Introduction (Part 2: The Boring Middle Part)

(continued from previous...)

3 years later:

Tyranids: geek love at first sight. Invited to one of the aforementioned friend's house one weekend, I was introduced to the world of WH40K. I saw everything: Eldar, Leman Russ Tanks, the Carnifex! (back when it was the crown jewel of the Tyranid army). All of them were fairly poorly painted by anyone's standards, but were still so unequivocally beautiful to my virgin eyes (except some Dark Angels, which were literally dipped in dark green house paint, pulled out and left to dry. The figures lost so much detail that the only way anyone would know they were GW figures was if their owner told them, and only then if they actually chose to believe him).

I wandered back into a GW store and picked up a catalogue of some sorts. I spent hours flipping through the pages, immersed in all its glory. I wanted them all. In particular, I recall Eldar piqued my interest, but somehow I ended up instead buying a box of termigants. I can't recall why, but likely due to budgetary constraints. This time, I picked up some higher quality brushes and Citadel paints; nothing was going to stop me! I did end up painting up a few, which I will showcase below (still kept them after all of these years).

To this day I am still fairly impressed with them, considering they were my first set of fully painted models. However, it did take me a long time to paint each one, and once again my wandering mind moved on to other things...

Fast forward 3 years:

Another school, another new group of friends. I was a bit older and had a bit more financial freedom to boot. By pure accident, while hanging out at a friends' house, we got to talking about his WH40K box set (3rd Edition, I believe) and how he never really got into it. My interest was spurred yet again, this time toward Chaos Space Marines. I was in love with the Chaos Terminators, but my budgetary limitations swayed me towards a box of Khorne Berserkers. I had quite a bit of fun assembling and painting these guys (they were my first pose-able kit) but only ever finished a handful, and once again the draw of some other distraction pulled me away...

(As I was going through my box 'o random stuff, I just realized that at some point between the termigants and the Berserkers I also picked up and painted a box of vanilla CSM. Likely around the same time as the termigants, but my aging mind has failed me. See below.)

After this, life moved on. I went to University, graduated, moved out of my parents house (with my minis packed up and in tow, for no other reason than they were in the pile with all my other old boxes of random stuff) and into an apartment with my girlfriend. Got engaged, moved out of that apartment into a house, got married, moved out of that house into another house. This spanned roughly 10 years, during which I hardly even looked at the box housing my hobby supplies. Until one fateful day...

(to be continued...)