Phasing in a New Army

When I moved to Atlanta last October, one of the new hobbies I took up was the game Warhammer 40,000 (also known as 40k, for short). Being of Scottish ancestry, the army I selected to play was called the ‘Space Wolves’, a Space Marine chapter. Yes, I know, Space Wolves fluff and back story is based on Norse mythology, not Celt, but it’s the closest thing to Celt Mythos in the 40k Universe, so that’s what I went with.

Unfortunately, I soon found out that the Space Wolves were also amongst the most popular of Space Marine chapters to play. The upside to that, of course, was always being able to find models for that army at the local gaming store. The downside is, to damn many people were playing that army. The only thing I could really do to make my army stand out was go with a slightly different color scheme when painting them compared to most other players using the color scheme presented in the Space Wolves Codex.

After a few months of playing Space Wolves, I actually started getting a bit bored of them. After all, they’re really just another Space Marine chapter amongst dozens of Space Marine chapters. I wanted to play something different.

The one army I never saw anyone play at Giga-bytes Café was the Necrons. I became intrigued. So I looked through their codex and I very much liked what I saw. I also really liked the look of the models. An army of immortal living robots? Awesome! It would be like playing an entire army of Schwarzenegger-esque terminators. They even had a special rule called “We’ll Be Back”. How awesome was that?

So, I started buying up the little bit of Necrons models that Giga-bytes had in stock with plans to have the owner order more as I decided exactly how I wanted to build my list. Then something happened that made me excited and sad at the same time. I had to post-pone the building of my new army because the models had all become back ordered from Games Workshop. WTF!?

See, Warhammer 40k is currently on the 5^th edition of its rule set, but the Necrons Codex was still from 4^th edition as it had not been updated for 5^th yet. The reason everything had become backordered and unavailable was because GW was finally updating the Necrons for 5^th edition. This was exciting because it mean newer, updated special rules for this army and possibly new models as well. The part that made me sad was that my reason for wanting to play this army was potentially about to be nullified. See, I wanted to play Necrons because no one else at my hobby store did. The typical MO when an army gets updated is that a shit-ton of people all of a sudden starts buying up models for it. It’s like everyone has “ooo shiny!” moment and thinks they just have to have it because it’s the newest thing to hit the shelves.

After a months of waiting for the new codex to come out, the day finally arrived yesterday! GW finally released the new codex for Necrons and also introduced several very new, very sexy models for this army. And the timing on this was even better because my birthday is next week, so I ended up getting an early birthday present from my fiancée.

I am very thankful of the fact that, so far, the only person who actually reserved anything for the new release other than a copy of the new codex was me. And no one can accuse me of being a “band wagon” buyer of this new set of models because I had already started this army and planned on playing it before I even knew that GW was updating it for 5^th edition.

So, I have some models to build and paint now that I’m actually looking forward to. And more importantly, I’m really anxious to get this army built so I can play it. I’d say the odds are pretty good that I’ll end up getting my Necrons army built up to a full 2000 point list well before I get my Space Wolf army completed.

With that said… I’ve got a codex to read and models that need building.

~JC

The Hammer of War

I really have to stop saying “never.” I said I'd never write a blog – yet here I am, as I am almost every Sunday morning writing a blog. I said I'd never play World of Warcraft – I ended up addicted to it for a year and a half. And, of course, I said I'd never have a MySpace, Facebook or Twitter account, and yet I have all three! So, here's my latest never that's about to be trumped – I'll never play Warhammer. Yeah, right.

Now, I have good reasons to say that I'll never play Warhammer, or it's Sci-Fi cousin Warhammer 40,000 (or 40k for short). First of all, it's expensive as hell! Have you ever priced any of this stuff? The starter kit is $90! $90!? Really? For a friggin' tabletop game, that you have to put the damn pieces together yourself!? Fuck that! Then there's that – the having to put them together yourself. I mean, Axis & Allies was a fairly expensive board game at around $50, but at least the pieces were already together – we opened the box, read the rules and started playing right away. But not Warhammer; oh hell no. You have have put the models together and paint them first. WTF? Several years ago a friend of mine actually gave me a starter set for Warhammer: The Game of Fantasy Battles. He had won it or something. It seemed intriguing at the time, but then I found a hobby shop that sold the extra pieces for it and noticed the price of the stuff. It's like one part model building/painting mixed with one part collectible card game/deck building. You keep building and expanding your army. You buy more models, put them together, paint them, then find other people who've done the same and have table top battles.(1) I like the concept to be honest. Strategy, luck of the dice – I even like the model building and painting thing. But why in the hell do these things cost so much? I'm sorry, but no one is ever going to convince me these things are fairly priced. $90 for a box of little plastic models I have to paint and put together myself is pretty ridiculous. And yet, yesterday I went out and got paints and brushes so I could start painting the models I was given years ago.(2) I'm watching eBay for deals on 40k models so I can start building an army of Space Wolves. I've obtained the rulebook and codex for the 40k army I want to build so I can learn how to play. Truth be told, I'm more interested in the modeling part of the process than I am the game at this point, mainly because the only people I know who could teach me to play live hundreds of miles away, and one of them is even in a different time zone. But that doesn't mean I can't enjoy the relaxing hobby of building and painting models like I used to when I was a kid. And if I'm going to start building models, I might as well let it tie in to my normal gaming-geek nature and let those be war gaming models, I suppose.

~ JC

(1) To explain, in brief, for those to lazy to click on all the links I've provided and go read up on it for yourself – the starter kits are plenty for you to be able to play the game. But most people get into the hobby as a whole, that being the collecting, building and painting of the models and thereby being able to improve and expand one's army. The game uses a point system to keep things fair, so some guy who only owns, say 410 points worth of models (which is about what the starter box for the Space Wolves I plan to play is) isn't going to get crushed by the guy who owns 2000 points worth of models (like my best friend's Blood Angels army that he's built over several months). The guy with the 2000 would have to reduce his force proportionately so the match is fair.

(2) I don't really plan to play either of the armies that came in the Warhammer Fantasy set I have. I'm just going to paint them so I can practice painting miniatures. I haven't painted miniatures in almost a decade and a half (back then minis were just something we used as a visual aid for D&D and not an essential part of role playing – but that's another rant for another time)