Restoring your interest in the game.

If you've ever had a hobby of any kind that you were involved in for more than a month you probably experienced a drop in interest with the hobby or even flat out boredom with it.  It's not necessarily a hobby crippling sensation where you lose interest entirely sell everything off and walk away for ever.  But small burnouts occur with anything, especially if you over do it.  I have friends who have done this with a myriad of activities, pool, golf, Halo, Gears of War, the gym, poker, 40k, Warmachine, you name it someone has burned out on it.  The struggle, for me, has always been to find a way to get around or through the dip in interest.

I recently have been experiencing a sort of burn out on 40k.  It isn't the kind of burn out where I want to pack up my stuff and call it quits.  I am still interested in the hobby, fluff, and playing the game but I am not as motivated as I was nor as competitive.  An example of this is the current state of stagnation on my painting table and my less than stellar record in the latest campaign at our FLGS.  While I haven't painted anything in over two months I haven't stopped playing the game, but my performance has certainly slipped.  I attest this to the fact that I care less about winning and losing and more about remaining interested in playing the game.  Having recognized this fact I set about seeing if I could revitalize my interest in the hobby side of the game through breaking my stagnated gaming side.

While the missions in the BRB are solid missions with some variety having played them time and again for over 2 years now has become taxing, especially with all the games I have played in the last 4 months.  Knowing we were getting bored with the "same ol same ol" Dis and I branched out the other night and played our own variation on a Battle Missions mission.  We took the line breaker mission where you use 3 baneblades and face down 1500 points and we took my Baneblade and 500 points of Salamanders against 1000pts of Orks and it was a great time.  It was different, fun, challenging and provided some insane moments, which often come when you place a super heavy on the table!  I left that night feeling completely reinvigorated with 40k.

I decided to take this a step further and Dis and I have set up a set of games using the Battle Missions, Planet Strike, and Apocalypse books for a small campaign between the two of us.  This led me to be inspired to do some major expansion work on my Salamanders which are currently being fleshed out to be the full 2nd Battle Company and a Salamander Fellblade.  It is amazing to me how just a little nudge in a different direction can cause a renaissance in your gaming.  If you are experiencing a gaming slump try to do something completely different and off the wall to get back in to it.  Pick up Battle Missions, Planet Strike, or Apocalypse and play a crazy and fun game just for the hell of it!  Getting into slumps is a naturally occurring event in our wonderful hobby, sometimes all that is needed is time away and sometimes you just need to break the monotony.  Try it out!