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I work a full time job. My shifts at that job are evenings & nights, which is when people are usually around to play at the FLGS. Further, my days off are Mondays & Tuesdays, which are when people are often busy with their work week. On top of that, my girlfriend gets off work early on Tuesdays so, and I admit this is a good thing, that evening is a write off - its our only date night more or less. The result is that, basically, I can never play games and use the army I love and have invested so much time in. So I spend most of my time reading forums on the game. I discuss with others and research so that one day, when that game finally comes, it'll be awesome. How do you handle being unable to play, whether it is at all or as much as you would like?

Well about 9 months ago I left home to go backpacking around New Zealand, so had to leave my army and the game behind, I have begun using the VASSAL engine as a substitute for not being able to play table top for the near future, obviously this doesn't come close to the real thing, but it does give a respite.

I had that shift once and it really did suck, you hit the nail on the head describing it.

Post at the FLGS see if you can find someone.

Sometimes you could arrange playing with a person at the store on the week days, if you buy from them on occasion you could get a game or two in I would think.

See if you can find a game club at the closest University or College: the students have all kinds of weird class times so you could arrange something.

See if there is opportunity for once a day a month or so to switch a day for the weekend at your work so you have something to work toward.

This is what I did when I thought I was going to lose it. My final solution was to get a normal job so I could join society again.

Good luck.

I work a full time job, and like to spend time with my fiancee rather than just gaming it up (also, if I do that too much, I tend to get in trouble). My friends and brother are mostly in the exact same postition, with kids thrown in for good measure. My other friend that plays is a good hour and a half drive away.

So my gaming opportunities aren't fantastic. At best, I get a game day in once a month. At worst, I've gone about 6 months without having a game.

In the time between, when I'm not doing other things, I paint my stuff. I've got plenty to paint - lots of Tyranids, fair amount of Infinity stuff, a whole Vampire Counts army... The benefit to this is my glacial painting progress. While I try to paint often (and for a while I painted every night), I'm still a slow painter, so the stuff I have to paint is constantly there for me.

So once a month or less I get together with a friend or two to play a game, and I'll have a new Tyranid to throw down or a new Infinity model finished to show off before getting down to actually playing.

I really only have two people I play with mostly and that doesn't happen much (my wife and a friend) and another person who I have only played with a couple times. My wife enjoys it but does not like to play near as frequently as I do. I play vassal or set up a game against myself in the room. I actually have an army I got just to kill with my army of choice, not the same but it helps.

I am fortunate enough to have 2 armies at my disposal and sometimes 5. So when occasions like this arise, I play against myself, at times proxying armies. Interestingly, I've learned a lot from this as I sometimes mimic several other wargamers' playstyles to figure out how to effectively deal with them with a variety of armies and army lists.

And sometimes I make conversions

I was posted to a town with no gaming community for almost two years, in which I played zero games.

I was recently posted to another town in the middle of nowhere with no wargaming community, and have yet to play a game of 40k.

I mainly just post on here, read some blogs and battle reports, provide feedback on proposed rules/fan dexes and plan my next investment.

Maybe one day I'll paint.

I'm currently living in Leesburg FL, the nearest place to play a game of 40K is about an hour away. I feel the OP's pain.

I'm in a pretty similar boat. I live in the countryside in Nagano. I'm basically between my two gaming groups. One is in Tokyo and the other in Nagoya. And 40k gamers are rare even in the cities here. I'm pretty sure there is only one official GW shop in the whole country now.

How do I deal with that? Well, a number of ways. Painting and modeling is first and foremost. I like to try and get some new stuff painted for each visit when I go play. Recently though, I've also been writing 40k fiction and maintaining a blog. Both of those have been fun as they allow me to think deeply on any 40k topic and to express myself through the hobby without getting lots of paint and/or tools out.

If the peripheral aspects of the hobby don't appeal to you, then your situation is much more difficult. Even with all the different video games and whatnot that GW has put out, there is no good digital solution to not being able to play in person. Vassal is the only option there that I know of.

create your own group

I was teaching at a private prep school, no gaming group that worked... so I brought some models to school, taught some interested students the game, 3 years later I'm running an almost 20 strong club with two FLGSs quasi supporting it and 5 full battle tables in my basement with terrain and every faction but one represented in our club.

If you can't find, build

 warpspider89 wrote:
I work a full time job. My shifts at that job are evenings & nights, which is when people are usually around to play at the FLGS. Further, my days off are Mondays & Tuesdays, which are when people are often busy with their work week. On top of that, my girlfriend gets off work early on Tuesdays so, and I admit this is a good thing, that evening is a write off - its our only date night more or less. The result is that, basically, I can never play games and use the army I love and have invested so much time in. So I spend most of my time reading forums on the game. I discuss with others and research so that one day, when that game finally comes, it'll be awesome. How do you handle being unable to play, whether it is at all or as much as you would like?

Download VASSAL and learn to use it. Should solve the problem partially.

I made portable tables I can take to friends houses too in case thats being a problem.

I am loving all of these ideas!

 warpspider89 wrote:
I am loving all of these ideas!

I've downloaded Vassal and it seems great. Anyone know where to find a 6th Ed. version of the game?

