Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
I'm starting to think I lucked out in getting a community of reasonable people...

Yes, you did. My area is still not that big on AOS, it's mainly 40k and then a smattering of Warmachine (which I still like, just haven't had an interest in playing lately). At least one of the shops has a big Kings of War following but that seems to have come from the ex-WHFB crowd and as a result they are bitter over AOS and essentially don't talk about it, to where it's nonexistent and nobody is interested in it even with points. In fact the only place I'm aware of that has any AOS at all in my area is the GW store locally itself, so AOS is definitely an uphill battle here in Tampa as far as I can tell, and the players we do have for GW games in general tend to be the 40k competitive types that, while I am hesitant to say "ruin things", ruin things with their quasi-WAAC mentality.

WayneTheGame wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
I'm starting to think I lucked out in getting a community of reasonable people...

Yes, you did. My area is still not that big on AOS, it's mainly 40k and then a smattering of Warmachine (which I still like, just haven't had an interest in playing lately). At least one of the shops has a big Kings of War following but that seems to have come from the ex-WHFB crowd and as a result they are bitter over AOS and essentially don't talk about it, to where it's nonexistent and nobody is interested in it even with points. In fact the only place I'm aware of that has any AOS at all in my area is the GW store locally itself, so AOS is definitely an uphill battle here in Tampa as far as I can tell, and the players we do have for GW games in general tend to be the 40k competitive types that, while I am hesitant to say "ruin things", ruin things with their quasi-WAAC mentality.

\

Yeah, I do feel bad for you guys with these situations. Can you ever travel, even once, to an event or tournament? It's totes bummer.

I'm shifting my mentality from trying to do large events to just being happy doing 3 or 4 person campaigns in my garage.

I'm also going towards games that have a more casual relaxed campaign style group. So battletech and Armada here have both of that and I've been prepping for a winter bT campaign.

I'm working on map campaign rules for next spring for AOS that five or six of the guys expressed interest in doing as well. Playing the same people over again can get old but if I'm only doing AOS for say 3-4 months its not that big a deal.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
I'm starting to think I lucked out in getting a community of reasonable people...

Define reasonable. I really don't like the implication that people who enjoy maximizing their army's competitiveness in a competitive environment (i.e., min-maxing) are unreasonable. You lucked out in getting a community of like minded people... NOT reasonable people. In many communities, it's considered strange and illogical to build a list that "has no chance in the current meta". Not all gamers/communities want the same thing. Some are more competitive than others... even ruthlessly so, but that doesn't make them unreasonable. Just different.

So from reading through this thread Auticus, I think the best advice I can give you is; get your name out there. To be honest I only see you here and on BoLS. What about TGA? What about guesting on some of the popular podcasts? Are you on Twitter where the AoS scene is massive? Forgive me if you are already doing these things but outside of my bubble. There's a growing international community here which you should tap into.

Why? You'll learn from other event organisers but also you have your own credentials to bring to the table. Azyr comp was the first comp for AoS wasn't it? And you've been running events and producing campaign suppliments for years - get it all on TGA, shout your name out, get some hype.

The reason I say this, is because you seem to want to run a big narrative event. You current community don't seem keen for whatever reason. But there are good examples of narrative events out there and many players in the states willing to travel and pay money to take part in these events. Ask Veterannoob, I always see him on Twitter and TGA going to fun events. If your event is good enough it will draw the right sort of players from across the country. And who knows? With a popular narrative event on their doorstep maybe your regulars might take a second look at the whole narrative thing again and decide it might not be that bad.

I wish you the best of luck in setting up a narrative event in the future.

Up until recently I was posting in a lot of places. When it comes to guesting on podcasts, one does not simply say they will do so lol.

My last big push was the azyr empires campaign, and that for the most part failed spectacularly because it wasn't official material. A few months have passed since that, and I have not really wanted to jump back in to the twitter and fb and all that other stuff because historically with azyr comp and empires I felt like I was waving a banner on a hill by myself, and I ran out of endurance.

I have twice now in my "career" lost a few thousand dollars a pop setting up a large scale event. The financial loss is mostly why without a decent base to draw on why I would be shy about trying to rent out another hotel space and get terrain and tables ready etc.

 auticus wrote:
Up until recently I was posting in a lot of places. When it comes to guesting on podcasts, one does not simply say they will do so lol.

