The Early Days

After receiving the catalog from Games Workshop, showing their Chaos Warriors, I remember seeing ad for two publications, the gaming magazine White Dwarf and the wargame, Warhammer Fantasy Battle, of which the 3rd edition had just gone on sale.

There weren't all the many hobby stores in my area--the nearest one, Al's Hobbies, was within walking distance of my house, but was almost entirely devoted to model railroading.  The second one was a Hobbytown, half an hour away.  They mostly dealt with plastic model kits and RC.  Neither one had any miniatures--rather, the Hobbytown did, but it was a pathetically small selection of Ral Partha miniatures for D&D. 

Now with an eye to look for Warhammer-related stuff, I went to the hobby stores.   The Hobbytown had some White Dwarf Magazines, so I bought all the ones I could get my hands on (issues #101-103).  They had ads for the various games that were in productions, such as Bloodbowl, Dark Future, Warhammer Fantasy Battle, Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Adeptus Titanicus, etc.  Awesome looking stuff.  Unfortunately the White Dwarfs were all that Hobbytown had.

I headed over to Al's Hobbies just to see--the store was very small, and I knew they didn't carry any miniatures...but lo and behold, they had the Warhammer 3rd edition rulebook.  I duly paid the whopping $34.95 for it and brought it home...