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 mattl wrote:
Yeah, you have a club full of people. I have none of that.

I'm just a person who wants to play non-GW games, specifically Mantic Games, locally at a store. I can't afford to have rules about painted minis or even minis if I want to play anytime soon.

As such I don't play and as such I don't spend enough time on my hobby. I don't have a solution to that. I've tried to be as open as possible to playing the games I want to play.

Preach! We moved to rural Oregon almost 10 years ago. I had been gaming with miniatures since around 2000 at each military assignment. My choice at every one of those bases was play 40k, WHFB or in one location FoW was permissible. Otherwise, you didn’t play anything.

Here, it’s 40k (not just GW games but only 40k or nothing). By chance I ran into one other guy who would play basically anything. We’ve since grown to a whole five of us. If I hadn’t chanced upon these people, I would be playing nothing or 40k.

mattl wrote:I'm just a person who wants to play non-GW games, specifically Mantic Games, locally at a store.

Are you a regular at a store (and feel comfortable with talking to the manager)? Or is there a local convention you can attend?

Looks like Mantic has a demo program, aka. Pathfinder!
https://www.manticgames.com/pathfinders/

I used to run demos at local stores and conventions. Conventions will give you *free* admission, and there's always someone interested. Local stores are less fun, as you often sit there waiting, and customers often only have time to shop or for a scheduled tournament.

If you only want to play in a tournament, it's not going to work. But, if you're willing to demo and play with n00bs, or can run a tournament, definitely look into it!

Also, if you play Mantic boardgames (eg. Worms) there's always Meetup.com. Attend a boardgame Meetup, bring boardgames you like to play, teach the casuals.

Please see the thread on Building a Community.

As trite as it sounds, if you want to play a different game it takes a lot of work and you will have to be the one leading the charge.

Sorry for the bad news. There are times in my life where I decided it was not worth it, and times where I decided it was. Hopefully, now if a good time to make it happen. Good luck.

 mattl wrote:
Yeah, you have a club full of people. I have none of that.

I'm just a person who wants to play non-GW games, specifically Mantic Games, locally at a store. I can't afford to have rules about painted minis or even minis if I want to play anytime soon.

Fair enough.

Starting and maintaining something isn't easy
We started with 3, have never really gotten over 8 active and currently have 6.

It is work, but you only need to find a few like minded people to make a group.

 Eilif wrote:

 mattl wrote:
Yeah, you have a club full of people. I have none of that.

I'm just a person who wants to play non-GW games, specifically Mantic Games, locally at a store. I can't afford to have rules about painted minis or even minis if I want to play anytime soon.

Fair enough.

Starting and maintaining something isn't easy
We started with 3, have never really gotten over 8 active and currently have 6.

It is work, but you only need to find a few like minded people to make a group.

My issue is that my only local shop is a Warhammer store and the game's there are usually limited to 40k combat Patrol and the occasional Kill Team. They run zero leagues at all... due to their being a giant game store a couple of towns over that do everything (except for have a store that's accessible to those using public transpo).

I have found that if your FLGS is not providing the experience you want, you will have to build it someplace else.

Again, it is hard and not easy; but it can be done.

For me, I don’t have the time or the energy anymore. My health is failing me at this point.

Around 12/13 years ago I started trying to get Kings of War going locally. This was a time when WHFB was dying but not quite dead. I ran demos, I went to lots of events and local stores… Kings of War was a very small rules included with Mantic minis and they didn’t have a huge range of stuff.

I lived in Austin, TX for a year and it was great (for Kings of War at least) as there was a regular group that met up at Dragon’s Lair and this was when Mantic still had a forum and Discord hadn’t ruined things.

But on my return to New England, it has been very quiet. I haven’t played Kings of War for almost a decade now.

I spend most of my time in/around Boston and there aren’t many stores that have space to play and those that do don’t have much or it’s shared amongst all the other reasons people might go into a store that sells miniature wargaming stuff: Magic the Gathering, D&D, board games… those places limit gaming and painting to one day a week (usually a Monday) and some charge a few dollars to sign up for a spot.

It’s just not a great area for non-GW stuff and especially not for Mantic stuff.

There are pockets of the US where more people play Kings of War. I think Albany, NY is closest to me and that’s a multiple hour train ride each way and not something I would want to do with any regularity with a bunch of toy soldiers.

People just don’t want to play the main game I want to play, and I really doubt they’ll be playing Epic Warpath as the boxes start to arrive over the next few weeks. I posted about this on a local group recently and the response I got was “Well I don’t play Kings of War but maybe you could play Frostgrave or Battlefleet Gothic?”

I could play those but I’d have to buy models for them and I don’t have the energy or the money to do that right now and honestly I don’t have any interest in learning to play yet another game.

I don't think think this thread is good enough for Dakka and should be removed post haste.

 mattl wrote:
For me, I don’t have the time or the energy anymore. My health is failing me at this point.

I am sorry to hear this. I wish I lived closer, because I would gladly play Kings of War with you.

Thanks. Kings of War Champions is more my speed for hobby stuff of late... but I do need to try and get back into painting my dwarf army.