First gaming memories. What got you into the hobby.

[edmorbius]

I was introduced to wargaming by the assistant librarian when I was in 7th grade circa 1980.  There was a small group of us who would meet after school and we would play a Lord of the Rings game but I do not recall the ruleset.  We also played a sci fi game that was called Starguard.  Later it was Ogre, GEV, Car Wars etc...Such great memories from those days.  From there we started playing Squad Leader and some other Avalon Hill games.  Also, a game called Mig Killers...dabbled a bit in Microarmour...Then came roleplaying games such as D&D, Top Secret, and Traveller.  Around '83 I went to Gencon and played a lot of D&D.  Throughout high school it was mostly RPGs but then computers and computer games came along which quickly eclipsed everything else.  Once I went off to college I left it all behind me! 

Fast forward almost 30 years and I found myself thinking of those days again.  There is a game store that is near my house that I had driven by many times(um, like for 4 years) but had never gone into...so I popped in one day and WHAM its been a great 3 years of gaming and new friends!  I've been back into playing some RPGs and miniature games like Warmachine, Saga, and FOW...I've also been trying out some new ones like Bolt Action and Infinity.

Also started playing boardgames and about a year ago a few of us started a little game company making boardgames which has also been great fun! 

[dadlamassu]

Sometime around 1957 or 58 when I was 5 or 6 I was given a superb wooden fort that my father had made.  It was garrisoned by Timpo, Crescent and Britains soldiers and besieged a similar force.  The first "wargames" were with my father involved shooting matchsticks and rolling glass marbles at carefully set out armies with terrain made from books covered by a cloth and building block houses, farms and walls.   Then came Airfix and the rest is history.  

So it was Dad who encouraged model making, wargaming, research and organising armies of little men.

[Patrice]

Fascinating thread! At first I tried to ignore it, but I just can't when I read so many other people experiences from so many places in the world.

I played with toy soldiers when I was a young child.

When I was 9-10 (?) years old, some boxes of Airfix miniatures began to appear in toy shops in France. It was a new thing, so many little soldiers, and very small, for a cheap price. My first Airfix box was the US Cavalry. The second (or the third?) box I had was the American native Indians.

My grandmother wanted to game with me, she took the Indians. I charged with the US Cavalry... we didn't know that any wargame rules could exist, we just played with our feelings.

If you remember the Airfix Indians, a few of them are crawling on the ground with a knife in their hand. One of my US cavalrymen came near one of these ...and something dreadful happened!

My dear grandmother said that her Indian cuts the tendons of the horse leg with his knife!! Aaargh!!!

I remember I was quite shocked (how can you do this to a horse?!) My grandmother was a very kind and loving woman and she would not have done any harm to an animal, I think she just wanted to be educational. Her father was a harbour officer in Tanger in the early 20th century (Morocco was then a French protectorate) and she had probably seen there in her early years a few things not available to other grandmothers of her age.

A few years later, when I was a young teenager in the 1970s, I went to England for a language course program. And there, in a bookshop I found a small green booklet (which is probably still somewhere in my house but I can't find it) explaining an uncredible thing: how to play miniature battles with toy soldiers.

The shock was not the booklet itself; it is that it was displayed in a bookshelf between serious adult activities as gardening and fishing! This was absolutely incredible for a Frenchman then. When I saw it I just couldn't believe it. I still remember this shelf.

I became an addict of Airfix Magazine, and my English teachers at school were astonished that I knew a very precise English vocabulary that they were certainly not teaching, including "machine gun" and (panzer tank) "exhaust pipes", although I had (and still have) a very bad accent (unfortunately, English accent courses were not included in Airfix Magazine).

Later, in the early 1980s, AD&D arrived in France. Then I really began to lose my sanity.

[shelfunit]

For miniature gaming, along with many others, Heroquest, then via the leaflet in the box, White Dwarf, then the joy that was Games & Puzzles in Norwich (prior to the now standard GW shop opens up, ooops, everything for the LGS is delayed/not available, LGS closes down) and all the classic 3rd ed Warhammer books & era games. For the genre though it was a couple of years earlier with choose your own adventure books, a mixture of the Fighting Fantasy & Lone Wolf with the classic Gary Chalk art. Great memories.

[Cubs]

Airfix toy soldiers in the 1970's, playing with my brothers. Then in the 1980's I started to have something like 'proper' wargames, with rules and stuff with them (and also my Playmobil guys).

Later on came the Citadel metals. My middle brother had dwarves so I (of course) had to have orcs. Sometimes my brother and I would take over the garage with a huge piece of chipboard and have games that might last for days, with just about all our models on the table.

[Tom Reed]

I always played with toy soldiers. Started with the Airfix plastics, then with Tamiya WWII models and soldiers. My folks bought me the Panzerblitz game from sears for Christmas. Then one day I wandered into the local mall and there was a table set up with hundreds of civil war soldiers in the lobby. It was a war gaming convention. The guy running the game, Greg Novak, invited me to the next club meeting, and when I showed up I was given command of a brigade of Union troops that were on a hilltop, surrounded by the enemy. I've been hooked ever since.

[Vladimir Raukov]

Well let's see, my dad was into star wars, my mum was into star trek and used to play DnD. They also played a buttload of pong (or pac man, I forget) on their honeymoon, so it's a wonder I didn't come out in 8-bit. I remember going to a hobby shop in the city so that dad could buy things and stuff, but I mostly played with the interactive train set they had set up there. My favorite button was the one for the tiny amusement park, but I digress.

