For me I was in the computer lab at my elementary school (where my Mom worked), after school creating Star Wars art and stories in Hyperstudio on Macs that look like this…
Sadly all the Hyperstudio creations my friends and I made were lost when the computer lab upgraded to new computers and they didn’t… give anyone… warning… a tragedy I will never truly recover from. Nanosaur got replaced by Bugdom and Nanosaur 2… also a tragedy that even Cro Mag Rally couldn’t salve.
Alas one day my friend walked in and told me prophetically that we need to get into Warhammer… Now this friend had a lot of wayward obsessions I didn’t follow… but this one I certainly did. Behold metal Ushabti blister, back when you got a random head and a random weapon. I definitely had bird head with the halberd variant. This model served Tomb Kings, then badly converted Tyranids, and now has its final resting place as a mangled statue on a TK terrain piece. My first Warhammer self purchase was a pack of TK Skeleton Warriors with this box art.
Now if we rewind further my first wargaming miniatures were Mage Knights bought at a local smoke filled sketchy store out of a glass cabinet. I think I bought these two straight from the cabinet and later bought random blisters frequently… I would trade with friends to collect Necropolis Sect (undead) and Black Powder Rebels (steampunk dwarfs) (big surprise).
Marsh zombie has since been used here
My first dwarf was Tinker Geely, scored from a blister pack, who can now be seen… in this kitbash
Mage Knights was a skirmishy game with all of the stats on the click dial base and we doubtlessly just hacked up the rules until we liked playing.
Also… love these threads!