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What was your first game like? It seems (At least in my circle of gamers) that it usually is prettttty bad.


Mine: It was me (Cadians) and my friend (Orks) vs two kids who thought they were the "Shizz" playing BA (Nothing against them BTW).

Now we really didn't have a clue what we were doing, but it was obvious that they were cheating. they claimed their Marines moved 12" and ignored difficult terrain.

Also, they claimed they hit on +1...

I know it sounds ridiculous but it's true, I would say, "Are you sure?" and they would assure me it was right... sadly I found out about an hour later from my FLGS staff that I got played...BIG time.


Anyone else have a similar experience?

My first games were against the guy who introduced me to the game so I 'won' all o my first games. Then he actually starting using faith points and... -splat-

Haha, I was taught by my FLGS staff against my friend, who plays orks. So I had no idea what to expect against Blood Angels

First time playing a different army doesn't go well for me either, eldar ate me alive. I was happy though that other armies generally can't get a 3++ on a random squad or a 2++ on a hq... blasted cannoness lol

First time playing 40k was at the end of 2nd edition. I was just a young 'un, so it was mostly somebody telling me I needed to roll 3s. I had some Blood Angel Terminators with lightning claws, and I assaulted a Rhino. That's all I remember.

My first wargame ever was long before that though - my dad got me into miniatures games when I was 6 years old or so.

My first game was my DE versus my father's SM, when we bought the starter kit. Good times

He never got interested, but i've been playing ~12 years. I <3 my toy soldiers.

Yea, my game was 2 years ago? I believe so. I really wish I could see those kids again so I could beat them down this time


Amen to they "I <3 my toy soldiers"!

My first game was against a really nice guy named Justin who had like 20k pts of chaos marines O_O.

It was a really fun game even though I got my butt whooped, he was always nice about it and was really patient about helping me get a finer grasp on the rules and helping me learn some better strategies.

My first game was against my brother, my SM vs his DE. We just used the contents of the 3rd ed box, needless to say the odds were a little stacked in my favour although he did managed to down my Land Speeder with a splinter cannon which was pretty impressive.

Mine was against my friends necrons. We were both new and his WBB was so goddamned annoying... I would think I got somewhere, then he would just bring them back up... and I lost. I did learn one important thing though, crons hate the plasma.

2nd ed box set that me and my buddy went in on at our local store in columbus ohio ( back then) i got the orks he got the marines after about 2 weeks of me and him reading over the rules deciding how to set up the card stock ruins and rocks we had gathered to make rubble piles haha. Then buying HQ and a few extras him a attack bike with side car and maybe a dread me two war buggies and a scorcher moms kitchen table turned into something other than dinner it was fing awesome haha

"The battle at the Farm" from the old RT rulebook.

Pedro Kantor's paper cut-out marines were, if I remember correctly, victorious against the vicious paper cut-out orks

My first game knowing nothing about 40k:

My brother had 'lent' his Space Wolves 'to practice painting and modelling' (which actually meant I was being used to create the start of his SW army). Anyway, me and my brother went to GW early doors and got in there and got talking to the shop assistant there about how I was new to all this and knew absolutely nothing despite my brother giving me a rulebook, SW codex, dice, measure and figures. So he offered to teach me the basics which meant a lot of 'you need to roll threes to save your guys' and 'do you want to shoot or charge?' and my favourite 'oh dear there goes another Space Wolf', which was all greek to me at the time. I think he was using BA's. It ended as a draw since we were left with one guy each and due to some rule that one of my guys had, his last character got stuck with mine and as I died I dragged him down with me (still to this day I don't know wtf happened).

My first game knowing what I'm supposed to do:

My brother took back his SW, but I decided SM were my thing, as I liked the idea of creating my own chapter and characters, plus I was told they are good for beginners to start with. Any who, my brother generously gave me the drop pod that I painted for him (and it hasn't much changed since it was painted then), and I purchased an AoBR box (gave the orks to my bro as he had moved on from SW and onto an already sizeable ork force). And we played a quick game after I had painted my models, despite me being outnumbered (approx 7-1, because he had about 1000pts of army and I had under 500pts), and by some fluke (although I bragged it was superior gaming tactica at the time) I beat him with only one marine (a flamer i think) left on the board.

Confidence boosted = I went out to buy a tac squad, scouts, Marneus with Honour Guard, and my bro (as thanks for the parts I got him) got me a Chaplain, Lib, ans AssaultCan Term, injured Marine marker, a busted Rhino for scenery and a ton of bits for my bits box

And the more games I get in now only spurs my desire to buy, model and paint more things.....I would say those games were the making of the Emperor's Jesters....from meagre beginnings...

