In the Why am I getting so angry about the lack of wave 3 news thread Extropia posted that his Armada-playing community has withered. Back in October he reported that in his 'bit of the UK' he had about 20 players.

In mine, it seems healthier than ever. Tournaments are drawing more people (except when they're on a Friday evening, when we don't even have the stamina to go a third round) and the people are enthusiastic. We also unveiled a web portal to help people join the community of Armada/X-Wing/Imperial Assault players, called Concentrated Firepower, which will hopefully bear some fruits when the FLGSs get some signs posted.

So, I'm interested in how your communities are faring. Did Sullust provide a boost? Are the Store Championships bringing people out? Did the Imperial-class Star Destroyer make people want to jump in, or do you feel that there are reasons that the wellspring of enthusiasm dried up?

Growing rather quickly actually! Very pleased.

Just a little enthusiasm and willing to teach by a few people gets new players fast. When I started publicly playing, I struggled to find one player. Now at multiple locations in Indy we have several players weekly playing and other random pop up games.

Very excited also that the big tourney I am running in February is almost full up to 50 players! . Still a few spots left for anyone that wants to fight I 49 other admirals!

I have 13 people registered for a league that only happens every second Sunday...

I'm routinely getting 8 people out at a time now...

For Store Champs, we're expecting well over 20.

And considering we're only doing things on Sundays, and I know that another store mirrors us on Saturdays for those who work on the Sunday with about the same numbers - I'm quite happy.

We had no Sullust events

There will be no Store Championship

(local game store appear not to care)

Difficult to get players to meet up for game nights/tournaments

(Armada sells well - and I know quite a few players, but they seem content not to play too much)

Pretty much like it's been from the start...

(Vassal, here I come)

My local scene is pretty healthy. 2 LGS that run the OPs regularly. A few guys started up a league back in Oct that just wrapped up that had a solid 12+ players showing up regularly. Just starting up a new league.

Have a "ghost community" here.

Armada seems to sell out of local FLGS. My nearest store can't seem to keep expansions on the shelf lately, but also can't seem to get anyone to come out to play...

Clearly there are Armada players locally and just as clearly they don't seem interested in "coming out" to play.

Armada can be pretty intimidating and I can understand people not being overly eager to jump into playing strangers but it's getting pretty frustrating.

I will continue supporting my FLGS in its efforts to drum people out to events, but I think there is a piece missing, if that makes sense?

My area swings between 6-8 players a game night to 2

Right now there is 2, even at tournaments and it has been that way for about a month in a half.

Now I love my opponent and the time he takes to play me buuut... It gets old playing the same guy over and over...

Ours is growing. We started it at just me and my buddy back in wave 1 and it's since grown to 8 people, about 4-6 of which can be expected to show up on any given Thursday for casual play. Our tournaments get around 8 people. We've got a fair number of newbies who aren't tournament-comfortable just yet, so I expect that number to increase.

We had no Sullust events

There will be no Store Championship

(local game store appear not to care)

Difficult to get players to meet up for game nights/tournaments

(Armada sells well - and I know quite a few players, but they seem content not to play too much)

Pretty much like it's been from the start...

(Vassal, here I come)

Have a "ghost community" here.

Armada seems to sell out of local FLGS. My nearest store can't seem to keep expansions on the shelf lately, but also can't seem to get anyone to come out to play...

Clearly there are Armada players locally and just as clearly they don't seem interested in "coming out" to play.

Armada can be pretty intimidating and I can understand people not being overly eager to jump into playing strangers but it's getting pretty frustrating.

I will continue supporting my FLGS in its efforts to drum people out to events, but I think there is a piece missing, if that makes sense?

Sounds about right for my area. In the Scranton/Wilkes Barre metro we've got ONE store supporting X Wing and Armada. X Wing is clearly more popular; you can pretty much get a game in any night of the week and the monthly tournaments bring out 8-14 players. Armada has people buying in including the store employees. I tried holding a tournament yesterday and we had myself and one of the forum members came from out of town. All the other people who've bought in have no desire to play the **** game at the store so far.

So my demos were effective in getting people to buy in, just not to come out and play, even casually. I'm kinda upset at that: Right now driving an hour or two for out of town events is the only way I'll get my Armada fix. I'm in no rush for Wave 3, but I think more options may help the game grow a bit. As the one guy said, "you've got 4 different slices of pizza as an Imperial player. That's it."

Very healthy here in Richmond VA

I'm running a Wednesday night Armada thing at my LGS and we have 3 plus the owner. We're having a Store Championship and so far the turn out doesn't look too good. But it wasn't posted to the TC Armada facebook page yet. So now that's done perhaps more will make it.

We had no Sullust events

There will be no Store Championship

(local game store appear not to care)

Difficult to get players to meet up for game nights/tournaments

(Armada sells well - and I know quite a few players, but they seem content not to play too much)

Pretty much like it's been from the start...

(Vassal, here I come)

Have a "ghost community" here.

Armada seems to sell out of local FLGS. My nearest store can't seem to keep expansions on the shelf lately, but also can't seem to get anyone to come out to play...

Clearly there are Armada players locally and just as clearly they don't seem interested in "coming out" to play.

Armada can be pretty intimidating and I can understand people not being overly eager to jump into playing strangers but it's getting pretty frustrating.

I will continue supporting my FLGS in its efforts to drum people out to events, but I think there is a piece missing, if that makes sense?

Sounds about right for my area. In the Scranton/Wilkes Barre metro we've got ONE store supporting X Wing and Armada. X Wing is clearly more popular; you can pretty much get a game in any night of the week and the monthly tournaments bring out 8-14 players. Armada has people buying in including the store employees. I tried holding a tournament yesterday and we had myself and one of the forum members came from out of town. All the other people who've bought in have no desire to play the **** game at the store so far.

