Aah, that new box smell, plastic wrapping, cardboard, possibilities...
*Warning* the following may contain non-content...
So, I built my first ever Fire Warrior. Granted the re-tooling of the sprue makes the kit only 3 or so years old, but Fire Warrior models have been around in one form or another for over a decade and a half, so it was about time I Xenos'd up and knocked one together...
I don't know about you, but there's something absurdly liberating about walking into your local place of hobby and just picking up boxes that you've never even considered buying before, boxes that would seem terribly old hat to others, especially after years of the personal mantra of Imperial/Pre-Heresy only, painstaking conversion and FW extras. I did it when I started with Orks (let's still not talk about that...) and more pertinently, I'm doing it with Tau.
Sure, the Fire Warrior and Pathfinder boxes have been on the shelves since the last codex, but that doesn't devalue them in my eyes. When you've been into a certain aspect of the hobby for so long, something novel can rekindle your interest.
Just seeing an unfamiliar sprue with its new weapons, body parts, extra gubbins is enough to set my mind wandering the paths of possibility...I don't think it's a coincidence that GW show you the sprue pics on their store site nowadays...
So what do you get for your...*scrabbles around for points value tables*...8 points per model?
Well, an infantryman who sits somewhere between the humble Guardsman and the mighty Space Marine, which is as it should be, the average Shas'la having the benefit of far more resources and training than the lowly Gue'la, but trailing some way behind the Emperor's Finest. (Second Finest nowadays, maybe?) So, Pulse Rifle, 4+ BS and Save, pretty standard, right?
Well, yeah, but this is the point I get out my soapbox again. The hobby is all about what you make of it. It's just a humble Fire Warrior, with average stats, that you've seen a million times before. It's not even that, it's a small lump of plastic of questionable expense that we attach meaning and thus value to.
But, and this is a fundamental aspect of the hobby in my opinion, 'it's not just a Fire Warrior, it's my Fire Warrior', and he and his good buddies will collect paint, inevitable chips and dings, but hopefully stories too. You know the cliches are true...maybe this guy or a squadmate will be the one to knock that last wound off an enemy monster, or hold an objective against all comers. [Der H: yeah, or maybe they'll sit on your shelf and have a dust collecting competition...] When you resolve to collect a force, you buy into an aspect of their character, be it rules, models or background. It's this that makes us shell out the money and time to build a force, not just how shiny the packet is. (Although that helps too!)
If my Fire Warriors mean something to me, it's much more likely I'll take care of them, give them the paintjob they deserve. Now, to get the rest of them built...
Handro
Thought for the day: 'Excuses are the refuge of the weak'.
