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For me it was...

My auntie worked in what is still the only place you can get GW stuff in my town, back 14 years ago. Dad found out, persuaded her to steal them and I randomly got 10-15 WFB + 40K blisters every couple of weeks. All that survived was a River Troll from then.

Abandoned the hobby around year 10 (15/16 years old) until at college I rediscovered it via a close mate who also hid the fact he liked the stuff.

My nephews got me into playing D&D, and during one of our campaigns we needed to fight a big battle, twelve players with five or six hirelings each against a couple hundred assorted humanoids. We really didn't want to spend a whole weekend just doing that. The next time we were at the comics book store where we also got our D&D stuff, I saw a book called second edition advanced dungeons and dragons battlesystem. We used that to fight a simplified version of the battle and got the whole thing in in a single day. We continued to play it as a standalone wargame for a couple of years until we got burned out on it. It was about that time that we started going to another store that had more gaminging stuff, and viola! they had a warhammer fantasy battles section. I bullied my nephews and a few other people into playing it, and all was good for a few more years, until one day I got an issue of white dwarf that had an article about the second edition of Warhammer 40,000. I also got some people into that game, discovered the midwest mecca of wargaming known as Tabletop Game and Hobby. (Shameless plug, you're welcome.) I don't play as often as I used to, primarily because it seems that there is only one list per codex and EVERYBODY plays that one list, the exact same way. soooo boring. Perhaps when the new Orks codex comes out, I will find an uber list in it that will have me wiping the floor with the other mono-lists. (Waaagh?)

The first game of models I got was Space Crusade, way WAY back when I was knee high to a grasshopper. I saw a few of the other models in adverts and was somewhat intrigued, particularly by an old shape Ork Dread but never took it any further.

Fast forward to '95 tho and quite by chance I saw the cover of WD 181, with the Mega Gargant half of the Titan Legions boxart in John Menzies. I got it as something that looked really cool & interesting to read en route to the hairdressers and going through it, with the Imperator Titan having its separate from TL box release, the Atillan Rough Riders coming out and a truly massive studio battle of WHFB pitting their entire Orc & Goblin & Chaos Dwarf armies versus their entire Empire & Wood Elves forces, I was instantly hooked. In less than a month I got Titan Legions and started from there, progressing through Epic into Necromunda, 40k, Fantasy, Blood Bowl and last but certainly not least, Gorkamorka. Mostly for models & the fluff rather than playing, but still doing a little of that from time to time too.

By about 2003 tho, I was disillusioned in the hobby, with prices constantly rising and having other interests taking up more of my time & money, and I checked out completely for a number of years... but more recently in the last few years I've gotten back into it all due to meeting new friends that are into it, combined with a return of creative vibes & that love of 40k Orks from all the way back in '95 never truly dying off. So now I'm making up for lost time and aim to do the big 40k Ork army I wish I had done properly.

My friend brought the third edition 40k and was well away with painting and sticking these little grey men together. I was a little confused, slightly disturbed at the various limbs scattered about on his dining room table and utterly devastated that for my birthday, he had brought me a space marine bike. So I sat, I twisted the pieces off the sprue because clippers wasn't in his possession and with much cursing I finished constructing the model and something clicked; My brain screamed "This is awesome!" and from there, I was hooked.

Fast forward and I still have that SM, all caked in a whole tub of black paint and now hundreds and hundreds more to go with him (Painted with more care though) I love this hobby!

In early 2012 I was on the LOTR wiki and saw some miniatures on it.I found out that gamers paradise(I had always though"That model stank looks cool"I went in early may(pestering parents takes a while.)And Was about to buy moria goblin paintset.I almost got out of the hobby because I thought it was too pricy.Mam made my buy it.Thank Gork she did.

VOR: The Maelstrom

A friend went to GenCon indy a long time ago, then came back with the game and showed me it.

The rest is history.

Back in high school for me when I first met my (soon-to-be) best friend he eventually introduced me to Warhammer. At first I balked at the prices for what I perceived to be dinky little miniatures and I skirted on the edges of 40K for quite a while, having borrowed his 40K BRB and reading up on the fluff and the game. Eventually I took the dive and went with Assault on Black Reach and fell in love with Orks. From that point on I was green for life.

I had an older neighbour who used to play when he was at secondary school (and I was in junior school) who introduced me.

By the time I started secondary school I had caught the bug, and possibly been given a hero quest set for Xmas and I think I had inherited some of his old models. This was around 1993 so when 2ed was released I found lots more people at secondary school clubs who played 40k and WHFB.

Continued playing all through secondary school and kinda stopped when I went to college and university. Then, a few years after university, some old school friends and I started playing 40k again as a way of regularly catching up, and about the same time I met a few people in my local pub who had sordid 40k histories and were up for dabbling again...

Played LotR in primary and intermediate school and then took a long break from war gaming up until now at 23 years old, just started collectin my first Space Marine army.

