Hi

I bought runewars along with 2 friends when it was released. The game had a slow start with few players and the new W40K didn't help.

Now our local store is selling runewars for 50% off. I bought a bunch for waiqar and daqan but it's still a problem with the few players.

50% off is a great starting point of course but you have to get them interested first. How have you been promoting the game in your local scenes?

We (4 of us) tend to play once or twice a week in a local store and try to show it off to everyone interested, but there's still just 4 of us. I want to try to run a local event soon to see where all those other core sets went.

Just keep playing at the local venues. Maybe try doing it on different nights instead of the same night every week. That way you're more likely to get different people to at least stop and take a look. I played a game with my nephew who I taught and got the co-owner of the store interested. His Latari are coming in today.

Yeah the trick is play, play, play at your local store. The models are great, the rules are great, it comes from fantasy flight, and comparatively cheap buy in cost compared to other mini games. People just have to see it. Play diiferent nights of the week, play different times of day if possible, talk to your friends, offer demo games, get two full armies yourself so people can try full games. Things like that, people just need to be exposed and feel confident they will have someone to play. You get 4+ people playing and you may see an explosion. For me new baby at homes means I can't take my own advice, lol.

I think reigniting the interest will be easier now with the elves and upcoming uthuk. We actually had a pretty successful night at a new FLGS for our group after the not so FLGS closed...we had a total of 6 players and a few onlookers, along with getting the employees at the store interested in the game. So just keep playing, paint your stuff it helps when the models look pretty...and be prepared to play so many skirmish games for teach people...

Every time my friend and I play at the FLGS, someone always comments on how they’ve been interested in the game, but have never seen it played. Even a store employee made a similar comment once about how the store sells the game, but they had not yet seen it in action. People who stop by our game to watch or comment usually say something about the minis themselves and don’t go beyond that to ask about gameplay or rules.

I try to talk up the game as much as I can in those instances, comparing it to WFB back when it was good. But I’ve yet to convert one of those random passer-bys.

With that said, some minis fans tend to go where the cool minis are and certainly Uthuk will help with that. I really feel like that will be the most unique faction given that other wargames already have humans, undead, and elves.

2 hours ago, Tarliyn said:

Yeah the trick is play, play, play at your local store.

Yup. Playing regular at the local store has garnered a lot of interest and pushed a couple of people over the edge to actually put core sets on order.

I kind of liken it to Armada. When that came out it was just 2 of us playing for about 6 months then we got a third, then after a year about 6 now 10-12 people.

It wont ever be amazing like x-wing, I think, but getting a solid 8-12 people per scene would be great.

Unfortunately there seems to be a rivalry between two stores here. So while the store I go to actually does organized play, the other one doesn't, but its customers refuse to come and play at our store despite their store not supporting the game...

2 hours ago, Waywardpaladin said:

Unfortunately there seems to be a rivalry between two stores here. So while the store I go to actually does organized play, the other one doesn't, but its customers refuse to come and play at our store despite their store not supporting the game...

I love that your FLGS' are a West Side Story...

It seems like the two critical pieces are:

- Play publicly

- Paint your armies. A nice looking army helps

3 minutes ago, Church14 said:

It seems like the two critical pieces are:

- Play publicly

- Paint your armies. A nice looking army helps

Yup.

I wonder if prepping a few sentence description about the ruleset may help too

"It plays a little like X-Wing and Armada combined. Limited rounds and no defense dice like Armada. Templated movement and command dials like X-Wing. Except these are command dials on crack, allowing for a ton of options with a second wheel and having a built in initiative depending on the actions you take"

3 minutes ago, Glucose98 said:

I wonder if prepping a few sentence description about the ruleset may help too

"It plays a little like X-Wing and Armada combined. Limited rounds and no defense dice like Armada. Templated movement and command dials like X-Wing. Except these are command dials on crack, allowing for a ton of options with a second wheel and having a built in initiative depending on the actions you take"

What's your audience? I think that is a fantastic description for people who play/know X-Wing and Armada.

For newcomers to war gaming or people making the jump from LCGs to miniatures (for example) that might fly over their head.

"A miniatures war game focused on unit based tactics in which you maneuver through obstetrical, attack you opponent, manage magical and special abilities and complete objectives to win the day for your army."

