OH THE HUMANITY: Your First Miniatures
Today we face our inner Daemons and share our stories of our first tabletop games and miniatures. Don’t be shy.
Maybe this post is just a sort of cleansing group therapy, but let’s get back to out gaming roots and check out some awesome and formative minis and games.
Ral Partha Guardian Dragon 1980s
GW Lord of Change 2017 – Miniatures have come a long way…
I’ve recently been re-organizing the BoLS archives and came across a box containing some long lost minis including the first ones I ever painted. I thought that with all the comments these days about how amazing the state of modern miniature design and the insane level of painting the best of can achieve, you should all see how I started out. Now be warned… this stuff is circa 1987… Behold, my first foray into GW minis and games.
Way back in the day I walked into my local FLGS and flipped through their latest offering. A tabletop wargame that used miniatures (WOW, not chits, but actual figures) for massive fantasy battles. At that time I had played stuff like the AD&D Battle System, which was not exactly what I was looking for:
Charts…
Chits…
So many chits…
This new game was from some company I’d never heard of called Games Something… and it was called Warhammer 3rd Edition.
I picked up the book, a box of fantasy minis that I split with a friend and I was off. Check out my awesome junior-high era totally badass Dark Elves. While I have no explanation for my odd decision of equipping each one with a different weapon, I believe you will agree with my adolescent instincts that a Dark Elf holding a stick of dynamite is not to trifled with!
I still remember working all summer long painting up my first unit of 30 WFB minis only to have a horrific epiphany 5 minutes into my first game that I was going to have to do it all again many times over to have a viable army *shudder*
Screw that noise…
Luckily my FLGS had a solution. That same UK company had just come out with a NEW game – and it used minis – and it was SCI FI!!! Best of all, it used only a handful of minis to play. It was called Rogue Trader. I picked it up and never looked back:
I picked up a box of RTB-01s and BEHOLD! This is my first 40k mini ever, a Blood Angel from the RTB-1 plastic boxes set. Back then it was 30 marines for $30!!! I believe he has a black arm and helmet because according to some ancient White Dwarf that indicated the marine was an aspirant to the Reclusiam, and had taken the first steps on the path of the Chaplain. I did it because a black arm meant less line work and highlighting!
And there you have it. The rest as they say is history. That’s me – now your turn.
~We want to hear stories AND SEE PICS of your first minis in the comments. Don’t be shy! I know you all have cell-phone cameras on you right now.
