Thank you again for downloading the Chronic Command podcast.
This is Josh, your host today in this interview as I have a
really entertaining conversation with Bart over in Wales and he
has his own YouTube channel and that's how I sort of discovered
him. The YouTube channel is called
Ryan Mouth Studios and I'll leave a link of course to
everything that we talk and discuss about in this interview
in the show notes of this podcast.
So you can go and check it out yourself.
And we talk about, you know, Bart's early, early footsteps
into tabletop wargaming. Like how he discovered
miniatures and this thing called Wargaming, and how that led him
to discover Futsal miniatures and the Barons War and his
passions behind that and why he decided to make this YouTube
channel. So I hope you find this
conversation entertaining as you do your painting and hobbying
this week, whatever it might be. Your old hammer, new hammer
miniatures, it doesn't really matter.
We're all-encompassing a great hobby that we have here that we
can share with others. So guys, look, take care this
week, enjoy your hobby, hope you get some games in.
Roll those sixes and we'll see you again next time.
OK. Enjoy the interview.
Yeah. So, but thanks very much for
joining the Credit Command podcast today.
I really appreciate you staying up a little bit later than
normal in the UK. There now are you in Wales, is
that right? I'm in Wales, yes, right.
I live in carefully, which is very close to Cardiff.
We have a beautiful castle, I think the second biggest in
Britain, just, I don't know, few meters away, 100 meters away or
so. So it's brilliant.
Oh wow, OK, that's awesome because I've.
I see a lot of photographs on. Well, I don't really visit it
very much. The Twitter or X what it's
called down from my good friend Owen State and he lives, he's
obviously Welsh and lives in Wales and he's always, you know
entertaining us with lots of beautiful photographs of scenery
there in Wales. Looks like a beautiful place.
It is a beautiful place. I'm in love with it, for sure.
How did you actually make your way to Wales?
What? What was, what was the journey
like? How did you get connected there?
Because obviously you're not from Wales originally.
No, no, I I was born in Poland and I left Poland in 2005 for
adventure. I wanted to travel, travel the
world and photograph the world. That's that.
That was my aim and I did that for the first two years I I
worked in Wales, then just travelled a little and then I
found my now wife before. Before.
Before that I I started to photo to study photography at
University of Wales Newport Documentary Photography and on
2nd year I met my wife. Well now wife.
And yeah, I just stayed family, children, everything.
You know what I mean? It's it started as an adventure
and became very kind of family orientated.
Stay all. Right, OK.
That's. Interesting like home in here.
Yeah, it's a bit like my journey to Japan, kind of the same
thing, you know, Got here. It's an adventure, yeah.
Got married and had children and, you know, settled down and
never went back to Australia, basically.
So that's great, mate. Excellent.
Yeah. So yeah.
Oh, I thought, I thought, I thought you you was originally
from the UK. No, no, I've got a very Aussie
accent, so. Yeah, well, you know, I I don't
recognize that. Well, I can tell you a Scottish,
I can tell you that this this person is Scottish and this
person is Welsh. But you know the rest.
You know it's still beyond me. Yeah, I know, mate.
I know. Yeah, I've got a very, very.
Even though I don't consider myself to have an Aussie accent,
but when I listen back to myself on on podcasts or whatever, I
can certainly hear it in my voice.
It's just one of those I. Understand that for a long time
I didn't hear Polishness in my accent at all, and now when I
hear it, I'm just saying that that thing will never go away.
Exactly. That's good, mate.
OK, so now I discovered you through your YouTube channel and
I think by chance the algorithm gods popped them up on my my
feed and what was through Facebook group or whatever,
because you guys interviewed Andy Hobday and Paul Hicks, So
from football miniatures, yeah. Yes, yes.
I actually interviewed Paul Hicks in March last year and
that was initially on my other kind of more photography related
channel where I speak, when I speak, where I speak with people
whose stuff I enjoy and the 1st 2 speakers were photographers
like my childhood, childhood. Well, my first photographic
hero, Joseph Rodriguez, the guy who actually helped me to
understand how I want to photograph was there.
So that was I, I, I asked Paul to take part in that.
And recently when we started to do stuff with Mark Vance, you
know the rules with Mark for Barron's War, I was like, OK,
let's let's post it here for the new audience, the audience that
actually going to, you know, comes to the channel for stuff
like this. So I was like, OK, so let's put
that archival, let's let's, let's breathe new life in that
archival material, basically. Right.
Excellent. And and with Andy, we tried to
talk for a good year because I spoke with Paul in March and I'm
pretty sure that I asked Andy back then to talk to talk about
it. So I was very happy that we
finally managed during the Christmas break.
Yeah, I really enjoyed both of those interviews.
And then I quickly stole Paul to get an under interview out of
him for the Crown of Command recently.
Yeah, he's really, really nice guy.
And not only is he this nice, nice guy to talk to, but we sort
of reconnected afterwards. And I said, hey, you know, I'm
sitting here working, you're sitting here there working and
if you want to talk, just give me a call, you know, and we'll
have a chat kind of thing, you know, talk about old Games
Workshop days or whatever. And it's been really nice, so.
And he said, hey, you know, can you get me some nice candy or
sweets or chocolate for my daughter in Japan?
She was fascinated with Kit Kats and all the different flavors.
And I said, yeah, yeah, no problem, I'll, I'll have a look
for you. That, that that sounds great.
It's when I listen to you, you had loads of in common.
You knew all those places and you know your old old guard of
Game Workshop guys, isn't it? Yeah, because he knows Marcus
Blackman. Marcus Blackman is my oldest,
best friends from Australia. We went to the UK together back
in 94 and Mark has already worked at Game Special previous
to that. And yeah, he worked with Paul
there at the Oxford Street store.
So yeah, so he's a lot of connections there.
That and people I know like Greg as well.
So it was really nice because I didn't really know that until I
started talking to him and he started talking about those kind
of things. So it was lovely.
