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How old were you when you got into miniature wargaming
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Made in gb
Lit By the Flames of Prospero





Rampton, UK

11 years old, saw adeptus titanicus in GW window and was hooked from then !
   
Made in ca
Fixture of Dakka





Surrey, BC - Canada

While I started younger for D&D. 14-17 was the age I started with Battletech and Rogue Trader.

Cheers,

CB

   
Made in us
Stubborn Prosecutor





I was 9 when my dad would play OGRE with me - The first edition was great for kids since the OGRE almost always won even if you played poorly.

I got into Battletech when I was 10. I owned miniatures, painted them horribly, and hung out all night at a friend's playing into the wee hours and trying to stay awake on pure sugar and no caffeine (mormon household)

Bender wrote:* Realise that despite the way people talk, this is not a professional sport played by demi gods, but rather a game of toy soldiers played by tired, inebriated human beings.


https://www.victorwardbooks.com/ Home of Dark Days series 
   
Made in gb
Calculating Commissar




Frostgrave

About 8 with Hero Quest. One of the neighbours had blood bowl too.
Bugged my parents for years to buy me 2nd ed 40K from a department store.
   
Made in ca
Ancient Venerable Black Templar Dreadnought





Canada

For miniatures, it was ~1977 (8 years old) a couple years where Dungeons and Dragons hit and the miniatures were an interesting thing, less fun than "action figures" but cool all the same (Thinking of Micronauts and Star Wars action figures out in 1976).

I started building models around 10-11yrs old.

Around 1987 with Battletech, which would be "true" miniature wargaming.
That would have made me about 18 which was around my second year of college so that is about right.

A revolution is an idea which has found its bayonets.
Napoleon Bonaparte 
   
Made in us
Battlefield Tourist




MN (Currently in WY)

D&D to Rogue Trader and I was 10.

saw a spread in Dragon magazine and mail ordered RT and a bunch of stuff. I used the Mail Order Trolls many, many times since my area did not have an FLGS since I was a country bumpkin.

Support Blood and Spectacles Publishing:
https://www.patreon.com/Bloodandspectaclespublishing 
   
Made in gb
Xeno-Hating Inquisitorial Excruciator




London

Actually "proper" wargaming with rules at about 9 ... but I'd always played with soldiers ... and Action Men (if drilling holes in them and filling them with red ink so they bleed counts as "playing" )

Some strange coincidence had my best mate at school living right next door to Charles Grant.
My mate wasn't into toy soldiers much, but his parents knew I had hundreds of Airfix & Matchbox (both scales at the time) and arranged for me to visit Grant's house!

Very friendly & accomodating gent. I'd already read one (maybe some?) books from him I nabbed at the library, so this was a HUGE thing for me. His games room was phenomenal. He had a fething massive sandtable set up for some NA campaign when I visited and I was absolutely overwhelmed.

I never had a sandtable, but did have a Subbuteo mat which I turned over and draped over cushions etc. And a massive sheet of wood I painted half as sea and half as beach to re-enact Anzio & D-Day in my room

Couple of years later I went to grammar school and got bit by the D&D bug and that was pretty much it until my O levels. Joined the army and was initially posted to Paderborn in Germany, and got my first taste of GW. And it's been downhill ever since (in a very enjoyable way!).
   
Made in us
Experienced Saurus Scar-Veteran





California the Southern

We grew up around toy soldier collectors, so the idea of collecting and painting little figures seemed pretty natural. I was never as interested in the historical stuff, and always gravitated to the fantasy bits most toy soldier shops had tucked in a corner. Got really interested in D&D around 4th grade or so in elementary school, and while looking for the new 2nd edition AD&D books at a local B.Dalton I remember coming across Rogue Trader.

I was blown away at how edgy it was at the time. I remember seeing GW stuff in stuff like Dragon and Games Magazine, being disturbed at how crazy it was... I loved it.

I owned the books long before I ever acquired any models. It was hard finding gaming hobby shops back in the late 80s without the internet to help.

I was probably 11 or 12.

That B.Dalton Bookstore near my house carried the most niche RPG and tabletop games too. I don't know who was responsible for their orders but I have to thank them regardless.

Poorly lit photos of my ever- growing collection of completely unrelated models!

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/627383.page#7436324.html
Watch and listen to me ramble about these minis before ruining them with paint!
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmCB2mWIxhYF8Q36d2Am_2A 
   
Made in us
Regular Dakkanaut





Wow looks like I am in the big 11-13 demographic.

I started with a box of Khorne berserkers, then eventually got small Eldar and Space Wolves armies, along with some metal harlies. Played casually for a couple of years before getting caught up with school and life for the next decade.

