The Power Of A Slow-Grow League

If you're a tabletop gamer, chances are you’ve been in a frustrating situation where you love a game system, but no one around you shares that passion. In my case, that game is Warhammer Fantasy. And the lack of a local The Old World (TOW) community? Well, it was driving me a bit mad.

This is the story of how our small group grew from just two die-hard TOW fans to a full-fledged community of 22 players in just a month. Hopefully, this guide will inspire and help you build your own community for the games you love. At the end, I’ve included our league rubric, so feel free to tweak it for your local group or use it outright. And let me know how it goes!

The Seed

Like many of us, my introduction to the hobby came via Warhammer 40k back in the '90s, around the launch of 5th Edition Warhammer Fantasy Battles (WHFB). But it wasn’t until later that I took the plunge with my first army: The Empire. Even though my early hobby years were more about flipping through my cousin’s old White Dwarf magazines than actual gameplay, Warhammer Fantasy left an indelible mark on me.

Fast forward to the End Times, and The Old World was dead—until the unexpected announcement of its return with the 2024 ruleset for TOW. Naturally, I was ecstatic! But while initial excitement was high, enthusiasm quickly dwindled. Soon, it was just me and the local GW store manager, Pat, actively building and painting armies.

Instead of lamenting the lack of players, I decided to build a community. Now, I’d love to claim all the credit, but the hardest part—sparking that initial interest—was already done for me. Many veteran players still had their old armies. We had multiple active GW stores nearby, and the Warhammer Fantasy IP had always lingered, bolstered by games like Total War: Warhammer and Age of Sigmar. If you’re trying to build a community around a less popular game or IP, this initial phase is going to be a lot harder.

Goal Setting and Structuring The League

My primary goal was simple: get a TOW community up and running. To do that, we need people to paint armies and play games. The challenge? TOW is a bit intimidating, with complex rules and the (rather erroneous) perception that it requires a ton of models—likely a lingering memory from the WHFB days when 2,000-3,000-point armies were the norm. Also, knowing that most of our group played other games like 40k or AoS, I don’t expect TOW to replace their primary systems immediately. Here’s how the league was structured to keep things engaging and accessible:

1)      Gradual, supported learning.

In an ideal world, we would have multiple players familiar with the rules running regular tutorial sessions. The problem is that all of us are still learning the ropes, and the couple of us who are more familiar with the rules aren’t always available to play games.The solution is to slowly escalate the league, requiring players to engage with the rules in small bite-sized pieces as they ramped up from 500 to 2,000 points over four months (500 points/month). This allows players to slowly familiarize themselves with the game’s core mechanics and their armies at a more manageable pace.

Thankfully, many in the league were inclined to take the learning of the rules seriously; and even within the first month, it was amazing to see how everyone was supporting each other in figuring out the mechanics of the game. We even had a pod of six going simultaneously a couple of weeks ago, with players asking each other questions as they had their first 500 point games!

2)      Slow-grow format

The pacing of the league also allowed brand-new players to slowly build up their forces over a four-month period or for veteran players to start a brand-new army. Besides learning the rules, this slower pace also buys time for players to collect, build, and paint their armies.

3)      Encouraging but not forcing painting

It is crucial to encourage people to paint their models but not to overwhelm them with expectations of having a fully-painted 2,000 point army in four months. To accomplish this, the rubric's painting guidelines are fairly reasonable (as seen in the rubric below). Players are free to put as much effort as they want into their paint jobs, and the rubric intentionally makes no distinction in regiment size for as long as it’s a legal size. In other words, a single Dragon Ogre can count as an entire regiment, and a block of twenty Gors can count as four units of five!

4)      Low-pressure casual play

Competitive play was to take a back seat, but it was still important for players to engage with the game tactically. This meant that most of the scoring involved purely playing the game, not necessarily winning, until the later half of the league. Even then, this isn’t a tournament; if a player takes twenty games before they win one game, it still counts as a win! This way, players could hone their strategies without feeling pressured to win consistently.

