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This is a thread about gaming experience, atmosphere.

There is playing at tourneys, a noisy, faster paced gaming experience. I like tourney gaming. Drinking soda, eating junk food snacks (if the LGS allows), competition on your mind. A quick lunch. Points. Meta. Get. It. Done.

Then there are casual pick up games at the LGS with guys you know, maybe not friends per se, but familiar enough to be comfortable. Drinking a soda. Keeping your language reasonable. Public. Even league games are a scheduled, specific type of experience.

This thread is not about the atmosphere of those games.

This is about playing at home. When it is cold. See, the wife (or parents) kick us out to the garage (or basement). It's a different ... experience than gaming at a store or in the kitchen. Now that the northern hemisphere is getting cold in mid-Autumn, I've got in that first game of 40k on a cold night. To keep warm, I supplement the game with whiskey and hot coffee (they go together amazingly, huh?), long undies, a grey-nit beanie, and a lined flannel jacket.

Been doing this for a few years. When the temps are comfy and your not rubbing your hands together, it just does not have the same . . . appeal (?) feel as a cold night game. You take a break between turns and step outside for a smoke or a breath of fresh air, potty run etc. Time to gripe about Games Workshop, which is half the fun of 40k. Maybe watch Orion cross the sky and wonder which planet is chasing Sirius. Go back in for more cursing of dice-gods, refill the coffee and wish for better heating.

I dunno, but there's something about playing like this that I like equally, but very differently than playing at the FLGS.
- - - - - - - - -
Who else is enjoying this experience?

I used to play 40k in the basement with my mom. Then we moved the table and models upstairs to a smaller, more cramped room (and with the dog and cats just LOVING to come up and curl up on the floor every single time we play, it's even MORE cramped). It gets very warm in the summer, too warm to be comfortable.

The reason we had to move it up there is because, well, one time when my brother was having a party, I went downstairs to the basement for some reason, and saw my painted and flocked 400 dollar Realm of Battle board, which still had had an ongoing game set up on it, with the miniatures moved aside to make room for laptops and drinks.

Whiskey goes well with damn near anything, but I guess hot chocolate is an acceptable delivery mechanism It's even better in hot apple cider though.

I actually got the "gaming in a cold homey space" experience at a tournament yesterday, up in the frozen wastes of Maine. I just like gaming more when it's chilly - you don't want to go outside since it's frigid, so you don't feel bad for spending all day rolling dice and missing out on the sunshine. There's a similar appeal for me and late, late night games in Summer though. I learned to play 40k over a summer in high school, and there were a lot of 2am, 3am, 6am games going on then.

We play over at a friends garage as well. I prefer the laid back play with co-workers/friends, than folks at the LGS. I also live up in the Northern Hemisphere and we finally have snow on the ground. My buddy's got a heater for his garage that will take the chill out of the air. So far so good.

I have to say that here in Michigan, I would not want to be playing in my unheated, uninsulated garage right now, as there is snow flying outside my window as I type. Luckily, my wife doesn't have any sort of problem with gaming in the middle of the living room, however small ours is.

If I have to set anything up that's of large size (as in, larger than 4x6) I would just do it in the basement, as it's about 60 all year round down there. Too bad due to more than a little laziness on my part it is currently unfinished other than studded walls. But I guess a large rug or carpet remnant with a table in the middle would give a perfectly satisfactory gaming area, until my "proper" gaming cave (my wife's exact words, honest!) can be finished down there so the room I have it all in upstairs can be made available for the baby we are working towards.

My group has long done a yearly tourney at a mate's grandfather's place out on the coast, and while it's southern Finland it can be pretty chilly if our timetables drag the date back to October as this year. The so-called studio isn't really insulated at all but you can heat it a bit - and ten guys standing around heat it quite well just by standing there smelling bad. Ofc, we heat the beach sauna too so we can get warmed up after the games. And the amount of beer, cider, rum and whisky that gets consumed (not during the games but after and sometimes starting with the last game) is sometimes pretty horrifying. I was pretty much incapacitated after this year's games, though I blame it on the "rum" that was actually tequila (old mate's got a problem with letters).

