Adventures in Warhammer
So my roommate has been wanting to get back into painting miniatures again for a while, it used to be her hobby before making fursuits replaced it about ten years ago. And I've always been fascinated and curious about Warhammer. In years previous though, the barrier to entry for me had been price. Well, I make oodles now, so I figured I don't have an excuse anymore.
So I started with buying the core rulebooks for Fantasy and 40K along with three armies books from each. For Fantasy I decided to go with Skaven as my main choice, Beastmen as my second choice, and Lizardmen for my third choice. For 40K I decided on Orks as my main, Space Wolves for my second and Tau for my third. So far I've completely read the Fantasy rulebook, skimmed the 40K rulebook, completely read the Skaven armies book, and am now reading the Beastmen armies book. In addition, we've picked up a few books on how to paint the miniatures, including a Skaven clan uniform and colors sourcebook. So, that's the books, which are just the tip of the iceberg that is Warhammer...
Because a major part of the "hobby" (as Games Workshop calls it) is collecting, cleaning, assembling, painting and detailing the models you use to play the game. So I've bought countless boxes of tiny little pieces referred to by GW and gamers as "bits", which are attached to injection-mold cast "sprues". After hours of clipping "bits" off of "sprues" and then using a razor blade to trim away "flash" and seams from the parts, you then glue them together in a vast variety of personal fashions to form "units" that will be fielded on the battleground. But that's JUST the start! Because now you've got to make sure you get a nice even coating of primer all over every model, and then the painting begins... Fortunately though that's the fun and easy part, believe it or not. Honestly one of the most fun parts for me is the final detailing, a process GW refers to as "faces and bases" where you polish-up the face of your models and the base that they stand on by adding bits of grass or rocks or debris or skulls or skeletons - countless types of terrain and interesting ground you can place them on for atmosphere and immersion. Having hundreds of models to have to do this with, meaning thousands of "bits" is very daunting indeed...
And you do it all, because it's what's demanded when you want to finally PLAY the game! You create an army made up of several dozen to hundreds of the models in formations called units, and then take turns at killing the shit out of each other by throwing unbelievable amounts of 6-sided dice that take quite a while to learn what they're for and what they do and how to resolve everything - lotsa math! So far I played one introductory game of 40K at a GW store and got my ass handed to me, then played a full-on game of Fantasy using my own Skaven units that I assembled myself and did reasonably well though for the most part the other guy was just telling me what to do and I wasn't really learning HOW to play the game... Which makes me wonder if I could have done better, had I known what I was actually doing. But we started nearly 2 hours late, so didn't get to finish the game before the store closed. It seemed like a close battle though after the 3 turns we did get to play.
All in all, I really do like the game. The lore is fantastic, it's a very well-crafted and interesting world full of mystery and intrigue and opportunities for battle and adventure. The models that Citadel makes are amazingly detailed and refined and they really love to engage hobbyists and help them do a great job on assembling and painting their models. I would love to have more locals that play and have them over to play at home though, I'm not a fan of hanging out in tight, hot, public shops trying to play games in the din and discomfort of their shop atmosphere... But we'll see where it goes. =)
(P.S. Don't even ask me how much I've spent on this already... Seriously, don't... lol)
So I started with buying the core rulebooks for Fantasy and 40K along with three armies books from each. For Fantasy I decided to go with Skaven as my main choice, Beastmen as my second choice, and Lizardmen for my third choice. For 40K I decided on Orks as my main, Space Wolves for my second and Tau for my third. So far I've completely read the Fantasy rulebook, skimmed the 40K rulebook, completely read the Skaven armies book, and am now reading the Beastmen armies book. In addition, we've picked up a few books on how to paint the miniatures, including a Skaven clan uniform and colors sourcebook. So, that's the books, which are just the tip of the iceberg that is Warhammer...
Because a major part of the "hobby" (as Games Workshop calls it) is collecting, cleaning, assembling, painting and detailing the models you use to play the game. So I've bought countless boxes of tiny little pieces referred to by GW and gamers as "bits", which are attached to injection-mold cast "sprues". After hours of clipping "bits" off of "sprues" and then using a razor blade to trim away "flash" and seams from the parts, you then glue them together in a vast variety of personal fashions to form "units" that will be fielded on the battleground. But that's JUST the start! Because now you've got to make sure you get a nice even coating of primer all over every model, and then the painting begins... Fortunately though that's the fun and easy part, believe it or not. Honestly one of the most fun parts for me is the final detailing, a process GW refers to as "faces and bases" where you polish-up the face of your models and the base that they stand on by adding bits of grass or rocks or debris or skulls or skeletons - countless types of terrain and interesting ground you can place them on for atmosphere and immersion. Having hundreds of models to have to do this with, meaning thousands of "bits" is very daunting indeed...
And you do it all, because it's what's demanded when you want to finally PLAY the game! You create an army made up of several dozen to hundreds of the models in formations called units, and then take turns at killing the shit out of each other by throwing unbelievable amounts of 6-sided dice that take quite a while to learn what they're for and what they do and how to resolve everything - lotsa math! So far I played one introductory game of 40K at a GW store and got my ass handed to me, then played a full-on game of Fantasy using my own Skaven units that I assembled myself and did reasonably well though for the most part the other guy was just telling me what to do and I wasn't really learning HOW to play the game... Which makes me wonder if I could have done better, had I known what I was actually doing. But we started nearly 2 hours late, so didn't get to finish the game before the store closed. It seemed like a close battle though after the 3 turns we did get to play.
All in all, I really do like the game. The lore is fantastic, it's a very well-crafted and interesting world full of mystery and intrigue and opportunities for battle and adventure. The models that Citadel makes are amazingly detailed and refined and they really love to engage hobbyists and help them do a great job on assembling and painting their models. I would love to have more locals that play and have them over to play at home though, I'm not a fan of hanging out in tight, hot, public shops trying to play games in the din and discomfort of their shop atmosphere... But we'll see where it goes. =)
(P.S. Don't even ask me how much I've spent on this already... Seriously, don't... lol)