Why is Warhammer not a 'girl's thing'?

[Davor]

*edit* Didn't see there were page 2. What I said, a few already mentioned as well. Great read from what the people said.

Hmmm.... let me explain 40K to you very quickly. The Fluff or the story. The Imperium of Man (right there sounds so nerdish, how can a girl relate? So geeky) is run by The Imperium and it's figure head is a Corpse on a Golden Throne (toilet? That is what I think and I am a guy ). He is like Hitler, Stalin, Attilia the Hut all rolled into one. Take all the worse people in history and add it in as well. But he does this for the "good" of humanity. If you don't agree to his way, he will wipe out a planet with 10 000 000 000, (ten billion) people on it. It is to prevent Daemons or Chaos from entering the universe.

Now he is dead, we have Space Marines who take up his cause. They are like Nazis of the future. They do this again for the benefit of mankind. (I don't know, having evil people just killing innocents for the greater good just doesn't seem to grab girls/women into playing with plastic toy soldiers.)

Now this can be applied to boys/men as well as girls/women. When in most cases it's for men, it's the jock type I am talking about or "non geek and non nerd" if that makes any sense.

Also this is a game of plastic toy soldiers. Girls just don't like playing with plastic army men do they? Just like how most guys don't play with barbie dolls. (My Star Wars toys are figures no dolls ) So you can see from a girls perspective they are not barbies or dolls. Also most girls are grown out of barbies so don't need to play with dolls. Another reason is girls are more mature than guys and don't seem the need to "play with toys". I am not saying all girls but the prejudice of what most people think. Also why would a girl want to play a game that 30-40 year olds who don't bathe and live in their parents basement. Add to that its a "Geeks or Nerds" game, what girl wants to be associated with a geek or nerd?

Also to get into 40K or any GW game is expensive. Who wants to spend time to model, get cut, glue on fingers, paint? Most girls rather do their own nails instead of doing the nails of a Nid. My wife loves Skylanders. I realized we are idots. YES WE ARE IDIOTS! Why I say that? My wife buys a Skylander, a big miniature if we compare. It's already painted and put together. No modelling needed. No buying paint or glue. So for about $15 for her to buy one mini, I need to pay about $40 for an unpainted, unassembled still on the sprue mini. Then I need to have glue, paint, supplies and tools to put it together. Also we need to spend time to put it together now. So who is the smart one now eh?

No to rebut this, you don't get the joy of putting it together. You don't have the joy of painting it and making it your OWN creation. Then you don't get play the game with something you have MADE and had fun in doing it. So we pay more to actually get more out of the hobby. While this is not for everyone, painting or modelling, most people don't see this because all they see is playing with "plastic over priced toy soldiers". Lets not look at the individual prices but look at the "Once Click Bundles". Who in their right mind will spend $140, $400 or $1000 to just get a force? A lot of men will say this cuts into my smokes, or drinking. A lot of women who are more mature and smarter than guys, as I said before, will see this not "worth" the money for this kind of investment. And there is another problem. While a few of us, boys and girls have started 40K, or GW hobby, we started small, but when explaining it to others now, it's not just a mini or two, but an INVESTMENT that most people just don't want to do. That is why I think a lot of us are still in the hobby. We want to leave because we are not happy anymore but it's an investment that we just don't want to give up without loosing everything we invested in. Time money and what not.

Add to it, that 40K is really not that fun. Yes it can be fun for some, but for most girls, just rolling dice is not that much fun unless they are playing Yahtzee. More fun, don't need to go out and can play at home. Also so much cheaper and don't need to read 1/2 dozen books. Also bad rules writing and seeing how many people argue over rules, why even bother starting?

So why would any girl want to start this hobby up?

[killercroc]

One thing I have noticed myself, while I have been unable to interest a single of my lady friends to play warhammer, they do like the models and the painting a lot. So I guess from a hobby standpoint they like it, but none have been interested in the game itself. I find it odd that they like the models, and the painting (I get requests all the time to paint friends models) nobody wants to play. Maybe... just not their thing. but most my lady friends would rather buy clothes and stuff so they are the typical "girly girls" so I can see why they don't want to play.

