My First Step Into a Smaller World, Part 1
It’s the summer of 2003. I’m over a friend’s house and he pulls out a large box filled with an army of what I assumed were toys soldiers. He tries explaining to me how he built and painted these for a board game he played. He’s showing me how he painted them and the story behind the game and the rulebook. For whatever reason I wasn’t interested.
Fast forward six months and I’m at a hobby store. I had come here a few times in the past to buy Pokemon and Magic cards but never really looked at the models. Recently, I had found a Star Wars model in the attic and asked my father if I could build it. He took me to the local chain hobby store to buy supplies. This was the first time I ever took the time to look around and what caught my eye was a box with The Lord of the Rings on it. I was obsessed with the movies and I didn’t expect to see something I thought was cool in a store full of model cars and trains and stuff I thought was for old people. Looking at the box I see it’s for a kit to build an army and play a board game with it. The next day at school I’m excited to tell my friends all about this game I found. I figured I could get at least someone to try it with me. I’m starting to tell the whole lunch table about this and my friend Jake cuts me off saying, “We know what that is. You should just play 40k with us.” Suddenly I’m remembering the army in the box I was shown that summer and I didn’t realize more of my friends played the game. Now I’m interested so I go home and check out this 40k thing and I immediately fall in love with the Warhammer universe. I’m online doing research, I’m dead set on what faction I wanted to play and what I wanted to start with, all I have to do is convince my mother to go to the store Jake recommended to me. Not the easiest thing but eventually she takes me to this store and lets me buy a starter set. Well we get there and she wouldn’t let me out of the car. She sees what appears to be someone’s house with boarded up windows posing as a store and it takes little more convincing to finally get inside. We walk out with the beginnings of my first Warhammer 40,000 army and my first foray into this lifelong obsession.
The Warhammer 40,000 3rd Edition Starter Box
