"“Your greatest gaming joy?”" Topic

As a companion to Bill's "Your Biggest Gaming Regret?" Topic.

What is your greatest gaming joy?

Looking back over the years, aside from some great folks I've had the chance to game with, I would say my Ral Partha based colonial collection. Between planning, painting and gaming with them they have always been there for me thru both good times as well as some dark.

Definitely most of the other gamers. There are always a few bad apples in any group of humans, but collectively, gamers are pretty good people.

"The greatest joy for a man is to defeat his enemies, to drive them before him, to take from them all they possess, to see those they love in tears, to ride their horses, and to hold their wives and daughters in his arms." attributed, perhaps improperly, to Ghengis Kahn.

Actually, I like the problem solving and the camaraderie.

Any game where both players (or more if multiplayer) feel like it is a good challenge throughout the game.

Laughing with each other, when something super unlikely happens.

When the game looks good on the table and the result is credible whoever wins.

The people.

Gamin' with my homies

Nice if you win, still great if you don't

Great as well when the guys say "nice looking unit"

I get a micro joy every time I completely finish a figure/unit and add it to their already completed brethren.

Starting anything is no fun but finishing is where it's at for me.

Looking across the table at a 9 year old girl who just rolled a 19,18,20,19 and sank 1 of my ships and capture another thinking one day I have my revenge know of corse I never will, gaming with the group and meeting new friends and getting those great flea market deals.

Friends, other gamers and the spectacle of a well groomed table with lots of nicely painted troops. Running a good game and showing off my "toys"

Organising a Big Game session with your scenery and loads of figures being used, with 15 people all having fun, and before/during /after being cajoled into putting on another one.

Though it is knackering.

To crush my enemies, to see dem driven before me, and to hear da lamentation of da vimmen.

For shure, da lamentation of da vimmin iz da best part.

Cutting down the last Teutonic Knight in the very act of hacking at my Pagan Statue, somewhere in fantasy Lithuania, during a game of home-rules Battlelore.

I get great joy out of watching people have a great time with a set of rules I wrote.

When my defeated seven year old son says to me "Daddy I'm absolutely gutted. I didn't see that coming at all did you? I tell ya though Dad, losing sometimes can be a LOT of fun".

When my daughter asks to play with my toy soldiers and terrain.

One of my fondest gaming memories is playing with unpainted Airfix plastics (complete with a copy of The Wargame, a cannister cone and a bounce stick) on the kitchen table.

Playing hundreds, maybe a thousand or so, of games (table top and board games) with both of my boys (29 & 21), since they were old enough to roll them bones!

P.

Knocking out a Jagdtiger with a Stuart.(Tractics)

Shooting down a ME262 with a P39 Airacobra.(LuftKrieg)

Breaking thru a 3-hex gap on the Russian border with two Panzer armies in GDW's Fire In The East/Scorched Earth.

Hitting a D-7 with four overloaded Photon Torpedos.(FedComm)

Killing a Deathclaw with one shot in Fallout/Vegas.

Most of all-playing any multi-player game with 5 of my friends after 35 years plus in this hobby.

Gaming with friends or puttering around by myself in the game room, thinking about new scenarios or projects.

Well, of course, gaming with friends.

But gaming joys, as in what about THE GAME gives me the most joy. I'd have to say "crunch, crunch, crunch", the imagined sound of a medieval heavy cavalry charge just going through and over and out the other side of an enemy formation. It's a rare enough event, since heavy cavalry don't perform up to our imagined expectations, or at least mine don't!…

Getting down to eye level on a table loaded with models that I painted myself across terrain that I made re-fighting a battle that I have researched…

Deciding to try the wargames club in a new city (probably the best part of a decade ago now) and discovering another recent arrival there was an old friend and regular opponent from my first wargames club, 70 miles away and a good few years previously.

These odd occasions when players make the same decisions as their historical counterparts without a lot of daft special rules and victory conditions to force them to do it.

But more generally, the comradeship, the glory, the shelves neatly lined with books and storage boxes and the precious things within.

Saber 6, Weasel and Ragbones said it all.
but also doing the research, studying and reading
about your eras of choice.

Orcs!

Gaming with friends and my son, whether I win or lose, is number 1.
Number 2 is sharing D&D with a group of teens and watching them form friendships and their own gaming group in the process.
Number 3 is getting to know many of the people here.
And, let's face it, number 4 is getting to play with cool toys all my life.

The figures, and the people who love those figures. Especially the ones who tread that fine line between taking it seriously and yet never taking it too seriously.

When I see people playing my rules and they spend 90% of the time talking about the scenario and 10% of the time talking about the rules.

There have been a lot. Playing in the semi-finals of the 1980 WRG ancients tournament was a big thrill. I had an E A Persian army and got hacked to pieces by a Russian Varangian army. It was still fun.

Many quite enjoyable wins and losses which is why I love gaming.

Russians. Especially crimean war and Napoleonic, played a Peking legation game once, I got the "you guessed it" the Russian contingent. 30 marines 3 officers and a maxim. Ohhhhhhh what fun.

Playing with my son's. Sadly now that they are getting old enough to play me straight. They just don't want to. I am not cool anymore….unless I am buying…then I am cool for awhile.

To hear the table groaning under the weight of well-painted lead…

To see your enemy's morale tests fail before you…

And hear the lamentations of the fanbois…

That is best.

Getting down to eye level on a table loaded with models that I painted myself across terrain that I made re-fighting a battle that I have researched…

I know exactly what you mean,Green Tiger!!
The joy of getting enough figures and terrain finished and getting it on the table for the first game and then going down to eye level to appreciate it.