The Venn diagram* of the hobby is a bit of a weird one. One circle has wargamers, another roleplaying gamers, another has those who like extremely advanced spreadsheets masquerading as an economic simulation of a 16thCentury historical craze for shipping parsnips by canal to Bremen. And then of course there’s family games, or abstracts, or miniatures games that are sort of between two stalls. All of these overlap. There’s space for everything in the hobby, of course. But for many, they have their circle, their little patch of the gaming world that they like to delve deep into, and when they take a look at other far-flung corners of the gaming map – they just don’t quite get it.
None of this applies as much as those who paint miniatures. While a lot of us have the ‘I used to play Warhammer but…’ as the opening line of their origin story it’s something very much consigned to history. Those of spend their evenings and weekend in a workspace with lamps, little pots of water, and a load of paint pots, bottles and brushes. You might see them in their non-painting time watching famous painters on YouTube create the perfect blend. You’ll hear them say things like ‘Slap Chop’** – with scorn or cheerfulness, depending on how old they are. You might even catch them sucking the end of their brush, literally.