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Hello all, I will be going off to college in the Fall, and I plan to start a miniature wargaming club at my college. It will be both a miniature wargaming and board gaming club, mainly to broaden the appeal of the club to non-wargamers (though I enjoy board games too). I have already been posting about it on the college Facebook group and providing descriptions of miniature wargaming and a few specific wargames (Flames of War and Warhammer 40k at this point), and have gotten a few people interested.

So my question is has anyone else started a wargaming club at college or anything similar, and does anyone have any tips for starting one (and running it if I can get it off the ground)?

Haven't started a club but have been an active member of my school's business club for a few semesters. That being said, many schools require all clubs to have faculty advisers to legitimize the clubs themselves. Not sure if this is the case for your school, but I would look into it.

Also, if you have weekly club meetings (like in your campus center), you are required to send a representative to every meeting.

Oh, look into what your club's requirements for rush week, fundraisers and other campus activities are before the semester starts. Good luck.

The biggest piece of advice I can give you is when you elect your exec board (assuming the school requires it, which it will), pick someone who actually cares and wants the club to succeed. I knew a guy who started one at my college with his group of friends and thought it was funny to make their friend who didn't want to be president the president.

Just learning that was enough to make me not join the club. It was just them playing magic most of the time anyways. I found plenty of 40k players at school, along with D&D/pathfinder, and magic without the need of the club.

Also, talk to students in the theater department, pretty much all of the guys in there play magic, board games, or RPGS. Few of them will play wargames too most likely. (and fun fact, most won't be gay like stereotypes will have you think)

Edit; don't except much of any money from the school at all. Try to just get space to play first. Don't go out and try to buy tons of games and terrain. Storing it will be a pain most likely and it will be difficult to get it to where you play without hard core regulars which you probably won't have every week.

If I were to do it, I would go to my FLGS (which isn't close to my college at all, but I hate the closer stores) and try to work out a deal to get magic booster boxes for less then retail, then sell the packs at retail price if you can. I know many people who would pay retail price for a booster pack to have it now and for things like drafts. If you get enough people you could run drafts, perhaps with sanctioned prize support (or take a hit on the club account if you have to once in awhile).

Advertise and take trips to cons. Maybe see if you can work out some deal with any local cons (you call the right people and say the right things you can accomplish anything). Take biweekly trips to a game store to buy and sell singles. Just make sure to have SAFE drivers with CLEAN cars (this bugs me the most!) that are willing to take a hit on gas to do so.

Give people a reason to go hang out with the club say Tuesday nights for a couple hours. Expand beyond just your group of friends that you have to let people come in and host a draft tournament. Don't exclude people which happens so much in clubs simply by giving friends preference. Work with RAs in resident halls to host a program in their study lounge or something to play some games with residents. Talk to other clubs that might be similar (hint again theater geeks love games) in interest.

Also, stay on campus for thanksgiving if you can and try to host something fun. Make it a board game night of FUN fast games. Keep talisman at home for this and pull out Sorry, uno, stuff like that. Bring Settlers of Catan because people eat that crap up. Chrononaughts and Pirate Fluxx are also great games for learning the rules quickly and having a ton of laughs. I say thanksgiving because even if most people go you, you will have plenty of people who stay on campus who will be bored and would LOVE to have something to do.

Thanks for the advice both of you, I have already looked into how to officially form a club at my college, and I was mainly hoping for advice on generating interest and running it if I can get it started.

That said, I had not thought of the idea of arranging trips to cons and local game stores, that is defiantly a good idea. I think that there is a rather large art school at my college, so I will defiantly look for interest in the theater department. I was already planning on looking for interest in the history department (which is what I am majoring in) for Flames of War, but I will now try to reach out to the theater students too.

Run regular painting get togethers. Probably the biggest barrier to regular participation is the lack of progress on getting stuff assembled and painted.

Learn how to communicate simple painting techniques to new people. Prime, block in colour, wash, pick out details. That sort of thing.

One thing I may suggest.. Is rather than starting one, first see if there's one to join first.

I haven't been to college, but the social and work adjustment for the Army is much the same in some ways... So it may be best, while getting acclimated to college life, if you, instead of starting a club and have to run it, and do the whole school thing and whatever else... if you are just another warm body in a club for a little while, you'll be less stressed about everything.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
One thing I may suggest.. Is rather than starting one, first see if there's one to join first.

I haven't been to college, but the social and work adjustment for the Army is much the same in some ways... So it may be best, while getting acclimated to college life, if you, instead of starting a club and have to run it, and do the whole school thing and whatever else... if you are just another warm body in a club for a little while, you'll be less stressed about everything.

Thanks for the advice, but I have already asked current students and looked through the current clubs, and they had no board game or miniature war gaming club.

I got into wargaming through my college's club. It was the biggest club in the school, and for a few years was mostly the domain of RPG'ers, rather than table top gamers. In my 3rd year, we got new leadership for the club, and the focus was brought back to wargaming.

That club was probably the best 1-2 years of wargaming I might ever have. Plenty of willing opponents, decent amount of (eventually) painted terrain, events at least once a week, and a huge amount of variety. 40K was probably the least played game system, as the focus was on wargaming, not on 40k or even GW. The president was big into spaceship combat and has written many rule sets for space combat, as well as modern combat. I learned everything from massive fleet warfare, to 28mm skirmish battles in the Wild West, to 6mm WWII and modern company and regimental level battles, to WW1 dogfighting games, and everything in between.

My advice is to immerse yourself in the entirety of what this hobby has to offer, and encourage others to explore as many games as they want. Run starter battles for various games, provide painting sessions and tutorials if you have a particularly skilled member. Be professional and courteous and maintain a clean club room. Have plenty of terrain for every game type and size. Encourage a fun atmosphere where sportsmanship is prized above all else and run events so everyone gets to know eachother.

I know that's a lot of points, and its expensive (especially all the terrain and different game systems), but if you can accomplish some or most of those, you should be golden.

Good luck with your endeavour. Remember, you'll only get out of it what you put into it.