Warhammer vs. Warhammer 40,000

Among the many, many geeky hobbies that I partake in are the games Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000. 

Neither of these games involve actual warhammers, much to many people's surprise.  Rather they are games produced by an evil British company called Games Workshop.  Anyway, for those of you not in the know, Warhammer is fantasy based meaning it has dragons and elves (of many types!) and these creatures fight with swords and spears, well not the dragons... but the elves and men and dwarves and...  Warhammer 40,000 by contrast is sci-fi with aliens and massive guns and tanks.  If you have never seen or heard anything about these games go and Google them before reading on as the opinions coming next will be nonsense to you (to be fair it's likely the arguments will still be nonsense even after you've read up as they are nonsense, but hey lets keep it between us and keep those stupid people who are going to keep on reading waste their time eh?)

If you have heard of these games before, good, read on cuz I'm about to bust out some correct knowledge on you.  Will I support my opinions with facts? Hah!  Facts are sooooo 20th century!  Am I going to give you well reasoned supporting details?  Helz no!  I'm gonna shout and your going to listen!

Got that?

Good!


I enjoy Warhammer far more than Warhammer 40,000 (from here on called 40k) and here is why.

In the world as a whole 40k is more popular than Warhammer.  Many theories exists as to why this is.  Some claim 40k's rules are better, others that the models are cooler.  Personally I think two factors reign supreme:

1.  40k has Space Marines, the 8 foot tall super soldiers who are decked out in full kick ass armor, who have guns the size of that nerdy kid you stuffed in a locker in high school (no that wasn't me, I was smart enough to go hide) and who wage war in the name of the Emperor with giant chainsaw swords.  Sure you occasionally will get someone who really likes the Eldar or whatever but most people love Space Marines.

This is part of the problem though and one of the reason I prefer Warhammer over 40k.  Go to any hobby store, or tournament, or convention and guess what?  Most of the armies are space marines.  And why shouldn't they be?  Space marines are cool!  I'm part of the problem too!  I like Space Marines too. 

Of the armies that I play I have Ultramarines, Imperial Guard, and Eldar.  If I can trick my wife into letting me spend more of my hard earned loot I would have a Blood Angels and Space Wolf army to boot. 

I freely admit, I'm part of the problem.  Still when I go to a 40k tournament, most of my opponents will be marines.  Here are my tournament army break downs by year:

1999- Played in 10 tournaments for a total of tournament games.  28 were against marine armies of one sort or another.

2000- Played in 7 tournaments for a total of 25 tournament games. 22 were marine armies.

I'll skip ahead here

2007- Played in 2 tournaments (being a working stiff really sucks!) for a total of 10 games 7 games against marines.

2008- Played in 4 tournaments for a total of 12 games 9 against marines.

I could go on, but the stats are the same and I'm getting bored of typing them all.

I get tired of always playing against the same armies.  My career as a Warhammer player (from here on called 'Fantasy' because I'm getting tired of all this typing) has no one dominant army that I've played against.  Yes I've played against more Orc and Empire armies over the years than I have Wood Elves but the numbers aren't hugely different. 

Some of you may ask where I've played and am I around the same collection of gamers.  I'll answer that I have played in the 1998, 99, 2000, 2001, 2003, GW sponsored Grand Tournaments and the first three Adepticons.  Plus local tournaments in three of the United States 5 largest cities.  I've been around and have been active since the mid 90's.

Some others may say, "but crazy guy surely you admit that a Blood Angels army is different from a Space Wolf one and so on and so forth."

I admit no such thing.  Their are universals that all marine lists can count on (please note I'm NOT counting Chaos Marines in this mix) and therefore I count them all as one.

So variety is my first reason for why I like fantasy better than 40k. 

Wow!  I wrote a lot more than I thought.  So tune in next time for why I prefer fantasy to 40k.

Reason 2: The Cost!- You won't want to miss it.