The Bunker Hobbies and Games

Great store. Huge Warhammer and Magic coverage. Local boardgaming groups meet there as well. Boardgame stock not huge but growing. Open late on Friday nights. People there to teach you just about any game you want to learn. The people there are friendly and always ready to tell you what they are playing and why they like it. LARGE PLAYROOM in the back of the store.

Has a great selection of magic for a spot that’s not solely dedicated to it, great customer service, and fair prices

I’ve been here since the begging.
This is where I found my newest addiction (MTG) and most down to earth friends.
Everybody here is very friendly, they’d be happy give you the run down on any game you might want to play.
The table top community is strong here and I don’t see it diminishing at any rate.
The MTG part… needs direction.

One the best places in long beach area to play Magic the Gathering tournaments. The store looks humble from the front, but opens up into a huge back room full of tables where people are playing minatures, and tables where people are playing an assortment of magic and other card and board games.

They have limited stock, but whenever I’ve asked them to order something for me they get right on it. And it’s a great place to play tabletop games. There’s lots of tables, with a moderate amount of terrain.
I’ve been going there with Long Beach Geeks, who have regular meetings and game days there. And get a discount.

Went there yesterday for the first time. This place is top notch… what a great hobby store! Everyone who was there was extremely friendly and helpful. The store is also very large with a lot of gaming tables. I’ll definitely be back in the near future.

Awesome shop, I’ve only been there twice so far because I don’t buy MTG Cards often, but both trips, I got great deals and the guys are very knowledgeable. Not to mention, the back room is HUGE, which is cool for when they have events. Tons of room to play. lol

This place is great for tabletop miniature gaming, holds regular game nights, and has the friendliest owners… However it barely has any other board games in stock. For now, I will continue to buy board games from The War House and Brookhurst Hobbies, but I have high hopes for this place in the future.

This Bunker (not to be confused with the old Games Workshop Bunker in Huntington Beach) is a fine example of your «friendly neighborhood game store». Most caters to Magic, WH40K/​WHF, and Warmachine. Right off Del Amo/​Paramount, next door to Hap’s. Always nice to have a couple different eateries (and two bars: Cooper’s and Zanzabuku) within walking distance.
Front of the is their retail side and a back room has several tables (looks like six for CCGs and three or four for miniatures). I don’t know how long they’ve been open, as the inventory seems a bit sparse and the gaming area appears to be a work in progress. The staff (well, the only guy working with the long hair) was friendly and we talked some about Warmachine and he showed me some new products, namely the $ 13K Ultramarine army. Yes kids, you too can own and ENTIRE Space Marine chapter (ten companies worth). Completely silly, but then I’m a dork that pushes metal/​plastic minis across a table, so I can’t judge.
I’ll most likely be back to kibitz and find a pickup game. Hope these guys stick around for a while.

Great shop run by great guys! Lots of stuff to choose from, and plenty of gaming space. The shop fills a previous void of good gaming spaces in in the Lakewood /​Bellflower /​East LB area. Glad they opened up!

Wow 5 Stars! Which if you look at my history of reviews is a rating I rarely give. With the lost of Third Planet (TP), due to poor management and the down turn in the economy, the gaming community in the Southbay and surrounding areas had few options. The War House, which is fine if you can stand the dust or are able to actually get in a game on their single table, or the San Pedro GW Hobby Center (with its like 2.5ish tables) and that’s it, Brookhurst is too far away and isn’t Southbay adjacent so doesn’t count, but not anymore.
The Bunker Hobbies and Games is a new store by a bunch of local gamers as a «run by gamers for gamers» store, which is it. As TP was closing the owner put most of his inventory and fixtures up for sale which The Bunker guys bought as start up for their store (which is why they have old Third Planet items for sale and why many old TP shoppers will have a pleasant sense of familiarity i.e. especially the glass counter by the register).
True when the store opened they did not have much inventory (mostly TP leftovers), which was dealt with within the first week and they are now carrying lots of GW 40k and GW Fantasy (as the majority of new items) with Hordes, Warmachine, Dystopian Wars and some Flames of War (TP left overs) rounding out the miniatures section. They have MTG and L5R and are starting to carry battle foam as well. BTW as I write this they’ve just got the MTG 2014 core set (they had a midnight sale this morning) and are gonna start FNM soon as well.
Most of the owners and customers are GW gamers (and GW is representative of the bulk of their new product) but like any true gamer they are willing to give any game a try and if there is a large enough community I’m sure they’ll stock it regularly or, at least, try to special order for you. I don’t expect to see any small game company minis (as least not yet) as it make little sense for them to carry anything but the most popular «brands» until demand for small press items is large enough. So if you like Malifaux or other small press games bring them in and demo the game for folks.
New minis do not stay on the shelves very long so you may not see any, but don’t worry the guys can order it in for you. I got all my new Eldar and most of my new Tau there with no problems. Thankfully with the new Tau I got there I had no extended wait unlike the stuff I ordered from other stores before The Bunker opened (anyone who knows anything about GW knows how they treat independent retailers which is like crap (withholding new item shipments for example in order to drive shoppers to their stores or their website)). Oh yeah and The Bunker DOES OFFER DISCOUNTS on many of products they sell, if you’re not sure which, just ask.
The store is quickly becoming a haven for a large number of guys from the GW LA Battle Bunker which closed its doors and reopened as a tiny GW Hobby Center (which are unless for gaming as they usually have only one or two (three at the most) tables).The Bunker has nearly a dozen war game tables and a handful of TCG/​CCG tables as well. They even have a hobby table set up (and I think an airbrush and air compressor as well) for people to use to assemble minis.
I mentioned that they will start FNM soon and they have already held 40K RTT and with more GW events to follow. From my discussions with the owners they plan on having more events as the RTT was a huge success. This is great as the store is clean and has a large and growing community of players. I was there the other week, before the Black Market sale and every table was occupied with people playing 40K, Fantasy, MTG and heck there was even a game of BloodBowl.
Also if you’re looking to sell you your old minis you can sell them there (the store takes a small commission) or you can wait and sell at one of their Black Market weekends. The Black Market weekend (a concept GW did/​does) is a sellers market where you bring in your items to sell in exchange for store credit which you can use for either in stock items or for orders if what you want isn’t on the shelves.
So when shopping here for the first time, remember they are new at this and this is a new store, they need advice, suggestions and support from the gaming community. In closing the guys here are friendly, fellow nerds, the community is large and growing, it’s in Lakewood (which is only a few minutes away from the Southbay via the 91 Fwy or 405 Fwy), it has a huge gaming area, ample parking and many food and drink options within walking distance perfect for those all day battles. I have no doubt that this will become the store the local gaming community will flock to.

