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Back in my first year of warhammer (fantasy) a few of us where setting up for a couple of games when a kid (no older then 13) walks by and bumps my buddy's (who is in his late 20's) open carrying case on the floor, scattering pieces of dwarves everywhere. The kids response? He looks down at them and then just keeps walking without saying a word. Luckily my friend was sitting at the time, because it gave the rest of us enough time to grab him as he lept out of his chair at the kid. It took 3 of us to restrain him. Luckily the kid took the hint, left the shop and did not come back for over a week.

All of us spent about 2 hours gluing those dwarves back together, and I had a nice bruised rib to show for it as well.

To this day my body seizes up when I hear a case fall in a game store.

Not a real horror story, but it certainly bugged me.

I was in a Battle Bunker playing a game with my IG who always get a lot of comments due to unusual color scheme (winter) and custom vehicles. Passers by will often stop and chat for a few and ask how I made the vehicles, which I don't mind when setting up or shooting the breeze, but which becomes a pain when it's the third time you've told the story and you're trying to focus on winning a game.

Anyhow, during the course of this game I became aware that one of the "kids" (probably he was 20) who had been asking, was still standing at my side. As the game went on, he started "helping" me, but moving models in my squads as I started moving them.

I was flabbergasted, and really didn't know what to say other than "Thanks, but I've got it." I was disarmed because he was apparently trying to be nice, but just must never have learned basic social skills...

People are strange.

MeanGreenStompa wrote:

M_Stress wrote:

avantgarde wrote:I was hanging out with friends at the mall when we saw this geeky kid that went to my school walk out of the GW with his army. I was trying to impress this girl so we started harassing him. Like playing keep away with his models. Anyways I pocketed a couple and thought they looked cool when I got home and that's how I started 40k.

That is not a good story.
Not good, nor cool.
Actually, it's a shame. You know, like: the painful feeling arising from the consciousness of something dishonorable, improper, done by oneself or another. Yeah, that's it: shame

Actually, what I suspect Stress, is that young scamp avantgarde has laid what we in the trade refer to as a nerdrage trap, designed to elicit angry responses and internet threads of violence from people hundreds or thousands of miles away from him who have no idea what he looks like. Do kindly step around it and refrain from falling into it's intended purpose...

M. Stompa, you are wiser than I am...

As much as it can be a little irritating to have random kids coming up and touching your models, it also is the nature of the game to be fascinating for small kids.
Parents should educate their children not to touch things that don't belong to them, but kids also are known to have poor impulse control. I've found this to be a pretty minor problem for the most part, and feel like yelling at the kid or threatening them is really immature, even if they break a model. They are toys, just for a differently aged user. Accidents happen, I sometimes drop or bend my own models unintentionally. One of the advantages of the hobby is that you can always glue the model back together and it will still work.

There are many different annoying game store behaviors that people engage in, and this one seems relatively minor to me. If a little kid moves around a few pieces on the game board it isn't very big deal to fix, and 9 out of 10 kids will listen to you if you politely ask them to stop or explain the game to them. In the case of a kid who really is obnoxious or wantonly destructive, they usually are old enough to be unsupervised and can quickly find themselves banned from the store if they keep being jerks.

I guess all in all, it seems that having someone break an arm or gun off you model really isn't that big of a deal.

No Samwise, there is no mercy; to allow this to grow unchecked and unpunished is double heretical.

yes, let the inquisition smite those that dont punish model breakers efficiently...

nothing to deal with little kids really, but had one of my friends bump my winged tyrant off the table while he was walking by, breaking it into atleast 3 different pieces...

kicker of it was, as i watched him to it from across the store, he insisted it wasnt him when i came over...

I don't know....I@m wondering if you guys are weighing in like Pee Wee Herman or somthing

If someone side swipes you car, you don't just stare and look flabbergasted, you either kick his ass, or at the very least the dude is paying for the damage....

In every case I've read here, if someone damages something that belongs to me, they replace it....cash or a replacement model...I don't care if the kid is 12 or 44, the rule is the same....if the parents are there, even better...I feel less guilty decking a grown man or woman!

You guys are going to keep me from ever bringing my models to a store.

I've been fortunate to avoid any serious damage in any of my game, and I'm pretty happy to have people take a look at my minis.

I should confess though, that I point out to any potential handlers that my marines have been painted with my own feces. It's how I get that unique brownish-copper hue. Few people bother to pick them up after that.

/shrug.

You mean I don't actually have to paint them with my own feces...I can just TELL people that I do?

Thanks alot Mastiff, NOW you tell me....anyone got a handy-wipe?

Would it be outrageous to invent a new term for adults who wantonly abuse figures and call them "mini fiddlers"?

Kilkrazy wrote:Would it be outrageous to invent a new term for adults who wantonly abuse figures and call them "mini fiddlers"?

lolz

I can just see them being instantly whisked away by a suddenly appearing mob of chainsmoking angry mothers with overly large gold jewellery holding placards saying 'protect our little ones' and 'touchers get out!'...

Mwah ha ha ha ha, I'm often the one picking up models to take a look! I do ask, most of the time.

Every time I go over my buds house (ChaosBubbles) I always break something of his. Now he has switched from GW glue to loctite, it's now one in every two visits something breaks. But I swear it's totally not my fault!

infilTRAITOR wrote:Mwah ha ha ha ha, I'm often the one picking up models to take a look! I do ask, most of the time.

