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For me the most enjoyable aspect of Warhammer 40k is the painting and modelling.
What do you guys think is best about Warhammer 40k?

Well, playing and painting in this order. I like the gaming/playing aspect very much but as a habit, I don't play with non-painted miniatures.

I like playing better, but like wuestenfux, I don't play with unpainted things. I do like my army to look nice and pretty with lot of shiny bits for trophies!

What brought me into 40k was painting. I was already doing it, and I wanted a game to play with it. Every time I take a break from painting, eventually I find myself painting again. 40k is a good outlet for this.

But there are lots of miniatures I could paint. Why 40k? Well, as stated, there's a game I can play. But there are several games I could play with painted miniatures. What draws me into 40k, then, is the fluff.

Dry, british, dark, absurdist humor strikes a chord with me. Grimdark really is what sets 40k apart from everything else.

In order:
Campaigns with character!
The fantastic universe/backstory.
The complexity from rules to said backstory that allows you to sit down with anotehr hobbyist and just talk for hours on end.

In the following order..

Conversions/Modelling
Gaming
Background, novels
Painting

The fluff.

Nothing about the game itself really interests me. The models+rule books+painting materials are ludicrously expensive, imo, and I hate the fact that dice rolls can potentially screw you over in a game no matter how much better a player you are.

From an actual game perspective, I'll just stick with my Dawn of War 2 collection. 60 bucks and I can play just about any faction and can recolor them all to whatever paint scheme I want with just a few clicks. Also there's almost no luck involved in the matches; if I'm a better I'm just going to win and that's that. Sounds good to me.

But that being said, everyone's got the right to like what they like. As some people mentioned, for them the fun is in the painting, or the converting. So yeah, to each to their own.

So yeah, the fluff. I originally got into WH40K by participating in an online debate about who would win between Star Wars and 40K. Some girl was arguing that the 3E Necrons would solo everything because their ships could fly FTL at combat speeds. Thought that was crap, researched stuff on the Lexicanum, bought the first DoW games not long after that, bought the Gaunt's Ghosts omnibus sometime after that, and here I am a couple years later. WH40K is my favorite source of warporn, and the universe is like every sci-fi/fantasy nerd's dream. It's got a perfect balance of everything. Futuristic sci-fi, fantasy-like swordfights and magic, aliens, visceral combat scenes, epic battles. What's there not to love?

Morathi's Darkest Sin wrote:In the following order..

Conversions/Modelling
Gaming
Background, novels
Painting

I'm going with this also. I model/convert more than I paint. I have way too many unpainted miniatures.

The whole imagery and attitude of the setting. Grimdark. A universe more or less designed to flatten pretty much any other sci-fi setting. Space Marines are just the most badass characters out there IMO. Being space England helps too, as Ive had a healthy obsession with their comedy and lifestyle my whole life.

Personally, I just like the thought of genetically-enhanced super-soldiers pumping rounds into seething hordes of aliens.

I guess I spent more time reading fluff than playing, more time painting than playing.

However, I do like to play, read the fluff, cut myself, eat my own eyes, then paint.. roughly in that order

Just finished all 4 40K armies, and 6 of my 7 WFB armies, I really have gone off painting.

Going to start Dark Eldar soon, I am determined to spend a lot of time on each squad and make them look nice, hoping I pull it off and the end result revitalises my interests in painting.

The social aspect. Playing with good people is the most fun.
The monsters. You can pretty much take your Space Marines, but the Tyranids are a well-realized alien faction that's are wholeheartedly Lovecratian. I love interesting monsters.

Mordiggian wrote:The social aspect. Playing with good people is the most fun.

I gotta agree with this one. Lately I've been getting addicted to all this online video game crap but since coming home and picking up 40k again I've noticed one big thing: Playing a game like LoL I could do terrible (bad luck, terrible mistakes) and I'll get angry, people will yell at me and say a number of words that would make my high school bullies blush. If I play a game of 40k with someone in person (even if they aren't a friend) and do terrible then we laugh it off, grab lunch, talk about what could have been done better/where the dice went wrong then head back to the store for more games.

I've also really gotten in to the painting aspect of the game more than ever (I really liked how the new paints were organized). I also like playing with painted stuff but love the wargaming aspect too much and I often play with proxies and unpainted stuff.

To crush your enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentation of their women.

Modelling, I just love assembling models.

Infecting my family with it

My wife now plays
My 6 year old plays
My three year old will probably play in time (given that she keeps stealing my dice..)

'those ones are cursed, honey.... '

pretre wrote:To crush your enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentation of their women.

^ seconded

pretre wrote:To crush your enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentation of their women.

Dammit, I knew I should have logged in earlier.

DarknessEternal wrote:

pretre wrote:To crush your enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentation of their women.

Dammit, I knew I should have logged in earlier.

It's okay, DE. I'm here all week. Try the veal and tip your mod.

I love the whole Idea of 40k, the game, modeling and painting. And they all tie in with each other well. You must admit, it is a great feeling to convert/build a model and then paint it to the best of you ability, and then admire it as it destroys you foe

To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women.

*tries the veal* *tips Pretre 5 yen*


I'd also like to add that since 6th edition hit, I've been having a blast mix-matching alot. Still trying to clobber together a St.Celestine + Justicare Thawn list somehow keeping me quite entertained at work all day =)

hobojebus wrote:To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women.

:looks at hobojesus with squinty eyes:

Doubledged sword for me love modeling/assembling but it also means I never get round to painting and always models from all different armies lol

pretre wrote:

hobojebus wrote:To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women.

:looks at hobojesus with squinty eyes:

What how can anyone not see the threads title and not think of conan?

Proper answer this time is i really enjoy the painting aspect of the hobby, kicking my friends heads in is just the frosting on the cake.

Warhammer 40K is probably my favorite science fiction setting, so the fluff is by far my favorite thing about the game. Beyond that, though the social aspect of actually congregating with friends to build, paint and play has always been a huge draw for me. Many a night has been spent around a dining room table lined with newspaper putting figures together, talking conversions and trash-talking...

You know what? In-character trash-talking is actually my favorite thing about 40K.

Sounds sad but i like working out probability in my head. this game has alot of that so enjoy gaming when it looks like on the table odds are stacked against me but there is a way to find by knowing average out comes etc

Ninja'd.

hobojebus wrote:

pretre wrote:

hobojebus wrote:To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women.

:looks at hobojesus with squinty eyes:

What how can anyone not see the threads title and not think of conan?

Proper answer this time is i really enjoy the painting aspect of the hobby, kicking my friends heads in is just the frosting on the cake.

Was talking about the fact I said the same thing several posts before.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

JeneralJoe117 wrote:Ninja'd.

By like 8 hours. Lol

I enjoy painting, I love playing, but all in all, I think modeling/converting takes the cake for me.