Just under a year ago, my best pal brought two of his younger cousins over and, without anyone explaining what they were doing, they spread out all these little action figures across the floor (WoC, DE & HE I now realize) and started a three way battle. For some reason, probably the neat Lion chariot, I decided I had to get in on the fun. This was, of course, their plan all along, and soon thereafter we found ourselves at the local game store, with my latest overtime check in hand.
A side note about the game store... Never having been to one, I assumed that most everyone hanging around such a place was going to be either an overweight pizza delivery guy, some sort of computer technician (like my pal), or a bespectacled university science nerd. Sure enough, the first portly fellow I ran into was talking about how he was going to spend his delivery tips to a skinny guy with inch thick glasses, who, I later found out, had just submitted his master's thesis in some kind of mathematics I'd never heard of.
There also turned out to be a large number of both active and retired military personnel, which I didn't expect, but for the most part the folks there pretty much exactly what I imagined. What surprised the heck out of me though is just how well I got along with all of them. Despite me being a scruffy manual laborer type, everyone was friendly and conversational, and helped me gather up what I needed to play.
I've an interest in firearms, and so was initially set on getting an Empire firing line- until I saw the Lizardmen box set. Dinosaurs and Aztec culture were two of my all time favorite reading subjects as a kid, and the prospect of combining the two was too much to handle.
Some months, hundreds of dollars, and many an argument with my old lady later ("stop playing with those little blue fairies and make dinner!"), here I am posting on an internet forum, which I swore up and down I'd never do, and spending hours at a time painting tiny plastic figures. I must say, I'm loving every minute of it.
