I honestly thought I had gotten over the hyper macho fantasy genre of “my-penis-is-so-large-it-needs-a-power-armor-the-size-of-a-car-as-a-natural-habitat”.
It’s not that I dislike it anymore, but, man, WarCraft and StarCraft used to excite me and impress me.
I was passionate about the stories, the lore, the universe. I read the books, I was subscribed for a couple of years to the DC WoW Comic, spent many a night reading various WarCraft wikis and the amount of time I’ve spent in WoW is easily greater than most of my relationships.
That is not the case anymore (I mean I don’t spend as much time in WoW, not that I started to have longer relationships).
I did not want to grow out of it, I don’t like change (more on that in an upcoming article) but I found myself gradually caring less and less about these sort of stories. It’s not that I dislike them, it’s just that they don’t satisfy me like they used to.
In more recent , but not completely unrelated news–bear with me, I have been making some half-arsed attempts to reduce the time I waste online, (failing miserably).
Getting a website is one of these attempts, a conscious effort to read more books is another, as was my decision to start miniature painting.
Having heard of the Warhammer universe, I browsed Games Workshop’s website a bit, and within a few days I had decided to get my hands on a few Dark Angels and some acrylics.
It was either that or knitting.
As this was a choice driven by completely non-fantasy reasons, you can imagine my surprise when I found myself actually getting interested in Warhammer 40k universe. As a franchise I have been subtly avoiding it, even though I had a few chances to get into it over the years, I never actually made the jump and start an army.
And here I was, learning about the different races and armies, checking out the different miniatures,units, heroes, structures, codices delving into wikis trying to get a crash course in the WH40k history in the wee hours of the morning.
Yesterday I completed my first Dark Angel Space Marine. I do realize that the name sounds like the wet dream of a goth-sci-fi-army brat, but GOSH DARN-IT he looks kick-ass.
Who’s the best tiny fearless killing machine?! You! Yes, You!
I don’t think this Warhammer phase will last long, or at least run deep. I guess it is pure escapism and power fantasies, but I had forgotten how much I loved them.
~Garret
So if you’ve sort of moved out of the whole macho fantasy phase (I was honestly surprised to read that these things don’t get your blood pumping as much anymore), how did you decide to get into Warhammer 40k?
It was a decision primarily driven by my desire to try model painting. I found the WH40k miniatures visually appealing, read a bit about the lore and found it more interesting that I though and I sort of remembered why I enjoyed unapologetic macho fantasy, sexually confused subtext and all. I guess it’s a guilty pleasure.