Boy, that's a long time ago now. But yeah mate, yeah, it's been
really good. So we're all sort of connected
to, in some, some respects, all us in our age group or whatever
are all connected to Games Workshop through the 90s.
Was that the same for you as well?
But like, were you also a gamer through the game Switcher hobby,
or how did you find? Well, yes, you have to say that,
I think, but it came very late in my life actually.
I wasn't doing it like in 20s like most of you guys.
I mean, you know, when the game Games Workshop had that Lord of
the Rings magazine, you know, the the, the, the gaming
magazine that was actually translated to Polish and that's
this. I remember buying a lot of that
stuff and I still have like some of the metal miniatures from it,
but I never can. I was always fascinated by it,
but I didn't understand it and I didn't know how to do it.
So I remember once we tried to play a game with my brother and
it was just like, you know, role-playing, I would say like
no structure in there or anything like that.
Painting seemed very difficult to me.
I just couldn't focus on on on doing that.
So that was the first kind of thing.
And then I am asking you to the world of War gaming as the 8th
edition, because this is when I was like, OK, let me do it.
Let let me try, you know, let let let me see what it's all
about. Maybe maybe it's gonna be
something that I'll enjoy. And I I did, but at the same
time I was like, you know I get that a buyer frenzy I wanted
spaceful. So I bought the whole army and
then I had like army of grey and that's actually frightened me
like you know, in terms of I have to paint all this and I
never could really, you know and then Kill team came out and that
was very that that was gaming for me.
I was like, OK, I can do that, paint 5 to 10 miniatures, you
know, because I'm a very slow painter do that.
And then Necromanda came, the new Necromanda, I discovered new
Necromanda. I think that was the other way
around. But I was like, OK, that works.
What about this game? And I just fell in love with
that. And that was, that was it.
I painted my first gang and then slowly.
Then I painted a Bolt Action Army and I only played two games
for it. And when I painted Bolt Action
Army because my group was playing actually, I was like OK,
I can paint armies now. So you know I'm I'm slowly I'm,
I'm I'm a I'm a baby when it comes to hobby.
If you think about it it's only it's only a few years.
Really. Yeah.
One more Yeah. When was the 8th edition?
Well, what? What's that was in?
2010 or 2000, I don't really know.
It was a. Rap I'm a teenager.
I'm a working teenager now. Yeah, mate, you are.
Well, you're a very young man, a lot of gaming years ahead of
you. That's excellent to hear.
Yes, yes. OK.
So that's, so that's interesting.
So you did have your leading to like obviously Games Workshop
was a big influencer on you because you saw Lord of the
Rings and obviously that's their biggest intellectual property
they have and they'll probably have it forever.
Why not? Because it's going to get a lot
of people in through their doors and you know, buying their
miniatures and playing their games because of the Lord of the
Rings license they have, which is great.
I always look at, you know, people who come through games,
worship in two eras. It's either the the 90s era when
they came through the doors from Warhammer Fantasy Battle or Hero
Quest and then you had the Lord of the Rings era where they
captured a lot of the other young people coming through
through the through the films and then through the miniatures
and stuff like that. So you're in the later part.
Yeah you're the same I I think, I think that 8th edition as well
brought a lot of people to it. We you know I would certainly
few people that I know also like kind of started my brother as
well you know kind of joined at the same time.
So I think if Games Workshop is still obviously they are, they
are massive, they they will be bringing new crowd and then you
know everybody will find a niche for themselves.
For me it's it's smaller games and it's historical games more
than anything. Like, you know, I don't play any
any Games Workshop games at the moment.
The only one that I'm kind of constantly romancing with is
More Time and I do have band painted for it, but I still
didn't have a except I think I played it once or twice.
That's it. So I do have that in my in my
collection and that way it's to be, you know, rediscovered
again. But other than that I just moved
to like more historical gaming. I'm sorry, I'm playing Star Wars
Legion as well. I do that game too.
OK. I've heard.
I've seen it obviously it's it's again it's another massive
intellectual property will get people in and I think that's I
don't know maybe that's just my opinion.
But I think now current trends within gaming is that they try
to pick up a license from somewhere like either DC Comics,
Marvel, you know, Star Wars, and then they, you know, obviously
the price is pretty high, but they get the people in, they get
the young guys, people who play card games or they play
role-playing games. Look, there's a miniature game
based on the my favorite TV show or whatever characters or
whatever, and they get him in that way, which is a really good
tactic. Let let me tell you the amount
of times I was looking at Batman's miniature game.
But I I was like, you know what, No, let's just let's just stay
away because there's a lot of great stuff out there right now.
You can't have everything and you especially time wise, like
I'm struggling to you know to paint miniatures for for for
competitions, for tournaments and stuff.
So adding something on top of that is not the greatest idea
for me personally, especially that I'm still struggling with
like speed. I'm a very slow painter.
I'm trying my best with every miniature instead of, you know,
trying shortcuts, you know, I'm but I wouldn't call it New
Year's resolution. But I do want to paint retinue,
Viking retinue for Conquest. And I said that there's no way I
will be able to paint it traditionally.
So I'm just going to test the army painters.
Fast, fast paints. Sure.
Speed paint, Yeah, and and and paint them that way.
Probably you know some details. I'm going to touch it, you know,
But I I think the most of the work will be done with the speed
paints. I've got, I've got to admit,
like the other day I went to my local art store and I actually
went on behalf of Paul Hicks actually, because he was, he was
looking that procreate that material the the party uses to
create miniatures. And I said I'm sure they have it
at this massive art store. They've got everything there.
So I said, look, you know, I'm going to go there today.
I'm going to have a look for you mate.
So he said OK, so I walked in there and lo and behold, they
put a Citadel color stand in there.
So they put some so games workshops, actually got in
there, got their foot in there and they put a nice Citadel
color stand and some they put some box sets and miniatures and
stuff like that. Not interested in miniatures.
