When did you first start the hobby?

My brother and I were visiting a games store nearby, and it was there where we first laid our eyes on the 3^rd 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 3^rd 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?