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"I even got a shadowsword as a bonus one year"

haha thats a result!

Just respond, " You rather I be LARPing it up or maybe playing World of Warcraft?"

Ahh not alone.

My wife (of two years - been together 10) hadn't seen my interest in "Shame" (Shame Workshop etc - Her words but intended in a light hearted way) until after we were married. This wasn't because I hid it, I had just fallen out of contact with one of my best friends (and favourite opponent - more fun in gaming than winning) for a number of years and so gaming wasn't a part of my life for a while. Little men started to creep into my life again after I got married as I had a house/wife/job and was comfortable and had recontacted my friend. Initially she looked at me as if I was crazy, then she saw the effort and care I put into it and the results I could produce. Yesterday she even shouted at me for calling it "shame" and pointed out that I was very different from 99% of the grots you see in your FLGS. On Monday she decided to bust into a game of Blood Bowl I was playing and do all my dice rolling for the last four turns.....we won....she did a victory dance, mocked my friend for being beaten by a girl and paraded back to Eastenders. She does get frustrated by my gaming related phone calls to my friend but I know she supports it.

Worryingly she knows the names of my forces and recently said "that's a different scale to RT (I'm dabbling in Epic), What's that about?" I don't know whether this was because she feared that she would lose more of her house to wargaming but i was impressed she noticed. She regularly accepts my friend and I taking over our house for three or four days at a time and monopolising the table. She does enjoy going into GW sometimes and simply scaring the staff/customers by being an extremely attractive female and knowing stuff about the hobby.

She is a jewellery designer and antiques dealer and recently realised that my skills with plastic, glue, sculpting and painting could be put to good use in restoration....now finding it harder to get back to modelling rather than repairing figurines etc.

My brother got me into gaming...he didn't have the patience or artistic skill and gave up; giving me his stuff..I nabbed his gaming friends and continued from there.

My mum has always supported me, she has always loved frazetta and fantasy art (and is the reason i love fantasy/sci-fi) but still spouts the classic " how can you paint such tiny things? OH god you've even done the eyes...." She just presumed my wife had always known.

As far as other friends are concerned I simply don't bring it up. I consider football as overpaid grown men chasing an inflated pig and a waste of time but fair enough if you like that thing. I'm 6'1 work as a Tree surgeon, have two degrees, have studied Martial Arts for the majority of my life and am a passionate surfer, so its hard for people to instantly label me as a geek, but if it happened I have to console myself with the thought that wargaming is one of the oldest past-times for gentleman the British empire has known (apart from turning up in foreign climes, planting a flag and claiming it as our own ), OK i don't play historic games (don't like playing at scenarios in which real people bravely gave up their lives) but its a skill to paint and model and good gaming takes thought and tactical planning. If someone can't appreciate this then their opinion probably isn't worthwhile anyway.

R3con is right though..as you get older peer pressure bothers you less, and after all it's just a game....

I get grief from my teenage daughter.. my 8 year old thinks the figs are the neatest things.. and there HAVE been days when the Nids she helped paint go all nuts on the Littlest Pet Shop animals.. gotta love that.

The Teen thinks that Dad should not be spending the funds on models & games when there is stuff like IPODs, ITunes, and why oh why don't we have a video game system?

R3con wrote:Once your old it doesnt really matter.


Oh and I got my boss addicted to the game, and he now owns more armies than me..

I even got a shadowsword as a bonus one year =)

That is cool my boss (My new one) is a corporate whore who "Talks Shop" 24/7 my old boss however got my Fallout 3 for my B day this year so kudos and all that to him.

But that is just sooo cool.


Plus I am loving the varying degrees of oppinion here appears that everyone on here has more positive support from their families then I do But i suppose thats because my Brothers are all die hard football fans and they think I came out wrong ;S but I made a stand when I was 15-16 to be different its a struggle but I believe I have maintained by individuality some say I have a "attitude" problem and that saddens me as I have as much attitude as Elmo.

