Your foray into miniature wargaming...

[DreamKnight]

Hey fellow wargamers!  My first wargaming experience actually started from a game called Chainmail at the time.  It was a thin yellow booklet.  I think I still have it somewhere.  It's probably stacked up there with my original Dungeons & Dragons bookset. Both of which at the time I procured from a swapmeet.

So for the rest of the SMA wargamers... which rule system did you start your foray into wargaming?  Battletech? Warhammer Fantasy/40k?  Or will you admit your age and say, "They didn't have any set rules published yet when I started!".

And we're talking miniature wargaming in the modern sense.  Don't go and be saying "I started when I was playing with my G.I. Joes!" because that does kinda count or don't say "I started when I was playing with My Little Ponies".  Well you can say that. Even if you're of the male species. Don't worry, we won't judge you. 

[AKE]

I started with D&D as a kid and really got into painting miniatures. Years after I came across Warhammer Fantasy. I remember thinking something like "I get to paint and play with ALL these miniatures??!? Holy cow!!!!"

[DreamKnight]

Which army do you play for Fantasy?  I tend to stick to Brettonian's

[sorien]

In the 90's I was big into M:TG. Even ranked pretty high in the state.

One day my favorite shop brought in GW products. I watched a demo game of 40k  played, and I was hooked.  Played for a couple years until I found Everquest lol. Combined with the birth of my first child, the wargamming (and pretty much everything else) went to the wayside.  This was 2001.

In 2007, I started to pick up Magic again casually as my kids were now old enough.   One day I learned the new shop I was going too bring in a local club to start a weekly 40k league.  I literally pulled my Orks from  the bottom of the closet, dusted them off and showed up the first night in January 2008.

I was instantly hooked all over again.  This time though 40k beat out MMO's and I gave up playing WoW so I had more time to paint.  Even Star Trek online, which I thought would cool my 40k addition, was nothing more then a 1 night stand

So 2 1/2 years later I am more passionate about 40k then ever before.

[DreamKnight]

Haha I just recently stopped playing WOW again (I took a break for a few months last year.  I'm probably going to quit for good this time. I'm getting so bored of the game.  I play MTG once in a blue moon.  I used to play a lot back in Alpha/Beta up to Mirage then quit for a while and came back into it during Mirrodin and started doing tournies.  WoW killed that hobby though for me as I didn't have time to keep up with MTG anymore. Dropped out right after the release of Time Spiral.

So many hobbies, so little time. lol  You just can't do it all at once though. It's too expensive and time consuming.

[Jeep]

I got my first D&D box set from my cousin Jeff in 1978 (he worked for TSR at the time) I was way to young to use it. I think I was in my first campaign in junior high around 1986 or so form then on it was AD&D.  Since then it has been AD&D 1st, 2cd, 3rd, 3.5 and 4ths editions, star trek, 3 flavors of star wars roleplay, mechwarrior, Twighlight 2000, robotech, rifts, Vampire, Cyberspace/punk, Bubblegum Crisis, Shadow run, Dangerous Journeys, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, The Call of Cthulhu, Champions and Marvel super Heros plus some custom games and play testing.  

 For table top my doomed credit card started when my Friend Rich opened the Adventurers Guild in 1997 or so,  I had come into the store as a mechforce member looking to start a chapter and "that other games store" that will remain purged from history was interested in only screwing over its customer base. It was here that I was told of the Adventurers Guild   The 'Guild was much better almost to much like a club house than a game store. Complete with store cat, and at the time computer lounge and coffee bar, My Gaming group had found a second home, We discussed 40K with my gaming group and we decided that it was too expensive and we would stick with role playing games and battle tech, the next time we got together at a friend basement I was met at the door with: "Here is your rule book and your space marines, I'm playing Dark Eldar, you owe me $40" (half the cost of a boxed starter set) so it began.

 Since then I have played just about anything on the market, as  a 'Guild regular I am tapped to demo games to others including painting and finishing. My personal interest have been Battle tech, Warhammer 40K, Flames of war, CAV, Warhammer fantasy Battle ( really recently) Flames Of War (any 15mm WW2 for that matter) and War Machine, but again I have played just about everything. I have resisted WFB till last month,  with the 8th edition rules set release and a screaming good deal I started a Dwarf army, we will see.  As for  40K I have huge numbers of Imperial Guard (hey I LIKE painting tanks)  large amounts of Salamander and Dark angel space Marines and a Tau army that I have collected but done nothing with so far.  War Machine I have been collecting Khador. For Flames of War I have silly numbers of German and US forces (tanks, and more tanks)

 Oh "'Guild regular" is a close group of friends, most of my old gaming group in fact, we are "trusted not to steal or burn the place down" in a pinch we can even run the store in the owners absence, pseudo staff, employees but there are perks to this, including some deep discounts, and access to some of the "secret" parts of the guild like the "shop"  The 'guild changed constantly in fact we joke that there is a major change, renovation of disaster (we have had fire and flood, but where is the locust? )at least once a year.  

18 months ago it was moved to a much smaller location but much better located retail location, It is more like a business and less like a club house,  The days of "late night over 21 gaming until the next morning are over.  ("dude what time is it,  8!,  its got to be latter than that,  no 8 in the morning! pooptte I got be at work in a hour!"  Sadly  the "super secret, limit access, by invitation only, work shop of DOOM! had to be dismantled (a moment of silence).   Basically the "shop or lab" was by invitation in a unused portion of the building. Inside those that had access and trust of the others set up the ultimate modelers man cave.  The only problem with it was it was always in a state of chaos with multiple projects going on.   It was here that I set up most of my power tools, but in here we were capable of building pretty near anything from a LOTR (lord of the rings table top) scale Minas Tirith and Helms Deep tables, to leather and plate maile for LARPERs (nero and alliance) or SCA members, there was a complete wood shop, some metal tools (like a MIG welder) a crucible and spin caster for metal alloy miniatures.  We also started casing in rubber and resin. we had a vacuum chamber, Vacuum forming panelfor plastic, leather working bench, wood lathe, drill presses, table saws, band saws, scroll saws, implements of torcher and destruction and unspeakable levels of skill and talent,  I miss this studio of craziness a lot. (got to admit, building a Minas Tirith game table for Games Day was crazy. Anyway the collection of "assets" are no longer collected into one room but in a pinch we could have them collected in the much smaller back room for a project.

