when did you start?

[Stewart 46A]

Quiet day today and I started thinking about the war games weekend in Nov, better check I know where everything is.
When I looked at what I had collected this got me thinking about the hobby.
I started over 40years ago with my Dad  and Airfix figures, then boxed games and 6mm figures, easy to store in my locker at Sea (Royal Navy for 34 years).
I met Martin (Peter Pig) 2005 and started collecting 15mm and now I know where everything is for the weekend I counted my 15mm stuff,
told you I was bored.
totals
8926 foot
855 cav
133 guns
195 tanks/other vehicles
9 helicopters
30 ships
4 forts
all painted and stowed neatly away

[Leman (Andy)]

I started in the Autumn of 1966. I had visited somebody's house and the son of the family had produced a battle board (hardboard with papier mache features) for his Airfix ACW collection. I already had lots of Airfix ACW so decided I would do the same thing; have a go at painting up the figures using Humbrol paints and then try and come up with some rules for moving and fighting them. I then went off on a school cruise to Morocco (the SS Nevasa if anyone remembers her). When I returned I had turned 14 and so was now eligible to join the MAYC, where I instantly hit it off with a lad in the year above me called Pete Bartlam. After a while, like most friends in those days, I was invited round to his house, where he showed his ACW figures fighting over a sand table in the family garage. I told him what I had been doing with my ACW figures, and he lent me a copy of Don Featherstone's 'War Games', the one with the green black and white cover. I had at last discovered my second hobby (the other being hill walking) and both have stayed with me these past 50 years. Could not even begin to work out how much stuff I have!

[Sean Clark]

My history began in the early '80's playing dungeons and dragons. My dad had bought me a small box of Hinchcliffe  Greeks ans Romans but I had no idea what to do with them. I well remember the first issue of Miniature Wargaming and I would regularly pick it up and later Wargames Illustrated.

In 1989 I saw an advert for a small show called 'Sentry' held at the town hall in Stoke. There I met members of the Stoke Wargames Group who ran the show and the rest is history. Not long after I first met Martin, probably at the Derby show at the Assembly Rooms. My first purchase was ACW and Vietnam. I've never looked back.

I own figures for every range Peter Pig does, but not actually played War in the Age of Magic or Pieces of Eight. I actively play all Piggie rules other than Abteilung and Hey You in the Jail which I've not played for years. For historicals I dont really play anything else other than the odd game of Bolt Action. I do also play Warmachine, Malifaux and a couple of other fantasy/sci fi games.

My collection of Piggies is in the thousands, unfortunately not all painted. I went through a purge a few years ago and sold a load of figures off. Happily I've now repurchased them and am well on the way to painting them up.

[Colonel Kilgore]

Late '70s: Britain's 54mm knights and spinning a numbered Christmas cracker top [life was tough in the West Country - couldn't even afford dice...] against a very simple table of my own making to determine the outcome of combats in my wooden castle: wargaming without knowing it.
Early '80s: was given some Airfix French infantry and artillery, and Bruce Quarrie's "Napoleonic Wargaming" Airfix guide
Later '80s: had lots of fun casting up Prince August 25mm Napoleonic figures. And rather less fun cleaning up the castings and then trying to paint the somewhat feature-free models. Graduated to my first 15mm army [Mikes Models ECW]
'90s: WRG and Newbury Ancients of various incarnations: Late Romans and Huns from Essex, plus lots of other cool DBA armies that I never got around to painting
Noughties: discovered Peter Pig were much nicer, and far easier to clean up, than Essex.
Now anything new and shiny from the Piggy workshop...

[Sean Clark]

Having slept a night in the  PP workshop I can safely say the unpainted  lead pile puts mine to shame 😂

[Stewart 46A]

I do have the warlords big rorkes drift with extras that my wife bought me a few years ago.
That is my work in progress when I work away, it goes with me and I do a little bit.
Everything is in a big case so easy to take with me

[Sean Clark]

That is a great set. I would probably have to do it in 15mm though.

[Spartacus]

I started when I was 16 in  1968 saw the film "The Alamo" and my mate and I joined Bristol wargames club .

We then bought some Airfix ACW and went from there with me having a green carpet in my bedroom we pulled up the edges and stuffed books under it. Worked well. we then went on to Napoleonic but my mum kept coming in and killing troops.

Terry

[Leslie BT]

Terry if you were at Bristol Club do you remember these.

Percentage Dice
Mike Blake has also asked if anyone has any info or remembrance of the following:
He is particularly interested in exactly when the Bristol wargamers invented 20-sided dice and
started to sell them. A challenge for the little grey cells as neither Mike nor Ian who were part of the
club can remember.

[Spartacus]

No, Sorry Les. We only went about 3 times, The only thing I remember was the club met near Old Market in Bristol and was in an upstairs room of a pub.

Oh! and they had written a ruleset for Napoleonics which we used for a good while.

Terry

[Noggin]

I started seriously back when I was 13 (45 years ago) with some mini figs 15mm ECW strips. If I remember rightly 5 infantry and 3 cavalry to a strip. Prior to that I had lots of Airfix but just played with them in the outdoor sandpit mostly - it had a great rock feature in one corner.
All of this was influenced by my older brother who had a lovely collection of ACW, 25mm medieval and 25mm Crimean War. I am sure he will enjoy reading this and does he remember the excellent Airfix dancing ACW pose?

[Smoking gun]

I can't remember when I started wargaming with miniatures, the most significant event was in the early 80's when I moved to Grimsby and joined the local club where I started to game weekly. Prior to then there were "dabbles" and board games I still have Cry Havoc and some other games in that series.

Best wishes,
Martin

[Andoreth]

I started in 1967 when I was 14. My mother told me that if I did not do something with all the Airfix and other plastic figurers I had other than line them up and knock them over again they would all be diopnated to charity. I bought the Shire book of wargaming, grabbed one of my school mates and fought my first battle within days. From then on I played fairly regularly during my school life, then as a member of the Manchester University Wargames Club, and then with the Whitehall Warlords  up to the present day. 

[Norm]

Properly, with rules and things and moving from the floor to the table, I was 14. Thank You Airfix, Don Featherstone and a bunch of others.

Then at 17 I also discovered boardgames and have had that combined passion for both paper and figures ever since.

[Smiley Miley 66]

I started in the early 70's. But it wasn't until the late 70's that I actually started to build models. I moved to a slightly out of town part of Christchurch. Then I met my friend Martin, we shared the same bus going to school, and the same passion in Wargamming and building models, with time got better at building and painting. Stopped firing match sticks and started Rolling dice. That's when my hobby took off. To be honest I ve never looked back. We both love Gaming, even though he has turned to the Dark side (RPG) my gaming has expanded to nowadays having my own cabin(s) to do my hobby.
Like most people Airfix, then Matchbox and ESCI were all a big part in my early modelling career. Up until the late 90's. Beer, Bikes, Music and Jobs and the opposite sex. Then once I had settled down with my Wife and family, I got back into gaming and modelling. Back then to get a "complete" gaming force 15 mm and seemingly Battlefront were the way forward. So I changed scales. Then I met people who were connected to PP, got to know Martin and the crew and never really looked back.
A very brief description of nearly fifty years of being in the hobby.
Miles