Once I Have Money...

The milieu of post-education existence has taught me something very important: I need more hobbies. Now that I'm no longer struggling late into the night over essays and reading a thousand pages or more of literature per week, there is a great quantity of space in my schedule that previously did not exist. Faced with the boundless possibility of such an absence, I have decided that once I secure a proper, steady source of funding I shall return to a pastime that once gave me a great sense of accomplishment and pleasure: Warhammer 40,000.

For those who at this point are thinking something akin to "but, uh, that's like a nerd thing, right?" I would merely say that, while I proudly wave the flag of nerddom, 40k has much more to offer partakers than simply a zone in which to interact with wonderfully eccentric individuals. It is more than just a strategy game. It is, in fact, a form of creative expression that crosses the boundaries between literature and visual art.

Let me give you some examples. As someone well-versed in the Warhammerly arts, the first point of importance that I would like to impart to you is that every single person who plays the game has chosen their army not only for the "cool factor" or for the weapons/strategic advantages offered by that particular race, but also for the story that that specific army inspires them to create. Whether it's a crew of burly Orks braving the perils of the Galaxy in search of "Mo' Dakka," a platoon of stalwart Imperial Guardsmen defending Humanity from the daemons of the Warp, or a Tyranid Hive Fleet seeking to devour planets and assimilate more biological forms into the Hive Mind, each is the unique creation of a mind at play. The universe that Games Workshop has built around the game's various armies provides a template, but it is up to each player to carve out their own space in this vast universe and to find the location where their carefully crafted group of characters reside in the great scheme of things.

That's right, I'm submitting a hypothesis to the Council; Warhammer 40k is about stories. Sure, it's also about moving models on a board into advantageous positions, but the spark that catches so many minds and fuels so many of the fierce debates that I've overheard between those loyal to different "regimes," shall we say, is the game's strategic deployment of a weapon more potent than any Land Raider or Fire Prism: imagination. It makes no difference whether someone has simply signed on with a group that already has a preexisting background in 40k canon or goes through all the trouble of creating their own Space Marine Chapter down to the symbols painted on their shoulder pads. The bottom line is that the people who play the game love their armies and invest not only the efforts of assembly and painting into their models, but also pieces of their inner selves, the pieces that put light in their eyes and grins in the corners of their mouths.

Of course, painting and modeling are components of the game just as artistically legitimate as the concoction of the army's "fluff," the term with which many running in the, ahem, "nerd," circles refer to background stories. The quantities of time and patience required to put any sort of decent color scheme on models that are oftentimes shorter in height than my pinky finger (see the approximately to-scale image of a Space Marine at right) are absolutely tremendous. However, as you can see by the several images I've posted (blown up to show details), die-hard Warhammerers remain undaunted and produce some absolutely stunning miniatures.

I hope that these images speak for themselves. After all, images can be argued as another set of symbols that have some linguistic meaning in a system and that connect to and resonate with certain words and concepts. Anyway, the point is that these models are every bit as artistically valid as a sculpture or a painting. As a matter of fact, they're both, and breathing life into what was once a hunk of plastic or metal is yet another way in which 40k players create their own personal sector of the Galaxy.

Now that I've described the various merits of Warhammer 40k in general, I'm going to give a brief personal history of my own encounters with this inspiring universe. When I first started playing, I decided that the Chaos Marines were the army for me. You see, I had a much larger quantity of angst back in those days, and since I had recently decided after a typical eighth-grade-style perusal of the various musical aesthetics available to me that Metal was my favorite genre (it still is, by the way, though my tastes have grown a bit more sophisticated), I thought that an army full of daemons and genetically enhanced super soldiers covered in spikes (see right) was right up my alley. With this thought galvanizing me forward, I set to work inventing my Legion: the Ravagers, a sub-army of the World Eaters created at the behest of their Primarch, Angron. The reason for their founding was to reward Angron's star pupil, a Chaos Lord named Azroth the Deathbringer, my star creation. I painstakingly picked out every bit of his wargear, every color, and every personality trait, and finally placing him on the field and experiencing the admiration of my peers was one of the most fulfilling extracurricular experiences that I've had. Though he was somewhat typical, a rebellious, irreverent, harsh, and ruthless commander, I loved Azroth because he was mine. I still love him. I love the idea of him, the fact that my mind was able to leap from the platform that Warhammer gave it and ascend into the great heights of fantasy.

Nowadays, I've reined in my angstiness a tad, and as a result the forces of Chaos just don't hold the same appeal that they used to. I find them to be too one-dimensional, too concerned with mere destruction. For my return to the Warhammer universe, I needed something a bit more inspirational. I found that source in the Space Wolves, a Chapter of Space Marines whose ideology is diametrically opposed to the army I previously played. They are defenders, not antagonists, of humanity, and that offers me a host of character building options that I had no access to when I played Chaos. There's a tangible motivation present around which I can erect myriad conflicts and personalities. Come to think of it, personality is basically the Space Wolves' middle name. They're boisterous, noisy future-Vikings who cruise around the Galaxy seeking to commit acts that will get their names written into the heroic Sagas of their Chapter. With my predilection for Norse mythology, I just couldn't resist.

The creative juices are flowing, and I've already drawn up several different army lists and have put together my own Wolf Lord, Varg Dirgehowler. I will post pictures of the army as it develops, though depending on the capricious whims of the job market that may be a short or a long time from now. The Saga of the Sorrowhunters is just beginning, and I can tell that I will have many more adventures to relate as the synapses fire in my brain and new, wonderful connections are made. I hope that after reading this you feel somewhat enlightened in regards to the Warhammer 40k universe. If you have any questions or are interested in getting started/picking an army, post a comment and I'd be happy to give any advice that I can.