After 8th dropped the game director at the studio I was working at convinced me to pick it up again. I dug up my old models and repainted and expanded my Eldar to around 6k points. Also got way into CSM and daemons.

Returning to the hobby over half my life later has been a pleasure.
   
Made in mt
Kabalite Conscript





Hamrun, Malta

Probably when I was ten, I remember this was my first issue of White Dwarf so I guess I started sometime 2001.

Spoiler:




It was me a my cousin finding his half-brother's old first-edition Space Hulk and getting it out which got us both started.
How could any young, male brain resist this:

Spoiler:



?

   
Made in ca
Secretive Dark Angels Veteran



Canada

I had played with toy soldiers from a very young age, but I started miniature wargaming with rules (Chainmail), miniatures (Grenadier D&D figures), dice and terrain when I was about 12 (Grade 6). Looks like our big demographic! Took a break during the later part of high school but dove back in during University.

Fun thread, some cool photos/memories in the previous posts!

All you have to do is fire three rounds a minute, and stand 
   
Made in ca
Longtime Dakkanaut






Norfolk, VA

I'm one of those that got a late start into the hobby. I'd been vaguely aware of war gaming, especially 40k, For a long time. When I was young, it was trips to hobby stores (I was a modeler growing up); I remember seeing what were probably 2nd or 3rd ed 40k models on shelves at a HobbyTown USA I used to go to. Later, while I was at the Naval Academy, I used to stop by the GW stores in the Annapolis mall back when GW stores in malls were still a thing. I didn't really get into the lore and universe until the Dawn of War video game franchise, though.

In 2006, after I'd graduated and started the Prototype phase of the naval nuclear power training pipeline (which features a rotating shift work schedule), a friend of mine on my prototype crew approached me about trying to find a minis game of some sort to play and help keep us awake when we rotated shifts. So, we schleped on down to the local game/hobby store (another HobbyTown USA as it turned out), and went to their games section. Among all the 40k and WHFB starters and army boxes, the store still had a few of these beauties:



I took the Imperial half of the set, and my friend took the Chaos side. I was hooked immediately! At the time, lots of BFG stuff was available still, since the game was not yet OOP, and I bought four good sized fleets within a few years. From there, I branched out to 40k when 5th edition started, and then into Firestorm Armada, Dystopian Wars, Flames of War, Bolt Action, and on and on.


 
   
Made in us
Posts with Authority






I started in 1975 - in a wargaming group that I was introduced to by a priest at the parochial school I was attending. (Some people have horror stories from school involving priests - my stories involve paint, lead miniatures, and Roneograph machines.... )

A year later the same priest introduced me to this weird game called Dungeons and Dragons - we played in the basement of the Unitarian church in Portsmouth, NH. A month later, I was the one running the game. (Our first DM was... bad. Really, really bad. Even at thirteen years old, I was a better DM.)

The Auld Grump - my first elves may have born a certain similarity to Minifig Napoleonic Prussians....

*EDIT* One of the girls in my Pathfinder game has started GMing when she was nine years old, and playing at eight. I am happy to say that she became a GM because I made it look like fun. (She is one of those players that should be both treasured and feared - a player that is smarter than the GM. For some reason that makes me feel so danged proud, I could just about burst.)

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/09/09 15:41:49


Kilkrazy wrote:When I was a young boy all my wargames were narratively based because I played with my toy soldiers and vehicles without the use of any rules.

The reason I bought rules and became a real wargamer was because I wanted a properly thought out structure to govern the action instead of just making things up as I went along.
 
   
Made in gb
Fresh-Faced New User




While a friend's older brother had heroquest and bloodbowl with cardboard standees, I properly started the hobby in '95, aged 11. My little brother was in floods of tears because he wasn't coming along on a shopping trip and wanted to see the 'dragon shop'. I was intrigued and begged my mother to let me see the place (the local GW store)... then to go in... and finally to buy me WD 187. Given the witch elf on the cover, I'm surprised in hindsight that she agreed.

I remember Prince Imrik and Azhag the Slaughterer in the glass cabinet but what I really wanted was a terminator with lightning claws. Fortunately by the time I got one, I'd learned that the paints needed shaking before use - that plastic chaos warrior in the starter paint set was not so lucky.

Warhammer Quest got me gaming as well as painting, then Necromunda took away whatever chance I'd had of escaping.
   
Made in us
Battlefield Tourist




MN (Currently in WY)

 TheAuldGrump wrote:
I started in 1975 - in a wargaming group that I was introduced to by a priest at the parochial school I was attending. (Some people have horror stories from school involving priests - my stories involve paint, lead miniatures, and Roneograph machines.... )

A year later the same priest introduced me to this weird game called Dungeons and Dragons - we played in the basement of the Unitarian church in Portsmouth, NH.


