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This is inspired by thinking about the lengths I had to go to when I was young to get to a GW store to spend vouchers. What are your GW memories going back to the days yore?

I remember that there wasn't even a GW in Wales. My dad had a close friend in the company who edited their book line around 1990 and he sent us a GW christmas card (with blood angels artwork) that had vouchers in side. We had to cross the Severn Bridge and go to Bristol to spend them, I had the new all-plastic predator tank. Also he bought us Space Hulk, and as we already had a copy, we had LOADS of genestealers and a ton of map tiles to build huge hulks.

Before GW opened in Cardiff there was a shop called Encounter Games. The guy who owned it would break up the boxes of Space Marines and Skeletons and sell the sprues for a pound each. Marines were 30 to a box for £10 (15 sprues, each with two men). These were my first figures, proper pocket money stuff. I don't remember if GW opened while he was still going, the owner died and the shop closed around the same time GW opened though. White Dwarf printed "new store opening" tokens so we cut them out and got a discount on Space Hulk if I correctly recall. We bought everything we could for Space Hulk - every Terminator variant going. They were about two per blister for £4 then.

I remember when rhinos were 3 to a box, for about what 1 rhino costs today...

I also remember when harlequins could have landraiders,space marines could have jetbikes and ork looted wagons were chosen from someone elses codex...

When I started I purchased one of the last available 30-man boxes of Marines from the RTT era (this could be bad info, but that's what the store I ordered it from said).

I also still have the canceled check I wrote for a Devastator squad (decorated a Blood Angels) and that same plastic "dome-turret" Predator. Good times.

Yup same in Ireland, no GW here when I first started. We used to get our stuff from a hobby store called......ah what was its name, off D'olier St.
My first ever 40k purchase was a box of Blood Claws from Virgin Megastore of all places (metal ofc). I tried to glue them together with airifx glue and failed miserably.

I remember I built a Genestealer cult army back in '94. It had a bucket load of genies from Space Hulk, a unit of cultists, the ooooold Broodlord model and some plastic Tyranid warriors - the cool goofy ones. Fun times were using "the Gate" psychic power and running all the genies through it.

My memories are more about the game itself than what was going on while I was young. When I was younger, I hung around a store called Lion & Unicorn where I mostly watched games (because I was too poor as a kid to get started in the hobby). However, I always loved Warhammer and Warhammer 40K. From staying up late at night just browsing through Citadel miniatures catalogs to reading through the old core rulebook. I loved it even before I had an army.

Some nostalgic things I remember about the game itself though:

- non-scattering Deep Strike (just place your minis and open fire!)
- Terminator armour being 3+ on 2D6
- the Harlequin Solitare being the only one to carry a Harlequin's Kiss
- Pink fire of Tzeentch actually changing you into a horror
- Save modifiers
- a 2000 point game lasting all day long
- Dark Millennium
- Wargear cards (one of my favorites)
- a Swooping Hawk exarch carrying a vortex grenade - skyleaping, then dropping it on whoever was the most dangerous unit

Ah, the list could go on and on. Memories. . .

I don't think I will ever forget the excitement that came over me when I got the 2nd edition box set. That's saying something when a game can leave such an impression.

I recall all the most prominent things that everyone else does:

-Wargear cards
-Strategy & Mission cards picked at random (LOL... Jones is acting strangely!)
-Dark Millennium - Practically made the old psychic phase a game within a game. I recall the Warp cards that you needed to cast your powers and the Nullify cards that could be used to cancel the power from going off.
-Sustained fire dice. (OH, how these were fun. Assault cannons rolled three of these IIRC, so up to 9 shots. Players would dance for joy when you rolled those 3's, but cursed the sky when you got that Jam or double Jam)
-I recall the different dice that were needed for armour penetration, D10's, D20's, D4's, D8's... All kinds of crazy stuff. I recall that you rolled randomly to see what part of the vehicle the shot hit.

Those were the days.

I like the game play and models better now, but nothing can replace those fond memories of excitement getting into the hobby.

I remember WFB regiments being $25USD for 20ish models as opposed to the $24USD for 10 models that it is now.

I also recall alot of terrible green bases and Blood Red making an appearance on EVERY single model.

I recall working in a game store in Cali called Galactic Archives, I purchased 3 (30-man Space Marine beakie heads) for about $60. And scratch built my 2 predators and land raider. I had a flyer that held a 10 man squad it was so cool, my beloved Crimson Fists. Some guy gave me 4 boxes of Harlequins to paint, he even paid for the paints too. But he never returned to the store I wonder why? I miss the fact that every army list could use any type of weapon....I miss Vortex Grenades, would come in handy vs all these Imperial Armor armies these days.

