1 00:00:11,600 --> 00:00:14,640 Look, Dave, thank you so much again mate for coming on to the 2 00:00:14,640 --> 00:00:17,560 Chronicling podcast. I really appreciate you taking 3 00:00:17,560 --> 00:00:19,560 the time out of your day to come and talk to us. 4 00:00:20,240 --> 00:00:23,280 No worries, it's actually really nice to be and nice to actually 5 00:00:23,720 --> 00:00:27,720 see because we've spoken a bit online, but you have a face 6 00:00:27,720 --> 00:00:29,440 there. I do. 7 00:00:29,800 --> 00:00:32,400 I know it's scary, but it's it's even more beautiful now because 8 00:00:32,400 --> 00:00:36,040 I've got the filters on. Yeah. 9 00:00:36,400 --> 00:00:41,000 Unfiltered It's it's, it's Heimlich Kemler cosplay. 10 00:00:41,480 --> 00:00:46,320 Basically my age, age and working and teaching, as you all 11 00:00:46,320 --> 00:00:50,400 know, has not, has not fared me well in terms of physical 12 00:00:50,400 --> 00:00:52,400 appearance. I tell you what, it's it's like, 13 00:00:52,480 --> 00:00:55,560 it's like a vampire just draining every every part of you 14 00:00:56,120 --> 00:00:58,880 out of your body. Teaching is wonderful. 15 00:01:02,880 --> 00:01:04,200 How long have you been doing it for? 16 00:01:05,519 --> 00:01:06,520 Like 8 years now. Oh yeah. 17 00:01:07,120 --> 00:01:11,080 I've got nine years, mate, to 10 years total and that was it. 18 00:01:13,760 --> 00:01:15,800 Now that I'm still teaching, I'll teach online, which is 19 00:01:15,800 --> 00:01:17,040 wonderful. I don't. 20 00:01:17,760 --> 00:01:20,640 Yeah, I'm talking about like teaching in in Kiowa. 21 00:01:20,920 --> 00:01:22,320 Now, I don't know where you teach, but. 22 00:01:22,320 --> 00:01:24,840 I'm. Doing a Kiowa too, yeah. 23 00:01:26,480 --> 00:01:29,920 So it's not so bad. Yeah, it depends. 24 00:01:29,920 --> 00:01:31,520 It depends. Like I had a great, you know, I, 25 00:01:31,520 --> 00:01:32,840 I still work for the same company. 26 00:01:32,840 --> 00:01:37,320 Great people, you know, mostly great students, love the kids, 27 00:01:37,960 --> 00:01:40,000 all that kind of stuff. That was no issue at all. 28 00:01:40,280 --> 00:01:44,560 I think it was just like that burnout, you know, 1010 years 29 00:01:45,000 --> 00:01:49,880 from 1:00 till 10 and like, and there's travel time, 2 hours 30 00:01:49,880 --> 00:01:52,120 commuting every day. Then the travel on top of that 31 00:01:52,120 --> 00:01:53,800 going companies and all that kind of stuff. 32 00:01:54,280 --> 00:01:58,480 I think it just, it just took its toll and I just had to had 33 00:01:58,480 --> 00:02:00,680 to make some life changes. So I still work there part time. 34 00:02:00,680 --> 00:02:04,760 I do my online lessons, which I love doing for the guys there. 35 00:02:04,880 --> 00:02:08,960 So yeah, got 1 foot in, one foot out basically, yeah. 36 00:02:09,720 --> 00:02:15,520 Yeah. Because I discovered you through 37 00:02:15,520 --> 00:02:20,080 War Storm games, so this is a wonderful adventure you're on 38 00:02:20,080 --> 00:02:22,680 mate. Some for some people, their 39 00:02:22,680 --> 00:02:25,560 dream job. Yeah, I think so. 40 00:02:25,560 --> 00:02:29,160 I mean, it's, yeah, it's one of those weird things where, you 41 00:02:29,160 --> 00:02:33,080 know, it's not like what I would say is my original dream job, 42 00:02:33,800 --> 00:02:36,400 but it's definitely Erin, like the list of things I enjoy 43 00:02:36,400 --> 00:02:40,000 doing. Before coming to Japan, I was 44 00:02:40,000 --> 