Every time I go over my buds house (ChaosBubbles) I always break something of his. Now he has switched from GW glue to loctite, it's now one in every two visits something breaks. But I swear it's totally not my fault!

And here we witness the infilTRAITOR as it collects bitz for the bitz box, snapping them from whole models that have strayed too close...

Kilkrazy wrote:Would it be outrageous to invent a new term for adults who wantonly abuse figures and call them "mini fiddlers"?

MeanGreenStompa wrote:I can just see them being instantly whisked away by a suddenly appearing mob of chainsmoking angry mothers with overly large gold jewellery holding placards saying 'protect our little ones' and 'touchers get out!'...

Whom then burn down the homes of small violin players mistakenly not knowing the difference!

Don't get too close to mini fiddlers or you will catch mini fiddler crabs.

One time a long long time ago there was a child a fat fat abysmal child who wouldnt stop picking up my Crimson Ravens.

I waited until he got his case out heheheh I picked up all his minatures I fondled them and rolled them about between my fingers and then said.

"Not very nice is it???" hmmmm??? he looked at me blankly as I walked away chuckling softly.

Dont get mad get even.... *nods*

The Boss

I remember way back when playing a game of 40K and some random family off the street came into the shop and their kids grabbed stuff off of a table during a game and starting bashing it together like a smash-up derby. With the mother saying things like "Tarquin, don't you think you should ask to see those before you pick them up and play with them?" as the boy makes machine gun sounds and bits and pieces fly about. At the time, I felt the whole family should've been flayed and taxidermed as a warning to others.

I dropped my Chaos War altar that was on the verge of a masterpiece and it broke into 1000 pieces when I was moving.

Maybe I should be flayed and taxidermed as a warning to others.

Khornholio wrote:I remember way back when playing a game of 40K and some random family off the street came into the shop and their kids grabbed stuff off of a table during a game and starting bashing it together like a smash-up derby. With the mother saying things like "Tarquin, don't you think you should ask to see those before you pick them up and play with them?" as the boy makes machine gun sounds and bits and pieces fly about. At the time, I felt the whole family should've been flayed and taxidermed as a warning to others.

Good God. What models did they demolish? Did you get paid back?

You guys' stories make me glad that the only real model breakage story of mine is when I broke the stand off a crisis suit.

One time to break up the monotony of playing at my FLGS I visited my local GW retail outlet for an apoc game. Well, as it turns out I was probably the only participant over 14 years of age. In addition, there was little actual playing and more "oooh! let me touch your stuff" going on.

I haven't returned since.

Reading this, I guess ive been fortunate. The only think I can remember anywhere close the these horror stories is: One time I played an orc player and his friend, leaned over the board behind one of his orc units and yelled "WAAAGH" and a big stream of drool fell out of his mouth all over the kids army.

I lost the game because I couldn't stop laughing. Everytime i would finally get control again, the kid would mutter "i can't believe you.." or just punch his friend, and i would start laughing again.

I had painted up and converted my wife's DE army. She was at her first tourney ever, playing some ham-handed, overweight guy. Halfway throught the game, he needs to get to her side of the table to measure smething. Somehow, on his way around the table, he put his fat foot right into my wife's carrying case. The whole store went quiet when the sound of several dozen DE were crushed. The only thing that saved the guy was that he was appropriately mortified. ANd he did offer to replace all the models. But it still blew trying to rebuild those guys.

What I don't understand is why people don't ask first.

I've had my Warboss crushed into shreds by some ignorant child who picked him up without asking, dropped him, and somehow "Accidentally" stepped on him.

To his credit though, he was really sorry, and he did promise to ask first, and be more careful.

Plus, it was his destruction that prodded me to convert my old Warboss' remains into a shiny new one.

If a kid is being a pest and there's a parent nearby not keeping it under control, I like to just go into Captain Oever's spiel from Airplane!

"Say Timmy, you ever hang out in a gymnasium?"

"Do you like movies about gladiators?"

"Ever been in a Turkish prison?"

"Have you ever seen a grown man naked?"

It works better than "Ma'am, please take your little monster far, far away from me."

LMoE

I dunno about that particular approach - if she doesn't know the movie, the next face you see could be this one:

forrestfire wrote:

Khornholio wrote:I remember way back when playing a game of 40K and some random family off the street came into the shop and their kids grabbed stuff off of a table during a game and starting bashing it together like a smash-up derby. With the mother saying things like "Tarquin, don't you think you should ask to see those before you pick them up and play with them?" as the boy makes machine gun sounds and bits and pieces fly about. At the time, I felt the whole family should've been flayed and taxidermed as a warning to others.

Good God. What models did they demolish? Did you get paid back?

You guys' stories make me glad that the only real model breakage story of mine is when I broke the stand off a crisis suit.

Thankfully it wasn't my stuff. I think he had a Rhino in one had and was repeatedily hitting it with a lightning clawed Terminator. The other kid was just cushing marines together. I think the manager compensated the victims in this case after telling the lady to get control of her kids or leave.

during a tournament i bumped my opponents Valkyrie into oblivion, if there was a place it could come appart then it did. come to think of it you don't want me near your minis.

People keep saying my army's paint job looks incomplete which makes me rage.

JohnHwangDD wrote:I dunno about that particular approach - if she doesn't know the movie, the next face you see could be this one:

I'd ask him if he'd ever hung out in a gymnasium too.