I'm sitting here at the flgs, waiting to see if anyone is going to show up. Again. The one other regular just had a second kid. He gets a pass. There are two other irregulars. Don't know what the **** is up there - no response to communications. But sitting around the shop, playing Legion, Magic, and Blood Bowl, I can count SEVEN former X-Wing players. They have stopped for a variety of reasons. Some burnt out in the toxic final days of 1.0 and simply can't be bothered to convert - they've already sold their collections. Some preferred 1.0 and refuse to convert, and have sold their collections rather than participating in the "money grab." And one dude in particular got tired of winning every single game with Jedi, and decided to move on to more challenging games.

I like my flgs. I like the owner. I like the so very few regulars. But this is getting very tiresome, and I am getting ready to jump. That is, if I can find another flgs out here in the *** end of the Outer Rim.

You gotta' look around.

Though IDFK what's up with the lad and his Jedi. If he's tired of winning with jedi, why doesn't he try something else? ****, there's more to this game than winning.

For many months, we were only about 6 or 7 at most on a typical casual night.

Over the last couple of months, we've averaged 12 or so. We had 17 a couple of weeks ago. We rarely have below 8.

What changed? It's been a combination of things. Our top players made the game inviting for new players. They've endorsed new formats like Epic redux and Aces High, where we had two tables totaling 14 players between them last month. Our pros coach new players through strategy and tactics, and we focus heavily on social media engagement as well. We have fun and take interest in each other's enjoyment of the game. We even celebrate silliness like a Porkins list night.

Our recent tournament had our legacy players all donate some considerable swag (hyperspace templates, championship dice, etc) as prizes. Next month we're even giving the last place player some big rewards. We moved our game night to another evening where we had room to grow instead of being sandwiched on a Magic the Gathering tournament night.

So there's alot of things it takes to build up the local scene. The good news is not a single one of those options included anything that FFG did or influenced.

I was an outsider myself as little as 2 years ago. I had only played for the prior two years against the same 3 people at home. But once I ventured into the wild I met some really cool players. They're out there. You just gotta hang in there!

Good luck!

My advice is build your own community. We don't have an offical place that sells X-Wing in the entire country, and only one flgs in out city that carries any kind of tabletop games.

We are currently in the middle of very active 15 man league which will probably continue to grow. Without offical support, without an official club (we play in geeky bars and borrow space from Warhammer communities).

Sitting and lamenting that your community is dying while still expecting the community to be delivered to you is kinda spoiled.

3 years ago, my not-so-friendly local store had a big argument with a couple of local x-wing players and chucked us all out.

Most went further afield to play, but I can't play on their x-wing evening, and it was too far for me to get more than one game in.

So, 3 of us started a new group. We called ourselves Nomad Squadron because we had no home. After 9 months of barely playing, we found a shop with some play space. And recruited more players through Facebook.

It took a while, but we got about 8 regulars and another 8 occasional players. Then 2nd ed hit. Half dropped out or became occasional. And we recruited more. Now, we get about 14 regulars plus another 10 or so who come once every 2 months or so.

It takes quite a lot of effort, needs regular posting in our Facebook group to keep awareness up, pics of games to advertise each week so people turn up, etc.

And we now also have 6 regular Armada players too.

I'm training some padawans. It'll take them 1 year to get thru basic academy training. And 3 years before I throw them out of the swamp and declare them ready to take any championship they want. Year 2 they'll probably go unexpected to try and save their sister that they have the hots for.

also cuz the regulars are a bunch of boys in a club. and by boys i don't mean boys, i mean a bunch of crunchy old *** men

While I feel for you, the other players who left are under no obligation to continue playing a game they don’t want to.

What you need to do is build up a community. It’s tough, but you can do it. That’s what I wound up doing. 3 guys who wanted a place to play close to home got together, and through hard promotion work and showing new people the ropes, we have a growing community at our friendly LGS. We now have larger groups (8-10 most weeks) coming and it’s awesome.

Still seems very solid in the UK, our store closed and we still have 10-20 people showing up to the town hall every week.

I mean, during 1.0 I had almost 2 years were it was just me and one other guy playing constantly. We grew the group from irregulars. Now in 2.0 we have a solid group of 5-6 people playing at each of the 2 nights a week at two stores. You have to out in the effort and yeah there is going to be slow times. It comes with any form of this hobby.

I've been there. At the end of 1.0 it was down to me and one other guy who drove an hour to get there.

Every once in a while there would be an irregular say he would come...and I'd sit in the store all night with a book.

The store helped us a lot by mentioning our play night to a few other people as they came through and bought stuff to play on the kitchen table.

