Normally I'd try and put my own spin on something for my intro, but in this case, I'm simply going to post an excerpt from Inquisitor Lord Aki's blog that says it best.
| "My father and I would go fishing when I was younger and it would frustrate me to no end to see him patiently casting and casting and not catching anything. How could he be so patient? How could he be so calm? I wanted to move the boat, go someplace else, try a different lure... anything. Yet he sat in the same place and continued to cast and cast, not a care in the world. It wasn’t until after I was married and had job and family responsibilities that I understood. He wasn’t in the boat casting and casting and casting just to catch fish. His primary concern was getting the line wet. If the line was not getting wet, then he was back in the world where the wife is nagging about something, the kids need to be punished, the boss is getting on his case, or something in the house needs to be fixed. When you remove the stress of needing to catch a fish, the whole experience is so much better." From Winning is not my Primary Concern, Inquisitor Lord Aki |
Wow. I found this the other day despite it having been posted for some time now. I can't think of a better explanation of how I play the game. It's not the win/loss ratio at the end of the day, it's simply the experience of playing the game with some friends.
I truly hope everyone gets to play the game like this at some point in their gaming "life." You will not have a better experience. I was lucky to experience it once to date and it still stands as my best game of 40k ever.
I did a post about my experience a while back as it covers the idea of Narrative Gaming. The post has a quick battle report and a link to the narrative part that leads up to the actual game (for those looking for some bedtime reading... it's crazy long).
In addition to that, there is some info on Narrative gaming as well thanks to the good Col. Corbane and his site, Going on Campaign. The link there jumps to the Narrative Gaming section, but I would recommend looking through the whole thing for some great ideas.
I'm touching on this whole thing for two reasons really, to share the idea of simply playing for the fun of playing and it's the central idea I'm using as I start my new Deathwing army. That's right, it's been a while since I've done some work for myself, and this idea is going to figure into the creation of the force.
Make sure to check out these posts as they might help:
What's my army missing?
Army building, do you build what you really want to?
