Goatboy Warhammer 40K: What I Am Thankful For
Goatboy here with what I’m most thankful for in Warhammer 40K, right before Thanksgiving.
I hope everyone has a nice time these next few days – either working for that sweet double time and half, seeing family, and hopefully eating some good food. I know I am going to see some family and of course wreck some turkey like rolled all 6’s. Today I want to list a few things I am thankful for during these interesting times.
Events Are Back
The big thing I am thankful for is events coming back. With GW doing 3 events, FLG running their plethora of grim dark battles, and a ton of regional GT/RTTs out there it is a great time to be coming back and playing competitive 40k. It also feels like most of the events are running the same missions and rules. This is huge as we all remember the good ole days of each event having a different tweak and building towards utilizing that shift in the perceived “true” gameplay. Still – I am just glad I can play events again.
Hello Friends!
Chaining into the whole event side of things it has been a great mental boost to see my friends again. There are a lot of people in this hobby that I care about. I want to hear how their lives are going, their families carrying on, and how things are for them. I want to help give them that mental boost to feel that there are other people who love this hobby. It is just a nice thing and just helps keep me sane at times when things were a bit dark. There is a lot of thought in how this hobby is more than just winning and losing – it is a way to connect outside some of the crap in real life. Plus – it is fun to hear all the weird stories of their own kids being crazy turds.
Competitive 40K Getting Some Love
I am thankful that GW has paid attention to the competitive scene. While it isn’t the most important aspect of their business they do understand having decent rules helps drive the other aspects of their game. Good rules sell models and selling models is what GW wants to do. Making sure things work and paying attention to the chance for stagnation is important to having a healthy game. Having a healthy game means I feel like going out and playing events as I generally like to win more than lose but would rather play something I like then having to just play the new hotness.
Paint!
I am thankful that I can get paint for just about any project right now. I remember when I first started painting these models and how terrible it was to get something looking decent – let along being terrible at painting. It is amazing the amount of products we have to choose from and utilize. I can’t wait to see the new stuff that ends up getting discovered and coming out in the future.
Better Terrain
I am thankful that terrain seems to be something pushed heavily in all competitive circles. The events are putting more effort in building unique tabletops and I appreciate the time teams are putting into it. Would I like more terrain? Sure but I would also like a new Chaos Space Marine book so you know I can wait for everyone to catch up and sink in their table tops.
Streams Are Helping
As much as a stream game can be annoying to play on I am thankful for it as it has started to push the competitive players into well – being better people. There were many comments in the event on how a player needed to be less salty about dice rolls. I saw a lot of nice back and forth between players as well and less of the gotcha issues you saw in the past. It has done wonders by weeding out some of the bad elements like dice cheating and just rude player issues we saw in the hey day of competitive 40k. Are these things still there? Of course but at the upper end of the table if you are a jerk then everyone towards the top knows and knows to play you in fully activated competitive mode.
My Readers
I am thankful for the readers that come up to me and talk about how they have enjoyed my nonsense writing throughout the years. I might not always be everyone’s cup of tea but when I meet you at an event my goal is to give you a good competitive game. I want you to have a good time as much as I have a good time throwing the bones and hoping for success. The social contract of a decent 2-3 hours is important to me and I hope it is just as important to you.
There are a lot of things to be thankful for this year. We made it out of mists and have the rest of next year to look forward to more games, sweet models, and hopefully a good time.
While you munch down on some Thanksgiving food just remember that sometimes Goatboy just rolls 6’s and Death to the False Emperah!
