Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Life tends to change, and quite often we come across the fact that the hobbies we loved before don’t bring such satisfaction as they used to. Wargames are no exception. Today we will talk about reasons why people leave them, and about whether it is worth doing.

It's not a secret that most wargames match the age from 20 to 35 years. The reasons are quite obvious. Any hobby of this scale requires involvement, a lot of free time, and, of course, money. The appearance of family and children inevitably switch your priorities, and you start to allocate everything, we’ve named above to them. Even if you do not have a family, moving up the career ladder inevitably involves a lot of time and effort, of course, if you don’t work in a wargame-related field.

After you stop paying much attention to your favorite game, you risk at some point to find that you are hopelessly behind the scene. Editions of the rules change one another, the background is moving forward, new models and factions are emerging. Almost inevitably you will start playing worse than the players who are more devoted to the hobby. After all, you need not only be able to play for your faction, but it's also relatively good to know something about the rest to understand the in-game balance. So, you will find that a competitive game is no longer an option for you. By the way, this explains the popularity of historical wargames among the older generation. In addition to being more serious, these games do not evolve as quickly as, for example, Warhammer, or Infinity, and are quite suitable for playing them from time to time, in spare time, without a feeling that you’ve missed something.

So, there are several ways. Someone completely turns to funplay, periodically finding time for a game or two with a well-known opponent. Then you no longer need to closely monitor all releases - just your faction is enough. You do not need to buy many models, because you do not want to win - you are interested in the process itself, and you, most likely, love your army the way it is, otherwise, you would have left this hobby.

In addition to the funplay within the big wargames, you can simply switch to simpler ones, created for non-hardcore players. Maybe some kind of skirmish. A large number of models is not required, and a game lasts less time. Ideal for busy people who don’t want to abandon miniature games. Also, nothing prevents you from being interested in the news of the big wargame in which you played before - who knows, maybe suddenly you decide to return? Although, of course, there are those who leave wargames once and for all.

This happens quite often. People decide to leave the hobby for the reasons, we’ve mentioned above, because they categorically do not accept the new rules, or simply because they no longer find the spark that attracted them earlier in their wargame. You can find a lot of such people in the secondary market of miniatures - where they sell whole armies. By the way, is it worth to sell the whole army, if you decide to quit a wargame? If you painted these miniatures, spent your time and effort - in any case, don’t leave them. Put it in boxes, or on a shelf, and leave it until better times. You never know what lies ahead, and it is possible that you will decide to return to the game. Or show it to your children.

Find more in our blog: https://warzone40k.com/wargames-experience

I'm 50 this year, and I've had a couple of breaks from the hobby. I ducked out entirely from 1988 - 2000, when I was doing a lot more career-related stuff, and my main hobbies were hiking, climbing and backpacking. Kind of time consuming. The LotR films (and game) brought me back in.

Old friends move away, you work to make new ones. Sometimes you just get bored, or find new things to do.

What is the hobby though? Miniatures and War and Gaming, some combination of the three. I'm going through a bad patch with painting at the moment, but I'm still gaming lots. There will be time when both take a back seat, but reading SF and fantasy, or historical stuff, or game books needn't stop at all.

Heck I've not roleplayed since 1995, but still have new games on my shelf . A lot of that material ends up rolled into my miniatures gaming as campaigns, narrative or characters.

Boardgames are just amazing these days - tight focus, solid mechanics, great design (minis, rules and components) and there's a huge variety of them. In many ways they've learned from the more sprawling RPG and miniatures gaming hobbies.

it's all good, you can choose what aspect of the hobby you like, and no-one needs to pigeonhole themselves

I seldom actually miniature game anymore, mostly paint. Role Playing Games are far more common since all my friends enjoy those over miniatures.
Courting of a lady who doesn't care about minis and doing what she enjoys (going to the movies) takes money out of the miniature fund.

As a 26 y/o, and fairly young for the hobby, this post makes me sad.

Even at my age, I've started to think about the topic though...is all of my plastic crack to be delegated to the closet once the kids start coming?

ajax_xaja wrote:
As a 26 y/o, and fairly young for the hobby, this post makes me sad.

Even at my age, I've started to think about the topic though...is all of my plastic crack to be delegated to the closet once the kids start coming?

My father's never was. Some of my fondest early childhood memories are of playing with Mage Knights and Heroscape with my dad, playing Pokemon Cards while he played the Star Trek card game, painting miniatures for board games, and sitting in dad's lap while he played Baldurs Gate and Heroes of Might and Magic, chiming in to tell him what to do.

