First gaming memories. What got you into the hobby.

[freewargamesrules]

Airfix 1/72 plastic infantry and then in the late 70's they released the Airfix wargames books which I bought in WH Smith and been hooked ever since.

[ErikB]

I loved the original Star Trek movies and anything that was remotely aviation related.

I must have built a model of every airplane that ever flew.  It was also my escape when my parents were being... difficult.

I collected and painted as many Star Fleet Battles minis as I could.  When I saw those FASA Star Trek ships I couldn't resist.  My favorite was the Excelsior mini.  I kept that for many years.  There were also Combots: http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/4340/combots

There was a guy named Lee Erickson who either worked at or was associated with a store called Games and Things at the Stanford mall.  He gave me a big box of scraps and encouraged me when I was about 8, kinda like starting a kid out on drugs... 

Later, I lost interest in minis and put all my effort into sports, wrestling, water polo, etc.

Many years later, in grad school, one of my roommates showed me the Space Marines at a local gaming shop.  I got a pack and made them for him.  Then the Tau came out and I fell in love.  The other roommate loved the Kroot so I made some for him.  It was fun, drinking beer, hanging out, I was making something (I have very restless hands), we were cracking jokes in Norwegian, German, English, and general nonsense.

Let it go for a while and then worked a short gig testing video game software (more technical and less glamorous than it sounds).  The guy sitting next to me is a gamer and introduced me a store called Games Kastle in Santa Clara, CA.  I have spent far more money at that store than I ever earned at that company....

[shandy]

I never was much of a modeler, too sloppy and too little patience (unfortunately, nothing changed). I think I was drawn into wargaming more from the RPG side, I discovered it at the same time I discovered D&D (mid- to late 80s). After a false start (got a book by Featherstone at a local bookstore but couldn't convince anyone to play) I got the Adeptus Titanicus and Space Marines boxes for Christmas (pre-epic 6mm GW). Branched out into historicals (7YW). The last war-game I bought for a while was Man O'War. I stopped war-gaming and RPGs when I went to university and restarted wargaming (but not RPGs, apart from occasional GMing for my nephew) about two years ago - happy as a clam!

[Commander Carnage]

I grew up in the gaming wasteland that is a rural Midwest America. Most people there did not possess an imagination. They were good people but just have different interests. One of my brothers and I made board games out of paper and cardboard that depicted things like Star Trek or Star Wars. Eventually I found play by mail games through comic book adds in the late 70s early 80s. My first really enjoyable gaming experience was playing Hyborian War through play by mail. In junior high a friend introduced me to D&D. I had a brother in college at the time. When I visited him he would take me to the local game shop which was the original Hobby town. There I found miniatures and other games. We also discovered the Milton Bradley line of games. We played axis and Allies, fortress America and broadsides. When Star Trek two came out we started playing the old FASA game and loved it. We painted minis for our role-playing games but I didn't get introduced to miniature games until I was in college. Off and on I have been distracted by things like girls sports and such but I always come back to gaming as my preferred hobby.

[Constable Bertrand]

For me it started with my grandad painting some 1/72 and 1/48 airplanes - and turning them into a mobile for me.

I turned my hand to plastic army men and LEGO medieval toys as a boy, but around 8 I started to try my hand at model kits. I was no where near the standard of my pop. But slapped on the glue and stuck the bits together on every cheap kit my mum brought home from the supermarket. But I loved it - the box art was always so exciting.

I then started to notice the rows and rows of glossy little metal army figures on weekend trips to antique shows, and little boutique shops; "The Tin Soldier"  . Poking at them in their glass display cupboards, one time I was gifted a smart Napolionic figure in blue coat. As odd gifts I got a few 25mm fantasy figures, and even a cast your own 15mm Napoleonic "Red Coats" set.

Then in 97-98 I shared the GW Bretonnian and Lizardmen starter set with my brother for christmas.
I didn't quite get my head around the special rules, tables and dice, so I cheated. It only took so many games of loosing before my brother stopped playing me (I didnt think that one too far ahead did I?!). Then the painting mojo ran out before I finished painting the last few figures.

