OK, everybody, welcome back to the Chronic Command podcast.
This is Joshua Host. But of course, I've got a very
special guest and that's Mel, the Terrain Tudor.
Mel, how you going? I'm doing well, mate.
How are you? Very good.
I'm really just really glad that you've that you decided to come
on to the chronic command mate. It's I've been a, as we talked
off air, I've been a big fan of your YouTube channel.
I've been following you for quite a long time and I really
wanted to bring you on to get the community to listen to your
story as to how you actually got into a like war gaming, you know
miniatures and of course your terrain making hobby.
So mate, let's let's go back in time, let's go back in the
TARDIS and go back to where it all started mate.
So how did you actually? Get into We're going to need a
TARDIS for that. We're going back to the time of
the dinosaurs I see where the where the story of the living La
Vida loca started, right. I've been asked this question a
few times and so I've got sort of like I've got quite prepared
and well versed at actually giving the, you know, the answer
and my my journey in war gaming. Yeah, I sort of the reason I'm
such a terrain maker is I was a terrain maker for about 10 years
before I I discovered war gaming.
OK. And the reason being is I I was
son of a single of a single mother and she owned a craft
shop in North Wales. Now being single, obviously
there was no BB sisters or anything like that.
So what this meant was that every weekend and every week
through the summer holidays, I basically lived in a craft shop
and, you know, I had some little toy soldiers and, you know,
little plastic army men. And my mum used to have this
watch called a collection of railway merchandise.
So railway scenics, you know, really basic stuff.
Well, she used to get the railway guys come into it and
they used to help me make dioramas.
So about six or seven I was making wire trees and I was
making things like this and just playing with Airfix models and
plastic soldiers. It was only 10 years later,
yeah, that I actually moved. We moved back to England, we
moved into a place called Stoke on Trent, where I live now, and
I discovered White Dwarf and I discovered there was actually a
war game. Yeah, Whereas I'd actually been
making terrain for it for about 10 years.
Amazing. OK, what?
What exactly was the very first thing you you laid, laid eyes
on? What what?
What issue of White Dwarf was that?
It was issue 124. Yeah, it was the one which had
the very first battle report in which was the 24 hour charity
battle for Eagle Pass. Yeah, additionally, it had the
rules for the epic God yeah in 40K and the Eldar Lancing Nights
for 40K, which were really cool. But basically, I found this
magazine and I opened it up and I suddenly realised there was so
much stuff, yeah, I could do. And you know, we're talking my
my first gaming was third edition.
Yeah, Fantasy Battle, yeah, Which was the very first box set
that GW did for Fantasy Battle. It was the orcs against the
elves, where you have the basic miniatures.
And then what you had is you had like these cardboard pictures on
little stands for the larger, like Dragons and stuff like
that, like you moved around around the the kit also came
with some cardboard buildings in it, and I'd base the buildings,
put the buildings together, I'd base them, flocked them and
everything like that and made them into terrain pieces before
I put the miniatures together. Yeah, so that's that must be the
4th edition, high off verse, Goblin said.
I think you're referring to, yeah.
Is it 4th edition? Yeah, long time ago.
So many editions. So many editions.
Well, that that was basically my first real foray into Warhammer
Fantasy. I bought the 3rd edition book,
but wow, it's so it was just so overwhelming.
The rules and that kind of thing was just too complex for me to
get my head around. But the 4th edition set was so
much easier. I had all the miniatures, had
the rules of which are more digestible.
And yeah, you, like you said, you've got that terrain, you've
got everything in them. Dice the whole lot.
Yeah, yeah, I do remember. Do you remember War on the
Siege? Yes.
Oh, that was a beautiful book. I actually had the castle.
I don't know where it is, but I never threw it out.
But I don't know where it is. And I think it's at the Ex
wives. Yeah, Which is lucky because I'm
on good terms with her. So I might read The Attic.
She doesn't set light to it. That's good, mate.
Yeah, I actually. No, I'm on really good terms
with my ex. We just we after 25 years, our
lives just went in different directions, but we still remain
really good friends. So it's like as, as a divorced
dad goes, I've got the best of both worlds.
Yeah, mate, No, that's been one of the things about your live
streams and that's where I really sort of found out about
you during the pandemic. You did like daily live streams,
which I would catch in the morning because I'm in Japan.
It's obviously a nine hour difference between you and me,
but I would catch those and watch them and listen to your
stories before I went to work. And yeah, you you're quite
candid about, you know, your A, your mental health and your
situation with your, you know, personal life and you would
share all this with your fans that would join you on your live
streams and that kind of thing. So you've been quite open about
your whole situation, but you know, the whole roller coaster
of life. To be honest, it was never an
intention to be quite open about life and that sort of stuff.
But because the channel goes on in my life and it is such, yeah,
part of my life and I, you know, with my mental health and with
chaos things, you cannot hide that from a channel.
And you know, little bits came out and I just reached the point
where I just tell people, you know, obviously within the
confines and within confines of family information because of
the kids and stuff like that. But you know, it just got to a
bit where it was more of an open book.
You know what I mean? Yeah.
And so with the rise of the channel stuff, I'm just quite
honest about it, but I'm, I'm trying to do this major focus
thing of, you know, focusing on the terrain and the hobby rather
than, you know, the health and the well-being, so to speak.
Yeah, we've had a couple of years.
