Demo games in GG1.

[Maniacal_cackle]

So I think we've come up with a decent demo setup for new players, and thought I'd share.

For crews, we do 30 stones including a henchman leader (much like Henchman Hardcore). But we usually shoot for pretty low power crews, ideally with three identical minions (I typically tailor the crews on both sides to make sure they match up well).

For the first scenario, corrupted leylines on corner deployment with only three markers (one near each deployment zone, one in the centre). This forces the players to naturally engage with each other. Then we throw in the Assassinate scheme to make sure there is a mix of interacting and killing. Corner deployment ensures they have a bit of space to figure out moving around the board before combat begins.

For the second scenario, we do Public Enemies with two non-kill schemes (last time did Claim Jump/Sabotage). They had to secretly pick one scheme and were good to go. Wedge deployment, as it is the opposite end of the spectrum from corner.

After that, the players were doing 50 soulstone games and seemed quite happy! Can probably skip the second step for some players, but it is nice if two players start together that they can get a rematch feel as well.

How are other people handling demo games/intro games?

[touchdown]

I'm going to be doing a demo game for my sister tommorow. My plan was to just run henchman hardcore as is, but ignore the existence of soulstone cache.

What would you say the advantage of your setup is?

 

 

[Maniacal_cackle]

49 minutes ago, touchdown said:

I'm going to be doing a demo game for my sister tommorow. My plan was to just run henchman hardcore as is, but ignore the existence of soulstone cache.

What would you say the advantage of your setup is?

 

 

I don't like henchman hardcore for demos. Wedge deployment has you starting so close to each other that you don't have much time to move your models around before combat starts. You also end up with a very vague idea as to where you should go.

I like turf war/leylines with just three markers for intro games as it creates a fairly smooth game experience: claim your first marker, go to claim the second one, then a brawl breaks out. But still leaves room for clever play (walk around the brawl and secure the third leyline).

EDIT: oh, also the HH team structure of four models each doesn't necessarily line up with every core box. I find it a bit easier to have flexibility on model numbers.

[touchdown]

4 models precisely is restrictive but if you are presetting the lists it's just means some work up front. I play HH a good amount since I don't always have time for a full game so I have a lot of lists in my head.

That said your point about wedge is well taken.

My concern with your strategy/schemes for the first game is that you don't have to take any interact actions, but it sounds like your hooking people.

[Maniacal_cackle]

14 minutes ago, touchdown said:

My concern with your strategy/schemes for the first game is that you don't have to take any interact actions, but it sounds like your hooking people.

True, although people can and one of the times the players were actually using interact to throw the lodestone around (I've run it twice so far).

I like that it is an option but not a must. Just figuring out running around the battlefield, positioning payoff, and combat is already quite a bit for new players to learn.

Although before each game I run them through a practice fight (an attack from both sides) and interacting ("Interacting is an action you can take related to objectives. You can put down scheme markers (which we won't be using today), or today you can pass a lodestone.")

I then accompany the lodestone passing with having models on the table, as reading/explaining lodestones makes no sense, but simply explaining positions it is pretty clear.

[Maniacal_cackle]

I also like to leave lots of 'hooks' - brief references to the wider rules that hints there is loads more to learn.

When walking them through each turn, I use page 35. During the start phase I mention "ordinarily there's another way to draw extra cards here, but we're skipping past that today."

Today the hook that really got him was mentioning that there's a lot of pre-game selection of crews. We ended up chatting for a few minutes about the exact order of picking crews before a game, so he got a really clear idea of how much depth there was to crew selection.

[Jesy Blue]

 

7 hours ago, touchdown said:

4 models precisely is restrictive but if you are presetting the lists it's just means some work up front. I play HH a good amount since I don't always have time for a full game so I have a lot of lists in my head.

I (used to) do a lot of HH teaching games and have tons of pre built lists from the models I have already, because I'm teaching people who don't have models yet and dont know what they want yet; I'm getting them interested for free. 

Once they have models, I'll make assessments based on what they have and how much of the game they understand so far for future games.  it could be 30 stones, it could be master lead, it could be whole crew box, it could be a full game with borrowed/proxied models.  Tailor your teaching to your student.

[Mycellanious]

I've found that the Master is what draws a lot of people into the game, they see Seamus or Dreamer or something and they want to know more about that model. Having them start without that model that piqued their interest has lead to issues for me. For example, one person I demo'd thought Seamus was cool and bought the box. He wanted to use his models for the demo and not some random ones from the store, kind of obviously. I had him run a henchmen hardcore game without Seamus and it kind of took the wind out of his sails a bit.

[touchdown]

I ended up shorter on time than I expected so I did the setup you suggested, @Maniacal_cackle. Well first they picked the HH crews I put together and I took one minion from each and did 2 turns where they just moved and attacked each other to get a feel for measuring, moving, flipping. Then I did your setup. It worked out really well. One player took bandits and so did an interact to drop a scheme marker for Mad Dog to have fast, and the other player had Foundry and threw the lodestone with an interact. So it did come up anyway. I do like this. I still like sticking with HH hiring rules (and no summons). We also ignored SS cache. Going to try a full HH game later this week with a cache.

@Mycellaniousif someone is really attracted to a master and isn't turned off by complexity, I would just let them play what's exciting. Run a smaller SS game (maybe 30 or 40 with paying for the leader), and avoid summoners.

[Rufess]

That is so true that new players do want to play their new bought shiny master. My solution is to cross out some abilities and/or actions on their master that are complex and not the core part of the master's strength.

For example I recent had played a demo game with a new player who love Lucius at first sight. I made him an entry-level Lucius with only Serene Countenance, Arcane Reservoir, Entourage, Misinformation and Issue Command.

In the result he picked up Lucius in a short time. And during the demo game, he can focus on how to maximize the value of Issue Command and Following Orders without being confused by other attacks on Lucius' card.

[Maniacal_cackle]

@touchdown super stoked it went well for you!

Regarding masters - as Jesy says, definitely gotta tailor to the student. Worth customising a bit every time! Including masters or simplified masters makes sense, but here's how I approach it.

Throughout the game I often talk about how their master ties in:

• Somer - normally you'd be swarming the board with Somer's summons, so this Bayou Bash would be easy to setup all over the board.
• Seamus - you just put all that work killing this minion, but Seamus could teleport here and kill it in one hit using his gun.
• Reva - normally you have a lot more corpses on the table as her totems count as corpses, so in addition to burning everywhere, I have models popping out of corpses and her running all over the map on her horse.

A priority for me is often keeping the demo game simple (some, but not all, players get quite overwhelmed by the rules, so I err on the side of caution).

But there's no right way to do it. Some people just love the deep end and prefer demo games of full 50 stones!

EDIT: One thing I try to do is leave people with a sense of hype - if they're interested in masters, hopefully they will be extra hyped for the second game when they get them on the board. So I'm always hyping up all the cool things that they'll be learning down the line (or at least I try to xD).