This weekend I found myself at ICON. If you don’t know what ICON is, you are forgiven because neither did I until I was asked whether or not I wanted to go on the day. ICON seems to be labelled as the biggest “hobby gaming and comic event in SA” which means that it delves into a further level of geekiness I clearly know nothing about. What made me even more apprehensive is that I would like to think I am friends with quite a few geeky people, and none of them had ever mentioned such an event existing let alone that they were going to it.
But adventure is the key to getting off the couch and so off I trekked to ICON, which was held at the Jabula Recreation Centre in Sandringham, Johannesburg. My first impression was that this was way grittier than rAge or Geekfest; no place for fake geek anything here. My second impression was that I am clearly a one trick pony; I am a gamer. I literally had no idea what was going on. I am going to keep this piece for future reference because when I try ramp up my “quirkiness” by referencing that I play board games (other than the normal things like Scrabble, Cluedo and Monopoly I can only claim proficiency with Settlers of Catan), play card games (Hearthstone is all I have here; if you put a physical card in front of me, like from say Magic I will run away from fear of it exploding) or read comics (I used to think I earned a decent salary until I found out how much being a comic book collector costs), I am lying to myself and to the world.
My epiphany of how I literally knew nothing was when I waltzed over to the Warhammer 40K section and I realised that I had zero frame of reference for this. If you know what Warhammer 40K is, and more importantly what is actually going on or how to play, then you are a far better person than me. For the uninitiated, like me, this is what I witnessed:
- There are giant table tops akin to a table top one might play table tennis on; if you were playing table tennis on a table top littered with landscapes and mountains and lakes and figurines. My immediate thought was “how much do these tables cost?” followed by “are these people millionaires?” I then spotted a 12 year old who seemed to be engaging someone in a game of whatever this was and concluded that he must be some kind of start-up child prodigy. Also because he seemed to have some idea as to what was going on; he was clearly a genius.
- My next thought was a logistical one. I wondered how exactly all these people transported their tables and their figurines around. Did they all own bakkies or double cabs? Was that a prerequisite for being a Warhammer 40K player? And then, where do these people store their tables in their houses? When making decisions on which immovable property to purchase, do you need a separate bedroom to serve as your war room? This was a further justification to the thought that all these people were millionaires wearing tracksuit pants and hoodies.
- I then took a closer look at the figurines. By closer look I mean I sort of squinted until the figurine came into a hazy focus because (1) these figurines seem to be no larger than 5cm each, (2) they are insanely intricate considering that they are only 5cm tall and (3) I can’t even read in-game text when I am playing games so trying to fathom what these were was a challenge. I was also more than terrified of even breathing close to any of the figurines because I was told that I was probably surrounded by millions of rands worth of Warhammer 40K memorabilia (which was further proof that all these people were millionaires).
- I was then told that you actually buy the figurines blank and then paint them yourself. This clarified some previous confusions for me as I was wondering why so many stalls were selling little pots of paint at what was clearly not an arts and crafts convention. The story of the millionaires because stranger now; because all these people clearly had no jobs considering that not only did they have to build their landscape table tops replete with mountains and lakes, but now they also had to paint their figurines before they could play with them (whatever play actually entailed). I have enough problems when I play RPGs with deciding what cheek bone width I should have in relation to where my nose and my ears are and the thought of having to actually make a decision on a colour and then paint on my figurine (which I wouldn’t be able to see anyway because I am blind) would paralyse me to immobility. Well done to all the Warhammer 40K players who made serious life choices between red paint and blue paint.
- One of the other curious things I noticed was that playing this game involved a tape measure. Because life was already not complicated enough. Was this a complex game about measurements or quantity surveying? I would probably never know the answer.
I moseyed around the Warhammer 40K area until I concluded that walking around would never solve these pertinent life questions I now had and that I needed to hand in my geek card at the ICON entrance.
If you play Warhammer 40K or have any inkling as to what is actually going on there; props to you. I learnt this weekend that there a group of hoodie wearing millionaires living in Johannesburg and when the zombie apocalypse happens they are going to be the people militating us heathens into fighting each other for resources.
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