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I do that D6's at Blood Bowl tournaments I run but that costs me $1 a competitor to give them a pair of custom event dice. Would be hard to do at current price tags for dice for AoS where 40 dice in a roll is possible. Purell at every table may make sense. Depends if we are really worried that someone is trying to cheat and to what extent we want to deal with it. Agree entirely well I love tournament AoS treating it as a cut throat winner take all, cheat until they catch you, literal battle is going to lead to all sorts of long term negatives.

So the reason we're talking about this kind of imbalance and how to detect it is some dice sets have significant bubbles inside the plastic that weight one side or the pips are so heavily gouged out of one side it throws off the balance. The issue with the dice/water/salt technique is you have to have the liquid be isodense with the dice to have the dice 'float' at the sweet spot so bias tendencies are clear. For example a really heavy dice (i.e. a metal one) will just sink to the bottom of any water sodium chloride solution. You can't add enough salt to make it isodense with steel. You can get to the right density with salt and water with many but not all plastic dice. You can also get a sense by cutting a dice in half. Some poorly made dices sets reportedly have big bubbles you can see. And really who is checking dice in salt and water at an event or cutting them in half. It's talked about on the internet far more often then it is done.. . .unless you belong to a club that is apparently trying to do everything they can to cheat the system.

I think it's not that simple. You could have a weighted dice that passes the water/salt test which has only limited accuracy. However the 'I rolled the dice to see which ones roll well' test has even less accuracy. To get enough rolls to separate random chance from an actual bias in a visually intact dice is pretty hard to do. You roll a single dice 100 times and write down the distribution of results you might start finding groups of dice with a statistical anomaly but your statistical error rate is still pretty high particularly given that you are quite commonly using 40-50 dice in a game of AoS. Just because people try and find 'lucky (or broken)' dice doesn't mean they are as successful at it as they think. But dice sharing is probably for the best as it reduces the likelihood of problems (and even with that there are lots of ways to cheat if you are determined. . . as some folks in this thread clearly are!)

FWIW while I haven't maybe judged as many events as Sleboda we've been active in the same parts of the USA at least and I haven't personally seen cheating at the table top He may have a better eye for it then I have!

Agree Joe - but there have been all sorts of shenanigans possible in WFB and AoS for years (where is the fanatic, which identical level 2 has the dispel scroll etc.) Aside from simple stuff like purposeful mismeasurement, bumping models when your opponent isn't looking, consciously misquoting rules etc. I know once our Da Boyz judge and our mutual friend Matt Maggitti who was rules judging at the GW Baltimore GT in the early 2000's caught someone with a tape measure that was 14 inches long for '12' inches marked on the tape. As others in this thread have suggested a determined cheater can find a way to do it and in all sorts of aspects of AoS. The game system isn't playable competitively if people are willing to make a determined effort to cheat. I don't think as a TO it's realistic to say "you shouldn't cheat and do the following extensive comprehensive and full proof things to make sure you don't 'accidentally' cheat." That being said as a TO I'm happy to encourage best practices within reason (i.e. exchange written army lists, have all warscrolls available to your opponent during the game) but I'm also realistic that a determined cheater will circumvent anything done in good faith. Edited after Sleboda quoted me to make it clearer

New York State upcoming major events and some from the surrounding region. Da Boyz Grand Tournament - November 13-15 2020 www.daboyzgt.com 40K, AoS, Blood Bowl, Warhammer Underworlds. Rochester NY Crossroads Grand Tournament - September 26-27 2020 http://www.crossroads-gt.com/ AoS, Blood Bowl Elmira NY Golden Sprue Cup January 11-12 2020 http://goldenspruecupgt.com/ (40K, AoS) Albany NY Other events close by to NY Summer Slaughter GT July TBD 2020 http://summerslaughtergt.com/ (40k, AoS) Phoenixville PA Capital City Blood Bath August TBD 2020 http://www.capitalcitybloodbath.com/ (AoS, 40K) Ottawa Ontario Canada Claymore GT October 17-18 2020 https://twitter.com/CV_Consigliere/status/1212163549235236864?s=20 NOVA Open Sept 2-7th http://www.novaopen.com/ Washington DC many systems

