Wednesday 14 September 2011

Where Do You Get Your Gaming Fix? Or How I Found My First Visit to a Gaming Club.



Good evening children of the Plague Father and welcome once again to our corner of the garden. Today I would like to take a break from the Tale of Three Gamers to talk about where you get your gaming fix. I wanted to post this up sooner but had a long weekend planned with my wife and wouldn't appreciate using time off together to blog so you lucky Nurglings get it tonight.

Until last week I had only played my games of 40k ( along with a sprinkle of Blood Bowl & Necromunda ) at the homes of friends. After seeing a post on the work boards asking any war gamers to try out the local club  we thought why not?. Plans were made to go down for when it opened at six which gave us a five hour limit on the game, which was more than enough for a 1750 each game.

Now aside from my trip to Maelstrom earlier in the year this is the first time I have attended a gaming club and to be honest I'm not sure it is for me. Don't get me wrong it had some good points and bad but over all I found it less enjoyable than our usual set up.

So in the interest of fairness firstly I will start with the good points;

Terrain - The terrain selection available while not the best selection was very good considering there was terrain for different game systems and scale. Along with it being a good mix of home made and bought terrain it was all painted ( with simple schemes but was still all painted ). The only downside I saw with this was a lot of the terrain had a very small foot print on the table. This made me feel a bit guilty taking enough to make a decent tables worth of terrain.

Game Systems -  Looking around the room it was nice to see people playing a fairly wide selection of games including 40k, Fantasy, Mordheim, Flames of War and a funky looking game which seemed to be based on aerial dog fights called Wings of War.

Variety of Opponents - This is the most interesting part of a gaming club to me as I currently game with around 8 different players depending who is available to squeeze a game in with which does give me a variety of armies to face, with most having at least two armies to use.

Not always the best role model for personal hygiene in a confined space


Now on to the bad points;

Organisation - Lets face it when I think of a club that is on a set day between a set time in a set place I don't think it is unreasonable to expect to turn up and be able to get inside the building and not have to wait nearly 15 minutes for someone to unlock the door. Once inside we were told to just get a board and set up a table any where we liked as people get them out as needed rather than set them all up, which seemed fair to me.

With the lay out of the room we went on the end leaving more than enough room between us and the next table for another 4' x 6' board if needed. We did this more for the location of where we could put the board rather than not wanting to be right next to other players and to leave room for people to get in an out without going to the end of the row.
However about 30 minutes in to our game the club captain asked us to move our whole board down so that there wasn't a gap and another board could be put where ours was. I suggested that rather than move a game in progress he could just put another board in the gap which I didn't think was unreasonable, sadly this was not to be and it was insisted that they knew best. I still have not decided if this really was just a failure to grasp that just putting a board in the gap was easier or trying to show who was top dog.

Venue - The club is running out of the function room of a working men's club which had no natural light or windows that could be opened, no air conditioning and two doors to go through to the outside which were required to be kept shut so no air flow there. Sadly this made the room very hot and gave a nice mix of sweat and the lovely aroma of a pub carpet that has seen its prime which smoking indoors used to cover up.

Members - Now this was my first time there so I was bound to be an outsider there and this I was fine with though had a couple of gents come over and have a chat with most of them seeming fine if not a little shy. Though there was two that stuck out to me who realistically were making everyone else look bad.

First up was a lad I would say was in his twenties giving it the big talk about how he had been barred at a pub for telling the barmaid to get her tits out and make him a sandwich. Now I am happy to believe this might be true but really isn't something to be proud of and just reminds me of school boys bragging about their conquests while if they had a real woman wouldn't know what to do with her.

Secondly was an older gent ( 40ish or a hard paper round ) who was trying to teach someone the finer points of fantasy, an admirable task I am sure you all agree. The trouble was on more than one occasion over the noise of the room ( loud enough to make me have to shout over the table what I was rolling for ) I heard him bellowing how he was doing it wrong.

