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@W.A.Rorie, I really appreciate that you've shared this here, and thank you for doing so. This is one of the things that still 'sweep me off my feet', that after so many years in the hobby, there are still stories like yours, which remind me how much more the hobby is: it is not the plastic crack that we hoard, nor the glue we sniff or the brushes we lick. It is the people that make it what it is, the community, places such as B&C, and what brings us together. Maybe is the autumn that's getting closer, maybe not, but your story made me feel a warmth inside. I'm really glad that everything worked out for the best. Really happy.

I know exactly where you are coming from, @WBRBloom. I hit 47 years old, earlier this year and was like I have been in the GW world for almost 30 years. Lots of Highs and Lows in the gaming world and personal life. Sometimes, I want to quit the game, hobby, and move on. Then I am back in. One of the stories that I would like to share is: I got into the Hobby during my late into Senior year in High School, earlier that school year I began dating a long time female friend and she would become my HS Sweetheart and eventually Fiancé. We would break up not long after our 1st year of College. My Friend and I gamed at our FLGS alot. It kept me sane and helped me recover from the break up. In 2023 my HS Sweetheart reconnected. She was happy to hear I was still gaming. We are now married. And the FLGS Owner decided to retire and close up shop. Before the store closed, I went in and tell him about how his store meant so much to me, how it helped me recover from the break up, having a safe place to get away from, and all the memories I had that he help create and I was going to miss it. I was teary eyed and told him saved me. I then told him she was now my wife. He smiled and said so everything works out in the end.

Oof! That quoted comment hit me hard. I’m 54 and have been hobbying in the GW world since 1988 when I first picked up Rogue Trader. Based on family history I too have a much shorter section of hobby road remaining to journey on. The GW universe was always a creative outlet for me and a way to decompress from life. It’s been a part of me for so long that I doubt I will let it go as long as the eyesight holds up. However, living with the moments of nostalgia from memories of now departed gaming friends is a thing and to a degree it puts a damper on excitement for new editions and new miniatures. I can paint and play as time permits. Re-igniting the spark of excitement for the next version without having some of the inner circle of hobby friends I grew up with has been challenging. Accepting that I have less than half my life left is sobering. This has been top of mind a lot recently as I debate getting back into the 40K side with 11th edition. It may be 12th edition before I figure out what I want to do!

What you said, @W.A.Rorie, reminded me of this!

Thank you for sharing @WBRBloom and @W.A.Rorie. Maybe are the painkillers in my system talking but I love to hear stories like that and I think the good memories of our hobby and of course our life too are what give us the strenght to survive our darker days. The hearth in which we stay warm during the long nights.

Yeah I'm not knocking anyone who has grown up and tired, just adding some perspective . I'm still trying to decide what I want to be when I grow up after all these years, maybe I'll figure it out before retirement. Maybe in my case it has something to do with all that lead dust I got all over my fingers from handling those minis from the 80s. Kept me youthful in the brain?

My first army was only 12 models and I played Imperial Guard... Eldar, Imperial Guard, Dark Eldar... all those became codephrases so we can identify our own.

Oh, definitely @Adeptekon, I couldn't agree more! I just wonder that in a world where everything tends to be just consumption rather than essence, how long one might remain relevant. I simply found that, in my case at least, I will take stability wherever I can find it. If this is from a wargaming edition, so be it! Is it my way of controlling things in my life? Perhaps! Do I have the rest of my life in front of me? Maybe, maybe not! Can I moan about how old I am and how things were better 'back in my day' from the age of 19? Abso-diddly-doodly!

Lets gooooooo

The struggle is real.

For a first Time painting the result is rather ++. My own débuts where Closer of … better Forget these. Good model

Retro Rocket Man is best Rocket Man.

Oh. ETB Deathguard still look cool though.

Of course @Adeptekon, and I did not take any offence. It is funny that you said that you are still trying to decide what you want to be. It reminds me one of my favourite 'songs', (which is basically an article by Buz Luhrman read by Lee Perry over music) 'Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)': 'Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don't.'

