I started playing 40K years and years ago, but I was never very competitive about it. I played with some friends, I went to collage, I stoppoed playing. As I neared graduating from law school I picked it back up, and started playing again. I sucked at painting then, but was enthusiastic. I had the remains of a badly put together dark angel army, and that was about it. I piddled with them, and around that time the Tau came out. My (current) tau army that I use is at dakka, but I have the (poor) pictures of my first tau army on my hard drive. I'll post them some other time. I played Tau, and managed to win a Rogue Trader or two with them and took them to my first Grand Tournament in 2004... I didn't do that great. Actually... that's not true, I did pretty good, but not perfect. The codex started getting dated, so I switched over to Demonhunters. I still have the Imperial Guard remnants of that army, and my painting technique had improved by then. Anyway, Grey Knights were such a dismal dissppointment as an army that I wanted a "hammer" army. Something that people quaked in fear at when they saw me coming. Well, I decided that Lysander was the way to go. I painted up a VERY specific Lysander Wing army for Adpepticon. I came in 5th overall, and got quite a decent painting away. I later sold the army, and honestly... I really wish that I had not. I probably would be playing Fists now if I hadn't sold them. Ohhh well Cest le vie. I did however win a GT in 08 with my Tau, which made it all worthwhile. Anyway, here are some the photo's of my first (in my opinion) decently painted army. This was the first time I also built a battle board that was any good, and used inset models for my army (which is awesome, but can be a pain in the Ass).

First, Captain Lysander. I thought he came out wonderfully.

Standard terminator sergeant. I didn't take this photo, the photgrapher at the GT did. I used the forgeworld shoulder pads (Buy them, they rock!) and the black templars bits to make them special.)

This was the battle board and lysander's command squad. The assault cannons were conversions.

This was a top down view of the battle board. It was four squads of six terminators, two squads of scouts and three landspeeders tornadoes. Assault cannons of death! That gun was broken. I'm glad they changed it, but now it's a P.O.S. (Piece of shit)

We also played in a team tournament and I made this librarian for that purpose. This was before the current librarian that they have now. The shield is freehand, and was the start of that as well.

I've got some more I'll post another time.