Women and wargaming

[Toonces]

^ Hot damn, that's classic. 

You know you've arrived when you end up in a sig line.   O0

[Emeraldlis]

Well said!
[/quote]

Hey LB , are you awarding me with a spatula or a glass of wine .....'cause I'll take both !!! I could use a glass right now , come to think of it I'm sure I could find a use for that spatula too  ::)

Hiya CC , sorry you've had to deal with some cra**y behaviour in the past . Believe me I know what that's like !! I'm glad we've cleared the air , and yeah these guys are a really cool bunch I think  8) but I agree ......yay , finally , another woman lurking around these forums !! I think these guys need us in their gaming lives , we are a pair of cool chicks ourselves , strong , outspoken and a little crazy ......perfect !!

I'm like you , I'd like to play games socially because I think that's the whole point of gaming in general , for me anyway . The trouble is I really only have my daughter who's interested in getting out a board game and playing , which is great , but it doesn't happen often enough , sadly . Which is why I think we are both attracted to this site because we get to read about gaming and game play and it nudge our interest in it , get our gaming fix via actual gamers :)

It would be great to post more though , like you said ....and I completely agree , I can post on a lot of things on here , but not a lot of that will have to do with gaming because I don't have the same experience or knowledge that these guys have . But if I see you posting I'll probably be more inclined to post things myself , strength in numbers and alla that , lol . Who knows , we might actually turn into gamers with valid things to say :) maybe it is time we went down the solo game playing route , just to get started ...but were to begin ???

Any thoughts anyone ...........

[bob48]

If she wasn't too busy playing WoW, I'd get Mrs.B to post on this thread. She is a member here, after all :-))

[Pelenise]

There are female gamers in Grogheads,  maybe I dont play wargames,  I like RP games, Wow, Pillars of Eternity etc, are you real?  sorry for coming on the wargamers section,  but I had to put my penny worth in,  and every one knows me as Mrs Bawb  so I am defo female  O:-)

[JasonPratt]

Also there's Mrs. Darwin.

Re: cra**y behavior. I now have a new favorite word, and I shall use it. 

Re: recommendations for beginners -- I know it's the wrong part of the forum, but I think I'd recommend getting into computer wargaming of various kinds first. There's a lot more support available, and (maybe?) a lot more variety, and typically a viable AI opponent to practice against when you can't find multiplayer. Plus multiplayer can be a lot easier to find on computer. The expense can be a lot less, too, allowing more gaming variety for the dollar spent (as a matter of logistic efficiency.)

Plus a lot of popular boardgames have good computer (or mobile) conversions. So if you learn how to play Catan or Space Hulk or Carcassone or Gothic Fleet or Blood Bowl or Small World or Kings of Israel or Magic the Gathering or Sentinels of the Multiverse or whatever, you can often transition directly into board play. Or if you see other people at it, you can comment appreciatively on what's going on.

[GJK]

Crazy Girl, Emeraldis - do you ladies play Euro/Amero games face to face with others?  If so, I'd be curious to know how that experience is for you all.  I very often see a number of women playing euro's at some of my gaming spots but rarely, if ever, see them playing "hardcore" wargames.  Interestingly though someone recently uploaded a video to the Geek of the SoCal ASL group tournament and lo' and behold; there's a female player being taught (and playing) ASL(SK).

Oh, and you all may find this interesting but here's me playing a variation of ASL with my girl...(for which these rough and mean men ridiculed me for as you can see here  ):


http://grogheads.com/forums/index.php?topic=12575.msg328414#msg328414

Seriously, it's a rather fun and light-hearted take on Advanced Squad Leader.  The game rules and my updated graphics can be downloaded from the Geek here:
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/22083/sharks-and-jets

[Crazy Girl]

lies  ;D

i see everything

I see what you see and don't see. Especially when you think you see what you see.
My given name comes from a Nordi-German goddess of destructive and belligerent aspects of war.
That makes sense because it also means battle in Old Norse. (I like to cause havoc and chaos across the land. Well, maybe I am a troll.) She never leaves home without her helmet. Always has a sword, spear or shield. (I carry a knife.) She carries a torch or whip. (I carry matches.) She was a Valkyrie, ruled by Odin. Hahaha. I say who lives and who dies. Warfare is my game... I was meant for this!!! (Oh, delusions of grandeur setting in nicely. I really am crazy.)

Hey Toonces. It's a free country man.
You can do *waves hand in the air slowly for effect* whatever you want..

Hey Emeraldlis, take the wine and the spatula. Take the whole bottle...  I would  :)
These guys have been making me laugh. They didn't even know it.
I refuse to post anywhere else because I am not there yet.
I am working on it. I'm ready.

