40K, Oh 40K! Or "Why I Need to Stop Fretting and Accept that I'm Terrible at Warhammer 40,000"

Tomorrow, I'll spend my Saturday morning and afternoon at Sci Fi Genre, playing in a Warhammer Tournament. I'll make my plan of attack, prepare for battle on the top tables, and hopefully squeak out another win.

Oh, wait. This isn't a WFB tournament, it's a 40K Tournament.

40K got me into the hobby. I love painting the models. The stories are amazing. And to top it all off, I still think Space Marines are the coolest idea since sliced bread. The problem is, I stink at the game. I have more than twenty Fantasy tournament wins under my belt, and in three years haven't placed lower than third place in any tournament I've played in (not to say that I'm a national powerhouse player or anything, far from it. So I do pretty well with that game. But 40K...well, it's a good thing that I enjoy playing so much, because I stink like old cheese. I think there are some basic reasons.

1. I only play Space Marines. It's not that I'm a new player, it's that I pick my armies in 40K and Fantasy (and other games) based on what sparks my interest in fluff and pictures and models. In Fantasy, a lot of armies do that. In 40K, none of them float my boat outside of Space Marines.

2. Space Marines absolutely do not fit my play style. I'm looking for fast, hard hitting, close combat machines. Space Marines have more in common with WFB Dwarves, and the game is more about shooting. So my instincts, which serve me pretty well in Fantasy, get me killed here.

3. I want to play my army like the fluff. I played a Raven Guard Scout army, even after they nerfed scouts to high hell and back. I'll happily charge Terminators and Assault Squads into crappy odds. I want to see my guys be heroes. Sometimes they are (I have a Scout Sergeant, above, who has killed a Tyrant, a Carnifex, Abaddon, and two units of Obliterators over the course of two games. Thus, the conversion). Most days they aren't.

So yeah, I'm terrible at 40K. But I'll be at the tourney tomorrow (at the low, low ranking table), because I love to play it regardless of winning or losing. At the end of the day, that Scout Sergeant and his heroic counterparts are what I really treasure.