My last big push was the azyr empires campaign, and that for the most part failed spectacularly because it wasn't official material. A few months have passed since that, and I have not really wanted to jump back in to the twitter and fb and all that other stuff because historically with azyr comp and empires I felt like I was waving a banner on a hill by myself, and I ran out of endurance.

I have twice now in my "career" lost a few thousand dollars a pop setting up a large scale event. The financial loss is mostly why without a decent base to draw on why I would be shy about trying to rent out another hotel space and get terrain and tables ready etc.

"I felt like I was waving a banner on a hill by myself, and I ran out of endurance."

This perfectly sums up why I don't go in for unofficial content. I'm not hitching myself to someone who can run out of endurance (or get hit by a truck, or get a new job that takes up more time, or have a baby, etc, etc). I'll instead hitch myself to a company that is more likely to be around for awhile and focused on providing me with official content so long as there are people like me who will give them money.

I respect what you're trying to accomplish, I just don't feel confident enough that you'll succeed to jump in and help you.

 Kriswall wrote:

 auticus wrote:
Up until recently I was posting in a lot of places. When it comes to guesting on podcasts, one does not simply say they will do so lol.

My last big push was the azyr empires campaign, and that for the most part failed spectacularly because it wasn't official material. A few months have passed since that, and I have not really wanted to jump back in to the twitter and fb and all that other stuff because historically with azyr comp and empires I felt like I was waving a banner on a hill by myself, and I ran out of endurance.

I have twice now in my "career" lost a few thousand dollars a pop setting up a large scale event. The financial loss is mostly why without a decent base to draw on why I would be shy about trying to rent out another hotel space and get terrain and tables ready etc.

"I felt like I was waving a banner on a hill by myself, and I ran out of endurance."

This perfectly sums up why I don't go in for unofficial content. I'm not hitching myself to someone who can run out of endurance (or get hit by a truck, or get a new job that takes up more time, or have a baby, etc, etc). I'll instead hitch myself to a company that is more likely to be around for awhile and focused on providing me with official content so long as there are people like me who will give them money.

I respect what you're trying to accomplish, I just don't feel confident enough that you'll succeed to jump in and help you.

The thing though, is before the GHB there was no company providing it, so it was either don't use anything to "balance", cry that AOS isn't balanced because there's nothing like points and therefore a trash game. People need to broaden their horizons. Would you also refuse to play with any house rules whatsoever because someone not the company came up with it?

I don't mean to single you out, just I find this attitude a bit odd, since I also see it in my professional career (I'm a software developer) where people refuse to look outside what Microsoft or similar provides when there are tons of perfectly good, and sometimes better, open source software packages that help get things done, simply because there isn't a company backing it even when the company's offering is typically worse.

In this case, there are a lot of fan-made comps that are likely better than what is in the GHB, but since the GHB is "official" as was stated before, those fan made comps are now dead and buried.

Its a catch-22.

You make something, but no one will use it for it not being official.

But people won't use it because its not official because the person that makes it will end up getting tired of putting a ton of work in that no one uses and because no one uses it, move on to other things.

If the official company also had no one using it, it would go away as well.

Nothing wrong with using a comp system, then if it happens to go under move to something else. Sure, its easier to just stay within official systems but if said system is getting in the way of enjoying the game then what's the point? On the other hand, if said system is working well for you then go for it. There is no right or wrong way to play. That leads me to...

 Kriswall wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
I'm starting to think I lucked out in getting a community of reasonable people...

Define reasonable. I really don't like the implication that people who enjoy maximizing their army's competitiveness in a competitive environment (i.e., min-maxing) are unreasonable. You lucked out in getting a community of like minded people... NOT reasonable people. In many communities, it's considered strange and illogical to build a list that "has no chance in the current meta". Not all gamers/communities want the same thing. Some are more competitive than others... even ruthlessly so, but that doesn't make them unreasonable. Just different.

I did not intend my statement to come across that way, but I can see how you got that impression. To clarify, I was referring to...

People largely won't play if they don't know the scenario and will build for that scenario.

I think his group suffer from the old "unbalanced points means it can't be fair"

tryhards who feel that matched play is fair and balanced and anything else is unbalanced all the while trying to game matched play to be as competitive as possible and slandering anything else in the hopes of essentially boycotting it.