Took a break myself from 2005-2010 and eventually made a comeback. I have taken 3-4 month breaks for work related stuff on occasion, and I can (sadly) see myself taking more breaks in the future or indeed abandoning the hobby. At the very least I see a time where I'll have enough stuff painted/assembled that I'll stop buying/painting new and will simply keep the stuff i have to play with as necessary.

It happens. No big deal.

Obligatory "Teena is a bot" post. This thread is simply click bait for a blog, and while people can obviously discuss the topics raised, don't expect to engage with the OP on any of it.

Gotcha - thanks Az.

I stopped for a while, came back and largely left it again (2x kids). I spend more time in off topic than discussing gaming. I still pay some attention and have a garage full of gaming stuff, but until the kids are bigger my free time is limited.

I'm hoping the kids will get into it and we can turn the garage into a gaming cave, and we can go all in on 11th edition 40K.

ajax_xaja wrote:
As a 26 y/o, and fairly young for the hobby, this post makes me sad.

Even at my age, I've started to think about the topic though...is all of my plastic crack to be delegated to the closet once the kids start coming?

As someone the same age, it's also something I've been thinking about (especially looking at all the 40+ year olds I usually end up gaming with).

Best thing I can say is that our miniatures will never be obsolete, so even if they do get relegated to the closet, it'll at least be with the knoweldge that I could come back to them in a decade or more, blow the dust off, and get playing again.

However, apart from the gym, painting and playing with miniatures is my main method of de-stressing, having fun, and meeting people. So I consider it a lifestyle pursuit as much as a hobby.

I have never really stopped. Sure, there have been periods where I have to change up how I engage with my hobby, but it has always been my hobby.

There have been times in my life where Real Life took priority and I had no time. There have been other times when I have had no money. Worse, are the time swhen I have no money and no time! However, even then I have engaged in the hobby in various channels including writing rules, engaging online, getting a new game, painting, playing, etc.

It probably helps that my hobby is a pretty broadly defined with a lot of different ways to approach it.

I'm 50 this year.
I stopped miniatures gaming for a few years in the mid 90s (the worst excesses of 2nd ed period) and spent more time clubbing, chasing women and partying.

I didn't stop buying, assembling or painting models, though and still ran an rpg campaign once a month for those few years.
I've got mates who became dads - and they pretty much stopped gaming for 5-7 years (if they only had the one) and longer with more kids. Others stopped because their partner's objected to the hobby for whatever reasons (often some weird religious reason - but I think ANY religious reason is weird.).

I'll be gaming probably until I die. I have no children (can't have them), so that drain on my time will never happen.

I spent 2013-2016 in gamer heaven. I had money to spend, time to kill and friends to enjoy it all with. I had regular times during the week when I could paint, so even with a kid I was able to churn out a lot of finished miniatures. I also had space. For a while my friends were coming over 2-3 times a month and we would have two or three games going in my basement.

Then I moved to Texas.

And left all my friends behind, and had to give up my job, and then the wife (now the ex) lost her job and I had no money.

And then I became a teacher (which means I still have no money) and all my free time went out the window. I went from painting a unit every 2-3 weeks to painting 2 units in 9 months. I haven't played a game sense November.

So I guess I'm "taking a break" from the hobby. Making plans to get back into it in a big way this summer.

The great thing about this hobby is that the miniatures and rules will always be there. Just because they've sat in their foam for a few months doesn't mean the figs un-paint themselves. They will be ready to come out and play when I'm ready.

My father is in assisted living.

His first roommate brought copies of all his role-playing books with him. When I mentioned I played 40k, he lit up and told me all about the armies he had back in the day.

The next time I visited, there was a Word Bearers Land Raider waiting for me. He wanted me to have it, his sister was selling the rest of his stuff.

The next time I visited, he had passed away. His role-playing books - which were dated, and included stuff like Paranoia and Villians and Vigilantes - were sitting in a trash can.

 techsoldaten wrote:
My father is in assisted living.

His first roommate brought copies of all his role-playing books with him. When I mentioned I played 40k, he lit up and told me all about the armies he had back in the day.

The next time I visited, there was a Word Bearers Land Raider waiting for me. He wanted me to have it, his sister was selling the rest of his stuff.