I just want to look at the paints and stuff like that.
They got there and I picked up the contrast medium.
It's it's a 24 mil pot which is just like a a whitish liquid
that if you add it to your paint or ink it turns it into a
contrast medium. Like it turns into a contrast
paint, which I thought was right, quite fascinating and I
thought I wanted to give it a go and I'm, I'm just like thinking
this is the best stuff ever. This is like liquid gold, this
stuff. I'm really, I'm really surprised
they actually released it because if you think about it,
the contrast paints cost like something like $10 here, a pot.
But you can buy for $10 a big part of that contrast medium.
You can add it to anything and it becomes a contrast paint.
It's it's absolutely beautiful. So I was always trying to say
no, no, no, it's just a fad. I I I want, I don't want to get
into this whole contrast speed paints thing.
But now that I've tried it, I can see the the real potential
behind that. Yeah, yeah, 100%.
I I like the the way I think about it right now and I'm by
far you know you you are such an amazing painter but you know I'm
I'm I am trying my best with with painting too and I just see
it as it's just another tool isn't it.
It's another tool. Yeah, it's another tool.
And now I'm really interested in their other technical things
that they have there because they've got a name on it, but it
doesn't tell you what it does. Like this Lemian Lemian, Lemian,
whatever it's called, but it doesn't say what it does.
So I need to check what it does. So it's good because I'm now I'm
more interested in you know, looking at different kinds of
ways or or not not sort of ways, but basically just adding things
in that these more modernized formulas, additives if you like
to your paints. I think that's a really nice
idea. I've heard of like you know
things that increase your flow and you know thinning out your
paint, that kind of stuff. But I think this contrast medium
just so for me as a as a full time miniature painter, you
know, I've got to work quite quickly.
So to get things done each day I've got to, you know, I work on
a pretty tight schedule. So painting up some Jean
stealers the other day and some Jean stealer hybrids, yeah, for
those flesh tones, for their armor and that kind of thing.
That really helped me a lot in getting a lot of base coverage
done really quickly. And so, yeah, there is a lot
behind a lot of these, you know, obviously these paint companies
are making beautiful, you know, paints.
And how should I say it sort of extensions to your paint that,
you know, can help you get the results quickly.
And if my son was going to start miniature paintings, if he's
going to get interested later on, I'm definitely going to get
him into the speed paints or the contrast paints because it's
just a instant gratification, You know, you just put the paint
on. Wow, it looks amazing, That
effect, you know? So that's what it is.
It's really these paint effects they're adding now, which are
really interesting. Yeah.
Yeah, I do like using some
animal washes and then I use a lot of grime from AKA
interactive. I paint base and then just slap
that on and then remove it and then pick it up a little bit.
I really like the feel of it. But that's again another tool in
the in the arsenal, isn't it? You know, it depends what you
want to do with it, of course. It's incredible how many paint
companies are out there at the moment, because when I started
in the hobby there was Humble Tamiya, which are terrible
paints. I mean, they're still selling
those things, but as a person who's just starting out and
painting, they're just horrible things to use because they're
all, you know, either well, the the Tamia ones were water based,
but they were never really, you know, beautiful things to work
with. And the hum rolls you needed
like thinners and stuff like that, they're really smelly and
just, you know, But nowadays you've got maybe 10 different
companies you can go do to buy paints from, which I think is
just incredible now. Yeah, I think it's a great time
to be a teenager. Yeah, exactly.
Yeah. Gaming teenager.
That's wonderful. So that's good.
Yeah. So yeah, painting is real.
Yeah. Pleasure of mine.
And I hope other people can enjoy painting.
So if contrast paints or speed paints or whatever they're
called gets you there, then that's great.
That's that's one one really good advantage I think people
have now. OK, So moving along.
So you discovered gaming or Games Workshop through Lord of
the Rings, and then you started playing 8th edition fantasy and
necromander, and you're sort of looking at wartime, but then
Baron's War came on your radar. How did that happen?
Well, quite accidentally I I guess, but it was a good
coincidence. I saw the new release of Welsh
miniatures, New Welsh miniatures from Futsore and I was like, oh
wow, this looks great and they send it to my gaming group who
back then was called Bolt Action Still because, you know, we kind
of created the group for like a Christmas game and I painted an
army for for that game specifically and never played it
until last Christmas. So I played it twice, but
anyway, I've sent it over there and Ian, who is actually the
marks opponent on the battle report that we did, Ian said.
You know what? I know a guy who knows, who
speaks of this game, who knows this game and I was chatting
about it. So you know, and should I invite
him to the group and stuff. So we invited him to the group.
We started to discuss before, before I knew everybody was like
saying oh what about this revenue?
They started to build a list. I said oh I'm not getting
involved in another game so and then like 2 days later everybody
was already buying stuff so so that was it.
And I had a game demo in in Cardiff when Mark was here and I
played Templar Retinue. He's Templar Retinue and I was
just hooked from the first moment the game felt very flow,
the flu, it flew very well. I mean you know there was, it
just felt natural, if that makes sense.
It was clever and it was, it was clever and easy at the same
time, if you know what I mean, The rule set, easy to pick up,
but you could do a lot, a lot strategically and obviously I
didn't know all that. I kind.
I think I felt it after that first game because I became a
much better player with time, obviously.
So I'm speaking from perspective of time, so kind of, you know,
but yeah, that was it. And I was hooked.
I was hooked and didn't look back.
I've been playing ever since, right?
I I think after that first demo, Mark organized the first ever
Baron Tour tournament somewhere. It was Revolt Sheffield, I
think. And I I bought the ticket
without even having my retinue like, you know what I mean?
I'm playing for it. So.
So I was like, you know, just dropped in the ocean and learn
how to swim, You know what I mean?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Nice, mate. That's wonderful.
So yeah, you you have now if people don't know you and I
discover you through the a YouTube channel that you have
that's pretty much dedicated to Barrens War, would that be right
to say? I think you can say that.
