40K - It's not me, it's definitely you

When I started this hobby back in the early 90s, I was far more into to the Fantasy side than the Sci-fi one. My first wargaming book was Warhammer Armies for 3rd edition, and my first full rules set was 4th edition Fantasy.

I got into 40K much later - picking up some Tallarn when they first came out, as I was still pretty obsessed with Frank Herbert's Dune at the time. But I was a few years older then, so while my fantasy interest ambled between Skaven and Empire, and eventually both armies were sold off, my Guard ended up staying in boxes at my parents house.

This meant that when I got back into the hobby because my darling wife was a painter, and we were looking for a joint hobby to do together, it was my Guard that first got caught up. This blog was first started back in 2012 in the aftermath of a Throne of Skulls tournament where my wife and I had rushed to get a 1500 point Guard army painted after I'd not quite remembered how little was actually painted...

But now? I'm not really interested in playing 40K. I'd been telling myself for a while that it was just that I wanted to play "narrative" games, but was that really true? On reflection, it's not that. People refer to the rules set having gotten "bloated", but that's really not it. Army power levels are massively uneven, and shovelling most of your models off before you've got a chance to do anything with them is no fun at all.

So, my Guard are getting packed away into boxes for a bit. I'm not rage quitting or sulking. I've made a rational decision that I can get more fun for less effort with other games for now. Rumour mill indicates a new edition of 40K later this year, and I rather hope it is a pretty massive overhaul on an Age of Sigmar scale to bring things back into a more balanced, fun experience.

In the meantime, I've got plenty to be pottering along with. I've got 1,000 points of Age of Sigmar Chaos to get finished up so I can give that rules set a go. I'm assembling a couple of figures to act as test beds for my planned Infinity colour scheme. I'm even getting a bunch of the Made to Order Inquisition figures all assembled and undercoated for when the enthusiasm returns.

You may also still see some 40K hobby, because I've got a few of those boxed game malarkies that need assembling and painting, and the intent has always been to assemble them to play the games they came with, not just as a cheap way of getting troops for my army. But for that to start, some other part done projects need finishing first.

Really, even with 40K on the back burner, it's hard to know where to start!