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US Tournaments and member growth


daedalus81

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1 hour ago, Sleboda said:

I'm in Chicago, and there is definitely a strong gaming scene here, but not for AoS yet. 

I know some of the bigger thought-leaders/influencers here (most have been friends for many years), and with very few exceptions, they are staunchly 9th Age advocates. They simply have not given AoS a fair shake and have no plans to do so. 

I get the same feeling. Lots of 40k players out here, decent scene for things like Maulifaux and Xwing, but little in the way of AoS yet. Still, it's growing, and at least one big GT (DragonFall) is looking to add AoS next year. Hope to grow it more following ACon! 

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2 hours ago, Sleboda said:

I'm in Chicago, and there is definitely a strong gaming scene here, but not for AoS yet. 

I know some of the bigger thought-leaders/influencers here (most have been friends for many years), and with very few exceptions, they are staunchly 9th Age advocates. They simply have not given AoS a fair shake and have no plans to do so. 

Once GW pushes models that don't have an easy proxy to old units (like the rumored Duardin golems/airships) then 9th will feel pressure as people seek out new novelties.  They either have to incorporate new units or slowly lose players.  Given their intransigence on having diverse rules I can't see them doing the former.  

The AoS community needs to be ready to drag those people on the fence to our side.  Kicking and screaming, if necessary.

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Nashville/Middle TN here. There do seem to be substantial headwinds against AoS down in the Southern states. From what I understand, many of the most influential TOs flipped to KoW or 9th, and it fractured the event scene. With the advent of the Handbook, I've personally seen a remarkable growth in interest and acceptance.

We have a fairly strong, if relatively small, community here, and I was just in Knoxville this weekend at an AoS event - they seem to be building as well. In many cases, it's just a matter of people sticking their necks out and hosting events. On the other side, I think it's equally important for AoS players to show up and support the people that are going out of their way to build these events.

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I'm in Southern CT, an hour from Grand Central by train. My home store is Gamer's Gambit in Danbury, with Battlegrounds in Norwalk being closer to where I live. I also visit Nu Brand Gaming club in Brooklyn from time to time. Both Gamer's Gambit and Nu Brand are places that any city in the country would be lucky to have.

Personally, I'm not dying for more events. There was an ITC last Saturday. Captaincon is in a couple of weeks in Warwick, RI. I'm eager to see more stores with weekly groups, Path to Glory campaigns, and existing events selling out. If that happens, you'll get your growth

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Here in northern Virginia we have a monthly tournament between  10 to 20 people. The community is only growing aswell. Our group plans to have a large showing at the nova open which is about 30 players over a weekend I belive 

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St. Louis here. I just kicked off a map campaign that's finally getting a bit of a fire lit under folks here. We're at 8 regular weekly players in week 2 with more coming in the future.  We've also got folks who run a tournament at rotating game stores around once a month. In the last six months or so the community has come alive.

We have an active local Facebook page we use to advertise and promote our events. That's seemed to work well.

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We just had our first AoS RTT locally. We only had 11 people attend but considering that you couldn't get dudes together to play before the GHB it's a start. I think AoS is picking up steam in Minnesota here in the US. We've got a fair few die hard hold outs that will take regiment gaming to their grave but they're slowly being left by the wayside as KoW squandered their opening.

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On 1/23/2017 at 11:24 AM, Ollie Grimwood said:

 


Garagehammer is still running and is AoS, it's also really good.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Also check out:

Scruby and Wells

Rolling Bad

Mortal Realms

Battleshock

Frontline Gaming The Ninth Realm

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Report from Arizona, USA and things have just started to pickup for AoS with us. Miniatures suffered pretty heavily here due to some store issues and half the state had nowhere to buy/play for the most part. That's been resolved now and the local League had 50+ entrants, although mostly once a week players.

In my experience unless there's a hardcore group who will keep playing a game until the end of time AND that group is extremely inclusive and vocal the game will not do well. For example we have a local Warmachine scene that is dying because the regulars are not inclusive, they take hard as nails lists against complete new players and only care about tournaments. Now they struggle to get 6 people for their weekly meetups.

If anyone is trying to get a scene going I strongly recommend having the person with the best social skills in your group run things. New players have to be eased into an expensive and time-consuming hobby, getting them there is a skill set. The most thriving local scenes the more you find people willing to group travel to events and the more events you have. It's a grass roots thing, doubly so because of how hands off GW is compared to other companies.

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On January 23, 2017 at 0:01 PM, daedalus81 said:

The AoS community needs to be ready to drag those people on the fence to our side.  Kicking and screaming, if necessary.

For the record, those people pushing to ban compendium scrolls and require round bases for events don't facilitate this transition; they hinder it.

 

The Bluegrass Brawlers FB group covers the Lexington, Louisville and Cincinnati areas and has 74 folks in it.  I don't know that everyone plays AOS but I do know that people are regularly looking for games in the area.  One of our local stores (Battleforge) runs a monthly 2000 point AOS event.  Normally they have 6-12 people show up.  Our local GW store (here in Lexington) has been running an AOS escalation league with 12 or so people participating as well.

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31 minutes ago, Auticus said:

I'm in Louisville so near Cincinnati, Indy, and Nashville.  There is a Nashville tournament going on first saturday of June that they are trying to grow out into a big event but other then that, fantasy seemed very dead for years even before AOS.  Trying to get that much enthusiasm going is hard.

