Hey, how you going, Scott? Hey, Joshua, how you doing?
You sounding a lot better. Great, awesome man.
Yeah, good to have you back on, mate.
Oh, thank you. Thanks for for inviting me on.
I really appreciate it. Yeah.
How's your day going? Yeah, it's been a very rainy,
wet day, but everything seems to be fine.
I'm getting some commissions almost complete now, which is
great, and starting on another article for the here Hammer
fanzine. Yeah, crack on with some other
stuff today. Now I'll finish off my battle
report for Man O War. That's on the editor at the
moment and it's almost done. I'm just doing all the voice
over work now for that, so when that's finished I'll get it
uploaded tonight so people can enjoy that on their Friday and
over the weekend. That'll be wonderful.
I don't know. You have to watch it.
Yeah, yeah, I will. I'll watch it.
With me in control of anything like an army or a fleet or
whatever, you know, you just know something, something's
going to go awry. So.
But but the time they listen to this interview though it, it'd
probably be well and truly up. And people have been watching
it, probably been watching the Second Battle Report, no doubt,
but great. Yeah, but me, it's been really
fun. How about you?
What have you been up to lately mate?
Yeah, so that's hobby wise. I've so I've got this
interesting unit that I'm converting, converting over to
Spearman. It's an it's a unit of kind of
later edition Empire plastics. I think it's just the, what are
they called Empire soldiers, something along those those
lines. But so I got the these in a
collection. They're a little bit, they were
a little bit unusual. They are painted up in the
northern colors, but every this whole unit of maybe 40 soldiers
was they're all carrying sides and so.
Sides, OK, that's. Weird.
Yeah, it's pretty, it's pretty strange.
So I'm actually converting them over to Spearman because I, I
intend to sell them. But, you know, it's kind of an
unusual. I don't think there's much
demand for a, a northern army, a unit.
Everyone's carrying a side. I didn't know they could.
I didn't think they could. Oh, I suppose maybe, yeah, maybe
later on. Well, I'm sort of thinking about
Brutonians, but I know that the peasant class warriors could
take probably a side like a farming equipment type of thing.
But the Empire, I've never heard of them taking a side and I I
suppose it's just like A2 handed kind of two handed weapon I
guess could. Be but they are maybe Spears.
Yeah, I imagine, you know, maybe I was trying to figure out like
what this person had intended on maybe like a a fanatical
followers of more, you know, something along those lines.
You know, just happened to live in in New Orleans.
So I'm not sure. So anyway, that's that's kind of
what I've been working on hobby wise.
Nice mate, that's good. You've got it.
You've got quite an unusual hobby because as we're going to
get alluded to later, but you're, you're in fact a, a very
busy man buying and, and well, not in the sense of collecting,
but buying lots of miniatures in order to categorize them,
photograph them and then put them onto your website, which
I'm looking at right now. And some amazing looking empire
models have popped up here for the my favorite unit, the
Knights of the Blazing Sun. And I'm talking of course, about
Black Arrow minis. It's a website to for people to
go and collect and buy their long lost or long sought after
models for not only Warhammer, but a whole host of different
ranges. So yeah, mate.
So would you like to share a little bit about that initially
maybe? Sure, sure.
So, yeah, I'd say I got back into the hobby about, I'd say
maybe three years ago and, and I have AI have a side business
like, well, I kind of had two side businesses.
Like one of them should turn into a main, the main business.
But I, I have another business doing timber framing and with
this business, you know, you know, I love history and I like
working with my hands. So I got into timber framing and
mostly as a timber frame designer, but later as I started
my own company and I would just have a lot some time between
those projects and I just need thought me and I just need
something else where it's kind of on a much smaller scale to
kind of fill in the gaps between projects that I could still I
could earn money. And I kind of, I thought, man,
if I could just sell miniatures, that would be kind of like a
dream job. So, so I, I, I first thought,
you know, maybe I could have an online store and, and, you know,
buy new products from a wholesaler and resell those.
But you know what, that's kind of, that's kind of in the back
of my mind. And, and then I stumbled upon
this, this ad on Facebook marketplace and it was a guy
advertising this, there are some pretty bad pictures, but it's
basically an entire room like stack full of boxes of
miniatures. And he was kind of listing off
some, you know, Games Workshop and, and a few different things.
And the asking price was pretty reasonable.
So I had a I got really excited. I was visiting my sister at the
time in St. Louis, MO and this ad was, I
mean, this was someone who's who lives hours away down in
Tennessee. And it's probably, I think it
was maybe a 5 hour drive. But yeah, I actually text
message this guy middle of the night and he actually messaged
me back and he said, you know, I'm opening up it up for people
to come and take a look tomorrow.
And I, I was so excited I couldn't sleep that night and I,
and I drove like that five hours left at like 6:00 AM in the in
the morning and, and just drove straight there and and I, and I,
yeah, it was a great deal. So I bought that and that was
that was really what kicked off this business, this massive
collection. It was actually yeah, this a man
who had kind of a sad story. He is an an older man who I
think he had planned on maybe starting a a hobby store in his
retirement and and just kept buying all these things and
filling up his house was with different products and and I we
later found out they also had a storage unit as well.
But but he had actually gotten dementia sadly.