I had a guy screaming at me (not exaggerating) storming out the store that I had ****** him out of a day of playing

Min-maxing is just a way of playing. Its as legitimate as people wishing there were more peers who enjoyed a different one. So I don't feel that being a competitive player is unreasonable, but being a dick about it is. The two are often correlated because players who are dicks also tend to be min-max types, but its important to remember that doesn't mean min-max types tend to be dicks.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Nothing wrong with using a comp system, then if it happens to go under move to something else. Sure, its easier to just stay within official systems but if said system is getting in the way of enjoying the game then what's the point? On the other hand, if said system is working well for you then go for it. There is no right or wrong way to play. That leads me to...

 Kriswall wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
I'm starting to think I lucked out in getting a community of reasonable people...

Define reasonable. I really don't like the implication that people who enjoy maximizing their army's competitiveness in a competitive environment (i.e., min-maxing) are unreasonable. You lucked out in getting a community of like minded people... NOT reasonable people. In many communities, it's considered strange and illogical to build a list that "has no chance in the current meta". Not all gamers/communities want the same thing. Some are more competitive than others... even ruthlessly so, but that doesn't make them unreasonable. Just different.

I did not intend my statement to come across that way, but I can see how you got that impression. To clarify, I was referring to...

People largely won't play if they don't know the scenario and will build for that scenario.

I think his group suffer from the old "unbalanced points means it can't be fair"

tryhards who feel that matched play is fair and balanced and anything else is unbalanced all the while trying to game matched play to be as competitive as possible and slandering anything else in the hopes of essentially boycotting it.

I had a guy screaming at me (not exaggerating) storming out the store that I had ****** him out of a day of playing

Min-maxing is just a way of playing. Its as legitimate as people wishing there were more peers who enjoyed a different one. So I don't feel that being a competitive player is unreasonable, but being a dick about it is. The two are often correlated because players who are dicks also tend to be min-max types, but its important to remember that doesn't mean min-max types tend to be dicks.

Exactly. Not all min-max types are TFGs, just a disproportionately large number of TFGs tend to be min-max players. I have very rarely if ever met someone who could be construed as a TFG that wasn't of the "competitive" mentality, but I've met a lot of people who are of the competitive mentality that are reasonable people and fun to play against if you're into that sort of game. Just a lot of the TFG types tend to gravitate towards competitive because they can basically buy a power army and with a minimum of effort win games because the army itself does the work for them (which, and this is purely anecdotal, is a big reason I think those types of players choose to play competitive Warhammer instead of games like Warmachine, X-Wing, Infinity, basically any other competitive game, because in those games what you field matters a lot less than how you use it compared to Warhammer where you can often just pump out enough firepower to obliterate anything long before they even have a chance at hurting you; Warhammer in effect being much easier to game a list/the system and win because you have to think less. Again, purely anecdotal and not trying to insult any good competitive Warhammer players)

 auticus wrote:
Its a catch-22.

You make something, but no one will use it for it not being official.

But people won't use it because its not official because the person that makes it will end up getting tired of putting a ton of work in that no one uses and because no one uses it, move on to other things.

If the official company also had no one using it, it would go away as well.

Well the Heralds of Ruins ruleset for 40k Kill Team is the exception to that rule.
It started out as a fan-based ruleset made by a very small group of people, that had some adaptation around the 40k scene. They ended up stopping their work on the ruleset, which was then taken over by the fans themselves. Now there is a Facebook group for the ruleset with ~4000 members, and the ruleset is kept fresh and the development continue to this day.

So it can happen, even if it is rare that it does. :-)

Spiky Norman wrote:

 auticus wrote:
Its a catch-22.

You make something, but no one will use it for it not being official.

But people won't use it because its not official because the person that makes it will end up getting tired of putting a ton of work in that no one uses and because no one uses it, move on to other things.

If the official company also had no one using it, it would go away as well.

Well the Heralds of Ruins ruleset for 40k Kill Team is the exception to that rule.
It started out as a fan-based ruleset made by a very small group of people, that had some adaptation around the 40k scene. They ended up stopping their work on the ruleset, which was then taken over by the fans themselves. Now there is a Facebook group for the ruleset with ~4000 members, and the ruleset is kept fresh and the development continue to this day.

So it can happen, even if it is rare that it does. :-)

Yes. However, it still remains that a lot of things just up and die when an official version comes out, because people immediately think that it being officially supported means it must be good.