I had no attachment to the source material, just the vague notion that what I was looking at was clearly a Starcraft rip-off (little did I know the opposite was actually true).
My first experience with Warhammer 40K was about a decade ago when I picked up the Dawn of War RTS games in a Steam sale. I bounced off it way back in 2011, but even after reading one Warhammer 40K novel, it's a much more enjoyable game. So many of us skipped right over a classic, but if your journey was like mine, I totally understand why. It's why a game like Space Marine (Chaos Marine sequel ASAP please), once disregarded as some action figure shooter cash-in, hits so well even all these years later. There's old Gears-of-War's-chainsaw-executions-are-incredibly-nasty James, and James, born again, who considers flinging around the arterial muck found within dissenters of the Space Marines an absolute, genuine art. It's just pre-Warhammer 40K James and post-Warhammer 40K James now.
Forget all those broken bones and all that kissing and crying. Forget puberty, forget wrapping college, teaching high school, and moving across the US for a PC Gamer internship. Looking back, my life divides cleanly into two distinct halves.