When did you first get into GW games?

[DynamicCalories]

Those Genestealer Cult models are amazing. I remember being really upset, as a kid, that despite the Codex Imperialis having rules and lore for Genestealer Cults in it, there were no models available.  Also the 2nd Edition Wargear book was amazing, and had working descriptions for all the weapons. I don't know if that stuff has stayed in the new codexes, but the Tyranid weapon profiles told you how they were all essentially mini hatcheries for weaponised bugs, and that the bonesword was a beetle that had been genetically conditioned to make its horn grow to an extremely exaggerated size, whilst its legs were atrophied into a handle. 

[Carnelian]

1 hour ago, bottle said:

As well as being an avid AoS player I also play Necromunda still and I am slowly preparing a Genestealer Cult army for 8th edition when it arrives... or maybe I will stick with Shadow War Armageddon and Deathwatch Overkill as AoS takes enough commitment to collect and paint whole armies for!

I'm excited about Shadow Wars for this very reason. I'm working my way towards a GC army but it takes an awful lot of models to get there at the moment!

[daedalus81]

2 hours ago, bottle said:

 

Spoiler

 

That gretchin is going to give me nightmares.  Amazing job on the new models!

[nicromancer]

Well i just worked out it's been about 16 years.... So i must have been 6 when i started.

I started with the lord of the rings monthly magazine, then from there got into 40k. 

I've gone through a whole heap of skirmish systems since then, right now i'm loving SoBaH and Dragon Rampant, But I've always returned to GW.

Never got into fantasy despite wanting a wood elf army more than i wanted lungs, I could never be bothered with the rules or painting £400 of infantry blocks just to get a 500 point list ready.

I loved inquisitor and look forward to its return.

[DarkBlack]

I looked at Warhammer many years ago, but the club closed on me before I got started. I got into historical though and played that for just over a decade (still do) and checked into WHFB now and then, but the barrier of entry always stopped me (I was a scholar and am still a student in a country in a bad exchange rate).

When I peaked in again (because Total War prompted some interest) AoS had just been released and the barrier of entry seemed manageable (plus a friend happened to have some old daemons lying around).

If I couldn't use my daemons I would never have played 40k and still have no interest in any models that I can only use for 40k.

I should add that AoS is not my main game, I play it when I want an epic battle or some casual fun. When I want to take thing more seriously (i.e. "be  competitive") then I play KoW or Infinity.

[HeadHunter]

For me, it all began when my mother read The Hobbit to us as children.  It got me interested in fantasy, so I started playing D&D in 1981 at the age of 13.  Tried just about every RPG from TSR and branched off into a lot of others, but especially Sci-Fi.

When I was in college, we started playing Battletech (it was still Battledroids, then, at first) and that became our weekly thing for many years.  So one day I was at the local shop during a BT match and I started browsing the new arrivals rack.  There was this massive blue hardcover book called Rogue Trader.  I had been reading the 2000 AD comics like Dredd and Rogue Trooper and wondered if this had anything to do with them.  I was fascinated by the Gothic backdrop and the different races and all of the astounding technology, and of course the Space Marines.

Soon after, we started playing 1st Edition Blood Bowl - then 2nd Edition BB came out, and Dark Future (which I really miss), Space Hulk, and then 2nd Edition 40K.  I was living in a rural college town for a while and we spent a lot of time gaming.  We had a pretty solid group and I got in a lot of 40K games, and when Necromunda came out, we had a full-blown league going on with newsletters, a campaign map and terrain customized to the territories held by the players.

Surprisingly, I never got into WHFB.  I just never really liked the generic "Old World" setting and I'm not too fond of regimental-style games that remind me too much of historical.  To each their own, but if a game uses movement trays, I'm probably not interested (we'll see if/when Epic re-releases).  I did get a taste of it when playing the Warhammer Online MMO, but it wasn't until very recently that I got into GW fantasy tabletop gaming.  I hadn't played 40K for a few years, and got back into it when Kill Team came out. I'd recently moved into an area where there was a Warhammer store close by, and dropped in to get some models... and saw that Beastclaw Raiders box set.  The way they looked - the theme, the colors, the mammoths - I had to buy it even if I didn't play.  

And, as expected, I had to learn more about them so I bought the Battletome... and then the GHB.  Now I'll probably sink a little into the Kharadron Overlords if/when a Start Collecting Box comes out.

My girlfriend doesn't even play any of these games but she likes to buy the models - she painted her first mini (a Dark Elf Sorceress) a couple months ago and actually has almost enough Sylvaneth models for a 2000-point army if she ever decides to learn.  But she's got a lot of painting to finish first (says the guy who's never completely finished painting an entire army in all his 35+years of gaming).

[NoElf]

I started back in the mid 90's when I went over to my friends house and he was painting up a blood angels force. He showed me the 2nd ed rulebook and gave me some orcs and gretchin to paint up. The art, and star wars meets tolkien in space had me starting a dark angels force a few weeks later. 

I moved through dark angels, to chaos, to word bearers, to night lords to black legion, emperor's children and last of all thousand sons. I always got hammered in games cause I took what I thought was cool. Eventually I got sick of the codex changes and the gw treatment of customers and quit 40k. I tried fantasy briefly but found the lore (especially the empire) uninspiring and the idea of painting a thousand models too daunting. That and I HATE square bases. In the desert I dabbled in Infinity, Warmachine, X-Wing, MtG and some of the FF LCG games too. However none of those really stuck. Either due to the story behind not really inspiring me, or lack of players in my area (X-Wing and LCG's) I've been a battletech player for the last ten years so that was mostly it. 

Horus Heresy arrived and I started that but again due to time constraints not much is done and my loyalist thousand sons get stuff done on it piecemeal. I'd liked the look of AoS mini's but ex fantasy players had rubbished the game to me and said it was the worst thing ever. 