[Davor]

Remember Killercroc, most people don't like you do everything, then I do everything. Imagine you have first turn trying to teach a male or female a game. I bet the other person is thinking "when do I get to do something".

I think this is a BIG FACTOR why a lot of people don't want to get into 40K or Fantasy.

[killercroc]

Hmm, true that as well, its a slow game with a lot of waiting and watching, so good point there. Nothing like a video game where you can pick up a controller with a friend and play together at the same time.

[Davor]

May 24, 2014 6:00:24 GMT killercroc said:

Hmm, true that as well, its a slow game with a lot of waiting and watching, so good point there. Nothing like a video game where you can pick up a controller with a friend and play together at the same time.

I thought my son was crazy but he is right. "Daddy why are we not playing like LotR with 40K?"

"Because the rules don't allow it son."

Then it got me thinking. Sadly we hardly play anymore. But bought the new rules, and will try this again with him. I told him he was right, just use what ever you want and he seems happy with it instead of reading everything. He just wants to use what I bought, and I should have listened to him a long time ago. I tried to teach him the "40K" way and it bored him and made him loose interest.

Now I think I will see how he wants to play and maybe, make my own company and see if his views make for a better game.

[ozzyflip]

Alot of people have made good points so I won't rehash what was all ready said, just throw in my own experience. Just the other day I mentioned something about 40k to my wife, I was probably complaining about the new rules or something and her response was "I will never understand your fascination with that"

I think this is really two-fold on her part and possibly correlates to other women. First the amount of time and money I spend on the hobby doesn't seem practical to her.... she feels there are better things we could be doing with it. Secondly the attitude we have for 40k tends to be negative so when she hears me complain about things she gets turned off to it even more.

[Xantige]

ozzyflip brings up a good point, negative talk about the hobby is a huge turn off.

I just wanted to give my own personal two cents on the phenomenon of girls prefering modeling and painting to gaming. This is just me, so take it as that and not as a definite answer. There are 3 key reasons I prefer to model and paint to gaming:

1) I got into this hobby for the fluff, for the hobby, and for the visual spectacle of having my lovely army presented like the ones you see in the codex. I thought games would be fun narrative affairs leaving both gamers feeling like they'd been part of something big -- a decisive battle for a world, or the first skirmish in many to come. The reality was much more stark though. Most people in my area have several unpainted armies, and everyones buying more than they could ever get around to finishing. So I'd get pressured to do the same, and sort of ignored as I bought little and painted slowly but awesomely. Painting table talk was always about rules, bad units or good units... never how cool something looked, never about how sweet it'd be to reinact the battle for Ultramar with the Swarmlord and Calgar facing off. All of it was numbers and winning, which I could get from talking video games with others for cheaper. Why play a game against spam lists and people that only buy an army to win, but never has time to paint it?

2) I'm a bad gamer. I don't have the desire to spend the money and time it takes to get good. It's not why I'm in the hobby. But I can win at something else: painting. My colour scheme and the quality I put into each model has turned even a few jaded veterans into kids with a look of wonder on their faces. Nobody forgets my army. I'm the girl who showed everyone you can make gold look great on Tyranids. I may lose the game, but I lose it looking stunning and fabulous. Plus in my area, gamers are usually more casual, so showing up with magnetized models gets a bit of a crowd too. So while the boys fight with grey tides over who's the best gamer, I'm owning up the painting table.

3) I hate losing. Losing sucks, losing as a girl can suck more. I feel a pressure to show these guys that I'm as good as them, but I just can't, I don't know the rules well enough. And I'm so sick of being treated with kid gloves, or getting smack talked, or battling through the awkward silence of pick up games. If I lose, for some guys that justifies the fallacy that girls just can't be good at the game aspect of 40k. But if I win, then they have to deal with the "shame" of losing to a girl. Plus while gaming I'm sometimes pestered by other guys trying to give advice, or just seeing if they can mess with me. Others just walk up and start playing with my dice bag and templates, but that might be a symptom of socially-awkward gamers more than the treatment of girls. My point is, there's a lot riding on my shoulders when I game. I'm not just gaming for my reputation, I'm unfortunately representing all of woman kind when I throw the dice, and that's a lot of pressure for painted plastic soldiers.

