The Hobby. Why do we do this then?

 

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Just why do we take part in this hobby, after all isnt it just playing with toy soldiers?

This post stems from a few things recently, the always great Northern Exile on youtube, his hobby nightmares videos are great and there are some examples in those, but it was the video about gatekeeping which got me thinking about this.

The amount of times I have seen people and been told myself "you're doing this wrong" when learning a new game but with no help to figure it out or " why not just buy the proper models" in response to converting stuff for Horus Heresy. Even the other night i was my own worst enemy when I started thinking 'Just why do I do this?' As I sat and saw almost no progress on my current Stormcast miniatures for the fourth night in a row, highlighting is a bitch!

The other thing which started the thought process was something which happened at work. I was waiting for my next train to arrive in the yard, so I was sat having five minutes with a cup of tea and reading The Emperor's Gift when the chargeman who had just been relieved of duty looked over and snorted.

"Oh, you're into Warhammer are you? I was into Necromunda until I grew up. Have you actually seen a girl naked yet?" He said with all the glee of a childhood bully, with the smarm in his voice, bigging himself up infront of the other chargeman and shunters, all of whom know that I have a son.*

I didn't reply, but carried on reading and left to deal with my train when it arrived along with the other two shunters who's trains had also arrived or were ready for depature. Only to return to find out that my bookmark had been moved and the book was on the messroom floor. Fortunately there was no damage to the book.

I did start to think about just why I love this geeky hobby and universe and why don't I like "normal stuff" like beer and football (as has been said in the past), then thought Fuck it, why should I care, its MY hobby, not his afterall.

So, just why do we take part in this hobby? I mean I look at my friend group and wonder why a bunch of guys in their thirties and forties** play with toy soldiers in a made up universe. So I went ahead and asked them, a lot of the same sentiments came  each time.

For me personally,  I love the lore of the universe GW has created over thirty-something years, I remember being a kid sat in the backseat of the car with a fresh White Dwarf (when it was good, I'll do a post about that at some point), when the Index Astartes series was first printed, or the Inquisitor game released, the Lost Erikssons Island campaign write up for Warhammer Fantasy, and more. It was all so new, and unlike other stuff which my friends at the time were into.

As I have gotten older I still enjoy the lore (to a certain extent these days) but enjoy crafting my own stories and characters, heroic and villainous (always more fun) to fight each other and determine the outcome of battles and campaigns.

The actual hobby side has seen me go from stuttering attempts back in 5th edition Warhammer Fantasy to what I consider a good standard I can consistently achieve and relax doing it. The modelling and painting side of the hobby can take you out of the world and your head for a few hours at least, a blessing at times saving me from falling into depression at the end of my old job, as I could just forget how horrible it was when painting in the evenings.

I've made some friends for life through the hobby because it builds communities. Just look at the last battle report with Dave, when our Orks and Guard went head to head, even though we live in two different counties, we've been friend for over a decade thanks to this hobby. A lot of the people I have mentioned on here over time have been hobby friends for many, many years and we have this hobby of ours to thank for that.

I found 40k when I was 11, after reading a white dwarf that was brought into school. I remember the article I read first was a background piece on Orks. From then on, the imaginary and lore has always captured my imagination. I like the fact that 40k is not GW’s really, it’s yours. It’s such a vast background that you can approach it any way you want. If you feel like it, you can pick a force GW has rounded out, research it across rule books, novels, white dwarf articles, etc. 

But if you want to, the world is so big, you can almost create anything you want. With a million worlds and 10000 years of history, your army can be of any background or type you want. You can create a conflict with compete history. It really does mean you are not truly bound by any convention and with a little bit of work, your army can be very personalised.

For as long as I've been aware of Warhammer 40,000 it has drawn me, almost irresistibly. It is a universe of such rich history, depth and uncertainty that you can produce your own little corner of that universe, and populate it with characters and armies of your own design. Throwaway sentences become projects that take months or years to complete, entire novels are ereferenced by a single obscure detail, and all it does is encourage creativity. 