But this afternoon I am going to crack on as usual I have 10/11 days to get a significant proportion of Modelling/painting done.

But carry on do discuss more or if this is attracting the attention of MODs (For being a annoying subject or just a rehashed one) you can shut it down .

Wow. I hate to say this but your mother was totally out of order. Regardless of you being her son she was still a guest in your home and to attack your host in such a manner is just plain unacceptable. Did your wife complain to her after about playing the game you left the room or was this just a rant she decided to have off her own back?

As for me, the family have never had anything negative to say about it. I’ve always taken a friendly ribbing from friends/gf’s but it was all in good humour. Much the same as the way I ribb them for their hobbies of choice, it’s all quid pro quo. Any woman who would not go out with you based or your hobby simply isn’t worth it.

I don't really have a problem. Most of my friends are in the music/fashion/art industry, and not the sort of people who'd play, but I've never got any stick for it. Most of my friends find it funny, and since I started posting links to my blog on facebook, a few former players have come out of the woodwork.

On the other hand, it's not something I generally mention at work. I'm freelance, have a rotating pool of new 'clients', and it's important that they see me as a professional adult. This doesn't mean i hide it, I just don't really mention it to people I work with...

I'm HEAVILY tattooed, and the girlfriend has a small army of both CM and Orks, she prefers to assemble and paint more than play, but I pay for them, so i get to use them as well

My wife likes to tell and show people my "nerd" room. That is the room with my game table and the majority of my models. When my friends and I are playing a game she'll bring people down to show them the nerds in the basement. I'm not sure if she's proud or showing me off like a carnival freak...

The rest of my family makes fun of me for playing with "toys" and for spending what they consider absurd amounts of money on them.

I get it all the time from my mates I go drinking with..

Aint that bothered really as even the gaming group we have call each other geeks too.

We go to Gamesday normally look around and say
" me, were not like that.. (pointing to the guys with rulebook in hand and questioning every move you make)"

Though I actually get recognition from my mum saying its the only thing i've actually it stuck out.

What I like doing the most is just looking at models in a GW store (only 5 mins I might add) and our lass moans "whats taking so long" straight after taking me on a 3hour shopping trip.

Sorry my French aint that good

Warhammer-especially 40k is quite a big thing in my area, and i often recognize people from my local GW. My parents gave me the starting funds for it, and my mum likes the painting aspect (though she didn't like my spawn ) I get ribbed by my brother, but nothing major. Out and about like all my friends know i play, and alot of them hold 40k tournies during holidays. This one guy ruins it by like, painting 24/7 and getting hyped if anyone comes within like, 2 yards of him or asks 2 take a look at his (badly) painted models. Heck, this guy called Anthony reckoned it would be considered cool if it wasn't for him

I haven't caught much flak about it - most of my buddies just smirk and call me a nerd. The girls I've dated either think it's very artistic and cool, or they just slot it into the same category as "fantasy football" and roll their eyes when it's mentioned.

gf says its a waste of money and extremely nerdy, yet she thinks its cute and appreciates the time and effort i put into my models (and plus i know she secretly loves the attention she gets off the cave men looking guys in my local GW, all staring at her and giving me that "how the hell did you pull that?" look). Mum likes it that i have something that keeps me busy, as long as im not a local chav, i dont think she cares :p

Closing to mocking I get from my family is when my sister asks if I'm painting their Silver Pants Blue (see 40 Year Old Virgin). I've exposed my hobbies to my co-workers at 4 different jobs. Only at one of these jobs did I actually receive crap about it and that was very minimal.

Of course people tend to not mock those they have to look up to.

The wife occasionally gives me grief about the cleanliness of my gaming area, but after five minutes of me throwing stuff in a closet she forgets about it.

BOSS_PIMPALOTZ wrote:Im intrigued being in my late twenties married and employed full time (and having zero interest in my "forced" career choice) are you ridiculed by your Family,Friends,Spouses,and Workmates for playing Warhammer,Warhammer 40k and various other (viewed as geek) hobbies such as liking Sci-Fi,Anime,Computers,MMORPG'S and such.

