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Its coming up in about 4 months from now, the one year of AOS release date. How are you guys feeling now? How's your local meta based on the game?(if you don't mind divulging what part of the country you're from dont specify cities please) Does anyone play any more or have they moved on?

No one plays it around here or any other fantasy game, we've moved on to x-wing and armarda with some FoW and batman.

We're still down about 80% of our fantasy community. However they've been slowly trickling back little by little. We should have 8-10 for our summer fantasy campaign. Last summer we ended up with four (the year prior we had twenty-four)

Same type of return growth in 2010. We lost about 75% of our community when 8th hit and it slowly started trickling back in year by year.

My neck of the woods AoS is very successful. Sometimes even beating 40k in turnout for campaigns and the like

The owner of the shop around here ran a campaign, dropped it when the player broke it, and is now trying one using one of the comps.

However few people seem interested, we have about six players as of now, all of which are playing WHFB armies.

my area, 3 people play, occasionally. its pretty much dead.

My local GW is the only place anyome plays GW games lately and when I asked them like a month ago they said people do pop in occasionally with interest, but getting two people in the store at once to actually get them games is very rare.

Personally I don't see the appeal any more now than back then, I like well balanced games with grounded, consistent, and detailed fluff.

Play once a week at my local store.

Running an Escalation League at one of the nearby clubs. The last 2 months, had 4 and 3 respectively concurrent games going on during the day.
Had about 12 unique players participate over the last 2 months, and seems that most people are pretty keen to keep playing.

Does that sound like a huge amount? Maybe not, but then again, Fantasy Tournaments the last few years were getting around 12 players on average participating. Overall, it's definitely enough to keep on playing!

At the moment the league is expected to go for 2-3 more months and then we'll make a decision on where people want to go from that point (Likely some other form of league or campaign will kick off).

Doing great near me but it was a bit of a slow start, admittedly. A friend of mine owns the local gaming centre and he really pushed it and managed to get a few people involved and it's grown from there. I think the organised events, official and unofficial, have helped too.

As an aside, people that hate it say it's doing dreadful, but people that like it say it's doing well. Is it a regional thing, I wonder?

The pace of releases seems pretty good, with an average one new kit or book per week.

Everybody and their mother bought the starter.

The game was dead in a month due to being meh.

With the exception of 3rd edition Bloodbowl, haven't enjoyed or been excited by a game this much.
Locally there was a slump after AoS release, but the majority of the WFB players at my club (going by table bookings) now tend to play comped AoS, with the odd game of 9th age. A couple just play 9th age.
My regular opponents, other than using bases instead of models for measuring, play AoS as-is.
From what I can glean from the local GW manager, it seems to be doing well, at least in comparison to how WFB was doing.

I have yet to see a game of AoS in my local meta - I see some play Fantasy, but not AoS.

As far as I can tell it's pretty much dead. The occasion game but from the club facebook group noise it's maybe 10% of that for Frostgrave or Malifaux.

I've heard of maybe 3 people (from over 100) starting new armies for it.

More people showing interest that I know (I don't play at stores; friends only).

Have a friend who recently started it due to the "Start Collecting" boxes. Those have also caused two of us to expand/start new factions too.

Playing through the many scenarios is a lot of fun.

As an aside, people that hate it say it's doing dreadful, but people that like it say it's doing well. Is it a regional thing, I wonder?

I think its largely a case of confirmation bias.

I know where I am we have several game stores, and if you ask someone if AOS is failing from one of the FLGS they will say no one in our city plays it at all because its horrible, even though we have a campaign group that is steadily growing and playing it at the GW (and they know that).

I will say that by and large it seems from personal experience and internet chatter that pretty much every FLGS crowd in existence hates AOS and that the only places its played regularly are at GW stores.

Our FLGS stores are for the most part very anti-GW as well.

I think the regional thing definitely does have an impact, possibly a very significant one, as AoS seems to work best if you play with people you know, such as a club environment. It doesn't, however, appeal to people looking for a pick up game they can take to a store and play against someone they've never met before with minimal pre game negotiation. Given that by all accounts the US (and here in Oz) most gaming seems to be in stores with pick up the norm and in the UK it sounds like people play much more often at home or in clubs then I think it would vary wildly between those regions.