And so his wife was at home alone with all these miniatures.
And I had actually bought it from a an insurance claims
company who who did work on her house and she didn't have a way
to pay for everything. And she would actually, she had
actually traded all these miniatures for work on her
house. And that's who I actually bought
these from. And so kind of a sad, sad story,
but kind of also a lesson lesson for all of us collectors.
You know, it's like, make a plan.
Yeah. What to do with all these
miniatures? Yeah, yeah, I know that there
are a lot of us out out there who actually do have quite
substantial collections. So that that that really
launched this, this, this business.
Since then, I, you know, like it's, it's kind of a fun, it's
actually a hobby, definitely a hobby within the hobby to, to
kind of be on the lookout for, for larger collections that
people are selling off and trying to get a good deal.
And then it's a lot of work though, you know, I'm still
working through that first collection that I bought.
But but he was, he was very, he was very much into epic.
Let's see, Warhammer Fantasy and they had a lot of different like
older Ralph Partha Bliss still in the blisters.
A lot of different stuff. More probably most of what you
see on my site came from that first purchase.
So, yeah, so that's kind of how I got started in this, but yeah.
Yeah, it's quite the rabbit hole mate, because yeah, I'm just
going through page after page after page on your website of
just the Empire alone. So yeah, it's it's quite a lot
of work to do that, to photograph it.
Obviously they have a website to host it and then to, you know,
to itemize everything with some kind of serial number and then,
you know, process all of that and then have it available on on
your website and I think on eBay as well.
That's right. Yes, yes.
So, So what I do actually, if anyone out there is interested
in doing something like this, really eBay is, is kind of your
only option. I have them on my own website,
but I try to direct, you know, people who buy things from eBay
off of me. I try to direct them to my
website. And there there is, there are
some companies out there, some some kind of third party
websites, companies where you can actually link your web, a
web store to eBay. And that's what I do.
And I actually have it just set up so that it automatically
takes 20% off of whatever the price is on eBay.
It's it's what my price on the store is 20% off of that.
So, you know, I try, you know, I'm the collector too.
So I try to, you know, help out other collectors that's still
still trying to keep the business going, you know, got to
make some money to, to keep, to keep buying more to yeah, to
keep it going. So absolutely.
So, but you see you mentioned you, you got back to the hobby
about 3 years ago, but before, before that you were primarily a
role like a board gamer mostly. Yeah.
So that's right. So I was actually living in
Korea, South Korea, and my wife's Korean and I had lived
there for six years and all three of our kids were born in
there. And, you know, when I was a
single guy, I could kind of get away with, you know, playing
some video games at night. And, you know, it's kind of like
that was kind of my hobby in Korea.
And after having my, our first kid, that that just wasn't going
to fly anymore, you know, so I, I didn't want, I want, you know,
wanted to keep the wife, the wife happy.
So I thought what's, what's something else that would be fun
to do and, and maybe get her involved also.
And so I started to get into board gaming.
And so I got my wife to, to play board games with me a little
bit. She doesn't do it too often
anymore, but but that eventually transitioned into miniatures.
A friend had giving me a board game.
It was the Dungeons and Dragons Legends of Dritz board game,
which is a great way to to get a lot of cheap miniatures.
I think. I think at the time it was
probably like a a $30 game and you get like almost, I don't
know, maybe almost 100 different miniatures a game.
They are the soft plastic, you know, minis.
So but I ended up painting all those and kind of came across
some rules to use those miniatures in skirmish games
that I could play with my son as he was getting a little bit
older. And so let's see, we we we
played Song of Blazing Heroes. Oh, right, I've.
Heard of that? Yeah, I've heard of it.
I've never played it. Yeah.
It's, it's pretty simple, you know, a good one to play with
kids. They have a, a basic set of
rules and then a more advanced set of rules, which, yeah, but
they're, they're pretty straightforward.
Great. First playing skirmish games of,
you know, fantasy genre. So yeah, I used those minis to
start playing that. And then and then that kind of,
yeah, the bug just really bit and there's no turning back from
there. Yeah, I can.
I can see behind you there, Scott.
You've got a lovely box of Dragon masters and the mighty
Empires set as well. And Battle Masters.
And battle masters, Yep, Yep. Let's see here.
It's yeah. So, so maybe it's, you know, a
lot of people dream of having like a the grand campaign, yeah,
the Warhammer battles. And so I, I got that with that,
you know, intending to do that eventually.
I haven't started it yet, but, and then, yeah, I got got a
pretty good deal on the Battle Master set too.
So that's up there. Eventually I'd like to make turn
that into a project, but it's pretty, it's pretty massive.
It's, it's, you know, I guess you just have to put it on the
floor. I.
Think it's bigger than a 6 by 4. It is bigger than 6 by 4.
Yeah, I think it's like 8. It's no, it might be like 6 by
5. I think it is.
I think it's just too wide. The length is OK for a 6 by 4,
but I think it's just too wide. Yeah, I got I got it for my son
quite a few years ago and we found a copy here through my my
good friend Justin at one of the stores in Japan.
It was selling a second hand, but it was a Japanese version,
which I thought that'd be great. You know, it'd be something
something unique and it was all complete, thankfully.
