It all started in 5th grade; I went to a store called Gatekeeper hobbies in Topeka. I can still remember it today, they had a scene set up in a glass case of some Space Marines fending off a swarm of Tyranids. I continued to peruse the store for another hour or so. It was awesome and led me to find Games Workshop on the internet later that night and immerse myself in the world of Warhammer 40k. Later that year for Christmas, I got the Space Marine codex and 1 Space marine more literature for me to drool over and a model that failed to sate my desire for more. I eventually found the Novels by the Black Library set in the 40k universe. The first I read was Space Wolf by William King. I read all his books then Dan Abnett’s, after those I just read everything the Black Library published. After some lame work in a lumber yard I managed to acquire some Orks!


A few other friends bought into 40k, and we had a great time learning how to do everything. First assembly, then we stumbled over the rules for quite some time. Eventually we worked up the gall to give painting a try. I would have to say it’s all downhill from there. The first model I painted was an Ork warboss with an attack squig on his arm. It’s still around somewhere I might throw up a picture sometime. My brother bought a whole bunch of Necrons, but in the end left them to gather dust. I played those as well. After a few years of 40k we were ready for more.  Naturally we stepped over into Warhammer Fantasy. I managed to find a sweet deal, and buy a Dwarf Army that I scrupulously painted and throughly enjoyed playing. honestly It may be hard for me to resist Dwarves if they get redone. Then high-school ended and off I went to K-State.

Manhattan is only 1/3 the size of Olathe and believe me when I say the gamers and hobby enthusiasts must be in those other two thirds. I was at a loss here when it came to finding a community to consistently play with. In my frustration I turned to the internet where I found some great miniature news sites like www.tabletopgamingnews.com.

I was slowly introduced to "other" games in the industry. For a brief time I went game crazy and read tons of rules for all sorts of things trying to figure out what I wanted to play. Of course I want to play them all but with my paltry college salary the masses needed to be thinned out. I looked into Infinity, Malifaux, Alchemy, Warmachine, Hordes, Uncharted Seas, Soda Pop Miniatures, and Kingdom of Death. Finding all this opened my eyes to the industry that is gaming.

I also got into RPGs like Dark Heresy and Shadowrun, and Boardgames too. After my year long sojourn in boardgame land, I was very much ready to play some miniature games again. At this point Warmachine mkII was going to hit the shelves soon. Also Malifaux had been released. So a Cryxian force was ordered for me along with an accompanying Khador army for my Fiancée. We also got Pandora and Rasputina crews for Malifaux.

I should probably say, my Fiancée is who I played boardgames with predominately. I kept pushing for miniature games but it really took awhile. Warmachine proved to be the “easier” game for her to grasp. We played off and on for about a year. I kept bugging her about Malifaux and eventually she gave in. After our first game of Malifaux we were both hooked. I sold on ebay my Ogres and Chaos Space Marines then proceeded to purchase several Malifaux crews and the boardgame Nightfall.


That’s my gaming life in a nutshell.
peace world

V.