If nothing else I'd suggest that "regionally" it's doing badly in Australia just because GW in general is doing bad in Australia. I wouldn't even consider 40k to be doing 'ok' here at the moment....

I only play with friends and not at clubs/stores.

More people started it, due to the awesome miniatures of the starter set. We're down to two now, but still loving it. With a few tweaks it's a simple and solid game with a lot of fun. The Start Collecting! boxes will likely get a new player to start Lizardmen soon; another stated interest if the ever release new vampire troops.

It does seem that the geographical density of GW stores appears to be a factor; in terms of the 'pro' communities, UK leads Europe leads US, although this is by no means an across-the-board trend.

In terms of FLGS, some were talking about the difference between a 'good' FLGS - professional, business-like, welcoming etc. - and a 'bad' FLGS - nerd who just wants to run a drop-in centre for very like-minded people and lets stock gather dust.

A good FLGS will encourage the community as a whole regardless of what they play, because that's how you drive interest and - let's not forget the "S" part of FLGS - sales; tearing chunks off a system isn't going to do that.
You don't expect to go into a store to be told that X-wing's not a proper game because the minis are pre-painted, or that AoS is for kids because the rules are simple, etc.

With more high profile companies adopting end-retailer policies that restrict discounting, it might hopefully shock stores at the lower end of the spectrum into realising they can start competing for their customer's money, and acting accordingly.

It's all End Times and 9th age around here. NOBODY will even look at AOS

Austin

RoperPG wrote:
It does seem that the geographical density of GW stores appears to be a factor; in terms of the 'pro' communities, UK leads Europe leads US, although this is by no means an across-the-board trend.

In terms of FLGS, some were talking about the difference between a 'good' FLGS - professional, business-like, welcoming etc. - and a 'bad' FLGS - nerd who just wants to run a drop-in centre for very like-minded people and lets stock gather dust.

A good FLGS will encourage the community as a whole regardless of what they play, because that's how you drive interest and - let's not forget the "S" part of FLGS - sales; tearing chunks off a system isn't going to do that.

...

That makes sense, because obviously GW work on promoting their own games, while indie shops will promote whatever they think will sell best.

It's doing okay, but it seems to depend on the week and what the indie shops are doing campaign wise for 40k.

We play it a bit now and then - trying out Dragon Rampant at the moment which is to that dissimilar and people seem to be enjoying that......

Hugely successful at the club I attend.

People are starting new armies, buying models, everyones really buzzing about the new releases! It's worth noting we are playing the SCGT comp.

People all across the south coast of the UK seem to have really taken to it, apparently almost half of this years SCGT attendees are players new to the hobby.

I don't play, only do modelling, but AoS has gotten a good chunk of my hobby budget since November. Love the new sculpts and scenery.

Still mostly dead here, but Fantasy had been pretty dead here since 8th so I doubt that would be a useful measure. We do have a 9th Age tournament coming up next month however.

Seems to be doing better here in the Twin Cities since late January, though I haven't seen anyone playing in a few weeks. Dead as a doornail before that.

 monders wrote:
As an aside, people that hate it say it's doing dreadful, but people that like it say it's doing well. Is it a regional thing, I wonder?

I thought that was probably the case 'till recently. According to Hastings over at Warseer, that's not really so, at least on a large scale:

75hastings69 wrote:I know a lot of people [at GW HQ] too, AOS is NOT doing great, at all, anywhere.

Meh, I don't put much stock in Hastings, he's kinda biased on the subject. Anyway, how would GW know? They don't do research, remember?

As long as GW keeps building up AoS up with more lore, models and events I'm pretty confident it'll turn out okay.

My store in Cleveland is starting an escalation league in two weeks. The participation is 14-15? Which is as many as the 40k escalation if not close.

People seem to be excited about the order book finally coming out, and hyped for orcs and goblins if true. I think people overall needed time to heal their wounds and have a little more depth and structure to the games. Which the battleplans and lore books are doing.

I'll chime back in a month and update on the progress