Jones is acting strangely!)

Haha!
Remember the one that stopped a squad from firing (the whole game?) due to lack of ammo.
Or the bombing run one, that was always fun.

Ratius wrote:I remember I built a Genestealer cult army back in '94. It had a bucket load of genies from Space Hulk, a unit of cultists, the ooooold Broodlord model and some plastic Tyranid warriors - the cool goofy ones. Fun times were using "the Gate" psychic power and running all the genies through it.

That sounds like my cult; though I used to have so many hybrids in one game that it was agreed I could have all the powers twice. Daisychaining Gate was great fun

I also remember anti-plant missiles so you could remove great chunks of terrain from the table. Now where were those terminators again? Ah... they *were* in that forest. Now they are mincemeat *mu-haha*

There were also the fun times of lining all the way down the street before the yearly GW Reading sales, grimly clutching the vouchers from WD and all my pocket money. Those were the days...



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Ratius wrote:

Jones is acting strangely!)

Haha!
Remember the one that stopped a squad from firing (the whole game?) due to lack of ammo.
Or the bombing run one, that was always fun.

How about, what was it? Virus outbreak? That meant on a certain roll you won the game before the battle had even started turn one

You make it seem like GW...was.....fun. It can't be possible.

I remember when the Rogue Trader book first came out, there were pretty much zero plastic miniatures available and metal miniatures cost around $0.50 USD.

I wonder if in 15 years the current generation of players discovering 40k now, will have fond memories like many of us have when we played our first games of RT and 2nd edition?

The original Rogue Trader and 2nd edition just had a certain charm that seems to have been corporately eliminated since 3rd edition :(

I remember reading WD and thinking Andy Chambers was the coolest guy on the planet.

Mistress of minis wrote:I wonder if in 15 years the current generation of players discovering 40k now, will have fond memories like many of us have when we played our first games of RT and 2nd edition?

The original Rogue Trader and 2nd edition just had a certain charm that seems to have been corporately eliminated since 3rd edition :(

(wheezy old man voice) "I remember when Terminators were $50 for 5!"

I remember when Termies were 3+ on 2d6.

Cadians were grey.

The models came 20 in a box

Otherstuff too but I'm tired and memory fades in my old age.

I can remember being able to buy space crusade battlemasters and heroqurest in wollworths and a huge range of games and models in virgin megastores !

my first figs were an old goblin rock lobber and some rather nice space orks in a box .
but my absolute fav models ever are the old plastic imp guard which like a fool i swaped for a chainsaw warrior box game :[

I got into Gw through seeing my dads old rt stuff, from there i convinced them to get me battle masters for a birthday and in was an ad for space crusade and i loved the minis. as soon as i found out about 2nd edition 40k i got it for christmas, i had a huge ( well huge back then ) ultra's army. I had the old plastic dome pred, 4 tac squads, 4 rhino's, 2 termie squads and 2 dreads. I actually painted the old furioso as an ultra lol. I also inherited tons of my dads rt stuff, some of which is pretty rare now but i stopped playing just as 3rd ed came out and when i moved out i threw it all away thinking id never play again. I would have loved to repaint my old cassius, calgar and tiguris. Oh and cardboard ruins were king!


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oh yeah and the army book in 2nd edition that had ALL the races and profiles/points was epic, as was the dark millenium expansion with the psychic power cards and stuff, oh oh and vortex grenades. the look on your mates face when you vortexed his screamer killer or tooled up commander! its all flooding back!

Ah, the momories:

Proper shokk Attack Guns - Snotlings appearing inside a termies leg.
Running cultists,beastmen and chaos warriors alongside Chaos marines was always fun.

Playing apocalyptic battles in epic then having an overlong game of Rt or 2nd ed to decide some important aspect of the war in skirmish form.

Does anyone else remember 28mm epic being played? where stand of 40k figures were mounted on card strips? We shook our heads in an amused fashion, never, would 28mm 40k minis be seen en masse on the table top, the though was just obscene. As was pondering 'what ifs' about scaled up Titans and warmachines..............

theHandofGork wrote:I remember reading WD and thinking Andy Chambers was the coolest guy on the planet.

Seeing his smug mug on the little battle report in the 3rd ed rulebook made me think the exact same thing. We miss you, Andy.

I still have fond memories of picking up the 3rd ed starter box at a fleamarket at Historicon when I was 13 or so. I spent most of the 6 hour car ride back paging through that thick rulebook, poring over the awesome artwork and models. That feeling of discovery was really something.

My first Battle. I won with just a space marine squad and a Captain versus a ork army.

Getting introduced to making your own chapters.

