G'day everyone ... my names Viv, from Melbourne - Australia. I've been a wargamer for over 15 years now ... like most teenagers these days I stumbled across some people playing Warhammer at the game store my friends and I used to hang out on the weekends. I've always been interested in historical periods, fantasy, magic - that kind of stuff and watching these people play with armies of knights and elves was wonderful. I promptly stop spending all my money on comics and cards, and spent it on wargaming figures. In those days I wasn't aware of the 'wider' wargaming community (so to speak) and mostly played GW games and collected random figures from other manufactures for use in our D&D games.
Like all hobbyists, my interest in wargaming waxed and waned as I grew older - other events in life took over and the little toy soldiers where repeatedly packed away and unpacked, only to be repacked and then unpacked
But my interest always remained ... despite my 'activeness' over the years.
Fast forward 10+ years and my life long dream (since those days of discovering Warhammer anyway) of owning my own gaming store where people could hang out, paint, play ... just chat - came true. In 2009 I opened my own shop called Battle Bunker in Melbourne, Australia. It was an awesome place, where I made lots of friends, increased my collections of miniatures to ridiculous proportions .. and generally had a blast. I really had some great times, I had a large shop accommodating 12 'full-time' 6x4 tables, a massive collection of scenery, several areas for painting etc, and a BBQ and outside area for the smokers, undercoating etc.
I've always been into the scenery side of wargaming more then I have of painting miniatures ... so our shop really never 'hungered' for terrain. There was more then enough to setup 18 tables for tournaments, and/or loan out scenery to tournament organisers.
Again, cutting things short ... fast forward almost 3 years after opening the shop, I had to close it. Increases in online trade and a lack of retail traffic was killing me and coupled with the fact that my wife and I got married and bought a house, I needed something with stronger long term financial security.
So now, here I am ... still interested in my hobby and exploring new things. Whilst my interest in Games Workshop as a whole has all but been destroyed (mostly due to GW and their 'mongering'), I've enjoyed discovering and playing many games published by small independents.
During my time of running the shop, I spent a fair amount of time building my YouTube channel - RubbishInRubbishOut. Mostly concentrating on making scenery, tutorials, game reviews etc ... I'm pretty proud that that channel now has almost 4700 subscribers and that I receive messages daily from people all over the world, thanking me for my contribution to their chosen hobby - its a pretty good feeling.
I'm looing forward to jumping into the world of AAG and sharing my experiences with you all here on the forum, and to my audience on YouTube.
Cheers
Viv