Everything was like, if you ever buy anything second hand in
Japan, everything's always complete and it's always in a
mint condition. And so I was very happy to find
that. And we tried it a couple of
times and me and Justin actually played through the campaign
ourselves, even though this is for my son.
But he's a little bit too young and he just, his attention span
wasn't there, you know, Sure. But he's keen to play it again.
And we've got some friends who who are keen to play it also
because he's never played a miniatures game.
And I was saying for your kids, this is the perfect gateway into
tabletop war gaming, you know? Mm hmm, definitely.
Now, have you painted up all the minis in there?
I haven't. I haven't.
I was even thinking that if if I was going to start a chaos army,
I think I might. I saw someone do it recently and
I can't remember where it was exactly, might have been
Facebook, but they he had all the plastic Chaos Warriors and I
love those plastic Chaos Nights. I think they're the best models
they ever made for Chaos Nights. They are classic, kind of.
Yeah. The helmet design and it looked
like something from, you know, what's that movie called again?
Willow, Willow. When you see the when you see
the the cows, those guys, and then the the arm or the skull
helmets and stuff like that. That's kind of like the 80s sort
of, you know, heavy metal looking dudes.
Yeah, on I love that. Yeah, I love all that kind of
stuff. And the basement are quite,
quite kind of goofy and yeah, I like it.
And you got the you got the Chaos thugs Archers and you
could play like a real, it's a real old hammer style game.
Definitely. Yeah, it's yeah, lovely model.
So. Yeah, I think for me personally,
I think if I were to do like a Chaos army, I would definitely
lean towards more of the kind of the old Barbarians along with
that type of the type of troops that we see in the the battle
masters. Yeah, yeah, for sure.
So, yeah, that's great. I've never seen, I've never seen
Dragon Masters as an actual product.
I've never seen on the shelf anywhere.
Only seen like promos in White Dwarf magazine.
But that is kind of like the sister game to Mighty Empires.
It's kind of the easy basic version to get into it I think
from memory. Yeah, and I actually got that
because my my Battle Man or my Mighty Empire's box was missing
a few pieces. And that's a great.
I mean, they use a lot of the pieces are the same in in Dragon
Masters. So like the cities.
Yeah. So that's actually why I got it.
And that's, and you know, if if you look on eBay, you can buy
the pieces, but they're pretty pricey.
But you can actually find Dragon Masters for pretty cheap.
I think I got that for like $30.00 on eBay.
Wow, that's great. Yeah, yeah, Yep, Yep.
That's awesome. Yeah, yeah, Yep.
I'll have, I'll, I'll yeah. I think Mighty Empires is a is a
interesting game, like you say, for a campaign, if you if you
build around a campaign. And I think Nick, a mate of
mine, he was thinking about doing that.
And I, I interviewed Mel Boasts from the terrain shooter.
You know, the terrain shooter. Yeah, he actually did that back
in the 90s. Had had Mighty Empires, Man O
War and 4th Edition fantasy and did the whole campaign thing
with his friends. Yeah, I think I remember that.
I remember the interview. Did he say he had like 2 two
sets or something like that? It must have been massive.
I can't remember now what exactly how many sets he had but
but at least he got to live the dream.
You know like a lot of us are still trying to catch or chase
after 30 odd years in the hobby. Right, right.
It's kind of that you want to somehow combine, combine like
the the RPG elements with kind of a telling a story through
your through your your battles. But it's really, it's really
hard to do. It just seems, Yeah, yeah.
And then I have a lot of treasures kind of hidden away
back there. Got the Empire War altar in the
box. The first team tank.
Let's see, War Wagon. Wow.
War wagon, right? Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. So that's, that's like the, the,
you know, usually what you'll see for sale on my website is,
is kind of like the product of me just searching for things I'm
interested in and then, you know, finding a, a deal where,
OK, it's a great deal, you know, and, and I'm interested in maybe
part of this, it's like kind of justify building my collection
like that. I'm, I'm, I'm quite a
cheapskate. Like when I first got back into
the hobby, it was like I was, I was sweating over buying a sprue
like a plastic spoon, you know? So, so this is kind of a it, it
kind of is a way to kind of like justify.
It's kind of dangerous because it is a way to like justify
adding to your own collection. Absolutely.
Try to kind of limit myself I I've got this one bookcase in my
office that I try to kind of limit myself to just everything
has to go in there but you know I kind of cheat quite a bit
actually too I've got some stuff stash away in my garage too but.
Just don't tell the wife, yeah? Yeah, Yeah, yeah, right, right,
right. Well, she's, she's being being
Korean. She she just doesn't Yeah, this
is all this hobby is just like a massive shock to her, like she
does. There's nothing really
comparable to it in Korea. I guess like, you know, people
I, I guess Koreans are, are pretty, I guess pragmatic.
Like they, you know, of course they have their hobbies, but
they're very focused on work. And if you're an adult, you
know, work and, and family and I think hobbies are probably
become becoming more and more popular.
But, you know, it's like South Korea has developed so quickly
in such a short time that, you know, they've really gone from,
you know, like, like my parent, my, my, my parents in law's
generation, you know, they were like, you know, working, you
know, maybe I'm exaggerating, but maybe something like 12
hours a day and just like working really hard just to
survive and, and build up the country.
