It begins...

My husband has been heavily into Warhammer 40k (and Fantasy, to a lesser degree) for a number of years. I never really understood his miniature gaming hobby, though I occasionally went with him to various gaming stores to look at giant boxes of very expensive miniatures (GBoVEM's). He had mountains of GBoVEM's at home, so I didn't understand why he wanted more. Most of the GBoVEM's were unassembled and unpainted, and we had been carrying them about from place to place in the 4 years we had been living together. I knew that he had played with these expensive toys in his past life, but that leaving his home-state to move in with me, he had abandoned all of his good friends who shared this hobby with him.

It was out of guilt for this that I tolerated the occasional trip to a local gaming store which focused more heavily on miniatures and less so on the tabletop RPGs that interested me. I even occasionally let him buy more GBoVEM's, which also sat, unassembled.

Imagine my surprise when one day a trip to the gaming store, there was something that caught my eye! This is what I saw:



Ah, the Coryphee! Aren't they absolutely wonderful?! I fell in love with these deadly dancers immediately, and began to examine all the rest that Malifaux had to offer. I saw grotesque teddy bears and freakish children, plagued rats and samurai cowboys, undead whores and even a topless model with pendulous granny boobies. I was in love.

My husband, of course, encouraged my interest. We looked over the miniatures together, and it wasn't long before one of the store employees came over and began to tell us all about Malifaux. He was so enthused about it, that he rambled on for upwards of an hour. Before I knew it, my husband and I had picked out two starting box sets of our very own to take home. Sadly, the Colette box set whose models most interested me was not in stock at the time, though I am now thankful for the fact - I was not ready for her then, and I am still not ready for her now! There was still plenty that was interesting, however. The shopkeeper seemed a bit surprised by our choices, because the Arcanists aren't very popular at that particular location. My husband had picked out Marcus to start with, and I (for the love of stripey socks and all things winter) had chosen Rasputina.

Now, I just had to learn... everything.