Tips on Finding a Gaming Group

Howdy friends,

This post originally started as a script for a video I was going to do with my local shop Element Games. They've been trying to build up their online presence with a youtube channel you can check out here. Unfortunately the shoot wasn't able to happen before I left Manchester, but I thought people would still find it interesting.

I also thought it was appropriate as it's about offering some tips on how to find a gaming group in a new place, something that I will have to do very shortly once I've got myself set up here in Canada!

So firstly, I should preface this by saying these tips are not just pulled out of thin air. I moved to England four years ago to a city I had never been with no connections or friends there whatsoever. I ended up having my closest friends group stem from my miniature hobby, and it was one of the most fulfilling experiences I had in the UK. I developed my hobby skills hugely and built a really close relationship to Element, its employees, and its patrons. Element originally asked me to give these tips specifically because I'd ingratiated myself within the community so effectively. So without further ado:

Finding a play group in a new place.

There were three main routes that I took to start building connections. Note that this also works for boardgame/roleplaying/cardgame hobbies as well.

1. Check out all the gaming shops in your area and speak to the employees. Tell them outright that you're new to the area, what systems you play, and ask about the community there. I recommend checking out as many shops as you can so you can see if there's one you really connect with, whether through the space itself or the attitude of the employees.
2. Online forums for your system are a great resource, and most have "find a player" threads or sections. I originally found out about Element Games through the Infinity forums when a player invited me to meet there for a demo game. I would note that army-specific forums are probably too limited for doing this effectively, ideally you should be looking at forums that deal with whole game systems.
3. Local Facebook groups for the systems or shops you are interested in are definitely really useful, and probably the main method local players organise games. However, I would suggest introducing yourself properly when you first join. A one-line post from a stranger saying "when is 40k played?" is not particularly thrilling to an established play group who know nothing about you. Introduce yourself, toss up a picture of your army, how you like to play, tell a joke, briefly give that community a sense of who you are.

Connecting to a gaming community.

In my mind there are two main approaches to take if you're new to a community and want to ingratiate yourself.

Be Flexible - If you are unable to put lot of time and effort into the community I strongly encourage having a bit of flexibility in what you play and how you play it. Adapt yourself to your local scene. This is true both within the game and outside of it. Adapt to a group if it leans more towards a competitive or casual play styles. Maybe try a different system if your chosen one isn't popular at the moment. This is especially easy for skirmish level games where you can get a new army up quickly. Game systems tend to come in and out of popularity in cycles so your preferred one will probably pop back up soon!

Be a Leader - If you are able to put in time and effort you can make a positive impact on your playgroup by organising and introducing new things. If you want to play a different system, or play an established one in a different way, then you can absolutely make that happen on your own initiative. There is no better way to bring value to your local community than by taking the time to get people interested and excited about new things. During my time in the UK I ran a 40k narrative campaign, joined a bunch of RPG games, and built playgroups around the Game of Thrones card game and Infinity miniatures game by offering demos and organising weekly play nights. The great thing about this hobby is that people tend to be really open minded and up for trying different things. We all have systems or playstyles we want to try but haven't had a chance to yet.

Voicing issues within a gaming community.

If you do find there are some issues in your local scene that you can’t look past these can typically be solved by politely communicating to either players and/or the shop what your grievances are. In my experience about 90% of these problems can be solved through communication, and being upfront yet understanding about these problems is a great way to contribute to the quality of the community.

Some good examples I've dealt with myself is there not being enough terrain, people not showing up to gaming meetups, poor store support for a product, etc. Keep in mind it's good to phrase your complaints in a positive way. Instead of saying "it's annoying there isn't enough Infinity terrain" you can say "I really want to bring more Infinity players in but there isn't enough terrain, would you be able to help support the game a bit more?"

Obviously this gets a bit more complicated if we're talking about problem players. Not getting along with someone is heavily context dependant, and I'd encourage you to defer to how the established gaming group handles things.

Keeping up a hobby as a student.

I've been a University student for nine years and kept up a miniatures hobby for almost that entire time. I've got some good tips, especially for undergraduate students.

• Work on a smaller scale. Smaller armies. Less hobby supplies. Less storage needs. Don't buy too much. You're going to be moving a bunch. You're probably using public transportation. Keep it streamlined. As much as this might be a little painful, it does help in many ways, it keeps your budget tight, it means you have less to paint, it keeps you very focused. Be a hobby ascetic, take pride in the fact that you still manage to have a great time without the luxury of lots space, money, or a car.
• Quality instead of quantity with your supplies and purchases. Unless your really tight for cash buy a box at a time rather than getting a huge unpainted second-hand army.  Again it’s about keeping focused and keeping the hobby lean. Spend more time on a smaller number of figures rather than trying to shift through a huge backlog. This will also help improve your painting!
• Don't feel bad about taking breaks from the hobby. Being a student means that workload tends towards extremes of leisure and intensity. There might be months where you barely have time to pickup a brush, nevermind get games in. There also might be periods where you just lose interest for a while, burnout happens to everyone but because your space is so limited as a student its often tempting to jettison parts of the hobby entirely. That's okay, don't feel bad about it, don't beat yourself up about it. You can always come back.
• On the opposite end of the spectrum, do not let your hobby take over your life. Between the hobby and the gaming aspect it’s very very easy to go down a rabbit hole with miniature gaming. Like any sort of hobby it can lead to an obsessive mindset that's ultimately going to hurt you, and students are particularly vulnerable because it can be a way to procrastinate and still feel like you've done something productive. Be aware of how you're thinking about it and know when to ease off.
• Do some stuff that isn't geek-centric. It's always good to have variety in life, especially stuff that involves not sitting at a table or desk. Whether its hiking, going out with friends, playing music, sport, whatever, do try to have other stuff to focus on. Even if it’s largely secondary to your hobby you'll be very glad to have it!