00:02:43,280 working for Firestorm Games. So I've been and then before 45 00:02:43,280 --> 00:02:46,640 that I worked for Rules of Play and before that I worked for 46 00:02:46,640 --> 00:02:49,440 Games Workshop. So I've got a long, long sort of 47 00:02:49,440 --> 00:02:54,960 work history with this. So it's definitely always been 48 00:02:54,960 --> 00:02:57,200 something I'm interested, I've been interested in and working 49 00:02:57,200 --> 00:03:01,080 in, but for for a while and I still do it. 50 00:03:01,080 --> 00:03:03,120 It's actually, again, bit of a part time thing. 51 00:03:04,000 --> 00:03:06,440 Writing was actually like my main focus. 52 00:03:10,440 --> 00:03:14,640 So I've written a few novels still, still writing novels as 53 00:03:14,640 --> 00:03:19,640 well, but again, just the market for that doesn't really work out 54 00:03:19,640 --> 00:03:23,000 super great. So I was looking for another 55 00:03:23,000 --> 00:03:26,720 alternative to teaching and since this was something I 56 00:03:26,720 --> 00:03:29,800 already knew rather well, had a fair amount of contacts already 57 00:03:29,800 --> 00:03:34,480 in the industry is like, this is a pretty logical next step. 58 00:03:35,080 --> 00:03:38,920 Again, given how little there is in Japan that's not Games 59 00:03:38,920 --> 00:03:44,400 Workshop. So yeah, that was sort of the 60 00:03:45,120 --> 00:03:48,640 the jump in point for me. Was it April this year? 61 00:03:50,200 --> 00:03:52,160 Yeah, it wasn't that long ago mate, I don't think. 62 00:03:52,160 --> 00:03:53,440 No, really. Not that long ago. 63 00:03:53,800 --> 00:03:57,400 Feels like it was ages ago, but literally April. 64 00:03:57,400 --> 00:04:02,040 So what's that, 66? Yeah, just just over six months. 65 00:04:03,160 --> 00:04:06,880 Yep, and it's been a bit of a success story as I hear right. 66 00:04:07,880 --> 00:04:11,240 Oh yeah. I'm genuinely surprised how well 67 00:04:11,240 --> 00:04:15,040 it's already going. I mean, it's by no means the one 68 00:04:16,200 --> 00:04:20,880 it's GameStop in the world yet. But yeah, I mean, when I was 69 00:04:20,880 --> 00:04:23,880 doing my business plans, you know, I went with a very, very 70 00:04:23,880 --> 00:04:28,840 conservative first year, as is I think generally sensible. 71 00:04:29,560 --> 00:04:33,520 And then I sort of blew past that number in the first month 72 00:04:33,520 --> 00:04:39,040 and 1/2. So yeah, that was like a lot, a 73 00:04:39,040 --> 00:04:44,840 lot of support both from the Japanese local community and not 74 00:04:44,840 --> 00:04:47,760 so local community recently. And then also a lot of the 75 00:04:48,320 --> 00:04:51,680 foreign games as well from the the games in was it board games 76 00:04:51,680 --> 00:04:55,160 in Japan, Facebook groups. So there's a lot of you were 77 00:04:55,360 --> 00:04:56,600 dropping with me, which is really nice. 78 00:04:57,320 --> 00:05:03,280 Oh, that's great. I started sponsoring one of the 79 00:05:03,520 --> 00:05:09,800 events in the yes, the Xama Xama base. 80 00:05:10,480 --> 00:05:13,440 Yep, so I can miss giving price support over there to the the 81 00:05:13,440 --> 00:05:16,440 American guys. And again, obviously then 82 00:05:16,440 --> 00:05:17,560 they're they're shopping with me as well. 83 00:05:17,560 --> 00:05:20,600 So that that's quite nice of the mutually beneficial. 84 00:05:21,760 --> 00:05:24,800 Actually we're, we're looking, we were looking for sponsors for 85 00:05:24,800 --> 00:05:27,840 our Wahama Renaissance events here in Japan. 