And so it's really just kind of our generation, kind of the
younger generations that that has the, you know, the leisure
to to get into hobbies. And it's, you know, now it's
like South Korea is more advanced I would consider than
America. And maybe it's the same in
Japan. Yeah.
Or I think, I think you're
right. Yeah, they have like they've, I
think the same generation were just working so hard for so
long, they had no time for hobbies and recreational
activities. But of course, Japan had the big
boom in the 90s of console gaming and they became the
number one supplier and developer of, of games and
software for home entertainment. So there's always that.
But yeah, looking at that thing about Games Workshop, it was
never, as far as I know, it was it was catered for the Japanese
in the 90s when 5th edition came out and that kind of brought out
their own language editions and that kind of thing.
But I think that thing that was ever given to the the Koreans in
the same way, I don't think they have, I like to my
understanding, I don't think they actually had a Korean
language edition of Warhammer. No, I don't.
I don't think they they did. And it's really probably not
until very recently that that, you know, miniatures are, are
getting any exposure at all in South Korea.
I was there last year and I did stumble upon a website of a,
there's a, there's a store in Seoul that sells miniatures, but
I think that that may be the only one.
And back when I was there, I got there in 2010 and I was coming
kind of coming in at the tail end of a fad of these board game
cafes. But I think by the time I got
there, they were kind of not. So yeah, kind of going out of
fashion. All right, OK, yeah, yeah.
But I suppose one thing going forward, like the big cities
like Seoul is that they have a lot of English speakers, a lot
of, a lot of South Korean speak English very well, especially
same with Japan in the big cities.
You got a lot of people who, who, who, if they do find this
kind of thing. Like I, I, I have a student
who's probably my age, bit older and he was playing D&D like he
was translating the D&D books a second edition in university for
his playing room. And he had, I think he had the
miniatures and everything from memory.
But yeah, if, if there's the will, there's a way kind of
thing. And they'll, they'll get around
it because they, they, they can, you know, literally they can
read and translate things rather well.
And I suppose maybe I've never been to Korea, I don't have
much, much contact with S Koreans personally, but I'd
imagine that'd be the same thing.
You know, a lot of the educated S Koreans would be able to read
English perfectly, probably not speak it so fluently.
But if they had the interest of gaming or board gaming or what
have you, they would just find a group that were equally as
passionate and then they'd they'd just translate it for
them and and to get to get around the language barrier.
Yeah, yeah. So I think probably since the
90s I believe English has been like a mandatory language that
you study throughout, you know, probably at least through, I
don't know if it's all the way through from K through, you
know, kindergarten through high school, but this definitely
mandatory for some of those years.
And so you'll find most, most Koreans at least can, can read
and understand English. And then, yeah, kind of a
growing number also have been, you know, sent to English
kindergartens for the spoken component as well.
So so yeah, I mean, I live, I mean, yeah, living in in South
Korea is very easy for English speakers.
Like I, I've met guys who, who had lived there for 12 years and
they couldn't speak, you know, hardly any Korean at all.
And they're still able to be able to get by.
Yeah, Yeah. Well, that's good.
And, and and I suppose like me, you spent some time teaching
there as well. Yeah.
That's right. Yeah.
So, so I went there really with the intention of just spending a
year teaching. And so I taught at a, it's
actually a kindergarten in English, a private English
speaking kindergarten there. And, and I'd actually wanted to
go to Japan 1st. And that was my plan.
A friend of mine had recommended a school there and I, I called,
but they had just finished hiring all the teachers for, for
that coming year. So I was, I was like, well, I
don't want to wait in a whole other year.
Another friend of mine had some connections in South Korea, so I
ended up going there instead. But it was a yeah, I think, I
think if I would have gone to Japan, I probably would have
been like you. I probably would have stayed
there just because I'm, I'm pretty fascinated by the
Japanese culture. And I think there are a lot of
yeah, similarities. I mean, I think they they seem
to appreciate history quite a bit in tradition.
They do. They do.
Yeah, I'm just, you know, they seem to do everything at a very
high standard and pride themselves in that.
Yeah, South Korea is quite different.
It's it's they have had a pretty like what they are considered a
pretty bad history. And so I what they would often
tell me is that they're always looking forward to the future
because their past was so pretty dark, you know, just a lot of
poverty and then, yeah, being, you know, taken over by Japan
and all that. Yeah.
So, so really, you'll go there and they do have their, you
know, historic tourist sites, but but it's very interesting
that the culture is very much about staying up to date with
the latest technology. You know, you'll, you'll go into
the, to the, you know, a tiny mom and pop restaurant and
they'll have the a brand new, like huge Samsung TV.
It's just kind of like, wow, yeah, interesting.
But yeah, that's, I guess, you know, it's a great way for their
economy just to, you know, stay, stay moving ahead.
So, so anyway, yeah, it's I I went there with just the
intention of staying for a year, but met my wife.
She was South Korean and she was actually just returning from
studying in America. And we met and pretty quickly
kind of realized that she was the one for me and we got
married there and I ended up staying there for six years
total. And I.
