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Where do you guys see this product line going through the end of 2015? Beyond? I have not been following announcements so I don't know if WK has that all mapped out or if you would have to speculate. I welcome both kinds of answers.

Honestly we ars in good shape product wise. Wizkids has announced 3 shipsa month through September of 2015. At GAMA they said they have product in development "way beyond" that. They have sent out solicits for another 3 month story OP, Q Continuum, and two more episode OPs beyond that. So there is lots of stuff coming and reasons to play.However. ..

Lots of places are seeing down turns in OP attendance there could be lots of reasons for this X-wing has a new interesting faction, Armada has come out, Imperial Assault, 40k space ship game was revealed at GAMA. So there are other games to catch the eye.

Other reasons are people are still not happy. In my area the main reasons players say they aren't coming back ars:

1) Borg
2) Crappie scenarios
3) prize chasing
4) faction mixing

WK has confronted the Borg issue directly but they have been have no new releases announced fighters are making waves but could be just as bad. The three ship limit has been the bigges help to counter them, but not perfect. As for the scenarios that requires a TO with the guts to say "my people don't" like this lets throw it out and still give out the prizes. I will actually give WK some kudos on the prize chasing. Since RiF they have been making prize ships fhat are less must haves and more fun and quirky. They have also retail released a few ships fhat mirrored prizes, so it could be a change or just a fluke.

The places I see having up swings in attendance or steady turnouts are the places that make house rules for what their players want. The places that strictly follow WK suggestions are dwindling. By this I mean places that won't ban things the player base doesn't like or TOs that will only run the WK scenarios. I know it ruffles a lot of feathers but the places that I read about doing great are the ones that have banned borg and play factiln pure, but lots are afraid to do it.


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The casual play is doing fine. Both of my local retailers tell me sales are great, but they can't get people in to play tournaments.

 Mr. S Baldrick wrote:


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The casual play is doing fine. Both of my local retailers tell me sales are great, but they can't get people in to play tournaments.

When I asked my friend who manages one of the FLGS yesterday afternoon if the new Enterprise and other wave 13 stuff was in stock he surprised me by saying I was the third person to ask him that since he opened. Which is funny because we're pretty steady on a 6 person turnout for OPs and the others don't usually buy much on release day.

Casual play seems to be expanding at a pace, according to two 'local' shops to me I've spoken with, pickup games are occurring regularly but the balance issues inherent in the game with borg has limited the official tourneys (along with a couple of stinker scenarios).

I think lots of hardcore tourney types fell away from the game due to the balance, towards the end of last year, but there's a steady increase in people actually buying the ships.

^ My flgs would back that up. Folk are picking up the new releases, and picking and choosing from older stock. The OP has fallen away somewhat, the TO got pretty hacked off and is happier running Wars. However, still get the odd game in here and there...

We're about to stop OPs at my FLGS. 2-3 people turnout has been the case recently. We're switching to a weeknight for Peak Performance, but if it doesn't bring out more people it will stop. I have a baby due in 20 days (2nd child) so I will not be able to TO anymore (and maybe not even play) as my availability will become a game-time decision/pleading with my wife.

I think we really need to just 'hijack' the game to a certain extent, just as we had to improvise events for GW games because GW were uninterested in doing them, perhaps we need to take the reins here because WK seem to not be terribly good at balancing a faction and writing events that don't suck.

Regionals and so on, with interesting rules like 'timeline' for ships, faction pure, or other arbitrary rules and interesting scenarios, would be the way to go.

WK actually encourages house rules. In their event system they have a place where TOs can putnup the "house rules" for an event. I don't get why so many would rather loose players than use a feature WK provides. WK doesn't care how TOs run their events as long as people buy product.

Well me personally, reason I quit was mostly the borg, but not in the way you guys will prolly think. It was the 1st faction I bought into. I just enjoyed them with friends to begin with, then we started to travel for OP events. I went up, and won 3 months in a row, winning the mirror universe D, which I was happy with. And the crying about borg, even with the nerfs, I was still winning, and that was with a base sphere and scout cubes lol. So the last one I went to, I played klingons, and I used the borg klingon hybrid ship, with changs bird of preys. I won that event as well, and the TO actually called me "skill - less garbsge that can only win using borg". So I proceeded to play him a game using only mirror universe to prove him wrong, and beat him twice in a row, then I sold my collection because I didn't want yo be around people like that, now if we had a better group to play with I'd still be around, but the future of STAW in my gaming group died that day.

Wow just wow, The TO stated that? sounds like he needs to be replaced.

 Mr. S Baldrick wrote:
40k space ship game was revealed at GAMA.

Wait...what? I don't recall seeing that mentioned anywhere here in news or elsewhere. What did they reveal?

Edit: Did a google search and found this that totally flew under my radar.

http://www.dicetowernews.com/fantasy-flight-games-news-from-gama-trade-show-2015/14492

That's more of a TI style board game and not the BFG style minis game I was thinking.

So, I have a bit of a problem, Attack wing OP's might dry up around here cause we can't get more than a few people in for them. Personally, I think it's because the day of the week it happens (Monday evening) and if it was changed, more people might show up.

But considering the current facts, we might not do anymore OP events from now on. :(

Any ideas to help increase OP attendance besides day-shifting? I know people are still buying ships, but a lot of older stuff just sits on the shelf.

Not really Our OPs are on the weekend, so attendance dropped only once after dominion war but has been steady ever since.

Well, I know there are a ton of casual players hanging around, because more than the three of us that play OPs come in and buy ships, one guy even came in and bought a crap ton of stuff a while ago, There are people buying ships, but not playing OP's... I'm pretty confidant if we switched over to a Saturday people might be interested.