I only ask because I and my Wife had my mother over for dinner tonight and I asked my Wife seeing as I have 8 days sickness weither or not she would indulge me in a game of Warhammer 40k if she agreed I would indulge her in one of her hobbies as exchange (such as scrapbooking or something else).I was intrigued as weither or not she would find it interesting and (even enjoy it) hey presto new player/painter/collector to the hobby.

I kindly offered to wash the dishes (seeing as I have been at home all day like a lazy bum) my mother followed me into the kitchen and said "What the hell is a 27 year old man like you doing asking your wife YOUR! wife! to play Warhammer god lad GROW UP!" I looked faberghasted of all the people I least expected her to be like she was someone who has supported %70ish or so of my decisions in life.

I have had this from the school bully the donkey-cave who doesnt know me but my own Mother it kind of saddens me.I remember reading a while back in White Dwarf of a miniature painter who quit University and took up painting he honed his skills and was ridiculed by his father funny Daddy was wrong and he is now a prolific painter for Eavy Metal.How about that for one in the eye of standard eh? He learned most of his skills from his brother.

so the floor is now yours fellow Dakkites....Discuss.

Dunno. You can bring up the point that you have a wife you're sleeping with, have a steady paying job, putting food on the table that SHE is eating, have a roof over you and your wifes head, and doing manly things like providing.

Could be worse, you could be homeless with a drug problem or in jail.

Personally I would not listen to anyone in regards to the hobby. There is worse going on in the world things that you should be doing. Rather than playing with toy soldiers

If you dont want to be ridiculed, don't tell anybody. Its as simple as that. Make sure the people you work with who play know you dont want people to know. Simple as that, people can't make fun of you if they dont know.


For wives and girlfriends, just tell them your watching porn/going to strip clubs/cheating on them during the late hours of the night, it'll be easier for them to understand.

I got into Historical with a bunch of my buddies to learn tactics and stuff, then since I liked Starship Troopers, I bought a box of Guard, then I realized Space Marines are the gak, and went with them.

Do not concern yourself with such comments - I find that as you become older and more successful, what was once "geeky" becomes "charmingly eccentric", "amazing" or just plain cool.

Also, the more power and wealth you accumulate, the less people dare make negative comments....(family included you'll find)

Gordy2000 wrote:Do not concern yourself with such comments - I find that as you become older and more successful, what was once "geeky" becomes "charmingly eccentric", "amazing" or just plain cool.

Also, the more power and wealth you accumulate, the less people dare make negative comments....(family included you'll find)

That's the best damn comment i've read on this topic so far, kudos to you

I was out with a buch of buds one night and one of them had a new girl friend he was showing off. He started trying to give me crap about painting miniatures by telling her I was an artist and should ask me about my work. He then stood back, smirking, thinking I was going to get all flustered talking to a really cute girl about playing with toy soldiers.
I went into total BS mode at this point, telling her that I was at the moment doing photography and went into an extended description of an exibit I was putting on at a local gallery. After I saw she was eating this line up, I went on to say I was looking for a new model. This got her excited, so I asked me to tell me about herself, what motivated her, what she valued, etc. I learned a lot about her and said that I was also a performance artist and the best way to know her potential was to have her work with me on a piece.
She agreed and before my bud knew what was happening, I was snogging his girlfriend in front of him.
Never again did he try to make fun of my gaming.

I'm like most of the guys I get the odd joke about it from some of my mates but all in good fun and as my family is all quite artistic they've never said much about it, i guess they just see it as another form of art.

My Gf doesn't really say much about it either as I don't paint/play while she is round simply for the reason that we live on the opposite sides of London and between my studies and her work any time we see each other is limited.

All in all I'm lucky to be surrounded by sensible people that see it makes me happy.

