First tourney we had 12 players.

Second, Eight.

Third, Six.

Fourth and Fifth, no one bothered to show up.

No one plays pick up games anymore; There used to be at least two on a weekend.

No Massing At Sullust since we're out of USA/UK. We get the feeling FFG doesn't care very much for the Asia Pacific region (despite you know, having most of the world's population/customers in it.)

Heck, even one tourney kit would have gotten massive interest going again in the game.

No news on Wave 2 means that Armada is dead for the forseeable future. I've sold off my Imperial fleet at a loss, since it wasn't seeing any table time.

Any ideas on how to get it back and up running again?

Step 1 - Don't sell off the models you'd need to demo/play the game...

I'd suggest waiting until wave 2 hits in a couple of weeks and demoing games using Star Destroyers and MC80's, Endor Stylee!

Where do you live in Asia/Pacific?

Is Starwars, let alone wargaming, at all popular in Asia? In any case, the lack of models really puts a damper on Armada. People that are somewhat interested usually go "so there are only 2 imperial ships? And not even an ISD? And its been out how long? Are you sure its still supported?" Hopefully this gets better around wave 3 when we have a bit more diversity, but the incredibly slow release schedule is inexcusable imo. They should not have launched Armada without at least 4 or 5 ships per side available.

its a shame, we are building it here down under as best we can. We could be neighbors hah!

I live in UK, so no help to you there.

I'm loving X-Wing and getting into the Star Wars RPG.

Now to the topic at hand. My hesitation is the HUGE investment just buying the Starter Box. Compared with X-Wing, there looks to be more cards, tokens and fiddly space taking stuff. As much as I like X-Wing, I am debating getting rid of multiples of the same card. Then there's the costs of the ships themselves.

So that's

1. Cost of the starter (what if I don't like it? What a waste of money)

2. Not enough space for more cards, tokens and ships

3. Cost of the ships

I'm not saying everyone is like me, but this might be part of the problem. That and.....

4. How long we have to wait between releases (irritation I have with X-Wing and RPG books too)

Edit: Star Trek Attack Wing, while still suffering problems 2 and 3, has every ship I want. The rules are said to be almost identical to X-Wing, meaning the brain doesn't need to remember three sets of rules. While I'm unlikely to start Attack Wing, it is in my opinion the more tempting of the fleet games.

Imperial Star Destroyers!

Seriously though, they are the iconic ships that the game NEEDS to hook the interest of "on the fence" players, plus the core game (in my mind) isn't the core set, its the core set, wave one AND wave 2. But it would be rediculous to release all that at the same time, so think of it more that Armada is coming out in November, but we have been lucky to have sneak preview releases of ships over the last 7 months!

EDIT: I am in New Zealand, so very much feel the same pain! I also get frustrated by the local community and the dominance that X-Wing has (as much as I like it (and own heaps of it) I think that Armada is a far superior gaming experience) and I know a lot of players are already hooked so much into X-Wing the thought of even trying Armada is scary because they dont want to feel they have wasted money on X-Wing if they find they love Armada better!! (or spend money on a game thats still limited that they could be spending on new X-Wing expansions) The answer to that is that Armada needs to have wave 2, get the iconic ships and expand to be worth the risk.

Where in Asia Pacific are you?

The release schedule has damaged the game, whether fatally remains to be seen. The game was released without wave one which was a significant misstep and then this has been compounded by the seemingly eternal wait for wave 2 which arguably brings the most marketable and iconic ships from the IP.

Buy an ISD and keep playing. Let others use your set. First hit is free kid. A full set of available product will help things immensely.

Here (netherlands) i see people selling stuff off as well. One guy was selling two starter boxes (one unopened) at 50Eur each.

They retail in the shop at 119Eur which is a big barrier for new on the fence types. So i happily bought the opened one and may well sell on the game and VSD for 25-30eur if it means someone will play.