It's been a bit of a a roller coaster and now I just want to
get and really stuck back into the hobby, if you know what I
mean. Yeah, no, it's been, it's been
great to see you back mate, because I've been really happy
and I think a lot of people who who are sort of get your
delicate dedicated, you know Terraniacs out there really
happy to see you back on and talking and at least doing the
live streams. And then you know you you're
just sitting there building stuff during the week and your
little, I think it's Thursday or Tuesday or Wednesday night or
whatever that you just sort of sit there and put AMDF kit
together and you sort of just talk to the guys as you do it
kind of thing. And you know, you've, you know,
you've got quite a lot of people who really appreciate that or
feel that you know the content you give, even if it's just a
live stream, they feel that it's really worth it and it makes
their week and it's just nice that they can listen to you talk
about stuff, you know? Yeah, well, we're on a little
bit of a roller coaster, but we're on the upward bound.
So you know, I've got plenty to come and I've had some watch
some small scale terrain turn up today from TT Combat.
So yeah, my lad's sort of like really like, yeah, we should get
into this drop zone thing. So we're we're sort of like, I'm
sort of buzzed on the terrain thing.
So I'm, I'm in the studio tomorrow, I've got more content
to film so hopefully we're going to be rolling out with proper
terrain videos rather soon as well.
So I'm good and upwards. Anyway.
We better get back to this chat about my childhood.
So you you think you start off with 4th edition fantasy?
Did Was Warhammer your true love?
Or was it another game system, either with games, worship or
something else? Oh, Warhammer was my true love.
Yeah, it wasn't much for a 40K person.
Yeah. And the reason being was that at
the time, 40K was actually quite small.
You know, it hadn't got to its box sets versions yet.
Yeah. And so you, you know, you could
buy, you know, the the plastic beaking marines.
And I did have them and I did have the 40K book, but we never
really played it because it was still 40K was still in its kind
of it. It was still a role play on
table top, if you know what I mean.
The rules were ridiculously complicated, you know, there
were charts for everything. Yeah.
And so it, you know, Fantasy Battle was just a bit easier to
play. But we went full bore into
Fantasy Battle. Yeah, it cost me my A levels.
Yeah. I mean, we had two mighty empire
sets, me and my mates. Yeah, I I played undead, really
played what you call it. Dwarves and Tosh played elves.
So we basically have the three major three major factions of
the old world. Right.
Yeah, and we bought 2 Watch Colour two Mighty Empire sets
with the old Hex tile maps. Oh yeah.
Wow. And the campaign one, Yeah, that
came with like, the campaign rules.
And we put these Isles all together to make a single sort
of island, single continent. Yeah.
And we battled over that thing for like 8 months.
Yeah. And we had Man of War as well,
which was the old naval game. Love it?
Yeah. Yeah, so all our naval
conflicts, yeah, were resolved using man of war.
And as I said, I had war. I'm a siege, so all the sieges
of the castles we resolved playing Warhammer Siege, you
know, and I'd made siege towers and ladders out of balsa and
stuff like that. I'd sprayed it.
That was my first discovery. That watch closed spray cans
that actually melt polystyrene because I melted my castle.
It looks more like a Nergal castle.
Well, some sections of it. I don't think you're alone.
Yeah, I don't think you're alone there, mate.
I think I've done. I think I've destroyed things
with a rattle can in my time before starring, yeah.
Oh, yeah. But no.
What do you call it? So we played that, and I pretty
much played that until I was about 18.
And you know, the army came calling along with beer and.
And ladies. Yeah.
And I lost interest in war, war, gaming and everything.
Completely, Yeah. And then that continued probably
for about another eight years till I was in my mid 20s.
And I don't know when I'd done this, but when I was in my mid
20s, I was sorting through some, you know, some stuff in the
spare room when I was with Kez and I found this little box.
And in this little box was 8 Jean Steelers, the paints to
paint them and some paintbrushes just like a little travel
painting kit that I'd obviously put together like a decade ago.
You know what I mean? Like I'll do these at the
girlfriends or something like that.
And I found it. And at the time I, you know,
work was quite stressful and that sort of stuff.
And it just became a distraction.
Yeah. And what started off with eight
Jean Steelers ended up with a Tyranid army where I was running
like 6 units of 30 Homicons. It was a beast.
I mean they ended ended up on Bella Lost Souls.
They posted a picture of of my army because I've got that many
models for it. So I just went full bore.
And after Tyranids, I got involved with the local gaming
club. Yeah, after Tyranids it became
the Imperial God. After that it was Grey Knights.
Yeah, so big Delve into 40K from there.
Yeah, yeah, that's a that's a big change because you know, you
your heart was set on Warhammer and you played that well, you
see, and then you went, you dove.
Into going back into Warhammer. But when I considered it, it was
like, there's no way I want to be buying and building units
that have 20 models for an army. Yeah.
So I ended up building units of 32.
Models instead you basically built like the equivalent of
Warhammer Army in 40K, but really so.
Mate, my approach to building an Imperial Guard army, Yeah, you
know the Imperial Guard layout for it's basic.
You pick one basic troop unit and that's your command squad
and then your two watch glare infantry squads and then you've
got all the add-ons. Yeah, the way I approached from
building my 40K army, Yeah, for Imperial Guard was right.
