Why We Built a Dedicated Wargaming Venue—and What It Takes to Keep It Going

More Than a Shop. More Than a Club.

By Phil, co-owner of Mighty Melee Games and organised-play organiser

Nearly two years into life at Unit 96, it feels like the right time to look back at why we built a dedicated wargaming venue, what we have learnt along the way and what it takes to keep it going. This is our journey so far.

When we opened Mighty Melee Games, we did not simply want to build another shop that happened to have a few gaming tables at the back.

We wanted to create a proper home for tabletop wargaming: somewhere people could play regularly, meet opponents, join leagues, attend events and become part of a community.

That idea has shaped every major decision we have made.

Where It Really Began

Before there was a Mighty Melee Games, there was Dan at Warhammer Crewe.

Dan poured his own love of wargaming into Harry. He made the hobby feel exciting, welcoming and worth becoming part of—and that enthusiasm caught hold of the rest of us too.

That lit the fuse.

What began with Harry’s enthusiasm became something our whole family could see the value in: not only the models and games, but the friendships, shared experiences and sense of belonging that grow around them. Without that first welcome into the hobby, Mighty Melee Games might never have existed.

Our first shop opened on Market Drayton High Street on 10 June 2023. It gave Mighty Melee Games a beginning, but it also showed us that the thing people valued most was not simply having somewhere local to buy models. They wanted somewhere to use them.

As the community grew, so did the demand for gaming space. We needed more tables, better terrain, room for organised events and a venue that could support regular evening play without gaming feeling like an afterthought.

So, on 2 October 2024, we opened our dedicated venue at Unit 96, Tern Valley Business Park, on the edge of Market Drayton.

Built Around Playing Games

The starting point was simple: if gaming is at the heart of the business, the venue should be designed around the people playing there.

MMG has ten full-size 6' × 4' gaming tables, allowing us to host up to 20 players for full-sized wargaming events. For smaller-format games such as Spearhead, Combat Patrol and Blood Bowl, we can accommodate more than 30 players.

The gaming area is set at kitchen-counter height, which makes long games more comfortable and reduces the amount of bending over the table. Tall stools give players somewhere to sit between turns without compromising the space around each battlefield.

There is room beneath the tables for armies, cases and gaming equipment, helping to keep walkways clear and models safer. The building’s design and materials do not make temperature control easy: in practice, we are trying to keep a giant tin box warm in winter and cool in summer. We have heating for the colder months, along with fans and air conditioning when the temperature rises, and we do what we can to keep the venue comfortable. None of those details is glamorous, but they matter when people are spending an entire evening—or a full tournament day—at MMG.

A dedicated wargaming venue should make it easier to concentrate on the game, not leave players working around the limitations of the room.

Terrain Is Part of the Experience

Good terrain does more than fill a table. It affects how a game plays, how fair it feels and how memorable it looks.

Our terrain collection is extensive, printed in-house and continually expanding. We add new sets as games, missions and organised-play standards develop, rather than treating terrain as something that can be bought once and forgotten.

That gives us the flexibility to support different systems properly. A Warhammer 40,000 tournament table has different needs from a game of Age of Sigmar, The Old World, Bolt Action or a narrative battle. The table should suit the game being played on it.

It also means that players can arrive with their army and know that the battlefield is already taken care of.

Why Evening Gaming Matters

For many adults, finding an opponent is only half the problem. The other half is finding a suitable place and time to play.

Work, family life and travel all compete for the same hours. Not everyone has space for a gaming table at home, and not everyone wants to spend an evening packing scenery into the car before they can roll a dice.

Our regular evening gaming sessions are intended to remove those barriers. Players can book a table, arrive after work and get a proper game in using suitable mats and terrain. Members of our D6+ scheme can play during regular gaming evenings without paying a separate table fee each time.

That consistency matters. A community grows when people know there will be tables available, opponents looking for games and another session next week.

A Safe Place to Play, Talk and Belong

Wargaming gives people more than a game. At its best, it creates a safe, welcoming space where people can switch off from the pressures of everyday life and spend a few hours with others who understand their hobby.

That matters for mental health.

Men are not always very good at sitting down and saying that something is wrong. Put some models on a table, give them a shared project at the painting desk or let them chat on Discord, and conversation often comes more naturally. People talk while they play. They check in on one another between games. They notice when somebody has gone quiet.

MMG is not a mental-health service, but it can be—and often is—a place where people feel less isolated. The hobby gives the conversation somewhere to begin.

We would also love to see more women gaming at MMG. A healthier community includes different people, perspectives and experiences—and, for obvious reasons, probably a few fewer beards too. Everyone who wants to enjoy the hobby should feel that there is a place for them here.