Its a shame because the game isnt complete without wave 2 in my opinion and ffg really messed up with the release of this game (something they know about already) Even the sullust event got only 3 players so i sponsored someone to go and he took an imp list i built (and won the Tourney and ISD). Even then he still didnt want to start Armada and i happily(and in a strange way grudgingly) swapped the ISD for some old Warhammer stuff.

Even my regular opponent who borrows my ships wasnt enthused by 25eur for the core with the rebels taken out. He'd rather play x-wing or Frostgrave.

Please, I am in New Jersey in the United States, like forty minutes from New York City, and the nearest game I can find is at least an hour away. Ridiculous:(

Please, I am in New Jersey in the United States, like forty minutes from New York City, and the nearest game I can find is at least an hour away. Ridiculous:(

I highly recommend you look on Facebook for the Philadelphia New Jersey x-wing Armada group. Maybe that's a bit further south of your location, but they have a real thriving community the closer you get towards Philadelphia.

Facebook, word of mouth, call/contact the players that played in th past, work out a prize torny when wave 2 releases.

Also I should say this weekend I invited 10 people over and we are going to play an armada game, getting ships in people's hands an letting them play with your stuff is a way to get people happy about playing.

With EP7 coming out use that excitement channeled into table top gaming, organize tornys.

Please, I am in New Jersey in the United States, like forty minutes from New York City, and the nearest game I can find is at least an hour away. Ridiculous:(

Look if there are problems with finding a meta, build a meta. That is what I am doing in Portland. We have poor tournament turn outs so I am building a league. The league I am working on will have tournaments once a month th and have some great prizes. Like expansions and such.

Find an idea and roll with it.

Or do what I do and think long term. Have a child. I started last year with a son, and should hopefully be getting more play group recruits in the future. Yes I know, expensive. But the upside is that it's more socially acceptable to directly address negative behaviors in this type of group. Children do eventually grow up and move out. I've no desire to divorce my wife when the play group breaks up, so I will probably go to adoption to keep numbers up. Either that or move to rural Utah and get a second wife.

Or do what I do and think long term. Have a child. I started last year with a son, and should hopefully be getting more play group recruits in the future. Yes I know, expensive. But the upside is that it's more socially acceptable to directly address negative van get behaviors in this type of group. Children do eventually grow up and move out. I've no desire to divorce my wife when the play group breaks up, so I will probably go to adoption to keep numbers up. Either that or move to rural Utah and get a second wife.

Best advice thus far!

Wow...you guys...this game is only 6 months old! It's also going to get a Level 9* Bio-Restricted Adrenaline shot as soon as the film is released later this year (as is everything that carries the Star Wars IP).

*This is the most highly restricted and most potent form of adrenaline, in the little meta-narrative I just created, in case you were wondering.

I agree with Lyr....help grow the "meta". Be the change you want to see (I just threw up a little lot in my mouth) I highly doubt they were having robust 40k tournaments in 1987.

here in NYC, we're not getting a whole lot of table time either apart from the rare pick-up game (had one last Friday v the ISD which drew a lot of interested gazes; it was a blast ) and tournament

everyone's waiting for wave 2 and the new options it will bring. Wave 1 is still very deep, gameplay-wise, but we're all kind of sick of having to see a GSD in every game.

considering, however, the some people already have the ships from Sullest, I cannot fathom why anyone would sell their collection apart from the stuff they don't enjoy

First tourney we had 12 players.

Second, Eight.

Third, Six.

Fourth and Fifth, no one bothered to show up.

No one plays pick up games anymore; There used to be at least two on a weekend.

No Massing At Sullust since we're out of USA/UK. We get the feeling FFG doesn't care very much for the Asia Pacific region (despite you know, having most of the world's population/customers in it.)

Heck, even one tourney kit would have gotten massive interest going again in the game.

No news on Wave 2 means that Armada is dead for the forseeable future. I've sold off my Imperial fleet at a loss, since it wasn't seeing any table time.

Any ideas on how to get it back and up running again?

