[Silens]

I got into 40K at the age of 14(ish). Me and a friend were walking through Cardiff together and we passed Games Workshop. Now he already played 40K a little bit, so this was a bigger shock for me than him. He told me that he and his brothers played this wonderful game with tiny men and that if we went in then they'd let us have a trial game if we asked nicely.

Sure enough, Games Workshop staff were nice enough to let us get hooked on the game so we'd give them all of our money. This was back at the end of 4th edition so we played the Battle for Macragge(?) started set. He was marines, I was nids. I whooped his ass! Our stories differ; he believes he actually got a turn before I'd destroyed near enough his entire army. In fairness, it was probably balanced a tad in my favour as the new kid and my Hormagaunts tore apart his Dreadnought whilst the termigaunts blew apart his marines. I believe I had a carnifex which destroyed a tank but I'm not 100% sure about this.

I've been a 40K nerd ever since.

So what about you? Share your little story about how/why/when/where/theother'h's you got into 40K.

 

[LokiDeathclaw]

Hmmmm I must have been about 11 years old when my parents brought me the Battle Masters boxed set (which was awesome 17 years ago!) Once I had my fill of that I then happened past the GW shop in my town centre and just stared a the amazing display models. For christmas I got the boxed 40k set and became obsessed by Space Wolves. I was hooked. Unfortunately I quit the hobby when I was around 18 but back into it now!

 

[darkreever]

I got into the hobby when I was ten; how did it happen? A combination of chaos gate, the instruction manual to final liberation, and some idle curiosity.

Was at my best friends place and he happened to be playing chaos gate that day, I thought it was cool and noticed final liberations manual on the desk next to the computer. Asking him about it, he mentioned that he and his brother played occasionally and that his brother had an entire company of Ultramarines (not all impressive when you have no knowledge of the game like I did at the time, but looking back and knowing his brother had been playing since the early days of second edition its more so.)

He then proceeded to show me his 'nids and how to play the game, been hooked ever since.

 

[lokyar]

I was like 8 and thought games workshop was a video games store and i saw aliens so i fell in love.

the end

 

[Ddraig Cymry]

Dawn of War. I liked the aesthetic and army's enough to start reading the Warhammer 40k wiki all the time.

 

[ntaw]

My friend on the street when I was like...8-10 had Space Hulk and another older guy up the street was a SERIOUS painter and the models looked tough as balls. Even comparing the models to those pictured in the book I was blown away. Coincidentally the Terminators were all painted Deathwing and Blood Angels...which are still two of my three favourite SM armies to date! Got to playing whatever edition of 40k that came with Marines (BA on the box) and Orks. I remember him touting that it was a brand new release, and he was getting used to the rules as well. I started a collection, but didn't really start playing effectively until 5th (?) edition came out (BT and DE in this one..?) and dropped the hobby entirely when I moved from the town I grew up in since I no longer had anyone to play the game with somewhere around 15/16. Got back into the game when I found another couple dudes locally that were in to it when I was 25ish and immediately went back into BA since I still had all my characters and sergeants - and even my old Land Raider from when the plastic kit first came out! ...plus I love my space vampires and most things red.

 

[warsmith7752]

This line; "there is no peace among the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaugter in the name of thirsting gods."

as soon as i read this i new that 40k had everything i wanted from a hobby.

 

[Varakir]

Catalogue that came with my mate's copy of heroquest. We never really figured out the rules for heroquest but my addiction to space marines was born right there.

 

[Protoss119]

Dawn of War for me as well. It started when a friend of mine started showing me BigDickCheney's videos of the conversations between commanders during the Stronghold assaults. Then I started playing the games and reading the fluff; in particular, after I discovered the Army Painter (B&C and DoW's ingame one), there was no turning back.

 

[Dakingofchaos]

I was introduced by a mate who got battle for macragge then had nobody to play it with - I started out of pity then decided that Tzeentch had a plan for me!

 

[projectda]

I ran accross 40k when I was 11 or so. I was playing pokemon card game.at a local shop. Every week the pokemon league would gather. I saw some people playing when the league wasn't gathering. And I watched them play. Then asked the shop ower what was the easiest to start with. So I got 2 friends to join me, but we had no money so never got above maybe 3 or 4 squads. That was during 3rd. I come back to the game when 4th came out.

 

[Squire]

When I was 11 a friend showed me his Dark Angels, which were beautifully painted and seemed ridiculously cool to my 11 year old self. We went along to the store that day and I bought a £5 box of plague marines and became hooked

It later turned out he hadn't painted his DA when the stuff I saw him paint with my own eyes turned out to be total garbage, and he had to admit his older step cousin had painted them

 

[Tawa]

I must have been about eight I think :scratchhead:

My older cousin had - no idea if he still has after all this time - around 14,000pts of Undead. I remember he had a long bedroom and the army was arrayed along a massive side unit.

