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So, thanks to my wife getting interested in Age of Sigmar, I have decided to pick up the game again and and start up a full army to play her. In doing so, I have got several of my wargamer friends interested in Age of Sigmar as well, and we are now all plotting out armies and getting in games, which attracted the attention of some other local wargamers who have been playing AoS since it came out.. So basically, my wife and I have inadvertently started up an Age of Sigmar "club" in our local area. We have a regular night at our local shop, and things are getting started out well.

Does anyone have any experience in getting a regular group going for Age of Sigmar (or any other game system, really)? I want to keep this thing going for as long as it can, and have events like narrative campaigns and/or escalation leagues, setting up official local "house rules" for everyone to use if they want, and seeing if the FLGS will start holding tournaments. We already have a Facebook group going, and we have our regular night of the week that we are meeting (I am out for a couple weeks with a baby coming very soon).

Any advice or tips from anyone? Thanks!

Been doing this for over twenty years so here's what I have found:

* you will never please everyone. Don't ever try. It's just a self-defeating cycle.

* have thick skin. You will be criticized. Some will be constructive (use that). Some will be destructive / trolling. Learn to ignore the destructive criticism.

* Take the time to cater to the audience you are trying to attract. If you're trying to do everything, you will find that to be a very difficult task. meaning if you are trying to form a narrative group that does tournaments that does leagues. The competitive and narrative guys often clash (not always, depends on your group) - just keep that in mind.

* - never let an event not complete. The first time you decide you don't have time to stay on top of one of your events is the time your events crash and burn and people lose trust in your ability to run an event to completion.

* - never be afraid to delegate or let other creative types run events.

* - watch your scheduling and avoid trying to do multiple events all at once. It will burn people out.

* - consider rotating in different formats or you will burn people out.

* - consider having dead times where people can recuperate from the last event so that they don't burn out.

* - consider rotating in other game systems to keep people from burning out.

* - don't be afraid to tinker with the game and create house rules, just be aware that in general gamers tend to hate house rules with a fiery passion and you will take criticism (see above)

* - there will always be people that think they can do better. Some will give constructive feedback. Others will resort to passive-aggressive gamer-politics. If you're fortunate, this won't be an issue for you. If you're not fortunate, keep it in the back of your mind and refer to rule #1 - you will never please everyone so don't even try to.

* - enjoy yourself.

Good luck and congrats on the baby.

Sounds like you have most things I can think of covered.
Do you guys collectively own good terrain?

 auticus wrote:
Been doing this for over twenty years so here's what I have found:

* you will never please everyone. Don't ever try. It's just a self-defeating cycle.

* have thick skin. You will be criticized. Some will be constructive (use that). Some will be destructive / trolling. Learn to ignore the destructive criticism.

* Take the time to cater to the audience you are trying to attract. If you're trying to do everything, you will find that to be a very difficult task. meaning if you are trying to form a narrative group that does tournaments that does leagues. The competitive and narrative guys often clash (not always, depends on your group) - just keep that in mind.

* - never let an event not complete. The first time you decide you don't have time to stay on top of one of your events is the time your events crash and burn and people lose trust in your ability to run an event to completion.

* - never be afraid to delegate or let other creative types run events.

* - watch your scheduling and avoid trying to do multiple events all at once. It will burn people out.

* - consider rotating in different formats or you will burn people out.

* - consider having dead times where people can recuperate from the last event so that they don't burn out.

* - consider rotating in other game systems to keep people from burning out.

* - don't be afraid to tinker with the game and create house rules, just be aware that in general gamers tend to hate house rules with a fiery passion and you will take criticism (see above)

* - there will always be people that think they can do better. Some will give constructive feedback. Others will resort to passive-aggressive gamer-politics. If you're fortunate, this won't be an issue for you. If you're not fortunate, keep it in the back of your mind and refer to rule #1 - you will never please everyone so don't even try to.

* - enjoy yourself.

Good luck and congrats on the baby.

Thanks! That is a bunch of tips, and I hope to implement them. I think the biggest difficulty I will have is completing events, but only because I have never seen the end of an event run by anyone else, so knowing how to close up and finish something has eluded me.

 DarkBlack wrote:
Do you guys collectively own good terrain?

Our FLGS has a bunch of tubs full of terrain, and plenty of table space. I'm slowly starting to work on finishing my terrain projects at home and increase our terrain. I want to get started on some, and then a shiny new army comes out! It never fails.

I have never seen the end of an event run by anyone else, so knowing how to close up and finish something has eluded me

That is very common and in my opinion why people trying to run campaign events etc get ignored, because the default will be that the campaign never finishes and just sputters and dies.

Basically just make sure that whatever event you are doing has an end. If you find people losing interest, hold a final battle. Things of that nature. Don't ever just let it fizzle out.

 auticus wrote:

I have never seen the end of an event run by anyone else, so knowing how to close up and finish something has eluded me

That is very common and in my opinion why people trying to run campaign events etc get ignored, because the default will be that the campaign never finishes and just sputters and dies.

Basically just make sure that whatever event you are doing has an end. If you find people losing interest, hold a final battle. Things of that nature. Don't ever just let it fizzle out.

A way of achieving this is always putting an end date on a campaign at the start of it and not a map condition or something else in-game.. We always start and end our campaigns with a "Campaignday" which is a small tournament. A campaign of 6 months is a very long one. So make sure it is max 4-5 months. That way it ends when it is running high and people will be wanting more.