Warhammer is a game where wars are waged at your fingertips.

A tabletop game of science fiction and fantasy, fought on landscape of the players design, participants are made to use strategy and tactics to defeat the opponent across the table. Wars can take place in the living room or local hobbyshop, taking up no more than three hours of your free time. Models for the game don’t come pre-painted, so it’s up to you to put your creativity to the test with the paint schemes and paint the miniatures.

Spokane has 16 gaming stores, meaning that somewhere around you, someone either knows about this game, sells the models and paint or its dice and tools. One such store is Hobbytown USA, located on Newport highway. Hobbytown is currently in the middle of what’s called a campaign. Campaigns are sets of adventures where players are sent out with different objectives or end goals for the time of play. The current campaign, Shadow Wars, was built to highlight the science fiction side of the Warhammer franchise, 40k.

“The community is mainly comprised of extremely endearing and passionate people who really just want to have fun and roll dice and have a good time,” said Jacob Poutre, an SFCC student and Warhammer enthusiast. “You have a few of them who really take things to the next level in terms of organizing events.”

Tournaments for Warhammer typically happen once a month, giving players time to paint, buy new models to add to their army, or refine their skills so that they feel confident going into play. In the past, tournaments have been hosted at Gamer’s Haven, a space big enough for players, those who just want to paint and build or spectators of the game itself.

“Look into what support you have,” Jase Resen, tournament
organizer and Warhammer player. “For Warhammer, for example, you can actually get prize support from the company that makes the models, or look and see if there are apps for running the tournaments.” According to Bob Kelly over Gamers Haven, the gaming world is changing. While shops like Gamers Haven were once the most convenient option for tabletop gamers, online retailers are quickly taking over the space. “I believe that 15 years from now the only retail businesses that are going to exist are the ones who provide a service.” said Kelly.