I understand the idea behind this post is to voice legitimate frustration at the lack of players in your area, and to create ideas for improving the situation. I think those concerns are valid.

That aside, I found the logic leading up to that quite odd.

You describe a declining player base at recent tourneys. And then somehow indicate that a tourney kit would have gotten 'massive interest'. On what do you base that theory?

Whom would you expect would have been willing to pay for the tourney kit, and shoulder the loss if, as before, zero folks showed up? The stores that already saw the last few tourneys fall flat? The stores that aren't allowed to sell those tourney items to recoup losses? Why would that store owner think that, suddenly, after 5 straight events with declining (and ultimately, zero, attendance), during which those stores probably lost money, that suddenly dropping $125 on a tourney kit would yield a sudden windfall?

I empathize with your concerns. I also think any store owner who would have made that investment in the face of such data would need their head checked.

Let us hope the attempts to FF to create crew/ambassadors is the right direction for solving this, after what they saw with some Sullust events.

here in NYC, we're not getting a whole lot of table time either apart from the rare pick-up game (had one last Friday v the ISD, it was a blast ) and tournament

everyone's waiting for wave 2 and the new options it will bring. Wave 1 is still very deep, gameplay-wise, but we're all kind of sick of having to see a GSD in every game.

considering, however, the some people already have the ships from Sullest, I cannot fathom why anyone would sell their collection apart from the stuff they don't enjoy

It's like they expect the game to do all the work for itself. . .

Where I am, I think there are the seeds of community but its almost like it needs to crystallize.

Need more stores to support/sell Armada. I recently have visited all of the game stores within my city and many if not all of them in neighboring cities and there is always very limited if any Armada stuff even for sale.

I think the perception is that because of the cost of the game there is a very high barrier for entry. The core set for x-wing is less than half the core set for Armada, and even though you can have all the ships you might ever need to draw a deep set of lists from in the current meta for LESS than you would need to do the same for X-Wing, as soon as people see the cost of that core set its a big ask without playing the game and seeing that you would like it. If stores were to give people the opportunity to learn and play the game they would see more buy-in but a lot of the store owners I speak to tell me that space constraints are a big problem (6' x 3' table for 2 hours/game compared to how many MTG players they can fit in that same space, it's just Math). My local store that is owned by a big Armada fan doesn't even have the floor space to have 1 Armada game in the store proper, much less an entire tourney.

This is why I have taken it on myself to buy a lot of ships for both sides and teach the game to every one of my game playing friends, also reaching out to the local community of stores and players to set up practice games and encourage tournament participation. As soon as a store sees that this game can draw revenue and foot traffic they will stock it and promote it.

Yes the delay to wave 2 has hurt (I mean, they should have been in stores what? 2 months ago?) but that can't be helped. If you love the game and want to keep playing it, you have to do something about it!

I'm kinda bored flogging 5 different ships, there's only so many combos you can play or practice with, so I've set it aside until wave 2 lands in favor of some Xwing.(just got a bunch of wave 7 stuff recently along with a raider) I don't think Armada will die, its too new right now. Folks are getting tired of waiting for the boats to arrive.

I'm sorry to hear about Armada dying on the vine wherever it is that you are located ("Asia-Pacific region" is not very specific). I'm guessing Australia, but that's not specific either. Are you in a city or are you in the boonies?

Also, you've not mentioned what you've done to get your community going. Lyraeus and I have been working our tails off getting things going where we are, and we are in a very conducive environment for it, and it's also been hard to get more than four people out to tournaments. Looking at the miniranker, 4-person tournaments are not out of the ordinary.

I do think there are some structural things that make Armada a challenge to grow, despite it being a great game. It takes a lot of time and it takes a lot of space. It also requires that people have faith that it's going to take off. Part of that is keeping the faith and keeping going.

So, what have you done?

FFG really screwed themselves on this one, but Wave 2 hopefully will garner a lot more interest. I hope it's not too late to save in certain places!