Gaming and Painting Motivation

My gaming and painting interests have been waxing and waning for a little while now so I recently thought maybe I could give 40k another try. 

I have several small armies lying around from previous forays, including some storm trooper (Tempestus Scion) Imperial Guard (Astra Millitarium) so after a visit to Ashford GW, where the manager Neil seems like a great guy running a good store, I arranged a 1000pt, ‘get back into it’ game for the following week. The game was played against a great opponent Kyle, on a lovely gaming board with a city fight theme that the store had been putting together. Now, I lost massively, which probably doesn’t help my feelings on the game, but 40k just didn’t seem to grab me, in the same way I used to enjoy it. If anything the game feels better to play these days, the objective cards are a nice mechanic I feel and otherwise it doesn’t seem to have changed in any significant ways. I think maybe my perception of the game has changed.

Since I’ve been playing Warmahordes, I’ve realised how tight a game system can be. As such, I view the GW games as casual games to be played over a beer and not taken at all seriously. So I merrily pushed my guardsman around the table and shot at things near them, not really utilising much tactics or being particularly careful about my model placement. And this got my little guys killed. Maybe this isn’t surprising.

Another part of the change is lifestyle, I don’t have time for an overly tactical wargame these days, I want something I can play to relax and have fun, not something I have to do too much thinking about, but for the game still to be close fought. Which might be fine if I had opponents with similar attitudes, but I think maybe for the average 40k player this isn’t much the case.

I used to play, several years ago, at a club called A20 gamers. It was fun for a good while and there was a good spread of opponents there, some of whom played 40k more competitively, some less. At the time I was probably on the more competitive end of the spectrum, but now I feel like I have some insight into those members who had serious jobs and families and just wanted to play more casually.

So this is my gaming dilemma, if truth be told I have similar issues with Warmahordes much of the time, though recently playing my trolls this seems less of an issue (perhaps due to the hardiness of the trolls being more forgiving of my mistakes). Perhaps the lesson is I should stick to board games not full on wargames? Answers on a postcard? Please?

 A similar issue is also affecting my painting, I have much less time for painting these days, but at the same time my painting is at a point where I want to spend a lot of time on each piece. This isn’t necessarily a problem, if I accept that I’ll only finish a couple of pieces a year. Unfortunately, I’m motivated by completing projects, so that doesn’t tend to go well. 

You can see the details from here right? (click to enlarge)

The other painting I’ve done in the last couple of years is my Cygnar army. This was painted very rapidly in a short period ready for Smogcon last year. Getting the painting completed was very enjoyable, because I was able to finish things rapidly to a good enough standard. However, on finishing the army, I found myself wishing I’d painted it to a slightly higher standard.

Thus began my Trollblood army, which took a long time to establish a colour scheme. Now the colour scheme is established and the first models painted I find the painting style I choose takes too much concentration to easily knock out. I want something I can do to relax without thinking (similar to my goals for gaming). As I prepared for the 40k game, I undercoated and drybrushed the un-painted elements on my 1000 pt army. As I was doing this I was shocked by how easy it was compared to painting the Privateer Press models, the GW models sharp details seem to allow an easy route to completing models.

 

Grumpy Stryker does not approve.

So there we are, I really enjoy painting but I cannot figure out how I should spend the limited time I have on this great hobby. Smogcon is coming soon, and hopefully I’ll have my entry finished for the painting competition and am also looking forward to playing some games. Usually these big events affect my motivation significantly, but it can be in either direction, so it’ll be interesting to see what happens! Salute is following 7 weeks after Smogcon, so if I’m to enter that competition I’ll need to get a move on, though now maybe that’s looking less likely.

Maybe rather than writing moody blog posts I should get on with painting something! ;)