History of Gaming pt 2 - Warhammer

I started playing Warhammer 40k in 2004 as my buddy living next door to me in the dorms (I was military at the time) started playing it with some guys in his shop. It was 4^th edition at the time and, after reading the fluff (the background story) of all the armies, decided Necrons were my favorite and I initially wanted to play them but my buddy did too and I like variety. I didn’t see Orks played at the LGS much at the time so I chose them. He started off with the Necrons and I built a Speed Freaks Ork army.

After we got out of the dorms we lived together with a couple other guys in a house I bought and my friend soon stopped playing. So I got the Necrons off him as part of the rent and built them up to a full army.

Necrons were MEQ (Marine equivalent) and “broke” a lot of the main rules with their army specific ones, but after you play them for a bit you realized that there isn’t much variety. They only have a few unit choices, about half as many as the other armies, and only had 2 different builds (your combined unit choices taken to win) that worked.

The Orks Speed Freaks had all your troops start either in trukks or on warbikes so everything could move fast and far. It was all about getting across the table as fast as you could to assault your enemy.

I spent several years playing around with all the different units in both armies and mostly losing every game I played. I didn’t care much, I knew I didn’t have a power army built to win. I just liked trying out different unit combinations to see how they worked together and found some fun combos. I had pretty much stopped playing Necrons, too boring, and had been playing pretty much only Orks for about a year when 5^th edition came out and the rule changes really changed the game.

The new rules made the Necrons even more boring. They pretty much only had one build that worked anymore and were very predictable so everyone knew how to beat them. They also changed the Orks quite a bit but made them better. They had a new codex (their army specific rules) that came out at the same time written for the new rules. I played around a bit and decided to change my Speed Freaks to an elite horde (big units of cheap models backed up by a few smaller but powerful units) army. It is the army I still use today years later.

Lead by a Warboss or Big Mek (depending on whether I want the melee strength of the Warboss or the firepower of the Big Mek’s Shokk Attack Gun) it has 2 units of 60 ork boys (the basic troop choice) with guns instead of axes, backed up by a small Loota unit (stronger guns) and a Nob unit.

The boys and Lootas can put out a lot of firepower. They don’t shoot very well but with each boy getting 2 shots the law of averages kicks in and you are going to get quite a few hits each round.

That is all very powerful but when you add the Nobs it made the army seem unstoppable.

Nobs are the Orks sergeants and the new codex let them all take power weapons (so my opponents don’t get armor saves) and it let them take a Painboy (doctor) who could give them cybork bodies for really good saves and he also give them a rule called Feel No Pain which gives them a good chance to ignore the wounds if they happen to fail their save. So I put 10 of them together in a trukk and let them wreak havoc as they hurt a lot and are hard to kill. Toss in a couple Killer Kans for some killy stuff and that’s my army.

Both Orks and Necrons are low initiative so they usually hit last in combat and I decided I wanted to play a higher initiative army. So I built up a Space Marine army and decided the Iron Hands would be my chapter. I use a Master of the Forge, Terminator Librarian, three 10-man Tactical Squads, two 5-man Assault Terminator Squads, 4 Dreadnoughts, and a Land Raider Redeemer. I think it’s a good mix of shooty and assaulty.

I am going to be rebuilding my Necron army in the coming year from the new codex. The game is getting crazy expensive. When I started you could get a decent 2000pt army for around $300. Not anymore, now it’s more like $600. I’m glad I have the Warriors, Scarabs, and Destroyers already so I only have to get the new vehicles. I’m thinking a Command Barge, 3 Annihilator Barges, and a Ghost Arc or three.

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I began playing Warhammer Fantasy a couple years after I started 40k. I was interested in it and found a good sized Wood Elf army on Ebay for $200 bucks. Got a couple more units to put in it and started playing here and there when I could talk someone into it. 40k is by far the favorite game up here so there are only a couple Fantasy players.

When 8^th edition came out my, much beloved, Wood Elves became mostly useless. Since this edition is all about magic I decided to go High Elves next. They are a good magic/close combat army but very fragile and die quickly.

I had a couple friends sell me their Warriors of Chaos for decent prices so I picked them up. I find it rather amusing that I loathe Chaos in 40k, but love them in Fantasy. I have plenty of Marauders, Warriors, and Knights that I’m going to turn into a Nurgle army. I just need a Sorcerer or two, some Chosen and maybe a Giant or Hell Cannon to finish up that army.

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So I have 3 40k armies: 2000+ pts each of Necrons, Orks, and Space Marines. For Fantasy I have 3 as well: 2250 pts of Warriors of Chaos, 2500 pts of High Elves, and 5000+ pts of Wood Elves.

Out of everything only the Orks are a fully painted army. I hate painting, cannot stand it. The only reason the Orks are painted was because they need to be in order to compete in tournaments. The Iron Hands are about half painted, same as the Necrons. I don’t like the color scheme I used on the Necrons, bright silver with blue and black highlights, so I’m going to have to try and strip them when I rebuild to start over. I think black with green highlights looks really good on the new vehicles so that may become my color scheme.

I’ll talk to the guys over at Segmentum North when I get started to figure out what I want to do. There are several really good painters there that can give me tips. Maybe I can workout a deal or something with those guys to have them paint my stuff. Because even though I painted my Orks, it’s not in any way a good job. I call them my Saturday Morning Cartoon Orks; it looks like a 5 year old painted them.