Gaming

My Descent into Warhammer 40K

My first steps into a new hobby with a lot of facets

Picture taken by Heather Veley

In my blogging career, I’ve mostly kept my content about comic books and anime with the occasional off-topic post. This is because I’ve just been a comic book and anime consumer for all these years and simply didn’t venture into other nerd hobbies. Sure, I was aware of D&D and video games and all that jazz, but I didn’t feel the urge to explore these other domains of nerdom because of my own hyper-fixations.

But over the last year, something changed. I’ve been slowly getting into a well-known hobby with a large following and a deep well of lore that would take years to fully explore. That hobby is:

Warhammer 40,000.

Saber Interactive/Games Workshop

Yeah, I’ve been getting into 40K as of late, a decision that is already making my wallet cry out in pain. Now, I’ve been aware of Warhammer 40K ever since college (I was too deep in my weeaboo phase back in high school to care about anything else). I think some of my old college buddies played the game back then but they tended to keep it to themselves for some reason (but they sure as hell made sure I watched their favorite magical girl anime of the week). My first real exposure to 40K content was Flashgitz’s “The Furry Crusades” series featuring the Black Templars.

I attempted to listen to some Warhammer lore videos about three years ago when I used to work in a warehouse that allowed us to listen to music or whatever. They were interesting from what I remember, and I was definitely digging the aesthetics, but the lengths of some of the videos were daunting to say the least. To give you guys some perspective, the Emperor of Mankind’s documentaries alone are at least two hours long, if you want a full breakdown, and that’s all before the Horus Heresy. At the time, trying to get into Warhammer 40K looked as impossible as trying to get into One Piece so I dropped the series.

Then about a year ago, two things happened that convinced me to try again with the franchise.

Flashgitz

First, I finally decided to give a little series called Space King a shot and absolutely loved it. Despite coming out back in 2024 and being done by Flashgitz themselves, I held off watching it because… Honestly, I don’t know why. The series is funny as hell and a fantastic parody of Warhammer 40K, according to the YouTube comments I read at the time. I’ve already written an article about the series so if you want to read more, click here.

Picture taken by Heather Veley

The second event happened while I was at a comic book shop in one of my favorite hippie towns out in the middle of nowhere. There I was, scanning all the new releases for something interesting, when I ended up at the counter to find free Warhammer minis still in their plastic frames, ready to be assembled. Since I had time to kill and they were free, I pocketed one of the freebies and headed over to the nearby brewery to put it together. I was surprised by how easy it was, all I had to do was pop the pieces out of the frame and assemble them.

Once I finished putting my new little space marine together, I sat back and took a few sips of my beer as one thought went through my head: “fine, I’ll give Warhammer another shot!”

Picture taken by Heather Veley

And the rest is history from there. I started listening to videos about the Warhammer universe, both 40K and fantasy, and basically consuming as much content as I feasibly could. The more I learned about the world, the more intriguing it became to me. Then when fall came around, I convinced my boyfriend to come with me to buy my first set of minis and paint. That was when I hit the first major hurdle of getting into Warhammer 40K: the cost. The set of minis alone was around $50 and the beginner’s paint set was around $45. That is almost $100 off the bat just to start out! It was crazy.

Games Workshop; the set I got

Anyways, it took me a stupid amount of time to figure out how to glue the different pieces together. It turns out, the real minis are a bit more complicated to glue together than the free mini I assembled before.

Funny story, I actually brought my minis to a convention I was a vendor at to occupy myself while waiting for potential customers. A good handful of people stopped by my table just to admire my minis and give me advice, including a small family of 40K players with a very excited daughter eager to tell me about her army. The daughter plays Eldar by the way; she was super eager to tell me about it and I’m sure she would have wanted y’all to know that too.

Picture taken by Heather Veley

Anyways, after surviving snowmageddon and receiving another set from my boyfriend for Christmas that needed to be assembled, it was finally time to prime and paint my minis! Now, this was my first time painting a model anything; the last time I painted something was a ceramic lizard when I was a kid so I was completely lost. There were all kinds of labels/classifications on the paints that I couldn’t make heads or tails of. On top of that, there are apparently specific painting techniques you’re supposed to use for different parts of the model. It’s a lot and I procrastinated getting started for a long time.

Picture taken by Heather Veley

But to keep myself from getting discouraged, I started streaming on my YouTube channel, reacting to Warhammer 40,000 related videos while I painted; that way, I would at least have an audience that would hold me accountable for my painting progress. I decided to paint that first free mini I got at the comic book store to look like Chestnut from Space King just to dip my toes in the water a bit. Here’s what I was going for:

Flashgitz

After one hour of painting and a horrible attempt at mixing paints to get the colors I wanted, this was the result:

Picture taken by Heather Veley

You guys don’t have to spare my feelings; it sucked. Turns out the beginner’s paint set only had certain colors for specific armies and that’s it. When I realized this, I decided to bite the bullet and buy a few more colors to better match the reference image. After another hour of painting with my new colors, I’d say my little guy looked a lot better.

Picture taken by Heather Veley

Before I got to the detailing, I wanted to try a technique called “blackwashing” to give my mini a shadow effect. Basically, you take diluted black ink and roughly brush it all over your mini, so it gets in all the cracks then dab off any excess if necessary. I got some advice from the game store employee and watched a few shorts before going in with my brush and… I don’t think I did it quite right.

Picture taken by Heather Veley

Oh well, the blackwash isn’t supposed to look pretty at first (I think). All it needed was some highlights, some clean up on the spots that I missed, and the addition of some details to complete the look. I do have to say, for my first mini I think I did a pretty good job.

Pictures taken by Heather Veley

I’m not going to get into the actual tabletop game for now because a. I don’t have a complete army yet, b. I don’t have a codex, and c. the 11th edition recently came out and I’ve been told by seasoned players to let them figure it out first before trying it myself. For now, I think I’m going to start with the Ultramarines since I’ve been told they’re the easiest to play for beginners. One day I hope to play as Kriegsmen or Night Lords but we’ll get there when we get there. I’d also like to try my hand at painting Harlequins and Mechanicus just because they look so cool; I even got myself a tech priest that I’m saving for when my skills improve.

Pictures taken by Heather Veley

Outside of painting, I’ve been reading some of the omnibuses from the Black Library (Games Workshop’s publishing house), specifically the Ciaphas Cain and Gotrek and Felix series; both are really good and I’ll be doing reviews on both once I’ve finished them. I’m holding off on the Horus Heresy books for now because that storyline is 60 books long and I already have a stack of novels that I need to get through. I’ve also unfortunately discovered the Joy Toy company and bought a few figures from them (and spent waaaaay too much money). Yeah, my wallet is not happy with me right now.

Pictures taken by Heather Veley

So yeah, that’s what I’ve been up to these last few weeks. Don’t worry, I’ll still post comic book and anime content, I just have one more hyper-fixation to blog about now. Stay tuned y’all!

Thank you for reading and if you enjoyed this article, give it a share! I’ll see you all in the next one!

Picture taken by Heather Veley