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Good Evening, Ladies and Gentlemen

I have just finished another one of my weekly forum browsings. Yes, I am into tomb-raiding threads. The latest one was a thread on the study of the age of most if not all dakka users.
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/227881.page
This is indeed an interesting thread and study, including the picture of Chris Hansen.
Many wargamers I see fit around the ages of the early twenties, and slowly the numbers slowly decline from there up to forty or so. The ages of many wargamers under twenty start from age 11 and climb very steeply from there. This is only my view on wargamers I have seen and known. I would very much like for everyone to share theirs.

I haven't heard of Warhammer nor Games Workshop until high school, and even then, it was only a name. Then a friend introduced me to the Dawn of War series and I grew all the more curious from there. At that age, I was about 17. I visited my first GW a few months later and started the hobby from there. At the time, I didn't have a girlfriend, wasn't looking for one, due to my family being very conservative of dating, which of course put me off of it. I met my current girlfriend sometime before all this happened however, as a fellow student and friend. I asked her out for the senior prom and we got serious from there. So it was at seventeen that I began the hobby and eighteen that I started dating. I am nineteen now, still a student, and the hobby is becoming all the more stronger for me since.

My part in such a study is contrary to what the graph by legoburner shows. But I'm very curious, what part do you play in the study? At what age did you hear about the game/hobby? When did you start the hobby? What parts of your life affected it? Did education and work related stress bring you back into it? Have you given up the game to go dating/partying/studying/working? Let me and everyone else curious about this know please.

I started wargaming when I was 5 or 6, playing mostly ancients with my dad. It was whatever version of DBA was current in the early nineties. I kept doing plenty until I was about 11 or so, then I stopped for a year or two. A little before highschool I got back into wargaming with a homebrew system, then 40k proper when I was 15. It's just been growing from there and now it's really my main hobby. I find painting more relaxing than anything else I can think of, and more productive than playing videogames, which I still play. The social aspect is more social than playing online with people, and I get to make new friends. I'm 20 and I can't see it petering out anytime soon, even if I take a month off from painting here and there.

I started wargaming when I was 13, but I first heard about when I read a BL book when I was 12.

I started when I was 13 when some friends introduced me to 40K. This was right around the release of 3rd edition. May have changed systems, but I've been in the hobby (note the lowercase "h") ever since.

Oh and while we're on this subject, what is everyone's major goal for the hobby? Mines is to collect every army there is up to 20000 points for each,(5000 for each space marine chapter and traitor legion) all painted. Probably not gonna happen, and even if it did, I'll probably have gray hair by then....or go bald. Currently, i have 3000 points Dark Angels 1000 Imperial Guard and 400 Space Wolves. So I can't say I'm even 1% complete on my goal yet, but it certainly encourages me to try all the more harder.

I'd like to have at least 2 fully painted, average sized forces for the games I play.

So right now that'd be 50 Points of Cygnar, 50 points of a second Warmahordes faction (probably Everblight). Not sure what point value to aim for in Dystopian Wars. 1500, I suppose, of Prussians and Antarctica.

Oh. And a 50 point force for a second warcaster for each faction. So I guess right now the goal is 100 points for two Warmahordes factions.

We'll see where it goes from there. Baby steps.

I was 7.

LumenPraebeo wrote:Oh and while we're on this subject, what is everyone's major goal for the hobby? Mines is to collect every army there is up to 20000 points for each,(5000 for each space marine chapter and traitor legion) all painted. Probably not gonna happen, and even if it did, I'll probably have gray hair by then....or go bald. Currently, i have 3000 points Dark Angels 1000 Imperial Guard and 400 Space Wolves. So I can't say I'm even 1% complete on my goal yet, but it certainly encourages me to try all the more harder.

My friends and I started in 1990.

Major goal? I enjoy painting. Runner up: chase all of the bads out of the hobby.

My major goal is just to paint everything I've got and eventually have a company of Crimson Fists. Beyond that I don't know just yet; I don't see myself ending this hobby.

I started at age 12 during the Rogue Trader days, back in 1988. My interest in the hobby has waxed and waned over the years, first when I went to college and couldn't bring any armies with me and again when I moved cross country and had to unload most of my stuff. I never lost interest in the universe and the lore, just the minis and the tabletop battles. Today I'm more into the RPGs and BL books than the minis, although I do have 3 armies. It's more about the fantastic setting the game has than the game itself now.

