I also started to play Warhammer Fantasy (in 2023 reinvented as Warhammer the old world). My first army was the Undead. zombies, skeletons, ghouls, necromancers, vampires.. all that fun kind of stuff. And when I say “started playing” I mean that I have played some battles, but my real passion was painting the models. That always was my main focus on the hobby.
And i am no tactician, never got into knowing my own army, let alone learning about my opponents army. So most of the time I lost – but had fun as I was playing with my painted mini’s. At some point I decided to go collect and play with Orcs and Goblins. And found a new passion.
Especially the Goblins where real fun. My favourite units where the Goblin Doom Diver, Snotling Pumpwagon and Night Goblins with their Fanatics. And don’t forget about the cute and addorable Squigs. using those where like Russion Roulette: they could save your army, but also destroy it. I never minded losing with them.. they where just fun.
As my friend and I where for years our only opponents whe got a bit bored with playing against each other (he is a really passionate “I play to win” guy, and a good tactician – he did often win and that is boring for him too), so we went looking for other players. To make a long story not to long: we founded a gaming club in 2004 SpelD (spellenclub Doetinchem – Ditch for Gaming Club Doetinchem as that was the city where we came together). We played Tabletop Wargames, but also board and card games. Through the years the club got more people involved and when a new generation came to the club I found a new love: Tabletop Roleplaying Games.
Or better said: Dungeons & Dragons! As I had already played LARP (Live Action RolePlay) they asked me to DM.. and so i did. And that is how my nickname the Bald GM started. I also found out that my painting changed of this game changing…
With Tabletop Wargames you need a lot of miniatures, so you batch paint day and night (painting them as on a factory production line: 5 to 10 mini’s on the desk and applying one color to all, then the next color, etc.). When you start D&D you need more single miniatures, and batch painting has no real use. And I found that painting a single miniature and try out other technigues was more satisfying to me.
After 10 years of Dungeon Mastering I wanted to spent more time on painting. Also I had a new job that was a bit more stressfull and had no real standard end times (I go to work, but never knew what time I would go home), what gave me less time to prepare my D&D sessions. So when some of my players wanted to try DMing, I said yes and “retired” as DM.
And then COVID happened. A world wide pandamic. It took many lives. Changed many lives. Mine to. But for the mini painters it did also a bit of good, as we found a lot of fellow painters on the internet. And I have found several good friends and paint buddies in other parts of the world true the internet. They showed me other miniature manifacturers than GW, other techniques and of course a lot of inspiration.
And that last part i wanted to do too. That is why I started streaming on Twitch too ( https://www.twitch.tv/thebaldgm ). I want to inspire people to the hobby, and help other (starting) mini painters.
And that is a “short” introduction to Baldie… Keep your brushes sharp and the paint flowing.