My first metal miniatures were a blister pack of Orc Arrer Boyz – great sculpts that were full of character – and they received more dodgy painting but hours of play and boyhood dreaming of battles and ambushes that really had nothing to do with Warhammer, specifically.

I can’t really remember how I graduated on to Warhammer Fantasy Battle and Warhammer Armies but getting those books was another watershed moment: there were lots, and lots and lots of minis out there! And what’s better than a handful of minis? Whole armies of figures, that’s what!

The two books really got me hooked. the more I read the more I loved the Warhammer world and the various races, with plenty of scope to bring your own imagination into play. To be fair, I don’t recall dedicating too much time to actually reading the rules – it was the photography and artwork that really did it for me. They were so evocative of what I came to learn was the whole ethos and culture of Warhammer, and so inspiring.

I guess it was between the description of the Uruk Hai in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and the artwork in the Warhammer books that decided it for me: I was going to build and Orc & Goblin army!

The next 6 or 7 years saw me buy and – by and large – even paint a huge Orc & Goblin army, everything from Harboth’s Orc Archers to Ruglud Spike-can Commandos to the Orc War Wyvern – with plenty of Heartbreaker, Marauder and Grenadier minis thrown into the mix, too. The Goblin War Giant and Nick Lund’s Orc General’s Chariot were both labours of love but, in the end, I had a sprawling, unruly horde of goblinoids that even Kev ‘Goblin Master’ Adams himself might have been envious of.

I was particularly enamoured of the war machines that those vicious little goblins brought to the party. The skull-crusher was pretty awesome, as was the man-mangler, but both paled into insignificance beside my battery of lead belchers, complete with flayed troll faces.

I think there were two forces that made me waver from the this path: Firstly, I REALLY got fed up with painting green. Only another Orc & Goblin general could empathise with just how much I mean that. I even acquired some chaos allies and went to town on the colour scheme just to get a break.

Secondly, though, I met a guy in my school who was also into Warhammer. This was astounding, when you think about it – some other person was into the same niche hobby (it would probably be called a “sub-culture” today, or something) that I was. In 1980s rural Northern Ireland. And in my school. At last, someone to play with!

Anyway, not only was this guy a great painter – Joe from The Dungeon / Modeller’s Nook in Belfast actually commissioned him to paint minis for display in the shop – but he commanded a big chaos army.

We ended up teaming up at a lot of the gaming conventions organised by Joe (in the old Maysfield Leisure Centre) to fight some enormous battles – 20000 to 30000 point games weren’t unheard of – and I became beguiled by the minis, the fluff and the devastating power of Chaos (and Khorne, in particular) on the battlefield in those sessions.

Cue buying Slaves to Darkness and Lost and the Damned, my Chaos allies detachment becoming a small army in its own right and the pots of green paint disappearing into the darkest corners of my painting station.

This was getting towards the end of my first stint of Warhammer gaming, though. University loomed along with all the distractions of higher learning, beer, girls and rugby (and not necessarily in that order) which wouldn’t see me pick up a rulebook in anger again for about 20 years – and selling my Orc & Goblin army to pay for a trip to Australia.

Picture the scene: It’s 1988 and a 14 year old boy is up on a shopping trip to Belfast with his folks. No such trip would have been conceivable without visiting that cathedral of toys, Leisureworld (long since gone, unfortunately).

The Star Wars figures on the ground floor were then the main attraction, with countless minutes spent covetously gazing at the Boba Fetts, Snow Troopers and Emperor’s Guards.

It was a chance visit to the third floor, to see the “big boys toys”, that started my now lifelong interest / love affair / obsession with miniatures, and fantasy miniatures in particular.

Even at that tender age I’d been a big fan of JRR Tolkein’s “The Hobbit” and “Lord of the Rings” for years, with Bakshi’s animated “Lord of the Rings” having a particularly lasting effect on me, but this was the first time I’d seen those monsters and wizards and heroes in the flesh (or the lead)!

From among the shelves of Grenadier, Ral Partha and Citadel miniatures – brand names that meant nothing to me then – one thing jumped out at my cash-strapped, how-much-can-I-get-for-a-tenner, teenage self:

The Warhammer Fantasy Regiments boxset..  60 plastic miniatures at one go!

Thankfully, none of my early attempts at miniature painting survive to this day – but I’d taken my first step into the world of Warhammer!