So my demos were effective in getting people to buy in, just not to come out and play, even casually. I'm kinda upset at that: Right now driving an hour or two for out of town events is the only way I'll get my Armada fix. I'm in no rush for Wave 3, but I think more options may help the game grow a bit. As the one guy said, "you've got 4 different slices of pizza as an Imperial player. That's it."

My community is essentially the people who come to my apt wednesday nights for scotch and spaceships. We have five regulars whichnis somewhat cumbersome but makes for a good, healthy community.

Except our livers are not so healthy.

We also did the Spontaneous Sunday Stream of 2 Armada Games, that I only popped on the Forums here a few hours before we started...

.. At one point we had 20 Concurrent Viewers (despite the Camera being smacked by a passer-by and losing the feed for 15 minutes during the first game)

Armada was never really "big" near me. The $100 starter box scared most away, especially those who only wanted one faction in the box. Interest spiked between sullest and wave 2, but has slowly died since then. At my local shop there are only 2 of us left and most Armada players have moved to (or back to) X-Wing.

Healthy here in Raleigh/Durham. Since Armada night is the same for both local stores, I can only speak for one, but we get 3-5 tables weekly, and I play games throughout the week with some folks that go to the other store regularly. First tourney I went to in the Cary store was like five people, but they held one in January and eight showed up. Seems to be alive and growing steadily. I do notice whenever I play usually at least one or two people watches for a bit. There certainly is interest.

Seems locally we've got a lot of guys buying the spaceships of X-wing, Armada, and even Trek Attack Wing but most of them aren't really interested that much in playing.

I buy everything Armada and X-Wing, but I have never attended an event or a store night or joined a club, I just play with my friends and enjoy collecting.

I work shifts so regular monthly or weekly events are almost impossible for me to get into the groove with, that and the whole idea of meeting new people never really appeals to me; I bought the game to play with my friends, not make new ones through it!

I have a healthy collection but don't get to play much. Not much time and no players within an hour of me (that I am aware of) if I had more time, I would try to put on some demo games. I also play xwing, and typically play 2-3 times a month of one or the other.

I think there are several distinct crowds. Those that :

1) buy the game and play but just not at the local hobby store nor at tournaments.

2) buy the game and play at their local store but not at tournaments

3) buy the game and play anywhere they can and enjoy the tournament scene too.

Locally we seem to have a good collection of #1. I'm hoping #2,#3 develops more and really thats all about promoting the LGS and playing games at the LGS even if it's against the same person... people have to see it's going on and games have to go on on a regular basis or those new people will stop by to play invariably on the week you don't bother to play.

Of the 3 categories I suspect #3 probably is the insta-buy crowd for every wave and drives the most sales since they have to field 400 points and when you're hooked you want to be able to do multiple lists :-) Another uplift I think is the Christmas season. People received the game and as they realize there are others like them that play or want to play they'll find a way if they're motivated.

I do think that store events (and helping out with them) is HUGE for a local community. These are the things that build a player base and makes it fun for everyone. I'm impressed that FFG is doing as much as they do to put together store kits for tournaments.

I run the League. I play in it, but whereas most people will get in 2-3 games in a League Day, I get one. And I'm at most losses for the league, too... Because my attention is on running and enabling.

When Store Champs came up, I told the Store that if they put it on a League day, taht's cool - I'll run it instead of playing... Yeah, some times it sucks to watch people play - but at least I know that when I leave the house for my 2 hour public transit across Town to get there... There will be people playing... And that gives me hope.

So many other games, I've made that trip, and then sat around for 6 hours doing nothing as people were eitehr playing their own little insular thing, or playing somethign else entirey.

I'd love to play with just my friends.

Let's see... One works random posts night shift and has two young kids, one just moved half way across the country, and the other is just as boned at work as I am that he rarely is available.

If I want to play these games with regularity, I need the scene. Sadly, most of my Armada experience is against myself. I don't get the concept of dumping money into something just to have it collect dust.

I'm just grateful for the X Wing matches I'm getting. At least I can scratch the itch to game. Don't say Vassal... I tried and it's not my cup of tea.

I'd love to play with just my friends.

Let's see... One works random posts night shift and has two young kids, one just moved half way across the country, and the other is just as boned at work as I am that he rarely is available.

If I want to play these games with regularity, I need the scene. Sadly, most of my Armada experience is against myself. I don't get the concept of dumping money into something just to have it collect dust.

I'm just grateful for the X Wing matches I'm getting. At least I can scratch the itch to game. Don't say Vassal... I tried and it's not my cup of tea.

Pretty much in the same boat, while x-wing does have a small community where I live, Armada so far seems out of the loop.

Not surprising since the overall miniature gaming community here is not very big and the only community actively engaging in tournaments are the GW dudes.

But I still enjoy collecting and getting the occasional game going with friends and it also lets me enjoy a sideinterest of the hobby; terrain and peripheral bulding

And Ive always looked for a good reason to build a full-size dining/gaming table so those plans are already underway!

Next time theres an x-wing tournament in town Im gonna check it out and hopefully get some idea of how the community fares and whats on the horizon.

Sydney, Australia is slowly growing. I would say we have a healthy group of around 15-20 core with up to 30 showing up for bigger tournaments.

I am lucky enough to have a FLGS in my tiny town of 7,000 people. X-wing has been popular here since its release, and slowly but steadily, I am getting our X-wing players to play Armada too. We now have 6 regular Armada players in town, plus guys who come from surrounding towns for Sullust, Store Championships, etc. For how remote we are, I am happy we have a scene at all!