"Back in my day the Models were Pewter or Pewter/ Plastic Hybrids. a Squad of 10 marines was 300 points before gear. Terminators had to buy teleporters. And the stores banned Vortex grenades!" I think this is why I have a fascination with Necromunda and it is my escape from 40k sometimes. It harkens back to the older games with smaller armies.

I will admit this is pretty based. But you kids kill me. 47 is the new 37 maybe even younger. You are dangerously close to having half your life left which means if you can survive your 40's (not everyone can) you've got a heck of alot left.

There's a couple of things you can do to help Spray Prime insub-optimal conditions 1- warm the can for ~2mins in a pot of warm water, like tap hot, not boiling. 2- Shake thoroughly, 1-2mins, flipping the can end on end every 30secs or so. 3- Don't spray in direct sunlight 4- Spray a sprue first, if it's fuzzy, this means the spray is drying in the air on the way. Try again spraying closer, go slow, move closer at 1.5inches (~3/4cm) at a time until you find the sweet spot.

They look good! At first glance they appeared just a tad large, but actually it looks more realistic that way (assuming I'm not just imagining the size anomaly). A lot of power armor heads look a little small imo. The hooded one is really going to fit your army's theme!

Let us know if you need support! Or if you want to discuss it, in any way!

They're all looking great, nicely done

You mean, you don't do much modelling/painting, or something else?

Hopefully you are able to grab them. Can't wait to see what is plan for them.

Keep up the good work!

Yes I have a massive Grey Knight army and I have been building a new army from the Tortuga Bay bodies. Unpainted is the Tortuga Bay with Head, arms, shoulder pads and hand from GKT kit. Other kit is all GKT.

I am one to blame as well. I was always falling in social rabbit holes, and spending my time there doomscrolling forever. As Gandalf said, and I am sure I'm paraphrasing, 'we can only try to do good with the time we have left'. Oh, don't get me started on that...

as you state, and that's all part of the plan. I don't recall this, but I'll take your word for it since C19 is a rabbit hole and I'll leave it at that. It is for sure. There are few indy forums left that have any real traffic. I was a lurker here for a while, B&C would always come up in my searches. Didn't like the look of it, but after the last update (or face-lift) and being unfulfilled on other forums, I decided to join.

Love them

Excellent work

Great Job!

Thank you all! I had a lot of fun painting this guy and I'm already looking at too many other miniatures that I want to buy lmao

Excellent work. You have a lot more skill and brush control than I do.

Beautiful work!

Great job

Nice.

One of my favorite Chapters: The Hospitallers, have 3 Companies total. So you can do what you want.

Looks good. Can't wait to see what you come up with.

Thanks! That is a helpful perspective, I'll try it sometime. You are right - I'm still not sure how this piece would go over with someone who didn't already have some knowledge of the Salamanders. I think I had a similar idea in a battle report a while back. I was just inserting small narrative bits for fun, and the last was from the POV of a Khornate cultist iirc. It's actually a lot of fun to write about your main characters from others' eyes. That Green Templars story was one of the earlier ones, right? I seem to remember reading it, though alas I haven't been keeping up with the chapter lore lately. It was well done!

With how long you've been in the game I think you know you can do whatever you want. I personally don't care what edition is current nor what books says this or that. I take what I like from the buffet and that's my 40k. I hope you can find some way to enjoy it your way well into your senior years.

Tints. Desert ain't plain khaki. There is all possible hues all around. Put large redish/grey rock next to foot/armor and add same tint on armor too. And then add highlight reflected from your piece to rock just a little area with light model's color.

How would you base a large vehicle like a plane or Knight where you don't want to distract from the model, but you also don't want to have a plain grey base with zero character? I'm having trouble trying to decide how to do desert bases with armour that's desert khaki itself. It's one thing to have camouflage, it's another to have a sea of beige.