Note I think Sleboda I'm not trying to discount your worries in general. I was thinking last night I did earlier in this thread actually point out that at least 1-2 people on this forum have said they would lie to the TO about what happened on the tabletop if they thought it would give them a leg up against their opponents. But internet edge cases aside I think intentional cheating is quite rare - or at least should be. I am also aware of cases where cheaters have been caught at large scale events - but with lots and lots of personal games at high level competitive play I have never seen it. I've got best general and overall awards at multiple 30+ player events and have finished top 5 as well multiple times over the years. I'm a strong believer in "community is the important thing, prizes aren't why we are really here. " That reflects my world view and ideas about what adults playing with toy soldiers should be about. And what seems to be the path people who have long term successful careers in this gaming system have taken. The folks who are hyperfocused on winning at all costs tend not to have a long career in the hobby. I'm also very much a pragmatist - it's really hard to delineate and specifically prescribe extra rules about all the ways people can be a ****** and cheat at Warhammer.

I only run one large scale AoS event a year and one large Blood Bowl event a year. Irun some smaller 10 person or so events every now and then. Running Da Boyz (I run background administration for all the systems) is more then enough work we had 270 total registrations this year. If you are travelling to the US for an event go to one of the big three however NOVA, Adepticon LVO as those are premier destination experiences. But in case anyone is looking for a NE USA event dates for next year are set http://www.daboyzgt.com/

I run what is as far as I know the largest AoS tournament east of Adepticon and north of NOVA in the US. That's been the case throughout the AoS era. We had 72 registered and roughly 69 play this year. I've been active on the Warhammer tournament scene prior to AoS regional and nationally for about 25 years. We had roughly 340 games of AoS played at Da Boyz this year in the singles event alone. We had two games where the TO staff or a player voiced a concern about possible sportsmanship issues. In neither case did the player who might be a victim of poor behavior from the opposite side of the table think it was a significant issue. Now it's possible someone had a worrisome game and didn't tell us but we haven't heard it from them and we specifically ask them about each opponent after each game in writing. That ratio is pretty stable throughout the five years I've been the head TO for Da Boyz. Once I've had a serious complaint about behavior. Just once. Tournaments are generally great experiences in AoS (and in WFB before it.) Tournament players are mostly there for fun times meeting new people and challenging themselves. Tournaments means you meet new people - that is usually a great thing, but rarely a bad thing. I don't think the likelihood of getting a bad game is any higher then a random pick up match with a new opponent at your local store. You kind of know whom to avoid in your local gaming store, you may not have that information or choice in a tournament situation. There are almost certainly people out there willing to cheat at AoS but those players would probably be willing to cheat when you play them in a random store game as well. It's worth noting participant behavior may be effected positively in a tournament by the presence of disincentives for bad behavior like a code of conduct and/or formal sports scoring. That's not available in a pick up game at your local store. That's a reason I try to make it a significant component of scoring for the overall winner at Da Boyz. Not all events use a sports score - not all TO's or players believe in it. But I think it encourages good behavior, Most of my thoughts above are based on the experience of the majority of players at the GT level of play where most people have already worked out their angst about "being the best toy soldier player EVER!" Maybe it's different at the local store level but not as far as I can recall for many years or certainly in my better recalled experience in the last few years. I recognize that at the highest tables in a big event the angst might be higher. It's still the case most folks even at the top tables are there to have fun . Have I had tense games on a top table in round five where I think my opponent was being less kind then I would be - yes but pretty rarely. Have I had games where I thought my opponent was cheating - really in all these years of play I can't recall a single time. (Maybe I've forgotten something but I really don't recall it and I've played a lot of games of a lot of systems!) I'm in agreement however with Forrix that large prize cash prize pools seem to bring out worse behavior in competitive game systems.