That captured my imagination, and soon after I was given a copy of Rogue Trader. I got the two Ork books and away I went! In these early days I also had a copy of BattleMasters, Space Crusade plus expansions and Hero Quest plus expansions and I played these almost to death!
(Nice to see another mention of BattleMasters. Remember the tv advert?)

I then moved on to Space Marine and 2Ed of 40k

I've been mostly a painter since early 4Ed, or thereabouts

 

[shaantitus]

Played epic scale space marine back in the late 80's and loved it, but I gave it up when I went to uni, touched 40k briefly again in the mid 90's but did not get back into it in a big way until 2007, prompted by the DOW games. At which point I went nuts and have since put together a lot of csm's, traitor guard, demons and dark mechanicus. Always chaos, all the time.

 

[Da Joka]

Well many years ago we made up a war game using Legos. After Highschool the friend who I made the game with told me that about 40k and said "It's like that Lego game... but with much better rules"

Been hooked ever since.

 

[JAMOB]

I was six years old. My older brother and sister went to a camp about eight hours directly north of us every summer, so we would drive up twice, to bring them up and bring them back. Each time we would stay with my parent's friends. The oldest son played Dark Angels, and introduced my brother, who started tyranids. He started playing with other people in a local basement *ahem* club and he taught me how to play, starting me off with the SM models from the paint set and a metal Librarian. Slowly my collection grew, reaching two thousand a few years ago, and since then sky rocketing into almost (or maybe more than?) 10k worth of blood angels 1k each of IG and orks 0.5k of Eldar and somewhere around 2k of Wood Elves. That escalated quickly... mainly because I found a club that I loved and have friends who play, so all the more reason to keep going.

 

[Archon Dan]

I started much later in life and much more recently than most of you. Coming up on 3.5 years of being in the 40K hobby. But it is not my first miniatures game and certainly not my first collectible game.

But it was a friend who got me into it. He asked on and off for a couple months before I started collecting. This was largely due to him getting me into Magic: The Gathering and then promptly quit playing a few years earlier. Fortunately, he is still mostly into 40K but does lack time lately. But I found an awesome gaming group that helped to get me going and keep at the game.

 

[humakt]

A good range of responces here, and it looks like most were introduced by friends or siblings.

For me I played role playing games with my brother when I was about 11. We used to get White Dwarf every month (edition 33 was my first white dwarf). When Warhammer fantasy battles came out we started to play that. Then when rogue trader came out I started to play that.

I have played ever since. Looking back over the years I would say that 6th edition is probably the most fun to play just because of the sheer scale of everythng.

 

[Shas'Ui]

a weekly games day at my local library, about 10 years ago now. I was just going like normal and I saw a sign on the front entrance with a advert and an amazing battle scene with little Terrans and Zergs "yeah I know" well I went to check it out and my world was changed for ever. I played a short round with few basic squads. the guy running it let me use his Orks and he had some IG, he won of course but he taught me a lot of about the armies. He also corrected my ignorance of this awesome new game that was copying Starcraft

 

[d3m01iti0n]

I also started with Battle Masters, without having any clue what it was. Just a random Christmas present my brother and I would play in the early 90s. My first actual encounter with 40K was a Bolt Thrower CD my friend let me borrow; I loved the cover and he told me what it was from. Then I started noticing them at a hobby shop (my dad was into model trains). Also ads for the Space Hulk PC game.

Never heard about it again, until the trailers for Space Marine came out. I immediately thought it was the most badass thing I had ever seen, even for having barely any experience with the hobby. I was coming off a 4-5 year WoW addiction, so the interest is understandable. Played the demo and nearly shit my pants at the sheer brutality and blind gothic ignorance/awesomeness of it all. Started looking into the minis and background, dropped the money for AoBR, and the rest is history. Built my Orks to about 1250 (building everything exactly like the box with no clue of tactics). Then I stripped the Ultramarines I painted, went Black Templar, and built to almost 3k. Now they suck hard, and started back on the Orks.

I honestly said to myself where has this hobby been all my life? I used to dick off, buy fast cars, drive around all day burnin gas and getting pulled over, and playing WoW when I wasnt doing that. Now Im productive and creative, take pride in my work, meet new people and throw beerhammer games every weekend. Getting into this hobby has been a great move for me, even with the crap GW throws our way, the experience has been totally worth it.