I am gathering various bits of data for my own purposes, and am curious how many Sentinels fans live in the UK, in particular in (or with easy access to) the Greater London area. Also, for those of you who fall in this category, what gaming store(s) are nearest to you / do you frequent the most?
Thanks!
Ooh, me, me, I'm in the UK! It takes about 45 mins to an hour to get to London (Victoria) by train (can also get to London Bridge/Waterloo East/Charing Cross direct from my home station as well, but Victoria is a bit quicker). When buying gaming stuff I tend to just go online (Games Lore or Amazon, usually), but there's a Forbidden Planet that I tend to have a mooch around in when I'm in London - it's just along the road from Covent Garden (the Tube station). There's also a dinky little gaming store called Time Trek in Bromley - since I work in Bromley (until I can manage to find a new job, one that's closer to home and less crap :P), this is accessible too but I very rarely go in there.
There's also apparently a gaming store in Maidstone called the Grinning Demon, though I've never been there - Maidstone would be a bus ride away for me. Other than a few Games Workshop stores (bleh) here and there, that's about all I can think of in terms of stuff I can get to fairly easily. And like I said, I don't ever really go looking for gaming stuff in shops, the two mains reasons being that they require some amount of travelling to get to, and that it's cheaper (and more convenient) to just buy anything I want online :).
A Londoner here. I tend to buy online from a member of my board-games group who runes a wbstore (www.boardgameguru.co.uk). There are two major stores in London, Leisure Games (www.leisuregames.com) and Orcs Nest (www.orcsnest.com). Orcs Nest is the most central but has a smaller shop, although neither are massive as London land is expensive as hell. I hope your nefarious schems go well.
Another Londoner here! The only gaming shop I frequent is Forbidden Planet, which Ameena mentioned, and I do most of my game shopping online. I do consider pretty much all of London close enough to go to, however 
Good luck with your scheming, and whatever your plans are I truly hope they come to fruition.
I'd say that Orcs Nest is more of a miniatures store, as the boardgames are up on a cramped mezzanine. It's fair to say that Leisure Games is the 'big' London game store; I would also recommend Heroes and Legends, although they are also predominately miniatures centric they do at least have some playing space. Ace comics is a wash out - they only keep half a shelf of games out unless it's christmas, then again it may be a more Sentinels friendly sort of place. tbh there is an ashamedly small number of dedicated brick and mortar stores in London. Pandemonium in Sheen is my nearest, they keep a great selection of games but it's truly a toy shop and a real rabbit warren, totally awesome for a six year old though.
I guess a lot depends on what you guys are hoping to achieve. There is the UK games expo I mentioned in another thread, there is also Game Camp to think about which is more of a design centric expo that also extends beyond boardgames (gamecamp.org.uk). If you want to talk to consumers in a retail environment then the most effective method may be through online retailers; if you want to connect to gamers in person then the expo is the place to have a presence. If this is about broadening exposure in the marketplace in general then it could be useful to talk to a distributor who has connections into high street retailers. I've no idea who you currently sell to or what terms you work under, probably Esdevium? One of the regulars at my gaming group distributes for GameWright amongst other things and has some inroads into multiple retaileres, it's highly speculative that SotM would gain any ground in that environment but do let me know if you want me to hook you up.
Whatever you are plotting I wish you well!
Londoner born and bred here too.
I use all the stores that Pwatson has listed here so I'm just going to quote his post!
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Oh, and Forbidden Planet like Ameena
I've never heard of Leisure Games - where's that? The only gaming store I know of in London is FP, as mentioned. Whenever I go to London (unless I'm only going to one specific place, for exapmle on the occasions I went to see QI being recorded) I get a Travelcard so I bascially have unlimited travel on the Tube without having to pay anything extra. So although I approach London from the southeast (I live in one of the Medway Towns, in Kent), I could conceivably get to anywhere accessible by Tube. Which pretty much everywhere in London is :).
http://www.leisuregames.com/acatalog/Directions.html That says where Leisure gaems is. it's north london, on the northern line.
Leisure Games is the closest thing to a 'proper' game store, i.e. a good sized store where boardgames are front and centre and not just tucked up the back somewhere, but it might as well be on the moon up there at the fag end of the Northern Line. Forbidden Planet is absolutely the mecca for all things geek and right in the heart of London (and they now have several branches around the country), but a far stretch from being a game store as their retail space is almost entirely focused on collectible figurines and comics. Last time I was there I found a few shelves down in the basement with Roleplay source books and a handful of (overpriced) fairly mainstream games, heroclix, MtG, etc. Anyway, they do at least have a fuller selection of stuff up on their website: http://forbiddenplanet.com/
Hmm looks cool - might have to go and check that out some day. FP is a bit...rubbish...when it comes to RP stuff and actual games, plus they're pretty expensive :P.
