How's the skirmish game going in your neck of the woods?

It doesn't seem like it's quite taken off over here in the San Francisco Bay Area. At least not in the South Bay. The first couple weeks when it came out, there were tons of games being played. But now it's crickets.

Does anyone have a hotbed of skirmish activity at their FLGS? Do you have 8 or more players at events or game nights? The sole tournament that has happened around here only drew 4 players.

If you have a thriving community, how did it get that way? Leagues? Events? Everyone dressed in metal bikinis?

The game is new and trying to get people into a new game can be hard

We have about a dozen regular players in the area. Not a hotbed by any means, but enough to keep things fun for now.

There's a lot of Campaign players around the Tampa Bay area, and they all seem interested in Skirmish, but a lot of them haven't even tried it for some reason.

Hoping to change that soon with a league.

Our area is huge on X-Wing, and Armada seems to be picking up steam now too, but IA seems to not be going anywhere.

We're going to try set up a tournament at a local store sometime soon so hopefully that helps. I love skirmish mode. Played it way more than campaign so far actually.

Only myself and one other have bought the game and he plays in my campaign group. He doesn't bring his game except for the hero he plays that he's got painted up. It'd be pretty interesting to try Skirmish except needing multiple copies of the game. That's the reason why our group hasn't tried it or gotten a IA tourny off yet.

You don't need multiple copies if you have one of all wave 1.

You don't need multiple copies if you have one of all wave 1.

Can't play a tourny with a single copy. I believe everyone is supposed to play the same mission in the round which isn't happening with 4+ players and 1 core set even with all expansions.

It has here. We had our first ever tournament on May 9th. Four of us, one of whom had never played and used my extra squad. Since then he has bought the game, started the wiki and tournament tracking site. And a bunch of new people in our NS facebook group have started to play and are talking about skirmish now.

It has here. We had our first ever tournament on May 9th. Four of us, one of whom had never played and used my extra squad. Since then he has bought the game, started the wiki and tournament tracking site. And a bunch of new people in our NS facebook group have started to play and are talking about skirmish now.

*blush* Not to mention I know at least 4 other people who have picked up Core sets since then locally and are planning on playing in the Regionals, it's looking pretty good!

I have been entertaining the the idea of hosting a store tournament at my FLGS. The owner already has the Armada tournament kit and just needs someone to take the reins. However I am uncertain just how many players there are or if there are enough potential players to run a proper tournament. I have two friends that play besides me, however both are so busy with real life that it is a genuine challenge for me to get one of them available for a game once every two weeks or so. I seriously doubt either could schedule time to participate in a tournament even if they wanted to. There is a large X-Wing following here and I have heard that there are a few Armada players starting to frequent my FLGS. My plan is to start showing up there with my fleets ready for a game from time to time to meet people and get a feel for how many people around here are playing. I know that the game has sold relatively well. If I find there is enough interest I will volunteer to host a tournament.

The issue with IA picking up traction is that new players will want to play a campaign first, which takes a few weeks, then the transition from Campaign to Skirmish is a little odd. Skirmish is great but it'll definitely take some time to build steam and the new player growth rate will be slower than other similar titles. That said, it's at least not going away! I attended a regional IA tourney today, many people traveled anywhere from 2 to 4 hours to show up. It wasn't a huge event, but it was nice to see some competitive players bringing their A game.

It may take sitting some non-believers down to play skirmish a few times, primarily those who enjoyed the campaign but for whatever reason haven't played skirmish for more than a passing moment.

I started demoing with Skirmish since the rules are easier. Now a few people are asking about the campaign but interest in Skirmish has remained strong.

FFG should come out with an Imperial Assault skirmish starter set. It would serve 2 purposes:

1. Make it more obvious that there's Skirmish game. I think a lot of players only think Imperial Assault is a campaign game. ala Descent.
2. Make it more affordable for players only interested in Skirmish

No map tiles. No AT-ST. Only 1 squad of Stormtroopers. +all the other figures the core set comes with.

FFG should come out with an Imperial Assault skirmish starter set. It would serve 2 purposes:

1. Make it more obvious that there's Skirmish game. I think a lot of players only think Imperial Assault is a campaign game. ala Descent.
2. Make it more affordable for players only interested in Skirmish

No map tiles. No AT-ST. Only 1 squad of Stormtroopers. +all the other figures the core set comes with.

You need the tiles for tournament play not sure what good this would be then.

Related to this, a buddy and I saved some money by splitting one for his first set and my second one. He was only interested in Skirmishing as Rebels, and I wanted some more Imperials/Mercs out of the core so seemed like a good deal for both of us. I got the 21 generic Imperial minis (let him have Vader and the AT-ST since they're cool to have) and the 6 generic Mercs, plus all related deployment cards, and he got everything else in the box. Pretty specific scenario but definitely a way to get friends into the game.

I'm told by my LGS the that they have sold close to a dozen core sets, but no one has returned to the store inquiring about OP. This saddens me quite a lot, as I am really looking forward to tournament play and the prize kits.

I am running a demo of this game on sunday at a local con, so I am hoping to drum up interest into OP with it then. But my hopes are not too high for that to happen. :/

The biggest problem with skirmish is having to build a map before every game. If they released a map board like the X-Wing playmats, they'd have skirmish triple it's popularity.

It's not exactly hard to build a map. They even give you 10 minutes during each round to do it.

It's not exactly hard to build a map. They even give you 10 minutes during each round to do it.

I'm not complaining that it is difficult, but rather that I find it annoying. severely annoying.

If you play 6 rounds that's an hour of time wasted.

It also means that each player has to own their own copy of the base game, plus any expansions that tournament legal map tiles come from.

No it doesn't. You need one set of tiles for every two players. Share.

Not according to the tournament rules.

In friendly games it's fine to share, but if you are traveling to a tournament you can't rely on everyone else bringing enough tiles for everyone.

Besides, up to 5 players can play a campaign using a single set of IA. When enough content is out those 5 players will have enough figures to make a skirmish squad each but only a single set of tiles. If 3+ wanted to go to a tournament together they couldn't share.

Using printed maps would allow them all to participate.

That's only enforced for store champs upwards. For the game night kits or otherwise its up to the TO. All the legal tournament maps are from the base game.

For now, the map in twin shadows is mos eisley cantina.

A cantina tile is shown in the twin shadows preview so it's probable that the skirmish mission requires base + expansion content.