When I was a kid, I was really into tabletop wargaming. It was my Aunt Joan's fault. She bought me a copy of “Battlemasters” for Christmas one year. It was a massive game, that took up the whole floor of my bedroom. It had tons of miniatures, and a huge hex mat. It even came with a limited subscription to “White Dwarf” magazine.
My friends and I played the heck out of that game, and eventually, it led us to discover the local game store, called “Wonderous Realms.”
“Battlemasters” was the gateway drug to the Games Workshop hobby. In retrospect, I am certain that it was never intended to be anything more than that. The game was fun, sure, but the whole point of it was to recruit new blood into “4th edition Warhammer Fantasy Battles.” In my case, one kid got the game as a Christmas present, and this caused a total of four neighborhood kids to spend their allowance on superglue, paint, and miniatures. Well played GW. Well played.
As clever as this scheme was, there was one fatal flaw. The hobby was prohibitively expensive. This was in the days of metal miniatures. Oh, what a cruel joke to get young boys and girls of humble means interested in something that they cannot afford. School children simply cannot raise the funds necessary to buy 200 metal toy soldiers at a cost of $3.50 each. Nor can they afford the heavy stack of books needed to play. If you think that GW product is expensive now, take a moment to reflect how much worse it was back before plastic regiment boxed sets. We ended up playing Dungeons and Dragons, instead, partially thanks to the recommendation of the shop owners, who pointed out that D&D only required a couple books, some dice, and some imagination.
But as much as I loved D&D, I really wanted to play Warhammer. I wanted to collect minis. I wanted to paint them. I wanted to go to the grand tournament, someday. I was determined to be part of this hobby.
The first mini I ever painted was a metal Chaos Marauder with a flail. I used horrible brushes and horrible model enamel paint, and he was horrible.
My allowance as a schoolboy was 50 cents per week, and I wasn't old enough to have a real job, but I also mowed lawns, raked leaves, shoveled snow, did pet-sitting, and ran wheelbarrows for a roofer. It wasn't enough money to really invest in a whole army, but I was able to buy hobby supplies, “White Dwarf” magazines, and the occasional random minis to paint. My favorite one was the Skaven Doom Wheel. It was the most expensive mini I owned. I was so proud of how it turned out, and I dreamed of the day when I could build an entire army of rats around it.
I graduated middle school and went to high school. I was old enough to get a job, now. It was good timing, too, because 5th edition dropped, and that meant that there were about to be a ton of unwanted plastic starter set minis on the market. See, Games Workshop used to do this thing where the ONLY way to get the rulebooks was to buy the boxed sets. They forced you to buy a bunch of miniatures that you didn't need, in order to get the rulebook and the battle book. Because of this, most gamers bought the boxed set, and dumped the unwanted minis for cheap. The new edition came with Bretonnians and Lizardmen. Neither army was very popular, so it seemed like everyone and their uncle was trying to unload those starter plastic minis for dirt cheap to help recoup the cost of the boxed set.
Ever since I discovered the lore and the factions of the GW universe, I had wanted a Skaven army, but now it seemed that I was instead destined to take up the mantle of the Bretonnian lord, as whole sprues of plastic horses and men were suddenly held aloft and offered to me, like Excalibur from the lake.
Painting Bretonnians is really great, because each knight is different. It isn't like painting a horde army of infantry in batches. Each knight is special, and has unique heraldry. It's like painting a bunch of characters, rather than painting a unit. I had a lot of fun going to the library, and checking out all the books on medieval knights for reference. The other great thing about 5th edition Brets was that they were very easy to play, and made for an ideal beginner's army. You set them up. You charge. If the charges rout the enemy units in one round, you win. If the enemy units hold their ground, you lose in the following round. One trick ponies, those knights.
Our local wargaming scene had a good variety of armies, but I was the only Bretonnian player. By my senior year in high school, I had a respectable reputation, and a great record. The only local losses I had were against a couple dwarf armies, a Tzeentch daemon army, and an orc army. I regularly played in tournaments across the Midwest in Wisconsin, Illinois, and Ohio. I even made it to the Grand Tournament in Chicago, and entered a miniature in the Golden Demon painting contest at Games Day that same year. I knew I wasn't going to win, but at least I could say that I had entered Golden Demon!
Immediately after graduating high school, I shipped out for Army basic training. While in training at Ft. Sill, Oklahoma, September 11th happened. I ended up in Iraq with the 101st Airborne. Between deployments, I managed to get a little bit of wargaming in at the local gameshops in Clarksville, TN. Sadly, though, upon my return from my second tour in Iraq, I discovered that both the “Wargame Room” and “Armchair Warriors” had gone out of business while I was deployed. This was before social media, and without a local shop, I really had no means of networking with any of the local gamers. My miniatures were therefore relegated to just guarding my bookshelf, and eventually, boxed up and put into a storage unit.