That's one troop unit. So I need 5 infantry squads, 5
support squads, 2 watch Collet for one troop choice and I
basically the entire platoon choice built the lot.
That's one unit, yeah, and that's what I took for watch
Collet for literally. And then I have a veteran unit
and a commander. So my approach to when I do
armies is I go full ball, doesn't matter whatever, it's
just full ball. I want everything.
I want all the toys. Cool, that's great mate.
And do you still actually have those armies in your collection?
I I watch the the two minutes I gave away to a friend.
Yeah, the Imperial Guard. I've still got.
I think the watch call it the Grey Nights.
I sold to fund something at some point, As you do.
Yeah, but no. The Imperial Guard.
They're all still on the shelf. Proudly, literally just behind
me. Nice.
Units and if anyone wants to go see my Imperial Guard, just
Google Corbinia Prime Imperial Guard and you'll find my old
blog that I used to write with all the pictures of my Imperial
Guard long before I was the terrain tutor.
Wow. OK, we'll we'll definitely need
to get that link into the show notes so people can go and check
that out. I'm I'm interested to see what
that looks like too mate. So that sounds great.
But when you go, when you're talking about your Warhammer
days in your you know, in your early youth playing 4th edition
with the mighty Empire's mighty empire, sorry, mighty Empire's
castle, the siege book, the man of war.
And then you had the mighty empire set you, you are living
the dream. You do realize that, like,
people have just. Esteemed to this my a level too
busy daydreaming about the old world, which is why I became a
combat medic. I'm not a doctor.
Yeah, that's that's one of them. I think that's you've achieved
something that many people have never got to to do.
So they're still reaching for that goal.
You know, having all those three things together, combining the
naval warfare with Man of War Man of was such a great game.
And I think we're going to have a bit of a Man of War month next
month on on The Chronicle Man, because I really, really think
it's one of the the true gems of the Specialist game series that
games we should released in the 90s.
Two coats. I'd like to.
I'd like to address the Man of War comment.
But just quickly, just before we move on, I'd just like to point
out that in my youth my mother used to say, why are you wasting
all your time with these little toy soldiers?
You'll never make a living with anything like with these.
Yeah, something which I reminded her of when I showed her my
100,000 YouTube Silver play button.
Soon to be 200,000, I think. Do you get, do you get the life
of 200,000? Yeah, I'm not far off.
I I don't actually track the number.
I don't look at the numbers. Yeah, but I believe I'm not far
off. My daughter keeps telling me
that I'm probably just a couple of months away.
Yeah. So we'll see where she'll let me
know when we're getting close and I have to do a special
watch. Got it right.
The juicy stuff for Man of War. Do you know The Dirty story
about Man of War? What's that, mate?
Tell me. Like I said, that it was ripped
off from a French company. Oh really?
Yeah, yeah, that's why it disappeared.
And there's never any mention of it in any of the white dwarfs
since. Oh, wow.
OK, please. Yeah, basically.
I mean literally the entire rules were basically picked up.
It wasn't even oh we like that they basically just mirrored
this French naval company game. They, I think you they've got
some sort of like because it was a naval game, they've got some
sort of third party designer in to consult.
When this guy had just gone to this French game, they thought
they'll never figure this out and took it.
Yeah. And the reason why GW lost Man
of War got disappeared, It's because the French company hit
him with the ban hammer. Oh, wow.
OK. Yeah, that's why.
That's why with all the re releases of the specialist games
and everything like that, there's no mention of Man of
War. Yeah, that's why whenever the,
you know, it's like 20 years of Warhammer or you know, 30 years
of White Dwarf and they do one of those Look back articles,
they never have it in. Yeah, I was there in the shop
when the watch call it when the order came through to take it
off the shelves. Yeah, so there's the, there's
there's GW's dirty Bad Hammer story for you.
And they've been a dinosaur at times, isn't it?
Yeah, well, that's very interesting.
I've never heard anybody mention that and that's great that you
brought that to light. I I wish to send my praise to
the French company who designed those rules.
They're absolutely amazing. I think it was.
A good rule set, wasn't it? It was, yeah.
Because I'm not into naval war gaming.
Naval war gaming just puts me to sleep.
But Man of War has something really special about it that.
Well, I mean, GW definitely put their own spin on it with the
magic and that sort of stuff, and the ships were brilliant.
Yeah, yeah. You know, because obviously I
played what's called I played undead.
So I had the Necro fleet, you know what I mean?
Was there a Necro fleet out though?
But did they? Yeah, the Wharf wasn't there.
I'm damn sure. Fine.
I'm going to check. Yeah, the journal had the
Journal had the Undead Fleet rules, but I don't know if they
actually had any models or where there was a special mail order
release. I'm not sure.
Possibly. But anyhow, I'm sure the credit
command community can tell me more about that.
I know people, people I. Need to know.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's see how you did it, mate,
because maybe there was like a very limited release of them at
that stage and they just did it for a short time through mail
order and they just never were an official.
Oh, I don't know. I honestly don't know now.
Right, interesting. I've always wanted.
No, no, there was. I'm looking at it.
I'm right there was. There was a watch, a realm in
the realms of chaos. Yeah.
Yeah, the Black Arth of Nagareth.
Yeah, I'm right. There was an undead ship.
I know I'm getting old, dude, but.
Oh, that's a dark. That's a Dark Elf ship, the
Black Black Ark. Oh, in which case, I used to I I
I got it and I painted it up for what you call it my.
