What was your first introductory game of 40K?

[kabaakaba]

For me it was last weekend of 2001. I've got my birthday money and take adventure to another end of city to the only lgs at that time  to buy a steam tank for my little wbfb army. And got to the 40k introduction day. I was curious, i have no internet access in that time and don't know about 40k. There was few oldmans(30-35 year ) who gives small army to newbie and explain rules. I've got little tau army with broadside few infantry and crisises. and paired against necrons. I loose. Then game against IG. I'm loose again. Needless to say i don't buy steam tank and heading home with LRBT and few infantry squads 

[Grotsmasha]

It would have been ~'97 or '98, 2nd Ed. The first WD I'd bought for myself was 212 (Aug '97) with that classic Sisters artwork. There was four of us, and we played 2v2, or Free-for-All basically every game, as we only had one board, and typically not enough time for multiple games. I don't really remember the specifics of my first game, but I do recall my second. My friend had just bought and painted his brand new Commissar and Ogryns, transported in his brand new Chimera. I had just painted my brand new triple Las Predator, and managed to get 1st turn. I shot everything at that transport, he rolled the worst possible result, everyone died, and the resulting explosion also damaged one of his other squads (maybe guardsmen, maybe Ratlings), they failed their morale check and bolted, and never recovered.

This started a tradition in the group of new units never surviving their first game.

[Bouargh]

Summer of 92, Southampton's suburbs.

RT rules, Harlies against SM. The latter with a Land Raider. I had been lent Harlies and the other player cheated in big ways, making the exhausts of the LR count as flamers, (plus the Lascannon, plus de HB) plus the fact that I was probably outmatched pointwise by a 3 to 4 fold factor. I had no idea of the rules and mechanisms at the time.

 

Despite this I have been hooked, even if I was at the time mainly a WFB player. within the follong 12 months, I bought the RT rule book, the Compendium, the Compilation, Battle and Vehicle Manuals (wonderful bad idea this targetting matrix on vehicle silhouettes...) and, stimulated by the release of the metal SW, I dived into the grimdark for good.

[Valkia the Bloody]

I have been in the hobby for nearly 30 years now, but in the beginning, I stuck to Fantasy (I very much liked the "historic" look of the old Empire and Dogs of War ranges). 

At uni, we had a great club, in the beginning, I also played Fantasy there, but then some members of the club finished creating some awesome 40k boards to play on- all hand-made, they made a trench warfare board and also a space hulk! To celebrate the new boards, we had a 40k party! So my very first introductory game was a game of Space Hulk on the new board. I remember I even brought my flatmate along who had been wondering for a long time what exactly we were doing at the club and why I had this strange hobby of painting plastic / pewter figures (he thought this was for kids and I was wasting my time). It was like opening a new world for him (he did not join, but at least he could acknowledge that this was a fun activity and we were less weird than he feared). 

It was a great game, great atmosphere, there was pizza and lots of fun. 

Club members also introduced me to the novels by Dan Abnett (Eisenhorn and Ghosts) and after reading those, 40k was completely sold on me. I stopped with Fantasy, sold most of my fantasy armies and pledged my soul to Chaos (my first 40k army was a heavily converted Death Guard army, years before they got actual models beside the pewter plague marines- luckily hanging guts and gore are easy to do and did not stretch my green stuff skills). 

Very fond memories. Just have been hit by a wave of nostalgia. 

[Doghouse]

Mine was the preview in White Dwarf for Rogue Trader. I was already collecting Warhammer stuff a couple of years before and when the article dropped it absolutely blew my tiny mind.

 

There was a competition in the magazine where you could win a copy of the rulebook and I scoured that article for answers like my life depended on it. I can still vividly recall being sat at the dining room table as I read and reread fanatically studying every image and paragraph. along with the Gobbledigook cartoon strip in it.

 

I vaguely remember Gretchin being one of the answers to a question that now alludes me, I didn't win but did convince my mum to buy me the book and the RTB01 marines on release.

[gaurdian31]

I started back in late 2001, buddy of mine had gotten some space marines and wanted to play with them. He handed me the core rule book with information on the other factions and I decided on Chaos Marines. Seemed appropriate to be the dark mirror to his forces. Got to play that codex a couple of months before 3.5 and when that came out that made me happy I had chosen Chaos.

