How do you find players?

[parjlarsson]

More or less copy-paste from a blogpost, but I really would love to hear how people find players, esp. for Aeronautica Imperialis, Dark Future, Epic 40K and the like.

Cheers.

http://warhammerswede.blogspot.com/2011/11/how-to-find-players.html

Finding players is a huge issue for some of us.

Well-supported, popular games and you don't care who you play or what terrain or format or how things are done or the WAAC meta? Congratulations, you're all set. But for Man O' War, BFG, Aeronautica Imperialis, Epic 40K, Necromunda, Mordheim, Dark Future and whatnot you're a bit S.O.L.

I've been working on solutions. Best I can find is these:

• Google gaming stores. Use the Games Workshop store locator. Google "" and all the games you're interested in. Keep in mind that people who play a well-spread game like Epic 40K might be open to BFG or AI. 40K players might be interested in Necromunda or its fan-made variants that they don't have to buy stuff for. Fantasy players will be interested in Mordheim etc.
• http://nearbygamers.com/ - Probably the biggest of the "let's make a database for gamers" websites.
• http://www.accessdenied.net/ - Nicely set up, but seems to have a lot VERY OLD information.
• http://www.meetup.com/ - Good for lots of popular things, not so good for trying to find people to play old board games/wargames with. If you want something not just for wargaming, this is it.
• http://needgamers.com/ - New startup that looks great. But not so great once you realize the guy who's operating it is just doubling up on the work already done by people on the three above websites.
• http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?372312-A-List-of-Player-Finders - Where I found most of this, some dead links, and the RPG one is a non-functional website (process died halfway through registration).
• www.boardgamegeek.com is a great website, but sadly not much in the way of finding players. They really should have put a map up and let people network.

I recently purchased an awesome vintage 1980s GW game called "Dark Future" - but finding people to play with is going to be a...

San Diego specific stuff I've found (might be in DC soon enough):

• http://www.gameempire.com/forum/
• http://rpg-sandiego.org/

[oldbard]

Unless you pay for advertising, one way to find players is to find forums related to the type of game you need players for. That's how the game, The Grid, got a following. Example: http://celtruler.com/games/thegrid/

[Jimmy Zimms]

Simple: Coopt friends, family, and co-workers into the game. I suggest that you pick ONE game to focus on and produce enough units to play a 1x1 game with (this is especially easy with BFG as 2-4 cruisers on a side is enough for a good game). After a few sessions you'll probably find they are adicted and then point them to ebay. Before you know it they are collecting and converting other people themselves!

[pw]

When I started playing Blood Bowl 'seriously', I convinced a non-gaming friend that it was a 'sports board game' and lent him my toys. Once he was hooked we found players by advertising a league on ebay! That was about 8 years ago and things have gone from strength to strength and the league/tournament we set up are still going strong. But, to be fair, BB has a very strong fanbase compared to WM etc.