Welcome to
the Storm!
Hello, my name is Charles and I am a 40k-holic. I
was born
and raised in Columbia, Missouri and moved to Bellevue, Washington in
late
1998. A friend first introduced me to 40k in '93 or '94. I remember
thinking it
was fun, but it looked expensive and complicated, what with all the
models. I
only got involved in it later (after moving to Washington) when a
friend bought
the boxed set and gave me the Dark Eldar Warriors. I eventually put
them
together and got the codex to see what I could do. I then bought a few
more
models, including an HQ so I could actually field them, and my interest
was
piqued. I started collecting more and had a few games, until I built up
about
1000pts. At that point, I made a trip back to Missouri and
caught up
with the
original guy who had introduced 40k to me. We played a weird but fun
game of
his Rogue Trader Orks vs. my 3rd Edition Dark Eldar with a mish mash of
rules.
I also got to play against some 2nd Edition Tyranids (more mix and
match rules)
and became interested in them as well. A little after returning to
Washington, I
introduced a
friend of mine named Michael to 40k with an introductory game of him
playing my
Dark Eldar vs. my Tyranids. He had a blast and started looking into 40k
right
away. Since Michael wasn’t sure which of the many armies he wanted to
play, he
spent some time reading up on each of them. When one caught his fancy,
he tried
it out, using my models as proxies. Eventually, he settled on Chaos
Space
Marines and started collecting his own models. After quite a few games
against
each other in my apartment, Michael suggested that we start playing
down at the
local gaming store to get new people to join us. We started playing
there every
Sunday, and after a month or so, new people started to show up. Some of
them
wanted to try the game out, so we did some intro games. Others had been
playing, but hadn’t known there were other players in the area. There
were also
some that had played 2nd edition, but hadn’t picked it back up in 3rd.
Eventually we had 6 or 8 regular players on Sundays. Eventually I moved
away from Bellevue and now I find myself out on the Key Peninsula,
about 30 minutes from Tacoma. I'm about an hour away from a gaming
store, but I have several friends that are willing to drive to me or
meet me somewhere, so I still get in a game or so each month. In
between those games, what really keeps me going are the online
community and the hobby aspects of Warhammer. I really enjoy this game,
and
I’m glad
I have so many people to share it with, even if I've never met many of
them in person.. Several years ago, I was contacted
by
thegamersoutlet.com to put together a website. Essentially, the idea
was
that people that come to my site would
want to
buy 40k stuff at a discount, and they could then use the main Gamers
Outlet store
to buy their stuff. This seemed reasonable to me, since I know I like
to
get the
most 40k stuff for my dollar. Well, things went well for a while, but I
had an increasingly difficult time getting hold of the person there to
get my updates in on time. Eventually, I missed 3 weeks in a row
without being able to do an update. I didn't feel that was very
professional, so I struck out on my own. I knew someone online that ran
a free hosting service and set up my site there. Things were very good
there until January 2005, when the site suddenly ceased to exist. I
lost about 5 months worth of updates to that, but now I've got my own
domain name and a (hopefully) more stable host site. Intro to Warhammer 40,000If you are unfamiliar with Warhammer 40k, it is a science fiction miniature wargame. This means that the action is set in the future and that little plastic or metal figures are used to represent individual creatures in the game. In addition to it being a wargame, 40k has a very rich background of source material explaining the history of the universe and all the various creatures involved in the game. There has been quite a lot of source material written for it, and it is open ended enough to let you create your own stories as well. This source material and the stories involving particular characters or armies is referred to as “Fluff,” since it doesn’t directly impact game play, but can make a game much more interesting. (It’s not two people getting together to play another wargame, it’s the chittering hordes of Hive Fleet Kraken attempting to overrun the outpost world of Abraxis VII, a mining colony that has the valiant Space Marines of the Crimson Fists as it’s defenders, led by Captain Lucius Carnadine.) The hobby also allows for other creative outlets, whether they are painting the models or creating new terrain to play on. It is a lot of fun and I highly recommend you give it a try. For more information on the hobby of Warhammer 40k, check out the main website at games-workshop.com. If you enjoyed this, email me and let me know |