It's been a journey.
I've learned a lot about how this has had to go, and what works better (and worse) for teaching younger players the game. The biggest element has been enthusiasm -- my own, and theirs.
Firstoff... Let me say that I view the first session of the Spec Ops League as a learning experience, and an attempt to court new players who might be interested. One of the critical disconnects occurred during the initial planning of it all -- with Admin wanting to populate the program predominantly with middle schoolers who had difficulties in ELA -- which is not necessarily a bad choice, but did not yield many individuals who were truly interested in the game itself.
It is what it is.
I taught six kids how to play. We met weekly, and I had a new mission designed for each week. The main problem I ran into was that my actual campaign idea was not really feasible to do with learners and without the terrain I had requisitioned from the program (it took three months to arrive). I had written an entire campaign with backstory and segues from one mission to the next, and I'd designed it all to integrate with some of the more elaborate portions of the KT Spec Ops league (more on that later!)
Simple missions... no "wounded" status, no items, no levels, no bases. It was my premade teams, and a revolving opportunity to try out different armies. One really loved Orks, another Primaris, and another Sisters. By the end, if any of them had decided to continue, we would have had something to build on.
But three things got in the way: the D&D game run through the program by one of our teachers / activity leaders really took off... a new aide launching a Overwatch Club for FPS gaming... and the woman we have coming in to do a specialized theater program launched her "Cosplay Tuesdays" crafting program. Plus, the kids I was trying to recruit anew All got involved with the Spring Musical. All my kids went to other activities. All but one.
The Primaris player loved the game... right up until baseball season, when he got on the team. But around then, another player joined, and I taught her how to play with her Ecclesiarchy team.
We limped on.
Finally, the third session began. Two Highschoolers joined, and both were immediately enthusiastic. The Sisters player joined the cosplay group, but the other two really dug in. I even printed a Wyrmblade team as an alternative, as well as some Pathfinders.
I also added some elements I had been considering for a while, but I had the task to "fixing" them to match up with my needs.
Currently, I'm set to run them in their 4th mission tonight after school, as well as some maintenance elements such as wounded operatives and the like. It's going well, but it definitely took some time to get here.
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