I think it's just worrying about the possibility rare player willing to cheat. I know at least one of the players worrying in this thread (Sleboda) and I can tell you he gives great games and is a pleasure to play against. Fundamentally it's a game system that competitively can be easily subverted (loaded dice, mis sized rulers, nudging models forward when your opponent isn't looking, slight of hands on this dice roll, mis counting objective points, 'misremembering' complicated rules, purposefully forgetting which units do not benefit from a battalion specific bonus etc.) It's a game - we should all be having fun with it. Despite the name it's really not War with life and death on the line.

I'm with you on my responsibilities as a TO mostly but with the number of battletomes with potentially abusable (through slight of hand or honest error) am I going to make a pre event announcement about each one of them? "the next 30 minutes will be our advice on how to avoid accidentally cheating on 30 different potentially abusable rules." AoS is a very complicated game system and there are almost endless opportunities for cheating or fudging for a competitive player willing to break the rules. We've seen folks on this forum say they'd subvert the TO's explicitly stated rules if they thought they could get away with it to get a better score overall then their opponents.

Joe I get your desire to have it on the TO's, but it's probably not feasible to have officially specified specific guidelines on documentation for every armies abusable mechanics. This may be the one we are thinking about now but there are others potentially many others. As it stands most players don't read the pack - even very experienced players. That being said I think a cup or a coin flip are very good ways to handle this. Gary

