I think every gamer nerd, regardless of gender, is familiar with the cycles of games. What was killer cheeseball one edition gets hit with the nerfbat in the next, all in the name of “balance” (and really, in the name of profit, because nothing ever actually balances except the gamemakers’ checkbooks when you spend more money to buy whatever’ll keep you winning.) We’ve talked a little on this blog before about making themey lists instead of cheesy lists, making characters instead of powergaming, that sort of thing… the idea that some armies/classes/specs/colors/whatever are more powerful than others is pretty standard, right?
I got into 40k about…oh… early 2004? Something like that. And I didn’t really build my own army until the Witch Hunters codex came out in that summer, and I became a decent player during that fall after the 4th edition rulebook came out. I was a newbie to the geek world at the time, and although I understood that some armies were cheesier than others (or beardier…do people still say beardy? We used to say beardy.) I didn’t understand that this could change at the drop of a hat. A combination of MtG, WoW, 40k, and D&D taught me this.