My background is Napoleonics, along with some Napoleonics and a little bit of Napoleonics as well. (And maybe a bit of Warhammer, bit we won't mention that too loudly
.......)
Over the past year or so I have slowly been beginning to delve into the AM and R periods, as both seem to be pretty well supported at our club. Though I don't know the amount of support for them outside of Melbourne.
So I have been watching the forums for both periods pretty regularly to glean what info I can.
The thing that I have found most encouraging is that, apart from one or two niggling issues (artillery in R, apparently), the rules seem to be very stable and widely understood in the same way pretty much everywhere - the success of the recent "Worlds" in Koblenz is the best indicator of this. I looked at the comments posted by those who took part, and I cannot recall one comment where a variation in rules interpretation was a feature. This is an issue we have dealt with in FOGN over the past year, and we seem to have reached a consensus, at least in our Melbourne club and with our NZ friends who made the journey for our recent tournament. The forum was a crucial tool in achieving this, and the fact that the "Rules Question" section has gone fairly quiet is, I hope, an indicator that we might have sorted out many of the bigger problems..... either that, or I am being a little over-optimistic!
I can absolutely understand Raven's initial post - by far the most common posts on either the AM or R forums are about UK tournaments, but I think that is an indication of the health of the 'scene' rather than any kind of a hi-jacking.
I think the issue with this in Australia has something to do with the distances involved, and the number of tournaments held. There is a lot of Britain that is within a couple of hours drive of somewhere else to go for a tournament. Over here, Melbourne to Sydney is roughly 10 hours drive. And, to be honest, I really don't know about gamers elsewhere, though I am sure they exist. Our club holds one tournament for each FOG period per year, and I hope to play in all of them from here on. But I can never be sure of being able to attend a tourney outside of Melbourne, unfortunately.
As far as getting some sort of idea as to whether anyone is looking at your posts, I think using the number of views is a better indicator than the number of responses. Especially if the post does not include an actual question.
I love the fact that so many people use the forums. To be honest, I rarely look at the tournaments section, simply because I know that it is probably not relevant to me. But I usually check the site every couple of days....I never know what I'll find.