Don't, I don't know if it's the same in Japan, but when you go
there, you know, just just to go there to teach, you're there on
a work visa. And so you have to be sponsored
by a school. But once you're married, your
visa changes. And I became more a freelance
teacher. So, so kind of just, yeah,
finding different teaching gigs any way I could.
And we actually also start a little English school in our
apartment. Oh great, Which?
Which went OK for, for a while, but as we started having kids
and it became harder, you know, my, my, my youngest son, he was.
Yeah. He would once he was old enough
to start walking around and he would kind of, you know, be
banging on the classroom door saying, you know, it's not bad.
He did. So.
So I had to change that, change that up.
Yeah. I kind of did a lot of different
things. And he's like anything from
doing song and dance in front of kindergarten classrooms to, to
more corporate, you know, teaching adults.
Yeah. So.
So everything in between. Good on you mate.
Yeah, good experience for you anyway.
Yeah. It was, it was, Yeah, Yep.
So we yeah. But I actually, I was listening
to your podcast that you did with David and quite a lot of
similarities. Yeah, so.
Yeah. Yeah, with the kind of the, the
burnout that comes I think with, with doing that full time.
So I, I got pretty burnt out on it.
Just the constant, you know, trying to find new, new gigs.
And I'm kind of an introvert. Not, not so much that I don't
like being around people, but it just kind of, you know, take the
energy out of me. But you know, so, so kind of
being, especially with kids kind of being the entertainer for 8
hours a day, it's, it's just quite draining so.
Yeah, it's a bit of a circus sometimes, isn't it?
I know you're sort of on parade. You're this special thing that
people want to talk to and look at.
Yeah, Yeah, I, I, I got that feeling too after a while.
Yeah, Even though I've still got 1 foot in the teaching, but one
foot out. But yeah, it's, it's always good
to fall back on. And it's an pretty much an
assured kind of, you know, career to to jump back into if
things go a bit, a little bit bit shaky here and there.
Yeah. But yeah.
But it's not, it's not the, you know, I think most people I've
met through in Japan too have sort of started that and then
gone on to something else. They've used that as a launching
pad to get into something else, maybe their dream job or dream
career or what have you. Yeah.
So, yeah, they should. People should.
Well, then some people really love it, you know, and they,
they, they couldn't think of doing anything else, which is,
Yeah, great, you know, So. Yeah.
Yeah, now 11 great thing is if you can actually start playing
board games with your students, I I think you'd have mentioned
playing Talisman with your students, right?
Yeah, we did. Yeah.
It was great. They loved it, absolutely loved
it. And I, I, I introduced them to
hear request and they've never seen anything like that before.
Never like miniatures, you know, and painted miniatures for that.
And then, you know, this 3D dungeon and they really got into
it and it was really lovely to see.
And if I was, if I had thought about doing something myself as
opening a school or opening up a cafe, Yeah.
So some kind of English with board games with, with, you
know, younger kids and various different kinds of board games
that would appeal to them or for their age group or language
level. And yeah, make that some kind of
hangout place for, for people to come to probably near a
university. Because in scuba, not so far
from where we live, actually in that city, there's, there's
heaps and heaps of universities there.
So it'd be like the the perfect place to set up something like
that, where after after school, they can come down, ride their
bike down, come in, have something to drink, play some
board games, hang out with their friends, interact with English.
And yeah, it'd be a really, really good thing to do, I think
if I was ever going to do something like that.
Definitely. Yeah.
So.
But. You're going to enjoy that.
And you kind of get to the point where you're, you know, you can
hardly believe you're getting paid to play board games with
these kids. Yeah, you know.
I don't, you know, I don't think my, I don't think my company
really wanted me to do that. But yeah, it was good.
Just just every now and again. And I had another guy and I had
Shades, Shadespire, you know, that GW game, the board game.
Yeah. And I got him into it because
he, he was like a gamer and playing like Nintendo Switch and
that kind of stuff with his wife.
But I introduced him to board games and he absolutely loved
it. We did that, I think because we
just thought, I thought, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm with this
guy for two hours and, and I just thought, you know, what the
hell, let's just play board games, OK, No problem.
I think we had like a four hour session or something, or
something massive. So I said, OK, let's just play
board games. So he said, OK, yeah.
So we just did that for four hours.
It's brilliant. And yeah, we really enjoyed it,
I think. Yeah, it was great.
It was really good. And yeah, I like, I like
introducing people to, to games. I I quite enjoy that.
And if, if it was through teaching that I did that and I
converted a couple of people into board games, board gamers.
Great. And one of the young guys who
went off to university, he came in through the summer, summer
holidays and he wanted to say hello to me and, and he said he
was bored. And I said, and I had that
shades by a game. I paid, I paid the most and
miniatures for it. I said, here you go mate, look,
just take it finds find some guys or girls in your college or
what have you. Get him to sit down and play and
play it with you. It's in English.
Unfortunately it wasn't in Japanese.
But you know, it's good for them to if they if they feel
motivated to learn. And, and I hope, I hope he's
still playing it. I hope he's still got it and
still using it and and playing it with his friends.
Yeah, that's awesome. But I, I had a very similar
experience where, yeah, I, I had a 2 hour lesson with, with kind
of a corporate guy. I was thinking what, what could,
what could I do with this guy for two hours?
