22 minutes ago, DScipio said:

Unfortunally Armada (and Attack Wing) dropped from the top 5 in Fall 2017:

Armada didn't have a new release between July 2017 and 2018, which surely didn't help.

26 minutes ago, svelok said:

Armada didn't have a new release between July 2017 and 2018, which surely didn't help.

Yeah, we're having fun now, but for a long while there the game was dead.

No expansions = no sales.

53 minutes ago, DScipio said:

Unfortunally Armada (and Attack Wing) dropped from the top 5 in Fall 2017:

Top 5 Non-Collectible Miniature Lines – Fall 2017
Rank	Franchise	Publisher
1	Star Wars X-Wing	ANA/Fantasy Flight Games
2	Warhammer 40K	Games Workshop
3	Warmachine	Privateer Press
4	D&D Nolzur's Marvelous Minis	WizKids
5	Deep Cuts: Pathfinder Miniatures	WizKids

https://icv2.com/articles/markets/view/39858/top-5-non-collectible-miniature-games-fall-2017

However that could also just be that number 4 and 5 just sold very well and just peaked over Armada, are these games new?

Still Warmachine ( a.k.a. the bad bank of the tabletop community) outsells Armada now.

Those # 4 & 5 are unpainted miniatures that just released summer/fall 2017 and were $3-5 each. There was a ton of great molds and people loaded up on the new. I would put them into one slot, all the LGS do. They will probably drop lower in the next quarter as people are over the new and the holidays are over.

54 minutes ago, DScipio said:

Unfortunally Armada (and Attack Wing) dropped from the top 5 in Fall 2017:

Top 5 Non-Collectible Miniature Lines – Fall 2017
Rank	Franchise	Publisher
1	Star Wars X-Wing	ANA/Fantasy Flight Games
2	Warhammer 40K	Games Workshop
3	Warmachine	Privateer Press
4	D&D Nolzur's Marvelous Minis	WizKids
5	Deep Cuts: Pathfinder Miniatures	WizKids

https://icv2.com/articles/markets/view/39858/top-5-non-collectible-miniature-games-fall-2017

However that could also just be that number 4 and 5 just sold very well and just peaked over Armada, are these games new?

Still Warmachine ( a.k.a. the bad bank of the tabletop community) outsells Armada now.

Bad bank? I am unfamiliar with this term. Also pretty ignorant about Warmachine or the company’s that makes it.

49 minutes ago, Green Knight said:

Yeah, we're having fun now, but for a long while there the game was dead.

No expansions = no sales.

Very true, and something crucially important the "I only want one release a year" crowd doesn't seem to understand. GW is up there in the top 2 because you can get a new product every month at most, if not every other week.

1 hour ago, Green Knight said:

Yeah, we're having fun now, but for a long while there the game was dead.

No expansions = no sales.

Luckily thats not the case, but o f course new releases boost sales a lot.

9 minutes ago, thecactusman17 said:

Very true, and something crucially important the "I only want one release a year" crowd doesn't seem to understand. GW is up there in the top 2 because you can get a new product every month at most, if not every other week.

I think your right.

I really don't see why there cant be a release every quarter. Releases don't always have to be ships, either. Campaigns, expansion to existing campaigns, special deck packs with alternative, refit cards, for ships and new admirals. Even a special, fleet building (card building), advanced tactics and strategy guide with articles from national tournament winners would be cool.

3 minutes ago, DScipio said:

Luckily thats not the case, but o f course new releases boost sales a lot.

That is 100% the case. No new releases = plummeting sales, and plummeting sales usually = dead game.

I used to play a lot of Warhammer and know some of the GW managers who have worked in our area - typically, lots of good smart people and often willing to talk shop with regulars when it comes to issues of running a franchise business around miniatures games. Their rules were as follows:

A veteran player will slowly collect a large enough collection that they only rarely ever buy new products, especially if they aren't tournament players. Veteran players effectively stop being reliable customers especially if they are only acquiring additional copies of products they already own.

A new player on the other hand has to buy a much larger collection off the bat to get fully invested. New players are going to rapidly collect a large assortment of miniatures in a fairly short period of time, whether that's all at once or over the course of a few weeks or months. The best way of getting new players is to show off new products that may interest them and which attract excitement from the existing players, bringing them to the store and demonstrating a thriving community.

So while a few veterans at your FLGS may be responsible for keeping the weekly game night going, it's the new players that keep those stores in business and keep FFG supporting the game. And new players usually only come with new product releases when the hype is at its peak.

4 minutes ago, thecactusman17 said:

So while a few veterans at your FLGS may be responsible for keeping the weekly game night going, it's the new players that keep those stores in business and keep FFG supporting the game. And new players usually only come with new product releases when the hype is at its peak.

