A New Fighter Emerges!

Good day Athenians,

As the new manager here at Athena Games there is still one incredibly important thing for me to do before I can be accepted, and that is to establish my geek cred!

Our tale begins back in 1998 when a young Mitchell was taken to the local hobby store by his father. But this was no normal hobby store - it was a Games Workshop. Immediately I was overwhelmed by miniatures of fantastical beasts and power armoured heroes. However it was the mighty dinosaurs of the Lizardmen that truly captured my attentions and that is where it began...

Lizardmen were my first army, week after week i saved my pocket money and slowly added to my collection. Painting the miniatures alongside my Dad, was a slow process but it cemented my love for the miniatures and eventually I joined a local Warhammer club and started playing the actual game. Painting with my father was always fun but playing games, this was were the real action was for me.

High Elves followed the savage lizards a few years later, and then sometime after that I picked up my first 40k army. I chose Tau as my first force: there was something that appealed to me as a lover of Japanese aesthetics and I had these for a few years before jumping to the World Eaters. The Lord of Rings miniature game also came out around this time via the amazing magazines and this was a game that, due to its more narrative nature, had my friends and I hooked for sometime.

However a new game was also on the scene for me: Magic The Gathering. Starting properly with Kamigawa, which was very appealing to me, Magic was so different to the miniature wargaming I had done at this point with much cleaner rules and a fast playtime, it was the perfect game to fit in lunch breaks.

Magic and Warhammer continued side by side for many years until sixth form where Magic really took over. A few friends and I were attending events at Battlezone and spending all our time theory crafting new decks. No matter how much time I put into Magic though, I was never actually that good. Much to my disappointment, I was really far more of a collector than a competent player. Following sixth form I played lots of different games, mostly historical in nature such as Rules of Engagement or Elan until there was a huge shift.

Carcassonne was the game that brought me over to the world of board games, and it was a game changer. K2, Catan, Ticket to Ride all followed and finally I had found something that my partner would also play with me! Board games became my new obsession with my collection expanding rapidly and the games were so inclusive that I could reasonably get my family to play. Formula D, Colt Express, Flamme Rouge all massive hits.

Board games really did change the hobby for me as it was a way of getting games more frequently and nudging people into the hobby, however there will always be a place in my heart for miniature games and that is where the Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game and A Song of Ice and Fire snuck in.

That takes us to where we are at now, a fine balancing act of board games, miniatures games and the occasional card game.

Where did your gaming tale start? What was you first army? Comment and let us know how your journey began.