"Club members and how to recognize them" Topic

- The missionary : Convert or die trying. They are not only prolific players, they want to spread the fire in every direction. Any occasion they can find where there is a potential public will be used for a mandatory game, barbecue, wedding, baptism, maneuvers in the field, reenactment, hiking holiday, somehow, somewhere there will be a game …

- The visionary : Isn't this the greatest hobby ever ? Baffled that gaming hasn't reached music festival levels of popularity, they will aim even higher or die trying.

- The Dark Age veteran : I had to carve my third Thai civil war figures from ear wax and had to grind my own paints, truffle oil was the only available binder back then ! And had to use the crepe paper from hatboxes to make buildings. Elephants ??? I converted them from porcelain cows ! Our rules were printed on a Washington Imperial #7 printing press, none of your fancy mimeographing back in our day, sonny !!!

- The Sarge : Who put their figures on a chair ? We use a designated area on the table ! Don't use a cloth tape measurer, they are highly inaccurate because they stretch, use a metal one like everybody else ! Guys, use the dice trays ! No food on the tables ! "I don't give a damn, you were given orders to charge the redoubt and I don't care that it's 10 am Saturday morning on a weekend game, you're gonna drive your brigade into that redoubt or you can start packing right now !" – "I apologize for slapping my fellow member for not finishing their figures, I didn't know he had broken his arm and … YOU DID THAT ON PURPOSE !!!" *slaps him some more*

- Dugout Joe : "I'm guarding the flank just in case." – "Yes, I have more and better troops, yes they are nearly beaten, but what if there is a sudden reversal, you'll need a fresh reserve." – "What's the extreme firing range for the enemy ? I'll move back another 12 inch just in case " – "My troops march onto the table and start digging in."

- Captain Stark : "Look, can I borrow a few more tanks from you guys I'm sure those King Tigers are on the verge of breaking." – "What is the charge range ?" – "When in doubt, chaaarge !"

- Mellow Bob : Whoops, there goes another one ! Even with 20/20 hindsight there is still something wrong with our battleships today. You think I should have continued to flank you ? That seemed a bit unfair though … That the fastest I ever saw my army collapse, hope you had a great time ?

- The evil genius : If I move my commander, I get an extra +2 and his unit gets an extra shot per base which I can add to the 68 hits I already did. What do you mean your unit is gone ? I still haven't used my heavy artillery ! Onto the next unit then. Don't tell me you army broke already ?

- The explorer : I've been working on a third century BC Tibeto-Nepalese crossbowmen on camels. WWII ? Yes, I have some Columbian national guard troops, the Icelandic air corps and pro-Italian Montenegro engineers. I tend to concentrate mainly on the late Shona period of Great Zimbabwe, although I have all the figures to do the Gokomere or the Lemba.

- The Hoarder : Are those Romans for sale ? I have seventeen Roman armies, but none in 40mm yet. Of course I need that many Tigers, early, mid and late production, Africa, Europe and Russia with all the camo variants including winter and at least a platoon of each. No I wasn't sick, I was busy spreading my collection, my downstairs neighbour was sick of living with construction struts in their living room and a bulging ceiling.

- The time capsule : No, I never felt the need to move on, it was a great set of rules in 1977 and it still is. I know my painting style has improved light years and the plastic ones are superb in detail, but I still prefer to field my trusty old pre-Heritage prototypes.

- The windvane : I know we were going to try Battle Command III today, but I bought Tank Charge and It's a very interesting set, very detailed, a lot like the MG's and Panzerfausts set we tried last week, but very different in many places and more interesting too.

- The Detailist : The 651st regiment had been fighting in the area at least since the 17th of October 1944, so they would have had at most two ammo boxes per MG team and by then, they were using steel cased ammo instead of brass. And according to the TO&E they still had at least one MG-34 per platoon and had two captured DT's they used as extra firepower. And if it is the third platoon, their commander had the Knight's cross with oak leaves, he got in April 1943. He died about two weeks after this scenario and his Cross was sent to his parents, but the train carrying them derailed in Poland and is still in the local museum. Hold on, the Russians had T-34 with the STZ turret, but not the uparmoured versions, those had been phased out in the fall of 1943 after the battle of Bulshitovsk when they received their T-34 from the 67th Guards division who had switched to T-34/85 with the early D5-T gun with the large mantlet.

- The procrastinator : Sorry man, glued the figures to their bases like five minutes before I came over man, if you have like five minutes, I'll like glue on the weapon arms so you can like tell what they carry, is that ok man ?

- The mad genius : I'll run the campaign as a hybrid PBM, command and tournament game. Me and Mike will generate weekly scenarios based on our Russian Campaign game, these will then be translated into OOB's for the Panzer Korps 6mm campaign, but the actual fighting will be done with 28mm using the Field of Fire rules, except for Don, who will play his games in 20mm, while Joe handles the air campaign with his 144th scale planes. If we can keep up the schedule of three games per team per week, we can play out the whole of Operation Barabarossa before the end of 2025.

