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How to deal with anti-AOS in local clubs?


Aeonotakist

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I live in a very small town. There is a 40 people group half/half play some 8th and 40k. When AOS launched some people in the local club got extremely bad impression or what that they hated AOS so much. At the end of 2015, I was eventually the only guy painting AOS. (Only paint since no game for me)

 

Few months ago we had GHB. Also I got a student relocated here that plays AOS. We had some happy time playing together (both he and I were really good at tactics so we had some brilliant games) and other people start to become interested. I thought finally I will get a good start... However, that guy left after 6 months study plan and back to his home country. I tried to keep some attention on this game but those AOS-anti people immediately introduced and encouraged others to try new games except AOS. They put up free Molly Fall and some Sci-fi games and keep training people on that. Also they introduced 9th and hold a tournament with some nice prize.

 

Personally I cannot spare too much time on introducing AOS. I am at a position with frequent business trips and I have a family. On the other hand some people can stay in the club and play 30 hours per week. When they are taming the trend on what is popular in local environment, I can hardly do anything to support my game. And their hatred towards AOS is so deep and solid...

 

Don't know whether I can get players in other cities. I live in Denmark and  I only know in Copenhagen there are enough AOS players. But if I drive there I will spend more than 150 EU so that is not a choice. 

 

 

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It can be tough and you're fighting an uphill struggle. Nerds are nothing if not a stubborn lot, and if they decide something is "for babies" then by jingo you'll never prove them wrong. We had a similar deal locally, often accompanied by plenty of intellectually-demeaning sneering.

I find the only way to get them to listen is sadly via herd tactics. Lots of people are picking up AoS locally because lots of people play it. Gamers follow the herd for the most part and play what's being played a lot. We've found a lot of people changing their mind on AoS or are open to giving it a try due to the amount of people playing, painting and generally enjoying the game, which wears down their stubbornness...mostly.

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I run a games shop and all I ever stress is how only now the GHB has made this a amazing game and how wrong I was to brush of what turned out to be a great little set of rules. I talk up the missions, positioning and manoeuvring being huge and still has that rank and file feel most of all GWs involvement with the community to bring this all to us. 

 

 

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You need to play it where you can be seen enjoying it. People who left WFB before AoS, because it became to competitive or "broken" for their taste are your best bet. Just getting people who you think will like it to give AoS a try is the other option, even if you don't do it at the club initially.

We had a surge of interest because we ran the global campaign, guys who I never would have guessed had fantasy armies that they had put in storage.

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@Aeonotakist I'm in Denmark as well, and although I have seen the vitriol on the Danish Powerfist.dk forums from the 9th Age players, I think the picture is different if you look outside that particular forum.

It seems that where I am, new pockets of AoS players pop up again and again, and that's players I've never heard of and are not associated with any clubs. So it can be quite hard to know where fellow AoS players are at, but one thing I can recommend is joining the AoS Danmark Facebook group, and ask around in there. I know there are also a local group for Aarhus, but probably plenty of others too.

Also as others have already mentioned, there are new players coming in to AoS which isn't bitter entrenched 8th players, some from 40k, some who have never played tabletop wargaming before, so rather than trying to "convert" any previous WHFB players, maybe the efforts would be better spent on trying to find these new players, maybe in adjacent towns if your own local community is not working out ?

Wish you the best of luck find a nice AoS community near you - If that happens to be around Aarhus, feel free to send a PM. Also don't forget we have a 'Denmark' section on this forum, although I don't know how many of the Danes here are actually visiting it so far :-)

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Are you near enough to a GW store that you could check out players there? Here in York it's got a really strong community around the store, and if the staff get a whiff of anti-AoS discussions theyre quick to take them down a peg, not to mention its the only fantasy game allowed in store.

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22 hours ago, Soulsmith said:

Are you near enough to a GW store that you could check out players there? Here in York it's got a really strong community around the store, and if the staff get a whiff of anti-AoS discussions theyre quick to take them down a peg, not to mention its the only fantasy game allowed in store.

Copenhagen has the only GW store in Denmark, so since he can't go there he's out of luck sadly.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Try sharing your hobby (AoS) with some friends/family that might not play.  This is what worked for my community.  Once I got a couple of friends playing AoS we started playing games our FLGS (our local club plays there).  Once   other players started seeing how much fun we were having, several started giving it a try.  

We are now running a slow grow League that has 15 players in it, and about to pick up another.

Stick with it and don't give up.  Persistence is the real key.

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