Hey bob48, stupid ? What's WoW?

[JasonPratt]

Note that computer tactical and strategy gaming will help get into hardcore wargaming, too: you may get spoiled not having to do all the rules and calcs yourself, but if you learn how to play a hex pusher like the Decisive Campaigns engine or Gary Grigsby's monster WW2 games, you will at least have a foothold on trying to deal with something similar on a table.

[JasonPratt]

WoW = World of Warcraft.

Some interesting tactical real-time and turn-based games connected to that franchise (which was originally loosely borrowed from Warhammer anyway), though not WoW itself of course.

[bayonetbrant]

Go make yourself some pancakes with a single Hersey kiss...
Yeah. *whispers* "I see and read everything.
But seriously, what do you guys recommend for a beginner?
Someone told me about Commander, but anything else?

The pancake picture was stolen from the Facebook page of one of the ladies my wife works with in the Great Dane Rescue organization. She and her daughters made them.
And I'm not really concerned with hiding it or I never would have posted it :)

As for things we can recommend to a beginner, are you playing on the table top or on a computer or on a console? Answers will obviously vary widely depending on how you prefer to play.

You mentioned tabletop games elsewhere, and since this is the wargaming area of our Forum, wherein we discuss tabletop games, there's a follow-up question:
Is there a particular historical period, battle, or personality that particularly appeals to you? 
No matter how easy a game is for a new player to grasp, if it isn't a topic in which you are interested, you're not likely to stick with it

Some off-the-cuff recommendations
WWII - Tank on Tank from LNLP
Ancients - Command & Colors from GMT
American War of Independence - Hold The Line from Worthington
Crusades - Crusader Rex from Columbia

[Emeraldlis]

GJK that's awesome .....how dare they taunt you so !!! ???

I love musical theatre, I love west side story, I love games .......it's a win , win , win for me  in fact I was watching "sleeping with the enemy " a night or two ago and their is a segment in there of west side story , the guy was singing about being a jet ...well , duh , who wouldn't want to be a jet 
So I NEED that game !!

And I have no clue , but what is a euro game ? If it's carcasonne , then yes I've played that with a female group of friends and it was very cool . One of my friends is very tactical and strategic and she had us on the run a lot ! I'm more instinctive in the way I play , I follow my gut a lot , try to get into the mindset of my opposition to see which way they'll jump and then hopefully jump there before them  :D and my daughter well she's just crazy , she takes a lot of risks , sometimes they pay off sometimes not .....but hey who am I to deny her , her "strategy" if she thinks she can win !!  ;)

Also thanks Jason for all those suggestions, maybe an iPad version of a game may be the way to go and then if I like it I can get the board game , I don't have a home computer right now , mine died tragically .....It's now R.I.P in some land fill somewhere !

[JasonPratt]

Well, it was a suggestion for CG, too, of course. :)

A Euro game is, um... hm. Carc isn't actually one.

Classically, a Euro game involves players each managing their own 'plot' or 'board' in competition with each other while sharing access to a central playing area. Agricola is a classic example. Each player manages a farming family, each with a separate board and cards and little resources and workers they can put on the common central town board every turn.

Broadly, a Euro game has expanded to be any non-combat management game with some kind of worker placement mechanic: each turn each player puts a set of workers somewhere and at the end of the turn (usually) the workers get picked up again. Stone Age would be a clear example. So would Caylus in a somewhat different way.

Nowadays, any non-combat management theme game might be called a Euro (or Amero depending on the theme). Puerto Rico is a fairly classic Euro game (I think), but the related San Juan card game might be very broadly called a Euro game by association, even though there is no worker placement at all.

The worker placement thing, come to think of it, is why Carc is generally thought of as a Euro game; but there's no real management involved. Lords of Waterdeep, on the other hand, is very much a Euro game.

[LongBlade]

Well said!

Hey LB , are you awarding me with a spatula or a glass of wine .....'cause I'll take both !!! I could use a glass right now , come to think of it I'm sure I could find a use for that spatula too  ::)

Well, it's supposed to be a glass of wine, but you're free to interpret it as you wish :)

[JasonPratt]

They include Carc. Meeples.

[bayonetbrant]

Carc absolutely is a Euro game.

Euro games are generally marked by 3 key characteristics

1- no elimination mechanic: everyone is playing all the way to the end

2- very little, if any, direct conflict: you're not trying to knock out other pieces; you're frequently maneuvering around each other

3- pasted-on theme: there's nothing inherent in the tile-laying mechanisms of Carc that screams "medieval France". The fact that they made a stone-age game with essentially the same mechanics, to go along with a Pacific Islander one and a colonize-America one tells you that the theme is irrelevant