Or you can use the LTP words:

"The Runewars Miniatures Game is a competitive game in
which each player controls an army of soldiers and fantastical
creatures in an epic battle on the fields of Terrinoth. During the
game, the armies will maneuver through dangerous terrain, clash
in brutal melees, harness potent magics, and much more, all in an
effort to win a victory for their faction by defeating the enemy."

Honestly, I've been promoting this game since release, and my steam is just about gone.

I don't know what I have to do. I've started a local group, I post painted miniatures, I arrange both casual and competitive gaming days, etc etc etc. We sold a LOT of copies at release, and then the players just petered out until now it's me and less than a handful of other people that show up to my tournaments.

I try to keep events going, but most recently I arranged a tourney date with my FLGS only to have them schedule an IA tournament at the same time on the same day, despite the fact that most of the RW players are IA players, too.

Gamers are fickle, and I'm tired of trying to wrangle them. I'm tired of being a salesman that doesn't get paid.

EDIT: Because I am honestly complaining, but I wanted to sound a bit less whiny. Trying to organize for the tabletop gaming crowd can be a frustrating experience, even in cities with a fairly large potential playerbase.

Runewars is a great game, and I'm going to keep playing it and hooking new players as long as FFG keeps giving me quality content.

I'd love to see more ideas and methods discussed here. I'm hoping to get some more momentum with the upcoming Uthuk Y'llan release.

20 minutes ago, Tvayumat said:

Gamers are fickle, and I'm tired of trying to wrangle them. I'm tired of being a salesman that doesn't get paid.

I always go back to the most successful minis game build-up I’ve seen - Heroclix and MageKnight circa 2002. Judges and tourney organizers were given high-level prizes for running events and there were tons of games going per week. Being able to run an event and be compensated for it was a big deal and it kept judges active in gathering players. Not to mention that there was an abundance of prizes at the local level which meant trading and conversation of said prizes also played a factor.

Now, RW is not a collectible minis games, but it does have elements of that in the simplistic figure builds and the upgrade cards. It should work the tourney scene more like a collectible game and less like a GW product.

3 hours ago, Glucose98 said:

I wonder if prepping a few sentence description about the ruleset may help too

"It plays a little like X-Wing and Armada combined. Limited rounds and no defense dice like Armada. Templated movement and command dials like X-Wing. Except these are command dials on crack, allowing for a ton of options with a second wheel and having a built in initiative depending on the actions you take"

I would say it's like X-Wing, except that you have a second dial for your "actions" so that you choose your "actions" during the planning phase, which cuts down on decision time since people don't sit their trying to pick the best "action" now that some units have moved.

I always disliked when a ship's activation came to the action step and the player took 3 minutes to decide whether to evade, focus, or barrel roll. I'm not faulting the players, but I like that Runewars essentially places that step during the planning phase.

1 hour ago, Budgernaut said:

I would say it's like X-Wing, except that you have a second dial for your "actions" so that you choose your "actions" during the planning phase, which cuts down on decision time since people don't sit their trying to pick the best "action" now that some units have moved.

I always disliked when a ship's activation came to the action step and the player took 3 minutes to decide whether to evade, focus, or barrel roll. I'm not faulting the players, but I like that Runewars essentially places that step during the planning phase.

I found when introducing it to X-Wing players explaining the re-roll mechanic as "each full rank after the first is a Target Lock, and a partial rank is like having Predator" worked really well.

7 minutes ago, maxam said:

I found when introducing it to X-Wing players explaining the re-roll mechanic as "each full rank after the first is a Target Lock, and a partial rank is like having Predator" worked really well.

The problem of course is you need to play x wing to understand that gobbledegook. And you can ReRoll a ReRoll in RW.

Like Tvay, I'm a bit out of steam. Held open demo, no shows, etc. It's rough. Need a rest for a bit.

To be fair, I have been into armada since it started but only started showing up at local stores just before wave 3. At that time there were 2 others who played regularly. Now our armada group is planning a 10 player CC.

I'm hopeful that in a few more months people will start crawling out of the woodwork.

Here is the problen with getting existing mini gamers and this is the biggesr hurdle. Mini games are all about sunk costs. I (not literally me, an imagined me) play 40k not just because I like the rules but I have 600 dollars worth of a painted army and a 100 dollars worth of unpainted stuff.

So not only are you battling rules sets but also that feeling of loyality due to time and money spent.

There are two things that help combat that.

