Here in Florida, there's a pair of shops near me, so I stopped in one and it had nothing, but their other store runs Infinity on Mondays, so I made the drive to see how the store was. Not sure how many folks they have for the actual games, but they didn't carry any products... Other store I stopped in was running a game while I was there, and had like 10 products, not organized regular play, but I'll probably give them a shot once I get the time and stuff, coinciding with Code1.
What part of Florida? If you're interested in checking out Infinity or playing a demo, I'm one of the Warcors in FL and we have a pretty decent State group. If you'd like I can tell you if there is a Warcor in your area and have them contact you.
I'm in Broward, place that had the game going while I was in there was "Hey Wanna Play", with Past Present Future in Palm Beach being the one that does Monday games, but had no stock, and it's a pretty far drive anyway. I won't have time until April/May anyway, spring break is busy and exhausting, but after that I'll figure something out. At this point I was just scouting out some locations I found on Iamgamefor.com and marveling at how bad at the internet gaming stores can be. Until then I'm just painting stuff, though I don't have a complete army of any specific thing yet I think.
@Maloc on these forums is the Warcor for that area. Hey Wanna Play is where they game. I've been there once for an event. I'm sure he'd be happy to run you through the basics when you have time. I'm the warcor across the Alley in Fort Myers.
Not a lot of people actively playing in the Northern California as far as I can tell. It's not dead, but getting 7-10 people for a tournament one weekend, then seeing the 40k Tournament using 50 tables the next kind of adjusts how you see things. As far as growth, some new people started, some people stopped. Seems like we broke even...
Yes but not as much as I'd like. So far it's about one person a year. I've done demos and not many are interested right now.
Up here in QLD (and for most of Australia), it goes up and down from quarter-to-quarter and year-to-year, as new games come and go, but generally seen a steady increase over the whole N3 era thats for sure. Fairly high churn though it must be said. Growth mostly seems to happen on the back of motivated community leaders getting events and leagues and social groups together, I really haven't seen any stores pushing it or getting involved, except for one or two isolated cases.
Slow the roll. I did say north east as a relative hot bed. Having games in NJ, philly, dc and Houston does not make for an active live game. I visit about 30 cities a year and go to the game stores in that area as a after the work is done entertainment. I. Constantly looking for places that carry infinity or have events. It's one of my 3 core games...guild ball and asoiaf being the other 2. What can I say I like good games rather than the most popular games
of course more people play a more diverse set of games in the areas that have almost 8 times the population density of TN....? To call NJ, DC, cali, "small pockets" is confusing at best?
I'm in the Seattle area, which I believe has an OK Infinity scene. However, I really only play with two (...maybe soon 3..?) friends at each others houses in a micro-meta of CA (me), YJ, nomads, and potentially 012. I did go to a tournament once. It was fun and had good friendly people, but I find playing more than one Infinity match in a day exhausting due to rules fatigue. Open to trying again sometime, regardless.
This! Infinity in Germany has seen quite some growth over the last couple of years. But that's definitely due to intense efforts of dedicated people getting (and keeping) new players motivated. There are some points that made me lose players after some months. 1) Infinity can be quite costly if you are not proxying hard. I've made some serious investments over time. Yes, great quality miniatures for sure, Skrimish sized...but still: you have to be willing to drop some bucks. 2) The rules are deep, learning curve is steep...Infinity definitly is not on the "casual side" of tabletop. Being introduced into an experienced gaming group might get new players into the position of never being able to really catch up unless they play for some extemded period of time. It's quite demotivating to dive into the rules, get better, but still get beaten every time. 3) Terrain...another investment. A full table will be around 200-250€ as a starter. Let's not get started about the time needed t paint that stuff. 4) Infinity eats up time and mental ressources. I find it hard to play other games next to it. Some people quit the game as they preferred to have two or three systems running at the same time, or just play board games casually.
