Warhammer 40,000 has been around a long time. I've been aware of it forever. Heck I started playing Dungeons & Dragons in the 1980s and tried almost everything I could get my hands on: Star Trek, Star Wars, Battletech and Mechwarrior to name a few. I even tried to get into Call of Cthulhu (except no one wanted to). So I knew of Warhammer and Warhammer 40k, but I never really got into it because no one I knew was into it.
Then Dawn of War came out and even then I really didn't get into it right away. I got Dawn of War, Winter Assault, and Dark Crusade as Christmas presents in 2006. Unfortunately I also got other games, so DoW sat until summer of 2007. And I decided to play. And I did a little. But even then I only got so far into the DoW campaign before I allowed myself to get sidetracked.
DoW sat some more, until the spring of 2008. Bored, needing something to play, and not wanting to tax my computer as I watched it die, I decided to give DoW another go. I hammered through the DoW campaign, and the Order campaign for Winter Assault, and as I was contemplating whether to play the Disorder WA campaign or go right to Dark Crusade I started to become more interested in the actual tabletop game itself.
It also helped that my buddy Steve was really getting into it. I knew I had someone I could talk to about the game, and eventually play the game with them.
So I set DoW aside again (really even though it doesn’t sound like it, I truly love Dawn of War, and I am breathlessly excited for Dawn of War II) and started researching the game. I was amazed at how much more to the game of 40K there was. My perceptions had been Space Marines v Orks with some other races to fill out the universe. DoW had enlightened me some, but it only scratched the surface. I was really not aware of how detailed the universe was, how many races/armies there were. So I started to absorb it and contemplate it.
When getting into something like Warhammer 40,000 there’s more to consider than just the rules. The game is so much more than that. The game is a hobby. It takes time to prepare. You collect armies, but you build them and paint them as well. I’ve been into Warhammer 40,000 since October of 2008 and I still have not played the game. It’s taken me time to build up my paint area, my paint supplies, study how to paint the way I want to. Oh, and there was the pesky part about which army to focus on.
40K is an investment in time and money so I didn’t want to take this decision lightly. I wanted an army that was going to be fun to build, but not too complicated to play. I didn’t want to do Space Marines because Steve was building a Space Marine army. I contemplated Chaos Marines but they just didn’t quite feel right to me. Necrons are cool, but I wanted something a little more varied in look. Eldar are unique, but difficult to play. So eventually I settled on Orks, and I have been happy with that decision. There’s variety, there’s a challenge, there’s an intrinsic sense of humor in a race that is just as happy killing each other as killing da soft pink skinned humans.
So I settled on my army, I’m learning about the game, and I’m hoping someday to actually play the game. And, of course, I’m blogging about it. I could have, if I had thought of it, started this blog last year. This year finds me really wanting to dig deep into the game and move beyond the newbie stage. As such I’ve decided to blog my time as a 40k Neophyte. I’ll post what I’m working on, what I’m learning, and any cool 40K news I feel like commenting on. I hope you enjoy the journey as much as I do.
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