In which I talk a little bit about my current position in the wargaming hobby ...

In my last post, I talked about my background, and how I got into the hobby. Now, I think we can look at where I am in the hobby today.

As I intimated earlier, I don't have any real interest in the modelling or painting side of the hobby - in fact, whenever I do manage to get some impetus in that direction, I've usually lost interest by the time I've dug everything out. No, my main interest lies in actually playing with toy soldiers, however, I appreciate that, in order to actually play with said toy soldiers, you do need an army of the little buggers to play with, preferably painted to some degree. You can imagine, then, that my army building is ridiculously slow and, as such, don't get to play as often as I would like.

The system in which my main interest lies, unsurprisingly, is Games Workshop's Warhammer 40,000 science fiction game, hereafter known simply as WH40K. This system has been kicking around for more than 25 years now, and is currently in it's 5th revision (and, therefore 6th version) of the rules. During this time, it's developed a large and rich setting, background and imagery, both through the different iterations of the game, and the associated army books (known as codices, or codexes, if you prefer), and the ranges of novels, and other background-related books released through Games Workshop's own, internal publishing house, The Black Library. The game also a wide, and high quality range of miniatures (the actual toy soldiers, themselves), and other models, such as vehicles (Tanks. You've got to love tanks. Who doesn't love tanks?), and scenery. The same can be said about Games Workshop's other main, primary gaming system, Warhammer Fantasy Battle (WHFB).

There are a number of other gaming systems in which I'm interested, however, my current economic situation (I'm currently out of work), makes trying to get involved with these somewhat difficult at best.

Right. WH40K. I love Space Marines. There, I've said it. I have a Crimson Fists army, that I've slowly been building up since the release of the 3rd Edition set of the rules ... it's a very long and slow process, mainly due to my choice to make them all Mk6 (or "beakies") ... in plastic. OK, so I'll admit that there's a lot of other versions of the actual armour used, they all have Mk6 helmets. Company keeping changing their paint range hasn't helped matters much - first they got rid of Storm Blue, then Midnight Blue, then the newer Necron Abyss and long-time workhorse Regal Blue (which was my choice of highlight colour) ... and the current Kantor Blue, which replaces both the latter two colours mentioned, is somewhere between the two. This, however, is a frustration and more of an excuse, than a reason for painting lethargy. Unsurprisingly, I also have quite a lot of other armies, that I've started collecting, that are just sitting there, going nowhere fast.

Have fun.

-G.