More Than Casual Games

From the beginning, organised play has been central to MMG.

We run leagues, tournaments, one-day events, doubles events, campaigns and smaller-format competitions across a range of systems. Some players want a relaxed game with a friend. Others enjoy testing themselves against unfamiliar opponents, working towards a league placing or spending a full day immersed in their chosen game.

Our refs are volunteers, but we do not simply hand them a problem and leave them to it. MMG provides the structure behind our organised play and supports them with the relevant codexes, battletomes and event materials. Their time and judgement are invaluable; our job is to give them the tools and framework they need.

A dedicated venue should be able to support both.

Organised play gives people a reason to finish an army, try a new format and play opponents they might never otherwise meet. It also gives newer players a route into the wider community. Joining a league can turn “I would like to play more often” into five games already in the diary.

The event itself is only part of the value. Friendships form between rounds. Players arrange rematches. People begin new armies because someone else has inspired them. The community becomes bigger than any one event.

Connecting the Local Wargaming Community

We have deliberately focused MMG on tabletop wargaming rather than trying to become all things to all hobbyists. Trading card games already have their own communities and places to play. Our aim is to give wargamers the space, tables, terrain and organised play that their games need.

That does not mean trying to replace existing clubs and groups. Quite the opposite: we want to help connect the local wargaming community.

Players from the Purple Sparkly Unicorns (PSU), Rebel Base and TFG regularly play at MMG, alongside independent groups of friends and people who first met through our Discord. Those connections make the whole local scene stronger. A big thank you to all three groups—and to everyone who chooses to make MMG part of their gaming life.

We are also proud to sponsor Dead Red Gaming, an active and competitive group of wargamers based in the North East who attend events across the UK. We first got to know the team through Gareth H who was instrumental in helping us establish our Warhammer 40,000 organised-play programme, which remains the best-supported part of what we do. Our thanks to all the DRG lads who represent the team while wearing shirts bearing the MMG logo.

Discord is central to all of this. It connects the community around MMG and reaches into the wider regional wargaming scene. We use it to arrange games, run leagues, publish pairings and updates, wrangle event participants, answer questions and keep conversations going between visits. A great deal of what happens on the tables begins with a message on Discord.

Warhammer is comfortably the biggest part of what we do. Games Workshop supports its systems with a constant flow of rules updates, releases and new toys, so there is rarely a shortage of something to talk about, paint or put on the table. We lean heavily into that demand while continuing to support other wargames where a local community wants to play them.

A Place to Start

Wargaming can be difficult to enter from the outside.

You can buy a box of models and enjoy building and painting them, but taking the next step—finding an opponent, learning the rules and playing in public for the first time—can feel much harder.

Part of our role is to make that step easier. We introduce people to local players, help them find the right game system or format and connect them with the relevant part of our community. You do not need to arrive with years of experience or a tournament-ready army. You just need an interest in playing.

The physical venue gives people somewhere to meet; Discord helps them find their way into it. Someone can ask a question, find an opponent or introduce themselves before ever walking through the door, which makes that first visit much easier.

We would like to see more hobby activity taking place in the venue too. That is something we are actively working on: we have already bought eight rather snazzy hobby clamps for group building and painting sessions. Not everybody wants to hobby alone at the kitchen table, and making things together can be just as social as playing a game.

What We Have Learnt Since Opening

The biggest lesson is that tables alone do not create a community.

A venue needs consistency. It needs regular opening hours, reliable events, clear communication and people willing to welcome the next player through the door. It needs organisers and referees who are prepared to make decisions, learn from mistakes and keep improving.

It also needs to be led by the community. MMG provides the venue and much of the structure, but the energy comes from the people who play here. We are fortunate to have a lovely pool of community members who willingly go the extra mile: teaching games, refereeing events, welcoming new players, sharing advice, building enthusiasm and helping make the place special.

It is difficult to write about this without sounding trite, but seeing friendships form and people grow in confidence has been one of the most humbling parts of running MMG. People arrive knowing nobody, then become regular opponents, teammates and friends. Some go on to teach games, help at events or become the person who welcomes the next newcomer through the door. 

We have also learnt that different games and formats need different kinds of support. What works for a large Warhammer 40,000 league may not work for Spearhead, Blood Bowl or The Old World. Some communities grow through tournaments; others need regular casual nights, beginner-friendly formats or a small group of committed organisers.

Not every idea works first time. Attendance changes. Games rise and fall in popularity. Event formats need adjusting. The important thing is to listen, learn and keep building around what helps people get games in.

