Malifaux – The turn-out for demo nights seems to be growing steadily. Which is pretty inpressive since the store still doesn't stock the game. (Soon I hope, let them know you'd like Malifaux and MERCS stock by emailing them here). I had about seven players on Tuesday with several people interested in demos.
This week I brought out the desert board for a change and it seemed to catch the attention of most of the people who came into the store. With an odd number of players I had a group that played a three-way encounter. Collette vs. Zoraida vs. Perdita. They played shared treasure hunt and Zoraida came away with the win (8 points), Collette was a clse second with 4 points.
Some of the guys that tried out MERCS a few weeks ago came back with full crews, the battle maps and token sets this week as well. I'm glad to see that game is catching on as well as it's my favorite way to round out a night of gaming. Although watching them play on a 2D mat was a little odd looking it seemed to work out fine and made it much easier to transport then my boxes of terrain and tables.
Setting up your own demo night:
• Talk to the store owner and see what night they have space available.
• Explain the system you want to demo, if the store doesn't stock it currently ask if they do special orders. Also ask if they'll start stocking the game if you can generate interest.
• Prepare a demo table, if the store doesn't have terrain available or the terrain they have isn't appropriate or impressive.
• Have several crews/models painted up for use
• Bring enough supplies (measuring devices, stones, cards, dice, markers, tokens) for several people
• Have other experienced players on hand to assist with longer demos
• Talk to every person that comes by looking, be friendly and ask general questions to gauge their interest. essentially you become a salesman for the game, your commission is a good community.
• When someone expresses an interest in learning more, do a quick demo of mechanics, then offer a longer demo if they want to learn more. (if you have a crowd it's helpful to pass them off to an experienced player for a "full" game.
• Promote the night, posters/flyers posted in the store, post on forums, join web groups and post there. If you don't get the word out people won't know to come in.
• Stick with it, the first few nights you might have a weak turnout, but stick with it and eventually more players will show up.