But I think that a lot of the turn offs for girls are the same as guys too, like waiting for your turn, or the price, or getting started and having to lose a lot before you get better, etc. But I've also noticed that girls dig a good story or narrative. I've got a lot of female friends who love the LOTR movies, they love the battles because the battles mean something. It's not just to see mindless violence. If you brought that into wargaming, really emphasized the dnd like narrative and story... and I think you'd suddenly see as many, or more female gamers.

[gigasnail]

set up narrative campaigns. it's not hard.

[Yuno]

Well in the style set up by Xantage *bows*, my own point of view on that as a girl:

1)I never got into the hobby for the fluff. I'd grown up hooked on pretty much every roleplaying system ever to have the sun shine on it, I had video games, and comics for reading. When I saw the 40k fluff, it didn't really impress me all that much. I was a high fantasy or magic realism girl. For me, space was the world of Star Trek or Star Wars. While I found the 40k universe to be enjoyable as a backdrop, it seemed ultimately too shallow to sustain any real thought. (This may seem semi-ironic considering how much I roleplayed here in 40k games, but I seriously never found the universe itself enchanting).

2) I got into the hobby because it looked like chess with different figures and more rules and more luck. I liked all of that. I wanted a game where I would test my own tactics and builds against another and get to spend hours at a time with someone I either tolerated or (hopefully) really liked. In this regard, 40k and wargaming were perfect. Painting, modeling, were sort of nice in the way doodling in my notebook during class is nice. They were not the main point. I know several people approached me saying that girls generally enjoyed that side of the hobby, but I never was one to fight the grey tide too hard.

3) The losing/winning thing. Well tbh, I always ignored that. I was fairly well respected because my father had run the store, and because I was a bit (okay a lot) of a smartmouth. I tend to believe people only give you as much (please do not swear) as you let them give you. Sure, guys tended to be sore about losing or feeling that such a newbie or girl shouldn't do well, but I never really found that mattered much. The nice guys were nice and pleasures to play against, the jerkfaces were jerkfaces, but you can't really do anything about that. I also never felt the "representing womankind" thing. There were no other girls, but I didn't really have to own the whole girl thing.

4) As for guys teasing and stuff...well maybe it is from only hanging out with boys, but I always assumed that was affectionate or an attempt to get my attention or get along with me. It never got too annoying and often it seemed like the only way they knew how to interact. I did at times wish they'd move on to the next level of communication, but I guess I was mostly just glad they were trying to be friendly at all. As for giving advice (heavy-handed or otherwise) I always appreciate advice, even if I'm not going to listen. Sure some people are getting off on knowing more than you do, but there are also just a lot of neurotic people that want to see you do better or at least stop failing the same way every time.

As for the story thing, I think girls tend to want the story because it removes the competition element where they fear (somewhat rightly and a lot wrongly) that they will do badly. I say this as a girl that doesn't want the story here. I love the gameplay flawed as it is. I love the excuse to (please do not swear) with someone else for a few hours while tactically trying to destroy them. The list building and allocation of resources is all very enjoyable. I also tend to think that if a girl wants something with a story, there are a lot of really great games with story-telling as the heart of the game. 40k, Fantasy, and a lot of other wargames are not built like that. This is not to say they can't have creative people telling fun stories with them, but it isn't what the game was intended for. If a girl wants a story, she can get one, but I think what 40k offers sans creative storytelling is something that can appeal to girls, they just need to see it for what it is as opposed to what they wish it was.

[barbedsparky]

I have been wanting to reply to this thread, but never worked out how. Refer above^.

[blackrainbow]

My entry was WFB, (orcs and...) goblins - yeah, an all goblin army. When I moved to 40k (due to lack of WFB players) I chose Tyranids due to the cool factor. I picked up a wee bit of Chaos along the way, and just started my foray into Sisters of Battle; all of it for the cool looking models. As I don't play much due to scheduling, I paint and model where I can. That is what got me into, and keeps me going. I have extra gaunts I keep primed and ready for friends to try their hand at paining, as I think that is what drew me in those 14 years ago. In the end, the hobby offers enough different aspects (paint, model, collect, WAAAGH!) to appeal to many different types, just find a friend who may be interested in one of those types and start there. It doesn't even have to be a lure to get them to table-top with you, just gives another outlet for a shared hobby. I met a guy recently who paints WWII mini's. We hang out and talk painting and styles and techniques etc. Heck, have some friends help you make terrain. You don't have to tell them what it's for, say miniatures, similar to model trains. That line gets me out of uncomfortable situations a plenty. In the end, the proactive hobbyist will find ways to engage others and incorporate them. Break free of old stereotypes can be difficult, but an afternoon painting, list building, or gaming across the living room floor or table and having them ask honest questions and enjoying themselves, and you self, is priceless.