That's what it is. But.
That's what you did, right? OK.
That's fair. That's.
Cool. That's cool.
That's a good one. I just remember having a ship
with a skull on it. Right, OK, now that that, that's
a that's a really good alternative actually, yeah, just
turning the Dark Elves into an undead fleet and you just make
your own ships if you wanted to and just make your own
templates, but. Well, not just that, it's got
towers on it, which is very much Dracula like, aren't they?
They are, yeah. Now that's.
Good. So it's an easy it was, you
know, I can remember it went in well.
Yes, it would have would have worked really well actually.
Now you think about it, it's. It just, it looks, yeah, you can
make that, you know, sort of floating necropolis or whatever.
You know what I mean? Like it's.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it can be whatever you
want it to be. That's cool.
That's excellent, mate. That's wonderful.
But no, it it was a wonderful campaign.
Yeah, absolutely wonderful. But I do love campaigns.
I actually wrote a blog on that called Going On Campaign as
well, which was a a load of campaign rules.
Think Warren at, what do you call it, a beast of war.
I think I passed it over to him and they put it up on their
site, right? You know, I I'm really big into
the place in war gaming. So whilst we play war games,
it's not just about the terrain, it's about the setting.
For me, it's like, you know, the reason I like the terrain so
much and creating the setting is because I like campaign play as
well. So the places have meaning to
me. They're not just a random
collection of knife painted terrain.
It's this village or this facility and I don't know when
me and my mates are going to be coming back to this facility to
fight over it, if you know what I mean.
Yeah. And so that's why I'm big into
the terrain. And and you know what I mean?
It's sort of like having these scenes set up, yeah, because
that's my style of play. I mean the idea of playing a A1
off game which has, you know, no meaning and no consequence don't
actually find that fun at all, to be perfectly honest.
Yeah, now I can. I can.
I can relate to that. I think now that now I've come
back into like the the hobby, I really enjoy the narrative forms
of gameplay. I really was just turned off by
like tournament play and I really like narrative and just
building up a story or having linked scenarios and that kind
of thing. I think that's far more
interesting than just a one off game nowadays personally.
So that's good mate. So that's great.
Now, did you ever get to play the wonderful, epic Space Marine
back in the day? Yes I did.
I ate, held our grav tanks. Still ate them to this day where
they used to pop up behind those buildings, take a shot and then
pop back the cheeky. Gits, I'm sure you well.
I'd always have to have my watch club, my reavers with the
Gatling cannons are on ready in case they popped up.
You know what I mean? Was it ready or was it?
It was Overwatch, wasn't it? Like a first fight, first fight.
Yeah, yeah. So when when Tosh played Alba,
yeah, obviously with it being Ells, you know what I mean?
Yeah, really had squats. So we had a we had one of those
little squat land trains running around the table and that sort
of stuff. And that thing was just chaos,
Yeah. And all I can remember was Tosh
constantly running his Eldar Titans everywhere to Max out
their hollow, hollow Shields. Because if they stopped, they
were dead. Yep, that's right.
We. Used to play for money.
We spent Fivers on games. Yeah, because you know what I
mean. That's classic.
I've never, I've never heard of anybody betting on a game
that's, that's. Oh, it makes it competitive.
I bet. Trust me, it makes it
competitive. You know, it was small games,
Titans only when we bet. And so you're not messing around
and it's quick, you know what I mean?
Because with the small units, there's a lot of messing around,
but when you're playing just Titans, yeah, it's actually
quite a quick game. Yeah.
So we used to play small table, yeah thing with 1000 points, 5A
down each. Bang.
In you go and you. I'll tell you what, that gets
interesting. Really Always used to get gutted
because there were no squat Titans.
Yeah, there weren't oh, I think I think Netibek sort of resolved
that and gave them like template hit location sheets and that
kind of thing. But yeah, in specifics actually
have. Titans themselves.
So it was always my, my, my, my Imperial against Toshi's.
Watch for Aldo. Right.
Nice. OK, great.
Yeah, I do. Like, I do love it.
And it's one of the games, one of the rare games where I feel
like I'm really playing a war game and that it creates its own
kind of story or something, maybe.
I don't know. But I just feel like.
You feel more like a general with Epic, don't you?
Yeah, I feel that way. You know what?
I mean like you're actually commanding an army because
you've got no real. I mean with 40K and stuff like
that, yeah, 28 mil up to 35 or 36 or whatever they decide it is
today. Yeah, you can still sort of sort
of emphasise with the troops, if you know what I mean.
You can still see a yeah, but the moment you get sort of like
6 mil and those sort of scales, they just become arbitrary units
of men. You know what I mean?
To throw into the into the meat grinder, which is very general,
like, you know, you can't even see their faces.
And I like that. Yeah, you know, so I do have,
well, like I said, watch Clit at the start of the show, Watch
Clit. We were talking with TT Combat
because among the people on my channel, they've been really
interested in me doing some small scale train.
I've got some. I've got this idea for a board
that I might pick up later in the year.
Yeah, but they sent me the drop zone commander, which is epic
scale. And I've just been looking at
them and it's very much a flashback to those days.
I've been like the the general in chief.
Right. OK, that's awesome.
