My entrance into the hobby and community

Hello and welcome to my blog! 

I thought, what better topic to choose for my first post in this new blog, than how i entered into the hobby ;) 

I watched the first LOTR movie when it reached the cinema in 2001 and was instantly hooked. Before the other movies released, I read through all the available books and came to love both worlds (movie, books).

By coincidence, at the same time i came into contact with with first version of MESBG at a fair for model making. There I bought the "Last Alliance" box. But at that time I quickly realized I was more interested in playing and saw the painting etc more as an obstacle, so I never truly used them. A friend of mine had much more money and time at hand and bought a huge Isengart and Rohan army so I was able to take a deep view at the hobby and play, without having to do anything myself. However my friend was a pretty salty player and soon I lost any interest in playing with him. Also in my teenage years I had already enough to deal with to be also "marked" as a nerd who plays tabletop - which was at that time still a common case. Nowadays I openly embrace the hobby and a lot of other things, regardless how "nerdy" it may be for other people ;) 

My first contact with MESBG - turns out this box is still around :O
Photo credit: GW

Fast forward eight years and through a fellow student at university, I was again infected with the tabletop virus and started playing Warhammer Fantasy with Bretonnia. The idea of a full army of knights plus the awesome lore of the game (which i think is still great) was really intriguing and I enjoyed to play and collect. However i still did not like painting and had a hard time with the models - I was especially shocked by the bad quality of metal miniatures this army had. The Green Knight and the Paladin + Questing Knight Banner-bearers still give me nightmares some times xD Losing contact with my university friend, I tried to find other players but after some time sold my entire army without much regret. 

Fast forward now to eleven years later, I funnily enough, came back to tabletop when my girlfriend said she would like to paint miniatures. I first wanted to go back to Warhammer Fantasy but I found out the system was discontinued and that I absolutely do not like the system and aesthetics of Age of Sigmar. However my girlfriend anyway knew she wanted to have LOTR miniatures. So long story short, I bought the starter-set and some paints for Christmas as a gift for her. At first i did not quite intend to paint and play with them beside when my girlfriend wanted to. But soonIi felt absolutely drawn to the game again and asked if I could paint one of her miniatures and for the first time I really enjoyed it. And that way the hype got the better of me and I devoured the new rule and army books and decided to get my own miniatures ^^ 

Photo Credit: GW

I was drawn to Numenor and bought myself some miniatures on the second hand market because I always liked their look and history - also like for most people, the intro of the Fellowship has always been one of my favorite parts =D

I also started scavenging the internet for every blog, forum and Youtube channel that covers MESBG. And I was really surprised on multiple levels - in a good way ;) 

1. Before buying the starter-box I actually wondered if the system would be still around - knowing that the movies are already two decades old - I believed there could not have been many new miniatures - my first positive surprise^^
2. There still are active blogs and YouTube channels about MESBG. Some are more often updated than others but especially during the current year (2021) - when updates from GW became bigger and more frequent - you always found opinions, reviews, tactic discussions etc from enthusiastic people.
3. Facebook has several quite active groups.
4. There are even active clubs, play groups of people in Austria!

And the best thing: the MESBG community seems to be made up by indeed chill, friendly, open, helpful and fair people =D Be it in the FB groups where I quickly felt fine asking questions (and over time even answering them when others posted something) about tactics, painting tips, how to collect something etc OR the one ring forum OR when i met completely new people at my first tournament OR when communicating with blog authors OR negotiating with people on the second hand market etc, etc. So far I not once had a bad experience and I was surprised how welcoming and friendly people were.

To come to the end: All this gave me the motivation to start my own blog and write about MESBG or LOTR related stuff. Lets see where the journey takes me ;)