Games I Love: Warhammer 40,000
The Beginning
Warhammer 40,000 (aka 40K), for many... is the GAME to end all miniature games. For a vast selection of miniature game hobbyists this is true and it's influence has extended far beyond the simple medium of plastic soldiers.
There's novels, video games, audio dramas and TV shows/movies currently being developed. This simple miniature game, which started out as a Science Fiction spin-off of Warhammer Fantasy Battles, went on to eclipse it's original... quite significantly. However, this wasn't always the case which brings us to my hobby beginnings.
The Real Start
Looking back, it's actually quite amazing that I was even able to discover Warhammer 40K at all. Like many in the hobby I started in my early teens, during a time where spare cash was very non-existent. The Internet was barely a thing and since I lived in the vast wilderness of the Chaos Wastes of Canada, how would I even begin to learn about it. Little did I know, the fateful day was upon me....
At the time, I was huge into Lord of the Rings and consumed soooo much LoTR content. I read ALL the books, even the Silmarillion, which needless to say was a fascinating slog to get into on our 12 hour car trips to the west coast. I remember a friend from school mentioning that a store in town sold LoTR products, specifically one with tiny toy soldiers. Upon entering the store, they had a demo table setup with Shire Hobbit holes, with a skirmish happening between the Hobbits and Goblins. However, after looking at the display I noticed a small book shelf with several books on it. I proceeded to be drawn to a book with a rat man on it amongst a sea of other rats alongside two other books, a blue 80's looking book with bizarre elf looking aliens and a man with an evil looking face crushing a planet in his fingers.
After looking through the books, I decided to pick up a magazine called White Dwarf and well the rest is history. Oddly enough I never invested into the Lord of the Rings miniatures game and gravitated away from Fantasy at that time for the "space fantasy" of Warhammer 40K created by Games-Workshop. The main driving factors were the same friends who mentioned the LoTR minis to me in the first place, and they decided to go towards Warhammer 40K. We chose the first armies we would collect and little did we know we had started our very own tale of four gamers without even knowing (article in the future).
Ok ok, what about the game itself?
This will date me a little bit, but shockingly even though I have been in the hobby for almost two decades my experiences with Warhammer 40K the game are brief and direct. During my time in the 40K hobby I collected two armies: Tau and Orks (more on those in the future), from the start of 4th Edition to the middle of the 5th edition of the game.
Wait, what's an edition?
Easy to take this for granted especially being in the hobby so much. The crux of a miniature game is the ruleset in which it takes place in. When 40K originally came out, it was initially called Rogue Trader, afterwords the newest version of the rules was known as Warhammer 40,000 2nd edition, then 3rd etc. Usually editions happen as a way to clean up rules bloat from newer releases and are an easy way for game companies to inject new cash into a game. Usually edition changes are easy jumping on and off points for hobbyists, since an edition change will often dictate the future of the product.
Ok back to 4th Edition
Warhammer 40K 4th Edition, was an interesting time to be in the hobby. 4th Ed was a refinement of the rules from the previous edition as newer products and model ranges were introduced prior. While the game was far from perfect, it was my introduction to staple GW game mechanics like rolling to hit, wound and saving throws. Also vehicles had a separate damage chart which made them very durable and yet super fragile. Players from this time period would often refer to a particular vehicle called the Land Raider Crusader Tank. At the time the Land Raider had the nearly indestructible armour value of 14 on every side of the tank, which was not the norm. One version of the Land Raider Crusader had a Blessed Hull ability which made it even harder to pop open against specific Lance weapons (anti-tank), thanks Black Templars! However, since everyone knew about this particular tank people would build their lists to completely counter them. A common running joke would be seeing the tank getting removed on turn one and sit on the side lines for the rest of the match. This inspired an amazing webcomic called Turning Signals on a Land Raider, which exists even to this day.
By the time 5th edition rolled around I was pretty exhausted with 40K, since I played it pretty much exclusively for a period of 4-5 years. Around the time of the new edition, brought with it lots of cool book supplements in the form of: Cities of Death and Apocalypse. However, as any avid Games-Workshop fan from that time period would know, the company wasn't the most popular amongst it's community. Often model ranges would go unsupported for very long periods of time, 14 years in one specific situation and the releases were always random. I was ready for a change and at the time the only real alternative was to play the other game, Warhammer Fantasy Battles. So I embraced my LoTR roots and jumped feet first into it and moved on.
So you love a game you don't play?
Over the years I would keep tabs on Warhammer 40K and since it's the go-to-product at the local store, I haven't been super isolated from the product. Tons of my friends would meet up for games and we would often play smaller games of 40K throughout the years. 5th Edition was often considered the most competitive version of the game at that moment in time, but I could see the game wearing people down. 6th Edition introduced a ton of older mechanics into the game like the psychic phase. This was also the same time that airplanes, huge tanks/robots and terrain kits became a bigger deal. 7th Edition followed super quickly after 6th (I believe around 2 years after) and was replaced by the current edition two years after that. Currently 8th edition is the most secure and stable the game has been in it's history, if there's an army concept you want to build, you can pretty much do it.
I never returned fully to 40K for a lot of the reasons I avoid large scale army miniatures as a whole now. Nothing that is 40K's fault, but more that my tastes in miniature games has changed.
Setting on Warhammer 40K
For me the background and setting of Warhammer 40K is the primary reason I wax nostalgic about the good times. The themes of hope against hopelessness, individual ethical attitudes in the face of adversity and the sheer scale of the universe keep me coming back for more and more. Often I will reflect upon: "What if I just collected a small force of Black Templars or just a couple Eldar Aspect Warriors or..." At the end of the day, you may stop collecting or playing 40K, but like an enchanting siren it never stops calling you back...