Not to say I don't have to throw firewood into the kitchen stove if I'm having visitors over for a game in the winter. Old wooden house with very few modern insulation techniques... Air changes very nicely and we've never had any problems with excessive humidity but some extra heat does escape too.

I'm in the high desert. It gets down to the teens up here with freezing cold winds blowing a steady 30mph. Kinda like Chicago, without the pizza. So I'm at my buddys down the street playing my BAs vs his Tau last year. Well its Saturday & the games just 1500 points. I figure its only gonna take like 3 hrs max, so I go in flip flops & a Tshirt.

Well I gotta leave late to the game & waste time writing my army list that I shoulda wrote up the night before. We're playing in a mini aircraft hanger that's been turned into a storage shed/craft room. I'm thinking if we play quick I'll be outta there before the sun goes down. Quick as a greased grot in a shok attak gun we get to playing.

Wouldn't ya know another club members gotta show up as soon as turn 2 starts. Now Ijust know he's gonna slow things down with chit chat. More good news, he says it just started snowing. Like Ijust rolled box cars on my warlords DS scatter. So I'm hurrying as fast as I can, then our guests starts asking what he should get in his new Tau army. Distraction city. But I keeping plugging away. Then he starts in that he has to switch cause his BAs can't win at tourneys anymore. I gotta take a little blame for dragging the game out with that one too. I mean come on, BAs right? Long story short we rap up the game with an inch of snow on the ground & its 28 degrees outside. I'm trying to pack up my models with hands frozen into claws. My be-sandaled feet are fething numb. And I lost to boot!

Games Workshop owes me a medal...or a box of Tac marines, or something....

I hate playing at the store. I have my own game room for weekend Beerhammer

While playing at some stores can be a lot of fun and social, I love having a dedicated game room and having friends over for 40k.

Currently house shopping for a new house, and hopefully will be able to find one that matches size/price/location/features AND has a good sized game room. If it does not, I have informed the wife that I will be converting the garage to a game room.

Yeah, I have to say...freezing (or melting in the summer) in there is not a great option - so until I would get a garage conversion done (insulation, heating/ac, etc) it would be using another room or the game store.

I have found that if you are too cold (or hot) its just distracting for some of the players.

Space heaters worked fine for games in the basement during the winter. Just had to remember to turn them on a bit before the crew showed up. Now that I am divorced her sewing room is now the game room and I am spoiled for actual heat AND natural light instead of playing in a cave anymore. Really kind of liking it.

Skriker

used to play once or twice a week in my friend's basement. In summer it was lovely, a good 10 degrees cooler than the sweltering summer outside.

But in winter, it hurt. Layers were obligitory, and condensation-breath was ubiquitous. Still, we could smoke down there, and after a few brewskies who cares about the cold

Man i miss those days.

Never played in a basement/garage but I'll count the local lgs as one since the owners never us the heater/ ac. Cold I can handle. Bundle up with some hot black coffee and some of those cheap disposable hand warmers (strategicly placed) and I'm good to go. Heats a whole other story. You get 40 guys in a shop during an MTG release tournament during summer and that just sucks all around.

Being able to sit back with an adult beverage is well worth a game at home. Completely justifies building a table and setting aside space for it. Moving into a larger house has allowed to split off our D&D area from my Warhammer table, though I haven't gotten in any games since. I'm just starting to get back into the swing and excited for it. Once the weather warms up, I'd love to drag the table out of the basement and into the open garage for fresh air and activities.

Home games are the best games- homemade spicy chicken nachos with too much cheese, fresh from the oven, a multitude of beers, and I'm lucky enough to have a comfortable heated room.

Life is good.

SBG wrote:
Home games are the best games- homemade spicy chicken nachos with too much cheese, fresh from the oven, a multitude of beers, and I'm lucky enough to have a comfortable heated room.

Life is good.

Plus, with a dedicated gaming room, you can play your games over a few days, a week, or even months. : D

I think the in-progress game on my table currently has been there for... 4 months? 6 months? 8, maybe? Something like that. Longer than the longest I've ever been without a shower (not counting childhood when I took baths instead of showers), so quite long indeed. The models may have even started gathering dust.

gotta say, I've played a few "cold games" and am not real fond of them. course, I have never drank so don't have the option of warming up the way you do.

