We welcome Mitzy as our NEO of Note for January! We’ll let him introduce & tell you about himself here.
Hello Age of Sigmar players and hobbyists. My name is Mark Mitzman (although I’ve been known as Mitzy since as far back as I can remember). I am very fortunate to have been asked to do a short piece for the NEON – NEO of note blogpost.
So who am I and why have I been asked to write a post? Well, I began my lifelong adventure with Citadel miniatures and the beast that is Games Workshop way back in the 80’s, to be precise on Christmas Day in 1985. On that most special day, I hastily tore the wrapping paper off my first box of Citadel miniatures. Father Christmas had read my letter! There in front of me was the Dungeons & Dragons – Dungeon adventurers starter set. This box contained a Mage, Cleric, Dwarf, Thief, Fighter, two Elves, Barbarian and…… a treasure chest!
I immediately became lost in a world of miniature heroes and villains that I could escape to and claim as my own.
Of course way back then, GW were a company that were importers of all manor of TSR products and my love for the hobby had to be focused and my energy channelled. My love of the miniatures and the stories I could create with them became my hobby. The games and assorted other items featured in White Dwarf were a distraction. My hobby had become one of painting and collecting characters, regiments and telling the tales of their adventures by setting them up and literally playing with them like a child would a box of matchbox (hot wheels) cars.
As I matured and found other like minded friends to share my worlds with, so my passion for Games Workshop grew, and in 1989 I was given a copy of Advanced Heroquest. This game was responsible for turning me from a painter and collector to a gamer. In 1995, I had moved to Leicester and within a day of visiting the town centre had found the GW store, after asking for a job and completing the application forms I finally started work doing the thing I loved most in the world. My career at GW lasted only four years as in 1999 I left to join the family business.
As always happens as I left GW and met the other love of my life (my wife Caroline) and we started a family, I fell away from the hobby. However fast forward 10 years and with two young sons in tow I walked back in to a GW store. I was immediately hooked AGAIN. I launched back in to the hobby and quickly amassed a large Vampire Counts army I played this right up until the End Times at which point my interests began leaning towards the forces of Destruction. The Meatmen of Mitzmanheim were born and are still the army I am now running albeit now with an Ironjaws tinge!
During my time back in the hobby I have met a lot of amazing people, myself and three mates formed our gaming club EATBATS (East Anglian Tabletop Battle And Tournament Squad) and as the club has grown we pride ourselves on reaching mid table mediocrity at every event we attend, as well as each of us pushing to turn out the finest painted armies possible.
During my time playing at tournaments and events I have been fortunate to meet many like minded folk along the way, but three people in particular stood out to me as they really embodied everything that I love about the hobby. Yes you guessed it “Narrative” gaming! Those three guys are Jimbo (James Warth), Ming Lee and Steve Foote. Jimbo is like my brother and is a fellow member of EATBATS, and together we were fortunate enough to be invited to Ming’s event the Mingvitationals, right at the end of 8th edition. There the seed was planted to put on an AOS grand narrative event and we began scheming and plotting.
In October 2016 our plans came to fruition and we hosted the first truly Narrative AOS event in the UK “Realms at War” or as it’s known RAW. We all put our heart and soul in to putting on a fabulous event, an event that we as individuals would all wantto attend if we could. We turned the dial up to 11 and set about creating bespoke tables each representing a different Realm.
The weekend was a huge hit and the internet seemed to be amazed at what we had done. It was like the whole world was watching and soaking up all of our hard work and enthusiasm.
After the event we began chatting with those Narrative gamers who had followed our event and the NEON group was formed. As a group we planned a Global narrative event called Coalescence which again was a huge success.
The rest as they say is history but the best thing for me is that I have met and become friends with lots of like minded people around the world who all share my love of creating cinematic scenes through gaming. I feel honoured and privileged to be known as a NEO and to be part of this amazing movement.
Narrative Event Organizer Network 