Starting the Collection

In the early days (i.e. 1987-1989) I had placed all my miniatures orders directly from Games Workshop in the UK, but to be blunt, I didn't know what I was doing.  I had only the vaguest notions of the Warhammer world and the armies that fought in it, so I just bought miniatures that appealed to me, with little thought of army building per se.

So I ended up with a smattering of Chaos Warriors, some High Elves, some Orcs, and a really cool unit of Wood Elves called "Skarloc's Wood Elf Archers."

Games Workshop (or rather, Citadel Miniatures) did not have a very developed line of paints yet, and in any case I didn't have much access to buy those that they had, so I reverted to simply using the model paints that I was used to for making plastic model kits.  These were primarily Testors paints and Testors Model Master paints, which were oil based enamels, which required thinner.  I can't believe I put up with that, and am definitely thankful for the acrylic paints of today.

Here's the unit as they are today--they've already undergone multiple paint jobs, as my skills improved much in the early years with practice (and have long since plateaued). I think they're about due for another overhaul though.