We're still not a big group, sometimes -rarely- we get up to 8, but it's an improvement.

Hang in there man, talk the game up as best you can and get whatever help the store can give in talking up the game night.

We've lost some and gained some. There's probably a cyclic action to it. I don't always play--it became tedious to save EVERY Saturday (our group's normal play day) for X-wing or Legion (because some of our players would be there all day and into the night). Sometimes I want to do other things. But they moved X wing to Tuesday nights and I've been going most weeks.

Maybe there are changes you can make to develop your group.

We had the same situation happen to us last year. With 1.0 going to 2.0, we lost a few players. Then Legion came and took some of our pilots way. We were strong at 15-20 people at one point and at our worst it felt like only 3-4 dedicated players. People had kids and other priorities that took over but that's not a fault. But recently we have been getting a resurgence in our league. We started making changes to our league format, help new players into the game, give them swag items to entice them and just making the overall experience enjoyable. At this moment, we are about 15 regular players now and still more joining each week. There will be lulls where it may seem that it has died out but be patient, with a little (or a lot) of work, it can go back to its glory days. We have guys now 3D printing swag (Token holders, storage containers) and also making really cool alternate cards. We have a Fly Casual mentality and openly answer question to onlookers who might be interested in the game. Just be positive and it will show. We are lucky in SoCal to have many FLGS in the area to choose from. So if you are ever in the San Diego area, feel free to stop by At Ease Games on Thursday nights, San Diego Solar Squadron welcomes you!

Some communities are worth the drive if you can make the trip. Our local store is nothing but Magic and 40K these days, so I drive 90 minutes to Raleigh/Cary (and sometimes 2 hours to Durham) to play with those great communities.

It sucks to see a local group die off - it happened twice here, once with Star Trek Attack Wing (we had 14 players and were the last store in the state to run the OPs about 2 years ago), and again with our board game group.

im a teacher at quite a large middle school and am starting up an X-Wing club at my school. im shoulder tapping specific boys i know are sw fans and will lve the game. im using all of my own stuff (i have a reasonable selection of ships from the 3 older factions most of which i dont play anymore). im pretty sure the game will be popular enough for hem to want to buy there own stuff eventually but thats not the goal. My hope is to just create a group of kids that hangout and introduce a cool new game i know theyl love. some of the kids iminviting dont play much of anything and really need something to help them meet new friends (sort of the geeky chess kids that avoid the sporty kids )

Will start with maybe 6 kids and play furballs 1x week. see how that goes.might start up a campaign with points awarded for kills and have a leader board. your pilot earns experience for each kill and after 3 kills they get to take an extra upgrade for their ship. start with generic academy pilots (man i have so many tie fighters i havent flown since 1.0) or rookie x-wings with a sprinkling of generic scum ships.small base ships only... after a certain number of games under their belt illlet them upgarde to the next most expensive unique pilot. lets see if we can get wedge, or soontir or fenn

can maybe have a 'best in faction' medal awarded each session to the top pilot in each faction on the day.

might intro a few different scenarios and have them work cooperatively on accasion with some missions happening as well or just working togther in each faction (2 of ships from each faction). i'll let destroyed ships respawn right away at the starting edge of the board but you might lose one experience point (minimum of zero) if you get destroyed so staying alive the whole game gets you more xp/kills.

I wish there was more Legion players. I know there's 20+ that have core sets and armies but I'm so swamped with life I'm lucky to be an irregular in x wing, much less to build a new legion community

I used to be fairly involved in autocross and in my experience, the only constant in sport or hobby is that groups come and go. I was part of a group of guys who were constantly autocrossing, karting, or simply hanging out and grilling, and then one by one, people left. I don’t talk to any of those guys with any regularity any longer. That being said, if you make the effort and explore your options, there’s always bound to be some new group for you to join (or start).

This happened at our local store. The Xwing group there had a number of less than desirable people to play with. My friend and I basically poached the few cool folks from that group as the store scene was dying. Now we have a solid group of 6-8 that play every week in my buddies basement. Much better that the LGS, we can drink and do other things adults do and his basement doesn't reek of BO and nerdery. Been going strong for 5 years now and the LGS doesn't even stock Xwing anymore, so we got out when the getting was good.

