Thursday, March 7, 2013

Femgaming

Since I have 3 of them (wife and 2 daughters) I am quite interested in women gamers and how they fare. This hobby is populated by a lot of men, mostly Geeks and Nerds, well all of them are Geeks and Nerds you might say...and some fringe elements.We're not quite sure if they're human or not. Let's just leave it as sometimes you want to shower after playing some people. Then on the other side you have the wargaming widows, those who put up with chopped off flash and tailings from pinning, paint stains from spilling paint on the carpet, nights and weekends where they are bereft of their partners.  Occasionally it will be that one of them takes up the mantle or even one of them who has no partner involved in wargaming at all (like there are no women on the internet, lulz). In the US over the weekend one of those won the Bay area Open.

http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2013/03/wargaming-askew-seneca-falls-and-selma.html

At the end of the day it's not the fact that the 7 other guys who were beaten by a girl (well just a little) but it's awesome kudos for someone to participate in something that is wholly dominated by the other sex and do well. I will be showing this to my daughters.

Probably one of the reasons not many women get into the hobby, this is how a lot of men view them.

Women need just as much armour as men.

My wife had a great time socialising and talking to all the participants at NZTC, she even wants to go to Natcon and said sign me up. So I did. A couple of hours later she said she didn't want to go, but I had already paid. So "fuck it" she said and was fully committed. We're going over to the Hutt and babysit the Mother in Law's house and play warhammer for 3 days.

She's always been into gaming, mostly cards (illuminati) and VtM and I got her going with warhammer because she loved painting and wanted to be interested in my hobby. I gave her my Vampire counts army that was languishing and now she has VC over 10,000 points, 450 strong night goblins and the beginnings of a Skaven army. Did I mention she paints like an assembly line. To tabletop quality she can paint probably twice as fast as me. But then again she has 3 horde armies with very large model count usually. She's even beat me a couple of times. Not against my Daemons though, but they're a top tier army anyway.

I hope I don't end up facing her at NATCON, I usually play her once a week at least but mainly for the reason I will end up sleeping on the couch if i beat her. But I hope you other guys get trounced by her. She'll be taking Night Goblins.

to Mike King: No grudge matches please, she's the only person who will get good sports for throwing dice at me.

See what I have to put up with.

7 comments:

  1. Recently my wife has picked up the FoW mantle...
    http://kapitifowgamers.blogspot.co.nz/2013/02/the-fairer-sex.html
    and has remained surprisingly interested, though I don't think she'll be painting anytime soon.
    I also rather hope there is a female faction released for Empire of the Dead, then we can enjoy a little fun skirmish gaming too...
    Best of luck to your missus in the Tournament!

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  2. Painting is where you get them hooked. I can tell you at this very moment, my wife is painting Skaven and has some Mangler Squig conversions on the table.

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  3. I did read your article on your missus playing. The more the better I say.

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    1. She'll be watching my game with Paul tonight, hoping to learn more that way too...

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  4. Please explain, dear sirs, exactly what do you put in their drinks to sway them? Blessed are the females who game... My son and I recently attempted to sway my wife. The answer was that she really liked the models, but was no good at painting, and would have liked the games if there just wasn't as much violence and killing in them. We had no answer to that, and skulked off to go and paint and base our models...

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    1. Not sure how to sway them first, other than a setting that appeals, and bit of a 'cant beat them, so join them' attitude... but I found once she started moving her troops around and rolling the dice and seeing the consequences, that was what grabbed her, she was instantly focused!
      Sadly I cant really see her sitting down to paint too as she wouldn't have the time what with work, domestic duties and the kids etc...

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  5. No one is good at painting when they start. I was shite when I started painting 18 years ago. My wife loves to talk about her miniatures and stuff when my friends bring their missus's along. Another thing you could do is get a Board game where you can paint the miniatures like heroquest, Talisman or Super Dungeon Explore. Or even D&D. She may balk at the amound of miniatures you've painted. You don't need to paint much to start off with. 1 or 2 for a D&D campaign, 8-10 for Mordheim for starters, 12-20 maximum depending on Warband. Introductory stuff.

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