We've done it in the past starting at low point values and with open ended self matching rather then a set opponent schedule. It's a great way to build the community in the store as it's less of a commitment then 2K prescheduled games. Rules written by another Da Boyz club member Kevin G. He is fine with sharing online. ------------------------- Age of Sigmar Escalation League v1.1 Overview The goal of an escalation league is to gather new players, train existing players, and have fun while building up your army. Events will occur weekly, with an ascending point level, giving players time to build, paint, and plan their core force. Game Formats: There are three current ways to play Age of Sigmar—Open play, Narrative Play, and Matched Play. For the escalation league we will be using the Matched Play format. When selecting your army you must choose an allegiance. All units (or warscrolls) in your army must be a part of that allegiance, or be allied to that allegiance. As you build onto your army each week, you can add new units or swap out existing units to learn how they work within your army but only as long as they stay within your army’s allegiance. Pitched Battles: The first 4 weeks of the league will involve army point sizes of less than 1000 points . Weeks 5-10 will be 1000 points and larger and will be using the Pitched Battle chart below. You must follow the format listed on the chart when creating your army lists for those weeks. (image below is from the 2017 Generals Handbook. Values may change when the new handbook is released.) Warscrolls: All unit rules and statistics are detailed on the unit’s warscrolls. Warscrolls can be found in your army’s battle tome. If you do not have access to a battle tome or do not have warscrolls for your units, you can download warscrolls for each unit at the Games Workshop website. https://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Warhammer. Schedule Primary league day is Tuesday with play from 4:00pm until 10:00pm. If a player misses a league day they can organize additional matches with opponents for any day of the week, space permitting, to make up their games, Just let the organizer know ahead of time. Every week, matches will be played at a given point level. Point levels will increase every two weeks, except for weeks 1 and 2, giving players plenty of opportunity to acquire and paint new models. The method used to build your army will escalate as follows: Weeks One: 500 Points Leaders: 1 required (no named heroes allowed) Battle Line Units: 2+ Other Units: 0-1 Artillery/Behemoths: 0-1 (This means only 1 can be taken in total. So if you take 1 behemoth then you cannot take an artillery unit) No unit can go beyond the minimum base unit size listed in the Generals Handbook. We are doing this to encourage army building and to avoid "mob" armies getting an unfair advantage. You may bring one piece of terrain as part of your roster. Malign Sorcery Spells will not be used at this point level. You may purchase a unit smaller than the standard minimum size at a prorated cost. This is to help players buying a starter set with an odd number of models get started in the game. After the league hits 1000 points we will revert to standard unit sizes. (Example: Sylvaneth start collecting set comes with 16 dryads. The generals handbook lists Dryads at 10 models for 100 points. So the first unit of 10 models will cost 100 points and the second unit of 6 models will cost 60 points) Weeks Two: 750 Points Leaders: 1 required (named heroes allowed) Battle Line Units: 2+ Artillery/Behemoths: 0-1 from each category (You can take a maximum of 1 behemoth and 1 artillery unit at this point level) No unit can go beyond the minimum base unit size listed in the Generals Handbook. We are doing this to encourage army building and to avoid "mob" armies getting an unfair advantage. You may bring one piece of terrain as part of your roster. Malign Sorcery Spells will not be used at this point level. You may purchase a unit smaller than the standard minimum size at a prorated cost. This is to help players buying a starter set with an odd number of models get started in the game. After the league hits 1000 points we will revert to standard unit sizes. (Example: Sylvaneth start collecting set comes with 16 dryads. The generals handbook lists Dryads at 10 models for 100 points. So the first unit of 10 models will cost 100 points and the second unit of 6 models will cost 60 points) Weeks Three and Four: 1000 Points Follow format for Pitched Battles (Vanguard) Weeks Five and Six: 1500 Points Follow format for Pitched Battles (Vanguard) Weeks Seven and Eight: 1750 Points Follow format for Pitched Battles (Vanguard) Weeks Nine and Ten: 2000 Points Follow format for Pitched Battles (Battlehost) Force Composition Rules This league will be played under the Age of Sigmar 2nd edition rules and follow the Matched Play profile in the 2018 Generals Handbook. Players should be using unit statistics and compositions from their army’s battletome/warscrolls, as applicable. Unit sizes and point costs should use the most recent available source (e.g. 2018 Generals Handbook). Armies should be built using Pitched Battle points. Command Points for units as detailed in the rulebook. Army Selection All units in your army must share a Grand Allegiance or Faction keyword (e.g. Order, Chaos, Destruction, Death, Stormcast, Nurgle, Ironjawz, etc…) and must follow all build restrictions based on your chosen faction keyword. Players are encouraged to try out different lists and builds within their army from week-to-week. This is an opportunity to try out new units and tactics. There are no items, units, abilities, or powers that are banned. However, players are encouraged to build fun lists and not “min/max” type lists designed for competitive tournaments. We reserve the right to ban items, units, abilities, or powers as the league progresses if they seriously hamper the fun nature of the league. Players that are found to be disrupting the fun, casual aspect of the league may be asked to change their army list or cease future participation. Models Models should be WYSIWIG (What You See Is What You Get) as much as possible. “Primary” weapons should not be “proxied” It is not necessary to model every minor item or secondary weapon on a figure Any WYSIWIG deviations should be pointed out to your opponent prior to your battle. As not everyone may be familiar with the weaponry of other factions, players should point out to their opponents what weapons are carried by their models. Organizing the Battle Battles will be determined by the league each week prior to Tuesday and posted in advance. The Triumphs table will not be utilized during the league. Terrain rules will be in effect during the league. Players roll off to determine terrain types at the start of each match. Realm of Battle rules will not be in effect for weeks 1 through 4. We will most likely work in the Realm of Battle rules in larger format games and once players have had a chance to learn the core rules and how their army’s work. It will be up to players to schedule games with other league players. We will not be assigning matches. Scoring League Games During the duration of the escalation league, players can play any number of league games per week but only the first 2 league games played each week will count towards your league points. You will earn a number of league points based on the degree of your victory as outlined below. Major Victory (as outlined in the scenario): 4 League Points Minor Victory (as outlined in the scenario): 3 League Points Draw (if no scenario objectives are met): 2 League Points Loss (as outlined in the scenario): 1 League Points Players can score additional league points if the following objectives are met: Your starting general kills your opponents starting general (Only once per game): +2 league points Your kill your opponents starting general with any unit other than your starting general (Only once per game): +1 league points If you show painting progress from the previous week. +1 league point per unit If you play a league player for the first time: +1 league point Score sheets will be provided each week. Painting Standards While there is no requirement to paint your models, the purpose of the escalation league is to encourage players to build and paint their armies over time. Depending on the number of league participants, at the end of the league players will vote on the best looking army. The player with the highest votes will be awarded a prize. The purpose for painting is not to judge a player’s skill or ability to paint. At a minimum, models should be painted to a basic tabletop standard. This standard is generally considered to be 3 colors minimum, not including primer. Colors can include shading and highlighting, but this is not necessary. Bases should be finished with sand, gravel, texture paint, grass, or other appropriate basing materials. Bases do not need to be identical and should show a common theme or style. It is acceptable and encouraged to have more elaborate basing for character models to show off their uniqueness in the army. If you are new to building your models and painting them, many players who have been in the hobby for awhile would be glad to teach you how to paint and base your figures. Don’t be afraid to ask for advice on how someone did a certain effect or what materials they used. Remember, no one starts out a professional at painting miniatures. What to Bring Each Week Miniatures (obviously!) Warhammer Age of Sigmar 2nd Edition Rulebook (print or electronic) Battletome or Warscrolls (print or electronic) Any supplemental material being used (2018 Generals Handbook) Measuring Tape or Range Ruler Dice Wound Markers to keep track of model wounds Two copies of your army list (for yourself and your opponent) Score sheet (provided by league organizer) Players are encouraged to bring any other materials appropriate to their army that they may own such as magic cards, wound trackers, counters, etc… Please be sure to bring all of these materials that you need to play each week—in most cases, the store cannot loan materials to players. Fees and Prize Support Registration Fee: $10 All monies from league fees will be used as prize support at the end of the league. Players are expected to pay the initial registration fee at the start of week 1-2. Prizes will be awarded in the form of store credit at Millennium Games. Total awards will be determined at league end based on the number of participants. Depending on the number of participants, awards will be given for: Best player (player with the most league points at the end) Best painted army (judged by the players) Favorite opponent (judge by players/sportsmanship scores)