- The beautiful isolationist : The Tsar's first regiment of Lifeguards, 54mm custom commissioned, pro-painted by a team of Russian art students. I'm only two regiments away of having the whole Russian 1812 Army and I am confident somebody at the club will have a go at the French sooner or later.

- The eccentric : Believe me if I say that the Anglo-Zanzibar war has a lot more depth to it than anyone would give it credit, it's such a fascinating subject that I gave up on all my other periods, because it's so exhaustive I had to make a choice.

- The myopic megalomaniac. You'd be surprised that I built and painted the entire convention game in less than a week. It's based on the movie Metropolis, there is a lost scene where Fredersen, the master of the city discovers that Rotwang the mad scientist has deceived him and decides to knock the stuffing out of him, during the fight Maria has a chance to escape. I took me about three years to collect all the parts to recreate Rotwang's laboratory equipment just like you see it in the movie, oh and don't tell this to anyone else, but my girlfriend wouldn't wear the robot costume, so I have to hire somebody to play her. How much did this setup cost ? The robot costume was 8K, the lab equipment another 10K, the throne another 2K and the demo game is three figures I converted, the terrain was made from foam I got from the dumpster.

- The Lawful evil : How many points would it cost to bring my three SS King Tiger battalions to elite level ? Is there a level above elite ? Something more Wittmann like ?

- The bandwagon jumper : I sold off all my 10mm, this new 67mm scale is everything you ever wanted in wargaming, amazing detail, easy to paint and once they have finished completing their first three ranges everybody will want to play it. Come on, who doesn't love Precolumbian Amazon tribes, the Minneapolis beer wars and Seven Years War Gibraltar garrison ?

Very good!

Oh, that's what you mean. I was thinking of the chrysanthimum in the lapel, or a red feather in the cap.

- The Hoarder :

I know someone who is proud that he has more Whippet tanks than the British Army ever built. Like, way more.

- The Scrapper: Are you throwing that away? Give it to me! I can make something out of that. I mean, look at the shape of that crumpled fast food napkin. Part of it already has the outline of a MK-113. If I just wash out a few of those condiment containers and grab a couple extra bendy straws …

The Detailist just needs to switch to Napoleonics, at which point, he would simply be considered _somewhat_ detail oriented.

Excellent and well thought through. Thank you.

- The Napoleonic Detailist : I researched the terrain the battle was fought on and it's a high quartz kind of clay, so your paint mixture of this battle should include 2% buff, 1.2% Ochre, 6,58% Terracotta and 4.4% Yellow Sand to account for the dust discoloration of the uniforms. The percentages do increase near the end of the battle, but the inclination of the sun around 4PM means that you should also add 6% golden yellow, to give the figures you use in the later turns of the battle that warm afternoon glow … Excuse me, but I was wondering if you could help me, it's hard to see on these 15mm figures, but are they supposed to be three screw Lepage muskets or two screw muskets ? if they are the former, I think you may have made a huge mistake here and are the bricoles, single-stiched or double stiched, again, it's so hard to tell on 15mm figures, but you have to get the details right, no ?

Add…. "There is the Exit guy". Always arrives without plan or purpose, his or her army unkept, maybe partially painted and just dumped in shoe box (old, used one at that). Complaints once too often, any reason you can think of, and never chips in for the task of set up or clean up. Body smells depends on the date of last wash.

After a period of time…. the group, true to his nickname… direct him towards the wall opening or door.

The cheat, you know the details

Patrick R, one of the most entertaining posts i've read on TMP in a long time. WW2 detailist = rivet counters?
I guess i'm a bit of a myopic maniac, for 3 months I built a battalion section of Vimy Ridge in 28mm.
Also a bit of a Napoleonic detailist as I had to get my Calpe Prussians just right.
I suspect that most of us have a little of what you listed in us?

Great fun, Thanks! That's going viral. Can you share via FB?

The time capsule: guilty as charged, my group plays a modified version of Tractics rules from the 70's

- The Leonardo : For every figure painted in excruciating detail to the highest of professional standards and beyond, thousands languish unpainted.

- The Rules sieve : How far can my cavalry move again ? Is there a modifier to shoot point blank ? What die do I roll ? Morale, page 67 … ah roll … 3+ is that with a D6 ?

- The Roleplayer : Hey Kraut ! Why don'tcha give up ? We gotta bunch of mediums coming up on your position in a few minutes and those buzzsaws of yours are gonna be pretty useless, why don't you show us a white flag Mac ?

- The high roll deficient : My grenadiers throw their bombs before firing a volley. They are elite lifeguard, *rolls* no effect. I fire a volley. *rolls* no hits. I charge at the militia. *rolls* they fall short, militia shoots back. Need to roll for morale *rolls* my grenadiers take maximum casualties, officer killed, they break and run.

- The Extra : I hear you're doing a Napoleonic game next time. I don't have much, but I have one regiment of Bavarians a single gun and a small cavalry unit painted up, maybe I can join ? About that WWII game, I could scrounge together a kind of mixed late war Volksgrenadier type unit. About the Trafalgar game, I have two ships, one is already painted, I still need to finish the base on the other, but maybe I can slip them in somewhere ?