86 00:05:27,840 --> 00:05:29,600 Well, maybe we should talk about that, mate. 87 00:05:29,600 --> 00:05:33,640 Yeah, we should. And in turn have them purchase 88 00:05:33,640 --> 00:05:35,800 their Vallejo paints because I said, you know, if you've got 89 00:05:36,120 --> 00:05:40,880 Vallejo paints, that's great. You've got the Army Painter 90 00:05:40,880 --> 00:05:42,720 paints and products there, which is great. 91 00:05:43,040 --> 00:05:45,840 So if if the guys aren't particularly well, some of them 92 00:05:45,840 --> 00:05:50,560 do play Old World, they do play other games which up systems or 93 00:05:50,560 --> 00:05:53,120 they might be interested in the, you know, the historical stuff 94 00:05:53,120 --> 00:05:57,920 with the bold action, you know, miniatures. 95 00:05:57,920 --> 00:06:00,480 You sell yourself a bit of Perry stuff there, which can be easily 96 00:06:00,480 --> 00:06:02,280 converted for various different systems. 97 00:06:02,880 --> 00:06:06,800 So yeah, you might have a a mutual, yeah, I mean customer 98 00:06:06,800 --> 00:06:09,560 base there with us as well. So that is good thinking. 99 00:06:10,640 --> 00:06:13,040 That would be rather nice. I mean, even if not, I'm 100 00:06:13,320 --> 00:06:16,240 generally just happy to support more events happening because 101 00:06:16,240 --> 00:06:18,760 more people playing games is always a good thing. 102 00:06:19,600 --> 00:06:22,360 Absolutely. Yep, that's good. 103 00:06:22,360 --> 00:06:23,480 But yeah, awesome. Yeah. 104 00:06:24,760 --> 00:06:27,720 OK, nice. We can do something with that 105 00:06:27,720 --> 00:06:30,080 then. Yeah, and I'm a happy customer 106 00:06:30,080 --> 00:06:33,720 for the first time this morning. I did pick up some my poor 107 00:06:33,720 --> 00:06:39,440 Sawyer sort of miniature to support him financially during 108 00:06:39,440 --> 00:06:45,760 his, his his health problems at the moment, which is really not, 109 00:06:45,800 --> 00:06:50,440 not nice to hear that Paul's undergoing such a enormous, like 110 00:06:50,440 --> 00:06:55,040 life changing life ending kind of situation now that he's just 111 00:06:55,040 --> 00:06:59,480 enjoying whatever time he has left within with his family. 112 00:06:59,480 --> 00:07:02,120 So I was, I was very happy to pick up the very last copy of 113 00:07:02,120 --> 00:07:04,880 that. And I'm definitely going to 114 00:07:04,880 --> 00:07:08,760 paint it up and give that away to probably one of my patrons or 115 00:07:08,760 --> 00:07:11,000 maybe for through the Crown of command or something like that 116 00:07:11,680 --> 00:07:15,120 as a commemorative piece in December, maybe as a Christmas 117 00:07:15,120 --> 00:07:16,720 present or something like that, I think. 118 00:07:17,400 --> 00:07:20,480 So that's a nice idea, yeah. Yeah, I think that'd be nice, 119 00:07:20,480 --> 00:07:22,560 mate. Nice way to honour Paul for all 120 00:07:22,560 --> 00:07:26,720 these hard work and enormous amount of yeah, enormous amount 121 00:07:26,720 --> 00:07:29,720 of time and dedication is given to our hobby. 122 00:07:31,560 --> 00:07:35,200 So, yeah. So the, the main reason I really 123 00:07:35,200 --> 00:07:39,240 wanted to get you on David, this is talk about a, you know, how 124 00:07:39,240 --> 00:07:41,440 you got into war gaming. How did, how does this all 125 00:07:41,440 --> 00:07:42,880 started? You've sort of rattled off a few 126 00:07:42,880 --> 00:07:47,160 names with people and places and companies you work for, but, and 127 00:07:47,160 --> 00:07:49,560 I can tell by the accent mate, you're not from these shores. 