Here the wonderful relaxed pace and social interaction of this unique game experience is on display, as Julian takes his time to plan his moves while his opponent Jackson looks on. They keep rule books within easy reach to aid in play. This scene brought to my mind the relaxing images of many old time board games from companies like Parker Brothers and long gone companies like Avalon Hill.
Games are probably as old as society itself. The development of the Internet and gaming platforms like PlayStation, Xbox, and computer games, has given those who like to play multiple player games easy access to the one commodity that for ages was as precious as gold to game players - worthy opponents. Before this development, finding people who were willing and able to give you a satisfying challenge was often impossible to find. And if it wasn't a widely popular game you fancied, you were often lucky if you found one or two people to play against over and over again till you knew their upcoming moves like you knew the upcoming change of the seasons.
Now finding lots of fresh new game partners to dance with has helped those electronic games explode in popularity, while causing exotic board games to fade into history. But these electronic games are often frenetic paced play against faceless opponents, that while quickening the heart rate and providing much excitement, don't quite provide the relaxing mental stimulation that we as social creatures crave (and by the way I do enjoy many an electronic game).
But if you play a board game whose playing pieces are often so large that you need a massive table to play it on, where in an urban locale like New York, are you going to find someone with an apartment big enough to play it in? Here Warhammer has an advantage no other game I've seen has. The Game Workshop stores provide that table, as well as the modular battle fields that mimic hills, valleys, towns and citadels, while the players provide the collectible pieces to play on them. The store also provides additional tables to build and custom paint their playing pieces. It often takes weeks to assemble and custom paint these figurines, which provides an additional emotional boost and attachment to those pieces (just remember how much you may have liked playing the race car or the hat in Monopoly, and you never took the time to hand paint them) At the same time they are also building friendships while sharing paint supplies and equipment, as well as laughter and stories. All this allows this unique game to thrive worldwide while so many other exotic board games have faded off into history.
