In this week's introductory post, I mentioned that I want to document all of my journey into the Oldhammer hobby, and that I want to do this chronologically. When I look back at how this interest awoke, I see that I could not possibly talk about the beginning without talking about my relationship with the hobby in general. As I drafted this post, and it got longer and longer, I also realized that it would need to be split. This first part will be about the company that created Warhammer in the first place - it will be about Games Workshop. Save your sighs (or hide your disappointment); this will not be a rant. Well, maybe a little.
Before I was even a teen, I discovered some 40k miniatures in the window of my local game store (not that I knew back then what a game store was). I did not really get what was going on with those little guys on their green felt mat, but it was excitingly different - those were not toys, but it clearly wasn't a boardgame either. My mother took me into the store, and the rest is history. I will not bore you with details; chances are that if you are reading this blog, your experiences will have been very similar.
My first purchase was a box of miniatures, no rules yet, and by the time I wanted to learn those as well, the second edition of the rules, colloquially called "2nd ed.", had taken over. Although I have very fond memories of that edition, in hindsight I see a lot of the seeds that would grow into my eventual disenfranchisement, but we are not there yet.
Back then my armies grew erratically, as the miniatures were rather hard to come by, so I (and many others) bought what was available rather than something that we actually planned to buy. This meant that armies back then were very much a "looks first, rules second" affair, and the armies showed that with a diversity that I have never encountered since then. To supplement my ailing forces, models from other manufacturers were mercilessly pressed into service, and nary a vehicle that could not be represented by a card box after the clever application of some straws, aluminum washers and left-over bits.
Terrain was all home-made; apart from the cardboard ruins from the boxed starter set, and some cardboard-and-plastic-bulkheads fortifications, there simply was none to speak of. So, guided by my own, still very childlike, imagination and a heap of helpful suggestions from White Dwarf magazine, every piece of scrap in the household was salvaged and turned into *something* by me.
My games were chaotic, zany, unimaginably fun affairs as you can only have them in your early teens. To this day, I remember my friend's Inquisitor hiding behind a building to wait for reinforcements, just to be incinerated by an Ork buggy's multi-melta after it careened off its intended path, or Makari the Gretchin slaughtering that poor Screamer-Killer one day (true story).
All was fine until 1998, when third edition dropped. To this day, I would love to see my face after opening the White Dwarf highlighting the most important changes: Gone were my army compositions that had served me faithfully for years (quite a normal thing in wargaming really, but the first time it happens is always a shock I guess), gone was the ability to hide, provide overwatch fire or even throw a grenade (as opposed to ramming it into your opponent's mouth at point blank), three thirds of the weapons profiles were eliminated... it was a disaster that catapulted me right out of the hobby for a number of years.
This is great news!
