The Sordid History of Johnny's Warhammer 40K Addiction

I was a geek in school. I hung with the “smart” kids who spent their Friday nights in sleep-overs drugged up on Coca-Cola and Doritos pouring over spell descriptions in an all night Dungeons and Dragons game. We actually resorted to No-Doze one time to prolong the game play. We would break to watch the dawn. If it wasn’t Dungeons & Dragons, it was Traveller, Starfleet Battles or Squad Leader.

I started painting figures in an effort to enhance our D&D games. I had limited success considering I didn’t know a dry brush from spray can. However, since I was the only person in my group even remotely interested in taking up the hobby, I more or less gave it up.

I spent my senior year of high school as an exchange student in Denmark (didn’t everyone?) That’s where I first saw Games Workshop miniatures. Though I’d seen figures for wargames before, they never approached the popularity I saw there. I’m not talking about every kid in school bringing figures to show and tell, but there were actually stores selling figures and dedicating significant room to display. In England it was even bigger, possibly because the rule books were in their native tongue there. I visited that store in Copenhagen every chance I got. I never bought anything, but I was very interested in the prospect of creating models and then using them on a modeled battlefield. The prospect of uniting my love of modeling with my love of gaming was irresistible. But, like I said, I resisted anyway.

In college I met up with an old friend who before he became an old enemy shared a similar interest in modeling and figure painting. There is nothing that brings a hobby out more than hooking up with other people with a similar interest. Until drugs changed him beyond all recognition, we explored the intricacies of our reborn juvenile hobby from an adult perspective. We researched techniques and studied what books we could find. I began to use washes and figured out how to bring out the highlights with dry brushing. I began mixing colors and moved from enamel to acrylic paint. Once I started getting nice results, I was hooked.

My gaming groups evolved. Many of the same geeks I knew in high school were now grown up geeks and we explored D&D, Top Secret, Car Wars, Vampire and ultimately Warhammer 40K.

I don’t remember when I finally broke down and started collecting figures. I really had no one to play with when I started. After I had done a few, a friend of mine, Jeff Jonsson joined me in the hobby. We each went for marines since they came with the set. In these early days, we created our own chapters out of the Rogue Trader book. I made the Centurions and Jeff, the Skull Hunters.

I loved creating the figures. Each one a work of art. And though we were telling ourselves that each one was necessary to insure victory on the battlefield, we almost never played. When the second edition came out, we tried a couple of games, but if you know the game at all, you know that these rules were so complicated and cumbersome that it took scores of games to figure them out. We had, I think, four.

Again I faced the problem that not enough people were interested in the hobby. It was easy to get a gaming group together once a week for a game, but to ask them to commit countless hours between games painting expensive figures was another thing entirely. Jeff and I still painted figures but were pained by their cost. No one has ever accused Games Workshop of setting their prices too low.

Magic, the Gathering finally did in our figure painting. Magic is just a bloody great game. Our whole gaming group got addicted to it about the same time. All our time and resources went to collecting cards instead of painting. It’s ironic that Jeff and I left WH40K and got into Magic because we thought that WH40K was too expensive! If you know Magic, you know that game to be a money vacuum like nothing else.

I boxed up my paints and models and lived for Magic until I moved out of state. Once in Oregon, my Magic addiction dried up like a pollywog on a hotplate. I didn’t have a gaming group and my children took priority.

Then, about two years ago, I was going nuts. I had no gaming group and no steady creative outlet. I began frequenting a local hobby/gaming shop and decided to return to WH40K. Painting figures offered me hours of enjoyment with or without a gaming group.

I already had a sizable marine chapter, albeit incomplete by the modern standards (needs more vehicles). I had managed to collect a sizable amount of Tyranids by trading away my superfluous marines for Genestealers and ‘Nids. No one wanted to play ‘Nids back at the beginning. Actually, I don’t think they’re very popular now either. Anyway, I had a bunch of Tyranids ready to go. With the help of ebay and a few choice additions, I managed to collect a complete Tyranid army. I gave myself the deadline of having the entire army finished by the time I moved into my new home, Gaffa, because by that time I had started collecting starships. When I was done, I had a beautiful and deadly swarm of figures.

These days, I’m into starships, but I know it’s only a matter of time before I return to WH40K miniatures. According to rumors, the new Tyranid Codex is due in February 2001 and with it will come some new gorgeous miniatures. Time and money will fight against my impulses to collect the entire army. My impulses will eventually win, I’m sure.