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Alrighty then.

There are many ways to engage in this great hobby, but the question is, how do you play?

Do you play with a group of great friends who have been your buddies since time immemorial?
(upsides: you all know each other. You know your lists and theirs. IMHO more fun)
(downsides: you can expect the same lists, usually. Not much variety of opponents)

Or...

Do you go to your FLGS to play with a random slew of opponents
(upsides: keeps you on your toes. Great way to make friends)
(downsides: Random Jerks, not knowing anyone, etc.)

I personally play at my FLGS, but hope to someday reach the first style.

I play at my FLGS. still, I am a bit of both camps. We have the regular crew at the store, but since it is store, there are randoms that come in from time to time. Sometimes they fold into the crew, sometimes they move along.



Ghidorah

I play at my NSFBNSMELGS (Not So Friendly But Not So Mean Either Local Game Store) with a pretty regular crowd. Its pretty rare to get the random player.

I'm thinking of doing a sort of 'Tour of Duty' of the game stores within a 20 mile radius of where I live to get some variety. And when I say variety I mean as far as people are concerned.

At my NSFBNSMELGS, it isn't so much a problem of the same lists... its more over the same people with personalities that you can only stand so much of after a while. Then again I haven't been wargaming long so I wonder if there's something I'm not understanding in regards to who I'm playing with.

A group of people I know, which has a fairly fluid `membership'. I would like to get more games in against random opponents, but I do not want to have to travel an hour only to find that there were only jerks there that day. If there were a club closer to me, I would probably do both.

I play with a bunch of guys at different clubs (all non-store clubs).

I'll also get to play against random guys at tourneys and at our interclub meets.

I've got a small group of friends who play, and we are all building different armies (Orks, Grey Knights, Eldar, UltraMarines, Tyranids, Chaos Marines).

There is a local club that I keep meaning to go to, and also a GW store nearby.
When I get some boxes to transport my Boyz, I'll try out these other places, and see how I fare against random foes

I play at home rotating around 2 or 3 friends.

We play various games to keep it interesting. This week its Flintloque, last week it was Uncharted Seas. Next week? Who knows?

The thought of playing the same game every week for more than a couple of weeks bores me. On the other hand, the thought of playing a game against some random Joe who probably will be either an arse or just a kid (anyone under 30...) holds little appeal either!

I'd rather not play at all than play games of the same old game against the kind of people that frequented my only LGS that has gaming space - the Newcastle Battle Bunker.

No offence, as I'm sure there are plenty of nice people who play there. Just the 2 times I visited (on both occasions it was against a minor I had met on a forum, so didn't feel it appropriate to invite them into to my own home for a game) the other people playing seemed to be predominantly personality types I wouldn't be likely to make friends with. All the usual gamer stereotypes - stinky arm pits, ass-hats, neck-beards, hyper-competitive jerks, black leather trenchcoats, self-opinionated morons, etc., etc. were in great evidence. Frankly I'd rather not waste 2 hours playing a game with such people. I just wouldn't enjoy it, so why bother?

Mind you, I'm somewhat aggorophobic, and not that sociable so I'm probably not very representative of anything other than nutty 40-something year-olds...

I play at the FLGS and at home. I prefer home because I have a larger table, nicer terrain, and it's generally more convenient.

When I don't have an opponent at home I'll go to the FLGS. I also go to the FLGS for leagues, special events, etc.

I play with a small group of friends, but then we try to hit a tourney every few months to face different people and armies.

Oddly enough, in the states, where I grew up, I played mainly at a GW against random opponents, and now that I am in scotland for a year I have two (small) groups of guys who I game with. Honestly, playing in either scenario has its ups and downs.

The variety of opponents was nice playing at the GW, and it was nice, as a teenage, to be forced to meet new people and socially interact with them for hours at a time. The GW I played at also had excellent staff members, a group of regulars who were good guys, and good looking tables/scenery. The cons were you never knew what point level you were playing, so you had to be flexible with your lists, and you ran the risk of playing against someone you would rather not- as has been covered already.

Playing with groups, it is fun because you get to enjoy the things that come with knowing your opponent, having a history, etc. You get to talk about things later, remember games that happened, and so on. Plus, you're generally friends with the members. In my experience, the scenery is not as nice, but the gaming environment is better. The only real downside is that it can cause you to lose the ability to play and win against all comers, because you tend to play in a style that works against you group, and doesn't account for that other things you could face. As a plus you generally dont get games against persons you would rather not spend two hours with, unless they happen to be in your group.

It's more fun to play with friends. Even if it's more predictable who you will be facing, I'd rather play against close friends.

The whole unpredictability aspect got ruined for me anyway when everyone at my LGS has Necrons. I've played about 2 games there that weren't against Necrons, and they were against Marines once and Chaos Marines the second.

It always feels a little awkward playing with people you don't know terribly well too. A lot of the casual joking and conversation of a typical game is lost, and that's one of my favorite parts of the game.

Our city isn't big enough for randoms. We have a group that plays at the local store.

There are a few more players around but none of them ever venture out of the basement into the light let alone to meet new people.

I mainly play with a few friends, don't go to my local store as one of the staff there drives me up the wall. And the only other nearby store is over an hour away, not much chance for me to meet new players.

I play with a group of friends, the main down sides are that a couple of them just want to play kill everything missions, and others want to play objective based or a campaign, but it usually falls to kill everything large ass boring games were I sit around and do nothing then "Clean up" the left overs.

Campaign thing is my fault I've been to lazy to work on the one I started coming up with.