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My friend and I are thinking about opening a small gaming store in the greater Pittsburgh area, out towards Butler/Cranberry area, and are not sure of where people are at... If you are able could you post where you live (don't need or want exact addresses here, just a general idea) so we can get an idea where to put a store in...

I live in Greensburg, but if you are run stuff on weekends, I will make the drive over to that side of the city.

After I win the powerball Wednesday, count me in for weeknights too.

Just trying to get a feel for where a good area to open up would be... still months and months away from any kind of opening, lol.

im in wexford here, i usually play at Legions but im always open to taking slaves at a different area

I play at legions also.. Not sure if I recommend opening stores nearby considering legions is probably one of the largest stores in the country for warhammer (available gaming area)

You're gonna have a hard time competing with the massive clientele of legions and then there is another store in ligonier

But if you stay in butler thats pretty far off.. i wouldnt really consider that "pittsburgh" since I live in downtown and thats an hour away through extreme traffic

I recommend having extremely good business skills.. most of the stores around here were total failures due to the owners being making awful decisions, that is until legions got its current owner

Good luck tho in any case!

yeah...legions is pretty big considering there all affliated with GW and whatever else they do. great community though. very big on the painting, and very helpful for newbs like me lol.

I live just south of Greensburg, the only 2 game stores with in reasonable driving distance from here are The Vault, in Greensburg and Toy Soldiers Gallery, in Ligonier. Toy soldiers always has loads of stuff in stock, but, doesn't host gaming of any kind. To be honest though, the place is the size of a small bedroom and damn near floor to ceiling merchandise, and Norm, the guy who runs the place seems like a good guy. I have only been in the vault a couple times to buy paint and they never seem to restock mini's, but one of the guys who work there said they usually get a 40k crowd on tuesday evenings ( Haven't made it in their on a tuesday yet to see what a crowd looks like, but maybe someday)

Hey all im the friend hes talking about just to clear a few things up, First off it is me and a buddy of mine not Draconicwraith opening a store. He is a friend of ours and will be working there when we do open. Second we are looking in the harmerville area right off 28 and turnpike as well as pat lines, we are looking to get a big space dont know if it will be 16000 s/f but it will be big none the less we will have gaming there for all kinds of games, its still a ways off. I know a lot of people go to legions im not trying to compete with them just giving people another choice is all, I have started talking to GW and Privateer press about becoming a retailer for both, We have talked about having modeling area, lots of tables and a lot of stock but things are still in the planing stages, Just want to see if there is really anyone out there in that area that would like to see a store near them and hear what other people have to say on the idea. Thanks for ur time and reading this post any idea's of things you would like to see in a store please post them here or pm me again thanks..

I'm out of Somerset and have several friends who play in the Johnstown region, and closest stores to us are Altoona and Ligonier. Norm at the Toy Soldier Gallery is a great guy and keeps his stocks of Fantasy and 40k loaded like no tomorrow, but no he doesn't have a square foot for playing space. This weekend we're putting on a tournament with him at the public library in Ligonier if you are looking to meet some of 40k gamers in the region. If you do decide to open in the region, let us know we're always willing to help organize and run events. Just drop us a line @ http://snakeyesgaming.blogspot.com/

Grabzak Dirtyfighter wrote:I live just south of Greensburg, the only 2 game stores with in reasonable driving distance from here are The Vault, in Greensburg and Toy Soldiers Gallery, in Ligonier. Toy soldiers always has loads of stuff in stock, but, doesn't host gaming of any kind. To be honest though, the place is the size of a small bedroom and damn near floor to ceiling merchandise, and Norm, the guy who runs the place seems like a good guy. I have only been in the vault a couple times to buy paint and they never seem to restock mini's, but one of the guys who work there said they usually get a 40k crowd on tuesday evenings ( Haven't made it in their on a tuesday yet to see what a crowd looks like, but maybe someday)

I go to The Vault regularly on Tuesdays. There is generally anywhere from 6 to 10 people there on a given night. Pretty decent range of races represented as well. Orks seem to be making a comeback. There must have been some fungus in the back of the store room that was not burned.