Relapse wrote:I was out with a buch of buds one night and one of them had a new girl friend he was showing off. He started trying to give me crap about painting miniatures by telling her I was an artist and should ask me about my work. He then stood back, smirking, thinking I was going to get all flustered talking to a really cute girl about playing with toy soldiers.
I went into total BS mode at this point, telling her that I was at the moment doing photography and went into an extended description of an exibit I was putting on at a local gallery. After I saw she was eating this line up, I went on to say I was looking for a new model. This got her excited, so I asked me to tell me about herself, what motivated her, what she valued, etc. I learned a lot about her and said that I was also a performance artist and the best way to know her potential was to have her work with me on a piece.
She agreed and before my bud knew what was happening, I was snogging his girlfriend in front of him.
Never again did he try to make fun of my gaming.

When I grow up, I want to be you.

Relapse wrote:I was out with a buch of buds one night and one of them had a new girl friend he was showing off. He started trying to give me crap about painting miniatures by telling her I was an artist and should ask me about my work. He then stood back, smirking, thinking I was going to get all flustered talking to a really cute girl about playing with toy soldiers.
I went into total BS mode at this point, telling her that I was at the moment doing photography and went into an extended description of an exibit I was putting on at a local gallery. After I saw she was eating this line up, I went on to say I was looking for a new model. This got her excited, so I asked me to tell me about herself, what motivated her, what she valued, etc. I learned a lot about her and said that I was also a performance artist and the best way to know her potential was to have her work with me on a piece.
She agreed and before my bud knew what was happening, I was snogging his girlfriend in front of him.
Never again did he try to make fun of my gaming.

You are by far the coolest guy on this board. Tell us more stories about your sexual conquests!

BOSS_PIMPALOTZ wrote:
I kindly offered to wash the dishes (seeing as I have been at home all day like a lazy bum) my mother followed me into the kitchen and said "What the hell is a 27 year old man like you doing asking your wife YOUR! wife! to play Warhammer god lad GROW UP!" I looked faberghasted of all the people I least expected her to be like she was someone who has supported %70ish or so of my decisions in life.

You see the proper response to this would have been as follows... "Well Mom usually about this time of night we get out the sex swing, the adult toys and the video camera, invite a few swingers we met on Craigslist over and have at it but I figured you would rather watch me play Warhammer instead of getting my freak on, but hey the nights young I can still change my plans!"

Personally you enjoy what you like, there is nothing wrong with playing Warhammer. Many of the players I am friends with have very decent "adult" jobs like insurance agent, police officer, architect, graphic designer, and well paid IT professionals just to name a few. Its a hobby just like golf, etc you do what you like. Tell mom if she wasn't such a hag she would be out on a date instead of having to be entertained by her son. Better yet give me her number I will straighten her out.

My current girlfriend was introduced very early on to my hobby. I am who I am and make no illusions about myself. Most of the men she knew before me were redneck drunks whose claim to fame was watching NASCAR every weekend at the local bar while trying to balance their less then sober butts on the stool while Jeff, Ernie, BillyBob and Larry the Cable Guy made left turns. YeeHaa! Many of her friends met me and raised their eyebrows when they were told I play wargames. Then secretly some of them would corner me later and tell me how much fun it sounded! Dare to be yourself, its the only way to be!

karimabuseer wrote:

Gordy2000 wrote:Do not concern yourself with such comments - I find that as you become older and more successful, what was once "geeky" becomes "charmingly eccentric", "amazing" or just plain cool.

Also, the more power and wealth you accumulate, the less people dare make negative comments....(family included you'll find)

That's the best damn comment i've read on this topic so far, kudos to you

+1

(Of course there will ALWAYS be the occassional insensitive jackass or the understandig best mate regardless of posistion)

Hmm well no-one really ridicules me for playing with "toys" my friends tend to look blankly at them if there out drying or what not, and my family dosen't mind either way. my Boyfriend once Smashed to bits a 1500 point fantasy army i had because his friends thought it would be "FUN!" to see the look on my face. It was not fun...........not fun at all. I guess thats a form of greif right?

