Average Age of GW players

Anyone else notice the average ages of those who play the different games? It seems to me that 40K has late teenagers as the average age, fantasy has early 20's, and then Mordheim and blood bowl take the older (I am only 26) players?

Which is funny since i see 40K as being the most expensive, then fantasy (unless you play O&G or Skaven of course) then Mordheim / BB as cheapest, and one would assume older people with steady jobs and longer time to accumulate would have more resources to invest.

Is this just me?

Older players may have more money but they generally have less spare time. Specialist Games (especially Blood Bowl and Mordheim) all have a smaller model-count and teams / warbands are easier to carry around than whole Warhammer armies.

Younger players have often never even heard of Specialist Games if GW hasn't featured them in White Dwarf in their (gaming) life time!

I'm 40 next March and I know I'm not the oldest player on this forum.

The young are not concerned with the high cost of 40K models since it is the parents who do most of the buying.
Or so a 60 year old thinks.

I have noticed many young tend to gravitate towards 40K Chaos. Spray paint them black, add some boltgun metal, and they are done. Chaos tends to be anti-establishment, extra powerful, dark, evil, high points cost so you only need a few. Just what many youth crave.

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I'm 40 next March and I know I'm not the oldest player on this forum.

Neither am I but I do enjoy 40K, WFB, Mordheim, Blood Bowl, BFG, Necromunda (a little), LOTR. AND I do miss GorkaMorka.
Who has time for all of them?
ADD has me jumping to many games, OCD has me making every army that I collect huge. My only saving grace is that 99% of the time I won't play with a model until it is painted.

playtable wrote:

I do enjoy 40K, WFB, Mordheim, Blood Bowl, BFG, Necromunda (a little), LOTR. AND I do miss GorkaMorka.

playtable wrote:

99% of the time I won't play with a model until it is painted.

Ditto! (To both parts quoted.)

Never even thought of the whole anti-establishment thing. Good point. I wonder if that is why Imperial Guard appealed so much to me? The since of duty and teamwork needed to somehow survive all the scary stuff thrown their way.


I really like Orcs (in fact my college gaming group called me the "Orc Guy", but Orks never appealed to me THAT much as a team. Wonder why?

Doing the Birthday Thread has put me in the know on the ages of most of T.B.M.F. Guys/Gals ages. Most are in their mid twenties to early thirties. There are a substantial group of teens, a fair number of Guys in their forties, a few fifties types, AND THEN there's playtable & moi...I'm the elder one of the duo.

As a Guy with "a profound hearing loss"...that's politically-correct-speak for deaf...I've become an observer of life in general & gaming in particular. As a gaming store terrain builder I've had an opportunity, such as it is, to study the G.W. gaming group. This is limited to the one shop, so it may not be universally correct, but from what I've seen ALL the 40K & W.F.B. Guys are between 12 & 16 years old...it's just that quite a lot of them have been that age for a decade or two.

BalrogTheBuff wrote:

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Never even thought of the whole anti-establishment thing. Good point. I wonder if that is why Imperial Guard appealed so much to me?

We all seem to play armies or warbands that mimic our own personalities. That is how we "get into" the game. We are the models.

DeafNala wrote:

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AND THEN there's playtable & moi...I'm the elder one of the duo

Somehow I knew that.

DeafNala wrote:

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Guys are between 12 & 16 years old...it's just that quite a lot of them have been that age for a decade or two.

I hope I never grow so old as to not play with toy soldiers.

playtable wrote:

I hope I never grow so old as to not play with toy soldiers.

I don't think either one of us has to worry about that, my friend. The really great part about being a Guy is never actually having to grow up. With moi, that little boy that played soldiers with his Grandpa is only micro-millimeters from the surface.

The age gap may have to do with the fact 40k and WHB seem to encourage power gaming. It's only the older players, i.e. those who have been through several codex revision and are fed up with rebuilding armies who go for large troop units with smaller groups of elite units.

I've noticed winning in 40k, much as I like the game, has very little to do with tactics and a lot to do with what you've put on the table. My marine force is largely a painting project but on it's few outings it's been hard work as I've got two full tactical squads rather than the usual token pair of scout squads and a lot of elite units/tanks and been hard pressed to counter them.

As for what I play - Mordheim, LOTR a bit, 40k very rarely (still play using 1st edition rules occasionally!), Space Hulk (1st edition), usually got a RPG on the go - currently play testing an unreleased game, Advanced Heroquest and Incursion.