But, here I am.
Matt

[olyreed]

For me, my dad and three uncles plus friends have always war gamed since the 70s, so we had a three bed house and me my brother and my mum and dad, so the wargames room had to go somewhere. I grew up sharing my bedroom with a 6 x 8 wargames table and whatever figures where on it at the time. Dad would take me to buy minifigs in southampton when they had a shop there. I dont think I had much choice in the matter, dad and all my uncles still wargame not as much as we used to but when we can, I dont know if it is unusual to have so many wargamers in one family as my cousins now take part as well. I have never really gone down the Warhammer route just blood bowl and space hulk, It has always been historicals until now. My first real purchase of miniatures was later in life when Perrys released there samurai range and I bought all the Steve Barber Prohibition stuff including the buildings that i have foolishly sold since, still collecting Perry samurai and I dont think that will ever stop...

[Evil Dave]

I think this would be more fun with pictures.  

Well first there my cousin introduced me to:




Then there was:


But these really set their hooks deep:



Now it's mostly:



With a bit of:



And I'm looking to start playing:



I might head back and finish up my faction for this:

[Major_Gilbear]

I always used to make paper and card models as a kid (some of my earliest memories as a little nipper mostly involve some sort of making-things-activity with my mother at the kitchen table). This included (but was not limited to) origami, paper cut-out models (the big complicated ones!), clay sculpting, plaster casting, and loads of home-made versions of the type of commercial kits that were heavily marketed in the 70s-90s.

I also had a huge love of lego, board games, and when I was older (7-8?) I was given a set of very basic carpentry tools and pile of wood offcuts to go and muck around with to my heart's content.

When I was about 9, I saw some little lead tanks, and they fascinated me. I later learned that there was  shop full of these things, and that there was a game to go with them...! Sadly, upon investigating the shop (GW) I found it to be far too expensive for my pocket money allowance, especially once things like rules, paint, etc., were factored in.

A few years later I was in secondary school, as discovered (1) that the school library had a subscription to White Dwarf, and (2) a friend in my year played these games and had big collections for each. I gradually got sucked into GW's game worlds, but the first love was still those little lead tanks - from Epic Space Marine, as I would learn during that formative time.

My first proper box of miniatures (as opposed to the hodge-podge assortment of single figures I gained over the preceding couple of years) was Epic Titan Legions. I got some white spray, some Citadel model paints and brushes, and did my best to replicate the pictures on the box. Naturally I started with the Emperor Titan, and after a detail-obscuringly thick layer of white spray paint, tried painting it red - only to find that the spray was so thick, that my first few coats of red all turned pink as they dried! To date, it is one of only a small handful of models that I still own from that early time that have not either been binned or stripped.

[Chuckaroobob]

The first ever wargame I owned / played was AH's France 1940, back in the late 1970's. Don't really game board games much anymore.

First ever historical miniatures game was a 25mm Nappie game put on by Ed Mohrmann and Larry Brom, back in 1985 in Raleigh, NC, USA. It was a thing of beauty and I've never regretted it!

[SBRPearce]

Tolkien was my gateway. I read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings "ahead of reading level", and discovered lead minis about a year before Ralph Bakshi's LoTR movie "flooded" the shops with tie-in figures. My mother had baby-sitting charges at our house every day, and since my brother and I were often detailed to keep these younger kids entertained, I staged huge elaborate wargame spreads on the kitchen table. Since I was an eleven-year-old running games for seven-year-olds, the rules got, um, streamlined pretty quickly - we adapted a lot of stuff to keep things rolling and to suit particular players.

There was one shop in the outer suburbs of my town that offered a single spinning rack of miniatures among the model railroad stuff that was their bread-and-butter (and far overshadowed by the custom-built brass locomotives that were the owner's real cash-flow) and sometimes they had Heritage fantasy packs among the ACW and Napoleonic figs. When time and allowance permitted, I'd take two buses to the store and spend (it felt like) hours debating over what to buy. Probably drove the owner nuts - he never ordered anything I asked for, and I think I finally bought up everything he had and he never replaced the stuff.