Edit: Make your own rules, or write whole pages of personal fluff for your army's. My list building always includes named characters for my leaders; my Nids have two "named" characters (for friendly games of course, which most mine are, even at the local club), my demon heralds are all named, and my new SoB gals? Working on their Order history and names for them as well. There's plenty to find in this hobby, that's the great part about it!

[Kyokii]

Guy I know has a little Spanish wife who plays Orks.
One of the most fun players I've ever gamed with, real nice lady. Always ran Thrakka.

Other than that I can recall two other notguy players. One is a nid player who apparently dresses up in full "Norn Queesn" attire. Never seen it myself.

The other was just starting out with space marines. At the time she was unsure o what chapter.


And, lastly, There was a girl I knew in high school who was reading the Horus Heresy novels.

[Silegy]

For the most part of my life, I have actually known more female 40k players than male ones. Well, then I started visiting 40k forums, sure.
But it is the same case as... WoW or stuff like that. Nerdy guys and some rare (for some reason ALWAYS totally incredibly HOT. seriously, 8 years of World of Warcraft and I am yet to see an ugly WoW playing girl) girls.

EDIT: just some more random thoughts as I was skimming through the topic.
Firstly, why do we take women differently than other men? Seriously, you believe in the nonsense called Equality? Good board clear spell, but bullcrud IRL. I am of the male gender. Caucasian race. Czech nationality. You are not? Well, then you ARE different and I cannot treat you like other white men from Czech republic (man, this sounds so rascist. I hope people will understand what I mean...)
Also, for the younger part of community - I am nerd. I am a gamer. I have never seen the being called girl in real life. I have my PC. I have games and internet for fun, social interaction and porn sites. If I met a girl, I would want to know her, examine her and dissect her, just as a scientist would do with an alien.

Btw Davor, the "hobby side" of 40k is not joy for all of us. For example I totally hate it as I am incredibly left-handed manual retard and my hands shake so much that I can assemble my models only around midnight or later when I am too tired for my hands to shake. And I know several other people who found no liking in this.

[tymmeek]

Hi, 40k seems childish and is stereotyped to be an all boys thing because it's all lasers, guns and bloody-big battles and that puts a lot of women off. GW don't make models marketed at women because they are a 'minority' and GW is a buisness so I see why they do that. I personally think that Sisters of Battle are a stronge army because I played against them and seen enough games with them kicking ass. They are old models and mostly untouched by 40k players because of it and GW will not re-do them or update them because they don't sell ad they don't sell because they're old and forgotten. SoB are stuck in a big circle of doom.

[pedro009]

This is a nice thread. Not even an aspect I have even looked at.

We are lucky at ours to have a few female gamers in our meta....usually the other half of one of the regulars. I even played against two of them a few months ago.

My nids against blood angels and allies sister of battle. Funniest thing to see a boyfriend "suggest' she moved her squad so they are sacrificed to prevent two rampaging carnifexs lol. Didn't go down too well but did work as I lost by one VP.

One thing I have noticed. ..and please do correct me if I am wrong... (course you all will) but I find I find the three of four women I have played EVER ...to be a lot more chilled out and relaxed about a game then the average guy.

This is probably because I have played so many games and 99% have been male so you are going go encounter the extremes more often. But I have always come away from a game against a girl , and even the ones from 10 years ago with LOTR, really enjoyable.

I did suggest that my missus shud give it ago. The response was rather brutal and to the point ("don't be f**king stupid Pete" were the exact words) but she does 't mind me doing it. She prefers it to going out every weekend and spending a ton on booze to be honest.