All smaller scale games barring 40k as the LOTR stuff we play is usually narrative bits from the films/books. For me it's the space to keep larger game sin as well as the time.

playtable wrote:

We all seem to play armies or warbands that mimic our own personalities. That is how we "get into" the game. We are the models.

That's a scary thought given that I play witch hunters in Mordheim, Wood Elves in Warhammer and Dark Eldar in 40K.

Well I'm in the portion of younger gamers playing Mordheim (I'm only 16). I started playing Mordheim after fantasy because it was what I had originally imagined/wanted warhammer to be when I first started 4 years ago (characters epically leaping from rooftop to rooftop). Like most of you I'm sick of the way Games Workshop force their rules and all the money you spend there. I've managed to convert our gaming group to Mordheim they don't exactly support my view... (although I have always been fairly skeptical).

So what I'm trying to say is that there is a (very small) minority of younger players that play Mordheim because of the state of fantasy and 40K .

For me, it is certainly true what most people say here. Started with WHFB when I was like 15 (that is when it got popular in my part of Germany) and switched over to MH last year or so due to time-issues. I am 28 now and decided that I didn't want to give up this hobby entirely. But when you have a job, non-tabletop friends, a few other hobbies and do sports on a regular basis, you have to set your priority. So there is one evening for MH every week or every other (depends) and I paint a little wehenever there is an hour spare or so.

On the other hand, I know a lot of other guys in the same situation as me, who still stick to WHFB, so you can't generalize.

What was shocking for me (years back), was how expensive this hobby all of a sudden becomes, once you start having your own students-job. 30€ wasn't much when mama payed. But once you start to think about for how many hours you have to work for these 30 bucks...

Yeah I started 40K back when i was 11 (2nd ed) and fantasy when i was around 14 (4th i think the one with lizardmen and bretonnians). But Mordheim hooked me as soon as it came out. Too bad my friends all liked others more.

And welcome Kasumi!!! You are the kind of teenager we all like to see!

Lizardmen and Brets was 5th, the Edit I started myself. 4th was HE and Goblins.
And yes, welcome Kasumi!

Its funny about age and maturity... when I was little, people always told me I acted so grown up... when I was a pre-teen, people called me and old soul, heh... and now that I'm technically an adult, people tell me how delightful it is that I still act like a little kid, or how irresponsible I am. I rarely get along with people my own age, and spent much of my summers with my grandpa learning to fish or playing boardgames. He felt more my speed - slow, methodical, and generally not very fussed about most things.

I suspect this is more because I've simply known who I was since I was little, whereas others seems to change with fads or whatever age they happen to be in at the time... I on the other hand will never tire of my toy soldiers. They were a good idea when I was 10, they're a good idea at 26, and I suspect they'll still be a good idea when I'm in my 70's.

On picking an army that fits the players personality, I find people either have a singular match or they're very schizophrenic. When I first started, I started with Beastmen and Chaos Warriors... that didn't last long. Then I went to Imperial Guard. I quickly grew frustrated with how inept they were individually, and started collecting High Elves and Eldar, with some Wood Elves on the side, and I've kept that up for about 16 years now.

I don't think you can generalise a lot here. I've always though 40K was a little childisch, allthough I've never played the game, that's just how I look at it. I'm an all fantasy guy. But as much as I love WFB I still feel there's more depth to Mordheim: it's propably that dark atmosphere and the campaign system. I don't feel like age has got much to do with it. Most "old guys" I know play either specialist games and/or Warmachine next to WFB. The younger ones propably play fantasy or 4OK because GW is giving specialist games the silent treatment: they propably don't even know what great games excist!!

About chosing the army you're most connected with: how do you explain I play WoC and Empire in whfb? Beastmen, skaven and merc in MH? (though I have to admit: you'll never find me playing ANY type of elf!)



what does strike me is that in America the dominant system seems to be 40K wereas in Europe it is WFB...
..different cultures i suppose

I generalize a lot, but only out loud. I find it stirs conversation better (and takes about half the time to say and i be lazy...)

Different Cultures is sure true. Even the two ends of the states show different. Here on the Western coast we have a lot of asian influence. While the eastern seems to get more European. So I think that is why Dreadnaughts and Tau are super popular here. I am just suprised I don't see more Titans.