A man of the cloth was also one of my first DMs. The whole "satanic panic" around D&D felt especially alien to me considering my roots in the game.

Support Blood and Spectacles Publishing:
https://www.patreon.com/Bloodandspectaclespublishing 
   
Made in ca
Hurr! Ogryn Bone 'Ead!






Penticton BC Canada

I'll never forget, i was in grade 8 here in Canada so i was 13 years old

Although i was already interested in BattleTech i was more into role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons, GURPs, and even ShadowRun.

During the end of grade 8, in the summer we went on a family trip from Vancouver, British Columbia to visit family friends in Toronto, Ontario

Their sons took my brother and myself to a local games store where i was after a copy of the BattleTech 3026 Technical Readout

However i was introduced to RTB01 or the boxed set of plastic Mark 6 Corvus Space Marines and thus i got hooked to Warhammer 40,000

"Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum" MDCXX "Blaze away all day!"

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Made in us
Powerful Phoenix Lord





Dallas area, TX

I was 18 and my college friend introduced me to GW's LotR game at the time. Spend many a night painting instead of studying.
Then I moved a few years later and no one played LotR at the LGS. Switched to 40K and haven't looked back.
That was in 4th edition.

Now I'm trying to get my teen boys into 40K and the existence of video games and smart phones is making it really, really hard to keep their attention on table-top gaming.
I basically have to take away their devices before they seem to want to play. I literally have to punish my kids to play 40k with them.

-

   
Made in us
Fixture of Dakka




NE Ohio, USA

Gaming = Christmas 1980 when 10yr old me unwrapped the D&D Basic box set.

Miniature gaming "sort of" = sometime there after/early 80's. Dad had slews of the old Marx soldiers (WWII U.S./German, Alamo fighters/Mexicans, cowboys/Indians, U.S. Revolutionary (Colonies & British), & U.S. Civil war) when he was a kid. They were over at Grandmas.
My brother & I spent hours playing war in Grandmas basement. Eventually we came up with rough "rules" for dividing up the forces, fortifications, & a To Hit/Wound/Save system. We wrote them down too!
And to be honest? With the possible exception of throwing lead fishing weights of various sizes at each others figs to represent cannon shots (the bigger the cannon, the heavier weight we used. What ever fell over was auto-killed destroyed), our vague rules are STILL better than some stuff I've seen published in the decades since. They also have the defense of "Well, they were written by a pair of 12 yr olds, what do you really expect?"

Actual miniature gaming = '85? So I'd be 15 at the time. It was the 2e version of Battle-tech. In '84 I'd seen the original adds for Battledroids. And I saw a copy of it at the hobby shop in the mall where we got our D&D stuff. But I didn't have enough $ at the time.:(
Eventually, about a year later, my friend Jim got a copy of 'Tech & here we are today....

Well, actually there's a step after that.
All through the 80's we played mostly RPGs, B-Tech, some Car Wars & Risk/Axis. And then in Jan. 89' the mall hobby shop closed & we had to find a new source for anything not carried by the book store in the other end of the mall (IE, anything not a D&D hardback).
THIS led us to an actual hobby/game shop. Where we were introduced to GW stuff.
My 1st GW stuff was the brand new game Space Hulk.
Then came Dwarves for WHFB (3e), etc etc etc.

   
Made in gb
Chaos Space Marine dedicated to Slaanesh




I was introduced to it when I was 28 by a friend who collects pre-painted miniatures. I had customised (rerooted, stripped and repainted, made clothes for) a few 12" dolls, so she suggested I get some minis to paint as she thought it would be something I'd enjoy. This was about the same time as a youtube channel I watch started doing videos on miniature wargaming, and the combination meant my interest was piqued. I got some Seraphon for my 29th, and have been slowly working on them (and more) since.

That said, I used to help my Grandad with his miniature toy soldiers when I was little. I'd have been between 5 and 10. I always felt honoured when I was allowed to help him set up his armies on the dining room table, as I knew they were special and I wasn't usually allowed to touch them. They were all metal, and he had what seemed like loads, ranging through the Queen's Guard, Crusade Knights, and Greek Evzones. But he never 'played' with them other than setting them out, and once I'd helped him and he'd explained what each did, he'd photograph them and I'd go back to playing with plastic knights (on the floor, with a paper-mache castle my Gran made so I could 'play with my toy soldiers while he played with his').
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut




11-13, WW2 gaming using a basic set of rules I wish I still had and 1/72 airfix scale models
   
Made in gb
Fresh-Faced New User




I cant quite remember the exact age but my first official white dwarf i purchased was 116 (but in them days some of the stores kept copies of the old mags and you could buy them).
I was introduced by a school friend but i was already reading the fighting fantasy dice books by that point so it was an obvious next step.

