It’s 1991, I’ve started college in Cambridge and I was about to discover a new gaming related hobby… miniatures!
College had finished early and I had some time to kill in Cambridge so I decided to have a wander round the city. I recognised a shop I had been to when I visited Liverpool with my dad, Games Workshop. My dad had got some miniatures to paint and I had a go at painting one but was rubbish at it. I thought I’d go have a look at the beautifully painted miniatures on display and look at the games they had. I spotted one I liked the look of which reminded me of the film Aliens. I picked the box up and immediately wanted to buy it. That game was Space Hulk! It was a board game packed with miniatures that needed building and painting (if you wanted to). This was my introduction into the Warhammer 40,000 (40k) universe. It looked very similar to Space Crusade which I had previously wanted so I saved up and brought it. It didn’t stop there though. There were two expansions out, Deathwing and Genestealer, which introduced me to what would become my favourite Space Marines, Dark Angels! I got the expansions, played some games of it and really enjoyed the universe it was set in. When I decided that college wasn’t for me I went back to sixth form so didn’t go back to the shop to get more. I did know someone in sixth form that played the main Warhammer 40k game or Rogue Trader as it was known and I managed to get a couple of games of that. Not long after that, I came away from the game as I knew it would be expensive and I couldn’t always get to buy the miniatures. But that wasn’t the end, I would return to the Warhammer universe.
The next few years ended up being a bit of a gaming slump. I rarely played games, I was always busy with one thing or another. I thought that was going to be the end of my hobby. That was until I was introduced to a new type of card game genre, the customisable card game or CCG. You had to buy the cards in booster packs and build a deck to play with against your friends. It looked like fun and I was especially interested in it as it was Star Wars CCG. I borrowed a deck from my friend and he taught me how to play it and I was hooked. I got a starter box and some boosters to build my own decks. I wasn’t very good at it at first but I quickly got the hang of the game and it’s excellent mechanics and I started to build quite a collection. Expansions came out and I got those then started to theme my decks around key parts of the films. I met others that played the game and there was a small, local community of players that met regularly in the pub to play. Then I discovered Magic: The Gathering. A friend donated a load of Magic cards to me and I started playing that too. Star Wars CCG and Magic were the two best selling CCGs out there but I couldn’t keep up two game where I had to buy booster packs regularly so Magic had to go. I did dabble in the Star Trek CCG for a while but didn’t like it as much even though it was by the same company that made Star Wars CCG, Decipher. Star Wars CCG was here to stay or so I thought…
Tabletop Tales 