What got you started down the path of miniatures gaming?

[meekor 113]

I was intrigued with movies that had intense battles , so many genres of every kind imaginable...Tamiya 1/35 WW2 German and American was my 1st official real miniatures and a huge O27 Lionel train yard ...I was invited to a miniature convention by a friend who had entered a painting and design contest , got in free as a plus one back in 1977 Rockford Ill...Blew me totally away...Got to play Star Fleet Battles protype mission and a WW2 1/72 Russian vs German assaulted mission...But the Piece DE Resistance was a Dungeon Master from Chicago Ill...He did a dungeon adventure with an entire 25mm miniatures , painted and extremely detailed ensemble...This was a far cry from Broadside , Stratego and Avalon hill bordgames...There was Napoleonics and Flags of Glory going on in other areas , too incredible to describe the complexity the wargamers had set up...

Since then I have collected huge collections of diverse eras from WW2 and Sci Fi...Some were stolen from me and some I traded off for different

collections...Each time I had to build forces for both sides of the conflict...Nobody could ever afford to invest in a collection...I enjoyed having impossible odds of accomplishing a mission and strove to mimic one in miniatures...To Quote Han : Never tell me the odds lol

Edited October 22, 2016 by meekor

[Vykes 1,927]

X Wing got me into minis. I played a lot of XvT and those PC games, so we hoped it would get us that feeling again when we found it. My friends chipped in, but we didn't play more than a few games before they either had other things to do or just didn't love it.

Armada was a cheap Amazon purchase. And I'm glad I found it, but other than one of my friends buying in initially, he's lost interest.

Oh well, still fun games to mess with.

 

That's a pretty interesting one for me, Stasy mate.  Mostly because I bought into X-wing for exactly the same reason: getting the feel of the XvT or, Tie Fighter in particular My immediate group ended up turning on it as a 'lesser' game to 40K.  Did you feel that X-wing delivered that XvT feel of gameplay? 

 

I've been slowly trying to get a few of my one group to get into Aturi, but the other group is Armada-only, I keep a very very distinctive line with no overlap between my casual and competitive groups. 

[WGNF911 826]

I did Battletech when I was a teenager, but didn't play much. Then I went to college and a friend there introduced me to Space Hulk which I enjoyed a lot. We got some of the expansions, he had SpaceCrusade also. We started doing MBT (Main Battle Tank) and did some epic WWIII battles on our floors using GHQ minis and a mini adaptation to the cardboard tabletop rules. Then I joined the Army, got married, had kids, went to war blah blah blah. A couple of years ago, my son (then 9) got XW for Christmas. We played that, found a gaming group when we moved and got Armada last January. I've still got Space Hulk, MBT, and oh yeah, Renegade Legion as well as Wooden Ships and Iron Men.

[Maturin 1,583]

I did Battletech when I was a teenager, but didn't play much. Then I went to college and a friend there introduced me to Space Hulk which I enjoyed a lot. We got some of the expansions, he had SpaceCrusade also. We started doing MBT (Main Battle Tank) and did some epic WWIII battles on our floors using GHQ minis and a mini adaptation to the cardboard tabletop rules. Then I joined the Army, got married, had kids, went to war blah blah blah. A couple of years ago, my son (then 9) got XW for Christmas. We played that, found a gaming group when we moved and got Armada last January. I've still got Space Hulk, MBT, and oh yeah, Renegade Legion as well as Wooden Ships and Iron Men.

I never played Renegade Legion on the tabletop, though I lusted after it in the game shop for years. And then I played the computer game....does it still hold up these days?

[WGNF911 826]

I did Battletech when I was a teenager, but didn't play much. Then I went to college and a friend there introduced me to Space Hulk which I enjoyed a lot. We got some of the expansions, he had SpaceCrusade also. We started doing MBT (Main Battle Tank) and did some epic WWIII battles on our floors using GHQ minis and a mini adaptation to the cardboard tabletop rules. Then I joined the Army, got married, had kids, went to war blah blah blah. A couple of years ago, my son (then 9) got XW for Christmas. We played that, found a gaming group when we moved and got Armada last January. I've still got Space Hulk, MBT, and oh yeah, Renegade Legion as well as Wooden Ships and Iron Men.

I never played Renegade Legion on the tabletop, though I lusted after it in the game shop for years. And then I played the computer game....does it still hold up these days?

It's been awhile but to be honest, probably not. There is a lot of "record keeping" with stat sheets for each vehicle and squad. They had a unique (and cool IMO) damage tracking system where your armor was a chunk of blocks and depending on where your opponent hit and what munition he was using, you'd grab a template and line up the corresponding munition with the row he hit and fill in the destroyed armor. Each munition (laser, cannon, missile, etc) had a different effect. Science fiction wise, it was very cool. I also have Leviathan (capital ship RL combat) and Prefect (planetary/system assault strategy) both of which I never really had a chance to play.

[Drasnighta 26,831]

Renegade Legion was BattleTech on Steriods, when it came to that damage...  The Different damage pieces were very interesting, indeed...

 

As far as most gamers are concerned, the days of mass record-keeping are gone.   Even BattleTech went to its Alpha Strike Cutdown formulae to try to stay in the miniature market...  