YUP

As a Grey Knight player, I have a special connection to the Ordo Malleus and Exorcists. Even if the lore has been changed to them being Successors of Dorn* and are without a doubt Radical with their Plutonian Inquisition ties. We all know they are Loyalist Word Bearers. The idea of the Red Hunters is very interesting and lack of information is a bonus, for me. I have played many different Chapters over the years I have been playing 40k. While I like the Space Wolves, Crimson Fists, and a few other bigger known Chapters, I still prefer lesser known Chapters. Besides my Huge Grey Knights, Adepta Sororitas forces, I have a ton of Imperial Agents/ Inquisition stuff, I have 3 Space Marine armies on progress right now for 40k: Exorcists which is a Vanguard/ Subversion force with Phobos and Scouts Howling Griffons which is a Terminators, Dreadnoughts, Land Raiders, and a scout squad. Red Hunters which is all Tacticus and Gravis armors, Tanks and land speeders. All 3 have ties to Badab War, Red Hunters being after the fact. Which I would love to have an official Campaign for.

Underrated chapter. The Excorcists get more attention as the "chapter with ties to the inquisition", but the Red Hunters are just as Inquisitorial, if not more. They're the Puritan connection between the Space Marines and the Ordos, as opposed to the Exorcists' Plutonian radical ties.

I saw the display for this new game called "Rogue Trader" when I was moseying through my local comic and games store as a teenager and the rulebook cover and miniatures immediately drew my eye. My previous wargaming experiences (not counting Chess and the like) had been chit and hex wargames from Avalon Hill and something not unlike H.G. Wells' Little Wars where my brother and I painted our army men, set them up, and then sat back and shot rubber bands until only one of us had figures still standing. I had seen some historical tabletop miniature wargames played and I thoroughly enjoyed the spectacle of armies of well-painted miniatures engaged in battle, but my love of science fiction was drawn to the weirdness of the Rogue Trader setting. Unfortunately, my living situation didn't allow me to actually collect armies with which to play the game in those years, so my hobby participation during the 1st and 2nd editions of the game was mostly painting miniatures and reading lore (lots of White Dwarf and a few codices/army books). My living situation changed around the time the 3rd edition of the game was published, allowing me the time and space to actually paint an army and play games. Space Elves (as they were called at the time) were my first love, with Space Marines coming in a close second. Disclaimer: I would never shoot rubber bands at my WH40K minis (or anyone else's, for that matter).

I got into the hobby through 1st edition necromunda (though I had been painting minis for about a decade prior, first D&D and then battletech) - a friend of mine had it, and I played it with him a few times. I had previously played other GW games (a little Space Marine [the original epic] and I translated a high school mate's heroquest into Spanish at one point for him) and had eyed games like Dark Future and the rogue trader marines (too expensive for me as a teenager), but wasn't really involved in the hobby until I started playing Necromunda in university. My Necromunda introducing friend then bought me the 2nd ed. sister's of battle codex, as one of my main RPG characters in high school had been a religious nutter (in the post-apocalyptic RIFTS RPG by Palladium). Not sure if he bought me any of the minis - in any case, I started buying and painting them, but not yet playing. Then, my best friend and I each bought a box to play, then bought the 3rd ed. box set together - I discuss this in my in memoriam thread to my best friend. Incidentally, the friend who I first played necromunda with was the one who piloted my late friend's army in my recently posted battle report. Sisters of Battle were my first army (you can see most of my models here) and I played them a lot in 3rd and 4th ed., first with the rules in the back of the 3rd ed ruleset (which were horrible, horrible, horrible), the Chapter Approved ruleset (which were pretty good, but some players didn't like them because they required attached priests to sisters units to allow sisters to benefit from their faith rules, and the redemptionist rabble was usually a better choice than sisters units), and the 4th ed. Demonhunters codex (which was... okay - it addressed the priests issue, but the acts of faith were clunky and definitely less powerful). Played them a bit in 5th and 6th as well, but by then I had shifted to imperial guard as my main army. And now I play chaos.

I was aware of 40k via the internet, and drew a number of (in hindsight, probably disturbing to my teachers and peers) 40k-themed drawings in middle-high school. My first 'proper' models were from the Know No Fear box they put out in 8th during my early college years, I think. A bachelor's degree in writing and many models later, here I am.

