The Complete Guide to Warhammer

Chapter 1: What Is Warhammer and Why People Love It

Let's clear up the first thing everyone gets wrong about Warhammer: it's not just one hobby. It's three hobbies that share a single box. You build things, you paint things, and you play games with the things you've built and painted. Some people do all three. Some people only build and paint and never play a single game. Some people buy pre-painted armies or pay someone else to paint them just so they can play. All of those people are doing Warhammer. That flexibility is the first reason people love it - you get to choose which parts call to you, and you can change your mind later.

So what does it actually look like on a Tuesday evening? Picture a kitchen table cleared of dinner. In the middle sits a rectangular plastic sprue - basically a plastic frame with model parts attached to it, like a toy model airplane kit. You have a pair of nippers, which are small wire cutters, to snip the parts free. You have a plastic glue that melts the plastic slightly at the joint, so it fuses together into a permanent bond. And you have a small, sharp knife to clean off the little nubs of plastic left where the part met the sprue. That's it. That's the entire setup for building.

You follow the instruction booklet that comes in the box. Each instruction shows you which part is which, often with a picture