I guess the best place to start this journey is at the start, which is with me at the tender age of 11 or 12 playing Space Crusade round at a friends house. This slowly progressed to us playing 2nd edition 40k, though I don't remember exactly how new 2nd ed was at the time I remember initially not having any Codices and using Codex army lists for our forces. Many a Saturday was spent getting a return ticket to Manchester (for 50p!) to spend the day at the GW store in the Arndale centre with its impressive full size Space Marine in the window.
My force of choice was the Chaos Space Marines who's artwork really blew me away at that tender age however the range was rather lacking at the time as the 2nd ed Chaos releases hadn't started but the Rogue Trader Renegades weren't easily picked up (at my local gaming shop anyway). So my original force consisted of the metal World Eaters, RT World Eater Champ on Juggernaut, RT Chaos Terminators, the newly released plastic World Eaters and then Abbadon upon his release. It was at this time that my local gaming shop had a painting competition on, simple enough really as you just had to paint up one of the mono-pose Space Marines from the boxed game. My friends were entering but I decided not to bother as our area had some excellent painters and I told them we didn't have a chance. Roll on to the day before the competition and we were in the shop just chatting away to the staff and they asked if we were entering the comp, this somehow led to me picking up one of the miniatures and staying up till 11pm (on a school night) painting this miniature up for the day after. So after school we all headed to the shop and dropped our entries off which were to be judged by a visiting GW staffer (I can't remember for the life of me how it was but I was excited to see them so I can only assume it was a member of the Eavy Metal team or someone of reasonable note, lost to my memory now) but after seeing everyone else's entries I thought we had no chance and wandered off to flick through the Citadel Catalogue of the time (I used to love doing this - I want that one and that one and...) however I then hear my friends shouting my name so I wander back over and low and behold I've come second place. Slightly bemused the GW staffer explained why he'd liked my entry (creating my own Chapter colours and adding 'banners') and I got to pick my prize however as there wasn't much of a Chaos range at the moment and my prize was to be Rhino sized the GW staffer let me have a Predator so I could convert it to Chaos and that is exactly what I did (based off an image in the newly released Codex Chaos).
Anyway to cut an already long story a little shorter time passed on and I grew out of the hobby for one reason and another and sold of my collection to a budding new hobbiest I knew, though I did keep my competition entry, the prize, Abbadon and a World Eater to centimental value (here would be a great point to break up this wall of text with a picture of these but I forgot to take one so I'll do a small follow up post for these).
Roll forward many years and I start to remember what a great time I used to have playing 40k so I started looking into the hobby again and end up with a massive Chaos force. However the dalliance with 40k wasn't to last as it just didn't 'feel' right and the miniatures just didn't quite hit the same spot the old ones did and so the collection was yet again sold on but this time round my eyes were opened to the wider hobby and gaming systems so there was no turning back. Roll forward some years to 2013 and I stumble upon an announcement of an 'Oldhammer' day at Wargames Foundry and so I became aware of the Oldhammer movement. It would take a further year for me to really dive in (with the announcement of BOYL 2014 - we didn't manage to go but next year is a must - plus the discover of certain blogs like Realm of Chaos 80s and Eldritch Epistles) and after some trading and cracking eBay finds I'm left with a not so small collection of 2nd ed 40k :)
Now is finally the time for some images after giving you eye strain from the wall of text.
First up we have the amassed boxes and Codices. I grabbed the the game box and Dark Millenium for £10 on eBay, there were no miniatures or the card scenery but everything else plus more (White Dwarf data faxes and cards).
I actually just started of picking these up to read of old times sake however once I started reading I was hooked and the miniatures started to be delivered. The first force I had to get was my beloved Chaos which you can see most of here:
Next we have the Eldar, now this was a pricey purchase and a risky one. We all know the issues with seeing 'well painted' on eBay auctions but after good communication with the seller I took the risk and you should have seen the smile on my face when I opened up the package upon delivery.
Next up we have one of those impulse purchases that we all make even though we've said that's enough for now, Necrons. The original Necrons hadn't been released by the time I left the hobby as a lad but on getting back into 40k the first time round they were the army of choice for my wife (an army she is still working on now as they're one of the ranges GW put out now that still look good to our eyes), so while searching eBay for all things retro I came across an auction for a 2nd ed Necron force at a very (very) low price. Well in for a penny in for a pound and all that so they were quickly making their way to me, this was then followed on with another cracking deal on a Necron force which gives me the following little lot.
One thing I forgot to mention in my first post is that I welcome any comments you have on my posts as well as any constructive criticism you may have when I get round to posting up some painting/modelling progress.
Crucium (otherwise known as Phil)
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