In 1988 or so I started RPGing (MERP, the first major LotR RPG) at the age of 15. During the following months I tried basically any gaming magazine I could get my hands on, finally ending up with an issue of White Dwarf which included at the time an article on Land Raiders, Harlequins, the full Space Marine Army lists and a short WHFRP adventure, and various images and miniatures from Slaves To Darkness (the first of the Realm of Chaos books). I didn't really get most of the rules content (especially in the SM army list), but the rather grim and grotesque atmosphere of British publications (art by Ian Miller and Russ Nicholson) seemed to much more fascinating than the quaint and white-bread mood of TSR's D&D publications.

Starting a tabletop game was pretty much out of the question; my RPG mates weren't really interested in that, and collecting miniatures was *forbiddingly* expensive (he said, laughing out loud). But I started collecting WD anyway until Space Hulk (1st ed) was published. That was a game my group could actually imagine playing, so we got it and played the hell out of it. Shortly afterwards WD published rules for playing Power armoured Space Marines in Space Hulk, and that was more or less the point at which I started collecting and painting. (Because offering gateway games are a GOOD thing, y'know...)

I actually started 40k gaming a few years later as soon as 2nd edition was published in a big box - but mainly because I had some cash at hand having worked for a summer between the end of school and the start of university.

Anecdotally speaking, at least here in the UK anyway, Space Crusade and Hero Quest were responsible for introducing what seems like an entire generation of gamers into the hobby. All of my gaming peers that I am acquainted with started with these two games before moving into GW and beyond.

It would be interesting to see just how many people got their break with Space Crusade and Hero Quest. Someone should do a poll. I personally think GW are doing themselves a massive disservice by not having similar gateway games that grip the imagination like SC/HQ did back in the day.

Arguably GW could have profited even more than they did if they had provided a decent mid-tier game between HeroQuest and Warhammer. I constantly meet people who see my GW stuff and remark "Oh, that stuff looks a bit like this HeroQuest or StarQuest* game that me and my school mates played ages ago. Dunno why we stopped, we had lots of fun with that..."



*the German title of Space Crusade

I first played back during WHFB 3rd/4th edidition I think. It was the starter set with Brettonians and Lizard men. My older Brother got it and we had many fun days battling before he left. This was back when I was 4 (and most humiliatingly some of my best victories come from this era )

Fast forward about 6-8 years. I find a book in my local Library entitled "The Loathsome Ratmen and all their Vile Kin", get the book out on my ticket and read it through. Then i re-read it. Then i go through again and study the pictures in detail. Shortly after, my dad is over and we take a trip to York for the day. Whilst passing the GW we go in as he wishes to check something (He played Dwarfs) and I happen to wander over to the Blister packs looking for the Skaven section (I had been informed that the Ratmen where a GW army) and I manage to persuade my parents to get me a Skaven Warlord http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat440084a&prodId=prod1160065a Whilst my little brother got some Squig Hoppers. That Yule I got the Skaven Battalion Box, a unit of Clanrats and the Moulder Beast Box. I never looked back.

I discovered Space Marines from an ad in Dragon magazine I think, for Rogue Trader. I didn't know anything about the beakie marines but I loved them, drew them all over the place in big battles, and then bought a few I saw in a comic store.

A few years later I discovered Epic Space Marine v2, and bought the Battle Group set containing Space Marines, Orks, and Eldar, but without the rules. lol I tried to make my own up using Battletech maps but that went terrible. Eventually someone offered to sell me their entire Adeptus Titanicus/Space Marine v1/Codex Titanicus collection in one big mess and I realized that had been the game I had waited my entire life for an had no idea. My friends and I played that game for YEARS. Still love that system today, even for all its issues. From there went on to 40k 2nd Ed (which I also loved), and just about every GW game since, and many other non-GW games. But AT/SM1 still sits at the top of my favorites.


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 Vertrucio wrote:
VOR: The Maelstrom

A friend went to GenCon indy a long time ago, then came back with the game and showed me it.

The rest is history.

I love this game. I have armies for Union, Neo-Soviet, Shards, Pharons, Growlers, and Zykkee. Minis could have been better, but its a fantastic game for small unit action.

I met the owners of a FLGS at Dennys one night after making a D&D reference while very drunk. They said I should come by and check out there stuff. I did and ended up becoming friends with a couple guys just starting 40k. I bought my first 500 points and a book for about 100$ it was a CSM termy I ran as a chamion and nurgle marines when they came in boxes of 5. It grew from there.

in 1991 I was playing a GW game called combat cars I think with a friend who had loads of stuff. Ended up playing some man o'war, blood bowl and dabbled in epic also. At the same time with an other group of friends we were playing WHFRP. It seemed like it was all around me, I think the only game I never tried was talisman. I got myself 40 harlequins and the eldar codex then the 2nd ed boxset shortly after. Moved into magic for a fewyears as it was much easier to get some games in but I keep coming back and buying more ponsy space elfs, I even got some porn elves as the wife calls them so she could do some painting.

Well what the heck.....I thought I posted in a thread like this one time? Anyways....