You can say that definitely the most, the most stuff that is on
the channel is related to it. But I also love Blood and
Plunder game, and there will be stuff coming out for this as
well, up to my two favorite games, Barons War and Blood and
Plunder, and without a shadow of a doubt.
So definitely most of the stuff will be related to these two
games for sure. Nice now.
So for people who people are wondering what Baron's War is,
we're talking about Baron's War. What is Baron's War?
But what is Baron's? War, First of all, Baron's War
is great fun. It's a great, great game, you
know, focusing on the first Baron's War conflict, which is
2000, not 2012. Fifteen 1216 if I remember
correctly, 13th century. Anyway, You know, to be honest
with you, like Barons war is great in learning about history
as well. You know, Barons War is just a
very good rule set and time well spent with your friends and a
lot of enjoyment of your approach of purchasing toys.
Violence War is just like really fun game, really fun thing to
do. And I would, you know, I would
say that whoever, whoever gets into it will find something for
themselves. That's what I believe anyway.
That's how I feel. It's it.
It's just a great game. Good.
OK, that's wonderful. That's a good.
That's a good preset to introduce people to the game.
Yeah. So it's a historical game.
It's not a fantasy game. It's based in history, as Bart
was alluding to. And it's set, yeah, during the
first Barrens War. So you'll you, you have, you
build a retinue, which is probably about 15 to 20 guys
maybe. So it's a.
Well level game you know I mean if if, if you you can play
bigger bigger battles as well. You know it depends how we how
how you feel it. It's great for people who were
scared by the big battle games. So you have like you said it can
be anything between 2030 miniatures.
It's a good number units of eight maybe 10 miniatures.
It's a game that have you know you're going to have to cut this
out. I'm trying to find the words but
they they don't come. I basically it's a it's it's a
skirmish, skirmish game and player players alternate
activations. You know each group have one
activation per turn. Unless they are command groups
they they can have either three or two.
It's a fast-paced game for sure with a lot of detail put in
rules. A game that also requires a lot
of terrain because loads of rules, line of sight and so on
are kind of used better if there's lots of terrain on the
table you can hide from, from troops, from crossbows and stuff
that are very powerful otherwise.
So it's like almost like hide and seek type of game and you
just have to you know better your opponent.
I do. I do enjoy that stuff for sure.
And a maid of mine in America just ordered Baron's War in his
first retinue, thanks to the interview with Paul Hicks.
So that's good. Another Baron's War player.
Yes, yes, I'm happy to hear that.
I am actually like in terms of channel, Raymoff Studio had
barons, were it just I'm glad we did it when we did it because it
seems like a lot, a lot of people needed that, like the
comments that people actually mention oh you know, I was on
the edge with that game or blah blah blah.
The content is actually like very useful and that's a really
nice, I don't know if it's a surprise, but definitely like,
it's good to see that the game is gaining momentum.
And it seems like ever since, like we did these videos with
Mark, it's like so much content about Baron's War comes out on
YouTube, suddenly it's like I'm. So glad you did those because I
was waiting for someone to make any video based on how to play
the game now. Yeah, I've never played Baron's
War. And people are saying, Josh, why
are you talking about Baron's War so much?
Because you've even never actually played it.
And I've just recently got my first miniatures and painted
them, and I've loved them because I've been dreaming about
that. Just looking at those images,
you know, the game itself looks interesting to me and I know
it's a good game. The miniatures were just
beautiful and I just had, I just had to have them, you know, I
said to Paul, I just need those miniatures, mate.
I just need to paint those figures just to get out of my
system. And I'm really glad I did
because I'm, you know, I'm really, really happy with the
quality. You know, they're like old
school miniatures that really finely detailed.
Nice scale, Great. You've done such a great work
with it. When you post those pictures, I
was like, oh wow, OK, you know what I mean?
You know when we speak about the HMV bench or however it's it's
called, I'm. I'm sorry if I take the the name
wrong but when I saw your stuff I was like wow man, it's like
it's different style but in quality.
There's like it's the same man, like you just need to photograph
them in a specific way. I need your.
Talents, man, I need your talents.
Man, listen, when I looked at them, I was like, this is
exactly what I always tried to do with my Templars.
And I never did. So I I was like, I was like,
wow, this stuff looks good. This stuff looks good.
I think they. Look fantastic.
I said to Paul, you know, you know, you can create these
beautiful models, but unless they're painted in a in a way
that shows people how beautiful these models are, it's really
important. And that person, Daniel Wegman,
I think his name is the person responsible for those really
beautiful images on their websites and in their books and
stuff like that. Yeah, that like I said to you
that that got me into the game and I said the pool the same
that that got me that note maybe noticed the game a lot more
because of the presentation and looking at these beautiful
models, how they painted and in modern sort of styles, you know,
historical gaming for me is always lacked in a lot of ways
because of presentation. The models look pretty, you
know, they weren't painted so well and you know, and you know,
maybe the theme was not really my cup of tea.
I'm not a big World War Two guy. It's probably too close in
history. My my grandparents were involved
in the World War 2IN in Holland so it doesn't really give good a
good feeling to me. I I don't think maybe and the
Barons war is and you know anything to do with medieval
combat or medieval history is so far back in the past it's almost
has a mystique about it. Like we only know these because
of these records and it it has this and you know you you think
about a lot of fantasy games where it's all centered around
medieval times. You know I love the look at the
terrain I love look at the the boards because it's reflects
warhammer and Warhammer basically is just medieval
combat with magic in a lot of sense.
It's just that that's what fantasy is in generally.