Do you have a source? First I've heard that they were that far along on 9th edition WFB.

I started playing WFB in 1990 so i've got a real love of the setting as well. I personally don't think they could have done both side by side and have AoS take off as the commercial success it is. But that's supposition on my part as well. I do think there is strong evidence GW thinks the AoS core rules premises were a huge success - 40K core rules are now based essentially on AoS - the last time that happened was first edition 40K. I do think they could have handled the transition much much better then they did however!

As mentioned I've played in a Veterans of Foreign Wars location in the past. It was great. I didn't organize it but I think it's basically calling and asking do you allow non veterans to rent space for an event or game night? Helps of course if you have an in somehow. Many libraries have common rooms as do some YMCA's just a question of a phone call or visit.

Agree with Overread and Moldek. The key is to get folks out and enjoying time with each other ('becoming friends') it's the friendships that brings people together long term not the gaming system. I'm playing Blood Bowl a lot in the last three years because my best gaming friend didn't ever make the switch to AoS. We live in different states and I wanted to spend time with him on the road going to tournaments. Thus I started dabbling in Blood Bowl, then running tournaments now I'm running three a year and really love the game. It wasn't the game system that drew me in - it was my buddy playing it and me wanting to hang out with him. Get a good group together playing games regularly and 'the cream' of the gaming crop will rise to the top. I think AoS is a great game if folks are willing to give it a try. Get them playing together and I think it will hold up well against a game that when next released will have been 8 years or so out of production. Heck try 8th ed WFB and see how you feel and then invite them to do the reverse.

I agree compared to the total pool of players it's pretty rare. But if you phrase it in terms of who are the rules designers/miniature painters and other 'face' people of the company and how they got there it's actually pretty common. Just thinking about the interviews of employees I've seen over the years I think the majority started as either fans of GW or fans who became low level employees and worked their way up. Tuomous Pirinen was a fan who went straight into a rules writing job. So if it's your dream - there are indeed ways of making it happen just recognizing (much like pro sports) there are a lot of people with that same dream who don't make it to their goal one way or another. Being willing to relocate to England is also a factor. Also worth noting lots of the rules writers (Gav Thorpe, Ant Reynolds) are happier to switch to being a fiction writer for GW for whatever reason (pay?)

