Looking at 40K with a WM/H mindset

Eldar Banshee by UltimaFatalis

While I have grown to despise GW for its business practices and shoddy rule books, I still look at Warhammer armies - because they are so iconic and well designed. Actually that sort of is a good thing as I still have thousands of points of Blood Angels, Dwarfs, and Wood Elves - and it would be sort of a waste if I didn't enjoy these models anymore, wouldn't it?

Either way, last Saturday's re-release of the Eldar rulebook spiked my interest in this race again, so I went to the FLGS after work to have a look at the new Codex. I have to say as a fluff player, I really like it, that army definitely has character.

However, as I was flipping through the Codex Eldar, I realized how ingrown WM/H habits have become over the last two years of exclusive PP gaming:

1. Thinking of units and armies in hundreds and even thousands of points again felt really weird.
2. The same weird feeling got triggered when I browsed the weapons section with the option to individually equip my troops.
3. The biggest difference was browsing the HQ section, especially the named characters:
1. I immediately checked how tough they are and their armor/saving roll to calculate the probability of losing them to a certain attack;
2. Running a quick army list through my head I was more hesitant to pick a character HQ model than a generic one; the WM/H tournaments' character restrictions have become so ingrown to me that it would feel feel weird to me to pick a named character in 40K unless I have to.

I have also come to realize that I miss fluff gaming, something IMHO that GW still is better at. Playing competitively in WM/H makes sense because of the well written rules and there is no doubt PP produces very nice models. However, GW creates very iconic and amazing armies and a wonderful background story where everything is embedded, so that's the magic that keeps me looking back.

Maybe I should just go back to 40K for a game of combat patrol or Apocalypse, just to get that feeling of fluff gaming again. Most likely I will frown upon the rules, but then I will also enjoy the narrative part. After all, playing the narrative track in Austin was one of the best experiences in my gaming life. From my point of view, smacking each other in 40K with optimized lists at 1850, 2000 or (looks like a new trend) 2500 doesn't really make sense because of the flawed ruleset and codex creep. However, to put models on the table because one loves their looks and background stories, 40K has a lot to offer. Gee, Jervis Johnson would probably love me.

In a perfect world, I would get the benefits of both systems in one game, of course.