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! shittte 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.