So Pretonians, for example, are basically just Knights of
medieval times, but they have, you know, sorcerers and, you
know, that kind of thing, and Dragons and Pegasus, Pegasi or
whatever. So that instantly brought me
into Baron's War because I just think, OK, well, that's
basically Warhammer, but in a historical sense, it got me into
the history too. It got me, it got me interested
in the history. I thought, wow, OK, I really
want to know about this. And then when I looked at all
the heraldry, the color schemes, it, the freedom of all that, it
looks so cool, you know, the the all the different colors of all
the, you know, different. I suppose barons have this,
their own coat of arms and that would carry on through the
troops. But then you don't have to be
restricted by that. You could have 11 retinue
painted in a certain way with various different color schemes
and coat of arms and another one in a different one.
So yeah, that gave a lot of interesting painting options, I
think for me as well. But I just looked those military
nights and I was like, OK, that's it, that I'm sold on this
whole Crusader thing, you know, Kingdom of Heaven, the movie
loved it, you know, And these miniatures just just call that
to me saying, yes, we've got to play this.
We've got to get this on the table.
We've got to make a desert table, palm trees, you know the
the Hospital of Fort that they released for Kickstarter is an
amazing piece of kit, you know, So I.
Actually filmed. I filmed building it.
Now it's time to paint it. So when it's all done, I I think
I'm going to do maybe not another tutorial.
I'm I'm not doing stuff like this, but kind of update and how
I felt about it and stuff because the kit is just, I'm
telling you it's phenomenal. That thing presents itself so
well and it's wow, wow. When you have a chance you have
to get it. I'm telling you it's it's really
nice. It's really nice and size wise
as well, you know it's not too, it's not too big, but it does
have a presence on the table very nicely.
Everything works together beautifully, like you know, just
great stuff, really good stuff. And from what Andy was saying, I
think they will produce more and I really hope that some of it's
going to be full drummer as well.
Yes, it sounds like there's a lot more planned.
It's not like just this is it. And because there's a different
theaters as well, you've got like Death and Taxes, which is
basically Robin Hood in Sherwood, that's.
That's where the first Templar retinue, actually first Templars
rules are from. But like when I was getting into
Baron's War, you know, the the Ultramar Kickstarter was very
close to being fulfilled. So I I I I lived with Ultramar.
I I just won't. I I was obsessed with Ultramar.
I was looking for everything, but like books about it, read
about it. Like, you know, my he's by no
means an expert in in medieval history, but I know so much more
than I knew last, you know than I knew last year.
It's just incredible how so much you can have so much fun
learning. You know what I mean?
There's there's so many great strategies there for education.
You know, children like to teach children the history, there's so
many options over there and we just like, you know, doing all.
Anyway, let's not get into it. It's fantastic.
But I should fantastic. I should point out that the
author in their book how we're going to pronounce it, you you
said it really nicely. Actually.
It actually has a lot of historic historical notes in it.
There's a lot of footnotes about history in it and talks about, I
think, the 2nd Crusade and the Third Crusade, and it talks
about the most, you know, obviously influential
characters, part of those conquests.
And then it goes into the retinues and you can have three
different styles of retinue. And then you can go like
completely Templar military, or you can go with the Frankish
forces, or I think there's another one.
Crusading France. That's right.
And you can talk about the, yeah, there's like several
Franks, all those crusading Franks.
And then you've got the Islamic forces as well that comprise
that entire book. What is beautiful in Ultramar
actually is like you can mix and match you can really do what you
want. But because each of these
specific types of revenues allow you to use troops from the other
groups. So you can have like if you if
you use settled francs retinue you can use 40% of you know
military orders in there as well.
So it really gives you opportunity to build retinue you
really want you passionate about.
So what I am very slowly building right now is military
order retinue and I aim to have I I aim to have all four
military orders there that are listed with different weapon
choices. So I'm building that slowly, but
I'm also looking at settled France because I was reading a
little bit about Polish presence in crusades.
And, you know, there's very little known, but there's enough
to, like you said before, you know, use your imagination and
create stories based on this, like one sentence written in the
13th century, you know what I mean?
Or that nameless night that's, you know it just opened so much
and then you can, you know, look about coats of arms.
Like from the time, OK, this guy's wolves from Silesia.
I can't even say Shlonsky in English.
But you can take stuff from there and use it in your you
know, in your retinue because nothing stops you from it.
And it's as historical as it can be because there's just not much
information about it. And that's what I love about
this game. It gives you freedom and you
really learn history. And then when you finally get
that threat in you and it's time to play, the game is just, Oh my
God, cherry on the cake. You know what I mean?
It is. It is so well written and it's
so much fun. It's it's great.
Seriously. Like.
Yeah, let's talk about the gameplay because you you've got
a you've got a game report there with Mark Vance and another
Welsh gentleman there. Sorry, I forgot his name, but.
Ian Ian Jones. Ian playing the Welsh and Mark's
playing the English, I think in that one, yes.
Now, one thing I'll say about it, because I was really
interested in keen to see a battle report of Baron's War.
One thing I'll note about it, and I think you touched on it
before. It's very intuitive.
So you're not flipping through books.
It's just like they just you. You just filmed it and you
didn't stop. Like you just filmed everything
and that you didn't pause or you didn't edit it or anything like
that. Is this like 1 continuous stream
from turn to turn. So that was, that was.
The biggest thing This is the biggest compliment to my editing
I've ever had in my life. We did a fantastic.
Job No, we we did, we did we did two or three times pose but very
shortly. But yes, once you play this game
a few times you don't really you will look into rules obviously
every now and then just to confirm certain things.
But it it's it flows very well. It flows very well.
It is one thing that have to be said.
It might be slightly tricky at the beginning.
The setup of the book at times can be like you know you have to
look for stuff and until you get to know the book.
It may be tricky at the beginning but as soon as you
flip that and you just beautiful beautiful experience.
So actually the last game of the tournament that I play against
some bliss, that was just, it was just incredible.
We were just like I I thought it was the shortest game, but also
like the fastest game I ever had.
Because if you have players that's kind of played enough,
you just keep going and he'll remind you the rule.
You'll remind him the rule. And together it just like it was
flawless that probably one of the most enjoyable games I had.
Oh, that's wonderful man, That's great.