5)      Keeping it manageable

Life gets busy, and many have limited hobby time and/or spent their time divided between multiple games. The league’s pacing and scoring were designed to be laid-back, allowing participants to enjoy TOW without it becoming an overwhelming time sink.

The Rubric

The league's rubric is split into three main categories: Hobby, Gaming, and Sharing, each tailored to reward both effort and practicality. The points are weighted based on how much work they require relative to their impact. For instance, battle reports (batreps) don’t necessarily lead to more painted models or fun game nights with friends, but since they’re a bit of a hassle to put together, they’re worth more points to encourage players to make them.

Hobby is where most of the points come from, particularly for painting. Units are grouped by the effort needed to paint them, and I spread non-standard infantry and cavalry units across categories to accommodate different factions. For example, Dwarf players who don’t have gyrocopters can paint warmachines instead. I’ve always been a fan of lore-building, so I also threw in bonus points for players who create backstories for their armies and units—because who doesn’t love a good narrative?

Gaming points are primarily earned just by getting games in. While winning will matter more later in the league, the emphasis for now is on getting people playing and familiar with the rules. As part of the slow-grow nature, players will increase their armies by 500 points per month.

Sharing is where things get interesting. A key issue with TOW is that many 40k or Age of Sigmar players didn’t even know there was a TOW community! To help bridge that gap, the Sharing category is all about driving hype and getting the word out. The more people talk about the game and show off their involvement, the more points they rack up, hopefully pulling in more players from outside the league in the process!

Running The League

The issue with a complex rubric and a lot of participants is that there is a lot of bookkeeping; most certainly a lot more than expected, given that I didn’t personally expect more than around eight players to join my league, let alone nearly three-times that number!

Thankfully, Richard of the Far East Wargaming Youtube channel (click here to support him!) stepped up unprompted, offering to help streamline everything by setting up a system for tracking the progress of all 22 players. This left me with the far more enjoyable job of checking out everyone’s progress and awarding points for their hard work!

I’ve also been fortunate to have a lot of support from personal friends in the league. They’ve helped in various ways—from answering rules questions in our group chat to spreading the word through social media (such as Wip Hobbies, who is blogging his league progress on his Youtube channel) and keeping conversations lively. When running a league like this, having motivated players and helpful friends makes all the difference!

Keeping People Invested

One of the hardest parts of running a league or campaign is keeping players interested. Anyone who’s ever organized a long-term gaming event knows how common it is for people to drop out as interest wanes or other games catch their attention.

In my experience, having an entry fee—even a small one—helps focus people’s attention and allows us to fund prizes! I’m lucky to have two great local shops, Frontline Games and Plastics & Tactics, who supported the league and offered exclusive discounts to participants. With their help, we were able to provide substantial prizes and offer two venues for games, making it easier for people to stay engaged.

League Composition

The league’s lineup is pretty stacked, featuring almost every faction from both the core rulebook and legacy armies—except for Ogres, Dark Elves, and, interestingly enough, Tomb Kings. We had three Tomb Kings players, but they all opted to run different factions for the league. No shocker here: Dwarfs, Warriors of Chaos, and Bretonnia are leading the charge with four players each, holding the biggest presence on the battlefield!

What’s Next?

We’re about a month into the four-month league, and so far, things are looking great. While some attrition is inevitable, I genuinely hope that the interest in TOW will remain sustained well beyond this league, potentially aided by the fact that most of us would come out of this league with at least half-painted armies!

In the short term, I’m looking forward to doing monthly league updates and blogging about my foray into the Brayherd (a very different army from my usual Empire!). Hopefully, we’ll have enough fully-painted models to do a pseudo-Armies on Parade at the stores; both as a celebration and showcase of everyone’s work. Invariably, I imagine the first TOW tournament might follow (which I might run….but I really do want to participate myself :/), and I even have players asking if I’d do a second league this time next year so that they have an excuse to start a second army.

As things stand, the future looks bright for The Old World—and I can’t wait to see where it leads.

If this article inspires you to run your own Slow Grow, or if you have any exeprience in growing any sort of gaming community, please do engage in the comments below. And check out my Youtube channel, The Procrastinating Professor, where I intend to post more videos as we head deeper into the league.