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well for me it was strange, i have always been a sci-fi fan and had an intrest in war, when i was about 6/7 my older brother got me in to airfix, i got bored over time and wanted a bit more of a challange so started collecting and painting (badly) any 40k models i could get my grubby lil hands on, knowing that there was some sort of game you could play but being dyslexic its hard to learn on your own .

then after about 2 years of working with my boss i found out he helped run the local wargaming club so popped along, that was about 2 years ago and it took me a while to start building 40k armies (been playing other games since then like battle-tech, wings of war ect) still learning the rules as its only the last few months that i`ve really got in to 40k and i still paint badly

Heroscape got me into Warhammer 40k.

It just came out. The coolest board game I had ever seen. Heroscape. I bought it, loved it, bought God knows how many of the models. Eventually, I got bored with it. So me and my friend decided we should make our own Heroscape models for the game.

Went to a hobby store, looked around, and there it was. A box of necron warriors. It was love at first sight. I bought them, painted them, but never used them for Heroscape. The game got too boring for me. So I thought I should try out 40k.

My parents bought me Battle for Skull Pass (I wanted Battle for Macragge, but some idiot GW staff said that fantasy was a better place to start if I wanted to get into wargaming....). Tried fantasy, HATED it with a fiery passion (sorry, WHFB players), and started saving money for the new Assault on Black Reach.

From there, it was jumping from Necrons to Marines to Chaos in all its evil glory to soon my U.S. Army Guardsmen. Ahhh, good memories.....

I played D&D minis and they dicked everyone. So around the same time I met my friend at the store ( just before the big gip) and he got me thinking about Warhammer 40k.Then my buddy from when I was younger and I got to talking and we decided to go get some dudes and go halves and paintem together. I thought it might be work but when i actually started painting and finishing some guys I really liked it. Started playing; I stink but i just like to play. Great story line.

I was in Liverpool city centre and I was treated me to a game, Fire warrior. *shudders* When we got home I was ecstatic and ripped open the cellophane and opened the case, when a little booklet fell out. I was bewildered and opened it only to see Tau and Space Marines playing a game on a city fight board, when I asked my dad about it he told me there was one in Central station. Been 5 years, soon to be 6 and still going strong!

Back in 86 I was playing Robotech at my local Game Store and the owner asked if I wanted to be a test player for WH40k, he have me a box of beak heads and my firsy army was Crimson Fists painted rather newbish.

I like this topic. People come from so many different angles. When I was about 6 my big brother (who was 8) and me moved out of the projects and into the suburbs. It must have been 1980-ish. The kid across the street (who was probably around 12... much older 'big kid') was on the front porch playing with these little lead figures we had never seen before. Some old Grenadier models Lizardmen and some even older Reaper Lord of the Rings orcs and hobbits. I thought they were the coolest things I had ever seen. He took us across the street with my dollar weekly allowance and showed me the hobby shop. Every week we went back there with another dollar and came back with another ancient lead figure. Alex was smarter and he saved up for box sets so he ended up with more than me, and more 'themed' groups, like a whole box of goblins, or a whole box of elves, while I had a random mishmash of whatever I thought looked neat.
(here's a Megalosaurus fighting with a lizardman and an orc and a centaur on his team versus a Beholder, skeleton, and a halfling for instance). Hey I was 6, didn't pay much attention to fluff.

We played a game we called, quite simply, "D&D Men"... I can still remember the rules too:
All the figures had 5 Hit Points, unless they were something big like a giant or a dragon, which might have 10 or even 20 depending on how big. You moved 5" unless you could fly or teleport or something then you moved 10". All the weapons did 1d6 damage, and all the hit rolls were 4+ on a 1d6, unless you were some kind of awesome hero with a magic weapon or whatever.

Not bad for a 6 year old, an 8 year old, and a 12 year to come up with. In fact its not far from the comparative statlines 4 vs 4 = 4+ approach of GW.

"real" wargaming however started in middle school playing Battletech, and gradually getting into Rogue Trader once I had a part time job in High School. Warhammer 40k 2nd ed. hit my 2nd year of college and then I went all out from the moment of the first boxed set.

Both my big brother and myself and my little brother still play with little "D&D men" to this day, about 30 years later.

I was always interested in war releated stuff. I can remember playing a game with my brother, where we would set up plasic Germans v's British, then throw a dice/marble at the otherside, until one side had been compleately hit. (Those lying down troops behind a vehicle where a nightmare. )

In around 87 I got into fantasy via D&D, by 88 I'd picked up a AD&D computer game, read Dragons of Autumn Twilight, and then spotted a mates copy of White Dwarf, about Space Marine.
I got hold of a copy of Space Hulk from a Store in the later summer, then found the NFL, and ended up trying Blood Bowl.

