Those of you with a relatively healthy local Armada scene, what do you do to sustain and grow it?
Keeping Your Local Scene Alive
Consistent meet ups, talking to people who seem interested.
Advertise.
Promote.
Be Positive.
Be Excited.
Set a Schedule.
Keep the Schedule.
53 minutes ago, Drasnighta said:Keep the Schedule.
This one is key. Even if only 2 people show up, stick to the plan and do some Armada stuff. It may build interest, others may see you playing and watch, it keeps at least some activity level. If you cancel because some minimum number didn't show up, then the person(s) that did show up just get discouraged. You also sometimes have a late person or straggler that gets delayed for some reason.
56 minutes ago, Drasnighta said:Advertise.
I am a graphic artist first and foremost regardless of what I currently do... I'll gladly throw things people's way to help with advertising stuff.
Basically what everyone has said. I run a game night every Tuesday at 6 we got up to 12 players a few weeks in a row, then it slumped off and now we only get 2-4 players, I believe this is because of the lack of new things, but I believe when Rebillion in the Rim drops people will get excited agian and they will know when a where to be Tuesdays at 6.
2 minutes ago, xero989 said:Basically what everyone has said. I run a game night every Tuesday at 6 we got up to 12 players a few weeks in a row, then it slumped off and now we only get 2-4 players, I believe this is because of the lack of new things, but I believe when Rebillion in the Rim drops people will get excited agian and they will know when a where to be Tuesdays at 6.
There should always be new Things.
But new things aren't always new releases .
Alt Arts, new Competitions, new ways of playing, Take the Station, exitement...
New Things
, since releases are out of your hands
Regular casual events are a big thing for our meta. We try to have one event every month or every other at the longest.
Also friendly attitude. Worst thing to do is invite people in with a club behind your back waiting to "teach them to get better at the game." Armada is daunting enough just on the core level.
8 minutes ago, Drasnighta said:There should always be new Things.
But new things aren't always new releases .
Alt Arts, new Competitions, new ways of playing, Take the Station, exitement... New Things , since releases are out of your hands
Yeah I have kinda just let it be open play. I used to give out alt art cards but now everyone has the cards I have to give, I have been working on custom alt arts, but now we also have the sessional kits so I am hoping that will kick it into gear. I should make some sort of Tuesday night event though in the future.
Definitely do competitive play fairly regularly particularly at times like now when there isn't a lot of news or new stuff to play around with. Leverage social media to meet up with each other, nothing sucks worse than going to your local game shop and there's no one there to play with. Most importantly though make new players feel welcome, and I mean very welcome, you're thrilled to have them there, after all there's probably just one local armada community so leverage the fact there is no alternative and don't tolerate trash talk, back handed compliments, poor attitudes after either a win or loss or anything else that could drive others away. One thing we do in ours is have days set aside for learning one specific aspect of the game, start with deployment and maybe next time it's squadrons, then choosing objectives and so on, basically the idea is not just making people feel welcome but giving them the tools they need to be competitive.
1 hour ago, Drasnighta said:There should always be new Things.
But new things aren't always new releases .
Alt Arts, new Competitions, new ways of playing, Take the Station, exitement... New Things , since releases are out of your hands
Speaking of new things and ideas, I k ow I’ve seen the occasional post with themed games and/or special rules to spice things up. Is there a site, forum sub where those have been collated?
1 hour ago, Nomemories said:Definitely do competitive play fairly regularly particularly at times like now when there isn't a lot of news or new stuff to play around with. Leverage social media to meet up with each other, nothing sucks worse than going to your local game shop and there's no one there to play with. Most importantly though make new players feel welcome, and I mean very welcome, you're thrilled to have them there, after all there's probably just one local armada community so leverage the fact there is no alternative and don't tolerate trash talk, back handed compliments, poor attitudes after either a win or loss or anything else that could drive others away. One thing we do in ours is have days set aside for learning one specific aspect of the game, start with deployment and maybe next time it's squadrons, then choosing objectives and so on, basically the idea is not just making people feel welcome but giving them the tools they need to be competitive.
Whole heartedly agree with the effect of a crap attitude.
My local store tried to do the weekly game night for all FFG games for about the last year. But then today when I was there for a different game they were pulling what little Armada stuff that they had off the shelf. I asked and they said that as far as they are concerned it, the card game, and Imperial Assault are dead games and they are not going to stock them anymore. As far as Armarda (I never played any of the other games) it was the almost two years without stuff to sell, so why try and keep old stuff in for a game when the company does not support it.
So one more area that is now dead as far as Armada goes.
The best way to get people interested in playing Armada (or any game) is to play the game in a game store, week after week. Find a game store that wants to support your group, then make sure that your group returns the favor by supporting that game store.
Spokane (where I live) is known to have a healthy Armada community. It is only that way because of a handful (initially only 2) dedicated players who make sure to play the game every week at the same time, and the game store that provides the space. It is because of them that I am in this game (it didn't hurt that one of them was a friend I made while playing X-Wing).