We then discovered you could mail-order these things, and I have fond memories of a summer punctuated by visits by the UPS driver, who came bearing fresh wonders each time he drove up the street.

In high school, one pal got seriously into board-and-chit wargames and I went along for a bit. We spent one whole summer playing "The Longest Day" in a desultory fashion - we could keep a game laid out for weeks at his house because A)he had an unused ping-pong table in the cellar and B)his family didn't have cats. That second point was crucial.

[Geudens]

During a shopping trip for plastic models (disguised as a family-holiday) to London in 1973, I picked up some books about armour, camouflage and such as well as a little booklet with a Tiger-tank on the cover, titled "Modern Rules" (1967) by a certain Z.M. Iwaszko. This (unfortunately "condensed & abridged version") could just as well have been in Chinese! For months I tried to work out the game mechanics that were behind it, but having no notice about wargaming (the name of the game) at all, I utterly failed. The next year I went back to the British capital and came home with a copy of "Battle! practical wargaming" by Charles Grant and some white metal 20 mm German WWII guns by Hinchliffe (expensive compared with plastic kits, but the range included some models not available in plastic). At that time I was building a giant WW II diorama (of about 4 m²) and after reading Grant's excellent book, I suddenly realised that I was really more interested in a "moving"- than a "static" diorama... The modeller in my had been converted to a (lone) wargamer! In 1975 I learned about "Tomker-The Antwerp Model Soldier Shop" which I promptly payed a visit and where I bought some 25 mm Lamming- & Hinchliffe Napoleonics. Through the kind and helpfull owners of the shop (Tom and Jacky) I came into contact with a couple of guys running the "Ancient Battlegaming Club" (ABC). I joined up and promptly became editor of the club-magazine "Sarissa": not much of a job with less than 10 members! Another problem we encountered was the fact that Tomker did not stock Miniature Figurines because of the fact that these figures had to be bought (tradewise) in boxes of 10, and - with a very small number of wargamers as potential customers - this would mean that the shop would be stuck with hordes of officers, trumpeters etc. The ABC-members therefor decided to (in turns) ferry to England to buy Miniature Figurines directly from the Southampton factory (the London Minifigs/Skytrex shop did not yet exist at that time). During one such visit, Neville Dickinson - always keen on trade - noticed this Belgian guy buying a big hump of Minifigs-castings at the counter. Neville asked him whether anyone in Belgium might be interested in distributing his products. This question was transferred to the ABC'ers, and since I was planning a parttime business anyway - in Japanese furniture, no less! - I promptly switched to little lead soldiers instead. Operating from my home with a limited stock at first, I tried to interest some modelshops in the subject and also contacted SPI (UK) (Malcolm Watson), Skytrex ltd (John Hammond) and WRG. It was simple enough to get the distributorships of these companies, but a (at that time) rather expensive catalogue "THE TIN SOLDIER-TINFIGUREN-WARGAMING" (in black&white) had to be produced in order to boost sales. Since the shops were not interested in offering single figures, the Minifigs 25 mm Napoleonics and Ancients were re-packed in "Tin Soldier sets" (some boxes with command groups and others with rank & file) not unlike the idea of the later blister-packs. After a while, the small but growing market started to ask for more diversity than the modelshops could carry (as well as individual figures) and, solely to fulfill that need, a specialist (part-time) wargameshop by the name of "The Tin Soldier" was opened at Kokkelbeekstraat 181, Sint-Niklaas, Belgium. The shop stocked the complete ranges of Minifigs, Skytrex, SPI and a lot of other lines. No outlet in the U.K. carried such vast quantities: a MUST to keep the customers from taking their business across the Channel! Meanwhile, the company also had started to import the resin diorama sets made by Mainly Military. Since this range included a fair number of 20 mm WWII-items, the hobby shops we were trading with were REALLY  interested, but sadly our supplier could not cope with the demand. So we started designing and casting along the trial and error path ourselves, assisted by a local resin-manufacturer. Shortly thereafter, the "Gedemco"-range of 15 mm, 25 mm and 1/300th scale buildings was born and Miniature Figurines (25 mm & 15 mm) and Skytrex (1/300) started to distribute the ranges in the U.K. Later Skytrex took over in full, and a U.S.- ("SGS" or "Skytrex Gedemco Simulations" - with Al Younghouse) and an Australian distributor were found. Finally, the range was distributed in the U.K. by "Farms & Fortresses". Some of the buildings were even used in a James Bond-film! The premises of the Gedemco-workshop (where the models were produced) also housed "The light Brigade" wargames club (+ 30 members) for some years. Meanwhile, the number of Belgian customers had grown, but by 1981 we realised that (despite all our efforts) we could not make a proper living out of the operation. Perhaps it would have been different if Internet had been around at the time or if we had started the business a few years later, during the fantasy-boom... Anyway, the shop went on operating (back to "saturdays only") untill 1990, when it finally closed down. We put the building itself (still containing huge stocks of figures and games) up for sale, but it eventually vanished in a blazing fire that started in the barber shop next door. Both the barber shop and The Tin Soldier were demolished to make room for the family home of a young couple.