For my city, there are a bunch of splinter groups and getting everyone to come together is another political challenge that no one has solved yet.  Also, AOS is pretty much other than the campaign group that I do dead from a public perspective (the tournament players that stuck with fantasy are pretty much Kings of War only and are very salty towards AOS even with GHB)

Thats just what I know publicly.  Perhaps there is an underground bunker somewhere where they play but to my knowledge there isnt much to generate a large scale event of any kind.

Yep! I'm running a 5 game GT at Nashcon in Nashville June 3-4. If anyone is looking for another AoS tournament to attend, I would highly recommend checking it out! 

 

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Anything going on in Miami (and environs)? I'll be spending most of June there and I'm considering taking some minis with me. I located a 9th age group but the prospect of bringing a full army is a bit too much.

The backup option is taking some xwing stuff but I'd rather play some warhammer.

 

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There's a growing scene in northern NJ. We have a narrative & casual-play league going at the moment, with between 6 and 10 players showing up regularly.

Some of us more active players are trying to get some cross-pollination going between game stores across the state. There's some momentum building at the moment, and there are some local tournaments going on at various stores. Hopefully there are some players/organizers/venues who can capitalize on that momentum & run something bigger.

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Number one issue with Tournaments in US? Lack of a clear governing body.  It would be cool if there was something similar to HC realms in heroclix.  Bascially a standardized structure of rulesets that can be used by any tourney and points are earned towards a yearly championship, ect.  Not sure if this exists already, but if it does, I have never heard of it. 

 

I am actively trying to grow the community in Indiana at the moment.  The issue appears to be from negativity from old fantasy players, and or the lack of understanding with GHB and Battletomes.  We are running an escalation league to gather all the small pockets of players into a different gamestore each month for one big day.  Several games starting at 500 (with custom battleplans) on up to 2000 points.  This will encourage others to paint, play and meet and hopefully attract some other players.  The lack of high quality models is not an issue.  Several people I have spoken to are interested in the game simply by how cool the models look.  

During demos/games, you would be surprised how many people come over to check out the models and then make offhand comments about their being no points (even though we were playing matched play games).  It seems that it is a lack of perception on how the game is played and how far its come, plus the way it's headed.  

The only solution to this is going to be getting as many players as possible rounded up (even if it's just you toting your two armies) and frequently attending different gaming stores and clubs.  Challenge people to learn.  Tell the fantasy players that you are sick of them complaining and to just try it and then you will let them complain after they have given it an honest go. 

Most players aren't going to invest time and money in a game unless they think it is a worthwhile investment and that there will be an active player base to regularly get games in.  Stop playing in your basements, get out to the stores.  BE SEEN, BE HEARD, RECRUIT! ;) I feel that with the release of Duardin and the way BTs are going, we are going to see an increased influx of new players.  

And if anyone is interested in helping organize a Tourney in Indianapolis please message me or find us on Indianapolis Age of Sigmar.  

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2 minutes ago, Auticus said:

Yes thats something I have heard a lot of as well.  There is a strong desire to have tournaments all run the same way with no deviation between them and if you had a world championship based on this the AOS community would probably triple in size, though primarily with competitive players (the positivity or negativity of that statement would be based on your own personal attraction to the game)

Why don't we just make one then... :) we are obviously dedicated.  We can get some of the AoS TO's from the largest tournaments to come together and solidify something.  If only we knew who they were. ;) 

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20 minutes ago, Lord Aquillor said:

Bascially a standardized structure of rulesets that can be used by any tourney and points are earned towards a yearly championship, ect.

Hahaha we dabbled with that a bit in 8th Ed in my scene. Proved to be a cancer, and brought out the very worst behaviour in everyone involved.  It was quickly and quietly cancelled.

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3 minutes ago, Auticus said:

This has been tried a few times.  I was part of a couple attempts back when the Indy GTs stepped up when GW stopped their GTs and we were trying to get all the regional organizers together to come up with a nationals.  It always degenerates into people arguing over gamer-politics and who the daddy is and what rules to use.

For this to work there would have to be a person that everyone trusts and a rules packet that garners enough positivity (ie... as close to RAW if not RAW) combined with financial backing to get multiple large scale tournaments funded and organized.  

The ITC for 40k is as close an example as we have right now and the ITC is very polarizing in that a lot of people love it and a lot of people really really hate it and TO's won't all adopt it so it snuffs out the idea of a national standardized event (because no one can agree on what the rules etc should be or who is the face of it)

Not saying that it cannot happen but having watched many attempts since GW left the tourney scene in 2005 or so fail for the same reasons over again, and watching the ITC format try to be this for 40k and get stymied, I at this point can't see it happening from anyone other than GW themselves making the circuit like Wizards and FFG do for their games.

I have played competitive clix, MTG and various other games over the years.  The most successful scenes tend to be as close to standarized RAW as possible.  Bringing politics and anything else into it isn't necessary.  If they keep things as GW states things it should be fine.  The only issues I can see really are bases.  An issue that should be rectified in time as the standard is basically, base to base.  Nothing major is going to come of AoS unless we get a standardized Competition Ruleset out and governing body.  

 

For the love of the game people... We can do this. ;)  

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