The next time I visited, he had passed away. His role-playing books - which were dated, and included stuff like Paranoia and Villians and Vigilantes - were sitting in a trash can.

God damn, that punched me in the heart. Did you save any of the books from the trash can? Do you still have that WB Land Raider?



Like others I've gone through periods of inactivity. I prefer casual gaming in a group setting versus random pick-up games, so a lot of my breaks have resulted form gaming groups dissolving due to life issues (kids, marriage, moving out of town, the usual). It sucks at the time, but I try to stay interested by either collecting and or painting models even when I don't have a group to play with.

I tried moving away from gaming and found that gaming keeps me from resembling a crazy person.

I just turned 48 back in May. Since 1980 up until 4E, D&D was my life. I even got an adventure published professionally in Dungeon just before they were bought by WotC.

Wargaming had always been, at best, a secondary hobby for me - Battletech and 40K were my gateway into that world. Even then, my main interest was in the models (I’d been putting together models even before my D&D days). A few bad games in 2E saw me drop out of wargaming, partly because of limited funds and partly the realization I was a bad general. I still collected the models afterward, but ceased playing wargames and went back to RPGs.

At the tail end of 40K 5E, my eldest son discovered Dawn of War and I found myself enticed by the release of the Newcron models. I took the chance to jump back in and started playing with my son. I also began branching out into other wargames - X-wing, Rune war, and various WW2 games.

Once again, I had a streak of bad GW games (but strangely, not other systems) when not playing my son, but I’ve been able to handle it better. Still, I find myself drifting away from actually playing and just collecting to build and display.

I decided at a very young age to not have children, for several reasons.

One of the the big reasons was that I enjoyed painting miniatures and having kids would take away too many of things I like most about doing that- spending silly money on plastic, staying up till silly o' clock in the morning in painting sessions and being able to leave my tools laying about with out having to tidy up all the time!

I already had two massive streaks of not being in the hobby. In the late 90s when I had other distractions and again a while back, maybe about 10 years ago, when I started to hate a lot of things to do with the hobby (though not the painting/modelling itself) I thought that I would give it up for good that time (the break in the 90s I kept everything, knowing one day I'd go back to it) but I was able to return a couple of years later.

I've not really played since the mid 90's and though I keep promising to get back to it, I never do. But I love painting and buying more stuff I dont need and will continue to do so for as long as I keep enjoying it.

I've always like the idea of RPGs but don't get on with people well enough to have ever tried them, so I stuck to wargaming, which I could partake in solo. So I stopped buying books for them a long, long time ago as it became pointless. I've kept what I have though for a sort of geeky decorative appeal on the bookshelves.

I took a break from the game for several reasons.

Once was for financial reasons. At the time, I had a lot more in terms of obligations. I'll never fault someone for putting the hobby aside for 'grown responsibilities'. In fact, I've seen people burn too much money on the toys and not be able to get groceries, pay bills, or even put gas in their car to drive to work. At that point, you might as well be no different than some kind of addict. You need help, probably not quite counseling, but another adult needs to kick you across the ass and give you a wake-up call (metaphorically speaking, though sometimes that might be literal).

Another reason I quit for a while is because I honestly got tired of dealing with hyper-competitive people that just weren't fun. I didn't know many people in the area, I was very rusty with my rules (it'd been about 7 years), and everyone there was playing extremely competitively. In fact, it was so toxic that in the odd circumstance I managed to beat one of the guys (or more like he was rolling bad)- he literally just started removing his models and left. I can't play unless it's enjoyable, so I put them away.

After those times I would always focus on RPG's. You can find people who are open to them, and all you need is some books, dice, and paper- maybe some graph paper or a map and some minis or tokens. It's easier to take on a deployment, too.

However, I will say my recent return to 40k has been... a lot better. I've noticed the competitive crowd is a bit more isolated and small, and even then most of them are willing to play fun games. I also got several friends into the game, and they're dedicated.

Fun fact, though. The last girl I dated thought the game was 'stupid' and 'childish'. Needless to say, it didn't last. The current ladyfriend actually is supportive. She's got her own hobbies as well, and wants her peace and quiet. So while she stays home and does her pottery- I go and do my wargaming. Then we come home and watch terrible movies.

Life after wargames? Does not exist.

Cheers,

CB

Captain Brown wrote:
Life after wargames? Does not exist.

Cheers,

CB

Agreed. I'm 35 this year. I'll be gaming until I die. There is absolutely no question about it. It has been and remains my favorite thing on Earth (besides beer).