Pretty laid back crowd for the most part. We have a token WAAC guy, but I don't find him unreasonable as long as you know it going into it. Otherwise, it is more about just having a good time.

I'll have to find the time to show up sometime, with my work schedule i barely ever get to play as is so I surely wouldn't mind getting a game in more often

My god why doesn't anyone ever make a store near Blairsville... o that's right..were in the middle of no where. I did my fair share of the Vault,as well as spend a load of money there.and after a run in with the trog who works there (whom thinks he is just the gak as far as game store clerks go) And the owner of the place did nothing to apologize or what not i have yet to find a good gaming store even remotely close. Legions is a beautiful wonderful store, but im not dealing with Pitt traffic to play 40k lol. My friends and i are attempting to build a small gaming club, have yet to get a name for it but we play very regular every thursday

Am I the only non legion pittsburgher here. Ah well. I'm up towards squrrel hill, and can most often be found at Phantom of the Attic games, the very icon of a mid size FLGS. Always a fun place and right next to the Carnegie Mellon campus so there are plenty of gamers there on the weekend. If your looking to open a games store, be careful as Legion and Phantom seem to have the place well covered.

Yes you are the only non legions person :p Phantom was popular years ago when the old 40k crowd was there.. However they moved, so have no space.. legions has like 10x their tables.. actual parking..discount.. not in oakland

Have i mentioned the parking and the not being in oakland part?

and yeah again, anyone is gonna have a hard time competing with legions if you're going to set up shop close by. Phantom makes most of their money from card games and comics not GW

My god why doesn't anyone ever make a store near Blairsville... o that's right..were in the middle of no where. I did my fair share of the Vault,as well as spend a load of money there.and after a run in with the trog who works there (whom thinks he is just the gak as far as game store clerks go) And the owner of the place did nothing to apologize or what not i have yet to find a good gaming store even remotely close. Legions is a beautiful wonderful store, but im not dealing with Pitt traffic to play 40k lol. My friends and i are attempting to build a small gaming club, have yet to get a name for it but we play very regular every thursday

Totally depends what direction youre coming from.. Pittsburgh has no traffic if you are driving on 279 north FROM pittsburgh (Ie towards cranberry). Also driving 379 TOWARDS pittsburgh (ie from monroeville or from robinson) isnt that bad except during home games!.. The problem is 28, if you need to pass through 28 or if youre coming from the south hills you might as well just commit suicide because you're never getting through that

I live in the actual downtown portion of pittsburgh so I never have traffic!

I'm going use some Thread Necromancy and reanimate this discussion. I'm doing this because there have been several people in the last couple of weeks asking about Gaming in Western Pennsylvania. I want to make a couple of points:
1) It takes less than 2 hours to get between Pittsburgh and Altoona. This is generally the region I'm referring to in this brief discussion. You can get anywhere in between (Johnstown, Greensburg, Ligonier) in less time than that.
2) Most of us are willing to drive up to 2 hours if we know that the event will be well run and we have the chance of meeting good new people to game with.
3) Legions is the biggest store in the area but there are several others that either have permanent tables set up (Gatehouse Games, The Vault) or have certain days of the week/ month where gaming space is provided (Toy Soldier Gallery, Arkham Games, the Geekadrome).
4) There are a lot of 40K players in this area. Many of them are well known or respected members of the gaming community (Kirasu, Inquisitor Oldman, Warboss Gubbinz)
5) We are spread out over the previously mentioned area and need some way to keep in touch and find out when an event is going on at one of the nearby locations that we don't frequent every week.
6) Snake Eyes Gaming (http://www.snakeyesgaming.blogspot.com/), the group that won best club tables at the past Games Day, has been making an effort to build this regional awareness of our gaming community. Our last event at the Ligonier Valley Library had 30 participants and we know there are even more players out there. We run events at most of the above mentioned stores. You can access a calendar of our events (along with Warhammer events that people ask us to advertise) at the website.
7) I have an ever-growing email list of local players. Once every couple weeks I send an email out letting everyone know what Warhammer events are going on in the region.
8) There are other clubs operating in the area also. Let Snake Eyes know about your events and we'll make sure people know about the event and even come to participate ourselves.