Most importantly, we have learnt that people value having a place that takes their hobby seriously.

That does not mean every game needs to be competitive. It means providing proper tables, suitable terrain, enough time to play and a community in which the hobby is understood rather than merely tolerated.

The Difficult Economics of Gaming Space

There is also an economic reality to running a dedicated venue: table space is expensive.

Every gaming table occupies floor space that could otherwise hold retail stock. Heating, cooling, lighting, terrain, maintenance and staffing all cost money, whether a table is being used that evening or not.

We believe in being honest about that. Community matters enormously, but the numbers still have to work.

If we were designing a business purely around retail efficiency, the answer would probably be a black-box fulfilment unit with a collection counter: lower overheads, tighter margins and a relentless focus on online growth.

Another model might put a café and collection counter at the front, with the same efficient online operation behind it. Better coffee, better use of customer-facing space and another source of margin.

Discounts, Margins and a Middle-Sized Cheese

People often assume Games Workshop makes a fortune. They may be right. But whatever you think of its prices, Games Workshop produces some of the best miniatures and gaming systems in the world, supported by an extraordinary stream of online content, lore, novels and new releases. The complete Warhammer ecosystem is difficult for anyone else to match.

Life at an independent friendly local gaming store is rather less assured.

The UK market is dominated by large online retailers offering a flat 20% discount across most, if not all, of the Games Workshop range. For most of MMG’s life, we followed that model too.

But a discount is only one side of the calculation. Once VAT and wholesale cost are accounted for, selling at 20% below RRP leaves surprisingly little gross margin on a typical Warhammer kit—and books and codexes are tighter still. Gross margin is not profit: it must cover card fees, wages, rent, utilities, packaging, damaged stock, terrain and every other cost of running the business.

We have therefore moved to 15% off our standard Games Workshop range—including models, books and paints—while keeping 20% off pre-orders during the two-week pre-order window. Five percentage points may not sound transformative, but they make a substantial difference to what remains to support the venue after each sale.

Would we rather stay at a flat 20% discount? Yes. But the economics of operating an FLGS with ten gaming tables are against us.

We are now a middle-ish-sized cheese with aspirations of becoming a bigger-sized cheese. Perhaps, when we have a warehouse manned by servitors, the efficiencies will allow us to return to 20% across the board. For now, 15% on the standard range and 20% on pre-orders is our middle ground: still a meaningful saving for customers, but more sustainable for MMG.

A traditional gaming club has a different calculation: its overheads need to be met through table fees and monthly subscriptions.

MMG is trying to fold the club into the online retail business. The success of our online shop helps fund the physical space and allows us to keep ten proper tables available for the community. In return, the venue gives the business a purpose and a community that a warehouse alone could never create.

But online retail cannot be expected to carry unused gaming space indefinitely. Put bluntly, if the tables are not busy and there are not enough D6+ members, the tables do not pay for the floor space they occupy.

That is the “club” side of MMG showing. Table fees and monthly memberships are not an optional extra to the model: they are what make dedicated gaming space viable. Without enough regular players and subscribers, the club side does not work.

It is not easy, but we think it is working—and moving in the right direction. Busy tables, regular table fees and D6+ memberships are what will allow the MMG model, as it stands, to keep thriving. Supporting the venue and shopping with MMG are not separate things; together, they make the whole model possible.

That balance will keep evolving. But we believe a specialist wargaming shop should give people somewhere to play the games and use the models it sells. The online side helps us protect that principle in the real world.

More Than a Shop. More Than a Club.

A shop sells products. A club brings a group of players together. Mighty Melee Games has elements of both, but the aim has always been something broader: a dedicated home for tabletop wargaming.

We want MMG to be a place where somebody can play their first game, attend their first tournament, complete their first league and still be rolling dice years later. A place where experienced players can find strong competition, returning hobbyists can reconnect with the games they love and newcomers can find their way into the community.

Is MMG perfect? No. There is still plenty to do, and we are still learning. We want to keep adding terrain, refining our events, creating more opportunities to hobby together and responding to the way the community plays.

But as we approach our second anniversary at Unit 96, we are pretty happy with where things are—and enormously grateful to everyone who has helped us get here.

One part of that future is already decided: from 2027, MMG will open on Saturdays for retail, casual gaming and hobby time. It is another step towards making the venue available more often and creating more opportunities for people to spend time in the hobby together.

What else might the future hold? We have ideas. Stay tuned.

Battle. Bond. Belong.

That is why we built a dedicated wargaming venue—and why we will keep working to make it better.

---

Want to get involved? Visit our MMG Links page to join the Discord, explore upcoming events and find your next game.