Old school or "specialist games", part 1

The coming of the Necromunda-game really launched me back into the hobby head on, a couple of years ago. Me and some friends had grand plans (don’t we ever!). The plan was this great Underhive-campaign. And we had all the gangs in the Hive represented. Including the Scavvies and the Redemptionists. I think we played a couple of games and then we moved on to other games, as usual. But meanwhile I had collected a sizeable Van Saar force. Since then there has been almost one game played each year (or any other year, maybe). Just writing about it, makes me want to break out the old gangs and fight it out one more time! Sad to say I never jumped on the BloodBowl-wagon. My friends played it, with great success, bone grinding and all! Epic 40K was also one of those games that I didn’t get my teeth into. With the launching of Mordheim me and a friend had great plans for the new game (all these plans!). Early on I planned out and started to build a small but ferocious Skaven warband. But the plans grinded to a halt. None of the warbands got any further than undercoating. And since then the boxed set of Mordheim have been collecting dust in one of my cabinets. Most of the parts have by this date been scavanged for other projects, such as the Hrud for the Ordo Xenos-project.

Then there was...

In the beginning there was the Rogue Trader!
I started out with the miniature-hobby, with a handful of old (!) fantasy-miniatures. If I remember correct my first miniature I ever painted was a small troll, armed with a short spear and a small round shield. I painted, and repainted that little mini until you couldn’t see the details anymore. Next up were some dwarfs armed with battleaxes, then came a whole load of other, classical Prince-August-models. I also have an old resin-cast of a throne room (that really need some cleaning up, if I’m ever to paint it properly ever again!). But it took me a while before I got into 40K. It all started with the Rogue Trader (RT) rulebook. I bought it at a local hobby shop, but it would take a couple of years before I really got into building my first army. The first thing I ever did build and paint for 40K was a tactical squad of Space Marines, followed by a group of Space Orks. So, the first games of 40K I played weren’t any grand battles, so to speak. The first convention I ever went to also included my first ever real 40K experience. And it’s a memorable on. I was outgunned: my tactical marines were deployed at one end of the table and my infiltrating scouts had walked straight into an ambush in the middle of the board. Three Imperial Sentinels with assaultcannons against three of my Scouts. And out of the blue I spanked two of the Sentinels, by scoring a killing hit to one of the drivers and blowing up the ammo-storage on the second one. The third Sentinel gunned down two of the Scouts leaving the last one running for the woods. I didn’t win that game but it was fun! I was the underdog that everyone around the table was cheering for! The best feeling ever!

But from the early years until today, a lot of years have passed. The following years were mostly filled with RPGs, Vampire: The Masquerade, Mage: The Ascension, and not to forget, a lot of Dungeons & Dragons! I also had a rather short lived infatuation with some WW2 Micro (like playing tank battle scenarios from the Kursk offensive, but I quickly closed down that idea, I needed to many tanks to make it work, and I could never find a good set of rules to use). But I resurrected my love for 40K, when a friend of mine started to collect a Black Templar army. So I scavenged thru my cabinets and found sufficient with pieces to build 500 pts of Death Guards. But 500 pts only get you so far. So I started to add a unit here and another and so on. Ok, right now I can’t say that I have reached the “Apocalyptic level” of points for my army, but sooner or later I’ll get there!