As for video games,  That also started at the 'guild which used to have 4-8 computers on a high speed line or lan.  I have stayed away from most MMORPGS but I have played evercrack, evercrack2, WOW, dark age of crack and city of heros, I think the only thing that might be active is City of Heros which I beta test for.  I mostly played sims and FPS games,  My Clan is currently -=TWG=- and Twisted Warriors Group, I have been with them over 10 years and I am a head admin.  This started as a collaborative effort between three associated Medal of Honor Spearhead, rifle only clans than merged around when Battlefield 2 came out.  Currently I am playing BF2, tactical and TWL COD4, tactical COD 5, BF Bad Company 2 I have a wall of games I could reinstall if necessary

Last game interest is in milsim paintball and airsoft, mostly around these sites C3 Airsoft and milsim empire

There is just the tip of the epicness of my nerdom.  Remember Nerds do rule the world though.

[DreamKnight]

WOW! And I thought I thought I had an extensive nerdfolio!  I never had a store but back in the hardcore RP gaming days, we turned my garage into a gaming room when my mom as nice enough to fork out some cash to making it into a real room.  I guess she figured it was a good way to keep the kids home more often then out killing people. lol

It was our local club we called "Council of he Six Chambermen". I'm not sure how we got that name.  I think  I just made it up one day and it stuck but we just called it the Council.  We had shelves full of different range of games and we played on the 8x14' table that doubled as our wargaming table. We took one wall and drew world map of the world we create that we usually play in.  Most night it wasn't even gaming rather sitting around and writing up more of the world. 

We played system from D&D to White Wolf.  We usually stuck to the gaming system we wrote together and to the Warhammer Fantasy RP rules.  After a while we moved out of Chainmail and into 40k when I brought the rulebook and a bunch of boxes of marines to the table. So we mainly ran 40k and Battletech a lot.

The good old days... le sigh. 

[AKE]

Which army do you play for Fantasy?  I tend to stick to Brettonian's

I had Undead and Orc, but currently have Dark Elves. It's the third army of Dark Elves I've painted. One for a friend, then  for myself but I got tired of the paint scheme, so I sold them off and bought everything again. The theme is Old Kingdom Dark Elves, so I mixed bits from both the High Elf and Dark Elf ranges. I have not played in years, but the release of the new edition has got be excited about playing again.

[DreamKnight]

Which army do you play for Fantasy?  I tend to stick to Brettonian's

I had Undead and Orc, but currently have Dark Elves. It's the third army of Dark Elves I've painted. One for a friend, then  for myself but I got tired of the paint scheme, so I sold them off and bought everything again. The theme is Old Kingdom Dark Elves, so I mixed bits from both the High Elf and Dark Elf ranges. I have not played in years, but the release of the new edition has got be excited about playing again.

Oh totally.  Did you size of the monster rulebook?  sheesh!  I don't suppose you're around Los Angeles anywhere? lol

[Quaralane]

My first wargaming foray was to the war torn battlefields of the 31st century in Battledroids.
Yes, Battledroids, the FIRST edition of Battletech.
This led to almost a regiment's worth of mech miniatures in both plastic and metal.

[AKE]

Oh totally.  Did you size of the monster rulebook?  sheesh!  I don't suppose you're around Los Angeles anywhere? lol

Anaheim. Brookhurst Hobbies is my LGS.

[DreamKnight]

Oh totally.  Did you size of the monster rulebook?  sheesh!  I don't suppose you're around Los Angeles anywhere? lol

Anaheim. Brookhurst Hobbies is my LGS.

No way?  Well dude, if you're planning to start up again, let me know, I'll finish up my Brets.  We can meet up over at Brookhurst Hobbies one of these days.

All my wargaming friends disappeared in the wind over the years.

[DreamKnight]

My first wargaming foray was to the war torn battlefields of the 31st century in Battledroids.
Yes, Battledroids, the FIRST edition of Battletech.
This led to almost a regiment's worth of mech miniatures in both plastic and metal.

HAHA! I remember Battledroids.  Though we didn't start playing until after the Battletech editions came out.

[AKE]

Oh totally.  Did you size of the monster rulebook?  sheesh!  I don't suppose you're around Los Angeles anywhere? lol

Anaheim. Brookhurst Hobbies is my LGS.

No way?  Well dude, if you're planning to start up again, let me know, I'll finish up my Brets.  We can meet up over at Brookhurst Hobbies one of these days.

All my wargaming friends disappeared in the wind over the years.

Anytime. I was hoping that the rest of the boys would start playing again, but it doesn't look good right now, so I got no one to play either. I have to check out the Battle Bunker one of these days.

[DreamKnight]

Anytime. I was hoping that the rest of the boys would start playing again, but it doesn't look good right now, so I got no one to play either. I have to check out the Battle Bunker one of these days.

I need to pick up the new book then and get my newest Bret figured done. I might need to get more. I forgot how what I need and I'm pretty sure army lists have changed over the years.

Battle Bunker? You're talking about Viv in Australia? If so, he looks like he's got a really awesome set up there.