Major goal in my life is to one day have a big dedicated gaming space and I will not allow myself to die until I do so.

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

 techsoldaten wrote:
My father is in assisted living.

His first roommate brought copies of all his role-playing books with him. When I mentioned I played 40k, he lit up and told me all about the armies he had back in the day.

The next time I visited, there was a Word Bearers Land Raider waiting for me. He wanted me to have it, his sister was selling the rest of his stuff.

The next time I visited, he had passed away. His role-playing books - which were dated, and included stuff like Paranoia and Villians and Vigilantes - were sitting in a trash can.

God damn, that punched me in the heart. Did you save any of the books from the trash can? Do you still have that WB Land Raider?

No and no.

You don't really have the presence of mind to grab stuff in those situations. This guy I just met died and his footprint was being deleted from where I knew him. Leaving my father there was awful and I just wanted to get out.

The WB Land Raider fell apart about a month later. I had it on a shelf, one day the glue in joints around the hull gave way and the entire thing fell apart when I picked it up. I just let the pile sit there for a few weeks, then my wife did something with it.

 techsoldaten wrote:

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

 techsoldaten wrote:
My father is in assisted living.

His first roommate brought copies of all his role-playing books with him. When I mentioned I played 40k, he lit up and told me all about the armies he had back in the day.

The next time I visited, there was a Word Bearers Land Raider waiting for me. He wanted me to have it, his sister was selling the rest of his stuff.

The next time I visited, he had passed away. His role-playing books - which were dated, and included stuff like Paranoia and Villians and Vigilantes - were sitting in a trash can.

God damn, that punched me in the heart. Did you save any of the books from the trash can? Do you still have that WB Land Raider?

No and no.

You don't really have the presence of mind to grab stuff in those situations. This guy I just met died and his footprint was being deleted from where I knew him. Leaving my father there was awful and I just wanted to get out.

The WB Land Raider fell apart about a month later. I had it on a shelf, one day the glue in joints around the hull gave way and the entire thing fell apart when I picked it up. I just let the pile sit there for a few weeks, then my wife did something with it.

No, that is totally understandable. Shame that the Land Raider lost its glue bonds, but it is clear that you gave that man some happiness over your shared connection with 40k, and that isn't worthless.

I'm on the far side of gaming, and I feel lucky to have played the best editions of 40k and WFB in the early 00s, and I especially lucky to have achieved some competitive success in doing so.

I focus on fun play, and it's great.

I play significantly less, but not necessarily simpler or non-hardcore. Definitely fewer, smaller games. I no longer follow 40k or WFB/AoS. I do a lot more boardgaming, but I've lately been sucked into Kingdom Death, which is kind of the opposite of non-hardcore in terms of effort and intensity, at least as far as boardgaming goes; however, the game is digestible and the campaign can be played over time, so it's a good fit for me.

I've sold off almost everything that I haven't built, and that has been a great stress relief. At some point, I should get rid of more stuff, pare down my armies to their cores. But I'll keep the armies that I'm invested into, just as I kept my Magic cards.

It's a good feeling where I'm at right now.

OP, I wholeheartedly agree, don't give up your models, shelve them and maybe try the hobby again later down the line...

I have been playing and collecting since I was a small child. I have seen GW come a very long way from that time period. And I love and support the company, as long as they continue on the route they are on...

With that being said, I love the hobby. I have a very stressful job and the hobby allows me time to relax and hangout. Even if I only get a game in once a month I still enjoy the hobby and enjoy just sitting and relaxing making the models or painting. I must admit sometimes learning a new set of rules for new editions is somewhat annoying but thats GW evolving and attempting to make the game better.

I honestly believe there is no set age for this and you can the hobby attracts all ages and genders. That what is so great about the community now. Nobody cares how old you are or whatever. Everyone just wants to have fun and hangout, and sometimes crush the enemies of mankind!

So will I give the game up, most likely not. It helps me relax and decompress. I love the hobby. I love the people (weird and all), and I love the atmosphere GW is now providing. So there is no life after war-gaming.... only in death does duty end!

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

Fun fact, though. The last girl I dated thought the game was 'stupid' and 'childish'. Needless to say, it didn't last. The current ladyfriend actually is supportive. She's got her own hobbies as well, and wants her peace and quiet. So while she stays home and does her pottery- I go and do my wargaming. Then we come home and watch terrible movies.

Have you watched the UM movie together?