My first time discovering Warhammer was on a visit to Belfast, Ireland in '91. My Mom was taking my sisters for a haircut and I was roaming the shops nearby when I saw the yellow and red letters above a glass-fronted store proclaim Games Workshop.
Most have suffered pretty badly from being dragged behind me through life, rattling around in cardboard boxes through various moves and periods of storage. The one below is the least damaged and has survived with its first paint job semi-unscathed from when I was around 11 or 12. Quite happy to still have them in the collection as not everything from those days has survived the ravages of time and space.
Every 6-12 months we would go back to the UK and I would manage to hunt down the closest GW store in whatever town we were in. They were often in the larger malls so while my sisters and Mom would be doing their day-long shopping excursions I would go and sit in the local Games Workshop and paint. I managed to collect a small army of Orcs and Goblins but my exposure to the hobby was a pretty rare treat limited for a few days of the year mostly.
Mordheim came out and I loved the atmosphere, style, and art of the game. I had always liked the Skaven since reading about them and Skarsnik under Karak Eight Peaks in my old Warhammer Armies O&G book. Built up a small band of the Eshin Warphunters and even played a few games on some great terrain in the Solihull store on a visit that side. My painting skills at this point were limited mostly to basecoat, drybrush and ink-wash and that's where it stayed for a long time.
As with most people I took multiple breaks from the hobby as I grew up. Living in South Africa it had always been a solitary pursuit limited mostly to collecting and painting. Had a few false starts in 40k including Black Templars, Space Orks and eventually Chaos Space Marines. I had moved to a larger city to study where there was limited access to Citadel stuff from the few hobby and boardgame stores there. My housemate decided to collect a Space Marine army after I got him into the lore and art of 40k. I built up a 1500 point CSM list and we played many games of 3rd edition.
Moved away and took another break until the 8th Edition of Warhammer Fantasy dropped and the beautiful Isle of Blood sculpts and Skaven redesign brought me back to the hobby. I bought the Starter set, Doomwheel, Screaming Bell and Stormvermin while on a business trip up to Johannesburg. I wasn't too worried about the rules just knew I wanted to paint the kits. Finished the first 20 spear Clanrats from IoB but life changes and Endtimes found the hobby taking a backseat again.
Fast forward a few more years and I have recently felt the pull of the paintbrush and plastic coming from the garage. Had stopped halfway through some Rat Ogres so figured I would at least finish them off just for fun. Heard the 2nd Edition of AoS rules are actually pretty decent and a good mate of mine has made the unfortunate fiscal mistake of showing an interest in getting into the game. Tried my best to warn him but after a painting lesson or two on some old mini's the bug had bitten him as well and the beginnings of an Ironjawz army, paints and tools were in the mail and on their way.
With the potential for some actual games the plan is to finally push through and finish painting my Skaven army, a board and terrain. Most of my old forum haunts seemed to be ghost towns but have been glad to see the hobby community is still alive in blogs, Instagram, Youtube, and Twitch. The access to tutorials, in particular, has blown my mind and I learned about more techniques in the past few months than the past two decades.
Have setup an Instagram account to have somewhere to post my stuff but figured I would try and make one of these blog things for my long winded and nonsensical ramblings, this post being a prime example of a quick intro gone wrong!
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