You know, it's like, so I, I stumbled upon this, upon this
idea online where where you, you watch videos and you get them
and like the teacher is kind of like, not like not watching like
blindfolded. And they're describing what's
happening in the video to you. So, so they're kind of got this
constant, you know, narration of what's happening in the video.
And I made a mistake of, you know, I'd, I'd wanted this when
Games of Thrones was kind of. Coming out.
And I, I and I hadn't watched it yet, but but hey, this, this
looks like a pretty full show. So I chose that and you know,
you know, some of those scenes are pretty graphic.
Yeah, yeah. So he's, he, he's like starting
to narrate it to me and he, and he kind of stops what's going
on. You know, he's like, so it's,
it's a, you know, one of the, I think one of the first episodes,
if you remember, there was a, a scene of incest taking place.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
So, so it's kind of like, OK, I don't maybe this is such a great
idea, but he told me later that he was hooked on the on the
series and he couldn't stop watching at home.
So I guess, I guess he was. I, I actually had an, a lady in
her, you know, I think her 60s, I'd say she's retired.
She was retired and really lovely lady.
And she told me one day I, I love watching the Game of
Thrones series. I said really, I see.
Well, I and I and I just thought it was just, it just didn't
match her. And I thought, what about all
those really intense sexual scenes and violence?
She's oh, yeah, I'll just skip through.
I'll just skip past those. And I said, yeah, sure you do.
Yeah. It's like, I bet you do.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I'm sure there's more, more
sort of violent, violent stuff out there on on the in TV shows.
I, I think a lot of the earlier, I think I was talking to David
about that stuff you'd found in the 70s and 80s was just way
more, way more risque than that. But anyhow, mate, we're going
to, we're going to take a quick break and we'll be come back and
I want to discuss with you some of the armies you're collecting
and games you're playing nowadays.
And we'll be back in just a moment.
I'm excited to announce the return of the Hirohammer Fanzine
Issue 4, which is due in March of 2025.
If you have never heard of the Hirahama fanzine, then please
visit hirahamahyphenfanzine.com to download your free copy of
the first three issues today. And thank you to all the people
that have reached out to help contribute to our hobby
magazine. Now let's get back to the show.
OK, We're back again after that short break.
Thanks again for joining me, Scott.
And yeah, what I really want to talk about now mate is about
your your collections, because you are collecting for different
purposes, one for yourself and one to fund your hobby and that
kind of thing and sell on other models.
But what actually do you actually have currently in your
collections? Oh my.
So like I said, it's pretty dangerous when you're, you know,
buying and selling because I do tend to pull out quite a bit to
keep. So, so when I first started, I,
I started some skirmish games with, with a Robin Hood theme.
This is something I thought would be fun with my kids and,
and I really enjoyed doing that. Starting out with kind of kit
bashing, you know, from different plastic kits to make
Robin Hood's band out of. Let's see.
Yeah, just just different screws I'd buy online and and now
recently, you know, with with the Baron's war, I know you're.
You're kind of, yeah. I like Baron's War too, yeah.
Too. You know, I'm kind of redoing my
My Sheriff of Nottingham's band. Oh nice.
From those miniatures I also picked up some of Claymore
castings. I love those models.
Those are amazing. They're incredible.
Yep, Yep. So I think the, you know,
they're more for a later period, but with some of their Archers,
they they could fit kind of the like 13th century because
they're not wearing a lot of plate armor, things like that.
So. Yeah.
Yeah, well, those poses. So yeah, they're kind of using
those to fill out Robin Hood's band and and, you know, use some
of those for the for the sheriff's as well.
And then something else that really caught my eye when when I
first. Got back into the hobby where
Mithril Miniatures Ireland, Right, right.
Yeah, I think the sculptor's name is, is it Chris Tubbs,
sculptor? And yeah, just just those, you
know, the, the sculpts that are actually, you know, based on, on
the books and from the Middle Earth role-playing game also
before the movies were out. So I really just like that
aesthetic. I wasn't so, so keen on like
games workshops, models, interpretation models.
They were, they were, they were based on the movies.
So so yeah, I started collecting those and you'll see on my side
I've got a lot of those blisters still in the blisters for sale.
So so yeah, I've got those. Eventually I think I'd like to
make some more bands and actually like use Games
Workshops rules but with those miniatures.
Right, OK, I'm just, I'm just looking at Mithril miniatures
because I, I remember them being available like when I got into
war gaming and and finding about discovering miniatures and that
kind of thing. But it looks like now it's sort
of evolved into 3D sculpting and all that kind of thing, yeah.
Yeah, so, so yeah, it's quite different.
I think they used to be like pretty reasonable, reasonable
price. They're they're pretty ordinary
looking old models. The old models are really
ordinary looking, but without any kind of definition or
anything like that. But the new ones certainly have
changed a lot. So it's the escape.
Same sculptor, but he does it. Yeah, digitally now.
And they, and they do, I think a lot of the collectors might be
kind of like turned off by this, but they do them in, in resin
now they sell them in resin. And you know, they have a
different, a kind of a different model where they have a, a club
and anyone can join. It's called the fellowship club
where you buy a certain miniature.
