So what happens when the side projects are no longer on the side?

o/

Well I ended up going with the test rat pack for Morheim the other night. I wanted to see if blowpipes are actually useful, rather than just over-priced, ineffective & very situational weapons. It would seem to me that no, they aren't useful, and they are in fact the waste that i thought they were. True the dice weren't with me, but I doubt that the blow pipes would have made a difference even if they were. In the aftermath of the game (where my dice rolling continued to fail) 4 of the rats in my test pack (including three characters, one of whom was my assassin adept) died.

The test pack was thus disbanded after it's first and only game.

Despite this debacle I've been rather enjoying Mordheim, indeed so much so that I've ordered some minis from the FLGS to form a human mercenary warband. (the captain* @ right is just one of the minis ordered). I made up a preliminary list but will have to finalize it after I open up and see just what all is in the Empire Free Company (or warband in a box) at a later date. I'm thinking of using the Marienburg list, though painted in the colors of Sollund, with a theme of it being a desperate attempt to raise funds to reinstate Sollund as a province (or something like that, I'll figure it out later).

Also, this morning I got a shipping confirmation email for another 5 Quar that I ordered a little ways back. Those Quar will bring my total up to 11 Royalists, which will equal what I'll get when I buy the Crusader starter deal (again @ some later date). However the Quar, BFG, Mordheim, Heavy Gear, etc., all got me to thinking about 40k (or rather my lack thereof). I've played 40k I think twice in the last 6-8 weeks or so. That's it, and here's the kicker, I don't miss playing it.

At all.

I'm just not having fun playing the game. I'm sure the MC/pysker spam nid list that I got handed every week for several months had a hand in that, but no more than the never ending onslaught of the Space Wolves and their apparently now required 'deathstars'. I still recall when that codex came out, it felt like I was fighting the entire chapter as there are so many SW armies here locally (and more have been added since that time!).

In years past I had 'blackballed ' a player or two as their idea of fun was to murder you to the point of you weren't having any fun playing the game (looks @ Warfrog), yet lately it seems that everyone wants to play 40k like that! WTF? Do I really need a sign on the door to my own game room that reads 'No Powergamers'?

So ebay would be the only option right? Well, I've been thinking on that concept for some time as well, and the problem is, is that I'm down to my favorite armies at this point (barring the GK which are a test of sorts). They're the ones that I don't want to sell. Yet, why keep them? Most of 'teh nterwebz' scream 'PLAY WARMAHORDES!' whenever someone says that they're tired of 40k. However i don't like that game.

Nice minis, but I don't like the play style, or the fact that every character is a special character. Additionally, a friend of mine recently played a demo and commented that the game felt like it was designed for you to be a total dick. Yup, that's what I recall from my past WM gaming experiences in WM Mk I. I took a really long & hard look @ Mk II, and nope, still the same game @ its core. Killer combos from 'teh interwebz' is what its all about (even more so than 40k, cause WM is supposed to be for competitive players). Brian @ the Gentleman's Ones called it 'mental masturbation' in his first impressions of the game, and I couldn't have phrased it better myself.

Waits for the WM players to stop screaming their just as unbiased opinions about the games that I like to play...

So, at this point in time I find myself enjoying all of my (not-so) side projects, and instead shelving my massive 40k collection, while still not wanting to sell it. Indeed, its becoming a struggle to get myself to even paint my few GK minis just to see if that idea will work, if only to save all of my otherwise worthless inquisitorial retinues from the auction block. Hell, I feel dirty every time I open the GK codex (and I do so only sparingly). I mean, who (over the age of 13) actually read Draigo's fluff and thought 'wow, that was really good'?

Sure they're marketing this stuff towards kids these days, but kids have short attention spans and shallow pockets from which to spend. Whereas older players like me have long term addictions to feed. I dunno. I'm just not quite sure on just where to go from here with 40k...

* Photo is a copyright of Games Workshop & used without their permission or consent (though if I'm buying one then I think they ought to be grateful enough to allow me to post it w/o a disclaimer).