How, exactly, can we involve the Facebook SWM players? Hold tournaments for them? If so, how exactly would that work, since you've shown that these players aren't interested in competitive play (and therefore neither in tournaments)? The thing about casual players...is that they will play casually: on their kitchen table, or doing a themed large-scale themed battle every once in a while with a bunch of people. In other words, what could we offer them that they don't already have?

I'd be fine with WotC-only tournaments/leagues. For example, I'd be happy to play in an order-of-release league on Vassal, where each game is played with the next set released (so Round 1 uses only RS, Round 2 uses RS and CS, Round 3 uses RS, CS and RotS, etc). Things like this would be lots of fun...but I'm not sure that non-competitive players would be very interested. (I'd really like to be proven wrong on this.)

Have you conversed with these FB SWM players to see what they're looking for? I'd be very interested to hear what they have to say, and then see if there's something that we can do to enfold them.

Part of the challenge is that these two--and mostly distinct--communities (competitive players and casual players) have largely self-selected. That is, players who are more keen on tournaments and competitive play have gravitated to Bloomilk and the use of V-Sets for a number of reasons. Likewise, players who are more interested in casual play have largely left BM, and have apparently formed a community on FB--and I say more power to 'em! Each of these players voluntarily chose the community they wanted to join based on their own interests and preferences. Competitive players crave challenge and variety (hence regular V-Set releases), while casual players seem to be more interested in theme battles, army building, and probably other things that I'm not aware of. My point is that there's probably not a lot of shared interest between these groups; sure, both groups enjoy SWM...but they enjoy SWM for very different reasons. If you can show an opportunity for the two communities to come together, then I'd be very interested to see it.

If it would bring in more players then I'd be all for some themed tournaments.

I think alternate formats can be cool too: the 225pt LS/DS tournament that apparently happened at GenCon this year, 400pts with 10 or less activations, Epic 500, etc. Whether those tournaments are with WotC-only pieces or some V-Set pieces would be irrelevant, because they would be different enough that they'd bring lots of interest. I'd play in them.

Hey Jim. Hope that you and your fam are doing good!

From time to time, I briefly talk in chat with people on SWM Facebook that have never heard of bloomilk.com or about the V'Sets. Facebook is a great recruiting ground for anything and everything, not just SWM, of course. There are many new players to SWM, in the Facebook SWM group. Just some basic SWM Facebook group info;

- the SWM group was created 11 years ago
- there are over 4,100 total members
- there were 23 people who joined in the last week
- there were 9 new posts, already so far today ( as of Sunday 9:38am pst ), with 192 posts, in the last 28 days

My point is that Facebook is a super easy way to access many different topics, interests, groups, etc. Obviously being an app, people tend to use it more frequently than using an actual website. I also belong to a separate SWM trading, selling, buying, etc. group there that has over 1,700 members. I also belong to the SW Legion game group there, as well as a few Lord of the Rings game groups as well. This is the way, to greet, meet, recruit, and find new players, that have an interest in SWM, and that could inject new life/fresh blood, into our beloved game.

I wanted to add that I thought the idea of showcasing the 2018 SWM World Championship Final on Facebook was genius! At least 61 people watched it there. This was the first and only 1 done there. I believe that this would have been a great opportunity to continue the momentum to recruit more players, and spread the word about the bloomilk and SWM Gamers communities, especially to the ones that prefer Facebook over SWM Gamers and Bloomilk, or the simple fact, that a lot of people will not hear or find out about them because of not knowing or being introduced to them.

Like in Jim's case, yeah there will be people, for whatever their reasons, that won't want to utilize Facebook, but what has the bloomilk community got to lose?????????? And is there anyone still using SWMGamers.com? IMHO, utilizing both the Facebook and the websites together in unison for promoting SWM's ( leagues, casual/fun play, comps, regionals, champs, new sets, etc. ) could only help our beloved game.

Maximum respect to you Hutts, but I couldn't disagree with you more. I often see members taking pictures of SWM games that they play and post in the Facebook group. I have posted there in the past as well, and got several compliments and questions about my games. Also, let's try and be positive moving forward. If I could interest even 1 person in playing ( either a beginner or previous player ), that's a win in my book. Are you saying that a collector would never change his or her mind, and get into playing? I'm a glass half-full guy, not a glass half empty one. Let's focus on the positive and have faith in people changing their minds or even learning about and discovering SWM. Awareness, educating, showcasing, word of mouth, generating excitement with other social platforms, and making the game more fun for the more casual players, IMHO, can only, help our beloved game. Nothing is ever set in stone, unless individuals are close minded, and unwilling to embrace change and differences. I myself use the Force. Patience and being mindful, are mind sets that I practice in my everyday life. We all can uplift each other with positive support, thought, practices, and mindsets. I have been pleasantly surprised with many people I've met in my life that have changed their mind in trying something new, after declining my invitations in the past. I personally will continue the positive approach, because I've seen much success in the past

If you can garner some interest in playing on Vassal (I don't know how else to get people together across vast distances) then I'll do my best to arrange my schedule so that I can play in whatever you can drum up if new players are involved. I'd love to see more people get into the game, so I'll play in some WotC-only events if that's what it takes. If there are even just a few as-of-yet undiscovered competitive SWM players in that group, then I'd love to meet them!

