TL;DR: Today I went to my first Store Championship. The people there served me my pride on a silver platter after wiping the table with me, and completely changed my attitude toward Armada (for the better).
I was introduced to our Lord and Savior Ackbar last October. I quickly realized how much I loved the game, and I started really building my collection. I invested a lot of money into the game, as I was collecting both sides. There weren't many people around here that played, so if I wanted someone to game with outside of the two or three "regulars", I needed to supply them with a full fleet. Then due to my research responsibilities, I didn't play from early February until mid-July. Because of this break, I hadn't picked up or played with Wave 7 stuff, and I didn't really have reason to buy them if I wasn't getting games in. Along with this, we don't have much of a competitive scene around here. We've only had one season kit since I've started and that was in July. In fact, that may have been the first Armada tournament in our area. That was actually why I broke out my fleet again.
Honestly, I walked away from it completely disinterested in competitive play. Don't get me wrong... I enjoyed my games, but our "meta" is one sided (today was my first game against Rebels, and I had to leave the state to do it) and the lists are stagnant (I hadn't played any of them since January, and their lists are essentially the same). This led to the games lacking excitement and interesting decision making. Top all of this off with a healthy dose of "Armada is Dead"(TM) and rudely dismissing outside observers, and I was ready to walk away, consider my collection "complete", and keep to casual games with friends at home. Largely it felt like the only reason it was held was to get "free" Armada stuff from the kit.
Jumping forward a bit, @jamie nasmyth mentioned a store championship that was a 3.5 hour drive from where I live, but where there is a very active Armada community. It wasn't at their "home" FLGS, but a number of them would be going to run and participate in the SC. I semi-creepily knew who they were, because I had watched the games and tournaments they had streamed previously. I literally had nothing going on that day, so I decided why not. (Also, don't mention this to my in-laws. I was only about a half hour from them, and I didn't stop to visit...)
The GA crew was such a welcoming group and had such positive interactions with the game and each other, that I walked out of that store with a shiny new MC-75 and some other weird ship called Chimp-era or something like that (I even paid for them first!). To see a group that was willing to travel and support FLGSs in the area and to put in the effort in running a well managed tournament completely changed my attitude toward the game. I am all in on supporting the game and doing what I can to build the community.
Let's be real for a moment. FFG is a business, and as much as we would like for them to support a game line out of the goodness of their hearts and the passion in their souls, they need to be making money off it. This means they need people buying their product. But who wants to put money into something where the community is abrasive, rude, or unwelcoming?
So a shout out to @jamie nasmyth and @GiledPallaeon (and others whose usernames I don't know) for the fun tournament and for showing me what an awesome community looks like. Thanks for teaching me a lot about the game as well. I'll be doing my best to make it down to more tournaments, and I'll be seeing what I can do to build a positive community here.
Side Note: The people I've mentioned from my community aren't terrible people by any means. However, being kind and welcoming can go a long way when it comes to building a community. Sometimes you just need to be cognizant of how your interactions may be impacting the gamers around you. To (kind of) quote the man my father wanted me to be: "If the women gamers don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy welcoming."