I have a dedicated, albeit small, gaming room that houses my armies, my wife's armies, my daughters nids and a bunch of scenery, plus a hefty library of gaming books for pathfinder, cyberpunk etc.

It tends to be toasty in there year round, which sucks in summer, but with the driving icy rain outside it's nice in winter.

 EVIL INC wrote:
gotta say, I've played a few "cold games" and am not real fond of them. course, I have never drank so don't have the option of warming up the way you do.

Alternatives to alcohol include a toasty hot mug of coffee, hot tea or hot chocolate. Caffeine is a popular stimulant, I hear

caffeine I do indeed use. usually a full throttle followed up by hefty number of mt dews or some such. I'm willing to do this for games with close buddies but in general I prefer warmth. Course, this has gotten more so since old uncle Arthur started visiting me.

I have met only 1 dude who could play at home , but his parents did own an actual house . Of course just because of that they didn't want us to come and play. So he had like 2 tables and ton of terrain , he only borrowed when a tournament was made near by.

In general it is always cold here , save for 2-3 months durning summer when it is so hot one wants to die .

2 years ago when I started to play at a FLGS , it was possible to take out two tables outside durning summer and play. That was awesome ,because it doubled the number of tables . Sadly since a bank was opened near the gaming store it is no longer allowed .

What I'm learning from this thread is, most of us would rather by more minis than buy a better house. If we just played with our old figs for a few years we could move in to a real house with ac/heat.

...or...we could spend just a quarter of that new house money on winter clothes & upgrade to Forge World!

 Red Marine wrote:
What I'm learning from this thread is, most of us would rather by more minis than buy a better house. If we just played with our old figs for a few years we could move in to a real house with ac/heat.

...or...we could spend just a quarter of that new house money on winter clothes & upgrade to Forge World!

I own a house and when married had to keep my gaming table in the basement. Has nothing to do with having a "better" house, and everything to do with having a spouse and knowing that your hobbies are not allowed to be the main focus of the house as long as you are married. I live in the same house now that I am divorced and no longer have to keep my mini gaming hidden in the basement.

Skriker

I play more in my basement than anywhere else. I've got two tables and beer on tap.

A couple of weekends ago, we pushed the tables together for a big apocalypse game.

For the record, alcohol doesn't actually warm you. It dilates your arteries and veins, causing increased blood flow from your core, where blood is warmer, to your extremities. This gives the illusion of feeling warmer while actually dropping your core body temperature. Alcohol also dulls your senses so you notice the cold less for a compounded effect.

There's your fact for the day.

I prefer to play at home. To me it gives a more relaxed atmosphere. Granted, for now I play at the bar in my kitchen. So heat and cold arent really an issue. Having my big fluffy white land mine is however lol. My 100+ pound dog insists on laying as close to me when I am in the kitchen as he can. Well, step on him and he stands right up......with his head at waist level.

My last game was in the house that my dad is selling. There was no heating and very little electricity. It was definitely a cold game.

You have cold weather in LA?

I usually play with my friends at their house's... attic. It is indeed cold in there most of the time, but we've got a very nice, self-made table with lots of terrain, so I don't mind.

MadmanMSU wrote:
For the record, alcohol doesn't actually warm you. It dilates your arteries and veins, causing increased blood flow from your core, where blood is warmer, to your extremities. This gives the illusion of feeling warmer while actually dropping your core body temperature. Alcohol also dulls your senses so you notice the cold less for a compounded effect.

There's your fact for the day.

Most people are not in danger of freezing to death in their garage, so FAIAP it makes you warmer in this situation

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:
You have cold weather in LA?

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:
You have cold weather in LA?

I remember my last trip to LA. It was February and when I left the East coast it was 31 F. When I landed in Orance County it was 66 F. I was driving around with my windows down and my sleeves rolled up. Meanwhile the residents were all crying about how freezing cold it was and were all bundled up in coats, sweaters and sweatshirts galore. Had me laughing quite a bit since I had actually left real freezing temps behind in the east. I sat on the beach each day watching the sunset with no coat while the people around me looked like they were in the arctic.

Of course temps are all relative as I have a friend in Alaska who comments in early spring how it is getting warmer since it is only -20 F.

Skriker