New Blood.

“400 hits and 300 kills that’s a victory to me after turn two.”

This should be said in the most snivelling, annoyingly nasal way possible. This is the experience I had for many years visiting my local GW gaming clubs.

The vast majority of its members or players are very right brain competitive players. Competetition or tournament play, as I’ve heard it called. Min maxing, in it to win it, chess glory.

Dull. Dull dull dull. This is not to denigrate those chaps who are all over this kinda play, but your all insane to me whatever way I frame you.

You seem to want wargames chess, but the companies won’t let you do this fully as it could mean sales are finite. How many versions of chess could you sell? So instead ,it appears to me, an awesome mechanism has appeared to take people by the nose and walk them through the the land of sprues with their wallets open. As we all know, if you don’t own this flyer then you won’t be able to win. Next months releases is anti aircraft weapons teams. Now you can’t win without them. Familiar?

At core there is nothing wrong with the motivation behind winning. Becoming a chess master is no easy thing and it is a rigorous mental exercise.  I’m just not wired that way I think, but this is my feed so I’m allowed to be biased!

So what is it that attracted me to it at all? Why am I convinced my kids and mates will like it?

It was two salesman at GW. One in the 1990’s who captured a young lads imagination with an awesome Skelton warrior in the shop window. The 8 year old me had his neck nearly twisted off by his eyes snapping round to get a proper look “it’s Jason and the Argonauts Mum!”.

We went in and was introduced to a free mini. Hooked. They then introduced this young lad to a space warrior who was a warrior monk who took on a medieval knight rile and donned mechanised exo armour to fight space Orks and aliens in a holy crusade.

I nearly passed out.

The enthusiasm, visual spectacle and the narrative dragged me in.

Roll on 20 years and I’ve managed to convince a pal who, until now, had no interest in even going in the shop. He likes video games and the occasional board game but that’s the extent of it. I told him “you’ll have fun! There is no pressure to know anything about it, the chap will guide us through.”

I said this knowing his previous objections and concerns. Put concisely, the game is intimidating! Now your probably thinking, which game we talking about?! Well to the uninitiated all the dozens or hundreds of game workshop games over the years is known simply as ‘Warhammer’. Doesn’t matter if it’s future, fantasy, space ship, armada, Titans, mass battle, skirmish, cards or a weird variant of kerplunk. To them, it’s warhammer. And warhammer means: complex, loadsa stuff, loadsa rules, loadsa people who know better than you. And loads of fanatical individuals bearing down on you.

So I am rather pleased he is placing his trust in me! I had done my homework first, prepped the shop assistant before we came in, on a known quite day! Having previously met the GW store manager in question I already knew he was a nice fella who put sales second and fun first (It’s alright! He doesn’t work there anymore, so there’s no risk of upper management burning him in tyres, as an example to the other sales people of getting the priorities wrong).

We played 6th edition fantasy, my pal against me with the manager as GM. The figures are all painted, the scenery is excellent. The mood jovial and relaxed. All the rules are in the GM’s head and there’s nothing to think about except the fun of the game. It was a take and hold mission, my pal lost. But he lost while laughing. He then committed to spending £50 on the game off his own back. No prompting from the manager or me.

It should be bourn in mind the nature of the said wallet in question, it was dusty and came covered in locks and chains and, when prised open with the pocket crowbar, moths came out with the sighs of the long dead. So it was an omen to have him buy the game.

We got back to mine and opened his goodies. At first he was intrigued, then quite. 3 hours later we had assembled the miniatures and started to attempt a game, checking the rule book. A lot. With no scenery and a grey wasteland before us. He did not return to that game. He gave it to me in fact, saying “It’s not for me.”

But it was for him! Clearly. A man such as he is not impulsive. It was the effort involved afterwards that was the problem. For normal people it was just too much commitment to bring to a game. The fun for most ‘Normies’ is in the mood, the spectacle and the company.

I swore there and then that I would be trying again, but I would do the legwork. So first up as test, the Wife. We will have to see how that goes!……