Warhammer Returns from the Wilderness

It’s official. Henry Cavill himself is a Warhammer 40K fan, and so am I. The Witcher himself, when directly asked in an interview “Star Wars or Star Trek”, looked back at the interviewer with reprehension and incredulity, replying “Come on – Warhammer 40K”.

It coincides with my own return to the hobby after several years. I played as a kid – mostly with the Lord of the Rings miniatures at the time, and can remember running games where I played both myself and my own opponent, throwing down a green towel on the good dining room table to act as ‘grass’ and placing some books under it for artificial hills. Never have the plains of Rohan looked so stunning, and the paint jobs on the miniatures so awful.

I attempted to return to the hobby in my early twenties, seeking to assemble a glittering High Elf warhost for Warhammer Fantasy. The paint jobs were much improved, but several other things were lacking. Games Workshop was in the midst of it’s Dark Age (read: merchantilism) phase and charging an arm and a leg with no community support. Second, their lack of support was matched by the lack of enthusiasm of my girlfriend at the time. Thirdly, both those things were matched by my lack of time and money.

Flash forward to 2019 and Games Workshop had instigated their own coup and kicked out the CEO, before expanding it’s community support massively with Youtube channels, podcasts, and all round re-engagement with it’s fans. My girlfriend had become my ex-girlfriend and my new fiancé was cool enough to appreciate the painting aspect of the hobby, and my bank account had increased to that of a young professional with a massive HECS debt but no kids.

Currently I have a mildly impressive Ork warband – tough on the outside, just big “luv’able” gitz who like TA SMASH TINGS. I’ve squeezed in a few ‘Killteam’, games at my local games store and they remain undefeated. I have an aspirational squad of Eldar Rangers who I plan to turn into a Craftworld based on botany and gardens. And recently for Christmas, this particular grown young man got more plastic toy soldiers from Santa (thanks Mum and Dad), which is either incredibly uncool if I was ft and unemployed, or incredibly cool if I was not fat and had a good job and actually starting to develop some skills at painting. They are the core of a new Space Marines chapter roughly based on the Salamanders to be known as the ‘Imperial Hands” (alright, still brainstorming names) who specialize in heavy combat, and improving my painting and basing skills.

As is the varied life of a Witcher, such is mine.