Marshal2Crusaders wrote:

Relapse wrote:I was out with a buch of buds one night and one of them had a new girl friend he was showing off. He started trying to give me crap about painting miniatures by telling her I was an artist and should ask me about my work. He then stood back, smirking, thinking I was going to get all flustered talking to a really cute girl about playing with toy soldiers.
I went into total BS mode at this point, telling her that I was at the moment doing photography and went into an extended description of an exibit I was putting on at a local gallery. After I saw she was eating this line up, I went on to say I was looking for a new model. This got her excited, so I asked me to tell me about herself, what motivated her, what she valued, etc. I learned a lot about her and said that I was also a performance artist and the best way to know her potential was to have her work with me on a piece.
She agreed and before my bud knew what was happening, I was snogging his girlfriend in front of him.
Never again did he try to make fun of my gaming.

You are by far the coolest guy on this board. Tell us more stories about your sexual conquests!

Just acting on the inspiration of the moment. Something anyone here can do if they have a reasonable amount of hygene and blather!


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Roze wrote:Hmm well no-one really ridicules me for playing with "toys" my friends tend to look blankly at them if there out drying or what not, and my family dosen't mind either way. my Boyfriend once Smashed to bits a 1500 point fantasy army i had because his friends thought it would be "FUN!" to see the look on my face. It was not fun...........not fun at all. I guess thats a form of greif right?

I hope this guy's not still your boyfriend.

I have two brothers. One that I play 40k with alot, and the other that makes fun of everyone I play with. Infact sometimes its pretty harsh, but it still makes me laugh. Thats about it really

I've honestly never been ridiculed about my little army guys. Been looked at kinda funny about them a couple times from Mom and Dad, but my wife falls into the category of "was at one time interested in playing, now is not but still really likes the look of a painted army". The most she does is give me flak about not cleaning up the workspace on my desk.

People I associate with all have their geeky side. Wife loves Star Wars to no end, been playing D&D with my best friend for years, met a person who came to be a good friend at a local gaming store after meeting him on Dakka, and I work with the coolest bunch of people in the world and the only thing I would get if I brought minis to the workplace would be a bunch of questions asking how'd I paint such tiny things.

There are a couple 40k players at work, too, but they've been out of the hobby for a while and have their minis in storage.

OP - Time to take out the trash! Tell your mum to know her place, if the mrs wern't happy with you she'd soon let you know about it [they have their oh so subtle ways of letting you know!].

My old man used to refer to them as "silly soldiers" but then he probably wanted his car washed at the time rather than me sitting in my room! He did go so far as to say he thought that I would have grown out of playing with toys by now [back when I was about 22] but our neighbour said that after about 10 years it was a hobby and he pretty much STFU since then. I'm much older now and thats about the limit of comments I have gotten, the Mrs occassionally asks what I am doing and whether it is more warhammers? Having said that once in the boozer I did get a mates sister try to point out that I played with toy soldiers whan I was chatting up her friend, I felt compelled to point out that women that have a baby out of wedlock with someone that they were no longer with had more important things to worry about than what I did or didn't do - I think.....she got a bit annoyed at that point and left. Her friend stayed - win double! Go on smell my finger!!

Although I am sitting here at work typing this I can not imagine a situation where I would raise the subject of my interest in wargaming at work, I don't think it would help with looking professional etc.

That being said I am not that comfortable in GW shops [why employ such annoying cretins?] and am very much slowly upping my involvement in wargaming. I might even join a club soon but there are no FLGS near here anymore!

[i]edit - tasteless anecdote added


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Roze wrote:Hmm well no-one really ridicules me for playing with "toys" my friends tend to look blankly at them if there out drying or what not, and my family dosen't mind either way. my Boyfriend once Smashed to bits a 1500 point fantasy army i had because his friends thought it would be "FUN!" to see the look on my face. It was not fun...........not fun at all. I guess thats a form of greif right?

I hope this guy's not still your boyfriend.