A Whole Lotta Words

Usually when I write a post I try and have the title get across what the post is about in the shortest and most word efficient way possible (“Is Warhammer Dying” and “2014 in Review” being 2 examples), unfortunately for this post that’s not possible because the subject of the post, my current view on GW, doesn’t translate well to a short and informative title.

Qutting GW games is very hard, and I mean quitting 100%. If you have a fully painted army and have enjoyed the games of either WHFB or 40k you have played so far it’s very hard to give it up entirely and go play either other wargames or find a new hobby. This is something I have noticed recently when reflecting on my occasional bouts of anti GW anger because on two of those occasions I have decided to give up on all GW games and go play something else yet here I am with 1 40k army, 2 Fantasy armies, a regular Monday night game of WHFB as well as other games of 40k/Fantasy throughout the week. I think the reason this happens is that I enjoy the games that GW puts out, WHFB is still my number one wargame and 40k is a good fun game, and that my enjoyment of the game is constant where as my anger towards GW is temporary as anger usually tends to be. And I think the same is true for many people who feel angry towards GW, they feel anger (maybe even rage) towards GW for whatever stupid move GW did at the time but the as time goes on maybe they play some 40k/WHFB or maybe they reflect on the fun they have had playing GW games in the past and slowly they come back to the hobby. To me the only way you really quit GW games for good is by selling all your armies and books there by making it very difficult to play a GW game without first investing huge amount of money and time getting an army up to scratch.

All that is a roundabout way of leading into how I view GW nowadays. In the past I have disliked them, been disappointed towards them and felt varying degrees of anger towards them however now I feel like they are a necessary evil. Yes the prices suck, that hasn’t changed (what has changed is that I now source all my GW stuff from either Ebay, Trade me or Mighty Ape meaning I no longer care as much as I did about prices) but for all the stupid business practices and ridiculous prices they are still the company responsible for putting out WHFB and 40k. I am enjoying playing games of both and GW is responsible for putting both these games out and I have to factor that into account when developing a view about them. So while I may not like GW as a company I like the work they do and I am aware that without GW there would be no WHFB and without WHFB it would be unlikely that I would have gotten in wargaming to start with.

I came to this realisation when thinking about the upcoming Space Marine Codex. If this had happened this time last year then I would have been pissed that GW would be re-doing this army so soon after its last redo however now I feel somewhat excited about, it could be a decent redo and give the army more options and more flavour. Contrast this reaction to what I would have likely done last year (write a post about how stupid it is for GW to do this) and the difference is vast. It helps that, for Codexs, I can buy them at 50% of the NZD price from Black Library where there isn’t a NZD currency value so I have to use the UK currency option but even without that my reaction would be similar.

This doesn’t mean that I no longer get angry at GW, if they turn WHFB into a pure skirmish game then I will likely be pissed off at them (but even then I will probably just stick to 8th edition and ignore 9th), but it does mean that it happens less often and requires them to screw up big time. Its not so much jaded as aggressively ignoring, so long as they continue to support their two core systems in their current rules set then I won’t have a reason to get angry at them.

This was a weird post for me to write as it was more personal than topical or issue based (which is what I try and base my posts around) and in truth I wrote it more for me than any reading it. Chances are that many people who currently play GW games have at some point in time thought about selling their models due to something GW did unrelated to their army, my advice would be to not do that and keep your enjoyment of the hobby and dislike of GW as two separate things with one not effecting the other, that way you can continue to play the games you enjoy regardless of what GW does. Until next time.

Rex