Warhammer 40,000 – Chaosbunker Classics

If you have followed my Imperial Fists project log over the last few weeks, you will probably have read about the CHAOSBUNKER CLASSICS. But let me give you a brief introduction.

In autumn of last year, I moved forward with my idea of hosting a small get-together to play some Warhammer 40,000 2nd Edition, mainly to provide a proper deadline for an army project - because you have a motivational problem until you have a time problem. What initially started as a simple “let’s see if we can get 4 to 6 people committed” quickly gained momentum. More people joined (and some unfortunately had to cancel due to time constraints), but we still ended up with ten people fully committed to painting a 1,500-point army for a weekend of retro gaming.

The idea behind the Chaosbunker Classics is to bring back the aesthetics of the old games and recapture some of the magic of Bring Out Your Lead here in Germany. The events won’t be limited to 40k 2nd Edition - this one was, but future events will explore the look and feel of classic games and miniatures, possibly using different rulesets to recreate certain settings. Since 1,500 points of 40k was already a challenge, I don’t see 2,000-point Warhammer Fantasy Battles armies as a viable scope for upcoming events.

These are narrative events, not focused on meta-gaming or a tournament mindset. The first Chaosbunker Classics featured a narrative story arc, which I’ll cover in a separate article.

Over the past year, the idea became more and more tangible. With people like Zigor already hosting 40k 2nd Edition demos at Rhein-Main-Multiversum, and support from Tobias and Evi of Team Würfelkrieg (who also support Torsten with CONflict Rhineland), things really got rolling. More people joined: Holger / Indigo, Florian / Celebration Parallax, Christian / Fritz, Tom / Rekrom, Flip, and another Christian - each with a fully painted army.

I looked for a suitable location, and the local parish centre turned out to be perfect. It offered proper infrastructure: parking, a small kitchen with a fridge, plenty of tables, and a central location between Cologne and Frankfurt, just minutes from the Autobahn - which was especially convenient for players coming from Franconia and even Berlin (!).