The my parents purchased rogue trader then in hardback followed by advanced space crusade then blood bowl (second edition/polystyrene pitch version).
drifted away from it all in my late teens then came back to it all in my middle 30's.


   
Made in us
Fresh-Faced New User




Beaumont, TX

I was 12 about to turn 13. I bought a warhammer fantasy box and drug my feet for a year.

Started playing with my local group more late that year, and truthfully probably saved my life dealing with depression.

I'm really sad to see my local group has disappeared over the years.
   
Made in fi
Locked in the Tower of Amareo





16 years, bunch of guys at school were playing FB, me and my cousin started as well. At the start we were doing some "creative" proxying so we had like heroquest models marking units we had and not even full units, just shape(so for unit of 20 we had 5x4 formation done by 16 models) to represent units. We played generally what would be considered mega battles that day. Generally it was undead+chaos+dark elf alliance from the experienced guys vs my high elves and cousins empires. This in 5th ed FB. The two of us didn't understand rules or army building much so were getting massacred Oh and some "interesting" army lists we also ran like Imrik on Emperor dragon and lone Emperor dragon...

From there it eventually grew. I think this started around '96 or '97 so 14 or 15 years old. On '98 I went to ropecon(big finnish roleplaying etc convention) with my first fully painted own army(chaos warriors as it was cheaper to get to playable state than high elves) for tournament and saw Tuomas Pirinen and Rick Priestley as they were there introducing warmaster that was in production. So I must have been playing for a while already by then.

My first model I owned was high elf charriot on the basis that it was only high elf model local store had! And indeed high elves because that was only army book on that store that wasn't already played by the small group.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2018/10/12 06:18:58


2024 painted/bought: 109/109 
   
Made in ie
Norn Queen






Dublin, Ireland

I think I was about 10.
All started for me with



Then moved onto Space Crusade iirc, 40k and onwards to 39 y/o.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/10/12 08:25:58


Dman137 wrote:
goobs is all you guys will ever be

By 1-irt: Still as long as Hissy keeps showing up this is one of the most entertaining threads ever.

"Feelin' goods, good enough". 
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut




Halandri

Crossbows and catapults if that counts? If so, plastic green soldiers before then! Edit: and airfix/revell style historic military aircraft.

When Max brought his fathers high elves and giants into work I was raptured. My brother and I bought white dwarf 199 at the store, but I feel we got a couple of boxes of models before then.

The new warhammer box set came out, which we got for Christmas as a shared gift. We also had Necromunda then 40k. We picked up Gorkamorka as a discontinued product during the great lead sale, which I am only just getting my teef into now.

So it looks like 1995-1996. 9 years old?

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2018/10/12 09:07:21


 
   
Made in ie
Norn Queen






Dublin, Ireland

Oooo forgot about airfix and C&C! Great call.
Thats actually where I started so you can shift that back to about 7-8/yo

C&C was absolutely so much fun.

Dman137 wrote:
goobs is all you guys will ever be

By 1-irt: Still as long as Hissy keeps showing up this is one of the most entertaining threads ever.

"Feelin' goods, good enough". 
   
Made in us
Blackclad Wayfarer





Philadelphia

Anyone here get into the hobby at 25+ ?

   
Made in gb
Norn Queen






Last day of Primary school, age 11, one of the other kids brought in BloodBowl and some of his Blood Angel army for the end of year Games day. I found it interesting, asked him about it, went and bought a metal Incubus (it was spiky and spikes are cool) and some purple paint the next day.

After literally impaling myself I then bought Grey Hunters and tried to make them match the box art. I, of course, did not thin my paints.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/10/12 18:10:06


 
   
Made in us
Insect-Infested Nurgle Chaos Lord






Define miniature wargaming.

I'd say I dipped my toes in at about 10 with a copy of the board game Dark World and another Warhammer Quest clone whose name I forget now (just remember it having an Ogre sized wizard as the final boss. Anyone? This is truly bugging me now EDIT- Found it- Legend of Zagor).

I then moved onto the prepainted wargame from Bluebird called Havok and when myself and my brother went looking for more Havok models to buy the nice lady in Woolworths suggested we go to GW (So, it's all her fault. ) and I never looked back after getting an intro game on 2nd ed 40k at 12.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/10/12 19:04:16



Games Workshop Delenda Est.

Users on ignore- 53.

If you break apart my or anyone else's posts line by line I will not read them. 
   
Made in us
Powerful Phoenix Lord





 Stevefamine wrote:
Anyone here get into the hobby at 25+ ?


According to the poll..yes...at least 21 people have voted in that band.
   
 
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