I forget what was it. I think it's Aragorn holding up
the, the orb. I forget what it's called, but
anyway, you buy that miniature and then you can join the club
and then it's kind of a forum where you can vote on what will
be the next miniature for for Kristen Sculpt.
Right. It's kind of fun, but I think
it's it kind of also, you know, limits It's yeah, it's just,
it's just an interesting business model.
I don't, I don't know that they sell a whole lot and they might
just have a limited run of each miniature and they're pretty
pricey. I mean, yeah, you can see like
they're up to, you know, you know. €21.00 for one single
model in resin. That's that's something that you
gotta love them if you really want them.
Yeah, but that's kind. Of the fun part of of collecting
too is is just keeping an eye out for for great deals, you
know and snagging them up when they come you know you can you
can sometimes find you know people just getting rid of a a
lot of blisters all at once and you can get them at a pretty
reasonable price and then I don't know if you've ever seen
this, but there's a there's a Facebook page I think it's
called war gaming in Middle Earth, which.
I haven't seen it. It's it's pretty awesome.
I'd recommend that to anyone who's interested in Tolkien.
It's basically people who play war games that are not, you
know, you know, based around Tolkien's works that are not
Games Workshop using different rules sets, but a lot of kit
bashing and a lot of amazing painting.
And and so a lot of the people in there play Oathmark.
It. It seems to be, you know, kind
of more geared towards Tolkien as well.
Like pretty low fantasy some also building up some armies to
play with Oathmark. OK, good.
I've got a a Hobbit army I'm working on eventually some elves
yeah, so so that's kind of a long term project.
Yeah, so. So have you dabbled in the old
world 'cause I can see them on your bookshelf behind you?
Have you dabbled on that yet? I have, yeah.
So so with with this first big collection I got it really I
wasn't planning on getting back into Warhammer, the game is
worse but but as a kid I did. I did have a period where
probably between like 12 and 17, I got the 4th edition box set
and a few other, you know, a few other minis.
And I was really into the high Elves and, you know, just and
yeah, just like the Dwarfs and the and the Empire.
I was just like, you know, always look through the catalogs
and just kind of like, you know, just just dream about owning all
these these miniatures and, you know, also seeing things like
like Epic and 40K. So yeah, this first collection
that I that I bought had a lot of that in it and especially
Epic. Yeah.
And the more I, I like I had these in my possession and I was
like, oh, man, this is so tempting to just, you know, keep
them some of these for myself. And it, it just like kind of
wore on me. It just wore me down.
And then I just kind of like surrendered.
I was like, OK, I'm going to take everything out of here that
I would imagine myself wanting in the future.
And and so I'd say for the past year I've, I've been yeah.
And that's kind of grown into like kind of searching for more
and just building up my empire collection and my high health
collection. I kind of kind of got out of
control collecting the the Marauder Dwarfs because.
Oh yeah. Yeah, they're, they're amazing.
And the more you look at them and just the more you appreciate
them. And actually, before I had
bought that collection, I had come across the the older, like
third edition and it's like maybe even second edition the
the pre slaughter dwarfs, like the fantasy tribes and those are
just amazing too. But they're just, they're so
different from from the later sculpts.
You know, they're more maybe kind of like they look more
realistic. I guess you'd say that skinnier.
Yeah, that's right. Their heads are more in
proportion to their bodies. I think their arms and and legs
are kind of a little bit odd sometimes, but but they just
have a lot of character. So that's that was kind of like
what really got me first as far as like, yeah, from Games
Workshop, but to me. And it's like, yeah, it's kind
of gotten out of control. So I so I've got enough empire
models that I could pretty much do anything I would want with
them. Right and.
My, my and my thought first was a Marienburg army because my, my
thought there was, you know, especially looking at the, the
old Marienburg, I think Warhammer role-playing book, if
a great book that kind of goes in depth with in the city.
And, and, and so you could I, I thought, man, I could actually
have like dwarfs and elves in my empire army, you know, and you
know, of course, they're just proxy in for maybe, you know,
your elf spear and my, my proxy in for the empire spear.
I mean, you have to kind of be kind of creative, but it's like,
you know, this, that can make it work.
And I'd only have to paint one army, but I'd get my, my empire
and dwarfs and, and elves. But that, you know, you know,
how it goes. Like as I started to think more
about the Elves and the Dwarfs in my collection, kind of it's
like, well, OK, I guess I'm doing all three armies.
That's good, mate. That's great.
That's excellent. Yeah.
And I see you've got a painting table behind you, so you do
actually paint the models that you do.
I do. I try to.
I haven't done it much for the past year or so.
I've been pretty busy with just, yeah, any free time.
I just try to try to work on the business aspect.
Yeah. And then, you know, you kind of
justify squeal up and searching for hours on it, searching for
deals that way I would have been doing it anyway, even if I
didn't have a business. So.
So that's kind of the fun, some fun part of this too, starting
to kind of collect the older Marauder elves.
Oh. Yeah, Marauder Empire like have
so much. Character.
They're beautiful models. Really beautiful models, yeah.
Yeah, So, yeah. And then I also like the old
like fantasy, fantasy tribes, goblins, those have a lot of
character too. They're just just so different.