It creates communities of people who encourage and tutor each other, pushing each other on to finer details, more complex conversions, and better story-writing, and when all is said and done, the roll of the dice on the tabletop can surprise all parties, creating a conclusion to a story that was entirely unexpected, and may well be the source of your next project.

Why do I like miniatures?

Miniature wargaming, which 40K was my gateway into, represents two things for me - creativity and friendship. It is an outlet I can lose myself in when I need to switch off from the world, when I want to express myself or when I want to push myself to learn something new. Gaming is definitely secondary to building, converting, sculpting and painting; I do enjoy the gaming aspect, but it’s about socialising and having fun and telling a story on the tabletop, definitely not about winning at all costs!

Why I like 40K, well has to be the style of miniatures and the vast amount of Lore past and present that follows, the unknown of what is coming in way of story progression. Seeing old sculpts get a make over bring them into setting (primaris) as a hobby it help to get away from reality take myself away to a small skirmish of some Orlocks plundering the hive of to mass of marines stopping across the battle Field.

40K is my passion and curse. I love the miniatures the rules are great, especially since 8th edition anyway. My painting of the miniatures is getting better with each on.

It’s easy to get started in the hobby, but finishing not so much. But the best thing is the community of people you will find.

About 10 years ago or so I went to the Drs with my anxiety/panic attacks and he, to paraphrase, advised that I get a life instead of sitting in my room all day not talking to anyone. 

This was also roughly when the Northwest Gaming Centre first opened so it sort of coincided with that and I was nervously lurking like the little autist I am when I saw two guys playing with really colourful armies which were definately not 40k, turned out when I finally went to talk to them that they were playing Field of Glory.

I think I already had a bunch of Flames of War stuff at the time just because I like tanks*** And that's how I met Dan and eventually the rest of the Manchester Flames gang. Fast forward 10 years and I still have crippling, untreated mental health problems but I still like tanks and I still like crushing people at their hobby, which I guess is a polite way of saying "Destroyer weapon Wall of Death attack against Dom's Black Templar blobs".

The real treasure were the friends I made along the way...oh and tanks.

So I hope this shows somewhat why we at least enjoy this hobby and playing with toy soldiers. No-one should ever make you feel bad for enjoying something, wether that be standing shouting at football games, cooking meals, meeting Tinder dates****, or even standing around a table rolling dice and pushing toy soldiers around.

If you enjoy it, embrace it and fuck the haters out there in the world.

Until next time, have nice day...

*Universally amongst the shunters, this particular Chargeman is disliked. I've also had a couple of the other shunters reveal to me that they too were into the hobby, but fell out due to costs, families, or as one revealed that he used to read the Horus Heresy novels when they started but stopped after book seven or eight when the plot was going nowhere and it seemed like GW were trying to get every penny that they could by spinning the series out as much as possible.

**Before anyone starts with the 'biased or 'sexist' viewpoint because I haven't asked any women for their input. I don't wargame with any women, yes the female wargamer exists but this is my friend group and wargaming is our thing, away from girlfriends and wives for the day. The kids may start getting interested eventually, but those of us who have them have said that they are too computer and tech focused, or too young.

I asked because we, as a group, are in that age bracket where society expects us to have moved past hobbies such as this and conform to norms and shame those who still love geeky things in life. True its a lot more accepted now then it used to be with D&D and Star Wars becoming more mainstream acceptable, but a lot of Sci-Fi, Fantasy, tabletop games, hell...even reading novels (ordinary novels) at times can be shamed as being out of normalcy, especially if your a guy in a group environment. 

***Yes, I remember the "Tigers Marsche" incident when you emptied Sheffield Wargames Emporium of Tiger tanks in one visit.

**** One of the guys I trained with for the railway had one or two different Tinder matches turn up (and were talking instagram model women) to the hotel room he had per week whilst we were all there. He said he was going to enjoy himself how he wanted. Fair play Skellie mate, fair play.