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I started off by reading the Gortrek and Felix novels. That's as far as I got for years until I picked up the space wolf novel. Read through a lot of the 40 k novels and started on the DOW video games (still play Dark Crusade even now. Would be playing DOW2 but having technical issues with the stream account). From there got a few White Dwarf used magazines this summer and got really interested in the models. Finally wandered into the LGWS (Not so local. About 1 1/2 hours away) a few months ago and now have the issue of too much to but and too little money.

 EVIL INC wrote:
Thank you. I tried it before with a poll but certain people spammed it with off topic posts till it got closed.

No, you brought up a topic that was ridiculous and when people called you on it you refused to answer them.

But anyway, back OT.
I remember when I was five and my brother showed me Advanced Dungeons and dragons. A few years later, I met Battletech and just a month or two later I was introduced to Rogue Trader. I've been a nerd all my life and have been playing games for most of my memorable existence. It's a very real part of me.

The topic of what players like about 40k is definitely on topic. Anything else is not. Try to remember that in this thread, we are having a polite discussion. Dont ruin it in this thread too.

White dwarf gained them a lot of players I think back when they used to have REAL articles and allowed in content from other games such as D&D. Without those articles, I wouldnt have bought the magazine and might not have ever played the game..

In a NVIDIA pc card it was gift the Dark Crusade, i played as Tau, i loved it ,playd all DOW (Necrons,SM,IG favories).I wanted then to buy some models and betten Tau-necron ,well you see the icon
Also i started BA from a trip in UK , i went on a cetral GW stroe i saked about SM teams and betheen the Dark and blood i coosed Blood

In garrison, a bunch of guys whom I eventually became friends with were playing this tabletop game which eventually caught my eye and eventual interest. Everyone recommended me to start either necrons or eldar (they lied or forgot about chaos space Marines) as those were the two forces no one had at the time. After looking at the aesthetics of the models, I chose necrons and immediately became addicted with the underdog army they were, I love WBB and Phase Out and I loved the fluff then. And I loved both my destroyer wing army and silvertide army. Eventually i found that CSM were the army that called out to me the most, but Necrons will always keep a special place in my heart. It was a sad day when my armies went missing upon moving across the country (a little bit of fortune smiled upon me, my first model, a metal necron lord, was hidden in my laptop bag so i still have that). i will rebuild though, just not during 7th edition, nor 8th if it is anything like 7th.

Funny enough reading this entire thread, I have one man (marine?) to thank; Captain Titus.

I came into 40k through Totalbiscuit's "Space Marine" review on YouTube. If remains one of my favorite games to this day even though it has its faults ( can you say rail shooter?!). Still, Titus is awesome and his tone and badassery set the tone for 40k for me.

Space Marine was a GREAT intro to the Warhammer universe. After that it was off to the wiki (which I know is inferior) and then Lexicanum. Initially I was a fan or the Ultramarines, but at some point i heard of the sons of Vulkan. The fluff fit me so well and I had my chapter.

2.5 years later and probably a thousand bucks as well, I have my demi company of Salamanders and love the lore, however I do find their business practices questionable at best, which really is too bad.

My 40k story in a nutshell.

FM Argos

 EVIL INC wrote:
White dwarf gained them a lot of players I think back when they used to have REAL articles and allowed in content from other games such as D&D. Without those articles, I wouldnt have bought the magazine and might not have ever played the game..

Funnily enough, White Dwarf is exactly what got me into 40K, although that happened some time after they had stopped promoting other peoples' stuff.

I bought Heroquest when I was 15, but had no idea who Games Workshop were, and hadn't seen any of their other games. Several years later, I bought a White Dwarf while I was looking for a magazine on scifi/fantasy modeling. 40K looked fun, and the models looked cool, and so I wound up mail-ordering the 2nd-ed starter set to try it out.

 MWHistorian wrote:

 EVIL INC wrote:
Thank you. I tried it before with a poll but certain people spammed it with off topic posts till it got closed.

No, you brought up a topic that was ridiculous and when people called you on it you refused to answer them.