Eventually, I was able to return to Wisconsin, and transfer into a Reserve unit. By this time, I was married, and had a kid. We bought a house. I got a civilian job as a paramedic in Milwaukee, and I was also going to school with a full credit course load at UWM. I didn't have time for gaming. Years passed, before my hectic life settled down, and I was ready to get back into the hobby.
There was a huge problem, though. Both of my Fantasy armies had been completely invalidated by the rules updates and new edition. The Bretonnians didn't have rules, anymore. They didn't even have a book. They didn't exist. In fact, the game wasn't even called “Warhammer Fantasy”, anymore. It was called “Age of Sigmar”
Ah, yes. Those miniatures that you have so lovingly painted and collected since you were a child? Well, sorry, but we decided we can't allow you to use them, anymore. Nothing personal. Here, buy a new army, instead. Start from scratch.
How about no.
And it wasn't just my Bretonnians. My Von Carstein levy milita army was no longer valid. Neither was my 40k Witch Hunter army. All three of my Games Workshop armies had been dropped, and were no longer supported. Necromunda and Mordheim had also been completely discontinued. A friend I hadn't seen in years asked me why I left the hobby. I didn't know what to say, because I hadn't left the hobby. I had only stepped outside for a moment, but found I'd been locked out, and GW wasn't going to let me back in without a substantial bribe and some groveling.
And here's the thing. It's not that I wouldn't enjoy collecting and painting a new army. Hell, that's actually one of my favorite parts of the hobby. Given that I now had a career and some income, I could have finally started that Skaven army that I always wanted, but to me, it was personal. I was done with GW. They killed the lore. They killed my armies. Some would argue that they killed an entire gaming community. So I walked away.
And it didn't matter to GW that there were thousands of us. They're a business. All of their income depends on new blood getting into the hobby and making initial start up purchases. They have no interest in us once we've already spent our money. They got what they wanted out of us, and now they're going to move on to the next marketing scheme to get the next generation of young kids hooked on the wargaming hobby. It's Battlemasters all over again. So I was bitter. I was angry. I swore I would never spend money on GW product again.
But then, one day, I wandered into the GW store by the mall because the people I was meeting up with were running very late, and I had time to kill. The employee working the counter was welcoming and friendly, there were people sitting and painting minis together. The soundtrack from “Braveheart” was playing over the speaker system. There were smiles and laughter all around. This was what games stores used to be like. I hadn't seen a shop like this in years. I didn't think they still existed.
These younger gamers, including the store employee, started asking me questions about if I was already involved in the hobby, or if I was newly interested in it. When I told them that I hadn't played in over 15 years, but was really active in the 90's and early 2000's, they started asking me questions about what it was like back then. We spent almost an hour socializing, looking at models from the new AoS ranges, and talking about paints and painting techniques.
I bought some paints, and left to meet up with the people I had been waiting on. When I left that store, I realized something. The hobby isn't about GW. The hobby is about the community and friendship. Love GW or hate them, they're keeping actual physical brick and mortar gaming stores alive in an age when online retailers and Amazon are stamping everyone else out. Most importantly, though, their games still bring people joy, just like they did for me, so many years ago.
Games evolve over time. This is true for RPGs, CCGs, and any sort of tabletop games. Warhammer changed it's rules over the years. In retrospect, it was selfish and unrealistic to expect it to remain stagnant, just for me.
I like rank and flank wargames, with big massed blocks of medieval or fantasy troops maneuvering on a wide open battlefield, marching in formation underneath colorful banners. For people like me, there's always “Kings of War”, which is where I will be focusing my future energy, but it doesn't mean that AoS is bad. If you like AoS, I don't think any less of you. It's just a different style of wargame than what I prefer.
The important takeaway for me as a hobbyist, and as a person, was that I managed to let go of some deep seated and misplaced anger. It was something that had been gnawing away at me for years, and I didn't even realize it. Walking out of that GW store in a great mood, free of resentment towards the people who still enjoy the hobby, was a cathartic and important experience for me. I'm glad I stumbled in. I feel better knowing that the hobby didn't die while I was away. Even though the rules changed, the community never did.
While I don't plan to get into 40k or Age of Sigmar, there's a halfling Blood Bowl team that's caught my eye. I might just pick it up next time I'm out near the mall.
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