Warhammer 40,000

Warhammer 40k: Returning to Fenris

I heard something the other day that stuck with me, especially when thinking about the state of modern table top miniature gaming.

People don’t know what they like, but they like what they know.

That pretty much sums up my feelings about Warhammer 40k. It’s not an elegant rules system, the release schedule is predatory, but the miniatures look great and everyone knows about it, hell, most of my friends grew up with it. Getting them to come up from the Warhammer 40k mines is like pulling teeth.

*My Space Wolves commander as he was originally painted*

So, in the interest of continuing my gaming hobby with some really nice people that I enjoy hanging out with, I begudgingly started up a Space Wolves army, and had a good time painting the first 1,000 points. But I was kicking and screaming the whole time, I promise!

Last week, though, I saw someone’s army that had been painted up like medieval knights, and I fell in love. I decided to go back and start making these Wolves work for me. If I’m going to play 40k, I might as well enjoy what I’m painting, right? So, I went in and darkened up the armor, making the grey/blue more of an accent. And I’m very happy with the results!

I also decided to re-paint the gold as silver, which really adds a lot of contrast to the armor and allows any warm colors, which I’m keeping for leathers, furs, and skin tones, to really shine. Now, to finish up the other 20-some odd space vikings!

Warhammer 40,000

The Salt Mines: 40k Space Wolves

Anyone who has followed this blog for a longer period of time knows that I’ve been struggling with Warhammer 40,000 for a while. I’ve been playing off and on since 1989, and I honestly can’t stand the business model. If that game needs to be updated every three years after being in print for close to four decades? You’re doing a shit job.

*He’s mean! He’s beardy! He’s not a dwarf! But he should have a hammer anyway!*

Sadly, most of my friends have a bad case of 40k Fever. It’s pretty much all they want to play, so I can either NOT play games with them and happily plug away on my other projects, or I can put together something that I do like in the lore and grumble about it a lot.

Yeah, I’m a bundle of fun. People line up around the block to play games with me.

Space Wolves have always had a special place in my heart. They don’t care about the Codex Astartes, they look like they can pilot a longboat, and beards are cool. Plus, they have wolves. Wolves are cool.

I’m going to put together a total of 2,000 points for this army, for a game I really don’t like, just because the people I play with are a lot of fun and I don’t want to NOT play games with them!

Still not sure how to keep engaged enough to learn the janky ass rules without lighting it all on fire, though. Sure, One Page Rules has a good alternative, but good luck getting anyone with 40k Fever to break from the GeeDubs greed train. Grumble grumble.

I’ll have some Terminators up soon, and probably a Rhino or two. And some Bloodclaws and a Dreadnaught. That’s still not 2,000 points, but that’s what I own already, so it’ll have to do for now, hahaha!

Miniatures, Warhammer 40,000

Let’s Throw That Color Scheme OUT THE WINDOW

When the 10th edition of Warhammer 40,000 came out, I fell into a trap that I tend to set for myself. I jumped head first into a horde army, knowing full well that my sensibilities are far more skirmish game sized.

I painted up a Carnifex to test a color scheme I had percolating in my head for Tyranids, and it’s pretty neat, right?

Thanks. I loved it. And then, 25 minis into that scheme, started to hate it. Loathe, even. The type of loathing that I tend to reserve for B Movie villains and bad barristas.

I moved on to another color scheme, and while it was spiffy to look at, I was faced with the same problem. Painting the same color scheme, over and over and over and over and over a hundred times is no longer something I have any patience for!

Slowly, something began to dawn on me. Why on earth was I painting a horde of space bugs a uniform color scheme? How about if the colors the bugs end up has more to do with what biomass they consumed than some Grand Color Scheme from the stars?