It does happen. Probably the best way to do it is to get your foot in the door in a low level position and keep applying for higher level positions over time Jeremy Vetock did it that way to my understanding starting with a GW Canada redshirt job as did Duncan in the UK (though he is not a rules writing position.) Our forums own Sleboda went from FLGS employee to IT (I think) at GW to writing articles for White Dwarf.

Agreed and the rules interactions are pretty intricate in WFB - and FAQ's might have changed the meaning of the written rules quite a bit in 8th. For example Unmodified Leadership for Spirit Leach I think went through 5-6 different official FAQ interpretations over the lifespan of the edition with widely varying effect on the game for what was a common spell effect. It wasn't just the amount of rules it was how hard it was to figure out what they meant - and the layers of nuance added in FAQ. AoS 1.0 was pretty straightforward that way. AoS 2.0 is significantly more rules heavy and interaction heavy (terrain placement with faction terrain for example) I hope they push the needle back towards clean and simple rules that don't require reading FAQs for the average player to know what to do with common situations.

I'm reminded of this great post on a Blood Bowl forum - highly applicable here I would guess http://www.talkfantasyfootball.org/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=45807&sid=060feefe690f8225a36fcfe408241d64

That's definitely not the case. WFB had a longstanding and loyal player base. The reason there are so few old time WFB players around now with AoS is they loved WHFB so much they rage quit GW when AoS happened. During 6th and maybe 7th roughly the top two selling miniature systems in the world were consistently WFB and 40K with a large lead over everything else. The problem as in my above post is that it wasn't attracting new players to make those purchases. The people playing in 8th were a subset of the people playing in 7th (we had a 25% drop out rate roughly between 7th and 8th when people rage quit with 8th ed's significant rule changes from 7th) So the player pool was shrinking over time, and more importantly there weren't the new starts that actually were making new purchases. I'd suggest if your goal is to build the AoS tournament base spend less time worrying about tournaments and more time about making AoS enjoyable and accessible to new players or players who have dabbled with the system but not committed. It takes time from someone going from new player to really excited about spending the money and effort to go to a travel event. The bigger the pool of player enjoying the game in store and basement games the larger your eventual pool of tournament players will be. It's always going to be a small subset of the player population who want to go to a tournament. Grow the base and the folks interested in more competitive play will eventually declare themselves. I recently did the math and during 7th/8th the largest tournaments in New York State were multiple 100 person events probably totaling well over 300-400 slots combined in large events alone. One tournament Crossroads GT was able to do a 100 person event twice a year every year - selling out every slot for the next event during the previous one. This year with Da Boyz being the biggest (as it has been throughout the AoS era) in the NE USA at 72 registered we're going to probably only have 120 total slots adding all the Grand Tournament events together in NYS. AoS tournament play is still a very small fraction of where it was in it's 6th/7th/8th ed peak. The problem wasn't a lack of committed tournament players in 8th it was developing it's base. Right now AoS is still building it's player base (tournament or otherwise) in much of the world. Focus on the new players and some will get hooked enough to want to spend money on travel to large events.