From there it all went down hill pretty fast. I seem to remember my first fantasy purchase was the White plastic box where you got 10 figs of six different races.
I also got the Space Orks box, and a Marine one. Which lead to my first two armies. Death Skull Orks and Thousand Son Marines based off the side of the Space Marine box, hence they where red with a black M.

I seem to remember playing myself a lot in those early years.

Man, I was like so obsessed with Lord of the Rings, then my dad told me about Lord of the rings strategy battle game, and Currently I have got over 300 LOTR mini's
I love white dwarf, read them all the time, so it makes sense that eventually I wanted some 40K.

I passed the store in glasgow was interested in it so i went onto the website and liked the look of it but my attention span is that of a monkey chewing a fly swatter so i forgot about it 3 months later while going around glasgow looking for a video game to spend my birthday money on
i spotted the shop headed in had a game of assault on black reach with a member of staff and walked out with a nid book and two boxes of gaunts 3 years on and i have roped 5 people into the game and altogether we have spent at least £2000 on the hobby

I am currently thinking of buying Island of Blood as well.

A good friend of mine was trying to get me into 40k for like a year, and I kept blowing him off. Finally one day I caved and let him show me. I have been hocked ever since.

In the 80's I bought a book called "Rogue Trader," and read it... talkabout stereo instructions, but hey, I was 10! There were rules on armor, weapons, about mutations, and terrible flatulence??... and tentacles?!?!1... and warp grenades and psychic abilities, and all sorts of craziness, I kept it, and thought it looked cool, and the art was't that great but I always wanted to learn.... but never did figure out how to play it.

Fast forward through being a jerky jock in Highschool, and finding myself back into wargames. Then 2rd ed. 40K came out, and it was AWESOME. Some Space Hulk revivals... Then off to the U.S. Army for Gulf War I , Wife then kids, and selling all my stuff, now divorced, kids grown (or nearly grown) and back into 40K with a vengence.

Best part? I will sometimes get on my Fiancee's nreves and she will tell me to go over to Fat Ogres (Our FLGS) www.fatogre.com and play 40K to "Work out my tension!" Schweet!

I started many moons ago with marx figures with my older brother and home rules. Then in the late 60s i started playing Avalon Hill gettysburg. When D&D came out in the 70s I was instantly hooked, especially with the lead figures. Been collecting and painting them ever since, except for a few years while in college. Stopped D&D and started WHFB in the early 90s to the present. Started painting figures back when we were still playing with the Marx sets. Good times. And yes, the Historicon flea market is the best place ever to find old figures and great deals.

Played Warhammer Online, which lead me to Dawn of War, and then I got into TT.

I really didn't like how 40k TT played, so I defected to Fantasy. Been loving it and kicking ass with Beastmen ever since.

about 4 years ago, my some what friends at the time had their models at a swim meet, I got enticed, later that Christmas my friend got me my first model, a cron lord.

Went over my friends house, and saw he had these little plastic LOTR figures. Asked about them, he hummed the rulebook at me and said "Read the damn thing" I asked why, and he replied, "Because were playing in 20 minutes". Now, almost 4 years later, there are 8 of us, all under 16, with no FLGS for 50 miles, who just kick each other's arses. I started in 4 ed. I am still convincing one of the players that there is a 5th ed rulebook. I whacked him over the head with it. He yelled at me, and read the book. He now believes that 5 ed is a photoshop. My gaming group is awesome.

When I first visited my best friend Brendans house in primary school ( I was about 6 ) his attic was full of his Ultramarines carefully placed on shelves. He also had a lot of dwarves.

The idea of being able to paint these little men really stuck with me, though I could never afford any untill I was in my late teens

Been painting since then, after giving gaming a go and it not gripping me.

The girlfriend made me read the rulebook and play with her. We had fun, so I learned more about the hobby and game.

Hi all.
I just wandered into my local wargames club 'to see what the fuss was all about. '
And I am still wandering in 25 years later, but I know now what the fuss is all about.

I started with historical games then branched out into sci-fi, as fantasy never realy apealed as much.(I do play fantasy games now and again though.)

Many people at ourgames club started with Space Marine , Heroquest, Space hulk, Warhammer Quest etc.Those exelent board games were a good intro into the TTMG hobby IMO.

TTFN

Long story short : Hero Quest and a Lucky White Dwarf

A few years ago when I was in New Zealand to visit my grandparents, I happened across Dawn of War in EB Games.