Now it's AD 10 system too. DD 10 based system Yes these six
is charging and I don't think you want to be charged by war
horses anytime soon because if a War Horse, if your command is
based on a War Horse or you have a War Horse unit in the game,
they look just absolutely devastating which.
Reflects. What they did, you know, it's
not like Warhammer where they just hit a solid brick wall and
then you know that's it. These will just go straight
through, you know? It is wonderful.
So I love seeing. Unless, unless you, unless the
unit is equipped in bills because they can cause 2 wounds
and the strength of war horses is actually that they they need
to be wounded twice in order to you know get the casualty.
So that unless the opponent have war horses and that happened at
the tournament as well. I had four war horses and the
guy had five war horses and I was like oh Oh my God, what is
going on here? I see.
Yeah, yeah, he feels fragile and stuff, but.
Then there's certain counters like you got Archers, you got
cross women, which can be really quite potent and deadly against
cavalry as well. So you've got.
Anything in Mail? Anything in in Mail?
Yeah. And anything in in in short
range specifically. But Speaking of war horses that
I think that's like my favorite rule of the game is related to
them because like you said, you know when war horses charge you,
let's say they win the battle, the the, the, the, the, the, the
skirmish, the defending group is being pushed off and then the
horses overcharge and they can while they overcharge, then they
can hit another unit and it it it can be funny.
But when they overcharge they can leave the table as well And
that will cause, you know, losing the units and you know if
that was your commander and you didn't have another one that can
cause you are gay. So it's beautiful.
And I think another very, very strong part, very strong thing
in rules is that no matter what you bring to the table, there's
something you can counter it with.
Like. You always can find a way to you
know you can you know you. You always can find a way to
defeat the odds, if you know what I mean.
And that's that's probably what's beautiful.
About it, there's a lot of flexibility too, so you can arm
your troops individually and you can give you can pay for
abilities as well. So you've got that added little
sweetener there. So every single time you play
you could play differently. So you could have one retinue of
of, you know, men at arms which have inherent abilities and then
you could pay for extra abilities for them.
Likewise for your cavalry. Likewise for your levee troops
or your arches, whatever they might be.
So you've got each it's not like a not like a true historical
game where they're just set in stone and you can't change them
at all. This is gives a lot of
flexibility to your units and the way you want to play.
So I find that really, really interesting as well.
Again, I must say I've not played Barron's Wall, but I can.
I can see just going through the rule book that it's a really
interesting looking game and that's something that I would,
it's more of a modernized historical game.
Let's let's put it that way. It's not DBM or these kind of
old fluffy wuffy type games where they're just really boring
and intricate movements and all that kind of stuff.
It's all pre measured. You can pre measure everything,
which is excellent. I think that's a really good way
of doing it. It makes it open to play
remotely too. So we could play a game through
Discord or through through, through Zoom or whatever, and
you can measure out and say, OK, Josh, you wanna move?
Yeah, I gonna move me again. It's there and I just roll the
dice. And you know, it sort of opens
up for that kind of thing as well because it's only a small
model count. Yeah, I found.
I found that interesting because I've seen you mention it on
social media here and there, and I think Nick mentioned it as
well. The Medieval War Gamer.
I'm I'm actually intrigued to see how that works.
Set it up. Set it up, Yeah, Because I'm not
going. I'm not going to Wales anytime
soon. So what do I need?
2 retinues, yeah. Is there 2 Red news, 2500 point
red news and away you go. Another another thing I'll say
about that's another great strength about the Barons war is
that they actually have an online army builder and this is
a big thing. So people who want to just tink
around the rules and just have a look at Red News, how to build
them, that kind of thing. You can go to warhost.com and
you can there's got like downloadable assets there like
STLS for terrain and you've got the army builder which is just
now in its in its sort of basic form just covering the Barrens
war book and the red news covered in there.
But I know that the other death and Taxes, Conquest and Altrima
will come out at some point in the future too.
So you can have in particular sort of retinues to build those
online as well and you can print out your lists and use those,
which is really handy. So that's another great strength
that they've got there already, another good asset.
Yes, I think, I think it's world host dot online actually.
And yeah, I I just recorded in this morning, I've recorded a
very short video about how to use it.
It was more like showing an example of the my first revenue
that they built on that and how because I built my first retinue
and now I just tweak it for different you know use different
units for various things. So I did did something like
that, explain certain things like for example one thing
about, you know, range weapons is like it only shows like short
range over there, like what you can need to roll for short range
and just for people to remember that if they shoot from the long
range they have to add 1 on top of that.
So I explained those little bits and pieces over there and showed
really how easy it is. It's you know and you can really
play with it like you know nothing stops you.
You just update the numbers sorry the points you want to
play the game with you you want to build your retinue for and
then you just go ahead and it will tell you actually if you
have, if you crossed, if you if you have.
I think that the rule is that your command groups cannot be
more than 50% of your revenue and as soon as you go across you
will have message, OK, you're command groups are more than
50%, so. So it's very useful, very
helpful in that way for sure. And you're gonna have at least
10% green troops, so yes, inexperienced like farmers with
the with clubs and that kind of thing.
So yeah. The way I build my retinue or
like I didn't really. I think what's really got me
into that gaming is like storytelling because I'm kind of
storyteller in many, many ways and I love stories and I didn't
go to the book. I said all let me build the
greatest army already I can master from this.
No. I just was oh, I want Templars.
I really want Templars. I want they are massive great
Knights. Let me get like 4 war horses and
then I I need some like you know foot nights as well And I made a
group of foot nights and then I was like OK, I need some missile
weapons so get some you know. And I, I, and then I, the rest
of my retinue are monks. So I have literally I have I
have two strong groups a veteran, a veteran commander on
his war horses who came from Ultramar on the mission, you
know through Europe. You know they are veteran
because they not only fought in Ultramar, but during the mission
during you know they had their skirmishes.
