The Happy Phalanx

A reasonable question to ask is why do I devote some of my precious downtime to this hobby? Why do I spend hours not only painting tiny figures, but also spend hours researching the historical background for the various samurai clans, Republican Roman Legion organization, and different types of ancient infantry. Surprisingly, there is a simple reason for it all, I think it is a lot of fun!

There is one really big reasons I enjoy this hobby so much, it is the comradery of the community. For years, I mostly just painted the figures for my own enjoyment and then put the minis on the shelf where they just gathered dust. I seldom, if ever, actually played the games they were intended for. Since getting involved with the gaming side of the hobby just over a year ago, I realized how much I was missing. It is truly the people you meet that make this hobby so much fun.

After meeting the people I game with, I realized what an essential part of the hobby the gaming community is. As with any other hobby, meeting and talking with others who share your interest is so much fun. Before I joined a gaming group, I never thought I would hear someone say “We’ll start the morning with chariot races, then maybe some gladiators and after lunch either the samurai game or the Battle of Jutland”. To most people, that may sound rather alarming, for us it was just part of planning an all-day gaming session.

Remember the caption on the second picture? The Battle of the Bathroom is another reason this hobby can be so much fun, the immersive narratives that develop throughout the games. Despite your best laid plans, in almost all of the games you are at the mercy of the dice. Sometimes your dice allow your minis to defy the odds and accomplish great deeds. Other times, your dice will let you down time and time again. It wasn’t until I started playing these games I truly appreciated the underlying theme of the classic show tune, “Luck be a Lady Tonight”! As a result, stories often emerge in the game, either as a result of your samurai hero rolling badly and tripping over his own feet, to peasants who constantly roll ridiculously high and refuse to run away despite how badly losing they are! Combine the unpredictable outcome of rolling dice with players possessing great senses of humour, and epic tales emerge on our miniature tables.

The Battle of the Bathroom was one such game. It had started as a fairly straight forward brawl between two groups of samurai, each group being commanded by a single player. To give the four of us an objective to focus on and an idea of who won, we decided that we were trying to capture the building in the middle of the map. We have no idea who first started it, but someone said that the centre building was, in fact, a bathroom. From there the story grew about how it was the only clean bathroom on this stretch of highway, and it had the softest of toilet paper, and other such nonsense. By the end of the game, I am not sure who actually won, but we all remember that game!

Ultimately, we play these games because they are fun and we enjoy them. they provide for us all a brief escape for the concerns of the day and an opportunity to discuss subjects we are passionate about. On any given night, you may overhear us talking about famous battles or great generals. We may ask “what if?” questions about events that shaped history or how we can tweak the rules of a game to better suit our needs. We learn from each bother as we match wits across the table and commiserate each other’s terrible luck and rolls. We cheer each other’s incredibly lucky roles and compose epic tales of our minis’ heroic deeds. Basically, we have a whole lot of fun, and that is why we play games.