Sup guys, so a lot of us have significant others who because they love us, tolerate our geeky hobby of playing with man dolls. Some of us actually have significant others who actually enjoy the hobby with us, sharing in our passion for the game, the lore, and the models. For the rest of us, we have significant others who fall inbetween these extremes, they are not into the hobby as much as we are however occasionally they might enjoy to "dip" their toe into the water so to speak and actually join us in some hobbying. From painting, modeling, to actually playing games, they join us as in some small measure, they might actually enjoy it, that or they love us so much and see that we need to get a game in and happily offer their help. My wife falls into this category, she listens to me as I excitely tell her of new releases, of changes to rules, etc. She provides feedback when I ask it about my painting including bringing me down a peg if I start calling myself the greatest painter ever, etc. The other night, she asked me If I would be interested in playing a game. I jumped at the chance as again the more interested I can get her into my hobby, the closer I get her to jump into it with both feet in. In preparing for the game I decided to focus on the following items to make it enjoyable for her and thus make it enjoyable for me.
1. Play a small game - The last thing you want is for a game to last 5 hours which will not do you any favors with keeping them interested. Small games will make it easier for them to grasp the rules and thus keep the game moving.
2. Keep it simple - You really dont want to overwhelm your significant other with a ton of rules causing not only confusion but an unwilliness to keep playing the game. Lets be honest, 40K has a steep learning curve, we want our significant other to grasp the basic rules and so feel that they are understanding the game and contributing to your enjoyment as well. No psychic powers, no flyers, etc for your first game. Concentrate on the basics of moving, shooting and assaulting. Slowly introduce rules such as morale, psychic powers, etc once they feel a little confident in the rules. Keep senarios simple, no malestrom for now, maybe just do kill points for your first few games, etc.
3. Dont run a tourney list - Ok so this can be interpeted in several different ways. What I am referring to is to play a list that you would take to a FLGS to play a friendly game, not what you would take to a no holds barred tournament. This goes without question, the last thing you want to do is to table your significant other by turn 2 using your optimized list. Tone it down a little bit, run a list that is both fun and capable of being challenging for your significant other. Since the game as a steep learning curve as we mentioned above, take it easy on them. If they make a mistake offer them a mulligan. Dont be a dick, make it enjoyable for the 2 of you and you will be surprised by having them ask to play more games with you.
So how did the game went you may ask? Not bad, I did get my teeth kicked in as she decided to play my Tau farsight list which does amazing in smaller point games. I played my dark mech with 2 daemon engines, no psycher support (to keep it simple) 2 blobs of cultists and a warpsmith as my HQ. She took a commander, 2 squads of suits (one 3, one 2), some marker drones, and a squad of 2 broadsides with missiles. As you can see, I was outgunned from the start with only a forgefiend as my long range firepower. He managed to gun down one of the squads of crisis suits early on but then felt the wrath of the broadsides in return. I wont even mention the maulerfiend who just got gunned down at the beginning of turn 2 by the same squad. Once those 2 elements were down, it was just a slow death for my cultists and HQ. Yes the game was a little one sided which was my fault but as it was more of a teaching game, encouraged her to get the rules right and allowed her opportunity to recover from mistakes if she misplaced models, etc. I took pics of the game which are the pics shown. All in all, the game was super fun and something that hopefully fosters her desire to play the game more. Who knows, maybe she will want to start an army...
