*Cough* *Cough* "Damn this place is dusty......"
Wow, 15 months since my last post on here..... well a fair bit has happened in that time frame.
In no particular order, Got married, got sidetracked by SWOTR (still do to be honest), discovered the Infinity game system & it's awesome models, plodded away at my True Scale Alpha Legion, decided after 16+ years of running my own Eldar craftworld to go back and begin repainting them with my first Craftworld flirtation.... Iyanden. (For those of you who need proof, I'll post a pic of my Epic Eldar Army, that I found in a box at my Mum's place over Christmas.) picking up a squad of 10 Wraithguard on e-bay really helped me with the decision.
Okay back to what I really decided to post about.
WHY DO I LIKE PRE-HERESY MORE THAN NORMAL 40K?
This is something that takes a while to get into so please stay with me.
My first foray into true epic fantasy & Sci-fi was the movie "Star Wars", I distinctly remember being allowed to stay up past my bed time, when I was about 5 or 6, to watch it on TV, every time it came on.
I was forever playing at being Luke & saving the galaxy.
I always liked reading & it was about the age of 10 that I first discovered The Hobbit, I drew me in so completely that I wanted more, I was happy to discover Tolkien had written The Lord of the Rings and remember begging for relatives to buy me each book for Christmas or my Birthday, I re-read it over & over as I waited for the next relative to buy me one. By the end of grade 6, I think I had read the entire book about 10 times. But still my thirst for more of Middle-Earth wasn't sated, I played with Tolkien's Elvish runes & language in the Appendices of The Return of the King, devoured the brief histories & family trees.
High school started & in school the Library was a revelation for me, "The Simlarillion" gave me everything I ever wanted, a full history of Middle-Earth from it's creation & the high period of the Elvish race, where the Heroes of the Third age, were minor players compared to the mighty heroes within it's pages, from the ill fated F'eonor & Turin. To the love of the mortal Beren who dared the anger of a god for the woman he loved. I still to this day prefer 'The Silmarillion" to any of his other works. This led me to get into D&D and TSR's novels.
"What does this have to do with 40K?" you might ask. Well I discovered GW games through my best friend & a game he bought. "Blood Bowl", as we were both fans of American Football, we spent numerous weekends playing against each other, keeping statistics & running our own leagues. (I still play it to this day.)
From there a discussion with a new friend a few years later, he mentioned words like "Space Marine & Rogue Trader" & GW. This sparked my memory of looking at the side of the BB box with the advertising of other GW games & I dashed off to my room to double check. I was right, I had been looking at these things all along. I was told of the monthly magazine "White Dwarf", and promptly headed off to bury my head in one.
Shortly after I played my first game of "Space Marine" the Epic system of that time, I was instantly hooked.
As soon as I could afford them I bought the Warhammer Fantasy boxed set (complete with card cut outs of Grom & Eltharion, I still use the High Elf Spearmen & archers), then the best thing (in my mind) ever happened. GW released "Warhammer 40k" in a boxed set, complete with Marines & Orks & Gretchin.
The coloured pictures of the different races fascinated me.
It was as I was reading over the history of the 40k universe that I first read of the Horus Heresy.
Vague references & images of the Heresy predominated many of the different books in both the "40k & Space Marine" rule & background books.
For a while I forgot about the history & concentrated on playing & painting my slowing growing Eldar army.
Then a few years ago, Black Library created a monster in me, by releasing the first of their HH novels, re-sparking my interest in all things to do with the finest moments of the growing Imperium of man. I went back & dug up all of my old copies of my rule & source books, re-reading the "Fluff" sections to refresh my mind.
Okay fade back in from the wavy image of the flashbacks...... I enjoy the HH period because of the things it implies, when I first made up my mind to start this army, there was none of the Older Marks of armour available from Forge World, except for the Red Scorpion torso & helmet upgrade kit.
While I do love the FW kits, they have taken away a little in regards to Pre-Heresy modelling, allowing everyone to quickly get a foot in the door. I think that is what prompted my to start my Pre-Heresy True Scale Alpha Legion.
Basically, the current 40k universe is a rather stagnant beast, GW have to be careful on how they advance the timeline as pushing too far will see them effectively kill off the Imperium, which I think would be a big mistake. Don't get me wrong I don't hate 40k at all.
But in the scope of the 30k universe, the Imperium is still being built, Primarchs strode into battle with their men, there is a huge sense of hope for mankind. Push it a bit further along & you have the depth of the Heresy itself , brother fights brother as the loyalists struggle to deal with the true depth of the betrayal by the Warmaster & his legions. Which I think is a far grander stage to play games and run campaigns in....
What do you all think? Have I swayed anyone from the "quick & easy path" of 40k?
