Welcome.
So way back in 1996, I began looking at this miniature game called
Warhammer 40,000 (circa 2nd Edition). As 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.
As with most newbies, I began with Space Marines - this the case for just
about all those who have played the game, given their poster boy status.
Fast forward to November 1997, back when the allies thing was pretty
much the norm (hell I had a Crusade style army consisting of the four core Marine 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.
My B'day and Xmas being close together enabled my newly found plastic crack addiction.
As you may imagine, off I ventured to a store in Northern Brisbane, blowing my wad (of cash) on a bunch of Eldar,
intended 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 plastic lasgun toting Guardians 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 was 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. 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 called 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, Dreadnoughts, 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.
