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2. What were your favourite hobby or gaming releases of the decade? What games did you play most or enjoy most from this period of time?
When you think about wargaming, jeez, lots came and went. This is a tough one. I thoroughly enjoyed the seventh edition of Warhammer: Fantasy Battle. It was a refinement as well as an enhancement of the previous sixth edition, which fixed a bunch of things that were frankly bonkers about fifth edition, which was quite bonkers. So, it was quite good and more balanced than 40k with the exception of some of the Codex Books (Matt Wards Daemon Army Book was particularly notorious, making the army invincible with some builds). Sadly during this time the Specialist Games and GW kinda went downhill so it is hard to put a finger on my favourite gaming release.
I was very fond of Warmachine MKII, it was an excellent game to play, but when the third edition came out it kind of put me off the entire company (as well as some of their sudden and unexpected Draconian behaviour on the forums). But that was in more recent years.
I’m pushed to say what my favourite gaming and hobby releases are. I guess the rise of the army painter? I’m not a fan of their warpaints with the exception of their metallics and dropper bottle tones, and loved their primers as well as their spray varnish. It also forced, I think, GW to start doing their own colour spray cans again outside of black and white.
Also, I liked the improving plastic technology of GW.
As for games I played the most? WHFB. And games I enjoyed the most? Also WHFB. I played 40k a lot up til College, and afterward, while I still played it, there was nothing I played, enjoyed nor completed with more than Warhammer Fantasy Battles. I knew the rules well, did ok at tournaments, loved my Daemon army (and I did not do a cheesey list), knew how it worked and did well enough with it. In contrast 40k had worse balance issues and I progressively tried to play and like it more: attending more events, doing progressively worse (not playing a lot and refusing to buy as more powerful books and metas emerged did not help) and disliking the competitive gaming scene put me off the game for a time.
It was a decade of ups and downs, haha. Fantasy, despite an overpowered book or two during seventh ed’s time, was pretty good. Some of the pricing, design choices (Empire models spring to mind), releases (no updated Bretonnians), model size increases (and thus transport to events) limitations of the base size for rank and file, as well as the high by in for new gamers sadly led to the games downfall. There were other factors, but these things did not help either.
