440 - Apparently there's a new edition of 40K [State of the Union - Part 1]

I do NOT have hobby burn-out.

Far from it, in fact. What I do feel, however, is a pretty significant sense of ennui.

That's right: I went and dropped the e-bomb. A GW-e-bomb to be more precise.

Googling images for 'Ennui' is, err, quite surprising. Couldn't resist this pun though! [source]

Let me explain [knowing that I tend to get too long-winded, I've broken this post down into daily chunks]. I'll try to keep it brief, but - well, you know what I'm like by now. At least there will be hobby pictures too!

In theory this is the time of year when work starts to trail off a little for me; in practice, I've just taken on a second job as an examiner to try to make more ends meet, so over the next month most of my hobby time will go instead to marking papers... but that's not what this post is about - it's just a wee explanation for the minimal posts of late.

Proof beforehand that I haven't been idle, though: 

I'll go into details about these developments in Part 2 - and I'll have a cry for help too!

PART 1.

APPARENTLY, THERE'S A NEW EDITION OF 40K OUT.

Now, I've been playing 40k on-and-off since 2nd edition, and I've always got excited by either new IG codices or new editions of the game - who wouldn't, right? I was dead keen to get the new IG [AM?] Codex...and then I read it...and I kinda went 'huh'. And then I kinda re-pointed my normal list and went 'Huh,' again...and since then I've not really opened it.

Now, a big part of this is that I only very very rarely get to play, but a bigger part is that - well - the new codex (whilst vastly superior to the last one) just wasn't very exciting hobby-wise. There are a some new models that I'm not very excited by and certainly cannot afford (but more on that later) and the golden opportunity to try to re-engineer my lovely Griffon mortars into the new Wyverns...and that's it.

So the deflating nature of the new codex, coupled with my ever-decreasing hobby time has made me - at best - not really care too much about the appearance of a new set of rules to kinda replace the 'old'(?!) sixth edition.

I only every played a handful of games with 6th Ed - maybe eight or nine? - and the two things that really seemed to change the game with it were new psyker rules and the blossoming of flyers and flying MCs (complicated and mostly irrelevant to me as in both cases I've had no models which really use the rules and no real means of countering them either) - this made the prospect of playing competitively (or even pick-up games from unknown opponents) absolutely pointless for me, as I essentially kept playing an army tailored to 5th Ed.

The new edition seems popular with the very vocal (or verbal at least) online competitive players, and I'm given to understand it's good for narrative play too, but I figured as I play so little and have so few spare hobby pounds I'd just wait until opportunity, finance and need all combined before making the investment. Which brings me to...

WHAT AM I GOING TO DO WITH ALL THESE GUARDSMEN?

Easy: nothing.

Or at least, nothing new.

I've decided to (a) pretty much keep on doing what I'm doing and (b) follow the examples of others. By this I mean the following:

a) For about three years now (!) I've spent very little money on GW and very little time. I finished painting up the bulk of my army a couple of years ago, and the ONLY significant purchase I've made since is my Manticore. I've decided to continue this approach; a decision made significantly easier for me by my general lack of enthusiasm for the new product lines and the lack of structural upheaval in the codex.

More importantly,

b) I'm going to follow the wise example of the likes of Zzzzzz and Col. Scipio in that I'm going to take a more mature approach to actually playing. Why should  I bother trying to keep abreast of increasingly irrelevant [to me] rules? I should just build the things I want and play them against like-minded folks using the rules I want - or whatever bits of them I can remember. Great idea - sod it!

To this end, please find below my current and revised list of 40-related hobby projects in no particular order:

• Finish painting my Manticore
• Paint up a whole platoon of Stormtroopers [link]
• Paint up the gun and crew for the first of my Centaurs [link]
• Build and paint up t'other one too
• Finish making my foamboard Fortress of Vengeance (or whatever it's called)
• Finish my second servitor
• Convert the bits Zzzzzz sent me into a cool Malcador-style superheavy (already in the planning stages)
• Do something interesting with the ten brand-new Scions that Zzzzzz swapped for my Bulkytroopers. Thinking lots about this...
• Try to convert at least one Wyvern launcher for my Griffons
• Maybe try out some other conversions, including - possibly - one involving my armoured Sentinel.

You'll note that none of these involve buying anything new, and quite a few involve getting bak into conversion work.

Essentially, at the top of the list in my hobby notebook (The Seventh Book of Arcane Scribblings) is the line 'Stop any further 40K expansion.

...and I reckon that just about sums it all up.

In Part 2 (in a couple of days), I'll look at my future directions for Flames of War and ask for some hobbying help. Stay tuned, and thanks for reading!

- Drax.