Great White Buffalo

So I had all my Firestorm stuff over at my brother's house the other night and our friend Lacee was there.  As we were getting ready to play, we sarcastically asked her if she wanted to play.  That's when I witnessed something I've never seen before in my thirty-one years on this planet...

What's a Firestorm?

Without any coercion, this chick says "Sure.  How do I play?"  WHAT?!  Error!  Error!  My brain doesn't even know how to react to that.  After eight years of trying to talk my wife into a game of 40K and coming up empty, I wasn't prepared to deal with this situation!  I managed to push thru the initial shock, however, and we taught Lacee how to play Firestorm.

Where are the rules for girls at the table?

We had two things going for us: 

1) Firestorm Armada is one of the easiest miniatures games in the world to pick up.

2) Lacee isn't a complete moron

With this deadly combination, we were off and running in very short order.  Randy helped Lacee as I sat on the other side of the table showing no mercy.  I play Dindrenzi after all!  After explaining the basic rules and how to interpret her stat cards, we played us a game.  We didn't come up with any crazy scenarios or anything.  We just played to see who could blow up who first and to go thru the basics.  She picked it up fairly quickly and, if I may say so, started getting a little snotty at one point when she blew up my cruiser in two shots.  I put her back in her place with a few well-aimed fore fixed shots from my battleship, however.  

When all the smoke cleared, I came out ahead due to some poor initial setup at the beginning of the game.  She had a fairly good plan but I just got a lot of good rolls.  The important thing is, we all had a pretty good time and had an excuse to drink and roll dice.  What else do you really need?

The question I ask myself, however, is "Why aren't there more female gamers?"  Is there some psychological reason that guys are more drawn to miniature wargaming hobbies than girls?  Did God just wire girls up so different that they typically have no interest in moving little spaceships around and going "PEW PEW PEW" as they fire?  Is Lacee the Great White Buffalo?  I think it boils down to one simple thing: we never ask girls to play.

Girls really should be just as interested in miniatures as guys.  Let's look at a laundry list of qualities that girls possess that lend themselves to miniature wargaming:

1) They've been painting their nails for years so they're good with a brush

2) They're already accustomed to paying ridiculous amounts of money for frivolous things

3) They already own numerous hobby supplies (tweezers, paint/makeup brushes, emory boards and files, cotton balls/smoke markers, scissors, etc. and so on)

4) They remember EVERYTHING!!  Don't believe me?  Tell your significant other something mean and see how long it takes them to let it go.  Dare ya.

5) Girls are super detail-oriented.  They will stare at two indistinguishable pairs of shoes for an hour before making a purchase.  They should be great at putting a list together.

6) Tactics.  Girls will start off with the most innocent conversation in the world and, three minutes later, you've admitted to everything you've ever done AND somehow bought her dinner!

I could probably keep going but my wife might read this.  The point is to not be afraid to ask a girl to play a game with you, fellas.  You never know.  They might actually enjoy it and you might end up with someone else to play against on a regular basis.  Either that or they'll laugh at you and call you names.  No pressure.

I think the booze were kicking in at this point.

As for Lacee, she's employed, funny, relatively classy, an amazing cook, and SINGLE!  I will accept Firestorm models in trade for her phone number.