Why I Stopped Playing Warhammer...

It's been 2 years since I played a game of warhammer. If I recall correctly, I won. If I recall even further, I didn't lose much with my beloved Wood Elf army. And, on inspection, through perseverance and pig-headedness, I painted all but one unit, in not the simplest of colour schemes. 

So what changed? I had a good looking force, I was winning games, I still paint models, why have I let a whole edition of warhammer pass me by?

Well...

I played WFB in two distinct phases in the past. The first was aged maybe 10-16, where I absolutely loved it. Perhaps I didn't grasp every rule, and my opponents were limited and probably equally as clueless, but I enjoyed it immensely, and my persevering impression of Warhammer was a couple of cool units, but esssentially, a guy on a large monster of some description. This was probably coloured by the White dwarf battle reports of the day, and essentially the great artwork of 4th edition Warhammer, with the high elf hero on griffin being significantly more bad-ass than the hordes of greenskins around him. This is the Warhammer I remember and love.

The second phase was around aged 19-24, Most of which spent as a GW staff member, and was the period in which this army was built. I remember this as mostly an angsty time, where my natural longing to have cool things in my armies was at odds with my need to have armies that 'worked.' I was part of a very competative set of gamers, and there was a lot of theory-hammer going on. I painted lots of cool models that never got into a game as in theory they just weren't good enough. This is probably why I stopped playing, as I had an army that won lots, but I was too shaky about swapping it around and putting new units in. I believe I spent days painting my great stag. It's never been used.

Which brings us to the present. Over the past year or so, whilst working on a few little projects, I've opened my big figure case and cast passing glances at my wood elf army. I still like it when I look at it, but when I thought about using it again, I get that same angst. 

Imagine my joy, when on an errand just to get some paint and glue I spy the Island Of Blood set on the intro table. I was dangerously close to starting a high elf army, but I resisted. I don't have the time or money for a new army, and painting White properly is laborious. But there he was, on the table. Bad ass elf on griffin. If he can exist, why can't I run a wood elf army with a forest dragon? Why not a great stag, when I love the model (probably the only person in the world who does :/)? I find myself on the GW website, there's monsters everywhere all of a sudden! Even questionable ones like the lammasu...

So, to revitalise this much loved and, most recently, much neglected army, I thought I'd start with a centrepiece. For me, there's no better centrepiece in a WFB army than a guy on a dragon.

So, a happy medium. I know my Wood Elf army worked in the last edition. I would very much like to not care if it works in this one. I can now, with a clear head, build my dragon.