Played it, loved it, looked it up on the internet and bam! I was a wargamer.

mentions of it here and there

got bored one day bought a Ciaphas Cain novel(it was the Omnibus)

one day bored again, bought DOW2 and Chaos Rising

more novels, the rest is a jump detrimental to my wallet and credit card

Vene wrote:The girlfriend made me read the rulebook and play with her. We had fun, so I learned more about the hobby and game.

WOW! That is very rare (like pigs flying kind of rare). Usually it's the guy trying to convince his girlfriend that it's cool, not the other way around. My girlfriend drives me to the FLGS just so she can drop me off so she can go shopping old vintage stores nearby, that's about as close as she gets to understanding my geekness. She has painted a couple of my figures and thought that was fun, and actually sat through a couple of games watching me play, but she always seems to want to wander off and do her girl stuff while leaving me to do my boy stuff. It's a perfectly healthy tradeoff in that she doesn't care what I do for fun and I don't care what she does for fun... but a girl getting her boyfriend into geeky scifi hobby?! What's next? Flying pigs? Congratulations dude, you have broken new ground.

I wandered into a GW in the mall thinking it was a store selling video games. I was hooked. My parents were horrified.

I started out with the gateway game of D&D. Occasionally, I picked up a few WHFB models to use with D&D.

Got into Shadowrun later and picked up the old box of Eldar Harlies to use as gang members in that game.

Always saw WHFB/40K around but never picked it up. One of my D&D crew eventually worked with some Englishman who piqued his interest in 40K. He was very excited about it but the rest of us were at best only mildly curious.

One Christmas, he bought me an Eldar army: Battleforce, Farseer blister, Guardians box, Rangers blister, Fire Prism, Codex and Craftworld Eldar supplement. He selected this army for me because I had bought those Harlies all those years ago.

Remember, I still was still not into the game at this point. Those boxes sat around for a little while until I read the mini-rulebook from Macragge. After that, I was finally interested and picked up the game in a huge way. I now have 2 armies over 10,000 points and 2 smaller armies 2000-4000. I also have a pair of WHFB armies now but these see little action...

I played risk when I was younger (it was one of the first video games I bought all by myself!) and invented a game that was a cross between Monopoly and 40k (which I did not know about at the time) which used miniatures that were plastic cats and dogs. Those miniatures were the only toys I could find in the store that were both cute and small enough.

Fast forward over 10 years and my brother and my bf made me play World of Warcraft. Then both of them got bored with the game... and my bf became interested in 40k. I originally picked Tau but I was jealous of his cool Orks (I initially didn't want to 'copy' him by having the same army)... but now I've got my own Ork army!

I remember my brother playing 40k (Space Marines - what a shock!) and thinking it looked stupid. Funny how 13 years later he is the one laughing at me playing huh?

Magic: The Gathering

Saw a kid I knew bring his cards into class (middle school) one day and I thought they were the coolest thing I'd ever seen. Got into the game with a few friends and before long stumbled upon the FLGS. Second edition 40K was released and I saw it on the shelf one day and once again thought it was the coolest thing I'd ever seen so I started playing that.

I mentioned to my mum years ago, maybe in about 1998/9 that I fancied painting models as a new hobby. When I got back from school that day she had bought me an Airfix Landrover model, some glue, a few enamel paints and a brush. This meant a lot to me as we didn't have much money at the time.

I remember painting up a few more Airfix kits and realising I enjoyed it, then I noticed a few of my friends at my local fencing club played 40K, I looked through the 1998 catalogue they brought in one week and was amazed at the models.
Scrimped and saved and bought the 3rd edition 40k set, and got a friend to buy the Dark Elves from me. We painted up our first armies then, although he eventually lost interest in the hobby, I stuck with it. I played 40k SM, TONS of LotR stuff, most of the original boxed sets.

Had a few years off during uni (it seems a lot of people do) I then sold almost all of my models to fund a year working in a poor job after uni, this broke my heart but I needed the money more at the time, in hindsight a massive loss, I had 3 40k armies, TK for fantasy, and countless LotR models, limited edition pieces, GD exclusives etc.

Anyway I picked up the AoBR box at the beginning of this year and have completely fallen in love with the hobby again! Collecting BA for 40k at the minute, and I'm looking to starting a fantasy army in a month or so.

So thanks mum!

Born and raised a military brat that also was a huge scifi fan. Also loved making plastic military models and lego sets. Used to visit comic book shops as a kid and did a lot of eye shopping looking at the awesome looking space marine armies on the shelves or on the table (love 'em or hate 'em, SM's are eyecatching for newbies).

Became friends that were already into it and then I got hooked on it like a drug. Still find myself coming back and opening up the wallet for more

I'd been flirting with the idea for a few years by the time I was old enough to earn enough pocket money to afford it, although it largely remained a mystery to me until that point. The products that got me into the game were specifically: