Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So what are your stories from when you revealed or talked about your hobby to someone. Confusion, bafflement or weird responses.
Best on yet.
I showed my dad a miniature, he asked "How good are you at painting cars?"
Um, I dont get how the two are alike.

You paint miniatures. The closest relation is painting model cars/vehicles/etc. The two are almost identical before you mention there is a game behind your miniatures.

H meant full siize real cars.

Pretty much a benign lack of interest among my non-gamer friends.

Although I do remember reading some foreign news report article about 40k players being satanic wierdos.

odorofdeath wrote:Pretty much a benign lack of interest among my non-gamer friends.

Although I do remember reading some foreign news report article about 40k players being satanic wierdos.

You weren't at the meeting last week where we tried to summon the devil and play 40k?

It helped get me hired at my current job, far as I can tell. I had "commission miniatures painter" on my resume, and I started talking about it a little during my interview.
"Warhams?"
"Warhams."

Generally confusion. I'm not the stereotypical geek. I don't go preaching about this hobby (or any of my other hobbies for that matter) but if it comes up, it's full disclosure time. The response is usually, "Wait...what? You do...wait...you paint little army men? What?" I suspect that some of my coworkers think that I'm kidding them.

Geekdom seems to be the cool thing now with the kids though. I'd say that 1/4 of the younger folks that I know, upon hearing about miniatures, automatically ask, "Warhammer?" This results in me being the confused one. It's actually what helped me get back into the hobby. My last crew was basically all geeks. I did not see that coming, but I'll freely admit that talking Warhams makes the day go more quickly.

One time outside our local GW (RIP) I overheard an parent ushering their curious child away from the miniature cabinet saying "Let's go, they worship Satan in there..." I promptly started dancing around outside the store with my fingers as horns on my head grunting out Metallica riffs. We still laugh about that one. I'm sure you had to have been there though...

The best was when I was flying to Chicago for GT and totally forgot my ID (bank teller failed to return it). I had to go through the extra screening because of that and they had to check through my army bag. I was dreading having to answer questions about my "little men" and also a bit worried some over-zealous security guy would question the pointy bits.

So this lady gets my bag full of painstakingly painted and converted models and starts opening it up. They won't let me near it and I have to just watch. I told her that all of it was VERY fragile. She gets out my first clear container, looks at the models, and says "Are these Tyranids?" How cool is that? God sends me probably the ONE security guard in the whole place that knows what 40K is!

I brought it up to my girlfriend and she wanted to paint some.......so i am ordering her some fairys and such to paint so she dosent ruin my blood angels.

SlaveToDorkness wrote:

So this lady gets my bag full of painstakingly painted and converted models and starts opening it up. They won't let me near it and I have to just watch. I told her that all of it was VERY fragile. She gets out my first clear container, looks at the models, and says "Are these Tyranids?" How cool is that? God sends me probably the ONE security guard in the whole place that knows what 40K is!

I got that a couple of years ago.
I fly interstate for a big convention - security guard wants to know "what's in the case?" (padded laptop case). "Laptops must be removed from cases."

"It's not a laptop. It's a case of toy soldiers."
He runs it through the machine. "Oh, looks like eldar - my kid has these guys."

"No doubt you'll be seeing a few more like this over the next couple of days." (we flew in a couple of days early).

Tonight at work, I was talking to a co-worker who was off duty about 40k this weekend and a customer asked if we were talking about video games. I told her we were talking about miniature wargaming and she said "like D n D?" I told her no, more like model trains, and her response was "so video games then." /facepalm

D&D started off as a single-mini-per player (char bash) wargame, so it is sorta like D&D.

I haven't got any really wierd reactions, my school is full of geeks so it's pretty commonplace.

When I told my wife(when we first started dating) over the phone that I was painting, she thought I meant like a portrait or landscape on a canvas with oil paints.

Most of the time when people hear about my hobby, I have a model on hand to show them and they are usually impressed by the paintjob(I only show off the good stuff lol). I then explain that WFB is basically chess with a 200 page rulebook.

Probably the weirdest one was when I told my dad what I was doing over the phone. I said that I was in my room, painting, and he responded with "You better not be spray painting in there."



I had to resist the urge to say "Yes, I'm totally spray painting in my poorly ventilated, tiny bedroom. The paint's just getting all over the walls."

Dad's reactions are great. Mine always said "how come you can't get that interested about your schoolwork?" Like he'd never been a kid in school before.

Say you play games and most people presume you mean computer games. So I explain that I mean proper physical games, board games and wargames. "Oh, like Monopoly?"

I got a really hot girl into the hobby once, i was so surprised 'cus she was not into war or painting, she was into bieng a girl.

It just goes to show you cannot judge people untill you know them, it's a shame she was a Lesbian though :(

I get called a Nazi quite a lot, because I play a WW2 SS Panzer division (Wiking) or racist because I play ACW South.

in fact if you play a histoical dubious army people will always attribute the negative to you and belive you belive in the ideaology of whatever army your playing.

necrovamp wrote:I got a really hot girl into the hobby once, i was so surprised 'cus she was not into war or painting, she was into bieng a girl.

It just goes to show you cannot judge people untill you know them, it's a shame she was a Lesbian though :(

I get called a Nazi quite a lot, because I play a WW2 SS Panzer division (Wiking) or racist because I play ACW South.

in fact if you play a histoical dubious army people will always attribute the negative to you and belive you belive in the ideaology of whatever army your playing.

Sounds legit.

Actually the other day when chatting to my dad about tournaments (he's a championship level chess player so he has an idea what I was on about) I was surprised that he thought I was on about video games because he ended up saying. "Oh! You mean like historical wargames? Alongside us chess players in the games club back when I was at school there was a few boys into their wargames."

That really surprised me considering one year during my teens I asked for a bunch of Steel Legion IG for my birthday.

Aerethan wrote:I then explain that WFB is basically chess with a 200 page rulebook.

I always explain 40k away as being "Chess with guns." I find it's the easiest answer for people asking idle questions about my models, paints, cases, etc.

it'll be one of the following normally:

really dumb, "wait...whu?" when I tell them how they move, shoot etc

dont care

ask to see a model, like how I've painted it....next conversation topic

hotsauceman1 wrote:H meant full siize real cars.

maybe he is just hoping you'll stop playing with toys...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

necrovamp wrote:I got a really hot girl into the hobby once, i was so surprised 'cus she was not into war or painting, she was into bieng a girl.

It just goes to show you cannot judge people untill you know them, it's a shame she was a Lesbian though :(.

Hot AND a lesbian?

That is a win win really...

CT GAMER wrote:

hotsauceman1 wrote:H meant full siize real cars.

maybe he is just hoping you'll stop playing with toys...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

necrovamp wrote:I got a really hot girl into the hobby once, i was so surprised 'cus she was not into war or painting, she was into bieng a girl.

It just goes to show you cannot judge people untill you know them, it's a shame she was a Lesbian though :(.

Hot AND a lesbian?

That is a win win really...

But she plays space marines so it cancels the 2 out.

Nobodies perfect...

necrovamp wrote:I got a really hot girl into the hobby once, i was so surprised 'cus she was not into war or painting, she was into bieng a girl.

People can be into "being a girl" and wargaming you know. My girlfriend enjoys painting, and she's painted a few Marines, Gobbos and Skaven. Hoping to get her into Space Hulk once I get around to painting it.

One of my staff can't get her head around forming an army points wise. She gets the painting, the figures, even playing a game, but she doesn't understand why we need to point up the armies.

Tried to explain it to her a couple of times, but she doesn't get it, thinks we just should put them on the table and shoot at eachother.

That is probably the weirdiest I've had, just because she got all the other concepts.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

necrovamp wrote:I got a really hot girl into the hobby once, i was so surprised 'cus she was not into war or painting, she was into bieng a girl.

It just goes to show you cannot judge people untill you know them, it's a shame she was a Lesbian though :(.

Hot AND a lesbian?

That is a win win really...

n00ber wrote:Generally confusion. I'm not the stereotypical geek. I don't go preaching about this hobby (or any of my other hobbies for that matter) but if it comes up, it's full disclosure time. The response is usually, "Wait...what? You do...wait...you paint little army men? What?" I suspect that some of my coworkers think that I'm kidding them.

Geekdom seems to be the cool thing now with the kids though. I'd say that 1/4 of the younger folks that I know, upon hearing about miniatures, automatically ask, "Warhammer?" This results in me being the confused one. It's actually what helped me get back into the hobby. My last crew was basically all geeks. I did not see that coming, but I'll freely admit that talking Warhams makes the day go more quickly.

This. I work with a lot of contractors and it's not like I say I go out every thursday and sunday to hang out and play with little army men, usually I just say I hang out with friends those nights. If anybody asks I say we just hang out playing games and drinking some beer. If they GENUINELY ask, I say warhammer and get the "wtf is that...?" look, then i ask them if they are familiar with games workshop , refer to chinook mall (our busiest mall in calgary) and the store with the giant space marine in the window next to the movie theatre. Most people know what I'm talking about at that point and just say I play that game with my friends.

Most reply with "cool" and shrug and don't care and move on. Others exchange the "wtf is that..." glance to the surprised "really? you play that?" glance. I just say it's a fun hobby that keeps me busy. Some actually ask about the rules... others say "Hah I don't do anything THAT geeky, I just play world of warcraft" then we get a laugh about how we were both closet geeks that nobody would expect.

Sheep in wolves clothing

Strange dad reactions? yes, frequently. I once combed the house for stuff I could use for terrain building, and my dad asked what I was doing. I quickly explained that some stuff you normally throw away is really good for modelling wargaming terrain.
Now every other week, he'll come into my room carrying all kinds of junk and ueless stuff, dumbs it somwhere on my desk and says "I bet you can use that for terrain!"

And there was this stupid kid who saw my army; he points at a primed model and says "I bet he was easy to paint, you just had to dip him in the pot"
then he points at the unbasecoated Snikrot model and asks why he is painted like metal

Most people around where I live don't even know of things like board games, and for some reason don't understand the point of tabletop games.