But anyway, back OT.
I remember when I was five and my brother showed me Advanced Dungeons and dragons. A few years later, I met Battletech and just a month or two later I was introduced to Rogue Trader. I've been a nerd all my life and have been playing games for most of my memorable existence. It's a very real part of me.

What got me interested was 'the profit margin of the parent company in terms of profits and longevity as a corporation' right guys?

13045273 wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:

 EVIL INC wrote:
Thank you. I tried it before with a poll but certain people spammed it with off topic posts till it got closed.

No, you brought up a topic that was ridiculous and when people called you on it you refused to answer them.

But anyway, back OT.
I remember when I was five and my brother showed me Advanced Dungeons and dragons. A few years later, I met Battletech and just a month or two later I was introduced to Rogue Trader. I've been a nerd all my life and have been playing games for most of my memorable existence. It's a very real part of me.

What got me interested was 'the profit margin of the parent company in terms of profits and longevity as a corporation' right guys?

No, but that's what kept me going. I went in for the fluff, but stayed for those beautiful financial graphs and charts.

Please try to stay on topic this time. If you have personal issues, feel free to use the PM function. Spamming threads is not polite.

 EVIL INC wrote:
Please try to stay on topic this time. If you have personal issues, feel free to use the PM function. Spamming threads is not polite.

What is wrong with you, man? You keep making these digs at people from your previously locked thread, and then when anyone comes back and explains *why* they were making these arguments, you keep shouting "stay on topic" like you're the lord of of the thread and the rules don't apply to you.

YOU stay on topic. Talk about what got you into 40k and stop making these digs and maybe, just maybe, the thread *will* run its course.

In interest of staying within the thread, I will say that the 3rd edition starter- tiny monopose Space Marines, and Orks & Gretchin (with the paper cut-out Deff Dreads) is what got me initially in 40k.

Please try to stay on topic this time. If you have personal issues, feel free to use the PM function. Spamming threads is not polite.

How many times has your application to be a moderator been rejected?

I got in through BFG. Spaceships are awesome, and giant flying cathedrals in space is pretty cool, though my first fleet was the old FW Tau stuff, which led me into buying a Tau 40k army. I then realized the error of my ways and switched to a loyal Guardsmen of the Imperium's finest.

 Blacksails wrote:

Please try to stay on topic this time. If you have personal issues, feel free to use the PM function. Spamming threads is not polite.

How many times has your application to be a moderator been rejected?

I got in through BFG. Spaceships are awesome, and giant flying cathedrals in space is pretty cool, though my first fleet was the old FW Tau stuff, which led me into buying a Tau 40k army. I then realized the error of my ways and switched to a loyal Guardsmen of the Imperium's finest.

Battle Fleet Gothic was amazing and that one hurt when it went away.

 MWHistorian wrote:

Battle Fleet Gothic was amazing and that one hurt when it went away.

Yup. Though admittedly my first game was not actually played with the BFG rules. It was another ruleset using BFG models. I did play BFG once or twice to see what it was like, but my club at the time much preferred the other system.

That being said, BFG is a solid game, especially with 2010 FAQ.

Also, anyone seen EVIL's sig? Pretty comical.

My freinds got me into LOTR. Of course no matter wich Games workshops store you walk into everything is 40k. After reading White Dwarfs and reading the BL novel: Iorn Gaurd I fell in love with 40k and the IG. So I got my first pack of gaurd last febuary.

Okay guys, let's let the mods determine what's on-topic or not, please

If you feel a post is off-topic, just hit the yellow triangle in the corner of the post, rather than posting about it in the thread. Any questions, just PM me or any other moderator. Thanks!

And now let's get back to the topic of this thread (what got you interested in 40k, or even GW games in general).

The RT Rulebook, Marines, and Orks were sitting in the half price bin, and I had just enough money to buy them.

EVIL INC wrote:I picked up a White Dwarf (they used to have D&D articles).

Really? Weird.

BlaxicanX wrote:A girl that I liked was into the 40k fluff and mentioned it frequently. She specifically was into the DoW games (2 hadn't come out yet), so I torrented them starting with vanilla DoW1 and played through to Dark Crusade.

Mine likes knitting.

BlaxicanX wrote:Funnily enough, the girl and I parted ways shortly before my first 40k match- my love for the setting outlasted my love for her, heh. Such is the life of horny teenagers.

