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It was the late 1970's, I bought a pre-slotta Dwarf.
The sculpt was blocky and awful by todays standards but I loved it and painted it carefully with sticky old oil based humbrol modelling paints and painted a rudimentary fist on it's shield.
I still have it somewhere but I don't use it chiefly because the lead is soft and bendy and i dont want the raised axe to snap off after all these years.

When i first started.... The Skaven Warlord figure with a Dwarfs head on a standard.
I need to repair and repaint it once i find all the bits.....

Terminator librarian with storm bolter of Ebay. First ever model was a free tactical from GW.

Not counting the 2nd edition box set... IIRC it was the old all metal Space Marine Dreadnought.

The High Elf / Gondor Warriors set for LOTR. Just like soitra in his OP, I used horrendously thick enamel paints. It gets better though: not having any metallic enamel paints (unsurprisingly), I used a silver gel pen to gradually coat the armour and weapons. The result: red, blobs with inappropriately located and patchy smears of silver. They were truly, utterly dreadful, and I was truly, unabashedly proud of my work.

My first model was a Lizardmen Oldblood, about seven years ago.

My first attempt at painting was a 2nd Ed Termagant, that I promptly ruined with my unskilled 9 year old enthuisiasm. Loved it so much I went home and nagged my parents until they took me to GW and I bought a box of 2nd edition plastic Eldar Guardians ( I think you got 6 for £5). Despite never actually putting together a proper Eldar army in nearly 15 years of play, I will always have a soft spot for them because of this. I remember desperately wanting the Biel Tan Eldar to beat the Ultramarines in the battle report featured in the 3rd edition rulebook.

Very first mini purchased and painted: Gorfang Rotgut.

I still have him, actually. Painted him with Testors acrylics. All super high gloss, of course. Man, those were the days.

<3 nostalgia

15 years ago, my first mini's were two metal space marines with bolters. I put so much Dark Angels green on them, it was so thick. I had their eagles painted bad moon yellow, bolters chaos black and chain mail silver, and their eyes blood red. The base was painted Goblin Green. I still have these two models and they sit on my desk to remind me how far I have come since I was 14ish.

When I was 7 or 8 I walked into a hobby shop and saw the -impressive- Wargaming section of the hobby shop I play at to this day. I was far more interested in Lord of the Rings however. Closely followed by 40k. As I had played the Original Dawn of War. I did a terrible job at painting the Goblins and Trolls. A friend of my father's painted the fellowship, we still have them somewhere. And I remember it being impossible to win as the Goblins. Yet I send them en-masse soviet meat grinder style.

When I began serious gaming. I got two boxes of Chaos Marines and a box of terminators. Was a pretty good start into the wonderful world of wargaming.

My first purchase was the Tau battleforce (current edition). Sadly the majority of its contents are sitting forgotten and neglected until I can sell it...

I purchased an Eldar battleforce from my best friend in middle school - this was back in year 1999 or so when the Eldar battleforce was ghetto and gave you a Viper, 3 Eldar Jetbikes, 20 Guardians and a Falcon (still a good deal, but still). Bought it from him for like $75 bucks and painted it quite detailed, but suffered from the lumpy craft paint syndrome and they looked TERRIBLE, but I was taken by the game by then already.

The first models I'd painted were the Guardians, they had an olive green, black, white, yellow, and red - so many colors! each surface was painted a different color.

I hated Eldar Jetbikes so much back then that I scrapped all 3 for Engine upgrades on my Falcon (oh, being 14). That and misunderstanding the Falcon's upgrades and playing it with a Bright Lance, a Scatter Laser, AND a pulse laser.


In retrospect, it really was amazing when I got better at painting how well you can just paint over your bad paintjobs, to an extend, to make them better.!

My first individual model purchased was the current edition lictor, but pewter not finecast. That was bought along with a tyranid battleforce. I can identify every single model that I put together from that set. Any model I've assembled I can date and anything I didn't assemble myself I can tell you the time of year (usually by month) and which year it was bought it. My first assembled model was a hormagaunt. On his base it says "tyranid 1".

Nothing got me into painting. It's just something that kinda happened. I've always liked the idea of art, but have been mediocre at it. Tyranids however were not covered in difficult icons and detail work so one day while my computer was occupied processing video I decided to paint to kill time. Previously I would write content for my D&D campaign setting. I couldn't tell you the order I painted my models or when they were painted. It's just something that kinda happened.

My first ever Games workshop purchase was a box of Fantasy orc boyz. back when the box gave you 2 units of 12 boyz each, one of archers and one of foot sloggers. mind you, at this point in time the ONLY customization available for these guys, without cutting something, was turning the shield on its peg, and the paintjob you gave them.

The first models were a few blisters of old wraiths (from the 1994 Undead edition).

The Tactical Marines from the 4th ed Battle For Macragge set.

That old swarms box that fantasy had...You got snotlings, spiders and bats if I remember correctly?

Old old Eldar Guardians.

Well 3 years ago I won a tau pack ( squad of kroot, Ethereal, 30 fire warriours, 4 battle suits, and 15 gun drones) all in a card game, I sold it on but Last year I recently got properly into the game and bought 100 gretchin, An Aobr warboss and 10 deffkoptas and 50 boyz, sadly the boyz and gretchin were old style and no one let me play them as old style gretchin cant have an old style runtherd...
So recently I bought 30 boyz off GW.

£5 box of 10 Lizardmen Skinks several years ago!

Though I had known about GW and 40k for a long time... it wasn't till 5th edition that I started playing!
First Models I got were the Orkz out of Assault on Black Reach! Split with a friend of mine whom got the Marines out of the kit! Its been good times since then!

A box of necron warriors, and 1 metal immortal. I thought you could field a model on it's own.

A 5 model Genestealer set for $8.00, at the Galleria Mall in Cheektowaga, NY.

A Space Marine combat squad.

Mech Warrior miniatures, Hell Cat II from wizkids.


Unpainted, was a white metal Wizards miniature meant for role playing.

Loved his flogging stick.


That came out perverted.

Space Marine Combat Squad... back then they were like £5.... eeesh.

My first model ever was something back in the days of ADnD 2nd Ed.

My First 40k purchase was Asmodai.

Im a recent guy on the hobby, but i will catch the bait...

My first bought was a overseas international shipping in a ebay web shop (that no longer exists). It was the first time i used e-bay and paypal

What i bought? A Space Wolves pack and some ork Nobs from AoBR... I painted the nobs first ... And messed them up with tick paint and gloss varnish, kkk

Here a pick of "da lads"

Metal space marine veteran and then battle for macragge.

Christmas gift actually, the 40K 2nd ed box set.