When the COVID-19 pandemic subsides and we can get back to our routines, we are likely to see that interest for in-person gaming, including Armada, will have diminished slightly (initially at least). As someone who has built a pretty solid Armada community from scratch, I figured writing a brief how-to guide for building, reinvigorating, and/or maintaining an Armada community wouldn’t be such a bad idea (while this may not be such a problem in a major metropolitan area, it is a little difficult in a city of only 44,000). It's not like I'm getting a lot of games in right now, so here goes.
1. Research: The first step to any endeavor is to conduct your research. In this case, it means taking a look at the local gaming scene to see if there is even interest in Star Wars: Armada. Are there any active Armada players or groups in your city or nearby communities? If not, was there ever? If there use to be, why did interest in the game subside? Are there any other gaming circles that may be interested in Armada?
When I moved to Arizona almost two years ago, there were several events that facilitated building a successful Armada community. First, X-Wing 2.0 had just been announced, but was not being released for a few months. For players that were frustrated at the announcement, this gave them a new Star Wars game to get into. For players that were excited about the announcement, it gave them something to play while they waited for the new edition to drop. Second, my new community was always on the lookout for the “next big thing.” Since X-Wing, Warhammer 40k / Age of Sigmar, and Warmachine had been the staples here (and Star Trek Attack Wing, to a lesser degree), people were very excited to try something new and grander in scale. Third, even though there was only one active Armada player in the area, he was able to explain to me why it never particularly caught on in the local gaming community and how he thinks it could be marketed (from a player’s perspective). Lastly, we had two new game stores (for a total of four) open up a week apart. This allowed me to meet with the store owners and conduct Learn to Play demos at each location, vastly expanding the possible player base, which included card and board gamers as well.
2. Demos / Learn to Plays: After conducting my research, I spoke with each of the Friendly Local Game Store (FLGS) owners about conducting Learn to Play demos at their establishments. It is crucial to build rapport with each owner so that they stock Armada and are open to you holding future events (as well as fully supporting your promotion of said events). I also reserved a slot at the Cochise College Comic-Con to reach a larger audience. After scheduling these events, it is important to promote them as much as possible, including Facebook, college/unit event walls, and inside the game store.
My standard demo involves an 300-point game with no commanders, upgrades, or objectives for simplicity (Imperial II-class Star Destroyer, Arquitens-class Light Crusier, Raider II-class Corvette, Gozanti-class Assault Carriers, and 6 x TIE Fighter Squadrons versus an MC75 Armored Cruiser, Nebulon-B Escort Frigate, CR90 Corvette A, Hammerhead Scout Corvette, and 4 x X-Wing Squadrons). My purpose in this was to get the iconic Star Wars capital ships on the table, with the majority of them being from the films, some from Star Wars Rebels , and one from Battlefront II (numerous people have told me that the ISD made them stop at the table to listen my pitch, so this is definitely a good idea).
After that, just play a simple game for/with the first person that walks up. I would recommend having a basic outline though of how you are going to present the game; without a script, I realized that I tended to deep dive into strategy in lieu of giving the gameplay basics. If possible, get potential players involved in the demo, letting them choose the ship commands, move the ships/squadrons, and roll the dice (since you won’t have a [rare] intact Victory on the table, there is minimal chance of them breaking one of your miniatures). This gives them the thrill of playing as opposed to just watching; if you have multiple people watching, give them each a ship to command. And when you are demoing at a FLGS, make sure that you highlight where the product is located, with special emphasis on checking out the other ships that you did not use in your demo.
3. Events: Now that you have gathered interest in Armada with your local community, it is time to start putting together events, both Open Play and Tournaments. Open Play events are an excellent opportunity to get people together to play on a weekly basis, so long as you have a player base that is willing to show up almost every week (I tend to find that with a player base that is sporadic in attendance, this actually makes it look like there is less interest in a game, which can have the opposite effect). While we do not have a set date and time for Open Play at our FLGS (Orbital Games), generally Saturday afternoons is when people get their games in.
I generally can’t make it to the Open Plays (being a single Dad and all), so I focus on hosting and promoting single-day tournaments. This is where you really start to see the benefits of your hard work in building the Armada community. First, unless they had a prior engagement, the majority of active players will show up for a local event, especially if it’s casual. Second, if you promote it right, you will not only bring in players from outside of your community, but also, potential players that are on the fence about getting in will drop by to watch (usually leaving with a Core Set and an expansion or two). And if you gather enough interest and friendly competition, you will have a large enough community that demands more frequent and larger events (which led me to submitting two Prime Applications in early March). While we had to cancel our Task Force tournament last month, we had more than 14 people that were planning to attend, which is a huge turnout from the one individual that went to our city’s lone Store Championship the year before I arrived.
In my opinion, tournaments are fairly easy to host and promote. Work with your FLGS to pick a date about one to two months in the future for the event, preferably on a Saturday. Ensure that they are tracking the time and resource requirements for the tournament format (for example, a three-round Swiss, 400-point tournament for eight people requires four 6 x 3 tables [preferably 6 x 4 for card space] and about seven hours). Discuss the entry fee as well as prize support for the event with them. Once you get all this information, promote it just as you would a Learn to Play; if it is a casual event, ensure that you are promoting it as such (“Players of all skill levels are welcome”). Prepare your digital and hard-copy event trackers (I use Cryodex and digital/hard-copy Excel spreadsheets). If you are going to be the Marshall as well, ensure that you read and reread the Rules Reference, latest FAQ, and Tournament Regulations. Come tournament time, tell everyone to fly casual and try to ensure that everyone has a great time (because then they will bring their friends next time). And bring donuts. Definitely bring donuts.
4. Continuous Participation and Promotion: Just like any other game, Armada players need to be active to keep the game going. But this means more than just playing the game. They needed a place to discuss the game, bounce strategies and lists off one another, and to post pictures of their games. To help with that, we created our own squadron (page) on Facebook. And it has been a huge success in keeping people aware that games are going on and that you need only ask. In fact, after realizing that the majority of our Armada and X-Wing player base played Legion and the Star Wars RPG as well, we just combined it to include all Star Wars gaming. We also try to steer people to the forums, but with less success (sorry).
In coordination with the above, keeping everyone in the area aware of what is going on is paramount in keeping your community intact. Posting Battle Reports is one of the best ways to do this. It lets your community know that games are (still) going on and it facilitates discussion about the specific ships, squadrons, upgrades, objectives, and/or strategies used. Additionally, it is important to keep the community abreast of what is going on with the game from FFG. While I didn’t think “Clone Wars is still coming” was much to communicate to our player base about, you can bet that I was pushing out information on the Clone Wars upgrade cards we received as quickly as I could. And they got pumped up about it.
I hope this helps, or at least wasn’t a waste of your time. This may be the weekly battle rhythm for a lot of you, but a significant amount of hard work went into building our community, so I figured this might be the right time to put it all into words to share with others. Please let me know if you have any questions or if you found a good way to do it this in your community. Thanks.