The Hobby Hobbit

My Hobby Journey: A Short Intro

Greetings Hobbyists! Here’s a short intro to my hobby journey and why I started this project…

My hobby journey began all the way back in 2006. I still remember walking into the local Games Workshop, scoping out the most affordable pack my pocket money could stretch to. I was drawn in by with what was then Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game, the predecessor of Middle Earth SBG. Like most young English lads, LOTR was my default personality trait. There was a time when a crudely painted Balrog was my most prized possession. The old metal Balrog is now lost to time – until perhaps someone delves too greedily and too deep through my parents attic.

After dabbling on and off in painting in my teens, I embarked on the typical life track of university > moving to London > working in Tech. One day however, at 30 years old, I stumbled across not one but two warhammer cases when helping my parents clear out some old boxes. Soon after, I found myself caught in the wave of a huge warhammer resurgence, thanks to a Steve-Jobs level comeback by Games Workshop. It didn’t take long for me to find a community of similar people in their 30s, discovering they now have disposable income and no one to tell them not to spend it on tiny plastic models.

Rediscovering the hobby…

Towards the end of 2024, a childhood friend and I committed ourselves to building 40K armies. This also meant immersing myself back into the painting scene, quickly finding that the bar for well painted models was exponentially higher than when I was 12.

Fast forward through 2025 where we had now got to grips with rules, terrain, painting and one expedition to Warhammer World, in 2026. Now it was time to become a more active participant in the hobby community. This included joining a 40k Armageddon crusade with complete strangers (who unsurprisingly turned out to be a great bunch of guys), a Middle Earth SBG slow grow league with my local gaming club, a handful of MESBG tournaments, and starting a dedicated hobby instagram.

My goal is to record and document my hobby journey, see how I’ve improved, what challenges I faced and what I’ve learnt. The purpose of this blog is to showcase my best hobby moments, tips I wish I knew when I started, and ultimately connect with fellow hobbyists! I’m massively influenced by those incredible White Dwarf articles, and really just using this as an excuse to hype myself up for more projects.

So that’s why I’m here in a nutshell. This site will track wherever the winds of hobby drag me next: painting projects and tips, crusade progress and lore drops, Middle Earth games, terrain projects, and much more!