I know, I know people in the comments have been in in my like
me myself has been interested in see what what you're going to do
with your epic scale terrain, as it's sort of a popular very
popular genre and scale within the war gaming community.
So yeah, it'd be interested to see what you do mate with that.
Oh, well, I've got a plan. Yeah.
I'm going to make an epic board. That's epic.
Oh. That's awesome.
OK, that's great. So.
I mean, I've had a word with TT and that sort of stuff and
they're like, yeah, we'll, we'll support that.
So they're up for it. Plus Watchcullet, they're on
about hopefully coming on and doing an interview a bit like
this with me. So fingers crossed, you know, I
can, I can get Watchclub a bit of a interesting content of it,
but I'm messing with all sorts of stuff.
Anyway, back to to to our childhood and games.
What else did you play back then?
What else was there? Games Workshop, yeah.
What can you think of that you played back then in those days?
Were you into historical gaming? No, didn't touch historical
gaming till much later in life. Yeah, probably 10 years later
until my mid 30s. I got into Watchwit.
So the story was did sort of war on fantasy through, you know, my
teens and that sort of stuff played what you call it 40K for
about 8 years. Yeah, until sort of like well,
probably about six years until like early 30s.
Then life got a bit chaotic and that sort of stuff.
And I had to put war gaming aside and then when it was time
to pick it back up again, I actually found 40K.
Just too much of a headache. Yeah, it just gone.
So I couldn't get back into 40K. Yeah, I tried.
But there was just so much to learn and know that I found I I
was walking away from games with a migraine.
Do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, just from so many
rule books. Open the learning curve.
Then a friend of mine invited me to go watch, go with him to a
mate's house and play Bolt action.
Yeah. Which is obviously 1940K.
Yes. And.
Yeah. We are, we are.
I had a game of that and it was just, it played so easy, you
know. And secondly, you know with me
having served, you know, I've got sort of an affinity with the
British Army. Yeah.
And so, so the units and that sort of stuff, you know, it was
opened up a whole new world. So my later gaming phase was
very much bolt action phase going into the troops in Burma
and the Chindits and that sort of stuff.
Yeah, but I'm getting back into the more than 40K stuff now, but
in sort of a sort of a low level skirmish.
I'm interested in Kill Team and that sort of stuff, so a little
less strenuous on on the grey matter, if you know what I mean,
in the paintings. Yeah, for sure, mate, yeah.
I I hope you can get back into playing some epic as well,
because it's an easy system. In terms of like, the rules are
quite simple, they're not so complex, but then it's just like
the individual units and what they can do.
And you know, if they have any special rules, that's where it
gets a bit more, little, a bit more crunchier.
But the actual rules themselves are really quite simple and easy
to play. So I hope you can get back into
that too, mate, at some point. Yeah, that'd be good.
That'd be good. Thing is, I mean that's I've got
plenty of years in me yet mate. Absolutely you.
Know what I mean? That's the joy of doing a hobby
for your living. Yeah.
Every day is a vacation. Yep.
Yeah, I'm already written by it and I'm happily working through
my retirement. Yep, that's right, mate.
That's wonderful. Yeah.
OK, Well, before we get on to the the YouTube channel in your,
in your book that you released with Dave Talent, Dave Taylor a
few years back, we're just going to take a quick short ad break
and we'll come back in just a moment to talk more about that.
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OK everybody welcome back and we still have Mel from the Terrain
Shooter here with us. Mel mate, you you started up a
YouTube channel which is like we talked about before has grown
and grown and grown over the years with I don't know how many
videos you have a 731 videos on your channel which is just
staggering mate. How, how did all this How does
all this begin? Because we know about your war
game in history and how you got into war games and you you found
your love and passion for Warhammer and 40K later.
How did this all begin, mate? It was.
It began with a breakdown. Quite simply.
I'd had enough of life, you know, reach one of those points
where, you know, life and everything, complete breakdown,
medicated all that sort of stuff.
And I wasn't doing anything and I couldn't do anything, you
know. And I was proper rotting on on
the sofa, you know. And my wife just said, come
along, just do something, anything, you know, you know,
you're not my Mel like this. You always do, you know, You
always should do your hobby. Yeah.
And I'd always just prior, yeah, just prior to to fall falling,
I'll what do you call it. On my Kalbenia Prime, I'd
actually made some terrain videos.
Yeah. I'd tried YouTube and I'd put a
video out and you can actually find my old channel.
It's called Kalbenia Prime. Yeah.
With my very first terrain videos made in my kitchen.
Yeah, literally 10 years before I started the Terrain tuner.
Yeah, I was putting, but I only put 2 videos on and I didn't
even complete the project. But I'd sort of with this hobby,
like, oh, well, I'd had this idea of getting, you know,
getting back into it and like, you know, I'll do this YouTube
thing. And so I did.
And I just started this little channel because I'd got this
idea that I wanted to teach terrain.
You know what I mean? Because I like showing people
and, you know, I've got a background in teaching.
I spent a couple of years teaching in colleges.
Yeah. So it's something I enjoy.
And you know I just put this little channeled together and it
literally was just for me to connect and do something and put
some content. Basically I was, I was just
showing off my hobby. And what happened was as I was
doing little tutorials and people were finding them
helpful, I found that that made me feel better.
It made me feel like I had worth and that sort of stuff.