My goal for the hobby is to have an entire room of my house transformed into the psy-warded vault of a certain Inquisitor, filled wtih life sized replica weapons, armor, and other assorted items deemed too dangerous to allow within the Imperium but too valuable to destroy. I've had my fun with miniature 40k stuff, now I want the real thing

I started when I was 15 just as WFB 6th edition was launched.

My major goal is to finish painting an army and not sell it!

I started @ 27, about 3 months ago.. so yeah im a newbie

I started at age 10, in 2006.

15, in 2007. Space Marines, after reading Heinlein's Starship Troopers for the second time.

At the moment, my goals are to get my Marines sold, have my Brit Rifles painted by next Sunday, and eventually have enough models to start playing Hail Caesar in 28mm. But the hobby will probably be going on hold come September, when I get back to college.

10/11 years old. First army was necrons, aah the good old days....

I started around age 13, now age 29.

Wow, has it been that long already?

I started in 2001 when I bought the 40K 3rd edition box, had a few years off for university around 2005-9 and started up again after that. I'm now 24.

I starting gaming (RPGs & Board Games) when I was 16. I was using Games Workshop then but for buying RPGs like WFRP, Star Wars and Shadowrun (yes, GW did used to sell these).

I didn't start Wargaming (Warhammer 40K) until last year when I was 38.

I started when I was 7ish with space crusade then went onto space marine and 2nd Edition 40k stopped when I was at college but painted some 54mm inquisitor models. Started up after playing dow2 with my bro inlaw managed to drag my best mate back too. Trying to get my wife involved she loves fantasy mmos so shouldn't be too hard.

Started when I was nine, drawn in by the box art for the Zombie Regiment;



I had always wanted to be a mortician, and drive a hearse as I was obsessed with the dead and undead since the 2nd grade.

I started wargaming when I was 10 or 9, Don't remeber now. I was introduced by dawn of war.

I started just this year so I am kinda of a newb. I am 14. I was introduced by a friend. But, before I even had any miniatures I knew more about the hobby than him. He started this year too and he is 15 and he was introduced through a friend and through dawn of war II.

I started with D&D at the age of 12, and I ended up getting White Dwarf for the RPG articles.
Previews of 40k RT just leapt off the pages though, and I got it as soon as it came out.

I started when I was 22 after a bad breakup.

Wow, so a lot of you started at a young age, and most of you are still at a young age. I can understand more clearly why GW markets to younger audiences now. Although for a hobby for young kids, it is awfully expensive, heck for someone older like me, it's still expensive, and the rules are a bit complex compared to younger audiences too, although I guess after a few games, its very easy to understand

I was introduced to the hobby in 1994 by a friend who played fantasy and gave me some skeleton warriors because they looked cool and he had heaps! I then found out they were part of a game and started looking into it, I discovered my best mate also was into this game but he had space men! thinking the space men (marines) were cooler i sat down and painted a couple up and looked hungrily through the books he had and the awesome painting on the backs of the boxes! I'm now turning 31 and my hobby is the strongest part of my persona, i love the escapism it brings and I don't think I shall leave the painting and modeling ever again!

Nerdfest09

Let's see for me it was 1995 ... so I was ... 11 and at this point I play more for fun and just to be playing than winning. However my new FLGS is stocked with more competitive players so I am changing to their ways slowly.

My god I feel very very old! Twas in the dark ages, 1983 to be precise ( or not, memory fades with age)and I first perused White Dwarf 53.Many miniature purchasings ensued and I've not stopped! As long as I have the urge to collect I will. Mayhaps not very much GW though...
My wish is to see Mantic have great success with Warpath and herald in a new golden age of collecting/sci/fi gaming. So there.

I started gaming at the ripe and early age of 8 (in 1998) with DnD. I wasn't introduced formally to 40K until 2004, and start playing in 2005. Took a break for a a year or so during school, but quickly got back into it with much more vigor! And I've been going for a few years strong since.

My major goal is currently to win a tournament and do it with a fully painted army!

I started gaming at about age 9 or 10 with D&D. From there, I progressed to a homebrew game based on the movie Aliens, and then 40K in 2008 at 18. I'm now 21 and own several 1850+ armies for 40K, one Fantasy army, and am looking into Malifaux, along with Flames of War. I love this hobby and can't see myself quitting anytime soon.