My dad and I used to build lego nearly every weekend and he even helped me build a tiny park for a school project in year 2. Actually, he pretty much did the whole thing. It was still awesome though and I still have it! Makes for a good drying area. Eventually, I got into building robots and such. The enthusiasm died down for me when my dad died. I was nine, but I didn't throw out any of his modelling stuff. That turned out to be a good thing, because when I was in year 7 a friend of mine took me to GW miranda for some kind of demo run by The Fat Bloke. I didn't care much for the game they were playing (pretty sure it was 40k) but the models sure looked cool! I also used my dad's old gear (including plastic glue which was still good) and that helped me feel connected to him in a way.

Being a somewhat fiscally aware 13 year old (things cost money-who'da thunk it?) I looked around the shop for ways to get into the hobby and not spend a lot of money. I ended up choosing lizardmen for my starting army, since they were in the starter box at the time and the paint set. Thus, I had the rules and a bunch of models. I didn't end up playing much (but I loved it when I did) but that was the start of my hobby. I put down the brushes once or twice since then, but now I'm back with a bunch of other hobbying friends and I haven't looked back since. 

[Harry Faversham]

Dear, The-closet-gamer...
born in Sheffield same as you matey. Started wargaming in the sixties (after stealing 'Battle- Practical Wargaming' from the skool library) with Airfix warriors bought from Castle market by mi' Nan for 1/6d. When I was old enough to earn, my first purchase, was the gubbins to make a 6X6 foot sandtable in mine and our kid's attic wargames room... best wargiming I've ever had, but messy as f*!k. About half an hour ago I gloss varnished and re-based some Airfix British Hussars, bought from Marcway Models the year they were issued. We're using 'em with the 'one hour' wargame rues in our next game... seems kind of right fielding true Veterans, in every sense, using a set of rules harking back to the simplest times of yesteryear!
Best regards,
Harry.

[Sparrow]

For me it was the book "Wargaming" by David Nash (?) purchased in the Luton Co Op in 1976 and a lot of boxes of Airfix ACW - I was hooked!

[cgh]

Ooh where to begin?

Arab-Israeli wars board game with my dad, Play mobile stuff (my Gran basically was very high in RS McColls back then so I got a lot of ex window display stuff not available or for sale to the public) which I shot at with my brothers Britain's shell firing cannon.

Then came Operation Warboard by Gavin Lyall from my local library and I was hooked...

Then high school and the wargames club, so D&D or Runequest, Star fleet Battles and so many others.  40k at university then it all stopped dead.  Life was just busy.  Then a few years ago my eldest dipped in (and out of) 40k and I discovered Angus Konstam's Edinburgh Wargames website and devoured it.  It took another couple of years before I went to the club but now its my main hobby. 

[eek]

Like most, my start came from building Airfix with my dad (who also flew RC airplanes), although having played with plastic army men probably also primed me for wargaming. I'd heard mentions of this "Warhammer" thing in passing from a couple of primary school friends but it wasn't until high school that I finally encountered it. I visited my best friend's house and his brother was putting together a Leman Russ tank, and I helped my friend paint some Night Lords. They gave me a Space Marine. Soon after, I rushed out for my first white dwarf and my first boxed set, which was that old box with the 5 space marines and a bike vs 5 orks, 5 gretchin and a bike.

[Anna Elizabeth]

I always had plastic Army Men, and my older brother always built model kits of cars, planes SF, and military, so I copied him. I loved my Star Wars and GI Joe toys as much as Barbie - I still have my Lady Jaye and Cover Girl from the 80s! - and when I saw Battletech in a comic book store, I suddenly knew I didn't have to stop playing with toy soldiers. I recognized the mecha from "Robotech" on the covers, but what sold me was "Tales of the Black Widow Company". A badass hottie girl mech pilot? Sign Anna up! XD

I didn't get into historicals 'til later, my big start of Minis gaming was Battletech and 2nd Edition 40K. My second game of 40K, we used the 'Black Codex' from the box, and all the minis we had. My brother had Eldar allied with Marines, he'd thought he had me when the Avatar closed on my Captain - until my brand-new Deathwing Terminators teleported in behind him! Perfect placement, 3 Sustained fire dice from the Assault Cannon, and he conceded. XD

My first wargame victory.

[Onebigriver]

A randomly bought issue of White Dwarf in May 1990 got me interested, then a neighbour got Heroquest as a birthday present in November of that year. A trip to GW Manchester shortly after that and the rest is history...

[gustav]

hmmm
Loads of Airfix, particulary remember the WW2 1/32 as a kid, still remember the grey plastic Tiger and Panthers plus the Atlantic Wall I had at about 9-11.
Then Atlantic Romans, Egyptians etc plus WRG Ancients Sixth. Still have that.  Plus a copy of DBM never opened, scarred for life by ed.6
Still can't find a set of rules I really like.  Need to be hyper realistic but on the back of a postcard, with no charts or modifiers .....   

[jp1885]

Let's see.... (casts mind back to the dim and distant past...)
Dr. Who, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica and the like entering my conciousness...
Playing with plastic toy soldiers as a kid and discovering Airfix model kits...
Action Man, He-Man, Star Wars figures...
Fighting Fantasy gamebooks and the myriad of imitators (Grailquest being my favorite)...
Discovering something called Dungeons & Dragons - not really knowing what it was all about...
Finding D&D action figures in the local, newly-opened Tescos...
Seeing smaller, non-pose-able miniatures advertised on the packaging of said figures...
Buying/swapping a handful of old Citadel miniatures with my mates at school...
Getting into Citadel and Warhammer - poring through copies of White Dwarf...
Buying minis and occasional painting them...
Bloodbowl!
That day when mum couldn't find the latest WD at the newsagent and buying me a copy of another wargaming magazine instead...
That magazine opening my eyes to the fact that there were other miniature manufacturers and games out there...
The same magazine, with lovely photos and articles on historical wargaming...
Getting a job and disposable income...
Finding a local wargames club and actually, after all those years, actually getting to play!