What Do I Know?

A lot of the people I game with are into miniatures gaming.  Outside of playing the D&D and Star Wars minis games that WOTC put out, and having a couple of chances to play X-Wing, I’m generally not a minis gamer.  Well, until recently.

That said, I’ve seen hundreds of ads for minis games over the years.  Despite never having played Warhammer 40K, I picked up a lot of lore by osmosis just because of all of the ads I had seen over the years  (and because I found a gateway in the form of Dawn of War years later).

Years ago, I almost gave in and picked up an army for the Hordes game.  But I convinced myself that I wasn’t going to paint them, I wasn’t going to put them together, I didn’t want to spend the money, and I was never going to actually play the game.

The last bit is really important to me.  I’ve been really trying to keep from buying things that I will never play.  Despite my love of Star Wars, I recently divested myself of my X-Wing minis and the Star Wars LCG cards I had because I didn’t want to be tempted to keep buying expansions I was never going to use.  My Battletech Anniversary Boxed Set is taunting my from my shelf because I have never used it, and it’s taking up time, as well as money that I could have sunk into some other aspect of gaming.

So I avoided Hordes for a while.  Then my group started playing the Iron Kingdoms RPG.  I never thought I was going to actually start playing the minis game, because I’ve been playing the 40K RPGs for years and never got into the tabletop game.

Then Christmas came.  It came without ribbons.  It came without tags.  It did come with a Legion of Everblight Battlebox right before the FLGS was about to start a Journeyman League.

So the floodgate opened.

I actually sold off several of my gaming books that I haven’t used in a while to offset my Everblight purchases.  I wanted enough to have some versatility in building a 35 point army.  I was hooked before I even played.

Sure, I was very, very frustrated with some of the assembly.  I still can’t pain worth crap. But I pushed through, put a badly assembled army on the table, and I’ve been playing.

I have to say I’m  having a lot more fun playing Hordes/Warmachine than I thought I would.  I’m having a lot more fun playing it than I did with any card game.

I still suck.  I don’t win much at all.  But unlike card games, I don’t feel like I just got whiplash when I missed a massive multi-card combo that just wiped out my entire deck.  Even when I lose overall, I still enjoy rolling multiple attacks with my Scythean and watching him eviscerate a few opposing models, even if I lose the overall game.

I don’t want to do a cost versus playtime analysis, because I’d probably feel pretty sad, but just from the standpoint of feeling like I’ve gotten to play the game?  Since the beginning of the year, I’ve gotten two or three games in a week, at least, and I’m already feeling as if all of my extra purchases were at least somewhat worth it.

Not sure if I’m in it for the long haul.  I definitely want to play more, because, well, I have spent a solid amount of time and money on all of this.  I’m cringing a bit at the fact that I picked up a few models right before I ended up quitting  (yeah, long term I’ll probably be fine, but hey, I could use a few Ramen Noodle days in the immediate future).

But I’m having fun, and it’s been more rewarding than my forays into card games and other tactical offerings.

Thanks +Ryan Porter