Being Put Through the (Rumour) Mill

I may have been pretty quiet on my own blog recently but that doesn't mean I'm not keeping up with the raft of blogs on my reading list. This is mostly because I can browse through them on Feedly on my phone whereas I find using the phone too fiddly to do blogging of my own. Anyway, one of the blogs on my list is Faeit212. To be honest it's the one I read the most, which is in no small part down to the fact that Natfka posts more regularly than the rest of us.

If you aren't familiar with Faeit212 it's predominantly a rumour blog which helps to tie together the various rumours, leaks and whatnot from the forums and other blogs. Natfka does a fantastic job of compiling everything and it's been an excellent source of everything coming up in the 40K world (and a few other systems). He's helped break several big rumours and pointed us all in the direction of those leaked pictures of new units that we're all desperate to see.

Trouble is, I find I'm actually less desperate to see these things now. Don't get me wrong I'm still excited about the hobby but most of the time we're seeing these images a couple of days or a week at most before they're actually on the GW site. There was a time when I lapped it all up and wanted to read everything I could. The new Tau book was a great example of this. There were leaked pages in Spanish that I bothered to translate to find out details about the Riptide etc. Perhaps I've just learnt patience but right now I'm quite happy just to wait until concrete information is available. This is for a few reasons which I'd like to explain.

We're fed that many rumours now that it's very difficult to know who to believe. The whole 7th/6.5th edition thing is a prime case of this. Once it looked a bit more concrete that we're getting a rules update we suddenly had tons of information coming out e.g. the FOC percentages and sidebars etc. Perhaps all this is true but the cynic in me thinks that there's just some rumourmongers jumping on the bandwagon and simply making stuff up or else wishlisting. This means that when the actual releases hit I've already got preconceived notions about what they'll include. When only some of the promised things happen I'm sometimes relieved but more often disappointed. That disappointment is created by the rumours plain and simple. Obviously I have my own wishlists for new releases but the rumours just build expectation.

The other problem is the, often bilious, commenting that appears on the site despite Natfka's best efforts. This kind of thing is the reason I got into blogging in the first place. When I played EVE Online I used to spend a lot of time on various forums and quickly grew tired of the whinging and complaining about various trivial things. The blogosphere didn't seem as vulnerable to this but there are a few of the more popular sites that have an infestation. I'm sure I'm guilty of the same negativity but reading some of the petty insults and arguments really puts me off the hobby sometimes.

I actually still love 40K though. A few games recently have made me realise why I love the game so much. Reading about every little glimpse of new stuff that we may or may not ever get is actually getting in the way of enjoying the hobby. There's a sense of urgency in the hobby that GW has intentionally created. You get the feeling that everything is a limited edition. For a couple of releases I've been down at my FLGS on release day to pick up the new book and sometimes a few of the new models. They've then often taken me ages to actually get round to assembling. I've got an Astartes Stormwing that is still shrinkwrapped for example. That's absolute madness when you take a step back and look at it. The models are always still there a couple of weeks later when I pop into my FLGS to buy some paints. I've got codices for armies I don't own because I thought I might collect them e.g. Eldar and Tyranids. I could've easily waited and not bothered getting the books but I felt like I needed them straight away on release day. Obviously some stuff is limited edition but you get my point.

I think the tournament scene is partly to blame for this need it now attitude. You feel like you've got to stay on top of the latest thing to be competitive and that's getting more and more difficult. Perhaps that's because having a child has limited my free time to spend reading through codices but also the relentless pace of releases isn't helping. I'm determined to draw a line in the sand though. I've got 5 armies at the moment (SW, DE, DA, Tau and Orks) and strictly speaking not a single fully painted model. Of course a huge swathe of them are table top standard but I can still see work I want to do on them. Why the hell would I want to keep buying new stuff then? You may not like GW's policy on rumours and their blatant money grabs but for suckers like me it clearly works! I can't promise I won't be tempted by Orks, Wolves and DE when they get updates but I'm just not get caught up in the furore and buy stuff I don't need.

Coming back to Faeit212 though. I've got a lot of respect for Natfka and what he does and the site is excellent. I've been enjoying features about other game systems and looking at some of the projects from readers of the site. That Ork Sunshark was particularly nice. Anyway, that aside I'm going to stop reading the blog and see if it improves my attitude to the hobby. I'm quite happy not to read any of the rumours. It'll cause less confusion when I read the actual book as I won't be looking for rules that were supposed to be in there but aren't and I think I can wait a couple of days longer to see new models without needing to look at leaks.

Finally, I think it's interesting that the 40K community seems to think it's the only group who obsessively speculates about what may or may not materialise from a company that doesn't reveal much. It's a similar story for video games, football player transfers and even car manufacturers. As a species we seem to be obsessed with hearing snippets about what might be coming in the future. I guess none of us are that patient!

In the mean time, Matt is heading over tomorrow for a few games so expect some battle reports from those games, some more reviews of the AM book and, of course, plenty of Blog Wars build up. Let's find the love for this excellent game again.