A Girl Invades The Warhammer Workshop

A Narratively contributor boldly goes where few females have gone before.

Photos by Natascha Yogachandra

Every time Rick walks into Games Workshop, the hobby center I profile in “The Warhammer Workshop,” a choir of voices begins calling his name.

“Riiiick!” yells Enoch Andreades, a 13-year-old mingling with older peers at the back of the store. “What’s up, Rick?” asks Jon Hoffman, slumped over a stool examining his unpainted figures. “Sssssup Rick,” chimes in the boy in the Pink Floyd t-shirt, sitting across a table littered with crumpled paper towels and small paint bottles, cracked open for another day’s use.

I never had a full-on conversation with Rick, but I often saw him during my weekly visits to the store. Each time he pushed in through the door, big coat hanging off his short frame, his name would echo around the Workshop’s narrow walls. Rick was entering a male sanctuary—a place where gamers could come to talk about Necron codexes, debate the most efficient drilling tools and recount their most recent paintball trips.

Girls rarely intruded on this spac…