Having just started playing Armada (three games) I certainly agree that the 'buzz' generated by new content is important. The first expansion I bought, apart from dice, was the Chimaera just over a month ago. Now I own just over half of the expansions. I want to feel like the possibilities, and direction of what I am buying into is limitless in that there is always something new, and I can imagine maintaining interest is more difficult to older players who have every expansion.

It is quite odd and frustrating that, with the expansive nature of the Star Wars universe, content releases are so rare and at least to me quite restrictive (?) The use of Rebels content is something, but we all know there is so much more that can be done. Is there any constructive dialogue between FFG and Armada players outside of tournament settings?

As mentioned above, even title, or refit card packs would be great, and relatively easy to produce. Who doesn't want the Executrix or something like the Detainer-CC2200 (Interdictor).

1 hour ago, DScipio said:

Luckily thats not the case, but o f course new releases boost sales a lot.

I'm speaking for the local community. We're full up on waves up to 6. No new waves, no sales. That's how it is.

On 3/9/2016 at 12:36 PM, AdmiralNelson said:

Armada is doing well. And the point about 40k and direct sales is true. Obviously, those who fear discontinuation are paranoid.

Armada's latest wave is not announced by now for two reasons IMHO. First, waiting for Asmodee integration for a variety of reasons. However, I doubt this first reason is the case. I think they are looking at one release this year's only to allow enough people to catch up and more/just as important to get the future of this game right so they don't have to revisit issues with it like they are having to do with X-wing.

I hope they are waiting on wave three for the tournament results so they can make ajust nets to the cards before they are printed. They got to be tired of the entire X-wing problems of certain ships and cards never being played. It Assualt, X-wing, and Armada are to all survive and take money from our wallets they gotta know they need to step up their game and get Armada right. People will not tolerate buying three ships of mutiples types and never play them considering the higher cost.

Good points, also Legion is probably the primary promotion now, so announcing Wave 8 would blunt the Legion hype train.

19 minutes ago, eliteone said:

Good points, also Legion is probably the primary promotion now, so announcing Wave 8 would blunt the Legion hype train.

This was written in March 2016. The next release wasn't until almost September 2016, the game had nearly died in several markets, and the very person you are quoting had a public meltdown and quit the game when a few days after the post you quoted FFG proudly announced the Flotillas were coming on their own without any larger ships.

21 minutes ago, thecactusman17 said:

This was written in March 2016. The next release wasn't until almost September 2016, the game had nearly died in several markets, and the very person you are quoting had a public meltdown and quit the game when a few days after the post you quoted FFG proudly announced the Flotillas were coming on their own without any larger ships.

Those were the post wave 2 days I was referring to... there was much wailing and lamentation ???

4 hours ago, GrandAdmiralCrunch said:

Bad bank? I am unfamiliar with this term. Also pretty ignorant about Warmachine or the company’s that makes it.

Not really sure either. I have an insane about of WMH stuff for hardly playing it and PP is a fine company but the game hit a wall when they released the third edition. Honestly it just felt SUPER rushed with a lot of balance issues and WMH's constant issue of useless units(which might be what they mean by "bad bank").

2 hours ago, thecactusman17 said:

This was written in March 2016. The next release wasn't until almost September 2016, the game had nearly died in several markets, and the very person you are quoting had a public meltdown and quit the game when a few days after the post you quoted FFG proudly announced the Flotillas were coming on their own without any larger ships.

but, did anyone get his Armada collection?

1 hour ago, eliteone said:

but, did anyone get his Armada collection?

Given the amount he said he spent on it, he probably powdered and snorted it.

I'm just glad to see attack wing plummet off this list. Good riddance. Hopefully someday accompany will craft a minis game deserving of that franchise, but it hasn't happened yet.

And if you felt attack wing was balanced, ask yourself how easy it was to one-shot the Enterprise-D with all available combos. The less we speak about model quality, the better.

5 hours ago, eliteone said:

Good points, also Legion is probably the primary promotion now, so announcing Wave 8 would blunt the Legion hype train.

Wow this was an admiral Nelson post, the first guy who had a meltdown in the armada forum. If you ever see someone comment “never go full Nelson” or something along those lines this is who we are referring to. I would guess his meltdown was shortly after this post. He flipped out over the gozanti and transport wave.

3 minutes ago, ninclouse2000 said:

Wow this was an admiral Nelson post, the first guy who had a meltdown in the armada forum. If you ever see someone comment “never go full Nelson” or something along those lines this is who we are referring to. I would guess his meltdown was shortly after this post. He flipped out over the gozanti and transport wave.

It was announced less than 2 weeks later.

1 hour ago, ninclouse2000 said:

Wow this was an admiral Nelson post, the first guy who had a meltdown in the armada forum. If you ever see someone comment “never go full Nelson” or something along those lines this is who we are referring to. I would guess his meltdown was shortly after this post. He flipped out over the gozanti and transport wave.

