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Friday, July 07, 2006

Confessions of a Completist

Or: I bare my buyer's angst (Ooo-er...)

So, I headed off into town yesterday to visit Static Games, hoping there to find the newly released Pacific Theatre expansion for Memoir'44. My luck was in and I soon had a copy of this long-awaited product in my hands.

Clutching my prize I wandered around the store, as you do. Knowing that a new WFRP supplement is due I checked that section of the racks. No joy. Then I decided to see if there were any interesting 2nd hand 1st edition WFRP books in the nearby rack. What should I see but both volumes of the legendary Warhammer Realm of Chaos books, that is both Slaves to Darkness and The Lost and the Damned. I almost couldn't believe my eyes. I mean, I've actually only ever seen these books once before IIRC, and I certainly can't remember ever seeing them in a 2nd hand rack.

So you can imagine that I grabbed both books right away. I confess I swithered for a few minutes at the cash desk. Not about whether or not I was going to buy the books you understand. No, I was just wondering whether I should get Kenny (the owner of Static) to put one of the books aside for me until next week. But WTF I thought in the end- I was above such a cheap self deception, and I left with my prizes soon after.

Looking over the books I have to say that I wondered if I hadn't let my crazed completism run too far away with itself. Black Industries are planning a new WFRP Chaos supplement- Tome of Corruption- for release this year after all. But I soon found something of immediate use. Preparing for last Sunday's WFRP game I'd opened a thread on the Black Industries GM's forum asking for identification of 2 chaos runes that were to feature in the session. No one replied. So what should I find in The Lost and the Damned but a 2-page spread of Chaos runes. Problem solved!

A meagre return on such a significant investment perhaps, but I'm sure I'll find lots of other bits and pieces that I'll be able to use to enrich my WFRP game. And, of course, I'm 2 great big steps closer to being the compleat WFRP GM. Mwah hah, etc. ;)

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Or you could just have asked me and borrowed them both. But there you go.
Brian

"A bit political on yer ass!" said...

Ah ha! But now they are mine, all mine!! Mwah hah, etc! ;)

Anonymous said...

Well, impulse buying isn't necessarily a bad thing...

...of course it can make you do bad things...

gnome said...

I've only ever seen the PDFs... never the actual books... You are indeed lucky! Nice...

"A bit political on yer ass!" said...

Thanks for the kind words as ever gnome. Yes, it was a stroke of luck.

Nice touch with the timing too. Were I superstitious- or just plain barking (ie. wrong time of the year and not taking the tablets) then I might even've been tempted to consider it some kind of omen. It'd have to've been an ill omen of course, perhaps even a sign that I was on the slippery slope to selling my soul to one of the Chaos gods.

But I'm a rationlist of sound mind, so I'll just have to leave it to my players to wonder what ill omens my new finds betoken for their PC's. Mwah hah, etc. ;)

"A bit political on yer ass!" said...

By the way: the impending Tome of Corruption- woo, lovely! I'm looking forward to this. Quite a lot. Heh. ;)

gnome said...

The whole (new) WFRP thing is -after all- the only good thing to come from GW in recent years...

"A bit political on yer ass!" said...

It all depends what you mean by "in recent years" gnome. I mean, if that stretches as far back as 8 years you have the release of 3rd edition 40K. All complaints about the quality of the rules-writing aside, I think that the revamp of the system itself was pretty damn good, with some neat rules. More recently than that, 40K4- while suffering from the same plethora of loopholes- marked a definite improvement. The accompanying new Codex: Space Marines is a great book for lovers of GW's definitive power-armoured super-troopers too.

And then of course there's the ever-increasing range of plastic kits in their figures range. I've been saying for years that the plastic space marines in particular are the best toy soldiers of all time. A lot of nice new miniatures certainly have entered the market since then, but nothing to change my mind on that.

There is more no doubt, but space marines are what passes for my GW speciality- after Space Hulk natch. ;)

gnome said...

Well, 40k isn't my strong point, but with recent years I mostly refer to the last 2-3 years. Maybe more. And I'm mostly referring to WHFB... I mean, ok, the 6th edition was a great improvement, but many Army books were "meh" to say the least, the minis quality has -for the most part- plummeted (have a look at the Wood Elves), prices have gone up, Specialist Games availability down, and innovation has just vanished. And don't get me started on last year's WD.

That's why the new WHRP was such a breath of fresh air...

Anyway, let's wait for the 7th edition of WHFB. A last chance for GW to redeem itself.