Warhammer 40k and Football share the most similarity in their execution of the game. I think this is likely due to the fact that they are both attempting to simulate certain aspects of war itself. One similarity is that they both capture the tactical aspect – making a series of short-scoped decisions that get your closer to your goal while keeping your opponent away from theirs. Continue reading Warhammer 40k is Basically Football, Part 3
Just as football is built on its community, so too is Warhammer 40k. In both cases, fans of both games spend at least as much time talking about the game as they do watching or playing it. The reason for this is that they both contain aspects that make great conversation: shared context, lore, and drama.
Shared context is what gives any two football fans in the U.S. the ability to talk about football with each other. There is a shared jargon, knowledge of how the game works, and familiarity with various teams. Each of these things allows a much simpler communication between fans and makes for better storytelling; if you’ve ever seen a football fan try to explain an awe-inspiring moment in a game to someone who doesn’t know the teams or the rules, you know what I mean. The same is true of Warhammer – a story about a unit failing their morale check on a critical turn is just as exciting to someone who plays Warhammer 40k as an interception in the last quarter of a football game is to someone who watches football. Continue reading Warhammer 40k Is Basically Football, Part 2
Quite often, I end up explaining my hobbies to my friends and coworkers (though not often to my family, since they’re a lot of who I play with). Warhammer 40k and other miniature wargames I think are the hardest to explain since the hobby is so broad. It’s not just playing a game with miniature figures (which is actually a fraction of the time I spend with the hobby), so I’ve often tried to explain it more holistically. Ian and I hit on an explanation recently that I found entertaining – Warhammer 40k is basically football.
In football, you have your home team, or, more precisely, the team that you like to rout for. There are lots of things to distinguish a team: what city they herald from, their team colors, the temperament and fame of certain players or managers, their wins and losses each season, and their rivals. In Warhammer 40k, there are just as many things that may make up an army. For instance, an army us usually chosen from a faction, which can be loosely correlated to where the army heralds from, and describes what kind of alien they are. It sometimes, but not always, also comes with recommendations for what the team colors are. Continue reading Warhammer 40k Is Basically Football, Part 1