Ride to ruin (February’s Snag a Normie Challenge)

… the great battle of our time.

After 26 days of hard graft, game evening has arrived. How many normies will we snag?

84 miniatures painted and ready to go. The Witch-King and Theoden models need a bit of finishing but are largely done. They don’t really need their own posts as I painted along with this and this youtube tutorials from the War Gamer. I swapped out a couple of colours and did it with less skill but I’m pretty happy and more importantly the Normies were delighted with them.

Everyone had a great time. Plenty of good food, good laughter and dice rolling.

The scenarios are good, teaching the concepts of objectives nicely. As the Wargamer in the room, I was a bit disappointed to see that you need to have read the whole rulebook to get started. I’ve used the Infinity starter boxes before and much prefer the way they introduce concepts without needing to crack open the main rules whilst teaching. No one else seemed to care but that’s because I acted as a talking rulebook as they played 2v2.

By the end of the night they were playing without needing help and were already working on the tactical side of the movement and cherry picking fights. We only got through two of the four scenarios but they are very keen to come back for the next two as soon as we can get it organised. Each side got a scenario win and they all spent a good amount of time flicking through looking the books, arguing about which heroes were pointed higher than others and drooling at all of the glorious gratuitous model shots.

I had a fantastic time doing this project. I moaned about the number of models and joked about hating myself with a friend throughout the 26 days but looking at them now, it blows my mind to to see what was possible in the timeframe. Seeing them react to the models and how excited they got playing the game felt fucking amazing.

I don’t know when or if I’ll do something like this again any time soon but despite all my grumbling, before the project was finished I had picked up a large Gondor force for cheap on eBay to start painting up for the Gondor at War campaign book.

Will the Normies pick up models and start hobbying? I don’t know. One of them absolutely will and I think at least two others might do after another evening or two. My intention is to offer a painting teaching night at some point soon to get a group hobby night started.

Two days from the end and I got my biggest shock of all though. I was chatting to a good friend as I was unboxing the Gondor force and she said “if you fancy a hand getting through them, I’d be really keen to give painting a try”. I just about fell off my seat. This is a true Normie, one with zero interest in anything nerdy. She probably won’t ever become a gamer but in two weeks time, she’s coming over and I’m going to crack out some Burrows and Badgers minis to teach the basics of painting.

Overall then, the hobby aspect has been hugely rewarding to me, the daily habit of painting has been wonderful and the RPGers are super keen to get into gaming with minis. Thanks to Warren and the OTT guys for starting this campaign.

Minis painted – 84 ✔️

Normies snagged – 4 (+1 bonus Normie trying out painting) ✔️

Snag a Normie campaign – completed ✔️