Monday, April 20, 2009

The Beginning!

Where to begin?

Well I was introduced to miniature gaming when I was expelled from Northview High School, and sent to Fairvalley High Continuation School (along with my buddy Adam). Two of our teachers there, Mr. De Rosa (taught American History), and Mr. Haynard (taught World History) were both die hard historical miniature gamers, and both teachers actually incorporated historic war gaming into their curriculum. Mr. De Rosa was into American Civil War miniature gaming, while Mr. Haynard was into World War II miniature gaming, and in case you are wondering ... yes we actually got credits for partaking in war gaming, setting up the gaming tables, creating terrain, and painting miniatures! I passed both American History, and World History just from war gaming alone, my final in both classes was painting miniatures, hehe!

The first actual miniature battle I took part in was a fictional World War II scenario ... Operation Sealion, based on Hitlers actual planned invasion of Great Britain in 1940. England had lost the Battle of Britain, and the land invasion was fully underway! To make a long gaming story short, England was actually able to rebel the Kraut invaders, thanks impart to the three amigos (Adam, Greg, and myself), and our brilliant defensive strategy.

After that initial game, I was hooked on war gaming, as was Adam. At first we stuck with historical war gaming, buying all our miniatures from The Last Grenadier in Burbank California, mostly collecting Civil War miniatures, and taking part in battles like the Battle of Shiloh, and both Battles of Bullrun. We branched out into the American Revolution, and World War I war gaming as well, but eventually we decided to branch out even further.

A new gaming store had opened in Covina California very close to where we lived called All Star Games, here we met our friend Marcelo for the first time, and he introduced us to Warhammer 40,000 Rogue Trader, and the daemon company who published it ... Games Workshop! We played a small point game of Space Marines -vs- Space Marines to learn the rules, but that was all it took, both Adam, and myself were hooked!

To Be Continued ...