Came across Uncle Atom's "Why Age of Sigmar is a Good Thing" video on youtube. Interested me enough to download the rules pdf and look at the models again. A few days later I messaged one of my friends who had rubbished AoS the most when it launched and said "hey thinking of getting into it know you don't like it but it seems okay to me" to be knocked down with a feather when he replied, "oh yeah it's heaps better than WFB, it's like the old 2nd ed days of warhammer fantasy, get on in" 

Fast forward a month and working on a AoS nurgle army. Also, having sworn years ago that I'd never touch 40k again looking to pick up a nurgle army when it drops and the Necromunda remake Shadow War Armageddon when the sold out becomes on sale again. 

[karch]

Like most people my age I started with the MB games. Heroquest, then Space Crusade then Battle Masters.

Then I bought the Rogue trader book and a box of the beaky multipart marines (I think there were 30 of them in the box?) and finally the 4th edition boxed set with elves and goblins.

 

[Stealth_Hobo]

I got HeroQuest as a christmas present when I was a kid back in 92' or 93' and I played the living snot out of that game during the following years. I also used the board and models for pen & paper rpg's.

I got into WHFB during the 5th edition, I think. It was just before the split of Undead army into Vampire Counts and Tomb Kings. I had just bought my first models, some skeleton horsemen, chariots and bowmen, but I couldn't use the models because I hadn't bought the armybook before it disappeared. Welcome to the hobby, kid. I explained this to the manager of my local game store and he felt sorry for me, so he borrowed the book from his friend and photocopied the entire book for free, the fluff and all. That made me a happy camper.

I quit the game and sold my armies short after the release of Beastmen armybook in the 7th. edition. I just didn't enjoy the game aspect anymore. But now I'm back, mainly for the hobby side of things, but I probably wouldn't come back if AoS didn't happen.

[Popisdead]

Rogue Trader release in 1987. Before that it was buying reaper models off a metal spinning rack from a book store.


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[Menkeroth]

Around 7-8 years ago, when I saw Dawn of War 1. That was amazing, and still is, though I've returned to fantasy since then. Apart from 40k I've played lots of games, both board, tabletop and card ones. 

[BunkhouseBuster]

I got my start back in late 2010, thanks to the Dawn of War PC games.  Got me hooked on 40K, and miniature wargaming as a hobby.  I then played some Warhammer Fantasy until I got tired of painting regiments up.  I played Warmahordes until I got tired of the attitude shared by so many of those players.  I played Battlefleet Gothic until I couldn't find anyone to play it.  And I played 40K until the local tournament players drove me away and into narrative gaming.  And I have dabbled in and demoed other various wargames that I have now forgotten.

I have been playing Age of Sigmar for the past 5 months, but I have been interested since the General's Handbook came out with points values.  During those interceding months, I was struggling with what army to play, ending up with Ironjawz as my first army, and my wife slowly getting into Sylvaneth (her first ACTUAL army that she is painting and looking forward to playing!) and my step-daughter is now looking at a Death army.

I haven't got much painting done on my models in the past year, as I have been focusing on getting games in and working on some narrative stuff for my local group.  There was a point that I was winning "best painted" awards at events, but that ended when so many people started using airbrushes, OSL, NMM, and LED lights in their models.

I am super-excited for Coalescence, and am really enjoying Age of Sigmar.

[kcjling]

Started out when I was about 11 or 12 with 2nd edition 40k. I picked up a white dwarf in a bookstore and thought the models were so awesome but as a kid the prices were not so it was a few more months before I actually got the starter set for $100 for Christmas and I was so pumped. I got a few of my buddies into it at the time too. I recently dug out my tackle box full of old marines and chaos stuff. I stopped soon after starting because it got too expensive for me and my friends stopped playing it too.

I started seeing more and more pics of minis on instagram and before I knew it I was back in it. I just picked up AoS this past Christmas and am so glad I've done so. I actually wanted to play 40k again but I wanted to see if I could get my wife into it and she happened to like fantasy stuff, but after a small skirmish game it just wasn't for her. 

Besides 40k and AoS, I've played Prodos games warzone. It's amazing how technology basically got me exposed to it again and drew me back in. I remember when I had started was the first I had home internet. the days of 56k dial-up.

[someone2040]

Back in the late 90's (Probably 98), was the last week of the school year. Often during this week, there's not a lot going on (Generally there's a bit of swimming, PE, random activities). There's at least a few 'free' slots where you can basically do whatever you want in the classroom. Two guys bought in their 40k models, and think they were having a small game or something.

Don't remember much else or why I found it interesting, but certainly I made my way into a toy store, and I think they only had a few boxes available. Can't remember why we chose Fantasy to start off with, but for me, the option was basically 2 Brettonian Knights or 8 Saurus. So got my mum to grab the Saurus and away I went.

As I said, I can't really remember why Fantasy was chosen, but it makes sense to me. I grew up reading fantasy books, my mum has a huge collection and that's what I grew up on. Didn't read any sci-fi at all. think that's why Fantasy will always resonate with me, but 40k doesn't quite as much.

I have collected 40k over the years, mainly because during High School my group of friends initially were more interested in playing that. We did later transition back into Fantasy and Mordheim though. But yeah, don't think I'll ever go back to 40k. I enjoy the smaller games (like Shadow War, I had a box of Grey Knights sitting around just for that it seems!), but don't think I could ever muster up enough enthusiasm to collect and play 40k again. In reality, selling it all off slowly but it's hard to let go of things you've put time and effort into, even if you know you're not going to use it.

I also play Bloodbowl (although, less of it since my local league died off before re-release), and would love to dabble again in Mordheim.