Warhammer as an Aphrodisiac

It is a little known fact that romance and miniature gaming can go hand in hand.

Obviously a candlelit meal and a trip out somewhere extravagant is probably preferable (from the woman’s perspective), but roping one’s loved one into a game from time to time is good in many different ways.

First of all, what’s the alternative? Sitting watching TV all evening?

Surely enjoying a good game of Warhammer together is better than that!

You’re doing something together; you spend a whole evening gazing at one another across a tabletop (skimpy clothing helps here); once the inhibitions about it being uncool have been overcome it’s actually a lot of fun; and it’s free!

Persuading your other half to play Warhammer from time to time is definitely worth the effort. My wife plays regularly with me now and is always up for a game. Sadly she isn’t interested in painting or discussing tactics or background outside of the game but you can’t have everything!

Now don’t expect miracles overnight. It took me a while to get Gill to play Warhammer happily.

I think the reason for this was that it was called “Warhammer” which “everybody knows is a bit geeky.”

For a few years we played Mordheim, Space Hulk, Necropolis (my own game) and later Space Crusade, then later again, War Machine. All of these are fairly small scale and simple so didn’t scare her off or go hand in hand with the label of wargaming so much. I had to be very cunning to move her over to Warhammer.

Here’s how I did it:

I painted up a “beautiful” Bretonnian army with several “beautiful” female characters. Then I used the prettiness of the army to catch her interest.

Then we just played a really small game. It only took an hour or so and she was happy to do it.

Over time I slowly built up the points of the game, not going too far so that she felt overwhelmed with the rules. And notice I used a very simple army to play with. Bretonnians are basically knights and archers (at least in my army). That kind of simplicity didn’t over-face her. Too much detail and she probably wouldn’t have been bothered.

After we did that for a while, I started to tantalise her with Wood Elves: slightly more complicated but also very attractive miniatures.

And now she plays happily at any army size. We even have three day mega games! It’s great!

Gill is the founding member of the White Dwarf Reader's Wives Society (membership one).

There’s a lot to be said for doing fun things like this to improve a relationship and I like to think that it adds to our relationship, making it better.

Obviously I am also able to feel quite smug about it too.