About Me

My history with Warhammer 40,000, building models, and the miniature painting hobby.

In the summer of 1994 my mother took my brother and me to England to visit friends of hers. In the little village of Padfield, outside of Manchester, I met a boy named Oliver who lived just up the street. He was a year older than me, age 12, and that seemed like a big deal at that age. Upon visiting his house up the street, he showed me his tiny figurines made of lead and I instantly fell in love with the weight and the feel, and the look of those tiny detailed Warhammer 40,000 miniatures. So much in fact that my brother and I begged my mom to take us to the next proper town to visit the gaming store Oliver had recommended.

We were in heaven! Building model cars and model rockets had been a weekend hobby of ours introduced by my father when we were still in primary school. Upon seeing the awesome models there in the shop was overwhelming. We learned the 2nd Edition of Warhammer 40,000 had just been released the year before and there were loads of new plastic vehicle kits to go along with those amazingly detailed little metal models.

I decided on a Leman Russ tank for myself, and my mother convinced my brother to spend some of his spending money on the 2nd Edition box set, and covered the rest. Thanks Mom! 

Had it not been for the wiser influence at that moment, which I still remember like it was yesterday, my journey may have ended there. 

When we arrived back in Tempe after our vacation, we were all set to go with our new game and models to paint. Looking back it's amazing how far we've come. We had, from our model car building, plenty of Testors enamel paints and crude plastic brushes and we simply didn't know any better, but those poor plastic models of Space Marines and Orks from the boxed set, were doomed forever. 

Excited as we were to share our new discovery with our friends, we learned that no one we knew had ever heard of Warhammer 40,000, or the vast universe that existed within those sacred texts. Codex Imperialis, Wargear, and The Rules, were my new tomes. It felt like we had discovered something new and awesome and we were the only ones who knew!

At the time there didn't even exist a proper Games Workshop store in the United States. There were a few independent retailers but at the age of 11 riding my bicycle to Phoenix was out of the question, so we made due the best we could. Since the rules and learning the game was complicated and time consuming we often turned to building forts outside because we couldn't seem to get our friends as hooked as we were about this new found experience.

It wasn't until we moved to Colorado in 1998 that I overheard some chaps sitting next me in school talking about 40k. I was like "What! You guys know about Warhammer 40,000!" Instantly I had new friends, which was a big deal when you move states halfway through your freshman year of high school.

Those friends were instrumental in reviving my love of this hobby. By this time my older friends could drive and visiting a game store that carried Citadel Miniatures and Games Workshop products was possible whenever we had time. It hadn't been since a visit to the Games Workshop store in Fairfax, VA in 1997, that I was once again surrounded by blister packs and red boxes of tanks all with gold lettered Warhammer 40,000 on them. This is also the time when we started learning how to make our own terrain, paint the models properly with acrylic paints, from the Citadel line and others like Ral Partha.

The collection grew as 3rd edition came along in 1998 with new models and kits, and the interest was at an all time high. We played our games on a ping pong table and spent much of our time hanging out painting miniatures with some classic movie in the background. Having half a dozen friends who all played different armies was a great time for me in the hobby. Many of the ideas for conversions and scratch built models that I had at the time seemed out of reach as my skills had not caught up to my imagination. Like a lot of us, some of these projects sat on the shelf for years, and then in boxes, as life, and college, and dating, and moving about, took center stage.

Nearly a decade passed before I had landed someplace where I could have all my miniatures and hobby supplies spread about to make painting again possible. 6th edition was coming soon and my interest had been revived once again. As I had matured, so had my hobby skills through many other interests, and what once seemed out of reach, became possible. Some of my first "good" terrain pieces came out of this stretch of time, and many of the metal conversions and kitbashes which I have now finished came out of this period, which lasted six years. The one thing that remained constant over all this time was, when I wasn't actively modeling or painting, I would still frequent the shops to check out the latest models and occasionally buy something to paint, one day.

Again, life forced me to pack everything up and put it aside for a time. Now, however, at the age of 42, after over 30 years of collecting and building models, I have a nice little studio where I can bring all of that experience and love for this hobby to a focus. My roots run deep in Warhammer 40,000, and it holds a special nostalgia for me with an abundance of fond memories and friends made along the way.

It is my pleasure to share my experience, knowledge, and passion with the wargaming community.

Sincerely,

Phillip Knoche