 

But that being said...

 

There are still people here, on this forum, who enjoy playing Starfleet Battles...   So there is still people who appreciate it.

[WGNF911 826]

I introduced the kids to Wooden Ships & Iron Men which has quite a bit of record keeping and they seemed to like it. They haven't asked to play it again though haha.

[Stasy 2,501]

X Wing got me into minis. I played a lot of XvT and those PC games, so we hoped it would get us that feeling again when we found it. My friends chipped in, but we didn't play more than a few games before they either had other things to do or just didn't love it.

Armada was a cheap Amazon purchase. And I'm glad I found it, but other than one of my friends buying in initially, he's lost interest.

Oh well, still fun games to mess with.

 

That's a pretty interesting one for me, Stasy mate.  Mostly because I bought into X-wing for exactly the same reason: getting the feel of the XvT or, Tie Fighter in particular My immediate group ended up turning on it as a 'lesser' game to 40K.  Did you feel that X-wing delivered that XvT feel of gameplay? 

 

I've been slowly trying to get a few of my one group to get into Aturi, but the other group is Armada-only, I keep a very very distinctive line with no overlap between my casual and competitive groups.

Ironic twist: One of my random friends decided to pick up on HotAC and try to run a weekly/biweekly game night. We've used my collection for the 2-3 games we have run, but he's buying new stuff to have himself to run it.

I like X Wing for the relatively quick gameplay and experience. It's easy to get those games in. I don't think it completely gets the old PC game feel, but that's OK in hindsight.

Armada takes a bit longer to set up/teardown and locally almost nobody plays. So I'm slightly hostage on what to play. But the one local FLGS seems pumped to get the CC expansion. Sounds like we may be able to get people interested if it's run more like an RPG than just straight tournament play.

[Amanal 2,557]

There are still people here, on this forum, who enjoy playing Star Fleet Battles.

 

The volume of rules could have kept you busy until doomsday and beyond.

[BiggsIRL 6,717]

I played Star Wars: Rebellion (PC) back in the day. When X-Wing came out, I stumbled into it in Wave 2 just in time to grab Interceptors (always my favorite from TIE Fighter days. Shields are for chumps!)

I knew Armada would be just what I wanted to play from the moment it was announced, and I've been here ever since.

[Akaga 39]

I played a lot of video games and built models as a kid (still do), but didn't get into war games until college. I played Heroquest in grade school and I'm kicking my self for not getting Space Hulk at the time. What really kicked things off was I had a roommate who played 40K. He didn't bring his collection with him, but he showed me pictures and the Dawn of War demo and that got me into 40K.

 

From there, I branched out into Battlefleet Gothic. When 40K got too expensive I switched to Dystopian Wars and Infinity. I held off X-Wing and Armada until this year.

[Rocmistro 1,090]

I broke my back in the military, and for about a year, watching tv, reading and painting minis was all I could do.

[n815e 106]

As a kid, I loved playing with toy soldiers, building models and looking at museum dioramas.  I think it was a natural fit.

[JJs Juggernaut 1,843]

X-wing was my first true minatures game, though I wasn't captivated by it. I always wished they had a capital ship version.....

Edited November 18, 2016 by JJs Juggernaut

[mad mandolorian 137]

technically i got started with my dad getting me into modeling, then i encountered a box of space marine devastators, and it steamrolled from there

[Lord Ashram 988]

Lemme modify this...

Edited January 23, 2017 by Lord Ashram

[Sbloom141 751]

Got into WH40k in 2nd edition when I was about 12. We used to have a club at school. Prices were such at the time that I generally bought bikes or Tactical Squads and I basically had about 120 troops and very little else but had some fun games albeit probably using a weirdly house ruled version of the rules.

I then left Warhammer and gaming along until about 2004 when I decided I wanted to paint some models, so bought another tactical squad and was shocked at the GW price increases! I painted a large amount of Chaos stuff before prices and wanting something new led me to seek other miniatures so since then I have moved onto historicals (SAGA / dark ages and Osprey Ronin rules for samurai which I have a massive lead mountain of).

I then got big into modern zombies but never found a rules system I liked enough so I have a lot of stuff which is painted but remains a bit underused.

Bought into X-Wing and imperial assault to play with some non-gaming buddies to get them interested and it worked. We did a full IA campaign. I painted about half the set.

Got big into X-Wing and enjoyed collecting. Same with Armada. I also love board games in general and role playing games.

Always been far more of a collector and painter but I think my standard of painting has dipped due to lack of practice since having a baby! So many more systems and projects have fallen by the wayside that I don't have time to mention!

[CDAT 243]

When my brother and I were young we saved our money to get D&D, when we went to buy it our folks who did not think it was a good influence (but would not ban us from spending our own money on it). The store had a Battledroids display next to D&D, our dad said if we did not buy the D&D he would buy us it. So that would be my first game, and still my main one.

[Derpzilla88 1,291]

I have Wizards of the Coast to blame for my miniature gaming with their Star Wars Miniatures game. So many Star Wars factions... so many characters from the Legends canon... so much fun.

 

I still have my collection stored not far from where I keep my X-Wing and Armada stuff. Just waiting for the day to come back out and be played again.