I'm still with the Hutts, in that I'm not real optimistic about our odds of finding new active players, but I'm willing to give it a shot anyway, just to see if we can gain some momentum.

EDIT: Even having said this, I'm still all-in with the V-Sets. V-Sets are where it's at for me. The game is far more interesting with them than it ever was without them.

+100 It's been more of a marketplace forum than anything these last few years with the occasional Mass Battle pictures. Rule questions do come up from time to time.

I have even sent out Vassal Con posts on bloomilk forums to the group with little to no response after hearing a large gripe about not knowing that Vassal Con was a thing last year, so there is that.

swmgamers isn't as active as it used to be. When i started playing 15 years ago, i used it more than bloomilk and always went there for forum posts. We used to have huge support for Vassal games on there. Gamers Vassal League for example....man those were fun days! I'd be very very happy to see something like that come back again, but unfortunately out player base has become smaller. It is still possible, but it'd be hard to pull off.

Now its entirely bloomilk's domain for engaging with the community. swmgamers is active as a website tho for those involved with the v-sets design process. We exclusively use that site for that as far as discussion, design and playtesting.

We are still keeping out quiet pleasant gaming community in the Canadian north going. Actually teaching up some of our kids to play now and so simpler pieces is greatly appreciated. The walls of words work for us super players but CHS be as overwhelming as overwhelming force for new players. So simpler pieces is the thing that would help the most! But we may even play with just some early WOTC sets when teaching kids. It would be nice if there were strong competitive options that new players could play as. Example a 100 point guard tower that has Overwatch and can be set in gambit. They can sit and snipe each round, and maybe even garrison some troops inside it (use for the troops cart!). I also like people with prideful and a good rival locking out the crazy combos but allowing some of the older simpler pieces to be amazing. Too me the Vsets should be primarily focused on making WOTC content playable and top tier while introducing the occasional new character.

Also still wish that my vote of making the First Order and Resistance their own faction would have been much preferred so we could just not play them as a faction entirely instead of trying to sort out who is obscure legit EU Star Wars for us to play and who is from those movies that my group doesn’t talk about anymore…

All that being said keep up the great work! We had another baby so life has been busy lately but nice to see new content (woot fallen order and nightsister zombies!).

The V sets have got to go. It is hard to grow the game when u can just print out the best pieces. Also, does anyone still ply the game in the PHilly area?

100%! Without the V-Sets, competitive play would've stopped long ago.

As for 'growing the game'...what kind of growth are we talking about here?
--The game has been out of print for 10 years so there are ZERO places where you can find reasonably priced minis or boosters, and therefore it is not at all feasible to bring a new player into the game unless he already has a collection.
--If the new player does have a collection, then what would 'growing the game' look like? Are we talking about bringing that player into actually playing the game (rather than just collecting it)? If so, then the best way to do that is to play in the format that he prefers most: mass battles, themed (Ewoks vs Stormtroopers, Droids vs Clones, etc), or possibly constructed play. And the only way to see what he likes best is to ask him, or perhaps try out various formats with him to see what he enjoys most. If he finds that he likes constructed the most, then let him get familiar with all the WotC pieces (see my note below); if he's still into it after getting familiar with it, then start to introduce the V-Sets, 1 set at a time.

In short, I'm not sure how the V-Sets get in the way of that process, in any way. I think it's foolish to introduce V-Set pieces to a new player...you're almost guaranteed to overwhelm him.

For a while, I have said that I'd be happy to play in WotC-only events or leagues (without V-Sets) if there are people who want to learn the game. Nevertheless, I do think that the game is far better, more balanced, and more interesting with the V-Sets than without.


As for how to introduce someone to constructed (and eventually, competitive) play.... Here's how I introduced my kids to the game: 1 WotC set at a time, in order of release.
--First we looked through all of the Rebel Storm set and the various pieces that were most fun to use. We built a few squads and played a few games that way.
--Then we introduced Clone Strike and got familiar with those pieces (Aurra Sing was an absolute monster!).
--Then RotS, then UH, etc.
--Along the way I showed them some of the top squads at the time (original B&B), how counters developed (San Hill and the power of activation control, etc). Eventually, they discovered their own combos and squad ideas, and they were good to go.
--Unfortunately, Fortnight was released around that time, and life has gone entirely downhill since then. Nevertheless, it was working really well and my kids were loving the game.