A few words of encouragement: Good for you for being willing to struggle against the rules fatigue, and I hope you do get out to more local games and tourneys! The rules stuff gets easier, thank god. The more often you play, the less that that exhausting adaptation and re-learning is needed. At the risk of sounding a bit preachy, I'd like to add: You actually have the benefit of one of the cooler metas there in the greater Seattle area that I've seen around the world (I play in France, Germany, and Spain mostly now). If you support it well (even just coming to a tourney every couple months), you'll be rewarded. Participation really is key to keeping an Infinity scene alive. I was one of the first players in the Seattle area and helped kick off the local meta, watched it grow, and then moved abroad. I really miss the great playing opportunities there, from both regular and occasional players. It's particularly cool to see how much cooperation there is between all the Cascadian Infinity groups nowadays (for those outside the Pacific Northwest of the US, Cascadia is what we call western Washington/Oregon/Northern California and B.C. Canada). The tourneys I see posted all the time now look RAD, and the folks writing articles and doing batreps/tourney reports out of Eugene, Portland, Seattle, Bellingham, and B.C. turn out some really good stuff (Dice Abide, Wise Kensai, Zhukov, etc.). The opportunity to play against them and see the tactics and thought they put into their online writing would be really cool to have, and I hope you get a chance to do that @bloodw4ke . Anyways, that part of the meta might be harder to get the benefit of if you're not playing much at events or area shops. Those other players from the greater Cascadian meta can present opportunities to encounter styles of play and levels of skill that you might not encounter otherwise. To me, that's one of the coolest parts of gaming: not just exploring the game system, but the ways that clever minds can work within it. A tight play group is also great fun and a lot easier to get to of course, but IMO Infinity's such a big rules set that meeting other folks and seeing what corners of it they prefer and what they can do with it is one of the best parts of playing it. I hope you have a chance to get out there and enjoy it!
They just posted another video for a con: In it they mention breaking up something like TO Camo into separate things that will all be more self-explanatory rather than nesting rules inside rules. The Camo token pictured is also neat, since it will list the -6 dodge on it. Of course, I guess it'll mean new tokens for many things, but it should make gameplay easier for N4. So I do think they're aware of the issues, and N4 and Code1 will be easier to learn, even if there's still plenty of complexity to actual play. How is the Infinity crowd with mismatched terrain anyway? But yeah, I think getting a good terrain set can be an issue, especially since many stores don't carry stuff. Including in that is the 48X48 gaming mat, which none of 6 local stores carry, so I guess if I want one I'll order online. Of course, a good gaming store can make these investments themselves to provide a place for Infinity Play, but they still need a method to make money from the experience, so they have to sell SOMETHING useful.
I prefer our slow and steady growth in Michigan/Ohio. Sure, we could probably fish the 40k/Warmahordes pool hard, but I don't want everyone in those groups. I actively don't want the alt-right, the fascists and white supremacists I have encountered in other gaming communities. I'll keep it social and keep it with a group of people I don't want to brain with a chair.
Jeez, how did they even manifest those behaviours in a gaming environment? Germany society is probably a bit more sensitive to this kind of behaviour, but I can't imagine these people being unchecked in any kind of gaming community/store.
You'd be amazed. I've just started making it clear on the front end that none of that is acceptable. Nothing like going into the local GW store like one of my players recently did to hear a gamer defending Hitler. Like I said, I like our slow but steady growth.
Oh I totally get that I am in a gaming wasteland. My wife for some reason doesn't think it is reasonable to move So I can have a better gaming experience. So let's put it this way...in the last 6 years I've been playing it has not significantly grown in most of the areas of the US. It is not as big as warmahordes and that should be the goal. If I can see stock on the shelves of more than half the game stores I visit and events on a semi regular basis at half of the major metros than we've succeeded and grown the hobby. If it stays in relatively small pockets than it becomes a fringe game with hard core fans buying from Europe. In June my son and his crowd graduate college and I will have zero opponents to play in a 3 hour circle around me. That is a problem I am really hoping code 1 can help start to solve.
Terrain is expensive, but it is typically ordered online as are the matts. There are a couple of great companies in Florida that design and sell terrain, but they rarely have their products in brick and mortar stores. It's kind of a niche product, so it's risky for stores to stock. Warsenal is one of the Floridian companies that has a stellar product range and Skylabs Terrain, who is actually in your meta in Broward. As for mismatched terrain, whatever works when you're starting out. I think Hey Wanna Play has some terrain there for players to use but I am guessing, and there are several players in your area with full tables of painted and fun terrain.
Bad terrain is better than no terrain, but Warsenal, Skylabs Terrain, Printerrain, Black Maria Designs, TT Combat, Micro Art Studio, Muse on Minis, the list goes on all make great terrain for various budgets.
Even a combination of the Salvora pack and the older thin card terrain packs can get a pretty serviceable table for a relatively low cost.
