Warhammer “The Opposite of ‘Chillaxing'” says Ed Miliband
May 24, 2012 by brennon
With all the hype over Warhammer 40,000 its easy to forget its Fantasy brother. Thankfully news today proclaims that in the upper echelons of power Warhammer Fantasy Battles enjoys pride of place.
Yes that's right. It seems the leader of the Labour party Ed Miliband enjoys a spot of Wargaming when he isn't trying to unseat the ConDem party...
He said: “It’s quite the opposite of ‘chillaxing’ – rather it is a military simulation of the type practiced by great leaders since Roman times.
I don’t even enjoy it, I do it from a sense of responsibility. For example last week I confronted the moral complexities associated with weapons of mass destruction when I used a siege catapult on some elves. The fantasy context does not appeal to me especially. The game could represent any theatre of war – Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran – it just happens to be populated by highly detailed miniature orcs with hand-painted banners.
Obviously though if my mighty chaotic orc battalion causes a puny elf army to rout and flee there’s a certain frisson, I won’t deny it.”
Via The Daily Mash
But we've delved deeper and discovered its not just Ed Miliband who enjoys a game of WarhammerFantasy!
The Secretary of State for Business Vince Cable, or 'The Dark Lord of the Undercity' as he likes to be called when down at the Hobby Centre, loves to get his Skaven out onto the battlefield. "I love the backstabbing and political intrigue in their army"
On the other side even former minister and failed London Mayoral Nominee Lembit Opik enjoys a game or two. Interestingly he revealed "I always enjoyed Warhammer but it really took off when my then partner Gabriela Irimia (of Cheeky Girl fame) got me into the Vampire Counts army. I guess I was lured by her Transylvanian roots."
Warhammer fever seems to have gripped the entire political spectrum with even people like John Prescott admitting his love of Ogre Kingdoms "They love eating and punching folk, so it worked for me".
It's not all roses though for our war gaming ministers. Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg enjoys the game but according to other gamers he usually "...ends up sitting by the side lines and hopelessly advising David Cameron".
Are there any personalities from the media or politics you know who play?
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So what I take from this article is that even a politician cant explain Warhammer in a way that colors him as anything but a nut-bar with pedophile tendencies.
It’s from a satire site, so I don’t think it’s a truly accurate quote…
I’ve seen a few posts elsewhere where people thought this was real. lol
You have to love the Daily Mash – Wish all papers were like it!
Got that, just being sarcastic.
Well he is a politician, so you’re probably right anyway…
lol! That’s awesome. You can just imagine the centre of parliament clears off all the boring political paperwork and the speaker wheels out a trolly full of gaming boards and terrain pieces, while MP’s slide battlefoam cases out from under their seats.
Aarrrhhhh!!! I deal with these berks day to day! They can’t invade my hobby!
I heard Tim Henman plays Grey Knights.
Well he can’t win at tennis so he has to find something he can actually get some sense of achievement from…
😉
Ouch. Actually Tiger didn’t do too badly. Apart from the nickname.
4th in the world rankings is none too shabby imho
His main problem was having an unconvincing fist pump. Rafa, now there is a man who knows how to pump with his fist.
Seriously, if a human being as utterly pointless as Lembit Opik was to become a public standard bearer for Fantasy then I reckon the likes of me and @t9nv3 might as well give up and start a new hobby like paintballing or jumping off cliffs. And John Prescott? It’ll be hard to tell apart who was the ogre tyrant model and who used to be Blair’s deputy. I certainly wouldn’t want to get into a fight with the man over rules etc, pwooaarrr ‘2 Jabs’. Well, in terms of celebs who are into GW/Warhammer, I once heard the terrific Charlie… Read more »
“Playing Warhammer is very much like making love to a beautiful woman. It starts out so sweet, then it gets more expensive. Then you find out she has a penis and you get shafted.”
😉
bwaahahahaha!
I think you will find his true title is Sir Terry Pratchett, Lord of Literature and Master of Fantasy (we are not worthy). But yeah I’d find it easy to believe he’d be into minis, I think he once said that he used to do some RPGs and he is well known as a big fan of Elder Scrolls Oblivion. Ok I’ve got my fandom over with. Carry on.
BoW Sam
I think if he wants some cool minis to paint he can just ask Micro Art…they might have something nicely familiar…
I really want to know if which of your politicians plays warriors of chaos O_O. That would be nice for the Elections 😛
“I follow Tzeench, i’ll give you change!”
I wonder with the Price Rise coming if any of these MPs will have to use their expenses to buy from GW
Tax breaks for the top earners
it all starts to make sense!
Oh don’t tell me this guy is the special guest on Turn 8 tonight 🙂
well that’s one way they can blow all that cash they “earn”
Alex Zane grew up a “table top wargamer”. I’d put my money on it being WFB mainly
I now understand why Vince Cable declared war on Rupert Murdoch because I reckon Murdoch plays Empire and as Vince Cable plays Skaven, you can see the hostility.
Murdoch is surely the Skaven player.
Sorry, Murdoch is surely a Skaven. He looks like the love child of Montgomery Burns and Roland the Rat.
I was listening to one of Kevin smiths podcasts and he was telling a story about Jason mewes ( of jay and silent bob fame) locking himself in a hotel room for 3 days painting gorka morka models while at the height of his drug addiction.
This would had made great April Fools joke.
Nah all politicians would play nurgle. It apeals to their corpulent bloated miasmas of shite that they spout.
I heard Robin Williams was in the Toronto GW store. Skaven.
Listen, Brennon (et al. BoW); while the above piece might be amusing it’s somewhat misleading to anyone who doesn’t know the Daily Mash or Island politics, you don’t provide a whole lot of context to it and your closing question about other celebrities that play makes me wonder if you don’t actually believe the whole thing. I promise this is the last time I’m mentioning it, but BoW as of yet hasn’t published a single word on Confrontation Phoenix or the fact that yesterday the playtesting material for D&D Next went out. Wrath of kings? Nothing apart from the pretty… Read more »
I don’t know much about UK politics other than the Iron Lady and such. But if I did know them, I’d vote for the first one that admits they like to play Chaos Demons 😛
It should be said that some famous people do like Warhammer and 40K such as Robin Williams and Billy Crystal. So you never know who might be a player.
I can imagine most politicians enjoy GW but cant think any of them are any good at dice rolling. After all, they conspired together to make sure our economy got snake eyed 😉
Ed Milliband is so out there that I almost believed this.
Make sure you don’t mistake him for the pretender Ed Millifaux.