40k Armies Present - This is something I was looking forward as I hoped to see most armies represented so while waited I had a word with one of the lads who informed me that most people were playing Space Wolves & Imperial Guard with a few on Blood Angels, Grey Knights and Dark Eldar picking up support quickly and one person on the older armies if I was lucky. Now this was a bit of a disappointment but I tried to cover it up with a joke about them chasing the new armies which got the young lad very defensive saying how they needed to change book "to stay competitive".

I do love dusting off my Necrons, this guy isn't one of mine though.

Unfortunately this was the final nail in the coffin for me as while I do like to win when the chance shows itself I wouldn't sacrifice my T'au for a brand new army and think I will go back to games at mine or friends houses.

Overall it had some good points but I was a little underwhelmed with the whole experience and think I will give it a miss unless times become desperate enough to give it another go with my collection of 4th edition armies.

Now the question I want to put to you people out in the warp is a simple one "Where do you get your gaming fix?" and to a lesser extent is this your first choice or a necessary evil to play the games you love?

O'Shashar

13 comments:

  1. I used to exclusively play at my local GW store, mostly because I got on well with the staff and made a few friends there, but I moved away and have struggled to get games anywhere since (about 6 or 7 years since that move!).

    I have played a couple of games at local clubs but have been put off by the attitude of some of the people and also by the fact I clearly was not part of their "group".

    I also tried my new local GW but find at 28 I am older than everyone in the room, which is only big enough for 1 or 2 games at most due to it being a 1 man store. The fact that the store's Vet night is only on until 8 also left no possibility of finishing a good sized game within the time limits.

    I personally would love game with friends at our houses, but there doesn't seem to be anyone local to me, and since I did not grow up around here I don't really have any friends to corrupt into playing.

    So to end my ramble, I usually just build, paint and then sell on eBay due to lack of games :(

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  2. Have to say I agree with things said here so its not just you, every point was spot on about that specific club, I'm sure there are loads of nice ones out there but yeah the heat in there combined with the rude club leader wrote that one off for me completely.

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  3. @Rob/Apoc - I really feel for you not having regular games in such a long time as couple of months without a game makes me little grumpy. Though it has given you the chance to paint some very nice models.
    It is a shame that your local club seems to have the same issues as ours as it really doesn't help us lure new people into the hobby.
    Looking at your son's models on your site he seems to be powering a head with the painting and will be ready to give his old man a thrashing on the board in no time.

    @Dalinair - Thanks, I tried to keep it as unbiased as I could as I really did want the club to work out but guess without emulating them I doubt I would ever be accepted and if that is the price I would rather pass.

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  4. He could probably thrash me as it stands now!

    I will slowly get him playing over the next couple of years, and we can slowly try and plug the gap in gamers around the Weldon/Corby area :)

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  5. Good to hear you have a plan to get a new wave of gamers in your area just hope you don't have to father them all ;)

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  6. Now that sounds like a fun plan!

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  7. i jus play with a group of about 5 other guys who im all friends with b4 we played 40k together and sometimes play with my girl friend im a very lucky guy as i would feel very uncomfortable playin with strangers probably

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  8. ** In his most zen-like new age hippy voice ** A stranger is just a friend that you have not met yet ;)

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  9. I love the idea that a stranger is a friend that you just have not met yet just a shame some of them feel the need to "show off" and make situations uncomfortable.

    I have tried having my wife play a few games with me though she never really seems that fussed about 40k but never know she might love dreadfleet

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  11. thats cool yeah i hope your wife gets more into gaming its nice sharing the hobby that way let us know what u think of dread fleet once u've played it please

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  12. Hopefully Dorn's Arrow is going to be busting his copy out so should see something from that though I expect to open mine then have it as another project in my list of unfinished projects of the damned

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  13. nice ill check it out good luck with your endevours to paint your copy thou i know its hard to get around to the hobby sometimes

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