I don't personally think it was model count. For me I think it's really that the rules were so dense new players weren't coming into the system. One of the things that was really noticeable during 8th was we weren't seeing new players in our club, and I wasn't seeing new players at the Grand Tournament level events I was hitting. Now admittedly it could be model count keeping players away but I don't think it was, it doesn't really seem to have stopped the growth of AoS and hordes of 20-40 models per unit are fairly common. As background I played WFB since 1990 was involved in running multiple Grand Tournaments in 6th/7th/8th and was an elected representative to the Direwolf FAQ council that used to work with the GW head rules writer to develop FAQ's in the 6th/7th/8th era, my club in 8th was arguably one of the strongest in the country with multiple ETC representatives and GT championships. So I'm both a long term fan of the WFB system, and someone who had a lot of experience with the rules intricacies of 8th and several of it's predecessors. The amount of models in an army was pretty much the same through 6th-8th. There were advantages to having larger size units in 8th, but the total number of models you could fit into a completed force was pretty static. If you had 200 models in an army in 7th you'd probably have about 200 in 8th. You might have a unit of 40 instead of two units of 20 but you still have the same total number of models in the army total in 8th vs 7th. Admittedly I'm not recalling specific details anymore but I don't recall major across the board points reductions in the cost per model in 8th vs 7th (heck some books were still using their 6th or 7th ed books and same old point values for much or all of 8th) Game size in terms of total points was pretty stable throughout 6th-8th. If I'm recalling correctly 2400 ended up being GT standard but could just as easily have been 2000 or something else particularly for basement play. Theoretically you could play WFB at 1000 points or 1500 points etc. it's certainly what I would have recommended to new players That's not really much different then 6th/7th ed. That's ignoring that 8th brought us monstrous cavalry and made unridden monsters more interesting with Stomp/Thunderstomp that would drive model count down. You also have to note that while 8th wasn't drawing new players into the system, 40K was doing generally better even if late 7th 40K wasn't a great tournament game (as I've heard, no personal experience.) WFB and AoS (and 40K) are both really very large model count games compared to their main competitors on the scene (Warmachine for example), WFB was always throughout it's history a high model count game where 100-200 models in a force was fairly common. That's pretty unique in 28mm miniature games. Plenty of games at anything other then 15mm historical type scale will have 4 models in an army (Battletech, Xwing etc) I recognize KoW and 9th are potential competitors that rival WFB in size of a force but I think their player base is largely ex WFB players and they aren't reflective of new players to the miniature gaming world. The 8th ed rule book was quite large and the rules intricacies were pretty significant. That really made it hard to attract new gamers particularly as systems like Warmachine were championing streamlined easy to learn rules. For example in WFB 8th figuring out who you could charge and how you could move for a charge was often non intuitive. (That model an inch away from you - sorry you can't charge it, it's not in your charge arc. That model 12 inches in front of you sorry you can't get that either as you'd have to make two wheels to make contact.) Despite a lot of 8th experience even my clubmates and I would be pulling out a rule book or needing to look up an interaction almost every game. There may be other reasons for it's decline (how many potential new players grew up reading Tolkien vs playing World of Warcraft) but I think the rules complexity were not a help to 8th's success.

I think it depends a lot on your local environment but there are a lot of options. There are many 'gaming groups' that operate out of someone's basement - i think for most game systems the vast majority of games are played in someone's basement. That may push the environment more to 'friends' then 'all comers' quite understandably but I've certainly invited new opponents to my house (more so pre wife and kids - I've gotten more protective of who comes in since.) Finance and storage are up to that group of friends. I've seen gaming groups where the homeowner is providing everything, or situations where the friends coming over take it on themselves to buy pizza and beverages, or new terrain or other communal resources to 'pay back' the host. In England school and pub based gaming clubs are much more common then they are in the US (where I've only rarely seen the former and never the latter.) But I've heard of gaming clubs based out of Church basements in both countries. In those cases people bring their terrain with them or work out an arrangement to store in a closet. Schools are often free, and various church's pubs etc are often happy to have some rental of the space or use of the space. One of the best GT's I've been to in many years was held in a US Veterans of Foreign War's outpost. They had a small bar/restaurant space and a big hall and cheap rental prices for the weekend. While I haven't seen gaming clubs in the US based in bars I have seen several offer gaming nights on a slow night where people bring in board games or smaller miniature games. A local church has an open gaming night on Wednesday in part just to get people into the space. AoS is space and terrain heavy. Other GW gaming systems are not (i.e. Warhammer Underworlds, Blood Bowl, even Warcry and Kill team to some degree) so they might be a better fit if you are travelling to a space you don't own or if you are bootstrapping a club from scratch. I think the most important thing is to start small and make it available you don't need $1000 of terrain, a logo, branded T Shirts and a website to start a gaming club. You don't need space for 20 players either. You do need people to know how to find you, and that they can be reasonably assured to get a game.

Agree with this and something I think gamers who are into AoS heavily should keep in mind - play the small skirmish type games as well when you come to the stores- particularly underworlds where a fast game might take 15-30 minutes. Low barrier for entry for new gamers and acts as the gateway game to the larger world.