Join my gaming club and me for a summer of Warhammer 40k as we build armies for an Armageddon campaign weekend!
The 11th edition of Warhammer 40k is almost here, and with it, the siren song of a new big box set. I love a two-player starter, but I don’t always grab whichever set accompanies the release of a new 40k edition. Armageddon, though? Yeah, irresistible for me.
The Warm, Glowing, Warming Glow of Nostalgia
My introduction to war gaming came all the way back in 1993 with the 2nd Edition 40k box set. It’s a high I’ve been chasing ever since. The upcoming Armageddon box pits a set of all-new Space Marines against their traditional foes: a horde of orks and gretchin, all packaged in a box cover that harkens back to the glorious, lurid John Blanche cover art of the 2nd Edition box.
I fully accept that nostalgia is a powerful drug. There’s no way I’ll ever recapture the wild promise of encountering a game like Warhammer as a thirteen-year-old. It was a moment in time that ultimately changed my life in myriad ways. Many of which wouldn’t become apparent for decades (me writing this series of articles, for example). None of us can ever fully recapture the lightning strike of imagination and joy that ushered us into the hobby (whatever that may have been). But if we squint a little, we can maybe receive a glimpse that reminds us of what it was like.
Club Campaigns
A new edition of 40k invariably means my gaming club (Pike & Shots, Seattle, WA, Est. 2017) gets together for an afternoon of launch day games. We play a lot of other games, of course. Horus Heresy is my main love, but you’ll see lot of other games on our clubhouse tables. Flames of War, Marvel Crisis Protocol, Saga, Blood & Plunder, and dozens of other games all make regular appearances. Still, almost every club member has (at least) a 40k army. It’s pretty much a given we’re gonna get together for some Warhammer when a new edition launches.
For me, the gold standard of war gaming is campaign play but man, it’s a lot of work. Dominatus looks like it might take some of the sting out of that. The entire system, including benefits gained by each army, are constrained to the cards themselves. No need for annoying pen and pencil book keeping! I’m always going to want that ultimate experience of a bespoke map campaign, but Dominatus seems like a great way to spend a weekend of self-contained campaign fun.
We’ve run some great club events in the past. Notably our annual Horus Heresy mega-battle, but it’s been years since we last played a 40k campaign. The first step is, of course, finding out which players want to take part. So, I took to the club’s Discord to gauge interest for a Strikeforce level Dominatus campaign to take place over Labor Day Weekend. A number of folks mentioned that they’d be either expanding or starting a new Space Marine army with Armageddon but would be happy to donate their Ork stuff if anyone wanted to start a new army. No one jumped at the offer, but it got me thinking…
Players New and Old (But All Middle-Aged)
My friend Randi had recently gotten into minis gaming for the first time via our club’s winter Blood Bowl League. I knew she’d had a good time both playing and painting her first minis. She’d expressed some interest in checking out a skirmish game, but that’s a far cry from full-scale 40k! Would she want to take the plunge into the deep end with three box sets worth of Orks? It turns out, yes. Yes, she would.
Where do we go from here? We have a date for our campaign (Labor Day weekend), the general details (Strike Force level games using the Dominatus system), and a list of participants. Seeing who’d be taking part, I noticed of the eight or so players, four of us have Armageddon themed armies. That was when I realized it might be fun to run a little campaign-within-the campaign for the four of us. While everyone in the club is welcome to join with whatever army they liked, the four of us have army plans that are thematically related to the Armageddon narrative itself.
A Tale of Four Warlords
If you’re reading this now, you’re invited to join the four of us as we step onto the road to Armageddon in a weekly series of articles here at Bell of Lost Souls. Next week, we’ll be talking about everything that goes into starting a new project. Paint schemes, basing, budgeting, army composition, etc are all going to be examined. We’ll be exploring all of this either as individuals starting brand new armies or expanding an existing force. The Armageddon box set will be the foundation of where we go from here and I’m excited to share the journey with you.
Meet the Warlords
Before we go, here are are few words from the four warlords of our tale.
I’ve had a soft spot for the Blood Angels for many, many years but it’s only now that I’ve been inspired to actually build them as an army of my own. I’m really digging the relatively unornamented marine sculpts in the Armageddon box as they leave a lot of room to personalize them myself. I’ve got a notion to paint up a force with a few nods to the classic 90s era Blood Angels with their black flames and yellow detailing.
“My previous tabletop gaming has been limited to DnD & the like, but I grew up playing jrpgs and love open world console games. I’ve known about 40k for ages but never played it. I was convinced I’d be out of my league, but, because I had such a good time learning and playing Blood Bowl, I decided to take the leap when the guys offered me their Orks. The characters and mechs that the Orks offer really appealed to me. Specifically, I love the vehicles so much so that after doing a little research on the lore, I’ve decided I’m going to paint mine as Evil Sunz.”
“I’ve been playing 40k since it came out as Rogue Trader back in 1987. My very first army was Blood Angels but I soon after switched to Orks and never looked back. I will definitely be painting the Ork half of the Armageddon box and adding them to my army for this campaign!”
“I’ve been playing 40k since the end of 2nd Edition. I’ve collected many different factions and subfactions; Dark Angels, T’au, Tyranids, Necrons, Salamanders, and more. When 8th edition launched I built a large Death Guard army (after selling my old metal one in college). Since then I’ve bought the boxed set for each edition, adding to my various armies but always holding onto the Space Marine side of each box. I’ll be using this backlog of models to build a brand new Blood Angels force for this campaign as they’re my son’s favorite chapter. He even dressed as a Blood Angel assault veteran for Halloween one year!”
Are you starting a new army for 11th or expanding an existing force? See you next Wednesday!
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Simon Berman has been a wargamer since 1993 and has worked in the tabletop games industry since 2008 as a staff writer for the first three editions of WARMACHINE and HORDES. These days he’s the General President of the Brush Wielders Union, a worldwide organization of miniatures painters of all skill levels, a freelance games writer who has contributed to a number of roleplaying games like Eclipse Phase, Dune: Adventures in the Imperium, and The Hammer and the Stake. He runs his own small-press publishing company, Strix Publishing, and paints more miniatures than he can keep track of. Simon lives with his wife in Tacoma, Washington along with a number of cats and a pack of savage wiener dogs.
Source: Bell of Lost Souls
