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I began 40k when I was 13 or 14.
I did LoTR and RPGs when I was 9 or so.

I know what you mean, there was only a GW in Hammersmith when I started, maybe one or two other in the rest of the UK (Birmingham?). Suffice to say I wasn't allowed to get on the train up to London @ 11 so I would continually try to get my Dad to write cheques for me to send to GW mail order amongst others [no internet then kids ]

I was however lucky enough to witness many GW store opening up across southern England and managed to bag allot of great deals in their now defuct opening sales.

Yeah I remember going to Plymouth's and the Truro grand opening, the latter requiring a few hours on the bus from Launceston.

Well worth it with the multi-buy deals though.

Freshmen in highschool ....15.....1998! ---damn you 2nd edition blood angels staring back at me in the Games Plus store window on California ave in the Junction in West Seattle!

1998 at 23. Picked up the game to break my playstation addiction....lol. now addicted to plastic crack. My favorite toy as a kid growing up was Legos and I was a huge chess geek in school too. Add in the fact I grew up to Star Wars, Star Trek, and read all the Dune books... Yeah never saw this coming. 12 years later and I just insured my hobby collection for 10k.

I started around my 10th birthday with Blood Bowl in 1988.

I started 40k when I was in middle school, with 3rd edition orks.

I started at 13.

Heroics & Ros 1/300 WW2 gaming with Wargames Research Group rules. All played on terrain made from ceiling tiles!

Then Kingmaker, 1829, early D&D, Traveller, RuneQuest, Judge Dread RPG.

I remember going to GW's first little store on some little offshoot of the District Line to buy one of their games. Can't remember what it was called, but it was basically Risk with Nuclear Weapons. They had Rogue Trader which I completely ignored.

Finally started with 40K second edition.

Wish I still had the Judge Dread miniatures - they were fantastic.

1995, so around 10 or 11. Though I'd been buying the models since around 90-91.

Like most I started gaming by playing Magic: The Gathering. Then a few people starting painting these Eldar Striking Scorpion models and I took interest and from that point I started collecting a marine army. I was in the 7th grade so this would be back in 96ish? I still game but not as much as I used to. I'm playing possibly 2 - 3 tournaments per quarter.

Started miniatures gaming in 1972 with "Rules for Wargaming" by Arthur Taylor. I was 18.

14 i was fourteen, when my mate said '' hey lets do greenskins, you do night goblins and i'll or orcs''

he lost his orcs i think a couple of years later, night goblins still on display.

i've been playing longer then i have known my wife - o yeah she knows it

My first real game (with written rules) came at age 28. But then again that was 1977.

Have I replied to this thread? oh well, I started when I was 11 back in the halcyon days of 1991

I was 6, and my older brother got Rogue Trader (what eventually became 40K) and needed an opponent.

Then he sold the effing thing to a friend a year later because I kept beating him. I got the original Warhammer Fantasy Battle when I was 8 or so i think (still have it) and ran Undead (back when they were just one book and the most powerful wizard in the world was Nagash the Evil Clown..)

(still have him somewhere too..)

Last summer so I was 17

11 or 12 with 15mm airfix WW2 stuff. Then a friend and I started making our own rules for it. Then 40K was released and I discovered D&D. Spent a couple of years working for GW while at uni (Luton and Oxford Street stores), and built up a huge army.

Then, got out of the hobby, moved to the US, gave away a lot of my stuff (bad bad mistake). Then had kids who decided they were into games and rediscovered the hobby with them.

Now why did I give my land raiders away again?

notprop wrote:It's funny, the majority of posters on this thread started wargaming at 14 or less. How many of us now rail against "kids" annoying them at the store or GW's targetting this age group as its primary audience?

Just sayin'.

When I started, GW didn't have ANY stores outside of the UK.
I started 40k at 18/19 - not 12 as is customary nowadays. I at least knew SOMETHING about wargaming and didn't need some beep-bip-bop vidjagame to tell me stuff that had no relation to the tabletop version.

In those days, Games store staff didn't target the munchkins. Gamers were mostly uni students or late teens (high school seniors). We knew when to stop buying stuff though, so GW switched targets to an easier, softer one. Guilty parents.

chromedog wrote:In those days, Games store staff didn't target the munchkins. Gamers were mostly uni students or late teens (high school seniors). We knew when to stop buying stuff though, so GW switched targets to an easier, softer one. Guilty parents.

By the time I was working there (early 90s) it had already turned into the day care center for kids whose parents were off to the shops (or probably down the boozer). Being the part timer, I used to teach them how to paint and the other two staff got to play games with them. The parents weren't really around to try and guilt trip into buying stuff.

chowderhead13 wrote:Ah yes, the age old question to determine rank. So Dakka, when did you become addicted to wargaming?

I was beginning to wargame at age 10, with 4th Edition WH40k.

Awesome. same here

Mageknight when I was 11-13

40k when I was 16-19 (Current)

I bought my first models of WFB when I was 14. 5th edition chaos warriors(thought they looked bad ass) and the plastic saurus basic paint starter kit.

The next week I bought the 5th edition summary book and decided on Empire. Wizards of the Coast was going out of business and had 50% off GW. Got the battalion for $45 for Christmas, and the 6th edition box set for my birthday shortly after. Here we are some 11 years later and I still have some of those paints.

I started at 18 in 2007. I definitely don't qualify as a vet.

when I was ten...so five years ago...I'm a kiddo. I know.

I was around 11 or 12 When I started - almost 20 years ago :-/

some friends got me to start warmachine with them back when i was 19ish, started branching out into a gw and odds'n'ends a few years after that, so 6 years or so i've been in the hobby now (granted, i played magic the gathering and tabletop rpgs years before that)

started age 11. I guess thats 4th ed. Been doing it for 4 years and I already have a massive stock pile of models. (parents complain about it a lot.)

I beat you all.... I started at the age of 2!!!
my dad was a 40k nut and so where all his friends.
Heck I WAS RAISED ON SPACE MARINES!!!!!!!!

I got my first RPG when I was about 10. D&D the red box set. I did a lot of RPG playing during high school and up until my mid 20s or so. D&D, Robotech, Vampire, Shadowrun, Gamma World, etc.

I started scale modeling around 12 or 13. Started with 1/48 aircraft then moved into 1/35 armor.

I started with minis when I was 15. I went over to a friends house after school one day to play some game he was all into. It was Battletech. I was pretty "meh" about it until he broke out the minis. Little stompy robots with big guns...it was all over. I was hooked on minis from that day on.

Started to play Wargaming till I was 27, first with Warmachine and later 40k in 5th edition.