A beginning...

Blogging isn't something new to me, though it's something I've never been very good at.  I don't know that this will be different, but someone suggested it to me as a way to keep track of the armies I'm collecting (well trying to) so I'm going to give it a go and see how it works out.  This New Year I decided I wasn't going to make any resolutions but instead put together a non-bucket list bucket list.  Number 4 was to: Start, build, paint and finish a 40k army. 

You see in the 20-odd years I've dabbled with Warhammer in it's various guises, I've never actually seen an army through from start to finish.

When I was 11 a friend had been put onto 40k in school and decided to share the love by converting me and my brother to it.  And so it was that that friend (a Space Wolves player) persuaded my brother and I to buy the 2nd edition box set so I became the paragon of the Blood Angels and he became a rampaging Ork.  I loved playing the game; I loved reading about the fluff, I loved giving my characters names in my head and coming up with their own stories and I love the tactical nature of it.  I did not love building or painting models.  And I was crap at it.

Maybe it was lack of confidence, maybe it was lack of money or maybe it was that we lived nearly 2 hours from the closest Games Workshop so couldn't join the various clubs there.  I don't know.  But I never took to it and throughout the years this put me off really following it through.  As the years went on and I became a teenager, went to university and then entered the real world I haphazardly kept an interest.  I'd buy the occasional White Dwarf, once or twice I'd buy a 40k Codex or Fantasy Army Book but I wouldn't buy any models.

Two years ago I bought some Tau on impulse.  I'd ready the codex about 10 years ago and liked the fluff, and while browsing eBay (as you do) bid and won a squad of Fire Warriors.  Then the following week it was a Crisis Suit, then another and so on.  Before I knew it I had about 500 points with no clear plan of what to do with them. 

Then as normally happened I stopped.

A year ago I downloaded the interactive Eldar Codex for iPad and it peaked my interest.  I've always loved Striking Scorpion models so went on YouTube to search for a tactical guide and then came across StrikingScorpion82's channel.  You can find it here if you're interested.  It's a well thought out, entertaining channel and it changed how I thought about the game.  He knows his stuff, does great battle reports and makes the whole thing fun.  I'd highly recommend it!

I'll go into my Tau in a later post, but suffice to say, it invigorated me and I began collected in earnest.  A good friend took and interest and he has started to collect Tyranids and Space Wolves which has really helped, and I have my eye on converting my brother-in-law because he likes to collect and build things so 40k is perfect for him!

With that motivation I've built all of my Tau, and I have to say, whilst I'm immensely proud, any seasoned collector would see the flaws.  I haven't cleaned a lot of the models off, I was clumsy when sticking them together and they're not even all in poses I want.  But I did it.  Myself.  On my own.  With no help.  Which is a start, a huge start for me.

Now that I have some confidence I've started looking at a second army so that I have a bit of variety and don't get bored.  After a brief foray into the new Blood Angels (models bought, built and already sold on eBay because I changed my mind) I've settled on the Imperial Guard, sorry Astra Militarum now, specifically collecting an army of Elysian Drop Troops with Militarum Tempestus (Storm Troopers to you old hands) Scions.  I'll cover that in another post as well.

So I guess this blog is probably going to end up a bit random.  I'll look at the armies I'll building, how I'm doing building and painting them and how I do when I start playing again.  I'm also going to post some of my own fluff, because I enjoy writing and I enjoy fluff, for me it really makes the game. 

With me luck, friends, I'm going to need it!