Out of the Loop

It's strange how much our hobby can take over your life. Three years ago I moved countries without a single model or any hobby paraphernalia, and now I find our small apartment covered in miniatures, paint pots littering every surface and cupboards bursting at the seams. In my enthusiasm to embrace new models and rules I have started three armies, brought a fourth back with me from a trip home, and subscribed to every news feed and blog I could find for scraps of information on when my beloved Blood Angels would be getting their update. So where has this led me? To a place I was previously at over ten years ago when I then left the hobby, though this time I don't have the excuse of studying as an reason to jump ship.

The last time I finished painting a full army was 2009...

So after a few weeks away from reading any blogs, visiting any news websites and generally not lifting a finger on any of my projects, I have been able to re-assess my priorities and analyse my lack of enthusiasm. Was it the glorious long summer evenings distracting me? A change of shift at work reducing my hobby hours? A couple of games of X-Wing filling my gaming needs? No, the cause of my wanderings has been the exponential growth of the product catalog at Games Workshop. No longer is it the case of buying a rulebook, an army book and a box of troops every month or so until you have an army, we now have an overwhelming amount of products released on a weekly basis, all of which need yet another set of hard cover and digital only additions to be "complete". Two months ago I bought the new Ork codex, but half of the information and interesting details are only available in the "supplement" which is the same price again. I left the blogosphere around the time Grey Knights "lite" was released, and have returned to find the "limited" Space Hulk box set has made a comeback. I personally know two folks who bought extra copies in 2009 and left them in the shrink wrap for future profit...

...which was the same year this originally was released.

So where are we headed? I personally won't be buying any more Necrons to add to my now dust-gathering "good deal at the time" Megaforce. I have let the Astra Militarium release pass me by, and was mildly enthused by Space Wolves, but by the time I had gotten around to visiting the store something else was the new "hotness" so I ashamedly fed my spending habit with a couple of paints and some green stuff instead. I have de-bookmarked many news sites, un-'liked' all of my commercial facebook pages, and spent a bit of time playing online games as well as reading a few Horus Heresy novels. The Outcast Dead is now my favourite novel by Graham McNeill, with his depictions of "Unity" era Space Marines bringing me back to when I first discover the Warhammer 40,000 universe twenty years ago. Which is where this slab of introspective text began.

You can almost see the cobwebs...

So what haven't I removed? Blog subscriptions. There are so many amazing projects going on outside of anything to do with Games Workshop that it amazes me how much I was wrapped up in their product cycle. They make amazing models for sure, and have always billed themselves as a miniatures company first and foremost, so I am a little ashamed of how much their rules dictated which models I would buy and how I would paint them. I would sit for days painting models to game with simply because they were cheaper in points or had a certain special rule, rather than actually wanting to paint them. No wonder I was losing interest! As one of the veteran staff members at our local GW said, paint the models you want to paint as you'll still feel good bringing them out of their case in years to come long after they've been passed over by newer rulebooks and competitive players alike. So with a big thank you to Mr McNeill for his novel, and to all who have made it this far down the page, it's back to the 31st millenium for a frantic game of catch up with my diorama in time for a mid-October deadline!