I love all these stories. So great to hear how people got the bug! My story starts in 1996. When I was younger than that, my dad and I used to build WWII model planes, and when the local bobby started a modelling club in my village I went along with some of my friends. Somehow, after we’d been there for a few weeks, a copy of the 2nd edition Warhammer 40,000 starter box mysteriously turned up at the club. We put together all the figures and played a series of games in which we pretty much ignored the rule book. The space marines always won because we hid both armies behind the cardboard buildings and had decided the missile launchers could fire over them. Not really sure what we were doing but we had a ton of fun! My first army was purchased on my birthday in May that year. I still remember the excited feeling 12-year old me had walking up Friar Lane to enter the Nottingham Games Workshop store for the first time. I came away with Eldar Guardians, Striking Scorpions, Dire Avengers and Fire Dragons, along with the Eldar paint set. Hawk Turquoise and Warlock Purple, among other great and weird colours. Warhammer became a huge part of my life from then on. The only friend I’ve kept in contact with from my childhood is the one friend I used to game with all the time, usually his World Eaters charging madly and getting blown to bits, with the occasional salt pot Bloodthirster proxy in tow. I’ve now introduced all my kids to 40K over the years and my middle son is so nuts on the hobby he has just joined this forum and entered the Call to Arms! Edit: so many silly auto-correct errors!

I stepped into it at the age of 13, through middle school role playing club - 2 hours lunch pause every day gave quite a lot of time to kill. It all started with hexagon maps and a few (lead based) models on it with Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay first Ed. and Talisman as main GW games (although as years passed, DD, Car wars, battle tech and cyberpunk were added as well as Historic Charge! and of course Space Crusade, Space hulk, Space Marine-Epic and WFB). Then a french fanzine published some rules to adapt 40000 Rogue Trader (ie 1st Ed) into a roleplay using WFRP system. Et voila! Three space wolves boxedset away, 2nd Ed was published and I never stopped being into it, although I had a serious gaming hiatus between 2011 and 2022 - yet I kept on collecting and modelling.

I was a bit older but not by much. I found out about Warhammer 40k when I met my friend @The_Oni_of_Hindsight in HS (1996-1997). He has been playing for a while and I had some Pewter Chaos models I got a plastic model hobby shop. I eventually bought the starter set for 2nd Edition playing the Space Marines, then I saw the army that would be my favorite army of all time, Sisters of Battle. I was engaged with my HS Sweetheart during this time and as we were young and immature, there was lots of issues that resulted in us breaking up. One issue was my gaming with my friend, while she was working. Over the years I have built multiple armies, but usually had a space marine army and sisters of battle. During Covid I really started working on my Grey Knights and now that is my largest painted army I have ever owned, I blame @Grotsmasha and his 12 Months of Hobby Challenge, such a great motivator. Last year my Long time GF and I broke up and I received a friend request from my HS Sweetheart. We started reconnecting as we missed each others friendship as we knew each other since we were 11 years old. As we reconnected we realized we were still in love with each other. She asked me if I was still gaming and I told her yes, and she said that was good, and she should never have used it as a reason for us to break up. I told her it helped me with the break up. Now we are engaged again, getting married in November of this year, and some her adopted kids are going to be starting on their own armies (Death Guard, Genestealer Cult, and Blood Angels), our "Office" is half her area and half my Hobby area. PS for our honeymoon in April 2025, we are going to be Traveling through Ireland, Scotland, and England, including going to Bovington Tank Museum and going to hit a little bar in Nottingham called Bugman's.

My Origin story starts as a 9,10, or 11yr old me is travelling home on an interstate bus at the end of the school holidays (15hr, overnight ride), travelling unaccompanied with my younger brother. We were sat with another unaccompanied kid, maybe 15ish, he was reading White Dwarf, I was reading MAD Magazine, we traded once we'd finished. I don't recall the issue I read on the bus, but I do recall the first issue I bought for myself when I got back to Brissie, 212, that classic Sisters of Battle art on the front. It was with the next issue however, that had me hooked for life. 213 with the Dark Angels and the Priscina campaign. I've been with the Dark Angels ever since.