The site that currently hosts it?

http://z13.invisionfree.com/vassal40k/index.php?s=f3fe6b3f6e12462a34a43cb0a4dc201b&act=idx

It's updated up to..CSM right now though, has all the dice rolls for the Chaos Space Marine Mutation Chart.

 King Pariah wrote:
I am fortunate enough to have 2 armies at my disposal and sometimes 5. So when occasions like this arise, I play against myself, at times proxying armies. Interestingly, I've learned a lot from this as I sometimes mimic several other wargamers' playstyles to figure out how to effectively deal with them with a variety of armies and army lists.

And sometimes I make conversions

Glad I'm not the only one that does this. I play one or two games a week proxying different armies to play against mine.

I work second shift as well which means I have to try and find games whenever I can. Thankfully the game store I play has a good player group and active enough forums so I can schedule a game a week on the weekends and one to two games a week against myself as well.

Ideally, I will find a way to find a game with my RL army. It is just a matter of time.

Violent masturbation.
Mainly modelling and painting until I can get the time. I've been working 7 days a week recently and transport is an issue for me too.
Tournaments are great, since you can plan ahead, and know you'll get a game. One of the things I hate is getting a few hours spare, turning up to my local GW for a PUG and it being dead.

I am lucky enough to have two local gaming clubs to where I live (even though they run on the same night) so can normally get a game in at one of them.

I can't always make it to the club due to wife and child committments, but I go as often as I can.

My problem is painting. I simply do not have time for it when I have a full time job plus a wife and child. By the time I settle down after putting my daughter to bed, I often only have about 2-3 hours to do anything before I go to bed so don't really want to break out the paints tbh.

Plus I generally paint at the speed of an asthmatic ant with very heavy shopping (points to those who get that reference)!

Similar situation here.

Vassal40k helped a lot, I do most games with it, better than nothing. Of course the real games are more fun, but you are really saving time with Vassal40k.

Its about a hour and a half with train to my local shop...

My way of handling the press is building lists, planning my next investment, paint them, take them up and place them in formations to look at my work, pack them down again, skim over the rules for my army of choice 3-4 times more, read over my lists again, see if i can trim some things to put more toys in, roll a few handful of dice against various saves. Sigh, cry and repeat the whole process again.

 warpspider89 wrote:
I work a full time job. My shifts at that job are evenings & nights, which is when people are usually around to play at the FLGS. Further, my days off are Mondays & Tuesdays, which are when people are often busy with their work week. On top of that, my girlfriend gets off work early on Tuesdays so, and I admit this is a good thing, that evening is a write off - its our only date night more or less. The result is that, basically, I can never play games and use the army I love and have invested so much time in. So I spend most of my time reading forums on the game. I discuss with others and research so that one day, when that game finally comes, it'll be awesome. How do you handle being unable to play, whether it is at all or as much as you would like?

Vassal 40k.

 Lobukia wrote:
create your own group

I was teaching at a private prep school, no gaming group that worked... so I brought some models to school, taught some interested students the game, 3 years later I'm running an almost 20 strong club with two FLGSs quasi supporting it and 5 full battle tables in my basement with terrain and every faction but one represented in our club.

If you can't find, build

So you tempted students into your basement with "battle tables" and promises of games and spacemen, right?

Sounds good.

With family and job commitments it can indeed be difficult to find the time to play. Something’s that have helped me though…
- Concentrate more on the hobby aspect. Up your painting skills and take more time on each fig.
- Look to build some 650 points lists. Here we have an after work club that plays twice a month. Most of us have family and are pressed for time but 650 seems to be just right.

Mostly don’t fret. I remember when I first moved here. I didn’t have a game for about two years as my French was so bad that I felt too embarrassed to find a group.

Cheers Vim

The club I usually play in has a few people with the exact same problem and they just meet at their own time schedule and play I'd recommend joining a gaming club in your local area (do those exist in the US?) and see if there are people with a similar problem.

The real problem is most likely not being able to take part in tournaments :/

I'm in Vancouver, Canada actually! I hope one exists around here. It seems like in my city though the only nearby *gaming location* is the GW store and, as Griddlelol put it, I have the bad luck of it being dead whenever I go on my rare free afternoons.

I just looked on here for Vancouver:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/core/store_finder.jsp

There are 5 flags there. Are any of them any good?
I didn't look there for tables, but games stores know gamers.

just play when you can.

i too work a full tie job, and part time job as well. My wife only works days and our kid has just turned 4 so that cuts into a lot of spare time. On top of that the gus i normally play with work in bars and restaurants so they mostly work nights.


I have just resigned myself to playing once every few weeks. Sometimes if we plan it enough in advance we will organise us all to book a day off and go to Warhammer world for a one-day tourney or a big apoc gme - but that only happens a couple of times a year.

I haven't play a game of 6th ed yet and i only played 2 or 3 of 5th ed. My brother doesn't collect anymore and now has little interest in the game and the two friends i had who played i don't see anymore. So i can relate OP.

The one club i do know that runs games in the city never seems to be running when i'm around and the GW stores around here are a shambles.

my long term plan is to try and get my Son into the hobby when he is a little older - that way i can have games at hoem more often and get more trips to Nottingham.

/cackle

I guess you could all take a 'holiday' one day and play a session or two.

If all else fails get travel size wh40k for games on the go.
Requires epic 40k minis, lots of magnets and a lap sized metal folding table.