For me it was through Lord of the Rings, when the movies came out a friends brother got some of the GW minis and I thought they were awesome so I got some Uruks and then got the Mines of Moria set....put it down for years and years. Another one of my friend collects Fantasy (a ton of armies) and then I was drawn to 40k got DV then it was all downhill from there collecting Space Marines then Tau and then Eldar and Skaven!

GW sent me a free army. Really!

I was aware of rpgs (D&D) in High school - I knew some kids who played it, and had the funky dice to go with it.

I didn't personally get into gaming until 1986 or so. I was 18. Some friends were into 20mm scale WW2. That progressed into 20mm moderns, and Battletech and then 40k came out.

GW wasn't my point of entry into gaming (unlike many of my contemporaries) nor even one of my first games (I think it was 4th or 5th).

I've never played Heroquest or Talisman. I played Spacehulk a lot - but we also turned it into a more ALIENS styled bug hunt than space marines v bugs.

When I was a wee lad and there was a chain toy store in NZ that used to sell games workshop gear and I immediately fell in love with the Orcs and Orks because of my previous infatuation with the computer games warcraft 2&3. So i asked mummy if she would get me some for my birthday and she ended up getting me the 40k Orks. had other armies since then and got out of the hobby for a couple of years but have recently returned to my violent green space fungus and don't think il be looking twice at a different army.

I was a modeler for as as long as I could remember. Of course, I always hated the fact that when I was done with my models they would just collect dust, but that was the hobby.

Later, I discovered D&D (late 1970's) and immediately started painting minis for my characters. One of my D&D buddies said that we should come up with a game where we used our 1/35th scale tanks and infantry to fight battles in our back yards. Never knowing that people had been gaming like that for at least 100 years previously. Of course that game never happened but I did discover Warhammer a few years later.

Wonder how many of us here had the experience through seeing the artwork on a magazine in a newsagent?

For me it was this one, which I know for many ranks as their favourite WD issue ever. The stories in it were absolutely fantastic, stories of the Eldar fighting against Chaos, and the whole thing absolutely blew my mind.




Copy of Space Crusade and Rogue Trader followed soon after. The covers of WD/Visions or whatever these days are absolutely soul-less, cheaply produced tosh by comparison. I wonder whether they would have the same effect on kids that are the same age now as I was then.

Issue 127 must be the "Last time Dragons were useful in WFB" issue!

For me it was Heroquest, and then I got into 40k with the 2nd edition box set.

 Pacific wrote:
The covers of WD/Visions or whatever these days are absolutely soul-less, cheaply produced tosh by comparison. I wonder whether they would have the same effect on kids that are the same age now as I was then.

Personally, I'm not that much of a fan of "really mediocre airbrushed generic fantasy picture" either, but yeah I'd rather see something more interesting than "model photo/codex cover of the month". Covers never really were WD's strong point (during the 'GW only' phase from ca. #100 onwards).

When I was 11 a kid at my church got me into Magic. I used to go into the local game store (I won't call it friendly because the employees used to make fun of me) to get cards, and I saw the big 2nd edition box set. The dang box art drew me in.

I remember reading the fluff sections of the rulebooks over and over as a kid.

I love larp, and a lot of the folks I met there played GW. I gave Epic a try and hated it - largely because the guy teaching me didn't explain the rules much and was determined to win so the game consisted of me just biking into gunfire for no real reason.

I kept encountering GW, mainly through larp - my best mate married a woman who was in the 'Eavy Metal team, I married a former store manager, and we played Mordheim a bit. We moved two years ago to a town where everyone we knew played 40k. So around Christmas I nicked a bunch of his spare IG and now I'm loving the game.

The battle games in middle earth magazine as a child. Then later as an adult I was watching thr lord of the rings films and got the urge to paint models asin, my mother didn't still have my models so I bought new ones and went from there

 carlos13th wrote:
The battle games in middle earth magazine as a child.

This for me too. Got into it right from the start and still have every issue bar 1 special edition (because I'd already got the model). Damn, those magazines werea good deal, .£3.99 for 12 plastic (identical to the sprues GWnow sells for £16.00 a pop)/1 metal mini (now around £10 each), rules, hobby guides and scenarios in every issue and generally awesome content like campaigns and stuff. Possibly, all things considered, the best hobby-related deal I've ever had.

From there it as 40k (introduced by a friend), got into WFB just as IoB came out, and then Warpath/Deadzone when I discovered Mantic.

Two best friends of mine(brothers) got me into 40k. I played D&D and magic for a couple years before that. Thy tarted talking about it, and I really liked what they told be about Tyranids. And so, I bought a rulebook and my first Battleforce, haphazardly assembled, and never looked back. Eventually I started branching out and trying other games- now I have a pile of unused and I painted models just like every other hobbyist.

As for 40k-Sadly, one brother dropped out(bought out his models), and the other has lapsed so I currently rarely get a game in. I still paint and build though- and still play a few games here and there.