Heh.

At least you got something lasting from it.

TheCustomLime wrote:I was browsing that infernal time sink known as TV Tropes when I found an article on 40k.

BlaxicanX wrote:I played my first match of tabletop with a friend over Vassal

That's definitely the first time I've heard either of these.

Anyways, for me, it starts with MTG. I was a young teen when MTG first got started, and I got one of the original starter boxes when they came out, as did some of my friends. I liked the game, but the problem I had was that it took virtually no time at all for game stores to figure out the magic card trade business model. This meant that instead of us making decks out of the booster packs we bought, and trading among ourselves, now people could go and buy cards to set up specific superpower combinations.

The shift from random to by-purchase meant that it didn't take long for my friends who had richer parents to basically grind me into the dust. I didn't care for the idea that who won was more determined by who had more money.

Around the same time, I had a couple of people enter the fringes of my social sphere that played 40k, and one of them somehow got me to play a game of BFG. While there, I saw some Epic models (notably the wraithlord), and one question led to another, and I was eventually informed of this game where units had points costs, and you played at a fixed-points game, virtually eliminating my problem with magic.

Not long after, inspired by the tiny wraithlord model and the fact that I was an emo teen meant that I bought my first 40k model: an eldar vyper. The rest is history.

Of course, looking back on it all these years later, 40k has a lot more in common with MTG than I would have originally suspected. I guess it makes sense, given that I liked one, that I'd like the other.

And I still stand by my thesis. 40k changes over time, but not nearly as much as magic, and 40k's power curve is much more bell-shaped, compared to MTG's more exponent curve. In 40k it's possible to make bad lists, but if you have a reasonably balanced collection of models, you'll always be able to make something that's relatively good enough. Space marines have been space marines, and guardsmen have been guardsmen for a very long time now, with minimal change, and I've never, ever felt that I need to get the next new hot thing in 40k to be able to stand a serious chance at doing something in a game.

Unlike magic, where I still see that same obnoxious behavior pattern from years ago where new stuff comes out, and you've got to completely buy a new deck, and the person willing to invest huge wads of cash over time is who rubs everyone else's face in it.

I got into 40k by walking into a random store (GW) in the mall when killing time before a movie.

The models (especially the Stompa, LRC and AoBR Captain) caught my eye, and I returned after the movie to try out both 40k and Fantasy.

Picked up AoBR a few days later, and that was what got me interested in actually making models and playing 40k.

It took a long time after that for me to realize that DoW II was a 40k game.
That was my introduction to the universe, yet I had no idea that it was related until I had been playing for nearly a year.

 dakkajet wrote:
My friends got me into LOTR. Of course no matter which Games Workshop store you walk into everything is 40k. After reading White Dwarfs and reading the BL novel: Iron Guard I fell in love with 40k and the IG. So I got my first pack of guard last February.

Everything at my local GW is not 40k, as most of the people are really into Fantasy currently.

 Accolade wrote:
In interest of staying within the thread, I will say that the 3rd edition starter- tiny monopose Space Marines, and Orks & Gretchin (with the paper cut-out Deff Dreads) is what got me initially in 40k.

That's the 2nd ed starter. 3rd ed was the introduction of the multi-part marine kit and Dark Eldar.

My first encounter was walking past an FLGS (Avalon when it was at Paleet in Oslo) and seeing some skeletons with spears, which piqued my curiosity. Being 7 I couldn't get back by myself (it turned out to be an 8 minute metro journey downtown), and I couldn't convince my mum and dad to go in.

A year later I played Warhammer Quest with a friend and his big brother and read Lord of the Rings, which put me me firmly on the road. He was also able to show me the way to the shop and that was pretty much it. I played mostly only Fantasy back then, and amassed about 4k points of High Elves, 1k of Vampire Counts when they first came out, and a squad of SMs, a landspeeder and three Termies (All Sons of Medusa) before packing it in due to other interests, like sports, girlfriends etc, took over. The money cost was actually one of the reasons back then. I eventually came back to play a bit of DoW I, then I came back this spring after reading up on 40k fluff for some D&D inspiration.