If you want to know where all the ancient merchandise from Third Planet went, now you know.
Oh boy! A new game store opening in the So Cal area, and I was excited to go. Since Third Planet shut down, the only place that’s local is Games Workshop San pedro, which has all the pros and cons of being an official GW store, and The War House, which is an indy store to its core.
I was hoping this new local store might add something to the gaming scene. Did I say «local?» Well for some people, it might be, and for those upset the LA Battle Bunker shut down they’re probably happy this new store has opened up. For me though, this was quite the drive.
Inside, the merchandise selection was pitiful. Old Lord of the Rings blisters from 2001. Turn over the merch on almost everything, and you’ll see an old Third Planet sticker on the back. I had to guess 90% of their old merch and store fictures was Third Planet’s. Which was weird, because wasn’t it the fact that people stopped playing tabletop games that caused Third Planet to go under? Wasn’t it comic and Magic: the Gathering sales the only thing keeping them afloat, near the end?
They even had an entire selection dedicated to Third Planet’s old clearance merch. Uh… if it didn’t sell back in the day, what makes you think it’s going to sell now? All this should be blown out on ebay, and prices used to purchase new product, of which this store has like, none.
There was no new Games Workshop, no Dark Vengeance, no new Tau Empire releases, no Riptide suit, no new High Elves release, no new Eldar releases, no new Apocalypse releases. There was some The Hobbit, though. Oh, and an old 40K2 Chimera, lol
The sign on all their the clearance merch said «prices as marked» but oddly none of the stuff has price tags on it. Maybe it’s free? What’s its price? I don’t know because the store staff couldn’t be bothered to label it, and I doubt any of the store’s three employees could be bothered to pull themselves away from the game of Magic: the Gathering they were playing behind the counter to tell me its clearance price.
They’re Flames of War and Monsterpocalypse selection was great, and well-​stocked, but that’s because no-​one bought it at Third Planet, back in the day. But the Flames of War is all the old resin and metal stuff, when Brookhurst Hobbies carries boxes of plastic 15 mm model tanks and figures.
There was no discount on anything Games Workshop, like Brookhurst Hobbies has, and I assume no loyalty card program. I’d ask about a loyalty card, but the staff could barely pull themselves away from the game of Magic: the Gathering they were playing to help me, let alone sell me on one.
So if the place sucks so much, why go? Well, I admit, they suckered me. They advertised on their facebook page (the company has no official website, another bad sign) that they were having a bring– and-​buy. They said bring stuff in and you could sell it for store credit.
Wow, that sounded good, so I was in!
Turns out what they meant was, it’s like the dealer’s table at a con, with a twist. You sit there, with a big box of your stuff, and wait. Once someone agrees to buy your old stuff, you write them a ticket and they pay at the store’s counter. The store gets the money, you get store credit, which I assume can be used toward their pitiful selection of merchandise, which you now pay full price on.
Oh boy! You mean I get to sit there like a chump, waste my valuable time just sitting at a booth, hoping against hope that someone will want to buy what I have at a discount, instead of just flogging on ebay, and even, if by some miracle, it *does* sell, I get to pay full sticker price on what little store merch they do have!
Psh, whatEVER. I know what I have; old sqaure-​based Epic stuff that I *know* is in demand on ebay, and the rest of my stuff is mint-​in– box. I’m not going to sit around all damn day and sell my stuff for nothing, when I could list it on ebay and have tons of people look (and bid) on it!
I pulled one of the guys away from the game of Magic: the Gathering they were so engrossed in behind the counter to ask if they would take some of my mint-​in-​box stuff, and they’re like, «Uh… I’ll have to ask my manager» Awesome, grown men in their late 30s acting like the squeaky-​voiced teen from the Simpsons.
About the only thing to recommend this store is its gaming area. It’s quite large and has tons of tables. But there was nobody in the gaming area, and the terrain was kinda sparse. Nothing like the old LA Battle Bunker. Dropping a few hundred bucks on GW terrain for the tables might be a good move for this store.
This store seems to be trying to make up for the LA Battle Bunker. But didn’t the LA Bunker get reduced because it was expensive to maintain a large gaming area, and existing players don’t spend as much as new players? Doubling down on Third Planet old merch doesn’t seem to be

This place is awesome, lots of space, great gaming tables and a wide variety of games and events. Staff are very nice and the gamers are nice too!
Very clean!