My brother
and I were visiting a games store nearby, and it was there where we first laid
our eyes on the 3rd edition starter set. It was then, back in 1999,
when we first decided we had to play this game.
My first
intention was to get my brother into playing Warhammer Fantasy, these were the
days I first read the Hobbit, the Lords of the rings trilogy, and the Magician
series. But my brother didn’t want anything to do with those orkses and guys
riding horses, when he first saw the Space Marines, that was the army for him.
So I had no choice but to pick Dark Eldar, and go with the space pirates.
After
assembling the models and splattering on some paint (well spray painting
everything black mostly) we started our first games. We had an old billiards
table, used some cardboard, and built us some terrain. I read the BBB (Big
Black Book) three times before we had at least the slightest idea of what we
were supposed to be doing. The book came in English only so I had to convince
my brother (we’re Dutch)we got the rules right (which of course we didn’t). We
set up our men, in my case my women too, and then he put down his mighty
hovering tank (it was only a landspeeder) I had no clue how to put that thing
to a rest, and when my brother saw me failing to wreck it, he pulled back all
his guys, and shot the living crap out of my army. And he managed to do so
every time we set up.
Me being me,
I can’t stand losing, so I needed to get some of those mighty vehicles as well,
so I went to the store and bought the cheapest thing coming close to being a
vehicle, which was a box of reavers. But since we didn’t have any codices, all
I could think of, was that these things had the same weaponry as the other
infantry, which let me have some speedy guys who could at least could get out
of the way of the speeder, but I couldn’t kill it still. So after a few games
of my brother slaughtering me, and no one around to teach us the game properly,
our enthusiasm died, and the models found their way up the attic. Never to see
daylight again.
Until two
years back. I had moved out of the house already, and my mother called, she was
cleaning out the attic and asked if she could get rid of that box full of junk
(dried out glue, opened pots of paint, broken mini’s etc.) I completely forgot
about them, so I said yeah, give em to someone who actually knows how to play.
But when she actually found a guy who could play, this got my attention again.
There were
people in my near surroundings secretly playing Warhammer 40K, without me, or
my brother, knowing about it. Deep down inside there was still the urge to
collect, build and paint the mini’s, but without the opportunity to play once
in a while, I thought it to be a waste of time. So I got in contact with the
guy who got all our stuff, and asked him if I could watch a couple of games. He then was
very anxious into explaining all the rules and what has changed since 3rd
edition hoping I would fall for the hobby once more. Mostly so they would have
a new opponent other than the four or five guys they had been playing against
for the last 8 years (that long had they been keeping it a secret!). And it
worked! They gave me some of the marines
who were my brother’s once, I got me a codex, and scoured the internet to collect
a small army, to start with. I haven’t looked back since.
So that was
my story, what’s yours? When did you first start playing?