1990 at boarding school, grade 8 and 11 years old.

One of the other guys in the dorm had WHFB and 40k.

WHFB: I played empire with cut out pieces of paper with troops drawn on them.
He had Dark elves.
We played on the floor with books as hills and sheets of paper for forests.

40k: Similar but he had eldar models and I borrowed his SMs.

10 years of age, 13 years back... 2nd Edition, I played Eldar vs. his Blood Angels. All of the models belonged to my friend, and we played on a 2.5/4ft. table with GW cardboard terrain and homemade polystyrene hills. I lost.

First game I played was against one of the biggest power gamers (no disrespect intended) at the store. My Thousand Sons vs his Raptor heavy Nightlords. My army pretty much died without leaving the deployment zone.

I just played him again a week ago (mech BT vs Kan Wall) and he tabled me, again. I've learned nothing.

My first game was against some guy with standard marines, against the first incarnation of my ever-faithful Iron Warriors.
I lost, but the guy did a lot to help me learn how to play, so that was okay. I guess this is the only thank-you he will receive for that.

@avantgarde: unless he is willing to help you learn the rules and basic tactics, don't play against him!

One of the biggest mistakes a newer player can make is to keep playing against people who just want to crush them, because as you've noted, you learn nothing.

My first game was the 2nd ed box orks vs. the space marines. We played without the cardboard dreadnought because we thought it was lame.

willydstyle wrote:@avantgarde: unless he is willing to help you learn the rules and basic tactics, don't play against him!

One of the biggest mistakes a newer player can make is to keep playing against people who just want to crush them, because as you've noted, you learn nothing.

I was actually helping him get back into 40k since he hadn't played in 3 or 4 years and only had two games of 5th. Which made it a little sad. We did learn later that Grotzookas only had a range of 18" instead of 36" and had a laugh at his poor reading skills.

My bad for assuming then.

I was playing with a 3rd edition mec space marine army against nids.

that was the first and last time I lost against nids.

willydstyle wrote:
My first game was the 2nd ed box orks vs. the space marines. We played without the cardboard dreadnought because we thought it was lame.

As the cardboard dreads are made by GW, they are official GW models. In other words, you can take them to a tournament.

I have 2

My first game: a multi-player tutorial game, I was using my first 5 Marines. My *very first* kill was one of my own Marines after I had placed the one with the Flamer at the rear of the unit!

My first game was an Assault on Black Reach Game set up on my friends front deck in the middle of a summer day. He played the Marines and I played Orkz. We had a blast learning the game and got my first win too, though we lost 3 dice through the cracks of his deck... which they are still there to this day!

My Waaagh! has grown nicely since then, and his Marines have turned traitor and became a good sized Chaos Space Marine army!

I was probably 11 at a GW store and it was against my friend using the stores armies in addition to the scarce amount we had. No need to say, I LOST THE GAME.

Mewiththeface wrote:I was probably 11 at a GW store and it was against my friend using the stores armies in addition to the scarce amount we had. No need to say, I LOST THE GAME.

Curse you!!!! I lose the game too...

OT: I really did lose my first game.

I think mine was actually against myself ... Uruk-hai vs Elves ... Wierd, Hu.

I was BT against Orkz.
It was so long ago, I don't even remember if I lost of not.

I remember my second game was Ultramarines against DE, and I won that one, and bought the starter set.

Two of my buddies had space marines and Imperial Guard. They invited me and a friend to join them.

I was responsible for half of the marines while the other new player was responsible for half of the Imperial Guard. We turned it into a doubles game, I guess. It got me hooked. Rushing the line with a dreadnought was fun. It ended in a tie, though. Through most of the game, it was: "You need 3's to hit. Now you need a 3 to wound." When you got or were denied armor saves was confusing because those rules weren't explained to me well. I took the book home and understood it after that.

The next day, I bought the book "How to Paint Space Marines" so that I could look at all of the existing chapters and pick out one I liked. Plus, I hadn't painted Sci-Fi before and the book was helpful.
The next day, I chose the Black Templars because they looked like bad-asses.
The next day, I ordered a Battle Force, a Black Templar upgrade box, and Assault on Black Reach. That was about 2 years ago.

Mine was many years ago at a mini-con in Japan. It was a game of Epic. I played Squats, and my two friends were Eldar and Imperial. The scenario was to wipe some orks out who had captured a city. The guy running it had a turn limit set up, where X turn a massive Chaos force showed up that was capable of wiping everything out no problem.

It was a lot of fun, and I was hooked from that point on. About 6 months later I bought a small Ork 40K army (back in the 2nd Edition days) and the rest is history.