You know, it's it's almost like if you have you almost it'd be
hard to mix those and make it look good, like mix the the
older preslotta models with with the more modern, like like the
90s model. So I I think I'll I'll probably
stay more on the pre slot as far as the goblins go.
But yeah, those are those are pretty incredible too.
Like the old the old knight goblins.
Also this is yeah, they're so cool.
Wow, OK. I don't think I've ever ever
seen those models so. Yeah, that's going way back.
And then the they also have like, like chaos goblins.
Have you ever seen those like mutated goggles?
Very cool, Very cool. Yeah, there was just a lot of
very interesting, like different concepts, I guess in Games
Workshop at that time, it kind of evolved into something
different, I think. But but like listening to oh,
what's it called the the other podcast, the old Hammer.
Fiction Podcast. Yes, the only yeah, yeah, like
going into those old stories, you kind of get a kind of a feel
for how Warhammer used to be like kind of before the 4th
edition. I think that's a little bit
different, yeah. And then I also, there's a local
group that plays Ned Epic Armageddon.
So so I've I've started playing that.
That's great. That's some imperial guard.
I've been an imperial guard painted army.
I painted up an Eldar army for my son to use and then
eventually some Tyranids and squats also.
Fantastic. Yeah.
Oh, good, 'cause that that was going my next question.
Like, you know, you've got the miniatures.
Do you actually people to play with?
So it sounds like you do. Yeah.
Local club there that's active. That's great.
Yeah, now, now, I did give Old World a a try.
And for me personally, it was, I didn't really enjoy it.
And I think I'd probably enjoy, I've been, I've been looking at
Warhammer Renaissance rules and those look awesome, more
streamlined, which is kind of what I'm looking for.
I'm looking for a simplified, more simplified game, you know,
where it's not like I guess I like ideally I'd like a little
bit of variety in the games that I play, but it seems like a lot
of the people that I know who play old world, that's like
their main game, you know, so it just it just takes so much time,
I think to to get familiar with the rules and but a lot of
people enjoy it, which is great. You know, I think it's good for
getting people back into into war him.
But for sure mate. Yeah.
Our question of the month for November 2024 is what's your
relationship with miniature painting?
Is it the main aspect of your hobby and something that you
strive for mastery or recognition?
And is it something you enjoy and find relaxing without
worrying too much about perfectionism?
Or is it something you'd rather not do at all, but you see as a
means to an end to getting those little guys on the table?
Send down your answer by going to
bedroombattlefields.com/voicemail and I need them in by Friday the
29th of November. That link again is Bedroom
battlefields.com/voicemail. And now, back to the show.
But yeah, I think Warhammer Renaissance looks pretty
amazing. Give it a go mate, it's all free
to download. You know, all the rules are free
and it's all based on 4th edition.
Get the they've got the wonderful spell cards if you got
if you can get those or print them out.
Yeah, I absolutely love it. We, we, we've, we, we play that
religiously now. So that's.
Great. Yeah, it's it's our main fix for
Warhammer really. And everyone seems happy, you
know, new you're like old and young.
So everyone seems to be very content with it.
So I'm glad that you're finally discovering that.
And the Empire army will be put to good use, that's for sure.
Yeah, yeah. Now something I, I would, I
wonder, excite, I, I don't know if anything is this like
Warhammer Renaissance for the for Warhammer 3rd edition?
Because I think the army list in 3rd edition are so interesting.
And I wonder if something like that could be kind of ported
over into Warhammer Renaissance. You know, like, like you've got
like the high elf army list is so different where they got like
Kiff, which are like elf villagers, merchant companies.
Yeah. And then a lot of similarities
to, to like 4th edition and onward.
But a lot of these units like like what are they called?
I got the book right in front of me here.
I see elf ward answers. Man, I'd like to have ward
answers in my IL army, you know, so, so I think, I think that's
one of my projects too. I'd I'd love to to paint up, I'd
like to use a lot of the older wood elf models, but paint them
models or yeah, Yep. But painting them up as more of
a high elf, like kind of envisioning like the regular
high elves that might be in a village, you know, like a
village militia or a town militia and maybe use them for
using the wood elf profiles, but but have them just kind of look
more high Elfie. Yeah, good, good.
Anyway, why not? Yeah, Yep.
I would look forward to seeing that.
And I'm sure I think Boulder has kind of tried to tried to
squeeze in some of like the the wood elves in Renaissance has
like a has like more of a, a feral kind of, you know, tree,
tree hugging tribe of wood elves.
And he had more of the traditional sort of 4th edition
style of what else? So you've got a bit of a mixture
of both. And I tried, he's tried to
blend. You got like a Norse list in
there as well. So if you got like the old Norse
figures, which are practically Vikings, you could use those.
So I think he has tried to squeeze a bit of the old, old
hammer 3rd edition love into the list as well where he can.
That's. Great.
Awesome. Yeah, so have fun with that
mate, with you with and I hope you find someone out there in
Texas where you are to enjoy that with you mate.
So but Scott, thanks very much again for your time today.
I really appreciate you coming on and to tell your story to us
and for for me to enjoy and listen and I know my listeners
would enjoy that too mate. So long may you prosper in the
buying and selling collecting of miniatures mate.
Thanks a lot, Joshua. Thanks for having me on.