A couple of days later i ran into him in the library and we got talking about the Warhammer figures, he and a few friends play the game about once a month. He invited me to join at the groups next gathering.
My interest was sparked instantly, the group mostly plays Warhammer 40k, which i never has played before. My old gaming group in Copenhagen only wanted to play the regular Warhammer - I was interested in the 40k variant but I was unable to convince them to try. We did play some other games, most notably Magic: The Gathering but also the Games Workshop games: Blood Bowl, Epic, Man'o'War and our own variants of the TSR games: Red Storm Rising and The Hunt for Red October.
About a year ago I bought a house and got married to my girlfriend of 13 years, the worst part about moving is having to pack everything up and shove it somewhere in a new house, even after almost a year my Warhammer collection was still in moving boxes (5 big 'uns).
My collection is quite extensive, but also quite a mess.
Back when i started playing (around 1991, age 15) I was collecting Empire, unfortunent i had not studied the army book very much (actually i think i bought it later...) so i went out and bought all the boxes with pretty pictures of Empire stuff on 'em- I spend around ~3000 kr that day (my entire savings!) - i remember we got a 5% discount over a certain amount and 10% at a hight amount - so we tried to pool up our purchases. My friends were spending a lot of money on their chosen armies too, namely Dwarf and Orc & Goblin.
At the time i had not seen the wall of blister backs in the left side of the store - I was mostly interested in the long wall of boxes with pictures of the awesomely painted figs, Back then almost all figures were metal and not easily custimizable, only a few boxes had plastic figures and they were all the the exact same pose, far from the multi-part plastic kits we have today.
We unpacked, assembled, painted and played with our purchases, we did'nt understand half the rules or the concepts of building an army but we had a lot of fun.
Slowly we read, got better at english, and learned the rules and the concepts of troops, captains, wizards and war machine became familiar. I tried to make a army of the figures I had, but it didnt really come together - since most troops were sold in blister packs and i only had the boxes. My army consisted of mostly warmachines ( 2 steam tanks, 1 war wagon, 1 war altar), heroes (4 Elector Counts, 4 Heroes of the Empire), a few knights and a small regiment of plastic halbardiers - i recall the army being at about 4000 pts. and not having enough troops to field it.
My friends had been a bit smarter and bought somewhat smaller armies with a better ratio between troops and specials, their armies approached 2500 pts neatly.
To make up for my army's lacks i spend my money on buying troops in blister packs, regiments of halbadiers, sword & shield, archers and crossbowmen were added to balance it out - unfortunently this meant my total points value was approaching 6000 pts and i was falling behind in assembling and painting the giagantic army.I never had a real plan for the army, i just added on whenever something seemed cool, finally i decided to reduce the army drasticly and try to get it to match my firends at about 2500 points. I put an ad in the paper and a few days later i managed to sell off a large chunck of the army. Gone were 2 elector counts, a steam tank, the war wagon, half the knights and some heroes and wizards.
Time went by, i worked on the army from time to time and played a little with my friends, but other thing in life demanded my time, i had to select an education and find a school - eventually the warhammer was boxed up and put in the addict.
In 1997 i met my future wife on the, then young, Internet, we got an apartment in Copenhagen and moved in together while i finished my education. In 1999 i gratuated and soon after we moved to Jutland.
Jutland is a pretty boring place ;) at some point (in 2003 i belive) after moving I dived into the warhammer boxes yet again, mostly to paint and finally finish my old Empire army. Unfortuently the attempts were unsuccessful - it seems the Games Workshop paints go bad after only 10 years or so, In order to get started i had to buy some new paints, brushes and accesories. There were no shops carrying the Games Workshop products in Hobro at the time so I had to go to either Aalborg or Århus to get the items.
While still painting and repainting my Empire models i decided to start a new army of Dark Elves, this time doing it the right way and studing the army book before buying any figures. Of course the first thing i had to get was a multipart plastic kit and a single figure to be the general of the army. I choose the excellent Dark Elf Warriors box, along with a Sorceress.I spend a lot of time painting and assembling the figures, with a little help from the nice guys at the powerfist forum i decided on a swampy base look to match the Darl Elves homelands.
The sorceress ended up being one of the best models i have ever painted and im very happy with the looks - but i still think i can do better.
I keept painting and visited the shops whenever I was near, one faithful day in 2006 walked into a EB Games store. I knew the EB Games chain stores usually had a small selection of Games Workshop products - like the Bog & Ide chain used to have, however i could not have prepared for what i encountered. The chain had decided to stop selling Games Workshop products and everything was on sale with up to 70% off. I never had any plans to expand my collection much (i still had plenty metal figs that needed painting) but this was too good to pass up. With no discrimination whatsoever everything Empire or Dark Elf was bought, even some Orc & Goblins (allways wanted those), Tomb Kings (those too) and Vampire Counts (didnt want them, looked like tomb kings..) had to come home with me.
The shopkeeper tipped me that they were getting more stuff in from other shops so i should check regulary in the next few weeks for more, I did, and plenty more was bought. One day they had gotten a large chunk of Warhammer 40k blisters and boxes, since the beginning i wanted to paint Space Marines so i decided to go ahead and buy everything Space Marine too, an Space Ork battleforce had to come too. Along with the figures they had a few vehicles and most codex's and army books - i got those too for every race i could possible be interested in.
One day it was all over, the shop in Bruun's Galeri in Århus was devoid of any Games Workshop products, I talked to the cleck, who recognised me from my earlier shopping spree, and he told me that everything that was left was shipped to the store in the Fields department store in copenhagen. As luck would have it we were going on summer vacation on Bornholm in the following week and we had a planned sleepover in Copenhagen the day before. This would be the last chance to get the discounted product and many went home with me that day...
In 2009 we finally bought a house, after renting severeal diffenrent houses in the previous 10 years, the year before i quit my old job and started as a IT-technician at the public library in Randers. The house has a small office on the ground floor with able natural lighting and a good desk, after cleaning up the room i setup my paintstand and unpacked all my Space Marines.
This blog will (hopefully) follow the creation of my 4th Battle Company of the Dark Angels along with any other hobby projects that may come along, the itch is back, and its worse than ever, THIS time i will finish my project, instead of starting yet another one!..
..maybe ill just peek inside that Space Ork battleforce... just a little bit..
