W is for Warhammer 40K

After my earlier posting about Gamma World miniatures, I thought I would press my luck, and go on to talk about Warhammer 40K. When I was younger, I got into WH40K not for the game, but simply for the miniatures. At first, I bought a wide range of GW figs, just because they looked so cool, and were fun ti paint. Although I did eventually buy the original ROGUE TRADER and BOOK OF THE ASTRONOMICON books, we didn’t really have any inkling of actually PLAYING WH40K for many, many more years. In fact, I don’t think I played my first game of 40K until around… 4th edition? Or maybe 3rd. Until them, I was happy collecting an painting their wonderfully detailed figures. I had quite a few Eldar, even more Space Marines, and a mishmash of goblins, orks and Chaos warriors.

Eventually, however, I settled in to the idea of collecting Space Marines. This was at a time when it was actually CHEAPER to order the figures directly from GW UK and have them shipped to Canada, so every couple of months, my friends and I would put together a list of figures (obtained by pouring over my buddy’s collection of WHITE DWARFs), and order a shipment from England. As a result, I have a LOT of old, OOP figures in my collection.

I was always into the Marines. My buddy had a reasonably-sized amount of Chaos Warriors, and I think another friend had some Eldar. However, we never really found time to play, mostly because we didn’t have an area big enough to game on. It wasn’t until many, MANY years later, when a friend had a condo with a garage, but no car, that we finally had a space big enough to game in. We spent many a hot summer night sitting in an unairconditioned garage, playing WH40K. Sadly, my buddy was also a Marine freak, so it was Marine on Marine warfare. Then, sadly, his girlfriend flipped out, and he left the province…. But not before selling me almost ALL his stuff for a song.

Subsequently, I now have a SIZABLE collection of WH40K stuff. I did one fairly major sell-off a couple years ago, which netted me a lot of money for not a lot of figures (except for the two land raiders I ended up selling to two different guys in Spain…. Long story short, the land raiders never showed up, and I had to refund their money. I never got the land raiders back, or an email saying they had showed up and them offering to repay me, which kinda soured me on overseas selling on eBay, because those two land raiders cost me nothing, and sold for about $75 each 8/ ). I am now at the point where I want to divest myself of the rest of the collection. The problem is, I have too much stuff to sell it as a package, because the shipping would be STUPID expensive (I have a BIG plastic tub, like the kind they use for recycling container blue boxes, only taller, FULL of figures, paints, modelling supplies and bits and pieces of scenery), but I don’t really want to piecemeal it out, because I don’t want to be left with anything. I imagine most of it would go, but I know I’ll be left with odds and sods, and I don’t know what to do about that. Most of it is assembled (I sold all my unopened boxes two years ago) and primed, but I also have a lot painted (an old lead dreadnaught, a 10-man vet squad, a 10-man scout squad, and my HQ with a Lieutenant, Librarian, Medic, Chaplain and Techmarine). I also have a lot of stuff that is old, and out of print (well, unless you buy it through the Citadel Archives) – stuff like first-cast terminators, and many of the old Marine characters (that are now TOTALLY illegal in play because of their weapon payloads – one has a shuriken catapult, one has a lasgun, one has double power fists…). I also have a couple of highly customized figures (a customized Multi-Melta trooper, and a REALLY nice force commander in Terminator armour with a kitbashed power sword and plasma pistols). I used to love just painting this stuff, but now, since I don’t really have any plans to ever play, and no room to display it, it’s just taking up space, and I’d like to get rid of it. However, I also know how much I spent for all this stuff, and I don’t want to get rid of it for nothing. Sigh.

My biggest complaint with WH40K is the fact that, like everything else, they see the need to constantly change the ruleset. With every new edition of WH40K, I found half of my old miniatures were now ineligible for use on the table, and I had to buy more figs to support my force, and the prices went higher and higher. I got tired of it. At the end, I was playing WH40K using 2nd and 3rd edition rules, because I found them much more fun (with things like the Overwatch rules, the expanded psyker abilities, and expanded wargear, with Blind and Vortex grenades). I suppose I understand the theory – it’s the same as with D&D. By constantly changing the ruleset, you force people to buy stuff all over again. However, for the same reason, that’s why I don’t buy or play anything from TSR any more, and haven’t since the proliferation of 3rd edition splatbooks hit.

I’m not going to post pictures of my figs, as that would take up WAAAAAY too much space. However, if you are a WH40K Marine player, and you are looking for some distinct figures, some bits, or maybe just a few figures to beef up your force, drop me a line at suprunown AT gmail DOT com, and we can talk. 8)