Throwback... Monday?

1996 was a crazy year. The 2nd Ed Chaos Codex was out, and my 2000pt army consisted of a Black Legion Chaos Lord in Terminator Armour with all four Marks of Chaos, a bunch of Terminators, three Chaos Sorcerers, a Dreadnought, Land Raider and a squad of Chaos Marines. Pretty tiny!

The army has long gone, but I have kept one model to remind me of this time. 

Looking at it again, I think this is actually one of the best models that I have ever painted. I tried to copy the picture in White Dwarf and while it's not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, I hadn't done any blending before and there were no YouTube tutorials, just whatever you got from White Dwarf, any mates tricks, and experience.

The only bit I think I would try to fix is the eye on the top of the staff.

Resurrecting my hobby...

Well it has been a while… a whole year in fact.

There was a distinct lack of hobby done in 2019 – I had a year of restructuring at work, kids are older and doing more activities/consuming more time, and also the serious illness and death of a family member that still, 6 months later, requires time and input to work through just the administrivia – and despite this I still made a choice against advice to the contrary to run two tournaments and play in a couple as well (albeit with not the greatest amount of enthusiasm due to these challenging impacts). I think I managed to paint maybe a dozen models and that was probably only because I needed them for Fields of Blood.

Part of the challenge too, like I raised in 2017, was the neverending (and compounding) sense of the Fear Of Missing Out with regards to GW and their amazing release schedule – and in particular my ability to deal with it, mentally, which I think was worse in 2019.  You begin one thing and a week later it’s yesterday’s news and you might end up – as I did last year – too scared to start anything for fear of not being able to finish it, particularly if you are a slower painter like me. I also didn’t do any small creative bits of work (e.g. an Inqusitor conversion) because it wasn’t getting me any closer to a completed competitive army so why would you start? And then because I wasn’t doing anything, my perspective got warped to where I felt like I was failing, and failing at something I have a huge amount of passion for. This made me consider at one point giving everything hobby-wise up so I didn’t have to think about it.

Part of this stems from that I always had so many quite thought out and concrete ideas for how I would build and paint themed armies (e.g. Space Wolf Kaerls). The current availability of models make it soooo easy to be able to create cool armies that I think you could spend 24hrs a day building and painting and still not finish everything.  Reflecting on this In ye olde dayes, you would have 1-2 army releases a year (and several years between Codex updates) which would give you plenty of time to buy build and paint an army. These days it feels like 1-2 armies a month. Let alone the “need” to keep up with blog feeds, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook groups, local clubs… it’s overwhelming at times. 

As a quick comparison, 25 years ago….

1995(ish):

Space Marines

Dark Angels

Blood Angels

Space Wolves

Imperial Guard

Sisters of Battle

Tyranids

Eldar

Orks

Chaos

Plus Citadel Journal ‘unofficial’ lists e.g. Genestealer Cults, Arbites.

2019:

Space Marines (9 variants + custom chapters)

Dark Angels

Blood Angels

Space Wolves

Deathwatch

Astra Militarum (7 variants)

Imperial Knights (8+ variants)

Adeptus Mechanicus (6+ variants)

Adepta Sororitas

Adeptus Custodes

Inquisition

Tyranids (distinct Hive Fleets)

Genestealer Cult

Eldar (5 variants + custom craftworlds)

Harlequins

Dark Eldar

Ynnari

Tau

Necrons (5 variants)

Orks (5 variants)

Chaos Space Marines (7 variants + Renegades)

Death Guard

Thousand Sons

Renegade Knights

Chaos Daemons (5 variants)

And note this list does not include Forgeworld army lists.
*EDIT - realised I left Grey Knights off this list!

There are also Supplementary Campaign books (Vigilus, Psychic Awakening) and Other Games (Necromunda, Warcry, Kill Team, Blackstone Fortress, et al) some which have units you can officially use in 40k too.

And Errata.

Of the list of armies above I have 12 of them in various states of size and assembly. Is that too many? Who knows for sure (answer: probably yes. I have been accused of being a magpie). 

So in 2020 I am taking a different approach. After much reflection in the last two months I feel more at peace with where my hobby is at, and I am going to let the FOMO wash over me like a cool breeze and focus on small steps. I want things to be simpler not more complicated. 

This year I will look to rationalise my collection (starting with non-40k games) and remove some physical and mental clutter. I have enough Best Army and Best Painted awards, so there are no itches to be scratched there which means I am consciously going to try focus away from “Good” to “Good Enough”. 

I am going to return to my challenge of painting 1 model a week, and see how I go. 52 models should be a tournament sized army, generally, if I decide to focus on a specific thing. But 52 models painted is 52 fewer models I need to do. 

I am also going to attempt to stop this alleged hoarding. I've been pretty good the last couple of months (comparatively speaking).

I'll continue to run Maelstrom and Warpstorm and will look for assistance in the administration.

To make things reasonable for my painting goals (i.e. a Land Raider is not ‘1 model”) I will use the following scale:

25-40mm = 1 model

Vehicle (Dreadnought equivalent) = 3 models

Vehicle (Rhino equivalent) = 5 models

Vehicle (Land Raider equivalent) = 8 models

Large Vehicle (Knight+) = 12 models

Wishing myself luck! 

Oh and I am off to a start. Rhino or Dreadnought equivalent? Still awaiting transfers and bases but once I have completed painting the actual models that's when I'll finish them in one batch.

40k Composition - redux

One of the conundrums (either up front or burbling away in the background) from 3rd Ed onwards has been around the best way to moderate lists in tournaments so that armies were balanced (that is, balanced better than the slow erratic release schedule from GW would allow). Now, with releases coming thick and fast, there is a new kind of problem - it's hard to keep up!

Recently I was sent a link to a post in BoLS here, which is an interesting read. You can have a look at the website here too.

I think too that the published goal is a nice ideal, in that "Community Comp provides appropriate motivation to players for them to lower the power level of armies generally to a level about where we were at the end of 5th edition. With a stable, moderately powered meta game, even the worst units in the 40k universe become viable units to play with. With all units being viable, we get an opportunity to satisfy our creative urges without feeling like we will never get to play with those units. In addition newer players are more likely to enjoy their games in the competitive arena and come back for more next time."

I'd probably use 'moderate the power level' rather than 'lower' it, but meh.

One of the things that I think a system like this encourages is the return of more narrative or 'themed' armies (and no Tim, 'A-liquorice-allsorts-all-the-best-units-in-my-codex-with-my-allies-best-units-as-well-as-Forgeworld" is not a theme... I admire your passion though). 

You will get to see all (ok, not all, but certainly more) of those cool but less effective units appear, and it will challenge meta list builders - yes, there will be some that, for them, squeezing the last drop of effective juice out of a points framework will be the reward unto itself. 

It will also teach players different tactics. How to use those less optimal units more effectively can unlock the uber combo of tomorrow, yes?

Best of all, we all know that 40k is nothing if not great for forging the narrative, after all that's what its purpose is. At least that is what they tell us, and why we keep playing the game.