4th edition space marines.

Eye of Terror Campaign.

Cities of death Campaign.

The Hammerfall campaign where I came in 5th place out of 25 people.

My favorite old-school memory is from 2nd edition and using the wargear cards.

That was around 15+ years ago, but I think it went something like this:

I was playing against Orks on a small table in our game room, which resulted in my opponent having all his models within 2 inches of each other. 1500 points or orks almost base to base across the board.

I had a Virus-grenade or Virus-bomb, or something along the line.

Not sure what the exact ruling for that thing was anymore but it went something like this:

"Target takes hit, takes a wound, all models within a certain range become infected as well, take a hit, take a wound, then models within a certain range become infected, take a hit, take a wound, infecte every other model within a certain range, take a hit............you get the idea"

After about 15 minutes of rolling dice over 75% of his army was gone with one attack, and the virus-bomb was forever banned in our games.

Remember getting movement trays in regiment boxes?

Remember the free regiment you could get just for subscribing to WD?

My favorite memory was when I got the Mordheim game for Christmas. It was just the coolest game ever.

I remember when GW released a free necron warrior with a white dwarf one edition. I was like "my god WHAT is this guy?!".
It was so exciting.

I recall going to a comic shop in Medford Oregon when I was 15. I just moved there from chicago and Rogue trader was fresh on the game rack next to the other roleplaying books.

While browsing, the Rogue trader cover caught my eye with its vicious and delectably violent struggle.

I opened up the book and was immediately drawn in by its imagery. So dark. So seductive... Orks caught in tanglewire grenades, struggling to cut their way out. The armory of available armaments and the pictures for each weapon. Squats with hoverboards. Sister Sin. Two humans in power armor sitting at a bar with mugs in their fists looking like they want a fight. Ultramarines in camo power armor reconning through a canopied forest's undergrowth, the oddly grotesque portrait of the Pontifex Maximus. The now ubiquitous phrase 'Kil Kil Kil"...

Culminating in a two page spread somewhere in the middle of the book was the God Emperor of Mankind. His shriveled, corpulent body enshrined in a Gigeresque throne of biomechanics.

Because of that, I have ALWAYS loved the 40K imagery and the background that went along side of it. The late 80's were very heady days. The game was rubbish even then (and possibly moreso than it is today) but its pure imagery was its main attraction.

That is, until they white washed it and removed all semblance of its former creative innocence.
Innocence may be an odd way of portraying a game with such violent imagery, but innocent it was. It was innocent because it had yet to feel the raping caress of corporate influence. It then turned into a game for mass consumption, while maintaining the pretense of elitism.

3rd ed was the beginning of the end, merely ten years after its birth. 4th ed was the nail in the coffin. 5th ed is just flogging the dead horse and raping it in the public square.

I remember getting enthused about 2nd Ed Epic and getting my first metal great gargant via mail order (in those days you either filled in the form that was in the back of WD or you phoned up with your dad's credit card).

I remember when GW used to have an annual sale (buy 2 red dotted items, get one yellow dotted item free, that sort of thing).

CURNOW wrote:I can remember being able to buy space crusade battlemasters and heroqurest in wollworths and a huge range of games and models in virgin megastores !

my first figs were an old goblin rock lobber and some rather nice space orks in a box .
but my absolute fav models ever are the old plastic imp guard which like a fool i swaped for a chainsaw warrior box game :[

I used to have plastic Imp Guard too! With old school Catachans and Stormtroopers. Dunno where they are now :(

Oh and fellow Cornishman, nice!

Do your remember Adeptus Titanicus and a time when there was not a single GW store in continental Europe? Kaptajn Congoboy remembers.

Do you remember a time when women couldn't vote and certain people weren't allowed on golf courses? Kaptajn Congoboy remembers.

I remember when they did store openings and in the White Dwarf magazines they had vouchers for each store such as 3 for 2 and bogoff. They would always have a scultper or a games designer at the store.

and I miss fat bloke and the infamous bacon roll during the tale of 4 gamers.

snurl wrote:Remember getting movement trays in regiment boxes?

Remember the free regiment you could get just for subscribing to WD?

My favorite memory was when I got the Mordheim game for Christmas. It was just the coolest game ever.

This this this a MILLION times over! I raved about this game for ages before it eventually came out (and then died of death!).

One of my fondest memories about warhammer is our old gaming room. My friends and I were part of a charity group when we were younger, and they let us use one of their rooms underneath the main building. This room was like Warhamemr heaven. A massive table, seats, a fridge (before beer drinking days :( ), and lockers where we could leave all our stuff. God I think we used to play at least 4 times a week in that place!!!!