about sleep....

i was going to bed over 2 hours ago. i swear! alas a good book reached my overbearing hands and focred itself onto my eyes for the best part of the 2 hours. honest??? bah. dont believe me!

but seriously, i've been into (i say into, mostly on the border and never getting that involved) with the games workshop world and its games. gaming was never a huge appeal to me, although its smaller and more accessible games were played, with blood bowl being a big favourite of mine. what has kept me intrigued over the years however, is the story side of the hobby. i've bought and read every single white dwarf magazine (games workshop monthly parchment) since issue 176, and at the moment its on about issue 340ish? not entirely sure exactly but its about there. thats a lot of reading and toilet hours lost in the world of warhammer, 40k and its other games.

a few years ago they started a black library line, which is basically a novel area based on all the games and characters but purely for reading pleasure. no buying miniatures, no undercoating or painting or no dice. this appealed to me a little more as i was always intrigued with the back story of the games. and the story that appealed to me the most was that of the horus heresy, based in the warhammer 40,000 game. its a pretty much epic story, and would take some time to even summarise, but the black library published a series of books based on the events of the horus heresy and i can honestly say i've been impressed. i've read the first three, and am curently on the fourth book, and i believe theres at least another 3-4 out there. i used to think that it would make an amazing set of films, but for these to be turned into films would need far too much screen time, possibly over 10 films to really be able to get into the details of what just happened.

videogame wise games workshop hasnt been able to push many good games out, warhammer online and dawn of war possibly being only the good ones, with a few mediocre and several worse games out there. but i always found myself drawn to the strength of the universe these games conveyed, and while the gameplay may not have been great, the depth and atmosphere was mainly of a high calibre. more games are coming out soon, with a gears of war esque space marine game coming out that looks like it could be brutal, and my beloved blood bowl also gets acomputer iteration.

the point of this blog is basically just to say its nice to be in touch with a hobby that relies on painting small figures or rolling large quantities of dice, without having to do so. while many may think these are the main draws to such a huge hobby, i believe that the detail the people at games workshop go into just to set an atmosphere and story for its games are just as important as the game itself, and in my case, moreso. i'd like to say i'd rattle some dice again, or break open some long forgotten paint pots, but its unlikely. i will however, breeze my hand over the pages of a magzine and place a bookmark into a book when my eyes fail to read no more.