My First Miniatures… Ever!!! Plus some rambling.

Back when I was a kid, the world was much different than it is now. I grew up in a small town and there was no internet to learn about Niche markets through. All we had to rely upon was a single picture in a catalogue and some information best summarized as a single point-form sentence. While combing through the SEARS catalogue, I got my first introduction to the world of Miniatures. In that catalouge, I saw some really cool looking games with some awesome artwork. Among those games were some of the gems that people still remissness about today (including the 2nd Edition Starter of Warhammer 40,000 and Space Hulk). Another game in there with really cool artwork was Dark World. This would be the first miniatures game that I ever owned. It played okay but suffered from repetition during multiple play-throughs. The game board was always the same.

I was young at the time and after owning the game for a while, my parents mentioned to me that some people paint the miniatures for fun, and that I could paint mine up too if I wanted. I just laughed at their suggestion and thought, “who the hell would want to paint all those miniatures? What a waste of time!” Little did I know that I would be doing exactly that as a form of rest and relaxation in my adult years. It was 1992 or ’93 when I received Dark World.

This is a picture of the insert that came with the Dark World game. This insert shows all the different mini types in the game and how much better they look painted. I didn’t see the value in painting them as a kid, but I now paint figures now as an adult for rest and relaxation. What a weird world.  🙂

Because I did not paint all the miniatures in this game, I don’t really consider these my first miniatures – even though they are technically. Instead, I count my first minis as the ones that I actually painted and handled with proper care. The first minis that I actually painted were from Palladium’s RIFTS miniatures line. Oddly enough, these miniatures were made by RAFM, the very same company that got me back into buying miniatures after a long hiatus during my adult life. I owned the following miniatures from the RIFTS line plus the Atlantis Pack (not pictured).

The Coalition Sky Cycle Pack.

The Brodkil & Witchling Pack

The Psi Hunters and Adventurers pack.

Unfortunately, my collection of the above miniatures did not survive my multiple moves. The pictures above are from the Palladium Book’s Website and Boardgame Geek. Both of them have been linked to earlier in this article.

A few years after buying the RIFTS miniatures, I actually got in my first “real” miniatures game. That game was Necromunda. It would then be 6 years before I bought my next miniatures. Those miniatures would all be by GW. I owned a number of armies, but never actually played a real game. I then fell out of the hobby again for a while due to being disillusioned with a particular company’s constant price hikes. It took a number of years before I got back into the hobby and I think that it is so cool that playing a game of USX: Universal Heroes by RAFM Miniatures is what got me back into miniatures and the first minis that I ever bought and painted were also by RAFM. What a small world.

What were your first miniatures and experience into the hobby? Please feel free to leave comments here or on Facebook.