Yeah. So it just, you know, and The
thing is, it was never considered a living or I never
expected a living. But because of my illness, Yeah,
we were in sort of a position where we were sort of like,
financially supported. So there was no pressure, you
know, No one was expecting me to be able to go out and get a job.
Yeah. So it was OK for me to sort of
say, all right, well, I'll put my time into this.
And my doctor and the mental health nurse was like, yeah, put
your time into that. So it's like I felt like I could
without, you know, cheating the system and that sort of stuff
and taking the Mick, you know, because it was helping me to get
better. And I started off with a couple
of other, you know, joined the like small little group of other
little Youtubers. We all had like, you know, less
than 100 subscribers. Yeah.
And within six months I'd hit 1000 subscribers.
Yeah, which. And we were all sort of ticking
along roughly about the same sort of pace, about five of us.
And then it took me a month to get my next 1000 subscribers.
And then it grew and it grew and it grew and it didn't stop.
And I don't know why. I still don't know to this day
why 190,000 people would consider the stuff I put on
YouTube worth following. Yeah, honestly.
But here I am. So here I'm cracking on because
the way I see it is, if that many people think it's useful,
well, I might as well make myself useful then.
And glad. What else am I going to do?
Go back and shuffle Paperwork? No, I'll help people with the
hobby. If that's when this little life
of adventure is taking me. And it's been a roller coaster.
There's been no doubt about that.
But that's the story of my life. To be perfectly honest, I
wouldn't expect it any other way.
In fact, if it was plain sailing, I'd be extremely
concerned. So, you know, the fact is, I'm
still here. I'm still doing it.
People still love me doing it. So I'm enjoying it.
Crack on. That's awesome, mate.
Yeah. There's such an enormous wealth
of knowledge encapsulated in those videos that yeah, I would
recommend to anybody if, if you haven't seen Mel's YouTube
channel, go in there. Because, you know, as part of
the chronic command, we're all into the old school terrain
making and that's what Mel does. That's why I was attracted to
your channel. You you did it the old way that
was featured in those White Dwarf modeling workshop articles
with Adrian Wilde, I think was the and Dave Andrews and you
know, Phil Lewis, all those guys who made all that beautiful
terrain well. You know, Dave Andrews is a mate
of mine. Oh, OK, well, that's that's
awesome. I I love.
Dave, you know what it's like having the head of the terrain
direct design studio Games Workshop hit you up and say,
hey, I'm a big fan. Oh, that's brilliant.
That's excellent. Well, that's.
The old, the 15 year old war, I'm a player was like I used to,
you know, his, his diorama is in White Dwarf was one of the
things that inspired me. You know what he did.
What Dave doesn't know is I have this sort of thing that when I'm
really sort of lost and down with my mental health, I go to
Warhammer World to look at the dioramas.
And there's one diorama that I go specifically to look at
because it's there. And it's one of the ones that I
remember from my childhood and it's made by Dave, you know, so
literally, you know, his work inspires me.
And isn't it a fan of me? It's, it's crazy.
I told you my life is not normal mate.
No, he's a he's an absolute. He's he's one of the all
rounders I had to call an all rounder.
Oh mate, he's great, absolutely great.
He's an illustrator. Mark Bedford's another one,
another train guy to be honest. Yeah.
What I want to do is, and I want, need to get myself bet
because I had a bit of a relationship with Games Workshop
just before the Pandemic. And then with the Pandemic and
my sort of personal life, you know, I, I the, the channel
dropped and I did, you know, I lost that connection.
So I've still got the connection with the people.
I just don't have the formal connection with the company.
You know, I'm not part of the war.
I'm a community team anymore. Yeah.
Because I didn't keep it up. All that sort of stuff.
Yeah. And new people have come in and
taken it over. Yeah.
So once the channel's up and running, what I want to do.
Yeah. Is still rebuild that
connection. Then I want to get the old
terrain builders from GW and actually interview them about
terrain. You know what I mean?
Because no one ever does. No one's, you know, they, they
talk with the sculptors and the painters and this sort of stuff
and the game designers, but the terrain makers is the one guys
they always miss out. Yeah.
So I want to go up and like, you know, get them all in a round
Robin and talk about, you know, behind the scenery of terrain at
Gene. You know what it's like making
those epic displays and that sort of stuff.
But I've got to get in with them first because I've got to get
like approval from like corporate.
Right. Yeah, I'll, I'll be fascinated
to hear, especially from Dave Andrews who was there really
from the start, you know, like early like late 80s, maybe mid
80s. Oh yeah, yeah, he was, mate.
He was one of the early duels, you know, part of the original
gang. Yeah.
So it'd be a fascinating video. I mean, I always love going down
because I when I go down, I'll message him and just say, look,
if you're if you're around for coffee, you know, and
occasionally they are and sometimes you know, they're not,
you know, I'm not saying they all flock to me or that sort of
stuff. But if they are, they'll come
say hello and that sort of stuff, you know?
And I love sitting down with Dave and just having a coffee
with him and just talk about, you know what I mean, what he's
working on and that sort of stuff.
Yeah, that's brilliant. And he's still, yeah, he's still
actively involved. Oh.
He's going nowhere, mate. Yeah.
He terrain, You know what I mean.
Yeah, that's awesome. So that'd be, that'd be really
interesting. So you can, yeah, like I said,
we've got, you've got a massive following on your YouTube
channel and I think and as I said before, people should go
and check it out if you like the old school style of terrain
using like, you know Jaber's flock and PVA and you know foam
and all this kind of stuff, Mel does everything.