Adam
Twitter: @ATT64
Warhammer 40,000 (aka 40K), for many... is the GAME to end all miniature games. For a vast selection of miniature game hobbyists this is true and it's influence has extended far beyond the simple medium of plastic soldiers.
There's novels, video games, audio dramas and TV shows/movies currently being developed. This simple miniature game, which started out as a Science Fiction spin-off of Warhammer Fantasy Battles, went on to eclipse it's original... quite significantly. However, this wasn't always the case which brings us to my hobby beginnings.
The Real Start
Looking back, it's actually quite amazing that I was even able to discover Warhammer 40K at all. Like many in the hobby I started in my early teens, during a time where spare cash was very non-existent. The Internet was barely a thing and since I lived in the vast wilderness of the Chaos Wastes of Canada, how would I even begin to learn about it. Little did I know, the fateful day was upon me....
At the time, I was huge into Lord of the Rings and consumed soooo much LoTR content. I read ALL the books, even the Silmarillion, which needless to say was a fascinating slog to get into on our 12 hour car trips to the west coast. I remember a friend from school mentioning that a store in town sold LoTR products, specifically one with tiny toy soldiers. Upon entering the store, they had a demo table setup with Shire Hobbit holes, with a skirmish happening between the Hobbits and Goblins. However, after looking at the display I noticed a small book shelf with several books on it. I proceeded to be drawn to a book with a rat man on it amongst a sea of other rats alongside two other books, a blue 80's looking book with bizarre elf looking aliens and a man with an evil looking face crushing a planet in his fingers.
After looking through the books, I decided to pick up a magazine called White Dwarf and well the rest is history. Oddly enough I never invested into the Lord of the Rings miniatures game and gravitated away from Fantasy at that time for the "space fantasy" of Warhammer 40K created by Games-Workshop. The main driving factors were the same friends who mentioned the LoTR minis to me in the first place, and they decided to go towards Warhammer 40K. We chose the first armies we would collect and little did we know we had started our very own tale of four gamers without even knowing (article in the future).
Ok ok, what about the game itself?
This will date me a little bit, but shockingly even though I have been in the hobby for almost two decades my experiences with Warhammer 40K the game are brief and direct. During my time in the 40K hobby I collected two armies: Tau and Orks (more on those in the future), from the start of 4th Edition to the middle of the 5th edition of the game.
Wait, what's an edition?
Easy to take this for granted especially being in the hobby so much. The crux of a miniature game is the ruleset in which it takes place in. When 40K originally came out, it was initially called Rogue Trader, afterwords the newest version of the rules was known as Warhammer 40,000 2nd edition, then 3rd etc. Usually editions happen as a way to clean up rules bloat from newer releases and are an easy way for game companies to inject new cash into a game. Usually edition changes are easy jumping on and off points for hobbyists, since an edition change will often dictate the future of the product.
Ok back to 4th Edition
Warhammer 40K 4th Edition, was an interesting time to be in the hobby. 4th Ed was a refinement of the rules from the previous edition as newer products and model ranges were introduced prior. While the game was far from perfect, it was my introduction to staple GW game mechanics like rolling to hit, wound and saving throws. Also vehicles had a separate damage chart which made them very durable and yet super fragile. Players from this time period would often refer to a particular vehicle called the Land Raider Crusader Tank. At the time the Land Raider had the nearly indestructible armour value of 14 on every side of the tank, which was not the norm. One version of the Land Raider Crusader had a Blessed Hull ability which made it even harder to pop open against specific Lance weapons (anti-tank), thanks Black Templars! However, since everyone knew about this particular tank people would build their lists to completely counter them. A common running joke would be seeing the tank getting removed on turn one and sit on the side lines for the rest of the match. This inspired an amazing webcomic called Turning Signals on a Land Raider, which exists even to this day.
By the time 5th edition rolled around I was pretty exhausted with 40K, since I played it pretty much exclusively for a period of 4-5 years. Around the time of the new edition, brought with it lots of cool book supplements in the form of: Cities of Death and Apocalypse. However, as any avid Games-Workshop fan from that time period would know, the company wasn't the most popular amongst it's community. Often model ranges would go unsupported for very long periods of time, 14 years in one specific situation and the releases were always random. I was ready for a change and at the time the only real alternative was to play the other game, Warhammer Fantasy Battles. So I embraced my LoTR roots and jumped feet first into it and moved on.
So you love a game you don't play?
Over the years I would keep tabs on Warhammer 40K and since it's the go-to-product at the local store, I haven't been super isolated from the product. Tons of my friends would meet up for games and we would often play smaller games of 40K throughout the years. 5th Edition was often considered the most competitive version of the game at that moment in time, but I could see the game wearing people down. 6th Edition introduced a ton of older mechanics into the game like the psychic phase. This was also the same time that airplanes, huge tanks/robots and terrain kits became a bigger deal. 7th Edition followed super quickly after 6th (I believe around 2 years after) and was replaced by the current edition two years after that. Currently 8th edition is the most secure and stable the game has been in it's history, if there's an army concept you want to build, you can pretty much do it.
I never returned fully to 40K for a lot of the reasons I avoid large scale army miniatures as a whole now. Nothing that is 40K's fault, but more that my tastes in miniature games has changed.
Setting on Warhammer 40K
For me the background and setting of Warhammer 40K is the primary reason I wax nostalgic about the good times. The themes of hope against hopelessness, individual ethical attitudes in the face of adversity and the sheer scale of the universe keep me coming back for more and more. Often I will reflect upon: "What if I just collected a small force of Black Templars or just a couple Eldar Aspect Warriors or..." At the end of the day, you may stop collecting or playing 40K, but like an enchanting siren it never stops calling you back...
Adam
Twitter: @ATT64
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