Now, I would be totally remiss if I didn’t discuss the male/female ratio at Adepticon.

I was actually pleasantly surprised.

While there was nowhere near a fifty-fifty split, I was definitely not alone in a sea of men.  There were two other women in the painting class of about fifteen people, and although we all had boyfriends at Adepticon and were more less than five years of painting/playing, it was nice to see that no one made fun of them for either of those things.  Although, the instructor did say, “Women often become better painters in the couple”, which I felt was a rather odd complement, but at least it was a complement, and trying to be inclusive.

I also met another woman who played Legion of Everblight!  She came up to me and asked if I played, and I pointed to my army currently being played by my friend, who was just learning the game.  I felt a little embarrassed it wasn’t complete, but she said she played Legion and Cryx and wasn’t it nice that there were so many woman casters in Legion?  Yes, a thousand times yes!  We talked about our armies (I always feel a little embarrassed that I play Rhyas, because it is the general gamer opinion she sucks, but I think of it as a challenge) and introduced herself.

It made me so want to come back to Adepticon next year.

I think the thing is that I was afraid of how people would behave at these things.  I am easily overwhelmed by lots of people and if those people behave inappropriately, it can easily ruin my time.  But as far as I saw at Adepticon, people were polite and friendly, and I didn’t feel out of place at all.

That felt nice.

I walk into the hotel hosting Adepticon, and the first thing I see coming through the doors are several small tables, each with a Press Ganger.

In front of the Warhammer game room.

Granted, it was also the full of plastic crack of all forms (i.e. venders), but Privateer Press was plastered on swag bags, which had Hordes battle boxes.  New Colassals (and a Gargantuan) were on display in the WarmaHordes game room

Granted, Games Workshop was not a sponsor of Adepticon, but why not?  Privateer Press was everywhere that weekend.

And that’s when I realized: Warhammer just doesn’t need me.  They don’t care about me.  They don’t care to sponsor events, they don’t care to update their codices in a timely manner, they don’t care to send people to events to get players excited about the game.

They don’t give a fucking damn about me.

But Privateer Press, they want me to play their game.  They are excited about their game, they errata quickly, balance their factions, and try to push to new and exciting models.  They actually care about getting people into their game, which makes sense because they need to grow.

Warhammer doesn’t need to grow, so why should it care about it’s players?

This is the attitude that I felt from Warhammer at Adepticon and generally playing with my friends.  It’s the same feeling of a hipster at a vinyl record store rolling their eyes at you because you don’t know “music”.  It’s already an established scene and you’re either in the know or out of it, and they don’t really care to get more people in the know.

Personally, I never felt Warhammer was an accessible game.  The first time I played 40K, my friends felt unable to explain all of the game to me because that would slow the game down to an intolerable pace, so I’m throwing dice and they’re telling me what numbers to look for.

Comparing that to my experience with WarmaHordes, where my first game was small, manageable, and while I still don’t have all the subtleties down, I understood the game from day one.

So, Adepticon really didn’t change my opinion of Warhammer, but it felt like I understood why I like WarmaHordes better.  The rules are well designed so a player has options in the moment, the factions are balanced, the casters add variety, and the community is welcoming.  And they care, so freaking much more about their players.

I realize I have been lax about posting, but my perfectly good excuse is that I was trying to finish all my models for Adepticon (which didn’t happen) and, well, the life of a grad student is never dull.

But that’s changing this week.

I’m going to try to post about all the amazing things that happened at Adepticon, including:

• what I learned from a painting class with Mathieu Fontaine
• more of my thoughts regarding WarmaHordes vs. Warhammer
• why I might be too obsessed with Hamster Berserkers

Hopefully, it’ll be a sweet week of tabletop gaming goodness.

(via iffymoo)

My boyfriend’s Aiyana and Holt - I especially like how Holt turned out.  He looks like a BAMF.  Anyway, you guys get to see them because they were on the same upload and the Legionnaires.  Enjoy!

Legionnaires complete.  Tried to do less to make them go faster.  General dry(ish)brushing with tin bitz over dwarf bronze (sometimes too much) and scab red on the sunburst yellow.  Bright colors for the tar pit!

Anyway, I now have a lot more models for the tabletop.  And I discovered a painted Ulk that I started a while back for Annyssa before concluding that her bow hand was never going to be reattached to her bow arm.  I should go order that…

I totally understand.

thesaddestbitchinallofspectrum:

Just me ranting about something personal. You know when you just have to type these thoughts out and get them out of your system?

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Playing the Dresden Files today, my players finally rescued an NPC that had been captured and held in a basement, who was appearing drugged and it was confirmed had been given sleeping pills.

One of my players then says, “But maybe he normally takes sleeping pills to sleep. Do we know if he has taken sleeping pills before?”

To which I bust out laughing.

My boyfriend says “You know something in our thinking is wrong when the GM is laughing uncontrollably.”

Dear players.  I am not that conniving.

But definitely nerd (girl) related.

So, my lab has named instruments after Star Wars characters, like every other lab in the world, but one of my lab mates wanted to know why they weren’t Disney princess characters.  Someone said both names are stupid, and then somehow the comment “Star Wars is a boy thing.” came out of a post-doc’s mouth, and I said, “That’s not true!” to which he said, “It’s mostly a boy thing.”

Goddammit.

Then, today, my hair stylist and I got on the subject of the Hobbit, and I said when I was in 4th grade, I went as one of the dwarves for Halloween after my dad had read it to me, to which she replied, “Didn’t he know you were a girl?”

Fuck this noise.

I would like to be playing Rex, or finishing my Legionnaires, or playing Dragon Age, but instead I am grading tests.

Yay…

Such is the life of a grad student.  Be nice to your TAs, kids.