[Grimmnar]

In a nutshell.
Not counting model kits before i started playing but they didn't hurt. I started playing AD&D& in the 7th grade. Been out of school since 1990. So do the math. I dont want to. :-)
But it has just gone off since then. Different companies and games. A regular gaming group that met at least once a week. Marathon weekend sessions that started Friday after school and ended at some point on Sunday. Moving to my current local in 97 to work for GW for a bit just put more concrete int he bucket. Miss my weekly gaming group now. Just never found a group that jived since then. Plenty of store sin my area to play. Hitting conventions since i was like 14 only helped move things along as well.
People ask me at work about console games and the like. I haven't owned one since N64 and that is because for me war gaming and role playing games and tabletop games just have always appealed to me more. And i dont see it changing any time soon.
Nutshell broken.

Grimm

[HerbyF]

When I was a boy, one of my older brothers & a cousin used to used BB-guns & pellet guns to shoot up their model ships. My little brother & I would set up our army men & use rubber bands & marbles to nock them down. I bought all those plastic flats, AWI, ACW, & romans that were advertized on the back of comic books. Then when I was about 10 or 11 I discovered Airfix HO scale figures. I found my first war games shop looking for more airfix figures, met some wargamers there & was hooked from then on. I was only 14 years old so it has been a long time.

[MartinR]

I started with plastic modelling in the 1960s, and at some point someone pointed out you could play games with them (around 1969/1970?). First proper war games rules were Charles Grants 'Battle', first boradgame was AHGCs France 1940 in the early 70s and first RPG was white box D&D when it first came out, although we were quite big fans of tunnels and trolls too. Then I discovered punk rock and girls, which were a little distracting

Cheers
Martin

[Vermis]

The Hobbit and Star Wars had quite an effect on a young worm. Afterwards I also had a passing interest in model kits and, obscurely, a magazine review of the Space Hulk game for the Sega Saturn. After that I stumbled across the only Games Workshop in NI, and their model kits based on their settings that weren't a million miles from Middle-Earth and a galaxy far, far away, that you actually did something with. That is, simulate a little piece of a world on a few square feet and act out the events of a battle on it. Flicking through the 40K 3rd ed rulebook also made me realise where those 'genestealer' things came from.
I have a thing about simulating and modelling little worlds, not entirely sure where it comes from. If I wasn't into sf/f and hadn't found GW, I'd probably have an extensive model railway or something now. That, and green stuff, is also what got me into sculpting, despite a successful but uninspiring clay project in school.

I grew up in the gaming wasteland that is a rural Midwest America. Most people there did not possess an imagination. They were good people but just have different interests.

Sounds a lot like rural midwest Ulster.