He shows you how to make rivers, roads, you know, You name it.
I think you've done it, mate. I think you've you've you've
sort of. It's not the end.
You haven't exhausted stuff. But yeah, you've you've covered
a lot of stuff, you know what I mean?
Oh yeah, yeah. I've covered a lot of stuff, but
there's still tons today. Oh yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. Now at some point in Along this
Road during your YouTube channel life, you were approached by
Dave Taylor, I I would assume to make a book about terrain mate,
yeah? Do you want to hear the story?
I would like to hear the story. OK, yeah, I'm covering Salute.
OK, yeah. So some of it's big war game
show down in London. Yeah.
Now I've gone down gone down with my mate and we we booked
into the hotel to Sin. Yeah.
Now the hotel to Sin is the next to the convention centre.
There's obviously hotels. You know for people attending
conventions. It's called the Hotel to Sin
because all the traders come down and set up a sort of or
come down the night before and they all stay in this one hotel,
which basically means in the evening before before, salute.
Basically the entire industry or a good chunk of the industry is
in the bar getting drunk. OK yeah.
So I wander down with my mate and I walk into the bar and
immediately across the entire bar I can see faces at the
various tables that are recognised.
So I just basically shout, has anyone got a spare seat for a
for a YouTube. Yeah.
And Dave Taylor waves. Yeah.
Pulls open this chair. Yeah.
So I'll go up to him, sits down, says what you drinking?
So vodka. Make it a gun.
Yeah. So anyway, yeah, Dave goes get a
vodka. Now The thing is I already sort
of knew Dave because as you know, Dave is.
And he, Dave does his own 40K blog.
Yeah. And he did these blood pack
models. Yeah.
Well, at the time, back when he was doing his his blood pack
guard, that was the time I was doing my Imperial Guard and
blogging about it. And we used to connect a lot on
Blogger. Yeah, to the extent that my
ex-wife helped design his blood guard tattoo that he's.
Got. OK.
So I we, I'd already sort of had a relationship with Dave long
ago before I became the terrain tutor as sort of like just
hobbyists. And back then he was the amazing
Dave Taylor and I was just the hobbyist. 28 days.
He gets me a vodka. Yeah.
And we chat and we have more vodkas and more vodkas and I get
absolutely wasted. He gets me drunk as hell.
Yeah. Anyway, I wake up next morning,
Hangover Hotel, ready to go down for a survivor's breakfast and
get, you know, get myself squared away, ready for do a day
of filming and walk 14 miles round.
Salute. Like normal.
Yeah. And my mate goes, do you know,
you agreed to do a book last night?
And I went dinner? Yeah.
He says, yeah, Dave, you agreed with Dave.
You're going to do a book because Dave had already done
his book by that point, Yeah. And I thought, I'd love to do a
book. So the first thing I did when I
got into Salute was find Dave Saylor, find out if he did offer
to do a book with me. Yeah.
And agreed, yeah, we're up for that.
And that's where the story of what you call it.
And then literally, yeah, the next day Dave caught a train
from London up to Stoke to come see me.
Yeah, in my studio and everything.
So we could talk about the book. And I think I drove him over to
Nottingham to where he was supposed to go to, Yeah, but
basically the Friday night for Salute, I met with Dave.
He got me drunk the Sunday after Salute.
He was in Stoke. We agreed we're doing a book
before he before he even headed back over to the States.
Yeah, and hey presto, yeah, that's how that adventure
started. With a vodka.
Bloody hell, mate. Now what a what a what a great
story. I didn't know about that.
That's excellent. So.
I told you, everything's chaotic.
Thanks to some vodkas with Dave Taylor at.
Salute. You got me drunk.
And then so my. Warning is, yeah, if you're very
proficient. Yeah.
In in the hobby community and Dave Taylor invites you for a
drink. Yeah.
Just be aware of what you're signing up for before he pulls
that chair out. It's that sort of smile of it
and the little, you know, sort of, you know, he loves you in
it. He's ruthless, absolutely
ruthless. Love you, Dave.
Yeah, good, good, good guy, Dave, he is.
I can't speak highly enough of him.
Absolutely. And so I, and I imagine, like as
you did a lot of live streams during the process of this book
and making it. It was in a massive undertaking,
mate. Oh, it was, you know, especially
considering we had a pandemic hit and my lung popped and I
almost got ventilated and all sorts of crazy stuff.
Yeah, it was a challenge. And in all honesty, yeah, I
cannot speak highly enough of Dave through that.
And not just getting the project completed, but helping me get
through some personal things and that sort of stuff and seeing me
to the other side. Yeah, there were times when we
didn't think that we were going to do it.
And because of the pandemic, the shipping costs went through the
roof. I mean, we priced everything pre
pandemic, you know, and we raised the money pre pandemic.
But when it came to paying the bills for the shipping and the
printing etcetera, that was pandemic, you know what I mean?
And it was ridiculous. It was a crazy time.
But you know, we fulfilled. Yeah.
And you know, we've fulfilled in spades.
I mean, I always say to to Dave, you know, we've produced a hell
of a book. No one speaks badly of it.
It's never had a bad review. Oh, it's had one bad review.
Someone on Facebook. Yeah.