- The Fantasist : Plastic dinosaurs and Army Men, Gundam kits, 1/6th Action figures, Smurfs, My Little Pony, Star Wars action figures …

- The rulemonger : I've completely re-written the morale rules based on Le Petit Caporal's version and I adapted the fire modifiers from the From Churchill to Marlborough while the interactive phase based on Star Federation Combat is now fully integrated in the turn sequence I lifted from Sturmgeschutz and Shpagins …

- The hysterian : You have to be kidding me ! 1803 Chasseurs in an 1812 game ? Why don't you put in King Tigers while you're at it ? And why are their saddles black ? Every regiment had natural red brown saddles, is this a completely new unit you recently discovered in the archives of the Invalides in Paris, if so why haven't you published this discovery to share with the rest of the world ! Sorry ? Oh it was a mistake !!! Of course let's just urinate all over the corpse of the Emperor himself, I'll bring my nephew's Space Marines next time and it still will be more historically accurate than what you Napoleonic haters do to completely destroy the period !!!

- The budgeteer : I put the 6mm Romans in three ranks instead of four, so I had enough spares to build an extra cohort. The bases ? Oh, they are just cereal box cardboard, I thought about buying lasercut bases, but they are very expensive. I used grey for the armour and weapons because you don't get metallics in the budget craft paints I use and I didn't feel like investing a small fortune in model paints. I'm really hopeful I can save up enough money to buy a 2mm ECW army though I'll have to split it up for the time until I can buy the other side in a few years time.

- The Questionable : A very American Civil War : Silver Legion Klu Klux Klan, WWII : Waffen SS, Spanish Blue Division, Blackshirts African Wars : Rhodesia, South Africa, Colonial Belgians, Space Marine Chapter : 1st Space Marine Chapter "The Emperor's Lifeguard", Spanish Civil War : Phalangists. Mirror Universe Terran Empire.

- The hobbyist : Nope, the week after that I'm trooping with the 501st at a Comic Convention, and on Sunday I'm at the model train fair. Tuesday's the three gun shooting competition training for the finals on Saturday. Wednesday I'll be editing a video about the Metropolis Robot prop I got from Fritz now that his convention game is shelved, I don't know when the vintage car rally will be, but I'm sure that's after the AWI reenactment weekend. And I'll be spending a lot of time restoring our group's M5 tank in March. Which reminds me that I still need to get long boxes for my comic books. But I definitely have some good news, in between painting my Anime kits, I did get the time to finish a squad of Marines for our Iraq project. By the way, Do you know somebody who might be interested in LARP gear ? Trying to make room for my new hobby, collecting vintage radio sets.

- The monomaniac : I'm not ready to move on quite yet, I don't think I have fully explored the Gettysburg campaign, even after fifteen years, there are still aspects of the battle I haven't explored yet. Of course there is nothing more exciting than a straight refight of the battle, it's always so nuanced …

- The Gollum : I move up the USS Lexington to cover the USS Chandley, don't want to risk my favorite ship in this battle, it can't be defeated even if I have to sacrifice every other ship in the fleet.

- The internet historian : There was this video on Youtube where they showed that the Pollaxe would bounce off properly hardened plate armour of the correct thickness. – There is an excellent video that completely demolishes these common armour myths. – Did you see that video on space warfare ? It would be nigh impossible for engineers to design an X-Wing that operates like they do in the films. In the movie he could have simply blown away all the turrets by simply vectoring along his axis of movement, no need for power turns at all !!!

- Slammer Bob : "Hi honey, we're about three quarters through the game and I'm spearheading a breakthrough … Ah … Sure … of course honey … but … yeah … It's just that … of course … absolutely … I understand … it would be a pity though … no, I'm not putting the game ahead of you and your mother … I'll, I'll be right over …" Guys … you'll have to cover for me, I really appreciated being able to play along, even if it was only for 45 minutes near the end of the game, I have to go now, again thanks for the birthday presents and with a little luck we'll see each other next year.

- The square peg : Pity, all my models 28mm and everyone else is doing 20mm. I do have 10mm as well, oh, you're into 6mm … I have a Late Roman army, ah, Carthaginians … Say I have enough French to do Waterloo, you have only pre 1807 French … I still play Fasa Star Trek, you still play Star Fleet Battles … Wow almost everyone has WWII armies, pity mine are WWI.

- That Wargamer : their armies may not be done to inspired levels, but they paint straight and neatly. They never seem to win or lose more than average, they usually finish at least one or more projects on a regular basis, they are usually there to join a game, they never complain needlessly about the rules, but do make interesting points at times, they cover your back if they can, they hold the flank if you assault, they still try to help you hold the flank when they assault, they are usually the voice of reason and consensus, they are clean, housebroken and mostly self-sufficient. They may have a few odd hangups, but they never stand out. They simply are that wargamer.

Again, well thought out and entertaining!
You can also put me in the high roll deficient catagory. I've rolled seven 1's in a row, played games where I've never rolled anything higher than a 4 and usually 1,2, or 3.
However there is the odd game where it is 6's all the time, or just average.
It's a standing joke in our club.

Ok that was awesome.

I found these to be funny! great job!