With those pieces of advice in mind, I will say that being a geek is a magnificent way to spend your student years. It's communal, it’s competitive, you build skills as both a hobbyist and a gamer, it is a superb way to relax and decompress. Get out there and have a blast!

Farewell United Kingdom - Hello Gundam Plastics!

So here is my first post in 2018, and a lot has happened! I passed my PhD defence and am now officially Dr.Tom. I am also back in Canada and looking for work.

The last six months of my time in the UK were spent in the Welsh countryside with family. It was a lovely way to say goodbye, and it feels very much as though I've left some pieces of myself in the water and hills of England/Wales.

Coast of Pembrokeshire, Wales.

Rock formation near my family's house. With cousin to boot!

My hobby during these six months was necessarily rather light as I was in the process of selling off a lot of excess and unpainted miniatures and hobby supplies. Most notably I had to part with my airbrush compressor and the 40k Orks that I hadn't started painting. But I've managed to keep all the figures I've painted and some of my best tools/paints so I'm looking forward to eventually establishing a small-scale hobby setup once I'm settled here in Canada.

However this did get me to do some thinking about what I could see myself doing with the hobby in the future. I decided I wanted to undertake something a bit more oriented towards individual projects rather than large-scale armies. To that end I started to look at busts and larger models without any sort of tabletop usage that would force me to approach them as a properly focused hobby project.

Eventually I remembered reading about Gunpla (short for "Gundam Plastics") and took a dive into researching it online. These are plastic figures depicting large bipedal combat suits at various scales. They originally started in the early 90's and were made by the Japanese company Bandai to tie-in with the Gundam anime series it produced. Since then it's become a huge industry and Bandai remains the largest producer of Gunpla figures. Good quick overviews of what Gunpla kits are can be found here and here

I eventually decided to dip my toe in the water and ordered a kit to see how I like it. I went with one produced by Kotobukiya, which is Bandai's biggest competition. Unlike Bandai, Kotobukiya has no anime series to accompany their figures, but this means they have some really cool original designs that look a lot more modern than the classic Gundam stuff.

The kit I went is called the "Ji-Dao". It's part of Kotobukiya's "Frame Arm" series of figures, which all come with a pre-built inner frame that you essentially add the armour components on top of. One thing to note is that Gunpla figures are all articulated, meaning you can move all the joints and pose them. Given that I had never built an articulated model kit before the apparent simplicity of the frame arms line appealed to me.

Promo shot of the Ji-Dao.

An example of the way you can pose it.

I'll go into detail profiling my experiences building the Ji-Dao, and more generally my pros/cons impressions of Gunpla at a later date. But as a quick bullet point summary this was my first time attempting the following:

• Building an articulated kit.
• Painting in components and then assembling a figure.
• Using Tamiya paints.

The components after a test assembly before I started painting.

I decided to give my airbrush one last hurrah before selling it off by trying to paint the kit. I went with the method typically used by Gunpla builders which is to paint the individual components and then assemble it. I don't doubt my process of doing so was rather sloppy but I learnt a lot! My colour scheme adhered pretty much exactly to the original scheme for the sake of simplicity. This was more about giving the build a try than trying to get super creative.

Undercoating the components before painting them.

Unfortunately I wasn't able to finish the build before I had to pack everything up and leave for home, but I did manage to get all of the base painting done with the airbrush before selling it, as well as doing some sponge weathering on the components.

I re-assembled the kit and packed it up, but took some pictures before I did:

Current state of the Ji-Dao.

Rearview

Natural Light!

It still needs to be panel-lined, which is where you trace the grooves in armour plating to help visually separate the components. Additionally I'd like to do some dirt streaking using some oil paints or weathering effects to make it look properly dirty and not just chipped. I really think these two elements will tie the kit together nicely.

Overall i'm pleased with the result of the test build but I confess I had some issues during painting that might discourage me from attempting it again until I have a proper setup in Canada. However the assembly was a blast so maybe i'll stick to unpainted Gunpla figures for the foreseeable future. I've been watching some of the anime series so I'm quite excited to try my hand with a Bandai kit!

Thanks for reading and look forward to more updates soon!