My first table top love

Ah Space hulk, the first GW game I actually really enjoyed playing.

Many many moons ago, when I was but a nipper I started painting Games Workshop figures. I didn’t play games with them, there was no real plan to which models I bought. I just looked round the shop, found a model that caught my eye & away I’d go.

The staff always used to ask why I never came in for games nights etc & eventually I just confessed to not actually playing the games. I had a copy of the Warhammer 40K rule book (this was the original 1st ed hard cover book) & I’d read it but it just didn’t really grab me as a game I wanted to play.

The staff got into a routine of offering to teach me to play every time I went in store & I’d always decline.

The one week everything changed. I was flicking through my copy of White Dwarf magazine & there it was, a full-page advert for the new Space hulk game.

Love at first sight is an understatement tbh. Everything about this game just grabbed my attention. The board pieces, counters & the models all just screamed `fuck yeah` to me. Well ok the marine models sucked ass, but the genestealer models were awesome.

From that day onwards every time I went into the local store I was hassling the staff about this game

`have you played it yet?`

`when is it released?`

`can you definitely save me a copy?`

Yep I never really bothered asking about the price tbh. I knew I could find a way to get me a copy.

Then the fabled release day came & I was up earlier than I had ever been before, well volenteraly anyway. Up washed, dressed & eager to get into the city centre so early I actually ended up waiting outside the store before any of the staff had even arrived lol.

The wait for 9am was killing me, I could see the copies of the game on the new release wall, I could see the display/demo copy all set up on one of the tables. It was driving me nuts, but then the staff finally opened the door. Martin (who would years later become a work mate) was stood ready at the counter, huge grin on his face holding my copy of the game.

`Sorry, I’m not allowed to sell you this, Teds orders` (Ted being the store manager btw)

`WHAT, NO, you must`

I honestly almost broke down in tears right there. Then Martin just broke out in the hugest grin I’ve ever seen & just pointed over to the demo table. Ted was stood there waving me over.

`Only fitting that you get the first game of the day`

`YES!!!!` was all I could shout.

Ended up spending a good few hours in the shop playing & watching lots of games, & more importantly talking to the other gamers. I had only ever really spoken to the staff in the store before. In fact I had been terribly intimidated to talk to any of the actual gamers, I was after all just a kid & almost all of them were adults.

But by the time I went home I was on friendly terms with a good number of the regular faces that I had seen in the store.

When I got home I was faced with one of life’s eternal conundrums, which comes first the models or the rules?

Models of course, rules can be read whilst you are eating food. So the rest of the afternoon was spent putting the models together. The rules were read whilst I was eating my evening meal, much to the annoyance of my mother. Then the evening was spent up in my room, the floor plans spread out on the floor playing the game.

Ok granted I was having to play alone, but what was I supposed to do? None of my friends were even remotely interested in GW stuff. During the following week nights I played more games & got all the models painted.

My love for this game only ever grew, I had soon replaced the aweful plastic terminators with metal ones, had a big folder full of custom maps & scenarios & was welcomed with open arms every saturday I managed to get down to GW for a few games.

Then in what felt like the blink of an eye, the event that created my second great table top love. The first expansion for space hulk was released, Deathwing.

More rules, more weapons, terminator captains & librarians now expanded my games. More importantly I had been introduced to the story of the Deathwing. This began my love of the Dark Angels chapter of space marines. A love which also continues to this day.

Then Genestealer, the second & final expansion, was again soon upon us. Adding yet more rules, this time for the genestealers. Hybrids, even more weapons, hugely expanded Psychic powers now added even more replayability to the game.

GW may have abandoned the space hulk game not long after, but I remained a big player. I still have my original, if a little well-worn, copy with every single counter & board piece intact.

Space Hulk second edition came & just didn’t grab me the way the first had. The horrible dice you rolled for shooting  just didn’t feel right to me. The terminator models were ok for plastics, but still fell behind the metal models I still had from the original release.

The years of obscurity. Fanatic games, later rebranded as specialist games, came & went. No word of space hulk support. I always held out that space hulk could have seen some form of resurrection via SG, like Epic did.

Then a few months ago, my good friend Chris sent me a link to the GW website. My jaw almost hit the floor as the web page loaded.

SPACE HULK IS BACK!!!!

& it looked gorgeous. Many thanks to Chris for the belated Birthday pressie of a copy.

Ah the new one, its my first love, re-born. GW in their wisdom decided to keep the first edition rules, practically un-touched. They have included some of the rules from the expansions, put the errata in there & added a new rule (fits really well tbh). The board pieces are fantastic & the models are some of the best plastics I’ve ever seen. I love this game.

The great news is, with very little work from me, all the additional rules & scenarios from all the WD articles & the expansions will still work.

The bad news is, GW released the new edition as a limited edition & will not be offering any additional material for the game. This sucks, additional rules, maybe even an expansion r 2 could have made them a huge wedge of cash.

It’s no great loss though. I don’t need any new support for this game, I have all the original support. I can get new models if needed, in fact the challenge of scratch building & converting a new set of hybrids is a project I will most likely take in the up in the new year.

Over the coming weekend I’m going to try & get some photos done of the board & my (only partially painted) models.

Right now though, I’m off to grab my folder of first ed space hulk & lose my self in some nostalgia

So who the hell am I???

Welcome to my all new Blog. All going to plan I will be posting up regular posts about whatever gaming activities I’ve been up to.

So I suppose I should really start with a small introduction.

I’ve been a gamer for many a year now, across a variety of gaming types. I’ve pretty much tried every type of game out there (yes that includes LARP). These days I keep myself busy with my Xbox 360, PC & several table-top gaming systems.

For console & PC gaming I tend to play a fairly wide variety of games, mainly because my day job is in a retail store selling games. I try my best to play all the big releases so I can give customers an honest opinion on a game, based off actual experience.

For table-top gaming I’m currently working on a Tomb Kings army for Warhammer Fantasy Battle, Dark Angels for Warhammer 40′000 & I’m still working on getting the models from the recent Space Hulk re-issue painted.

There will hopefully be regular updates & pictures of the painting projects, possibly a battle report or two. & to Keep you PC/Console gamers happy, so screen shots of cool stuff.

Now I know this place isn’t much to look at right now, but give me a chance. Most of my work on this place will be done on my day off, so it may take me a week or so to get it skinned nicely, get the links etc filled out. Just because there may not be any updates for a few days doesn’t mean there won’t be some coming.

So sit back & relax, hopefully we can have a few laughs on this little blogging journey