger the nights, based on category.

Good on you if that happens, because it means you are doing something very good!!!

Good luck, hope some of my waffle was useful!

4th. Keep us posted, as I am part of a starting club in Brisbane, and it would be interesting to hear! There is a link in my sig.

Ah, but you see there in lies part of the problem. I should have specified this in my op. I don't have a LGS. Well, I should say this area doesn't have an LGS. I travel about 45 min one way to get to the one I buy my stuff from. This is why I want to start a local game group. If you go to the center of this little population cluster, there is no retailer that sells or supports any type of table top (not even cllicky base stuff) without driving almost 2 hrs or more in any direction. But the population base is here, and certainly the market. We have 2 major universities and 5 large high schools. Our county population is 3million + and growing. There have simply got to be other gamers out there who simply don't know where to go to play, or don't feel like driving forever to get to a store.

Actually, I travel for all my gaming needs and to play. 45
minutes sounds about right for the really good store and
then it's 10 mins to the local GW.

Be wary of recruiting high schoolers to game at your place
when you're an adult. It's cynical, but people and parents
are (and should be) aware of whom their children are
visiting and what they're doing there. I 'm biased in saying
that gaming is probably much better than other activities,
but I'm just saying. Perceptions change when they go to
do it at your house.

Without a local game store, things get tough. Meeting other gamers might be hard mostly because few gamers advertise their gamerness. If you got high schools and colleges in the area, they are probably the best places to start…well the colleges really. You can inquire into the existence of game clubs with the student council. They have tabs on all the official student clubs. You might find that gamers are not set up as official clubs though, so the next step might be to just put up some flyers and see if you get any response. You might set up a web page / message board and put that on the flyers. People are generally more comfortable looking into things like this from the relative safety of a web site before they show up at your house. Oh and make sure your flyers have those little tare off tabs at the bottom with the web site / contact info so people don’t have to write it down.

If you find some college students that want to make this game club thing work, have them apply with the school to form an official club. It will make your life a whole lot easier when you can hold your game sessions in an unused class / conference room somewhere on campus. If you start recruiting high school kids, parents are always happy to drop their kids off / let them go to a college campus, certainly more so than some dude’s house.

Even if the closest game store is quite a ways away, you may want to go there and put up some advertisements and hang out and talk to people. You will probably run into someone from your area that is looking to buy some game stuff and put it to use. Setting up demo games there might be a good way to do it, or you could just hang out.

I would either put an ad in the University or local paper OR instead of paying for an ad have one of their reporters that is desperate to meet a deadline write an article about your efforts and the Miniature wargaming hobby.

Also, I agree that your gaming location should be a third party nuetral location. You don't want complete strangers that you barely know coming into your home.

Edit: Please keep us posted. I have been contemplating the same thing. There is some good advise in this thread.

Easy E wrote:I would either put an ad in the University or local paper OR instead of paying for an ad have one of their reporters that is desperate to meet a deadline write an article about your efforts and the Miniature wargaming hobby.

Also, I agree that your gaming location should be a third party nuetral location. You don't want complete strangers that you barely know coming into your home.

Edit: Please keep us posted. I have been contemplating the same thing. There is some good advise in this thread.

If we're talking universities, universities often have space and money available for student run clubs. I was previously involved in negotiated for money, it's a pretty simple process and the money has to be used for something.

Brief update. I have identified 3 diffferent organized groups. 2 are high school groups and 1 is a university group. I have made contact with the faculty advisors and am going to send them flyers. These school groups seem to be catch all type groups not really focasing on any one game or system. The advisors mentioned gamers ranging from larps and rpgs, to magic the gathering and other tcgs. I don't know how many table top mini gamers I can hope for, my luck, they will all play clicky base.