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Just wondering how many people out there are actual current serving personnel in their respective forces and how the blokes (and ladies now) at work feel about it? I used to be avid collector and gamer but haven't touched anything for 4 years since being in the military.

Now Ive been in quarters for a while though I feel myself drawn back to it and have recently been painting again. I do feel people at work would take the Mick if they found out but in the past when I've read a gotrek and Felix novel etc while away training I have noticed lads commenting on them guardedly so as not to reveal their inner nerd too much.

I think you are overthinking it too hard. Reading and carrying those in public hasn't generated any comments. Neither has been walking with my left arm all painted up(literally) after serious session of airbrushing. I'm talking about arm that looks mix of all colours Red, metal, green, blue, white, black...

Neither has been reading japanese books or watching japanese news/movies/documents. In 3 years or so I have had about handful of times curious person asking what language I'm reading and being told japanese reaction is generally "you can read that?" or "is it hard?".

At least here people don't seem to pay much attention to what others are doing. At least to level of showing it outside. Dunno what they think on their own. But short of openly playing around with weapon or reading/watching porn or something like that doesn't seem to get much of reaction either way.

The English army might have a differant culture, but I had no problems being a goofy nerd. I even requested (and recieved) 4 day passes so I could go to game cons. In general I think if you do your job well, nobody should say much. I'm ex military, I served primarily at Ft Bragg the home of the 82nd airbourn and SOCOM. And there were Plenty of gamers too be found.

I take models when I have duty. I build them, paint them, make lists, etc.

I've had several people ask about the game and go start playing.

Rogerio134134 wrote:
Just wondering how many people out there are actual current serving personnel in their respective forces and how the blokes (and ladies now) at work feel about it? I used to be avid collector and gamer but haven't touched anything for 4 years since being in the military.

Now Ive been in quarters for a while though I feel myself drawn back to it and have recently been painting again. I do feel people at work would take the Mick if they found out but in the past when I've read a gotrek and Felix novel etc while away training I have noticed lads commenting on them guardedly so as not to reveal their inner nerd too much.

I am not sure about percentages, but plenty of military folks here in Canada play 40K. Go to a Canadian city or town with a base and you should find a decent FLGS/gaming club. At a recent planning conference abroad I discovered that two of the people traveling with me were also 40K players.

You can get the mick taken out of you anywhere for anything. I would suggest giving it back and finishing your book... You might even find on facebook the table top gaming UK armed forces wargamers group.
I am also bound to remind anyone who is reading to check your units guidance on the use of social media and identification of yourself on it depending on your levels of clearance and responsibility

I restarted 40k after basic wile I was still on course and ended up recruiting 3 other people from my course. We all enjoyed the hobby to blow off steam and relax from studying when we could and we still all play when we can. (This was 5 years ago)

My base has a gameing club that has many 40k and other strat game players and we get together once a week at our jr ranks club.

Did 4 yrs active in the airborne infantry at Bragg and gamed all the time in the barracks. Between DnD, WH fantasy, and blood bowl we had something going on in the companies barracks every weekend off.

Not sure what the poms are like with the culture, but in australia, i know theres an entire wargaming association in the ADF supported by forces command. They just finished their ANZAC cup tournament in Canberra. Next big event is Herocon in Brisbane in December.

Sounds good, the whole thing with work here is everyone wants to seem macho etc and while smashing computer games is seen as ok I think wargaming is a no no at my unit anyway. I'll almost trying to find out about it in secret haha.

I started while on active duty (19k - tanks) and lots of us played. The army was full of D&D nerds and warhammer nerds.

Not in the military myself, but one of the owners of my previous FLGS was and he never said he had any issues.

Also, the nearest US base near me has a thriving community of servicemen.

Obligatory "not in the military myself" comment here, but 2 of the 7 or 8 guys in my regular 40k group are (one Navy, one Army).

I regularly show off pictures of what I'm working on and even people who don't play seem interested. I've also worked with a few people who played, which gave us something to talk about other than work.

Plenty of guys play 40k at my unit, we had a sergeant who played it when he was in Afghanistan

In intelligence theres plenty of nerds who like 40k and magic.

But I find more infantry/combat arms people play. Probably due to the shear numbers they have vs my trade.

I'm not military, but I know a few soldiers/ex soldiers who play. One of the LGS's is across the street from the marine airbase.

There are plenty of service men and women who are massive geeks/gamers. Same goes for law enforcement (my background), both local and federal. In fact the only guy in my old line of work I keep in touch with is a fellow gamer. My buddy I'm gaming with next weekend is an ex-Army fellow. The local guy I game with at the FLGS is a local homicide detective, also ex-Army. My father, career military is a modeler/gamer (but in a historical sense, chit-based Avalon Hill games, etc.). One of my supervisors in the Patrol used to game a lot - online and tabletop.

I think a lot of soldiers and cops will fall into the same schtick though - the work environment is heavily "alpha male", so you're more likely to keep to yourself just to avoid unnecessary flak. Heck I got tons o' crap in the Patrol for being a theatre major, a college graduate, etc. Anything which isn't UFC/Beer/pick up trucks is always derided, but generally lighthearted. It's likely that most geeky gamers in the service realize it doesn't benefit them to go around shouting it.

There were a few in my squadron (cop shop) including me.

I've honestly never caught any problems with my hobbies. Even when I was younger and had D&D books with me on deployments.

Most folks are either disinterested or curious, and that's the norm.

I've been painting on duty before (a really boring duty where there is absolutely nothing to do, no internet, no phone, and just making sure the building doesn't burn down). Battalion XO walks in and check out the models, end up finding out the Battalion XO used to paint model tanks and aircraft- he sold me an Airbrush for $30.00 with a bunch of paint.

One of my old First Sergeants took an interest in the miniatures I had and went to a shop nearby, I get that "weekend call from First Sergeant" and go into a full panic, and I couldn't help but laugh when he said, "Hey what do you know about Bolt Action?"

Most of the people I've ever gamed are serve as I do. I've always found a decent sized chunk of nerd culture in our military, unfortunately only a small amount of those people are active or semi-active wargamers. The few I have had the pleasure of gaming with is typically short lived between them or myself deploying for extended periods (or even constant small trips) or people getting posted to new units every few years.

My building/painting has been very slow from constant deployments, exercises, life changes on the home front, and my unfortunately small desk. I always figure I'll get around to it someday, but chances are my life will be changing dramatically in the not so distant future which will leave me with very little time for just about anything.

On a funny side story, I had my laptop hooked up to our projector on a deployment, using it in an extended display mode so I can put the movie up on the projector and run a game on the laptop screen simultaneously. My laptop background at the time was a bit of BFG art with a massive Imperial battleship shooting at some Chaos cruisers and escorts. My det saw the background after the movie, which prompted an almost 30mins discussion and history lesson of the 40k universe (most of them were comic book fans), which was met with equal parts interest and amusement over my ability to remember so much about a fictional world, but struggled to remember important numbers related to my job.

I popped onto my friend's airbase in Japan. They got quite a 40k club going.

I’m a Desert Storm vet, US Army. We had a small group of 40k players in my unit back then, but no time or space to play. I play with mostly veterans and their kids these days, not for any reason than that there are a lot of us that enjoy moving little army men around a table while talking smack. Even the kids.

SJ

I've found most other service members to be cool with my 40K dotking out. Heck some of the other guys have even gotten into the game because we've talked about it. I've gotten 4 day passes to go to Convention.