7 hours ago, faceyfood said:

This happened at our local store. The Xwing group there had a number of less than desirable people to play with. My friend and I basically poached the few cool folks from that group as the store scene was dying. Now we have a solid group of 6-8 that play every week in my buddies basement. Much better that the LGS, we can drink and do other things adults do and his basement doesn't reek of BO and nerdery. Been going strong for 5 years now and the LGS doesn't even stock Xwing anymore, so we got out when the getting was good.

hmm, a group i used to belong to got pushed out of the LGS becase of low numbers. the space they were using below the store was needed for magic players so they got the heave ho. some other politics between the store and the players (store owner sometimes too pushy getting players to buy his stock instore when his prices not that good). i left the group for almost a year due to moving to another city but initially tried to make the effort to make it back for the odd tournament or club night... so the store owner spots me at a club night after being absent for almost a yr and suggest i pay my $10 club fee if im coming back again (im like, well i live out of town now and only make it back infrequently to play... (numbers are kind low at this point aroun 8 ppl).im all for supporting the LGS so pay the $10 fee (i know many stores let players play games instore for free). fast fwd to now and i havent been back there for a few years and that $10 fee i paid was rather a waste of money but im not salty about it, just dissappointed the guy managing the store wasnt able t keep things going but i totally unfderstand his side of things... X-Wing is a fickle game in many areas. the player numbers fluctaute but I can't help thinking if the store manager has been less of a Bully to patrons they'd have found a way to keep the tabletop gamers attending.

Be the catalyst for change that you want to see. Host demo nights. Give away extra promo cards you have. Go to small local gaming conventions and set up a table. The fans of the game can be its biggest promoters. I have done all of these things and have seen dividends from it. I will continue to do so.

We lost a few people during the 1st Ed/2nd Ed conversion too, but we have since replaced those numbers, and then some, with new blood. But it doesn't always just happen spontaneously. Sometimes you have to MAKE it happen.

Our local store had a difference of opinion with our TO, this TO started the community from scratch and we had about 20+ players in league. Store thought they could do it better themselves and the community numbers tanked due to them not doing anything.

The TO now started his own store out of his garage and the dedicated regulars play there and everyone else is out of the game. Our community is a LOT smaller than before but at least we have something. I definitely can understand the OP’s frustration with shrinking numbers.

Similar thing started happening here until I found people outside of the game store and got them hooked. Now they play more than me and the group is growing on its own.

I feel you. Locally, the store that was the epicenter of X-Wing closed down at the tail end of 1.0, and players had been dropping out for a while due to the general awfulness of that era of the game.

The group essentially split between two other stores, both of which are substantially further away. There’s a store much closer (which is where I go now), but the “leaders” of the old group had beef with a former employee (who hasn’t worked there in years) and not only refused to go there, but flipped out at me when I suggested going there.

X-Wing never really took off in a big way there, and the folks who did play it generally haven’t played in a long time and haven’t picked up 2.0. There’s a small group that plays from time to time, and I can generally get a couple games in each month, but scheduling can be rough.

So, I play rarely, try and grow the local group, and strongly consider heading down near Paramus to get some more games in.

So two of the local stores I use to play in are shutting down this month.. this is another comic shop close by but very little play space and when I stopped by the other day like no X-Wing products anymore... it’s harder to find people who both still play and a place to meet soooo good thing my son turned 7 and I’m teaching him to play!

anyway I just came back into X-Wing and spent my $300+ dollars to convert all my ships to 2.0 and pick up a handful of minis from that I didn’t pick up at the end. Basically reaper/striker/saws renegades/aggressor and the newer lando falcon and 2x miners tie for scum... so I’m basically fine with all the minis I have for scum, empire and rebels and no intention of the newer factions. Also picked up the new card sets and preordered a second damage deck.

my complaints as someone who likes the game and came back.. the upgrade to 2.0 was expensive and didn’t give me much new other then being able to mostly use what I have. I still can’t use all my xwings, a wings, ywings, interceptors, and tie ln or all my huge ships at the same time. I’m going to need to look at secondary markets for parts. the official app is still a mess 2 years after the conversion... there still isn’t a HOTAC type campaign from FFG, some of the new rules like tractor are more fiddly then 1.0, hyperspace feels way to restricted... I get it when it was just the 2.0 converted stuff but now it’s throwing people away imho. I like the card pack idea for upgrades and subtitles for new version of pilots. Anyway my complaints mostly stem from the fact the game seems fractured in the community. In other words shrinking not growing.

Also my plans are to pick up a star wing when ffg ever makes the 2.0 kit for it since it’s no where to be found. Get my missing dials, cards and cardboard for the ships I currently own in the secondary market... and pick up another huge ship conversion kit when it goes on clearance somewhere at 40% off. Hope the 2.0 app comes out soon and teach my son to play with what we got which is a lot!! Maybe I’ll grab a third fang fighter I dunno. If they come out with another card pack for my 3 factions I’ll do that and maybe the rumored campaign kit.