When people start watching you play — which will happen all of the time, because it is one of the coolest games around when it is on the table — be sure to take some time away from your game to talk to them about what you are playing, why you like it, the times you normally play each week, and your willingness to teach the game to new players.
Arrival of SSD will be a good boost to interest to the game ( when it arrives ).
Also release of Episode IX hopefully will renew interest to the franchise which Armada can benefit from.
January 2020 will be a very nice time to recruit new players to the game.
14 hours ago, Drasnighta said:There should always be new Things.
But new things aren't always new releases .
Alt Arts, new Competitions, new ways of playing, Take the Station, exitement... New Things , since releases are out of your hands
Agreed. A local TO did a "four squads max" tournament around December; it was really fun and encouraged some interesting lists. (Winning list had two squads, second place was a Leia list with no squads.)
Same TO had a tournament in May where everyone had to bring a Rebel list and an Imperial list; interesting way to prevent mirror matches.
11 hours ago, stonestokes said:The best way to get people interested in playing Armada (or any game) is to play the game in a game store, week after week. Find a game store that wants to support your group, then make sure that your group returns the favor by supporting that game store.
Spokane (where I live) is known to have a healthy Armada community. It is only that way because of a handful (initially only 2) dedicated players who make sure to play the game every week at the same time, and the game store that provides the space. It is because of them that I am in this game (it didn't hurt that one of them was a friend I made while playing X-Wing).
When people start watching you play — which will happen all of the time, because it is one of the coolest games around when it is on the table — be sure to take some time away from your game to talk to them about what you are playing, why you like it, the times you normally play each week, and your willingness to teach the game to new players.
Yes, playing the game is good, but you also have to be able to get stuff for the game, and new stuff is nice to have as well. Only the die hard fans will stick around when three is nothing new for the game. Here I do not understand FFG and there lack of telling stores about what is coming out (or maybe it is just my local store I do not know) when they were pulling the stuff we asked and they did not know about the new campaign coming out, only the vaperware SSD.
FFG is telling stores.
I get the emails, as a prospective store.
1 hour ago, Drasnighta said:FFG is telling stores.
I get the emails, as a prospective store.
Dras, I know you can't tell us specifics, but did they have solid dates in those e-mails?
Word of mouth.
Play the game.
People want to watch people. I live in SoCal and I am slowly introducing new people into the game as well as trying to work with some of the existing players to keep the scene as fresh as possible. The thing about Southern California is the community is strong, however there are other games in the scene as well. The two things I run into the most is 1) Time - something you can't really control. The other is 2) space. Stores always have other games going on. 3) The state of the game. There are going to people that say the game is dead. Let them talk. If you're truly passionate about the game, that shouldn't be on your mind. EVER.
Find a store that would be down for the cause and start a game night. Somewhere accessible.
I've been in tabletop gaming for a number of years. However, only played Armada for a few months. I want to see the community come back to what it was before.
Don't get discouraged. Work at it. Use social media. It's a POWERFUL tool. Things like Discord & Facebook are amazing resources.
Take the time to run a demo or introduce someone into the game. It can be tedious but it's the catalyst to keep the game on the shelves.
It'll be happen. You just got to have faith!
4 hours ago, eliteone said:Dras, I know you can't tell us specifics, but did they have solid dates in those e-mails?
No, they’re generally just “pre order now for QX release” as the public information - they’re just direct marketed
We started a local RPG style series with Armada as an initial way in for some players. It was a good hit. I plan on doing it more with these new, create a captain thing, that RitR will have. Unless I can make a better Middle Earth Battle Companies thing...
1 hour ago, Drasnighta said:No, they’re generally just “pre order now for QX release” as the public information - they’re just direct marketed
Ah I see, trying to get an idea on numbers. Well, at least there's a future.
So, beyond the tournament kits, I was looking on Etsy for prize support ideas. Where do y’all typically get money for that stuff? Do you partner with your LFGS to split costs?
Some of this stuff is really cool, but would add up pretty quick.
I mean, it certainly *feels* like a bit of an Evil Money Grab, but its how I most often pull things off:
Consummately, increased entry is increased prizes... At my base $5 entry, I can pay for a tournament kit and turn a little profit for the store for their time and space.
If its $`10, on average, I'm making $60-80 for the store on top of paying for the Kit. That can be sunk immediately into extra prizes, but typically, I "bank" it over 2-3 tournaments and then splurge on one larger set of prizes... I suppliment kits with previous leftover kits if I'm not dropping anything big.
But after 2-3 banked tournaments, I could have $200 in the kitty to make a real difference.
Of course, I can readily say that I'm going to get 10-12 for an average tournament, and 20+ on something bigger like a Regional. You need to adjust expectations as it is.
I mean, coming from 40k, where Tournaments are often $50-70 Entry and over 2 Days.... We're downright cheap in comparison.