Almost seven years ago, on March 2, 2019, I started blogging on the HMGS website. My last new post on that site was January 5, 2024, although I would sporadically post links there to this blog. I just found out the HMGS site is going to be taken down so I am going to try to transfer all the old posts from there to here setting up weekly “Throwback Thursday” posts. If I keep that pattern it will be over four years of throwback posts so I may end up cherry picking some of the better ones, but for now that’s my plan!

So, without further ado here is my first Throwback Thursday post, originally posted on March 2, 2019! You can tell it was a different format, I didn’t even include any pictures!

Hello all! My name is <Wachtmeister> and I’m one of Hobby University’s newest instructors. I’ve recently moved up from divvying up paint kits and being the keeper of the sacred pokey tool at Paint N’ Take to teaching Hobby University standby’s such as Basic Basing and Painting Tanks to some of my own classes such as Simple Terrain and Sprucing up MDF. During this blog I plan on talking about my experiences within the war gaming hobby, I hope you’ll enjoy following along.

In this blog post I’m just going to give you a rundown on my hobby background. I have been gaming for over twenty years. I started with Warhammer Fantasy Battle in High School on Long Island and have been gaming ever since. When I moved to Virginia for college I met a gamer through the joys of an AOL Warhammer group who I have been friends with ever since. Rob discovered a shop not far from where I moved to in Northern Virginia not far from my house that had a large Warhammer crowd and I started to play there regularly. After playing with this group one of the guys told me that he plays in another group at a different store that played all sorts of other games. Games besides Warhammer? Was that even a thing? I was intrigued so I took him up on his offer and soon I was playing all sorts of Historical games, eventually branching out my own collection to a number of different rule sets. With a few of these guys I started attending HMGS conventions regularly (I don’t think I’ve missed one since I started going) for day trips. I was basically attending to look at all the high quality games, the vendor hall and most importantly Wally’s Basement! I didn’t play any games or take any classes but I had fun!

After a few years of this I was a member of the Pulp City Facebook group and I started talking to <a friend> who had mentioned he was a Hobby University instructor and that we should meet up for a game. (Another example of social media creating positive relationships!) I took my first Hobby University class with Gregory Zuniga (Wicked Elf Miniatures), Dirty and Distressed, and I was hooked! <My friend> suggested I join the motley Hobby University crew and he talked Heather Blush (Painting Hacks & Random Ideas from Heather) into letting me join. I don’t know how much talking it actually took to convince her to let me sit at a table and hand out paints but I do know being entrusted with the mythical pokey tool was kind of a big deal! After a few shows of manning Paint N’ Take I was given Basic Basing to teach. It must have been a success (i.e. not a disaster!) as I was then allowed to create my own classes such as Simple Terrain and Sprucing up MDF, as well as taking over Painting Tanks. (Thank you Walt Langhans of Impudent Mortal for donating class materials for the MDF class!) While at a Hobby University breakfast at one of the cons I met Todd Pressley (Grognard on the March) and discovered that we lived mere minutes from each other and presto! I had another gaming group to hang out with, the infamous Wednesday Night Painting Group or WinPiG for short!

Over the past two years I’ve expanded my involvement in the Hobby further to include entering painting competitions, playtesting upcoming rule sets, starting this blog, and most importantly getting my family involved in the hobby as well. If you’re still with me this far down my first blog entry, thank you! Just typing out this intro has given me lots of ideas for future posts, so watch this space! -<Wachtmeister>