Tales of a Married Gamer pt. 4 – I swear I will get the miniatures off the coffee table…

So this is my third try to write this article, as I am now combating wordpress.  Agent00 noted that the second draft would be funnier; the third draft might just come out as being sarcastic.  If I hit a fourth draft expect a jaded writer.  Enough complaining, and on with the show!

So in this installment of Tales of a Married Gamer I bring you a special story of love, happiness, and the invasion of a coffee table by little plastic and resin figures.  When I first moved to this town several years ago, we found what might be the greatest coffee table I have ever had in terms of functionality.  At its lowest setting it makes a nice footstool for my wife (don’t worry she has clean feet), but it can be pulled up higher for playing games, eating dinner (yes, I do clean the table before eating on it), or painting miniatures.  It is probably one of the best $300 we have ever spent.

But to my wife’s chagrin, the coffee table has had the looks of a futuristic Normandy for the past three months, as wave after wave of space marines have decided to call the coffee table home.  In mid-May I decided to join in on a painting challenge for Warhammer 40k miniatures that one of the forums I frequent put on.  The contest wasn’t one that was for the best individual paint job, but was to see which faction in Warhammer 40k could paint the most army points in a three month period.  I was (and still am) fairly new to the hobby, and it seemed a perfect way to get my Black Templars army painted up.  So off I went, using modeling cement, position figures, and then painting them.  All of this happened on the coffee table, and my wife was not exactly thrilled about this.  Especially as I decided to paint about 1500 army points worth of Black Templars, which meant several squads, elite characters, and vehicles.  It was rather difficult for my wife to explain to people dropping by why the coffee table was covered in what looked like a plastic invasion, and that it was all the work of a deranged professor.

For three months I painted, and even though I kept the groups of troopers on the coffee table as small as possible, having them there constantly rotating for three months was beginning to wear thin.  I would like to announce, that as of yesterday evening, my coffee table had the last of the Black Templars airlifted away to my closet where I have a nice shelf to display them.  My wife was pleased to hear that the coffee table was back to its normal use, but then she noticed I had a strange look on my face.  That same look as a Golden Retriever gives her after it eats her $300 pair of shoes.

“Also, that table is the perfect size for playing Catan.  Be warned anyone coming to my house, you will be challenged to a game.More of them?  I thought this contest was over.”  I hesitated.  I explained that it was just about over, and that I was done with my part of the competition, but that I had some new miniatures that I wanted to paint and the coffee table was just such a perfect height to paint on.  When she saw the painting lamp I brought home, I had finally crossed the line.  “We are buying a new table!”  I looked around, what had I done?  But then I realized that the new table would be meant for gaming purposes, that meant a table devoted to me being able to paint miniatures on it.  We even selected one that I could work at home from on my research and teaching, and still have room for all my paints.  In the end, we both received what we wanted, a little compromise and discussion could probably have solved this issue earlier, but now we both have the tables in the house how we want them, and my armies were not smashed to little pieces by an angry spouse.

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Agent 88, also known as Nick to a few intelligent species of the Earth, dates most of hist interest back to the days of his childhood where his dad made the claim that he was really Darth Vader. Despite decades of video and computer games, it was not until his 20′s that Agent 88 picked up roleplaying games, mostly focusing on Star Wars and D&D/Fantasy. In the 12+ years since then, he has dabbled in a variety of games and systems, and has now taken up the world’s most expensive hobby: Warhammer 40k. In his other life, Nick is an assistant professor at a university somewhere in the world. His research uses statistics, math, game theory, and other concepts to examine sporting contests and other games. Nick is currently attempting to design a board game based on his research and love of games, though his non-stop pvping as a Jedi Sage in SWTOR gets in the way of accomplishing this goal.

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