1) You can get a full runwars army with a few different varriations for like 200 bucks, cheaper if you use ebay/discount sites. So maybe get that out there when talking to mini gamers. Now inversely that will scare off board gamers, lol

2) Just like people have loyality to their existing game system there are a lot of people who love fantasy flight and feel lotality to them.

Dont know just two thoughts I had about the battle to recruit while waiting at an airport, lol.

1 hour ago, Darthain said:

Like Tvay, I'm a bit out of steam. Held open demo, no shows, etc. It's rough. Need a rest for a bit.

Right? Promoting leaves so little time to play. I'm lucky enough to have the handful of local gamers who DO keep up with the game, but I need to spend more time rolling dice and less time hovering as a TO.

1 hour ago, Jukey said:

To be fair, I have been into armada since it started but only started showing up at local stores just before wave 3. At that time there were 2 others who played regularly. Now our armada group is planning a 10 player CC.

I'm hopeful that in a few more months people will start crawling out of the woodwork.

I just keep reminding myself that we only have three of four basic factions. The Latari brought in a lot of people, I think the Uthuk will do the same if not better.

This may sound like weird advice, but a great way to engage passersby is to ask them what they play and why and to ask them why they aren't playing Runewars. This gets them talking but can also reveal barriers that you can help solve. Some common worries I've heard are that the game costs too much, that they don't want to paint so much, that they're worried they won't have opponents to play. There's obvious answers to these questions you can give, but again, my advice may be counter-intuitive. Instead of responding with, "We can split a box! Mine aren't painted either! I'll always play with you!" Ask them how they could solve these problems. They'll own the solutions and feel empowered by having come up with them and by listening to them instead of plowing them over with a hard sell, you will have built trust with the other people so that they will be more likely to believe that you will follow through on the things you said you would do to help them with their hesitations about getting into the game.

46 minutes ago, Elliphino said:

This may sound like weird advice, but a great way to engage passersby is to ask them what they play and why and to ask them why they aren't playing Runewars. This gets them talking but can also reveal barriers that you can help solve. Some common worries I've heard are that the game costs too much, that they don't want to paint so much, that they're worried they won't have opponents to play. There's obvious answers to these questions you can give, but again, my advice may be counter-intuitive. Instead of responding with, "We can split a box! Mine aren't painted either! I'll always play with you!" Ask them how they could solve these problems. They'll own the solutions and feel empowered by having come up with them and by listening to them instead of plowing them over with a hard sell, you will have built trust with the other people so that they will be more likely to believe that you will follow through on the things you said you would do to help them with their hesitations about getting into the game.

That is some next level councilor advice! It sounds like you have unconditional positive regard for passerbys :). We are planning on taking our armies to the game cafe soon to try just this.

If you are worried about people perceiving painting as an issue, set up one of your armies with a minimalist paint scheme. Mine is. It is not a display-worthy army, but it is very much table ready and has a distinct, moldy/filthy look for the undead.

When you can say your entire painting supply list is “1 brush, 3 paints, spray on primer, and a wash,” it isn’t nearly as intimidating as showing some gorgeous army that required dry brushing, blending 14 different colors to get that one glowing eye look, 5 layers for the Rune Golems chest glow, etc., etc.

While you are at it, keep a spare army. Something straightforward that you can toss on the table for an interested player to try. This was worked for us several times in Armada. I’ve had two different guys locally play with borrowed armies for a full tourney and got hooked.

The greater point: Keep showing interested potential players how low the barrier to entry is.

9 hours ago, Elliphino said:

This may sound like weird advice, but a great way to engage passersby is to ask them what they play and why and to ask them why they aren't playing Runewars. This gets them talking but can also reveal barriers that you can help solve. Some common worries I've heard are that the game costs too much, that they don't want to paint so much, that they're worried they won't have opponents to play. There's obvious answers to these questions you can give, but again, my advice may be counter-intuitive. Instead of responding with, "We can split a box! Mine aren't painted either! I'll always play with you!" Ask them how they could solve these problems. They'll own the solutions and feel empowered by having come up with them and by listening to them instead of plowing them over with a hard sell, you will have built trust with the other people so that they will be more likely to believe that you will follow through on the things you said you would do to help them with their hesitations about getting into the game.

Spoken like a salesman, but very true. Talk to them about likes and dislikes and compare RW to likes and how it's better than dislikes.