The Adventures of Inquisitor Smashface

There’s a game available on Steam (and, presumably, most modern consoles) called Warhammer 40K: Inquisitor – Martyr. As you can guess it’s linked to the ever popular tabletop wargame, Warhammer 40K, a game where you move little soldiers about your friends Mum’s dining table, rolling dice and listening to W.A.S.P., while casually keeping an eye on his mum and her friend who are obviously trying to pretend that they can’t make out the lyrics to the live version of Animal (Fuck Like A Beast), which starts with a rising chant of “Fuck like a beast, fuck like a beast”.

Allen Johnston, I’m looking at your here. I’m still amazed that you never got pulled up for that.

Anyway, Warhammer has come a long way since the heady days of my teens. And while I have a reborn love of moving expensive tokens about a make-believe battlefield, the electronic gaming part of the hobby is yet another channel to pour the precious seconds of my life into.

I’ve played Inquisitor – Martyr before, initially on the Playstation, but I could never get into it. An almost perfect storm has caused me to get into it again now.

  1. My daughter has all but commandeered the Playstation. It was inevitable.
  2. I got a new pc at the start of the year, a shiny laptop to replace the aging Frankencomputer I had before.
  3. The game was really cheap on Steam.

A. Perfect. Storm.

It’s a game in the style of Diablo. You play as one of four character types, each with their own playstyle, you gain experience points for killing baddies and completing missions. All the usual stuff.

So, Inquisitor Smashface. He runs about with a heavy flamer (a bigger than big flamethrower) and a thunder hammer (a two-handed hammer that has electricity running through it). And it’s great fun. Smashface has reached level 20 now, which means I can take the hammer. Before this, using the flamer was like running the game in easy mode. But now that i’ve unlocked the Thunder Hammer? Bloody hell, it’s fun.

As long as I keep moving, and don’t get tied up in fighting mobs, i bash the heads of heretics in. It’s great fun. As I unlock more skills, i’ll try other weapon combinations but, for now, it’s all about burning the enemy and flattening them with a big hammer.