Do you still remember the day you got hooked on to WM? I sure do!
18-19 years ago, I met a friend who loves to draw men in armoured suits. One day at his house, he showed me a codex called Warhammer Fantasy: Skaven. He told me that this is a game he plays and I was really interested in how these rat miniatures look. Unfortunately, my friend moved out of town and I had no one to follow up on this interest.
17 years ago, another friend who loves to draw started showing me some drawings of Space Marines. It looked really familiar and I asked where he referred the drawing to. It was then that I was first introduced to Warhammer 40k (WH40k). I was brought to a Local Game Shop (LGS) and was taught how to play WH40k 2nd ed. Immediately after, I went to London for a family holiday. The first miniature I ever bought at a Games Workshop in London was a Warhammer Fantasy (WHFB) dwarf and a devastator squad. I still remember painting the dwarf without being undercoated at all! Also, I was told that as of today, the location of this GW is still in the same plaza! I still remember seeing the old skool Necron Warriors box squad on the shelf and taught, “man, those robots sure look ugly!”.
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| Ugly Robot Men! |
When I got back, the game shifted to 3rd Ed. Unfortunately, the game died locally soon after due to the obscenely inflated price of miniatures. There was a period of time in Malaysia where no one could afford any more WH40k miniatures. I refer to this period as “The Void”. The game died off and it was VERY difficult to find for any players at all. To make matters worse, I was still new and I didn’t know how to even build an army. I packed my miniatures into a cupboard and occasionally re-read the Angels of Death and Chaos codex. I still have those books to this day.
9-10 years later, I found out that someone took the initiative to revive the LGS that first introduced WH40k to me. I started buying miniatures and re-started collecting my Blood Angels. During the time, it was the early days of 4th ed. The game pretty much had to be re-taught to me due to The Void. It was during this time that I met some of the well-known veterans amongst the Malaysian table-top gaming scene right now. I clearly remember while playing WH40k, there would be a couple of guys playing Warmachine in one of the tables at the back. I hated Warmachine at that time. I felt that it stole the limelight of the main show. “Why are other people playing a game of Warmachine in a WH40k shop?? WH40k is waaay superior than Warmachine!”
I followed WH40k closely but unfortunately, GW’s shift in business models has slowly deteriorated my confidence in the game up to a point where I decided enough is enough. I love the fluff and the miniatures but I hate the bickering and don’t like the way the game is played anymore. I packed my miniatures and put it aside once again. However, I still keep up to date on what’s going on in the GW world via Bell of Lost Souls (
http://www.belloflostsouls.net/).
One fine day on mid November 2009, I stumbled upon this web page.
I knew Hordes was the sister game of Warmachine. My first thoughts when I saw that web page was, “Field test? What is this field test?” Then I saw the magic sentence, “Go register here and grab the free PDF rules”. I was shocked. “What kind of company would give out free rules even though it is in the beta stage (the idea of such a move for a table-top game then is unthinkable or done rarely)?? Wait a minute, if they are doing this to Hordes, surely they must have done the same to Warmachine!” I immediately went to the Privateer Press website, read their reasons behind why they made their beta rules open to public (was absolutely impressed at their reasons behind the move), and found means to download the pdf file of the Mk.II beta and its cards. I still had no idea how the game was played though. Nevertheless, I wanted to learn how to play. I was adamant to buy the Mk.II Rulebook in Melbourne when I go there for my holidays in December.
When I got the Mk.II Rulebook, I couldn’t have the chance to read it properly but fortunately for me, the following article gave me a quick introduction to how the game was played.
As I was reading through it, I felt, “Damn! This game is more interesting than it looks!”
I still needed someone to teach me how to play the game on the table though. During my stint in WH40k, I knew that there was a LGS that plays Warmachine. However, I just had no idea where it re-located to. I searched high and low for a place in Malaysia that plays Warmachine. I went to the WH40k LGS and asked whereabouts do they play Warmachine now. Fortunately for me, someone knew that shop’s location.
One fine weekend, I found the time to walk into that shop to meet with the owner. We had a good Warmachine-related discussion and he informed me that it was a great time to start Warmachine due to the recent release of Mk.II (everyone is re-learning the game). I bought my first Warmachine miniature (Khador Battlegroup box) and immediately painted it. The owner of that LGS managed to arrange me to meet up with someone who knew how to play Warmachine and we met up for an introductory game. Since then, I never looked back!
p/s: To Mukhsin a.k.a Wayfarer a.k.a Kassar, thank you with all my heart for being patient in teaching me how to play this game. It is definitely one of the defining moments in my life! I will always remember your warjack slamming my Destroyer into Sorscha in our intro game. J
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