[Kommisar_K]

Mike's quite a bit more recent, but still fun I hope? 2017-18 my little school was practicing for its annual Christmas pageant. My two close friends and I started bringing in boardgames to play while we were waiting off stage or during lunch break. One brought in the little 'First Strike' starter set (Death Guard vs SM) & we rotated in - whoever lost watched the next game. 

I lost every time 

[Zoatibix]

Battle of the Farm out of the OG book. RTB01 Marines vs Space Raider Orks! 

[Rusted Boltgun]

I haven't had a proper game of 40k yet. Jr and I had a intro game in store earlier this year but it was only moving and shooting a squad from each side to understand the very basic mechanics.

 

BITD,I had the RT softback, compendium and the two Realm of Chaos books and dreamt of 40k (and WFB, I still have my handwritten Skaven army list) but only managed a few models - a box of beakies and  a couple of metal marines (and the Chaos Terminator in my profile pic).

 

I did play multiple games of Space Hulk / Deathwing and a few of games at Epic scale.

[The Praetorian of Inwit]

Way back in 2003, maybe 2004. I charged a Carnifex with a 5 man unit of Scouts. 

[Captain Idaho]

Ah good topic.

 

First ever rolling of dice in anger was the old 2nd Edition boxed set and scenarios that came with it.

 

My friend had a combat squad of Tactical Marines with flamer and I had 30 Gretchin armed with autoguns.

 

Old school monopose there too.

 

Good times. I won.

[N1SB]

1st ed Rogue Trader.  Remember how Rules As Written included a GM, even though they phased that out even within that era.

 

So it was Marines vs Orks, then Genestealers (with minis from Space Hulk) came out of frigging nowhere and ate both our sides.

 

To this day, I really hate Genestealers, more than Chaos...yet for some reason people tell me I'm really good at painting them.

[Kenzaburo]

It was a sunday, 1997 I think, because Sisters of Battle had just come out. It was around September, we had discovered GW and Warhammer through a White Dwarf I had bought, featuring the brand new Epic 40k and the new Ahriman model. Oh man, we were hooked.

 

We drove to Dortmund on the saturday, where our nearest GW store was, bought the 2nd ed boxed set, I remember a friend buying some Sororitas seraphim and then we went back home. We were 4 guys, all my pen and paper RPG mates. Then we split the box. One took the orks, one took 10 tactical marines and I took the other 10. 2 of us decided to read the rules so we could play the game the next day. The 4th guy was still on the fence if he should jump into the game, too. Anyways, on that sunday we came together, played the game with 20 tactical marines, the space orks and gretchins and the cardboard deff dread and all that neat cardboard ruin terrain. We had a blast.

 

The 4th guy then decided on Eldar and we had lots of really whacky games of 2nd ed - Space Wolves (me), Dark Angels with allied Sisters, Eldar and 2 chaos players. The orks fell by the wayside, unfortunately. So much fun. The eldar guy (my best friend) and me are still playing to this day.

[Ahzek451]

Started out as a lurker in my early teenage years, the local comic shop guy convinced me to pickup the 2nd edition rulebook. Had fun reading, but I didn't know anyone that played at the time. 3rd edition was right around the corner, at the time I didn't even know that it was released until a friend brought his new 3rd ed. book on the school bus. Recognizing it, we enthusiastically talked about the game/hobby. If not for him, I would have not likely fully embraced Warhammer as early as I did in life. I took to chaos, because a. they looked cool to me, and b. everyone else in the local area was (to no surprise) a space marine player of all the main flavors(mostly space wolves). 

My friend took to blood angels. I hobbled together a ragtag band of chaos marines with the old plastic khorne berzerkers, chaos marines with the occasional pewter aspiring champion or heavy bolter user, and a pewter chaos dreadnought. I relied on him to teach and run the game since he had the book. This game defined how I took to the rules. Because.....he was such a damn cheater lol. As mentioned, I relied on him for the rules. My army got wrecked, but throughout the game I knew things felt "off". A lot of declarations were made that seemed suspiciously convenient, and he was not keen on sharing his book, possessive as he was over his hard spent birthday money purchase....or more likely, just someone that didn't want to get caught in his bull-****. 

The game bothered me. But it also inspired me. I bought my own rulebook in time. Bought my codex and HIS codex. Memorized them. And imagine how the next game turned out?

Edited Thursday at 02:00 PM by Ahzek451