My experience with the novels seems entirely different from the rest here though. I thought, think, and thunk they were mostly utter garbage with the odd okay book thrown in, and turned me off more than intrigued me.

 insaniak wrote:

 Accolade wrote:
In interest of staying within the thread, I will say that the 3rd edition starter- tiny monopose Space Marines, and Orks & Gretchin (with the paper cut-out Deff Dreads) is what got me initially in 40k.

That's the 2nd ed starter. 3rd ed was the introduction of the multi-part marine kit and Dark Eldar.

Oh God, then I'm older than I realized!

I recall that I was first inspired by the 2nd edition starter box, but didn't get into the game at that point because funding was not something I had access to (too young, and in an area where 40k was not big yet). I distinctly remember picking up the 3rd edition 40k rulebook at the GW store in Concord Mills, NC, and being amazed and inspired by the book, which got me into the game much more.

I came home on day from a trip with my mom and my dad had the starter set of Necromunda sitting out on the kitchen table and he was painting up the Orlock and Goliath gangers. Then he old me we were entering a league together. One of the happiest moments of my childhood haha.

Then of course one thing led to another and on my 13th birthday I bought my first Tactical squad for $25.

I found a copy of Rogue Trader and a box of plastic beakies shrunk wrapped together at a local bookstore back in 89 or 90.

I started with Chainmail (by Gary Gygax!) and miniatures, I think by Ral Partha. My first models were Testors enamels painted with a nylon brush.

I still have the original rulebook, which looks like it came out of a typewriter and bound with springy plastic on the edge, and my original miniatures, which look like blobs of silver and pink paint on fat knights with bodies that are too short.

When the store that I bought Advanced Dungeons and Dragons from got 40k, it was love at first sight. I believe that I got into 40k around the time of falling out of love with 2nd Edition AD&D. Back then they were starting to go from one book (at least for players) to adding supplemental books for each major class... which is eerily similar to 40k (add codices for each faction).


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 Radiation wrote:
I found a copy of Rogue Trader and a box of plastic beakies shrunk wrapped together at a local bookstore back in 89 or 90.

These were the best. I still have a few beakies unbuilt; I wish I had an original box still

<3 Rogue Trader!

My Mum get me into DnD back in '85. That got me painting Citadel miniatures, and reading WD.
A few months before the RT book dropped, there were teasers of the new figures, and hints about a new game. I grabbed the 40k book as soon as I could.
Every time I had a couple of pounds spare, I bought a 40k blister pack, and saved up for the box of 30 beakies.
That lasted until I went off to university back in '93, and I sold it all for peanuts.

Fast forward through the bleak DoW days, making ends meet with a wife and step-daughter.
A divorce and a huge payrise later, I got back into 40k in '10. It was something to get me off the computer games, and Hobbycraft had a GW stand. It was a close thing, as I'd have been making rugs if that wasn't there

When I was 14 years old (which was holy crap eight years ago now) I picked up a copy of gameinformer or some other video game magazine and I saw an advertisement for Dawn of War Dark Crusade. I was like "WHOOOAAAAA THAT LOOKS SO COOL" I was especially infatuated with the Tau. When it came out I begged my mom to buy it for me and gave her the money (since it was an M rated game). Our home computer could barely play it but man that game was jaw dropping when I saw it for the first time.

I started to read about the game more and more, and ended up finding myself on the GW website. I saw the models and I was like "hmmm.. I wonder" and then I saw the prices and I was like "WHAT!? NO WAY". I always kept 40k and the models themselves in the back of my mind until around 2012.

Right around the time that 6th edition came out a new GW store opened up near me, myself and a couple of friends who I would play DoW with that I had known for a good long time ended up all getting into the game together. My first kit was 5 snap together IG and a Chimera (by that time I still liked Tau but liked IG even more). Good times. I still to this day play DoW 1. DoW 2 sucked IMO haha.

I was working my first full time job (customer service for one of Britain's biggest car insurance firms), I had been on a new team there for a while and the work was really getting me down so one day I asked one of my co workers if he wanted to pop in to GW with me to buy a book (I hadn't been in one for ten years, never played but enjoyed Dawn of War and had been reading 40k fiction for a while). I went in and looked around and left.

