Goatboy’s 40k Thoughts – In Defence of the Grimdark
Goatboy here, typing away on a Friday morning at work, before headed out to Dallas to throw down for Ard Boyz. But enough tournament talk, here’s what I REALLY love about 40k…
I know that advice is advice but at this point I am kind of tired of seeing the same stuff over and over. Look here is how you win games. Control the objectives or beat up the opponent. Create advantages either by terrain usage, unit usage, or just more dice then your opponent. Really isn’t that it most of the time?
Why I Play
So instead of some kind of tournament advice or list building thoughts I thought – why not talk about why we even play this game? I know why I spend lots of time and money on this. I effing love the evil grim dark nature of the game. I love it enough to spending hours building and painting models and then turn around and throw down in a video game I am pretty terrible at (GoatboyBBMA on Xbox live. Shoot the crap out of me if you see me). I love painting and building evil looking models to the point where I continue to rebuild lists just to paint more dudes (6000+ points in CSM, plus most of my other armies turning evil with a Chaos Bent to all of their designs).
I HEART Villians
Heck if I get lucky enough to do well in Ard Boyz round 2 I plan on getting CSM. Don’t I have enough models? Hell no! Seriously I just like painting those guys. I am even making a Rogue Inquisitor army to create a cool table that has good versus evil on it all within one army (Thank you Mr. Ward for making a mean book and sorry Mr. Kelly for not giving my goat, wolves, etc more love). Woot I love any game that lets me stretch my creative muscles and still gives me options to throw dice and play something. I like to draw and design but without some way to interact with an opponent it all can get a little bit flat after while.
Loving the Grimdark
Beyond all of this I do really like the fluff. The threatening Necrons mean that we might see a new direction in the fluff and that excites me. More Horus Heresy novels are coming out and I just started reading them too (they are good and trashy fun). Chaos Legions is said to be coming and I feel my 40k journey cycling to the beginning and that is awesome too. Maybe Abaddon will get a new haircut, something a bit more hip then the terrible Kender top knot (Faux Hawk?). Who knows what will happen after that codex-wise. Probably more marines and maybe a decent Xenos (Tau please).
Power Armor FTW
Lately I have come to the decision that I just like to play Marines myself. After starting and stopping armies throughout my time I am finding that I really just enjoy playing marines from all the 3+ armor codexes. Whether it is my fake Wolves with the Space Goats or actual Fabius Bile Marines I just enjoy genetically engineered super soldiers. When I sit down and paint for myself most of the time I look at ways to get that perfect style on some stylized, make believe, armor set. Of course I say this after counting up my 25+ Rhino chassises for different marine armies and I think – crap I should have just done super generic Grey Goats who could use any 3+ codex – oops.
Sorry for the meandering, it is just a slow period for 40k right now. Next week with Gamesday UK we might see some Necrons coming out so most likely I will be in some kind of glowing green pool of Necron thoughts. I don’t think I will paint the army unless a client wants me too (got a cool idea for a scheme heh) so I will most likely be theory hammering as the rules start to dribble out. I might borrow one of the local Necron armies to test out some builds as I zoom around and go pew pew with the gauss weapons. So hopefully we can get back to some tactics and other nonsense from myself and others.
So really – what makes you keep coming back to this game, even when you feel your enthusiasm fading?
