So as some of you may or may not have noticed, New South Wales Australia had its first Winter Kit tournament, and to our knowledge the first Winter Kit tournament in Australia, today the 7th of March 2016.
To be blunt FFG, what the hell?
Seriously.
Winter Kits were meant to be released in October. OCTOBER 2015. It is now March and we are just having our first tournaments with them. To add insult to injury, we are so far behind on the prize support schedule that you have advertised the ordering of the Summer kit already, which means by the time we have started to have access to one kit most other places are nearing the end of the prize season following that. Moreover, by introducing new rules that stores cannot access kits from stores in other countries you essentially killed any avenue our local FLGS' had for dealing with this lack of support.
As an avid customer and proponent of this wonderful, wonderful game, it is incredibly frustrating and it is hard not to feel like we as a community have been copping the short straw.
Within New South Wales and Canberra we have an active and growing Armada scene. In our first year we are already seeing strong local metas build, and a large community as a whole. Most tournaments are pulling between 10-25 players and they have been at a frenetic pace. From the end of September to the start of December 2015 there was a tournament every weekend within a three hour drive of Sydney. The fact that you are not doing more to support this growing base feels like a real slap in the face to your fans here.
It's not like being behind on the tournament kits is the first offence either. Hearing about Massing of Sullust events in the US with turnouts as low as 2-4 players was crap, even one kit would have had a major effect upon the community and a tournament with a huge (40+) turn out.
More recently many of our Store Championships, to be in time for the following rounds of Regionals, had to go ahead without the Store Champs kits themselves. Do you not see how great a disservice that is to your community here? For the stores, and we spoke with them, it felt like they were running cheap events and shorting their players of the immediate joy that comes with picking up some neat prizes, and for the players it just was, well, kind of lame. Every player knows that the prizes aren't that big a deal in a wider sense, but when you do well at a competitive event its very rewarding to have a visceral award that you can immediately take home.
Now look. We've been hearing mixed messages about what exactly has caused these issues. You have said that there is no issue on your end and that any delays are the fault of the Australian distributor. The distributors have been saying it is not any fault of theirs and that you are the cause of the delay. Ultimately though FFG, this is your game, and if you want to see it grow more and more (and trust me its been growing great without much help from you already), then really you need to sort your **** out.
Sincerely,
A Loyal & True Admiral.
