Welcome.
Given last night I had a very close bond with the toilet due to food poisoning, and my boss told me not to do any work today... well I figured now is a better time as ever to kick this off.
So way back in 1996, I began looking at this miniature game called Warhammer 40,000 (circa 2nd Edition). Given I was 13 at the time and loved the hell out of military stuff, plus all things Sci fi, naturally it was right up my alley. This compulsion to play with little plastic men of the Rolls Royce variety kicked off a collection of sorts. Naturally, I began with Space Marines - Isn't this the case for just about all those who have played the game?
Fast forward to November 2007. Back when the allies thing was pretty much the norm (hell I had a Crusade style army consisting of the four Smurf chapters), the advent of the Falcon Grav Tank pretty much spelled doom for my wallet - which at 14 wasn't all that full to begin with. Good thing my B'day and Xmas are so close together eh?
As you may imagine, I blew my wad (of cash) on a bunch of Eldar, intended to be used as a super smooth Allies detachment. It went a little something like this;
2x Falcon Grav Tanks
2x Vyper Jetbikes (Yes they were called Jetbikes back then)
2x Guardian boxes (Six to a box, so the Falcons had company)
14x Jetbikes (with about four Shuriken Cannon variants)
1x Eldar 2nd Edition Codex
I was lucky enough to have an Aunt that understood and appreciated my addictive personality, coupled with a like of expensive things (My mother was never told just how much I spent that day).
After zipping back to my Grandparents place in Brisbane, I began pouring over the possibilities, unbeknownst to me that I had just bought a Saim Hann force, fully capable of pure pop-up attack joy.
Shit got real, very very quickly.
....
The Army itself got bolstered quite rapidly in the following year, seeing an additional 14 Swooping Hawks (back when squad sizes were in lots of seven), Warp Spiders, Eldrad with some Warlocks here and there. Of course, it was then my mission to add in Howling Banshees, Striking Scorpions, Dark Reapers and an Avatar.
I was very fortunate to have found a supplier by the name of Trace Geller, who operated a store by the name of Mega Comics and Games. Trace was a godsend, especially in 1998/1999 when my wallet was still empty being a poor high school student, saving his lunch money for that next bulk order from the USA. Again, I found myself adding to this already solid sized army.
War Walkers, Dreadnaughts, new Guardian sculpts, Rangers, all of which were purchased for insanely cheap prices compared with Australian retail (which was borderline criminal, even back then). I was well on my way to OCD with this love for the Eldar.
