Toy Soldiers and the Significant Other

[Lagartija Mike]

Does she stare at you with a mix of disgust and obligatory compassion, as if you were an incomprehensible but richly deserving hobo? Does she listen patiently and dutifully adjust your drool cup as you pontificate on the important diferences between a thorakitai and a thureophoros? Has she been in touch with the local government mental hygiene services?

[Mike]

no.

[Guy Farrish]

Er…in order:

no,

yes- she listens,

no drool cup  never drool over anything to do with wargaming,

and she IS a mental health professional so they (the authorities and my wife) are aware of my condition.

 

[kyoteblue]

My lady thinks my little army men are amusing….

[Thaddeus Blanchette]

Yes. Then again, she’s a partially reformed football hooligan, so she really can’t talk much about odd hobbies.

We get slapped around, but we have a good time!

[Steve Williams]

No problems for me

I buy what I want within budget and she buys what she wants for her hobbies again if its within budget

 

[irishserb]

Completely supportive.  Encourages me to spend money, work on figs and whatnot.  Buys figs for me as gifts for birthday and Christmas.  Looks for tools, supplies, etc, that might have a gaming application, when out shopping and doing stuff.

[Not Connard Sage]

Mrs NCS is generally neutral, and hardly ever comments on it

Anyway, my wargaming stuff takes up much less room than my guitars and amps 🙂

Obvious contrarian and passive aggressive old prat, who is taken far too seriously by some and not seriously enough by others.

[Mike Harrop]

My mrs is fine with it as long as we don’t cut into each other’s budgets for hobbies and Doctor Who audios, and the local mental health teams encourage my gaming as it keeps me calm (seriously, I have borderline personality disorder and I need to keep distracted)

Mike

"This lighthouse is under attack, and by morning we may all be dead!" The 4th Doctor - Horror of Fang Rock

[Etranger]

No problems here, except for the odd whinge on a games night. They’re infrequent nowadays anyway.

[Russell Phillips]

My wife is fine with my wargaming. We both play board games and RPGs, so understands the gaming aspect, just not the military bit.

Military history author
Website : Mastodon : Facebook

[Otto Schmidt]

Dear Mike

 

Sorry, not here.  At “Fall-In!” which was this past weekend ,  my wife was helping me set up the game and take it down. She fielded some questions from gamers. She doesn’t play, but has edited my rules so many times she knows them by heart and can explain them. She’s wondrously supportive of the hobby and helps with a lot of the organizational and grunge work on my “The Weekend” convention we hold in Lancaster in June. In fact,  she and several other war game wives (some of whom are gamers) go on junkets when we are out there to shopping outlets, and restaurants and have sort of a “Ladies Auxiliary” for the group. Whenever other non-wargame wives ask about the hobby and how she puts up with it, she says “Puleeze! It’s great! It keeps him off the streets and out of the bars.” When her friends at work once were shocked that she let me to go conventions alone, (they were worried about hookers at the conventions) she told them that she’d been to the conventions…. “I’ve never seen so many fat, bald, sweaty, white men in one place in my life– and if any prostitute came up and propositioned them they’d say “$100!  I can get three whole regiments for that!”

My wife is very supportive of the hobby. One day when I was about to leave with a bunch of friends she asked me if I was packed and hadn’t forgotten anything.  She then asked..

 

Dorothy: “Did you take money?”

Otto: “Yeah I’ve got about $1000

Dorothy: (in a slightly worried tone) “Are you sure that’s enough? Do you want more?

 

[Sane Max]

she recognises it’s cheaper than many of the things her friends husbands do. She once* asked me to teach her a game and play it. It was horrid, she leaned over the table and kissed me when I won.

*oh, she likes ‘Space Hulk’ – the late 90’s version that is just a board-game, not the stupid ‘keep adding special rules ’til it falls over’ original.

 

 

[Not Connard Sage]

I’d be rather more bothered if my wife wanted to join in TBH. I’ve nothing against women wargaming, but it’d just feel…odd.

I suspect she’d feel the same if I evinced an interest in some of her hobbies: “You want to learn the basics of embroidery Not Connard? Well..if you’re sure…I just have to make a few quick phone calls first”

 

Obvious contrarian and passive aggressive old prat, who is taken far too seriously by some and not seriously enough by others.

[Lagartija Mike]

My one experience with a convention, a big but shabbily venued one in New Jersey in the terminal 80s, doesn’t encourage me to bring her along. I remember a big, moldering hall filled with vendors who seemed to suffer from a particularly hostile form of Aspbergers.

[Lagartija Mike]

I might be being a little facetious, Tim.

[Sane Max]

you? Facetious? pass the smelling salts vicar.

 

Now, my children – well, when she was about 8 I took my eldest daughter to a show where I was helping run a game, more babysitting than by choice. She was pleasant, helpful, chatted, rolled dice, sat quietly when required to etc, I was quite pleased. Then at the end of the show I had to carry stuff to the van, and I turned to her and said

‘I will be back in 5 minutes, don’t talk to any strange men.’

‘They are ALL strange men’

 

 

[Angel Barracks]

Sane Max wrote:

‘They are ALL strange men’

True enough.

[MartinR]

She generally finds it highly amusing, but preferable to some of the other male pursuits I could be indulging in. She does sigh in despair at the amount stuff I have piled up in the ‘study’. Then I point at her two extra wardrobes full of shoes and bags….

Cheers

Martin

 

 

"Mistakes in the initial deployment cannot be rectified" - Helmuth von Moltke

[Otto Schmidt]

Dear Angel Barracks.

