Aspects of the hobby, 3, 4 or more?

[Aldramelech]

There has been much discussion on here of late about aspects of the hobby and many arguments as to whether any one aspect is more important then the others.

Those aspects are: Gaming, Modeling, Painting.

But have a couple of others gate crashed the party in the last couple of years?

Photography: The advent of cheaper digital cameras has made this much more accessible and on some sites (Cool mini or not) people now seem to be being judged on the standard of their photography skills as much as the subject matter. BOLS itself has a thriving gallery and the painting and modeling threads overflow with high quality images. I find Photography frustrating, sometimes I get good shots and sometimes I don't, but I don't understand why. Has anyone here taken a photography course for the sake of the hobby alone?

Education: The Battlefront FOW forum now has a "Flames of War for Educators section. Now there are obvious reasons for this, from a historical point of view. But does the larger hobby have a place in education? There are the obvious benefits to maths.

Are there any other aspects that you can think of that don't normally get mentioned?

[CitizenZero]

There are 4 "Pillars of the Hobby" which GW trains it's employees about...Panting, Gaming, Modelling and Collecting.

Collecting being one that you hadn't previously listed...precisely the reason all those Collector's Edition books sold out so quick...

Another one is definitely Socializing to me. There is an inherent face to face social aspect to our games, something that could never translate into computer games for example...

[Mauglum.]

Double Post.

[Mauglum.]

Hi Aldramelech,
IMO you have missed the biggest part of the Table Top Minature Games hobby.Social interaction!
I can sit on my own being creative .But to me the best part is the talking about what you enjoy with other like minded people , not necisarily just playing a game , but in general.
The sense of belonging to a group often inspires and helps people to develop in a much wider sense of the word than individial hobby skills.

CitezenZero.
Collecting appears to be listed seperatley in the 'GW hobby', as selling product to customer is more important to GW plc than what the customer does with GW product!

TTFN

[Aldramelech]

Perhaps in a world where the next generation are a pale and sickly bunch who are glued to screens, the education and social aspects would find benefit from each other? Perhaps the game can be a tool to teach the dying art of soical interaction?

So we have a possible 7 now:

Painting
Modeling
Collecting
Gaming
Education
Photography
Social interaction

[CitizenZero]

CitezenZero.
Collecting appears to be listed seperatley in the 'GW hobby', as selling product to customer is more important to GW plc than what the customer does with GW product!

TTFN

Not entirely. The collectors range is a good example of GW catering to the people who collect things out there...true, there is no reason for me to own the Animosity Orcs for example, but I still do.

It's the same as when people have cool out of print models such as the Female Imperial Guard models or even things like the Harry the Hammer or older WD models...they are rare, and not everybody has them.

What those classifications help to do is to figure out WHY different people may like the same product for different reasons...so the end result ideally is helping Games Workshop employees to sell more people things they want.

[Shavnir]

The hobby is built on the pillars of building lists, playing the game and arguing about rules. If GW didn't intend for these to be the relevant pillars of the game they wouldn't have setup the game with shoddy rules that are more influenced by army composition than gameplay.

[Grabnutz]

Then there's the more recent Video Batreps. Some of these have become minor web-classics in their own right with music soundtracks, stop-motion animation etc. Poeple are not just reporting battles anymore they are storytelling.

[razcalking]

As a teacher it would be a tough fit to work 40K into any rigorous curriculum like Math. I have, however, had students submit painted models as Art projects and write Language Arts stories in the 40K universe.

I do run a 40K gaming club at the school, and I can appreciate its benefits to the students in that situation. I describe it to wary parents as giving the same benefits as chess - planning, logical thinking and risk taking, sportsmanship, etc.

[Lerra]

Fluff and storytelling are huge aspects of the game, imo. We can't leave those out.