Warhammer - the STD of wargaming....

I started proper wargaming at the age of eleven, having previously spent many a happy hour alone in my room with my toys wargaming in all but name. I am now forty seven and the bug has never died, if anything it grew and became all consuming, having other people to wargame with! I have had many a casual dalliance with various periods over the years, flitting between one thing and another as the interest arose and passion became inflamed...then casting that aside as the new love of my wargaming life appeared on the scene......is it me or is this post getting a tad saucy? Well, can't be helped, I am a man of great passion after all and I make no apology for it.

Anyway, as you know I have recently been involved in that 'Wargame Nasty', Warhammer, something that I have showed no previous interest in at all...good, wholesome, clean living boy that I am. I have sneered derisively at the mere thought of such a game and considered those that did play to be in the foetid pit of wargame debauchery, not a little odd and a tad...well...wargame perverted; there, I have said it. But now..........

I collected a small Skaven army, nothing too involved, I could give it up anytime I wanted of course. I read the army book, did a bit a maths and with my proper wargame mind calculated a point based army that was well rounded and militarily sensible and even plausible...apart from the magic spells options. It all got a bit runny after that.

Then I played my first game...actually, it was a bit worse than that...if I am truly honest dear reader. I actually fielded an unpainted army.......I know, I am sorry! I didn't mean for it to go as far as that, I really didn't you must believe me! ..... I played a warhammer game with an unpainted army that I owned and as if that was not terrible enough.......I enjoyed it. I'm sorry, I need to stop for a moment.........










OK. so I played my first game. I won. But more than that I found myself getting to like that simple way the game worked, the way one could build an army without the restrictions and the oppressive Victorian social values...even the strange magic element where you can blow up an enemy with a weird spell...or make it melt...or change sides....and that a game only lasted  for six simple turns and could have an actual result at the end of it......it wasn't complicated....the armies were fun, my Skaven have a very good chance of blowing themselves up at the drop of a hat and I liked it all the more. I arranged to play a second game at the next club meeting and I found myself looking forward to it.....

I played a second game with the unpainted army and already I had a very good understanding of the rules and could even run sections of it. I made movement trays for my large Clanrat units...I even offered to help touch up and re base a friends 15mm ancient army in return for some old Skaven models and it was then that it hit me; I was lost with little hope of a safe return. The true depth of my condition was brought home to me at this years SELWG, I actively encouraged my good, good friend to buy a warhammer army book and the beginnings of an Ogre Kingdom army.

As the title of this post states, Warhammer is the STD of wargaming.....its all just simple fun until you realise you have become infected, and then you get the urge to pass it on......