When I I read, I read a comment when someone asked if someone
was worth it. Someone replied only if you're
looking to wrap chips up. Yeah, so I replied no, it's no
good for that the the papers. Too high quality and it's
glossy. Wouldn't soak the grease up
well. That's the only bad comment.
Wow. Yeah mate, it it's a it's an
amazing cover, right? Like look at the camera and
think is it like a photo of like, you know some kind of
scenery out out on some kind of rocky outcrop or whatever, but
it's actually your terrain. I mean that's that's a that's a
section of terrain you made which which fills the cover of
that book well. That was the reason why we
picked that photo out of everything, yeah, yeah, because
we just wanted to go look, look what you can do just with some
basic materials and some basic colours.
It's the understanding, yeah, that's all it takes.
And practice. I can't give you the practice,
but I can give you the understanding.
Yeah, for sure. It's it's a really, it's a
wonderful, like I don't have it personally, but I I'd imagine
like you know getting back into terrain, doing the stuff with
the chronic command and that kind of thing.
It would be the essential thing to look at for the process of
you know, like I've I've, I've come across it now too coming
back into making terrain like warping stuff.
You know, things like that. The early mistakes you make
without knowing the prior knowledge of OK, you should
really, you know, seal that before you you know, start
gluing things to it or before you start painting.
You know look at the ways you could properly seal down like
flock onto a board and that kind of thing.
The glues you need and all that. You, you sort of cover all that
in your videos and in the book, I take it, Yeah.
Oh yeah. All covered.
Absolutely, Yeah. Yeah, I I must say, like dealing
with flock again, mate. It's one of the most filthiest
bloody materials I've ever had to deal with.
You know what I mean? It just goes everywhere.
Really. Yeah, yeah.
It's just, it's just everywhere, all of my floorboards.
I just cannot get it sealed down.
So you're. Yeah, either this book or
you're. I watched some YouTube videos
that you've done about gluing down flock and that because it.
Yeah, with Flock it just comes off over time, you know what I
mean? Like having to seal it down and
that kind of thing. So I found your videos really,
really useful in learning about how to like OK, you've glued it
down with the correct glue, how do you seal it down And that
kind of thing, those kind of those kind of tips that you give
is really, really helpful for people who are doing this kind
of old style flock type terrain. Yeah.
Oh, The thing is, it's got to be made for for play, hasn't it?
It's got to be durable. You know, people, you know,
there's a lot, there's a lot with terrain making where people
go really fancy and that sort of stuff.
And it's wonderful. It really is.
You know, they're beautiful pieces to look at.
Yeah, but my terrain making isn't about YouTube views.
Yeah. Or looking great on a thumbnail.
Yeah, I've got how many years now we're talking.
I'm not talking in decades 3. I'll be coming up to 4 decades
of war gaming under my belt soon.
Yeah. Do you know what I mean?
So it comes from gaming and gaming with clubs and gaming
with people. And I make terrain to game with,
you know, And to game for years with.
Yeah. And so that's sort of my focus.
Yeah, you can still turn out really beautiful and fancy stuff
with it, but it's got to be fit for purpose.
Yep, absolutely, mate. That's right.
Yeah, that's what I found too. Like you've got to make it
practical for gaming but still look aesthetically pleasing and,
you know, still capturing the whole sort of school style that
that sort of, you know, graced the pages of White Dwarf back in
the day. You wait till you come across
the triad. I'll save that for the planning
section when you get reading, mate, but you'll love that, OK?
Mate, that'd be good. I can.
I can actually access it from Japan here through Amazon, which
is good to know because I'm on that screen now looking at that,
which is excellent. I'll shoot.
I'll shoot you the PDF version across because I'm sure Dave
won't mind. Oh, that.
'D be great mate. Thank you very much and I'll if
you like, I'll do a review for you on the channel of the book.
Yeah, yeah, that's. No.
Worries. Yeah, that'd be really nice for
people to see that. Now what?
What is the best way for people to access your book mate if they
want to pick up a copy? Warlord Games ships to pretty
much everywhere in the world, yeah, but if you are in the US,
yeah, you can get it from Iron Heart artisans.
Right. OK.
I'll, I'll leave links in the
show notes for people to access those books from the country of
choice. Yeah, I'd I'd rather you know
and do you, do you get some kind of like royalties based on?
Yeah, obviously I get royalty payments for it as the as the
author. So, you know, buying the book
helps me out, you know? That's good, mate.
That's good. I want to.
I want to make sure you get the most monetary return in the
places where you buy it from, so it looks like Warlord games or
IT. Doesn't matter where you buy it
from. My my royalties for the book are
are pretty much the same. So as long as you buy it, you're
helping. You're helping me.
That's awesome, mate. That's great.
That's fantastic, Mel. Well, again, mate, thank you so
much again for your time today. I really appreciate it and
because I know it's like late in the evening for you there and I
just want to again urge people to go and check out your
channel, go and check out your book.
I hope to bring that that PDF as a video later on to keep like a
sneak peek as to some of the sections that you cover in the
book to help out our Crown of Command community members when
they make their terrain mate. Yeah, that sounds absolutely
brilliant, Josh. OK buddy, well, you take care of
yourself and I look forward to your next video mate.
See you. Look forward to seeing you too.
All the best. OK.
Thanks, Mel. Take care, maybe a mess up there
catch you later bud. The.