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Hey Dakka!

I'm thinking of taking a hiatus from playing 40k. nothing to do with rules or codexes or whatever, just not really having the time or drive to keep up with rules or even find time to play. I'm good with that, its probably been half a year since I've played 40k anyways, but I'm feeling some guilt.

More and more I want to buy models I don't ever use - mostly 30k which I have no intent in starting yet, but what stops me from buying something is that I wont use it. I want to take this hiatus from playing, but still pick up the odd model every so often to paint, yadda yadda.

So the question:

What has been your experience with hiatuses and coming back after that? Have you started side hobby projects that eventually turned into playable armies when you wanted to start again? Did you still buy models will away from playing?

Thanks for whatever input you have Dakka
Cheers,
Jpog

I still buy models even though I haven't played a war game in years. I like to believe I'll use them to play games wth my son when he is old enough, but we all know karma doesn't work like that. So, yeah, my hobby is having models.


PS: I'm now going to name an inquisitor "Hiatus Guilt".

How about "Inquisitor Hiatues Culpa"

That makes it a portmanteau of "You are Guilty."

But Inquisitor Haitus Guilty/Culpa still has a nice ring to it.

MB

I've done it with FoW and PPress armies...picked up things here and there and realized that it was about 50 bucks away from a playable force.

However with GW, I wouldn't pick things up with the idea that they would lead to a playable force later on. I mean sure, in the current incarnation of 40K you can pick up a Knight, some Dark elder, and some Ork boys and call it an army. But who knows what that will be in a year or two. Pick up a full Lizardmen army and tell me if It will be playable in two months with the new edition?

Take your hiatus. Pick up the odd model to paint or fiddle with, but don't put any guilt on that purchase because you may never be able to use it in an army. GW harbors no such "guilt" when they remove support for entire armies due to edition changes, not wanting to re-up molds, lack of usable warehouse space, or Kirby's possible intestinal discomfort caused by some bad fish he had last night.

I think lots of people do this. I've not played a game in a long old time due to moving country twice and being a bit busy with jobs and so on. But I've stayed in touch with the hobby via DakkaDakka.

@Bob Yea, I think more and more I'm just embracing the hobby rather than the game, which is just a shift I may need to get use to. And hell yes to Inquisitor Hiatus Guilt.

@Shotgun yea that makes a lot of sense; I don't expect any of the things I would buy to model and paint to be competitive or even supported after a period of time - GW is great like that eh ;D?

Has anyone come back to playing after taking a break like this?

There is an expression in English, "a change is as good as a rest".

If you find yourself not being motivated to do one thing, you can either stop for a while, or try something else and see if that re-ignites your motivation.

I've taken a couple of big breaks from the wargaming hobby, obviously the big one that a lot of people go through of 14/15 to 20-something, but also stopped a few times after. Usually I get tired of one project, sometimes come back to it, sometimes move back to something new.

What I will say is that you owe it to yourself as a wargamer to explore different games, try new things. Even if you are conservative in nature, ultimately I think it's better for you (and I think really this applies to everything that we do in life) not to get stuck in a trench where you are too familiar with all of the walls. In other words, take the red pill!

I took about a 3-year break from miniatures gaming when most of my friends sold off their armies; we switched to board games/RPGs during the hiatus. All it took was a newer friend to suggest some interest and we were all back buying figs like mad!

LIke playing a Mass Combat game with individually based miniatures, taking a hiatus from a game and selling off the miniatures is something so totally foreign to my thinking I have a hard time even understanding it.

I know this isn't exactly what the OP has mentioned, but a few others have mentioned this, or I have seen gamers sell off their miniature collections, only to have to re-acquire them later.

I suppose much of that alienation from understanding comes from having TWICE had large collections of miniatures destroyed or stolen (the latter time it being every miniature I owned).

So, in that respect, the pathology is mine is having an OCD relationship with miniatures, where I cannot bear the thought of selling any that I own (although I may be forced by necessity to sell some of them)

MB

I play rarely moving to japan caused a long hiatus, and slowly after a few years i started to work on armies again.