The next week the two of us went again and I ended up in a starter game of black reach with one of the employees and loved it. I'd been hung up on wondering if it was too nerdy and whether my friends would laugh, but I was so upset from work I stopped. caring about that and bought black reach and a SW battleground the next day.

I caught some flak from a colleague about it but who cares? A few months later I bought Black Reach for my brother and I've been playing since, although I've changed army.

When I was a kid I built a bunch of WWII models and then stopped through college. The Tamiya line re-sparked my interest when I was in my mid-twenties and I ended up with 17 cardboard boxes of tanks and infantry - British, American, German and some Japanese. But no game. I would create battles on the family room floor by myself and photograph them (Photography major in college). Then quit for 25 years. Played Tactics Two and some civil war games on those hex sheets with a friend in my thirties on occasion, but that was with little cardboard squares for units. This was all in Northern California (SF).
When I was 54 in 2002, I took my son to a FLGS at the mall to get Pokemon cards and they were demo-ing 40K. We were both fascinated (my son had seen my boxes of WWII models and slowly destroyed most of them when I would give him some to play with), and we both got some models - he IG and I got into Dark Angels. This was in Southern California. We moved to Ohio in 2003 and he faded on the game in high school, but I got into it. After a year in Ohio, I got hired to run a game night for 40K at the FLGS one night a week - and a fat discount. Had 27 kids show up one night - that was a challenge getting game tables together - ended up using wooden shelving - Planet Wood... Built an Ork army, then Necrons, then Eldar, then split off some of my Dark Angels and converted them to Blood Angels, adding Blood Angel kits. Then built a Dark Eldar army when they upgraded them a few years back. And now I'm building an IG army from some units my son abandoned. My son got into Flames of War during college for a year or two, but the models were too small for me. I obviously left my FLGS paycheck in their register...
Love the game, the fluff, have read 20-30 of the BL novels and have another ten waiting on the shelf, but particularly dig the figures and painting them. My gaming has dropped off as life intrudes and trying to keep up with the rules changes is a bitch. Have done a bunch of conversions and built game terrain boards when I was running the game nights (the store closed a couple of years ago). GW keeps putting out these very cool models, so hard for me to give it up.
The codex changes don't bother me when they drop characters as I just use their stats from the previous codex - it's a free form game for me and I don't play too many tournaments where that would matter. I have the Cyphur model, so my Dark Angels can become the Fallen whenever I put him on the board and I'm using the stats for him from some codex from way-back-when. I'll use the current rulebook, but as for the armies, if it was in any of that army's codex, I'll use it if the unit isn't in the newest codex.
If you really look at 40K, it is an awesome hobby with great models, a game that is pretty dynamic, and there is an international community (some of whom gather on this website). Some of the battle reports have excellent photographs of well-painted armies fighting on excellent terrain. Love it. So when I'm not playing in my classic rock band, I am still playing with toy soldiers into my 60's and having a ball. And its a brotherhood of geeks. Now with allies, I can mix and match armies on the game boards. It's all good.

I'd been playing D&D for years, and had just recently introduced my group to Battletech. Some time later, one of my players brought Rogue Trader and two boxes of plastic marines. We passed the book between us while putting together the marines and played the Farm scenario in the back (with some of the marines assuming the role of the orcs for the battle).

My friends played far more than I did as I was a D&D junkie back then (still am). As a group, we bought the 2E box, and I know I bought my own 3E box, but somewhere along the way my space marines got so badly whipped by chaos (I seem to recall a sorcerer turning half my marines into pink horrors and a chaos lord on a juggernaut running over the hapless remnants who had no weapons capable of stopping him) I quit the game.

I still collected the models, but didn't play - picked up an Eldar army for my broke brother to play in the 90's, picked up a Tau army when they were first released (and the only army I have fully painted). Didn't really get back into the game until the revised Necrons were released and my eldest son started expressing interest after having played Dawn of War.

Unfortunately for me, he LOVES playing chaos. So, I've been determined to kick his butt by assembling a Grey Knight force...though my Tau are as of yet undefeated against him (my 20-year old marines however, are 0 for 3 and my IG are 1 and 1)