My Warhammer 40k Problem

 Do you remember the film Airplane?

My problem is similar to the "drinking problem" in that film. I like Warhammer 40,000 quite a lot but have notable difficulties actually interacting with it. My first figures were purchased around 2018, my current reign of painting began in 2021, and yet so far, I have only played a single game of Kill Team after a Herculean effort to get a team mostly finished. The root problem is that while converting and assembling large numbers of figures comes naturally, the painting of them does not. It could be said the refusal to play with unpainted figures is the real problem, but I consider that a virtue. Part of the initial motivation for doing my Historical projects was that they would be simpler to paint and that the requirement of authenticity would not permit overly ambitious conversions. The first assumption somewhat fell by the wayside when I had to tackle the buff-toned straps worn by Redcoats. Nonetheless, these figures worked well to practice painting at scale and with increasing levels of detail. Having worked from simple Afghan robes to Redcoat webbing to even a Napoleonic figure I think that there has been an improvement both in battle-ready style and in more detailed renditions over the past few years.

The Frenchman and yesterday's Late Roman definitely match or exceed any Games Workshop Figure I can see myself attempting for the immediate future. My only lacking ability now is speed, since it took a year and a half to paint around 100 figures for the Colonials project. Granted, at least a third of that time was spent moving, travelling, or working late, but the issue of speed remains. Completion rate likely comes down more to a figure's paint scheme and my painting equipment than practice at this point.

But why did I seem to convert every Warhammer model I touched? Threin lies a tale:

The 4th edition core book was my introduction to Warhammer 40,000 by complete happenstance. On a trip in 2017 I was perusing through a used bookstore. They often carry some good ttrpg books at excellent prices. This time I found a rulebook for Warhammer. At that point all I knew was that it had chainswords and something to do with "xenos". I paid about four and a half guardsmen's worth of money for it, laid back on the couch of a friend, and was changed forever.

There were no miniatures in the first few pages. There were no rules, points values, or helpful balance datasheets. There were only black and white image spreads of the most intricate world I had ever seen. John Blanche's Catechism of the Autoculus of Mars was probably what sealed my fate.

The reason I could never just build and paint a figure straight out of the box is that the world I was trying to evoke was this one. Look at the hunched figures, the strange customs and impossible designs. Look at them and see! If I had not found the INQ28 movement a few years later, I do not know if I would have returned to the hobby at all. But why worry about creating an army when INQ28 is a skirmish game movement? I think it has to do with the effect. One bizarre servitor is a cool character, ten are a force, one hundred are a vision of a world distant and unreal yet present and undeniable. To put it simply, the effect of Warhammer 40,000 I want to capture requires extreme detail alongside extreme scale.

But having learned the perils of unabated conversions, I must admit that there are limits to my abilities as they stand. I will one day realize the maximalist future painted by Blanche and company in my own way, but to do so I should probably start painting Warhammer figures again alongside my Historicals.

All of this to say that I have been tinkering with a few Imperial Guard colour schemes on and off.