Ameena, have you tried Orcs Nest? They're pretty close to FP. Just keep on going down the road ro FP and you'll find them. The shop is pretty small, but the shelves are pretty full of stuff.. Although it is mostly role playing rather than boardgames.
I'm in the Midlands. Heading into London would be a day out for me. I order pretty much all my games online. I mainly use www.gameslore.com, www.iguk.co.uk and www.boardgameguru.co.uk. Not forgetting Amazon and eBay. And far too many through Kickstarter!
No, I've not heard of Orc's Nest. I get to FP by going along Neal Street from Covent Garden station, which brings me out opposite FP and I just have to cross a road to get to it (whatever that main road is called). RPing is something I'm into, in fact I was into RPing first, then sort of got into the card games when I only had one person to play stuff with. Next time we're in London we'll have to check these places out.
Maybe one day us Englandy people could have a meet up in London or something and play a load of Sentinels :D. I've had a few gamings meets before - a few EQ-related ones (guild meets, one of which was in Paris but the rest were in London) and one Dungeon Master one (computer game that came out in 1987) on its 20th anniversary in 2007. It would be cool to play Sentinels with more than one other person but so far no luck :P.
Orcs Nest is just down the road from there. Literally. Turn left rather than crossing over and you'll find Orcs Nest fairly soon after.
And I know I've mentioned the meetup London on Board for a potential meet up of British Sentinels fans. One of the Sunday meets would probably be easiest rather than an evening.
Yep, Orc's Nest is right on Cambridge Circus, although it is pretty easy to walk past it even when you know where it is and it's painted bright bloody yellow. They have some pics of what the store looks on their website.
Like Paul says, drop in to LoB and you can get a game of pretty much whatever you like. I usually go to Isleworth Boardgamers as it's more local for me and the weekends are family time. I'd be up for a Sentinels specific meet but it would probably be easiest to work this into an existing club night somewhere.
Hmm, well, maybe I can look into it. I did lok at the London on Board site after you linked it a while back, but can't remember when (or where) it is, off the top of my head. It'd have to be at a weekend, really, for both myself and my partner to be able to come alone. Maybe something worth looking into at some point, anyway :).
It's at the Old Star, 66 Broadway, Westminster on Sundays and the Red Herring, Gresham Street, St Pauls on most Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday evenings. I tend to be an evening rather than a weekend person but if you want a game or several, I can probably make it down.
Well, at the risk of derailing Paul's thread even further why don't we set something up? I might be able to swing a couple of hours one Sunday, just not a regular thing, and I travel through Kings Cross once or twice a month on work so could head into town instead of home. Tue the 22nd is the next likely date I could pull that off.
Since it takes about an hour to get to London (give or take 10 mins depending on which train I get) and the same time to get back, I'd rather not do anything on an evening if I'd have to be travelling back late at night, especially by myself. Also, if I have work in the morning, that's an issue too ;). In terms of evenings, a Friday or Saturday would be best - then my partner can come too (he works every weekday while I only work three), plus he lives closer to London (Swanley) so if we're coming from/going back to his house, it's less of a trip ;). Note that travel time doesn't include Tube time so I'd have to add that on in terms of getting anywhere - basically when travelling anywhere in London I tend to get the Tube to whichever station is nearest to where I'm going (unless I'm already fairly close of course ;)) and avoid getting lost ;).
I work on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, finishing at 6pm. A weekend would be best for me to do anything but if a Sunday then preferably not in the evening as my partner and I would need to get home again add he'd have work the next day. Also there are less trains on a Sunday sow e'd have to bear that in mind as well. There's also the matter that I'm (still :P) looking for a new job so you never know, at some point (hey, I've only been looking for like, a year :P) my available time might change.
The Meetup on Sundays starts at 11 a.m. and goes through until we get kicked out of the pub, so there should be plenty of time for a few games then.
The evening meetups start around 5:30 and I tend to run off around 10 to get my trains home.
In both cases, turning up late and leaving early are perfectly permissible.
The easiest thing to do is join london on board on meetup so you can see when they are and we PM each other to sort oout the best time.