Faux-Pas and Club Cooperation

One of the objectives I set myself for this month is to help in any way I can to build up the Malifaux community again. We've undergone some decline in numbers recently because of a general ramping up in the WarMachine and 40k scenes here. Couple this with the FIFO phenomenon (fly in, fly out - resources sector staff fly up to sites, work, then head home on alternating rosters) and it makes organising any events quite tricky.

There's another phenomenon though, one closer to our gaming hearts, which I call our hobby journeys. There's probably 400 gamers here in WA at any one time but what each of us is playing is influenced by so many things, what's going on in our local group, what's hot and not, what kick starters are going off, what's coming up in the tournament calendar and what we can each fit into our daily lives.

My point is that that the journey we start the year on, ,is rarely what we end the year on. This year alone I've gone through WHFB, board games, MTG and through it all there's of course been some Malifaux. Now multiply that up by the number of people in your local group or club and people you used to play week in, week out, you now play occasionally. Worse still for clubs is the issue of organising games. Someone will turn up with something new and either not get a game or could swing the meta towards that game instead. A club has to delicately balance the scales or people don't come back.

It's all about the journey, and how you find yourself at the same destination, albeit fleetingly, and how many others are there along side you. Yeah it's deep....

But anyway I was at the Skulls tournament a few weeks ago and the subject came up about how to promote the game again and get more involved. One of the guys from another local club suggested alternating a monthly malifaux night between our two clubs (Outpost South and Krags) and with a bit of positioning with our respective committees and buyin of our henchman, Faux-Pa was born.

The intention is to keep everyone on the same path by making sure there's something different about the game each month. It's alternated between the two clubs, so as not to favour one location or group, and each month is something different.

Hopefully this'll go someway towards building up the community again, only time will tell, but nonetheless I thought I'd share what we're trying here in case it can be of any use to you guys in promoting this awesome game in your neighbourhood.