They are veterans. The Foot Knights are local
Templar Knights. You know, in England, you know
what I mean? They are just regular.
They they they experience, they've seen, you know, they've
seen conflict. But they didn't have that
journey. They haven't been in Ultramar.
They are not as experienced. And then I have just like green
the green monks who are like, you know, some local priests or
whatnot and and that it's somehow I managed to work quite
well. I mean play quite well with that
red in you. It works very well.
That power, you have a little bit of power and then you're
just surrounded by crowd and it seems to work.
It's great for getting losing. The words come on objectives,
here we go. It's very great to hold
objectives if you need to. It's very go to go and grab
objective if you need to. Because what I like about
Baron's War, it's not just, I don't like kill games.
I like, you know, specific scenarios and that brings joy to
me. You have to think, you know,
yes, your opponent may like almost destroyed your retinue,
but you hold what is the most important in that scenario and
that's your aim not to kill them.
You just want to and and that's what I love about it, you know,
you have that specific focus. Otherwise it would just get very
boring to me very quickly I think.
Yeah, that's really important to me too.
And that's another thing like about Test of Honor, it's got
like these linked scenarios in there.
So once if when you play the first one, it has consequences
for the second one and that has consequences for the third one.
And it sort of goes along like that.
And it's got a nice little footnote of the background of
the story. And it gives you sort of this
immersive feeling that you you know that you're actually
involved in something and it actually matters.
And I think Barons War does the same thing.
It gives you these different scenarios, maybe not linked, but
on that War host.com site, I'll leave a link in the show notes
for people to access that website because I might be
saying it wrong. But in there they've got like
downloadable campaigns. So you've got specific scenarios
or campaign games you can download and play.
So there's lots of options here. It's not just, it's not just sit
in one little shoe box. It's got quite a lot of
different, you know, branches leading out into different areas
and different theaters and that kind of thing as well.
So there's a lot to take in there.
You know, it's not just Knights, you know, a crusading out in the
Middle East. It could be your your merry men
with Robin Hood fighting off the fighting off the Knights in the
forests of of Nottingham, you know, or it could be you're just
a Baron fighting another Baron, you know, in a certain type of
scenario. So there's there's lots, lots to
like basically, you know, it's got something for everybody
there. And if I'm honest with you, like
that Robin Hood, that was a very clever move on the future site
because like the, you know, going back to that moment where
Ian started to talk about Mark and everything and we started to
look on the website and I was like, oh, and there's a little
Robin Hood too. I in the end, I never get it.
But I was like, oh man, you know what I mean?
And I and then some of our friends, John, who actually I
will be doing a video for another game as well because he
just produced a fun storm ship. Storm, no storm ship troopers.
Is that how? What's the movie called?
Starship Troopers, I think. Starship Troopers here we go.
He created 6mm game and it looks beautiful and I will be filming
that for the channel as well on on Saturday.
And he got into barons were as well, and he got the merry man
and he actually won the first battle of Cardiff with them.
So like the little tournament that I organized in Cardiff.
So yeah, yeah, yeah. The Robin Hood is definitely a
clever, clever move from from the company.
It's a beautiful like they've got an army deal on on futsal
miniature.com website and I was so tempted to get that because
it's like only 100 bucks and you get basically a huge 500 point
retinue. You get the books for free
because you like, you get the death and taxes book and then
you get the PDF for Barons War. I mean it's really good.
Like, it's really good and the quality of the sculpts are
beautiful, you know? And yeah, so you can find.
Any, any any of them of these boxes that they actually have
online are definitely worth worth getting.
Like, you know, I just had like the box of well, I, I, I, I did
kind of win it. But we are speaking about what's
inside. I just got the Vikings.
I thought because I I would like to get into Conquest and it's
just like the stuff that is in the box, that's it's like 50 lbs
in you know in EU KS money or like you know some, some are 60
or some. There are different things that
you can choose and it's definitely it's enough to start
playing and very, very good 100%.
Yep, Yep. So they're deals there, and a
lot of the deals have either books in physical form or PDF
form. Yeah.
So you can you can get in there quite easily without a huge
expense and out huge outline especially if you look at the
new old world prices. I mean that's that's that's not
to turn anybody off war gaming I think.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. 100%.
And the miniatures are so you've got some really good quality old
school miniatures, all metal. And yeah, it's a good product.
I mean that's the only only reason why I'm sort of harping
on about and I'm sure some people out in the crank and man
think I'm going completely crazy maybe because I'm turning 50
this year and I'm sort of looking more to a historical
game. I'm getting older now.
Maybe that's why gems from, you know, really, you know and and
Futsal is a small operation. It's a small company.
And he, I really urge people to go and check out your interview
you did with Andy talking very humbly about his experiences
forming well in partnership with Futsal and the difficulties they
have to overcome. And the expense it costs, you
know, the the enormous amount of money it costs to to make games
to make these miniatures, you know to produce something so
beautiful like this. It's not free.
It comes at a huge amount of expense and and a big risk, you
know. So he was very candid in his
interview about talking about that and his experiences with
it. I think 1 the the the massive
strength and something that's really that I really enjoy about
Futser is how community driven company it is.
I think I I I I don't think I witness anything like that in
gaming. Of course I'm a gaming teenager,
but you know what I mean? You know, they are open.
They are always there to answer questions and see, you know,
even the tournaments, like the comp tournaments.
I've done a tournament at Britt Gun in Nottingham actually last
August for them and spent a great evening with them, like
you know, just just just being out, having food and just
chatting about everything and how how much they supported the
tournament with the prizes they brought in.
It was just like, I mean I I had no words.
I still have no words. Just really, really great
community driven company and really nice guys.
Seriously. So yeah, definitely worth
looking into it and just like, you know, get involved because
it's it's, it's it's not only the amazing quality product, but
there is there are also great people behind it for sure.
