New Zealand has always had a
relatively small Fantast tournament scene. At its height I’d guess that there
were probably no more than 200 active (2 or more tournaments per year)
participants. This was probably around the time of late 7th/early 8th
Ed Warhammer Fantasy….so 2008-11. In the later years of 8th,
participation was dropping and I suspect the numbers had halved from their
peak.
At that time I was running 4-5 events a year and getting
16-30 people at each. I also ran the NZ Team Champs where we had 64 people
competing.
With the schism of the Warhammer World post-End Times, the
community fragmented. Effectively it fell into five separate camps – in Fantasy
there were those that played Age of Sigmar, those playing 9th Age
and the Kings of War players. There were also people who went to other games
and finally those that seemed to stop playing.
In Wellington I switched my focus to KOW and started to
organise events. The first of these attracted 24 players. It never got better.
For the last year the local tournaments have failed to attract more than 8-10
players, two being players “new” to the scene. The nadir has been reached this
weekend where Call to Arms – previously a flagship Fantasy event – has only 6
KOW entrants.
At the same time T9A has also struggled to gain traction.
Events, largely based in Auckland – a city of 1.5 million – are struggling to
get more than 12-16 people. At the same time there appears to be a thriving AoS
tournament scene, this week’s CTA attracting 38 people. In the battle for the
Fantasy genre here in New Zealand, round bases and a skirmish ruleset has quite
clearly won.
From my point of view it has been a very frustrating two
years. My background is in historical gaming so I like ranks and flanks. I also
really enjoy the KOW rules which are very clean and which get regular support
from the Rules Committee.
Unfortunately it is time to admit defeat in terms of KOW
being the basis of a viable local Fantasy tournament scene. The number of
participants can’t really support standalone events – rental cost, trophies
etc. However more than that, having the same 6-8 people at every event gets old
very quickly and leads to stagnation.
While we can try and grow the number of players I feel as
though it has been an uphill battle. In this I think Mantic has been at fault.
Little has been done since Uncharted Empires to grow the source material that
would attract more players. Now 21 months after that book we get the next piece
of material with the campaign book. However for a lot of smaller communities –
basically anywhere outside the UK/US – it is too little, too late.
There was a wonderful opportunity presented by the launch of
AoS. In the first twelve months if Mantic had pushed the source material –
which a lot of people needed to engage with the game – and backed this up with
more releases then I think KOW might have flourished here. The fact that it
survives in the UK and thrives in the US is probably enough for Mantic. However
I’d be surprised whether there is any area outside those two (perhaps Brisbane)
where the game is thriving.
I understand it. Attention has been directed to the
Kickstarter programme and especially “The Walking Dead” and it has probably
kept the lights on. However the global opportunity that was KOW has probably
now gone. Now with the 40k steamroller now rebooted I suspect that any forays
into sci-fi are wasted effort.
Their main competitor has now completely changed their
interaction model and as a result companies like Mantic will be starved of air.
As a result locally I can never see KOW getting a foothold.
And that’s a shame as the game and the RC support deserved it.
