It was the Age of Miniatures… well 2006 and I had just reintroduced myself to the world of Warhammer 40k. I only had a few bits to start with just to get used to the rules. We played a few games at the gaming clubs and I quickly grasped the rules. I had started to paint the models I had got and they looked alright for a first time painter. We didn’t play every week but when we did it was good fun so I decided to buy a couple more bits. That’s when the slippery slope of plastic crack addiction started. Just to make any non miniature gamers aware, plastic crack is the term used by people that like to buy lots of plastic miniatures. Things changed personally again and I moved back from Belfast and I started living in a pub just outside Chester. I paid Games Workshop in Chester a visit and ended up buying more models but I also noticed the new Dark Angels book was coming out. I ordered it along with some miniatures ready to start my new army. I decided to go to the games night there too where I met other people that played the game. We met regularly for games, sat painting and just generally chatted about all sorts of things. Three of us still meet up for games whenever we get the chance and life doesn’t get in the way but more on that soon.
There was an expansion, Apocalypse, coming out which allowed bigger armies to be used and I invested in it. I ordered the book, a huge tank and a Battle Company, which comprised of over 100 miniatures that had to be built and painted. It took me over six weeks to build and paint it all up but enjoyed doing it. I kept adding more units to the army and decided I wanted to try and make at least four companies. I think I got to nearly three full companies by the end and they were all painted. Whilst I was building them up, I started other armies and I think I ended up with about six or seven different armies all with different play styles. Along this journey, some of my gaming colleagues tried to convince me to play Warhammer Fantasy but I was adamant I wouldn’t. That was until I saw the Warriors of Chaos stuff that was coming out. I got one of the collection boxes and the army book. The models were really nice and I did a really good paint job on them. It turned out to be one of my favourite armies I had and I still have it to this day. It gave me another game to play but I didn’t want to get too much as I had nowhere to put it all.
I played at the local games club every week as well as at the shop allowing me to play different people but I was about to move into a new house. Having a new house meant I would have an actual gaming room, with a custom built table with a board to play on and a place to store all my stuff. I stopped going to the games club as it was cheaper to invite people round and play for free. The club wasn’t expensive but by the time you paid for food/drinks etc it soon mounted up. Two of the guys I played with at the store, Mike and James, came round on a regular basis for games which is something that we still do over ten years later when life doesn’t get in the way. We’d vary the games between 40k and Fantasy as well as a few board and card games we decided to play just so we didn’t get too bored playing the same thing all the time. After a while, we started to branch out into other miniature games such as Bolt Action (World War Two skirmish game) and Frostgrave (a treasure hunting skirmish game) which were both good and enjoyable games and more miniature painting. My painting was getting a lot better as I had painted so much and was trying to improve all the time. My collections were getting so big now and space was getting limited so started to come away from miniatures again and into card and board games once again…
Tabletop Tales 