Absolutely. And I really want to support
Futsal because, and for that reason, they were really good
guys and I really want to see them succeed because I know they
don't get a lot, a lot of sorry exposure online and social media
platforms. I've noticed on Instagram they
get very little likes or very little, you know, you just need
more eyes on their product, more people looking at this stuff.
And and then of course people playing the games.
If people see them playing the games in the stores like they do
in your store in Wales, I think at Firestorm you guys play a lot
there people. Firestorm and the antics as
well. So there are two, two stores
that we, yeah. That's a big that's a big
motivator for people. If they see people playing it,
they get engaged with it. They find out what it's all
about and they go, oh cool, I'm I'll get a rent you then I'll
I'll see you next next weekend and have a game with you.
You know what I mean? So, and then the you know your
YouTube is a big help and I hope at some point in the future,
long, long in the future I suppose me getting my stuff
together and actually getting a game and filming it on the Crown
of Command channel, which would be really exciting.
But in the meantime, I can interview you guys talking about
it and getting me more motivated and hopefully inspiring other
people in our community to sort of have a look at it and picking
up their own starter set and start getting painting and start
getting yeah. 100 percent, 100%, that would be great.
We actually, we are meeting now on Wednesday and with Mark and
Ian. So we're gonna film a battle
report and more you know introduction to Baron's War
videos as well. So there will, there's
definitely more content coming for the game and I think with
we're going to do 700 points, continuation of of battle
reports. So again the same, you know,
Retinue Commanders will face off, but we're going to play 700
points game now instead of 500 to see how you know because 700
points, 500 points is great. This is the first, not the
first. The first game of my retinue
that I played was 500 points actually, with Ian at his place.
Just because you know. You have to paint all stuff you
have to you know, so and so 500 is great introduction, but the
game feels amazingly at 7 hundred 750 points and that's I
would say that this is the standard we kind of play now and
700 seems to be standard for the tournaments that that are being
organized. But yeah, and you know, with
Ultramar, actually that 700 points doesn't necessarily gives
you more miniatures, that your miniatures kind of can be more
expensive if you know point wise.
So yeah, definitely more content, definitely more content
coming and we're gonna do Ultramar soon as well.
Oh. OK, I look forward to that
because that's really my of of of passion at the moment.
Yeah, yeah. There, there's, there's, there
are some things planned for Ultramar that we can't talk
about, yeah. I'm very excited then.
But definitely some battle reports coming from that.
One now I'm really looking forward to seeing you a nice
desert table with all the with the with the fortification, the
hospital on there and the palm trees.
Yes, yes. You know, that's my dream,
that's my, that's my sort of layout.
I'm going to try to work towards this year, everything going well
and then getting my good friend Stephen up here to to play out
the scenarios because he's got AI painted a massive saga army
for him of all the Islam force forces.
So he's got all the miniatures, basically.
Brilliant for that. He would also need to
concentrate on my Crusader army and then we're right, we're
right way to go. So hopefully I'll get well.
Here, Crusader, the army will look phenomenal.
That's the one thing that I know already after seeing this first
quarter miniatures. Well, I'll, I'll.
I'll. Work on it.
I'll work on a painting video for doing the the military order
commander, the foot soldier guy. So I'll release that on my
channel at some point. Hopefully towards the end of
this month. I'll have that up and so people
can see how I'm painting them and you know.
I will, I will try to, I will try to to do my best to imitate
your. Style.
I hope so, mate. Yeah, honestly, because the
beauty of it and they'll yeah, the beauty of painting those
miniatures because of the scale, because of the size.
And of course I'm painting them all black because they're
hospital at nights. Yeah.
So it's it's kind of easy for me.
So I can get them done pretty quickly because it's really just
black. And then for their for their
cloth, you know their cloaks and that kind of thing.
Silver for their weapons and armor and then just brown for
their belts and and that's kind of thing and that's really it.
And the Shields and stuff like that.
So it's not an enormous task, you know?
I think what I think what brings yours pops out is like you you
you work a little bit gently on on edge highlights you know you
you you I can see the mid tones there and then you know you have
a highlight much brighter and I think that's that's the strength
of it that that contrast actually and pops them out where
when I paint mine I use much darker colors to bring get up a
little bit. So if you look closer, you kind
of see what's going on there, but from the distance you don't
have it and yours are just like popping out and that's I think
that may be something I I I I need to try.
So I'm waiting for that. Well, I'll be coming soon, man
for sure. For for for yourself and anybody
else who's interested. And I hope then they can see
what I'm doing with them with the barons wall miniatures and
there'll be more to come and more content to come.
So as I really feel passionate about this game and the
miniature line and I think people should really give it a
go and hopefully jump on board with us.
OK guys so. But it's been a wonderful,
wonderful chance to catch up with you now to talk with you.
And I hope we can bring you back with Mark at some point in the
future to talk about how you're going with your YouTube channel
now. Your YouTube channel is called
Rye Mouth. Yes, yes, it's, it's actually
Boleswarf Chivoste. It is Ramov.
It's it's it's the name of one of Polish kings from medieval
times, and that's where that comes from.
That's where. It comes from version of, I
believe. I think Ramov is much easier to
say than chivoste, so I thought I'll just call it like with the
English meaning. OK, great.
OK, that's nice. It's got a bit of history there
too, in the name. That's nice.
That's wonderful. I thought it was.
I thought it was the the Township you lived in or
something in Wales. So, OK, great.
Yeah, I'll leave links for your YouTube channel.
I'll leave links for Futsal Miniatures and the War Host
website, so people can get in touch with that and then they
can make up their own minds and have a look, even pick up the
rule book as APDF. Just look through it and just
check it out. You know it's not very
expensive, so but for now mate, I'll let you go.
You're probably really tired and want to go back to bed, so
thanks again. We'll paint your miniatures,
mate. That's all you need to paint
your miniatures. I.
Think it's great for that, but yeah, nice and great to talk to
you. Thanks for inviting me.
My pleasure, bud. Take care.
Take care, mate. Thank you.