Saturday & Sunday are probably the best. Mondays are about the worst, people are usually tired after that 1st day back at work. Fridays are equally bad because a lot of people go out to kick off the weekend and a lot of game stores host Friday Night Magic.

I started a thread over on BGG asking what kind of house rules folks venues are using and how it has impacted attendance. Most people say they do either ship pure or penalty pure and it has either improved or kept attendance steady. So that is an option. Whatever changes you make advertise it well so the word spreads. Use the store calendar, newsletter, website, and listing events on the WK event system helps a lot too.


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You have to give people an incentive to come back. Changing up the format for a while could do that, ie ship/penalty pure, might give people the though "hey I won't get smashed by Picard balls each game" Talk to the TO about it, tell him if it doesn't improve attendance then you can go back to the old way.

Here's the funny thing though, no one comes in on Mondays anymore, it's their "Flight Path night" and no one shows up.

The recent X wing tourney just got a bunch of people to show up, so since Attack wing stuff sells too, I'm assuming there are players hiding somewhere.

Hiding indeed. The staff at one of my venues tell me they have a couple people that buy every wave, but they won't come to OPs. I too am working on some ideas to boost our attendance, but the TO at that store can be a stick in the mud, he doesn't want to do anything that doesn't come from WK.

My LGS reports a decline in OP attendance and sales, which is what motivated me to ask this question. I suspect LGS that say STAW is selling even though OP is in decline are spinning things a bit. It's hard to see why home game only players would buy at full retail rather than from MM, CSI, etc., especially if they are buying full waves at launch.

I can believe it because it happens here in my FLGS. There's a guy who started our STAW group off and turned up to 1 OP but has otherwise not shown his face, he multi-buys stuff every release wave.
Then before Xmas one of my mates collared a guy buying DS9 and challenged him (cheekily) to turn up on our club night. And he has and has become a regular at OPs too!

 Mr. S Baldrick wrote:
Hiding indeed. The staff at one of my venues tell me they have a couple people that buy every wave, but they won't come to OPs. I too am working on some ideas to boost our attendance, but the TO at that store can be a stick in the mud, he doesn't want to do anything that doesn't come from WK.

Organize your own events, pay to play, winner gets a portion of the collected funds as Attack Wing ships/stuff.

Perhaps lucky dip of ships afterwards, encourage swapping and selling among the group.

Use the rules I posted above, merge the smaller factions into 'indies', limit all borg ranges to 2 for any type of weapon, faction pure, 1 fighter per 2 large ships etc. Also perhaps up the size of the fleets, let people bring an 'army' of ships, use lists or rounds to encourage utilizing different hull pt ships, perhaps an entire round with no ships above hull 3, min 4 ships at 150pts.

I agree, but you have to get the local game store to go along with it. They have to have the space and you have to do gift cards/prizes through them. Laws very state to state and even county by county. Venue I play is in a county that has a local law that it would be considered illegal gambling if money hits the table, the store is very touchy about that.


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The other place I play would be cool with a gift card tournament as long as it didn't interfere with the big draws, magic, x-wing, clix, etc.

 PlaguelordHobbyServices wrote:
Here's the funny thing though, no one comes in on Mondays anymore, it's their "Flight Path night" and no one shows up.

The recent X wing tourney just got a bunch of people to show up, so since Attack wing stuff sells too, I'm assuming there are players hiding somewhere.

Are you talking Meta Games, just guessing from your Brighton MO location? X-Wing thing they ran was store champs so a few people traveled in (boo work or I would have gone). If you're looking for OPs, you could always do the couple hour drive one weekend a month to play in KC, it's usually the last Saturday of the month but mostly depends on when the store gets the kit.

I really don't wanna drive 3-4 hours just to play in an OP I'm not even guaranteed to win anything. I cannot justify spending that much in gas and wear and tear on the car.

EDIT: And yes, it's Meta, I was talking with them recently and I honestly feel if we changed the day to a more reasonable day (like Saturday) and a more reasonable time, like 1pm or something, people would show up, People don't wanna spend all night playing this game and have to get up for work the next day.

Yeah, doing OPs on Saturday works really well for us, it still leaves a full weekend day buffer for the M-F work crowd. A weeknight I'd be dragging ass because I have to be up super early in the AM during the work week.

My stores do Saturday at 1pm and Sunday at 1pm. Works well for the most part. One store is open until midnight one day a month. Sometimes we have a non OP tournament which strangely enough we getba good size crown for.

the main problem is that there's no easy way to engage these phantom players because even though I know they exist and buy models, there's no way to track them down other than camping out by the shelves all day to see if they come in. I put a notice on facebook asking people to step forward, but no one has posted in reply.

Maybe get with the TO and make a flyer with OP dates and any house rules and ask the store to put them in the bag of anyone who buys a ship.

 Mr. S Baldrick wrote:
Maybe get with the TO and make a flyer with OP dates and any house rules and ask the store to put them in the bag of anyone who buys a ship.

Now that's enlightened self interest on the part of a shop owner...

Maybe, but it would require someone (probably me) to be available one day of the week all the time and always up at the shop, and I just can't do it with me getting ready (I hope) to go back to work.

I would like to change the day, but Saturdays look so overcrowded now, and Sunday isn't particularly attractive because we tried sunday before and it didn't work.

Why does it require you to be up the shop every day Make the flyer give them to the shop owner amd ask him to put them in the bag of anyone who buys a ship. If that is too much he can leave them on the counter or put them on the wall by the STAW display. The shop owner will probably be ok with it because the more people that come to OPs the more $$ for him.