Monday Musing: Specialist Games

Look at how bad the logo looks... they stopped caring long ago.

I'm going to try out a new idea for articles, you're all used to my Sermons, now I'm going to inflict my 'Musings' on you too. The idea is simple, rather than write about certain hobby 'hot topics' while they're 'hot' I'm going to wait until Monday morning, while eating my breakfast (scrambled eggs on toast today, brown sauce of course) to collect my thoughts on a topic. You know, let all the heat dissipate out of the topic first. Last weeks really 'hot topic' was Games Workshop yet again wading in with their massive size 11 shoes and stomping all over Faeit 212. Now I'm not going to discuss that, maybe Natfka totally deserved what happened to him, or maybe Games Workshop really did overreact; and as those of us with Blogs on Blogger know, Google always overreact. Moot points, and totally not interesting to me, and never were. Nope, what I want to talk about is Games Workshop finally putting a bullet between the eyes of their Specialist Games.

I guess I ought to declare my 'interests' right off of the bat shouldn't I? I love many of Games Workshops Specialist Games, and some certainly way more then I do any of their core product. It's not just nostalgia either, some of these games remain real gems even to this day. Blood Bowl will always have a place in my heart, no matter what. Epic will always be to me what the 40k universe was about; huge titans and legions upon legions of ant like soldiers being squished to death in the endless wars that tear the galaxy apart. Epic's various incarnations have been some of the most tactical experiences I've ever had the pleasure of experiencing. It was also one of the game 'systems' that me and my father would play the most together, so what it represents to me as a lifelong wargamer is very, very personal... good father and son time with my dad. Then their is Battlefleet Gothic, a game I was so good at (until bloody Necrons) people used to fear playing me at it. That was the first game I knew I was really, really good at right after the first game, I just 'got it'.
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