Lmao!

Quality > Quantity

Nelson got beat by his inner Ben.

2 minutes ago, ninclouse2000 said:

Nelson got beat by his inner Ben.

He threw away his childish things.

On 3/9/2016 at 8:23 AM, DScipio said:

Top 5 Non-Collectible Miniature Lines – Fall 2017
Rank	Franchise	Publisher
1	Star Wars X-Wing	ANA/Fantasy Flight Games
2	Warhammer 40K	Games Workshop
3	Warmachine	Privateer Press
4	D&D Nolzur's Marvelous Minis	WizKids
5	Deep Cuts: Pathfinder Miniatures	WizKids

https://icv2.com/articles/markets/view/39858/top-5-non-collectible-miniature-games-fall-2017

However that could also just be that number 4 and 5 just sold very well and just peaked over Armada, are these games new?

While not games unto themselves, Nolzur’s minis and Deep Cuts support D&D (the world’s oldest and most famous roleplaying game) and Pathfinder Roleplaying Game (the other worldwide leading rpg) respectively.

The games are separate systems but you could easily use the minis interchangeably among both.

With D&D’s print release schedule and Pathfinder’s 2 ED announcement, I would expect those numbers to remain strong or even rise in 2018.

While I collect Pathfinder, my combined Fantasy Flight $ expenditure (five games if you count Legion) easily outstrips any other gaming expense.

I’m surprised they would be put in the same list as X Wing or Armada though.

16 hours ago, thecactusman17 said:

That is 100% the case. No new releases = plummeting sales, and plummeting sales usually = dead game.

I used to play a lot of Warhammer and know some of the GW managers who have worked in our area - typically, lots of good smart people and often willing to talk shop with regulars when it comes to issues of running a franchise business around miniatures games. Their rules were as follows:

A veteran player will slowly collect a large enough collection that they only rarely ever buy new products, especially if they aren't tournament players. Veteran players effectively stop being reliable customers especially if they are only acquiring additional copies of products they already own.

A new player on the other hand has to buy a much larger collection off the bat to get fully invested. New players are going to rapidly collect a large assortment of miniatures in a fairly short period of time, whether that's all at once or over the course of a few weeks or months. The best way of getting new players is to show off new products that may interest them and which attract excitement from the existing players, bringing them to the store and demonstrating a thriving community.

So while a few veterans at your FLGS may be responsible for keeping the weekly game night going, it's the new players that keep those stores in business and keep FFG supporting the game. And new players usually only come with new product releases when the hype is at its peak.

Still, no release doenst mean NO sales as was said. I Agree with your assumption.

20 hours ago, thecactusman17 said:

That is 100% the case. No new releases = plummeting sales, and plummeting sales usually = dead game.

I used to play a lot of Warhammer and know some of the GW managers who have worked in our area - typically, lots of good smart people and often willing to talk shop with regulars when it comes to issues of running a franchise business around miniatures games. Their rules were as follows:

A veteran player will slowly collect a large enough collection that they only rarely ever buy new products, especially if they aren't tournament players. Veteran players effectively stop being reliable customers especially if they are only acquiring additional copies of products they already own.

A new player on the other hand has to buy a much larger collection off the bat to get fully invested. New players are going to rapidly collect a large assortment of miniatures in a fairly short period of time, whether that's all at once or over the course of a few weeks or months. The best way of getting new players is to show off new products that may interest them and which attract excitement from the existing players, bringing them to the store and demonstrating a thriving community.

So while a few veterans at your FLGS may be responsible for keeping the weekly game night going, it's the new players that keep those stores in business and keep FFG supporting the game. And new players usually only come with new product releases when the hype is at its peak.

I'm curious if these rules fully carry over to Armada.

During the down period of wave 6 I had the largest growth in new players I've had since wave 3&4.

It's anecdotal, sure, but during my time leading the weekly group (just over 2 years), the new players aren't really interested in the new products, they're interested in the iconic ones. They wanna see liberties and ISDs with swarms of x-wings and ties.... When I run the L2P, I use the ISD and an Mc80. It has such a positive effect on the player's focus and interest.

I think the sales to new players are a vital part of Armada's success, but I don't think that sales necessarily shrink due to a lack of new products, at least not directly.

What I could see becoming an issue is veterans becoming bored and not attending meets because of stale metas. Without a consistent or robust group the game is unlikely to attract attention from onlookers, and without the talent and insight of veterans, the L2P may not engage the new players.

Despite the lack of releases after wave 6, the metas locally were vibrant. It was one of our best periods of gaming. The release of Chimera and the Mc75 has had little effect on new players, but our group has grown which draws attention, and with veterans like myself there to pitch the game to new people, the store is clearing merchandise like crazy.

Just some thoughts.