Heresy & Heroes

“He who records the Emperor’s wisdom, will be forever blessed, and forever hunted also”

– Inquisitor Hansho, Ordo Malleus

My hobby blog, Heresy & Heroes, has been running for around five years now (as of 2018), and in that time, I’ve worked on a lot of projects. From 40K Mortifactors to 30K Blood Angels, and from Nurgle Daemons to Grey Knights (and a little bit of pretty much everything else in between), I’ve painted, played with, and talked about a lot of miniatures from the Warhammer 40,000 universe. On top of that, I’ve been bringing you news, reviews, event round-ups, painting tutorials, name generators, and all of the random warp-spawned imaginings that my love of the hobby has conjured up for a long time now. I’m not trying to do everything here, it’s just sort of worked out like that.

My name’s John Ashton and Heresy & Heroes was started because I wanted to get involved more with lots of aspects of the hobby, and inflict my own brand of eloquent craziness upon the blog-reading/toy-soldier-painting users of the internet. Games Workshop, and in particular Warhammer 40,000, has been a part of my life for a very long time. In my mid-thirties now, I started out back in the days of 2nd Edition when I was about 10 years old, when I  would burn through my pocket money at the GW on Cheapside, in Reading, Berkshire (a shop long gone but not forgotten). And except for a break of about 10 years or so, when I discovered rugby and girls (neither of which seemed to go with my love for little toy soldiers), I’ve had the grimdark on my mind for a very long time now, and I still love it.

Over the years, I’ve dabbled in pretty much every GW game out there, from the deep, dark depths of Necromunda, to the roaring stadiums of Blood Bowl, and from the space-borne engagements of Battle Fleet Gothic, to the refreshing newness of Age of Sigmar. My Gorkamorka rock-lobba-based drag racer still holds a speed record on the ork-infested desert planet, and I think I still have a copy of Doom Of The Eldar in a cupboard somewhere. I always end up returning to 40K though, so that’s what this blog is really about. If not the game exactly, then the universe it occupies at least.

I’m passionate about the history of the company, and the models themselves, and you’ll often find me resurrecting some ‘oldhammer’ pieces. My 30K/Heresy-era Blood Angels force is even based on the 2nd Ed box art from John Blanche that I’ve always had a soft spot for. And there are even a couple of old lumps of lead in that army as well. Alongside this, I’m very interested in us hobbiests and our quirks, habits and idiosyncrasies.

Miniatures are a big part of my life, and that’s why this blog exists. Through writing this, I’ve been able to talk to and work with painters and enthusiasts from all around the world. We’re a great bunch by and large, and so if you start following this blog, I encourage you to comment and get involved in the discussion. If you have any ideas or suggestions for me, do drop me an email.

I post as often as I can, and there’s always a project on my painting desk in some stage of production, so you can be sure of plenty of content that you’ll hopefully enjoy. What’s more, I’m always up for contributing to other blogs and sites, so if you have any questions, use that email link above and I’ll do my best to get back to you.

In the real world, I work in search marketing for a company that champions small businesses while spending my free time binge-watching Netflix, visiting London’s many pubs (I’m pretty sure that I’ve been to over 1,000 now), drawing, playing retro video games, and walking. You can find all of my hobby work and more on my instagram account as well. I even wrote a novella once, which you can purchase here (please excuse the spelling errors). I now live in a leafy part of London in a tiny flat with an imaginary cat called Rathbone.

That’s just about it. Enjoy the website, and I hope you keep coming back to see what’s new here as often as you can. I also try to keep everything very positive here, so hopefully I’ll be able to give you a bit of a lift too. Onwards!