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The closest FLGS to me are about a 45 minute drive away (each), and the closest GW is about 90 minutes away (almost exactly, from my driveway to the parking lot). As such, I am taking a lot of time out of my day to play with people, so I am very choosy as to who I spend my game time with.

FLGS #1 has had a lot of drama in the past, specifically because of issues of conflict of interest with the local PP Press Ganger working at said store, and a local tabletop gamer guy who coordinates a bunch of tournaments for GW games getting banned from that store right around the same time lead a lot of us locally to wonder what the shape of the wargaming community would be like in the future (except for Warmahordes, those guys are still meeting and playing at FLGS #1). After getting criticized for purchasing a GW kit at this store, I don't go there any more for anything.

All I am aware of being played at the first store is Flames of War, Kings of War, and Warmahordes, and a BUNCH of Magic the Gathering.

FLGS #2 picked up the slack for GW games, all of them, and pretty much all of the local players are at this newer store. At this store are folks playing Fantasy, Mordheim, Kill Team, 40K (both competitive tournament scene and narrative relaxed play), Age of Sigmar, and there is now a Blood Bowl League. There is also a bunch of folks that play Dark Age, Drop Zone/Drop Fleet Commander, a regular Heroclix group, and a bigger selection of other card games (Yu-Gi-Oh, Pokemon, et al.), and probably more that I am missing. It is kinda "cliquey" on occasion, basically broken down the lines of Competitive players, narrative players, and smokers vs. non-smokers, for what that's worth. It's actually about 5 minutes quicker to get to from home anyways, plus they sell all their wargaming stuff at 5% off of MSRP, so win-win!

The GW I used to visit weekly because of a higher "quality" of player. At the time (this was about 4 or 5 years ago) the local scene was swollen with tournament players. So me and a few other locals made frequent trips to the GW (at a 90 minute drive, one way) in order to get better games against other players. But since the local scene has improved so much, I tend to keep my GW runs to a minimum, saving them for any special events they run.

Nowadays, that I have a job, wife, and family, I am limited in the time I have to spend on gaming (until the kids get older, that is ). As such, I am very, VERY picky about who I spend time with for games, and I basically have a small number of players that I will leave the house to play (maybe a dozen or so?). As others have said, the older I get, the more valuable my time becomes.

As far as "judging" goes, only cheating (I will lose respect for you as a person) and/or WAAC.

Annoying habit like bad sportsmanship and/or constant moaning, make me avoid, but not refuse some opponents.

As far as playing people, I look out for similar attitudes (or close enough to be compatible). If they don't take games too seriously and play the games that I play then there we go.

As I'm mainly a painter at heart, I generally get on really well with other gamers, and I am genuinely very laid back and interested in all sorts of games, even if I don't play them. This makes getting on with other gamers really easy and really pleasant.

Local club is actually pretty good (MKWS), however I've not been able to actually go for nearly two years as they are only open a Thursday night, which I can't make reliably due to work and can't make at all due to exhaustion.

Decent mix though, if lacking younger players, playing a reasonable range of games.

Preferred club is about 120 miles away (Janco Toys, Barnsley) which is well worth the 240 mile round trip (to the occasional amazement of some people there who think I'm kidding), much smaller club in the back room of a shop but a more close knit group with plenty of mutual mickey taking and tea on tap.

Indeed its a good part of the reason I'm in the process of changing jobs to move back up there

Did you just say they had tea on tap?

*gets in car, drives north*

Ace From Outer Space wrote:
Did you just say they had tea on tap?

*gets in car, drives north*

Oh yes, Colin makes a very nice cuppa, coffee as well, though out of a jar, the way its meant to be, not this modern fancy rubbish for the price of a house.

Its one of those rare little model/game/toy shops that we used to have loads of but now are very rare where the guy running it seems to be doing it as much for the love of it as anything and actually knows the product range very well as well as always having a friendly welcome.

Club also reasonably welcoming of well behaved adults, if accompanied by a suitable child on some days to get the younger generation actually gaming, teaching painting etc.

Really nice atmosphere that many places seem to forget when putting a tick list together for a club and what it should be