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I started gaming with Chess and D&D. Bought a few minis during this period (elementary school in the mid 80's). My friends and I designed a minis game that was played on the chessboard called "Parallel Dimensions" or somesuch. Mostly I just played RPGs.
My first exposure to GW was through a set of "Citadel Combat Cards," which feature photos of painted minis and a few stats. We played some weird game made up on the spot, and I was particularly impressed by "Lieutenant Commander Chavez, Space Marine Power Fist." This, as I later discovered, was a Blood Angels plastic RT marine painted by Aly Morrison.
I got into Man O' War, and have always loved it... still do. I mostly played Brettonians, though I did buy an Empire fleet when the game was dropped by GW.
I bought a bunch of Magic cards, did quite a bit of trading, and then sold most of the valuable ones. This was important because it allowed me to buy oodles and oodles of Epic stuff. This would have been in the nineties, in between the releases of Space Marine 2nd edition and Titan Legions. I split the Space Marine box with two friends, and ended up with the Marines, Rhinos and Land Raiders. The Adeptus Astartes have continued to be my favorites, though I've come to appreciate (and collect) the artillary and massed infantry of the Imperial Guard, the mighty mecha of the Titan Legions, and the doughty Squats. My strategy was to field combined armies and to spend so much money that my opponent never knew what to expect until my army was already on the table.
I bought some Warhammer 40K (2nd edition) Space Marines but found the game not to my liking. Played some Warhammer Quest, though in retrospect I can't understand why. ?
?Then Epic 40K came out. ?I was very much a rules lawyer type at the time, and it didn't occur to me that I could use square-based infantry or make up rules for Squats. I (and my friends) were completely turned-off by Epic 40K. The Squats were gone, and GW had just stopped supporting our two favorite games (Man O' War and Epic). I stopped buying their stuff, concentrating on RPGs and Magic cards, though I still played the odd game of Epic or Man O' War when I found the time. ?
?After a virtual gaming hiatus of a couple years (damn, but it felt like forever), I managed to hook up with some gamers at work for regular RPG's, and found a Warhammer Fantasy Battle player.
What the hell? I had resisted Warhammer FB's masses of infantry with their regimented formations ("If I want to play Epic, I'll play Epic? ?Why pay more?"), but I figured it was better than nothing, and I had quite a few fantasy figures left over from my Warhammer Quest days.
I formed an army of Chaos Warriors, Beastmen, and Minotaurs, and quickly charged them with the destruction of the Empire. ?I collected a ?lot of Tzeentch stuff, including examples of most of the daemons (no Disc yet, though). ?We branched into Mordheim, which was great fun. Those plastic merc sprues are great, customizing each figure to match what weapons my warband has access to, and getting my old Warhammer Quest character back into action in a different setting. ?
I dragged my usual opponent, kicking and screaming, into NetEpic, and have played a couple of games so far, Squats vs. Marines, and Titan Legions vs. Marines and Guard. ?
?Finally, I dug out my old 28mm Space Marines to serve as NPCs in my Rifts game, and remembered how cool they were, how much I used to like those minis. Hardly any of them got painted, you know. I'm currently working on Marneus Calgar; I don't know if I'll actually play the game, but it's fun to put together an Ultramarines force, you bet.
I'm trying to get those old RT plastics so I can make an Ultramarines version of "Lt. Command Chavez, Space Marine Power Fist." It just seems appropriate to come full circle.
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-Ethan
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) But I suppose this was in the day's when GW sold stuff at a reasonable price, so I was a lot more guilt-free spending a lot.
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