A friend of mine used to hold war game weekends . He had remarried and a daughter by his new wife, who grew up in a heavily war gaming house and so was an avid and almost constant gamer.  At sixteen and just coming into her time of “looking really hot” (she continues so to this day after two kids) I went over her fathers house to a game weekend and saw the then 16 Megan  playing a game among a crowd of her fathers friends. There was next to her a rather bewildered young man who had an anxious and perplexed look on his face. It seemed all he did was roll dice on Megan’s command. Later, when I asked her who the guy was, she said ” Oh he’s just  a friend from school. You know how you guys always say there’s only a fixed number of good rolls in a persons life, and you use them all up when you’re young, and how you all asked me to roll the die for you for years because I was a kid, so  I decided to conserve mine by asking Pete last week “How would he like to get lucky this weekend?” He was eager to do so. ”  She said with a sly and vicious smile.

‘That’s a rather cruel thing to do to your boyfriend!?” I said, a little shocked that what normally was such a sweet and pretty girl would so crassly treat Pete that way.

“Oh he’s NOT my boyfriend!” She said, but he doesn’t play games so why should his ration of good rolls go to waste?”

Over the next four years I became accustomed to seeing Megan dragging along some poor sap in the same way.

It’s not just men who are strange.

The last one she did this too was not a gamer, but he was after that and two years later they were married.

I never imagined war games could be a mating ritual, but there it is.

 

Otto

 

 

[Sane Max]

Otto Schmidt wrote:

I never imagined war games could be a mating ritual, but there it is. Otto

 

oh, don’t hide your light under a bushell Otto, I bet you have pulled the occasional sexy opponent in your time, don’t be coy. The clatter of dice,  the relief when you manage to finally get your little soldiers into contact with theirs, the heavy breathing as the moment of crisis approaches, and bursts over the battlefield in a flood of emotional release……  it’s a natural arena for some hot mating action.

Which reminds me, are we still on for a game this weekend not-Connard? It’s your turn to provide the refereshments. and the Cigarettes. Oh, and a Mop.

 

 

[Sane Max]

in fact, now you mention it Otto, didn’t you tell all on another website once about some pretty frenetic action  you had at a Wargames event with a long-haired lovely,  involving a chair? You Dirty Dog! Hidden Depths, Hidden Depths.

[Mike]

steady.

[Sane Max]

<contrite look icon>

[Earther]

Nice ignore feature Mike!   As a father of a 16 old girl, I no longer have to see anyone’s dubious ‘observations’ of their friends’ 16 year old daughters.

[paintpig]

I wish my friends had 16yo daughters

My good wife thinks it is a hobby and people have hobbies and that is about it, she is keen on playing SAGA and I do paint her the odd sexy chick and/or ripped barbarian figures in little vignettes (ooooer missus). She does have to pull me up (I said up), when the spending gets out of hand but that is very likely a good thing.

I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel
Slowly Over A Low Flame

[paintpig]

Sane Max wrote:

<contrite look icon>

I should think so!

I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel
Slowly Over A Low Flame

[Sane Max]

paintpig wrote:

I wish my friends had 16yo daughters

I do……. am………….am I not your friend?

 

 

[Not Connard Sage]

Sane Max wrote:

Which reminds me, are we still on for a game this weekend not-Connard? It’s your turn to provide the refereshments. and the Cigarettes. Oh, and a Mop.

 

Deal.

 

Don’t wipe it on the curtains this time.

Obvious contrarian and passive aggressive old prat, who is taken far too seriously by some and not seriously enough by others.

[Sane Max]

 

 

 

 

 

[Lagartija Mike]

One day, hopefully not as the result of a public inquest, I hope to discover the metaphysical meaning behind “12 pages”.

[Not Connard Sage]

Sane Max wrote:

 

That’s a hot mop. How old is she?

Obvious contrarian and passive aggressive old prat, who is taken far too seriously by some and not seriously enough by others.

[paintpig]

Why does that mop look so surly, sort of like the Predator on a bad hair day.

I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel
Slowly Over A Low Flame

[Earther]

paintpig wrote:

Why does that mop look so surly, sort of like the Predator on a bad hair day.

 

[Otto Schmidt]

Dear Sane Max

 

Nope, wasn’t me.  As for the chair thing I don’t know what you are talking about.

 

Otto

[Lagartija Mike]

I dunno. I seem to recall lusty tales of furniture-based coitus being retailed on some other site whose name eludes me for the moment. The Martinet’s Proboscis? No, that’s not it.

[Mike]

This is not TWW suitable material.

[Altius]

Back on topic, Wargaming is clearly not her kinda thing, but she has no problem with wargaming as a hobby. She does like some of the stuff I paint and sometimes shows it off to visitors or posts photos in FB.

There is one issue she has, though. I have an office at home with two desks. One is for “real” work and one is just for painting. That one often looks like a bomb went off, with piles of figures, paints, basing materials, etc scattered all over it. She really hates the mess.

Where there is fire, we will carry gasoline

[Lagartija Mike]

I sympathize. Along with miniatures I also do custom bookbinding and what can best be described as atmospheric furniture: the mess is explosive and is always threatening to expand its lebensraum into every inch of the house.

[Mike]

Locked because people can’t be nice.
Talk of hot 16 year old girls is a bit creepy unless you are a similar age, and making innuendo about others and chairs is not on.
Go back to talking about gaming.

[Author]

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