128 00:07:49,560 --> 00:07:54,240 So how did it all start? No, I'm a well, actually, my 129 00:07:54,240 --> 00:07:57,000 accent doesn't really give away where I'm from precisely if if 130 00:07:57,000 --> 00:07:59,440 you're local, but I'm I'm a London boy all. 131 00:08:00,400 --> 00:08:04,600 Right. So yeah, technically I'm from 132 00:08:04,600 --> 00:08:07,600 Hendon, which is, I was getting confused. 133 00:08:07,600 --> 00:08:11,720 I only lived there for like two or three years, so I think South 134 00:08:11,720 --> 00:08:15,640 London, but I'm sure everyone who's in London will tell me I'm 135 00:08:15,640 --> 00:08:19,160 wrong. So but yeah, no, originally from 136 00:08:19,160 --> 00:08:25,320 Hendon and then I lived in Watford for most of my childhood 137 00:08:25,800 --> 00:08:28,040 before moving to Wales and then Japan. 138 00:08:29,560 --> 00:08:34,720 But for the getting started, it was the Watford location that 139 00:08:34,720 --> 00:08:37,840 actually was my my first thing because they had the Games 140 00:08:37,840 --> 00:08:42,240 Workshop in the shopping centre there with the the traditional 141 00:08:42,240 --> 00:08:47,240 massive glass windows that they always had in their stores back 142 00:08:47,240 --> 00:08:50,760 then. This is like, I know, late 90s I 143 00:08:50,760 --> 00:08:54,760 guess. So I used to walk past it all 144 00:08:54,760 --> 00:08:58,840 the time and I'd see all the brightly coloured fantasy 145 00:08:58,840 --> 00:09:00,840 miniatures. And I used to love reading 146 00:09:00,840 --> 00:09:03,800 fantasy books back then as well. I call sort of the Pratchett 147 00:09:03,800 --> 00:09:06,600 stuff and Red Wall and things like that. 148 00:09:08,360 --> 00:09:13,560 So I was always at my parents being like, I want to try this, 149 00:09:13,560 --> 00:09:17,000 I want to play this. And then my parents, being quite 150 00:09:17,000 --> 00:09:19,320 Christian, were very like, oh, we don't know about that. 151 00:09:20,080 --> 00:09:23,840 So ultimately I went behind their backs a little bit and 152 00:09:23,840 --> 00:09:28,640 bought a wood elf army of a guy at school for I think it's like 153 00:09:28,640 --> 00:09:31,160 10 lbs at the time. Wow. 154 00:09:32,160 --> 00:09:36,800 So it, I mean, it was mostly like the Super chunky plastic 155 00:09:36,800 --> 00:09:40,480 Archers. So I don't know how much of it 156 00:09:40,480 --> 00:09:43,000 they'd gotten for free from someone from around places, but 157 00:09:43,000 --> 00:09:46,440 yeah, yeah, I bought that and I talked to my parents around. 158 00:09:46,440 --> 00:09:50,120 It's like, oh, it's OK. There's no like, weird demons 159 00:09:50,120 --> 00:09:51,520 and stuff in this. It's all good. 160 00:09:51,520 --> 00:09:54,560 Don't worry about it. It's kind of escalated from 161 00:09:54,560 --> 00:09:57,920 there. So they obviously they've come 162 00:09:57,920 --> 00:10:00,240 around to it now. This isn't like a whole big, big 163 00:10:00,240 --> 00:10:03,760 secret thing, you know? They're very supportive and I 164 00:10:03,760 --> 00:10:08,640 think they understand I've not become a zealous cultist of 165 00:10:08,640 --> 00:10:13,800 chaos or anything. Yeah, well, I think my parents 166 00:10:13,800 --> 00:10:16,640 had the same concern. I think that was the, it wasn't 167 00:10:17,320 --> 00:10:20,360 Warhammer, was it? I think Warhammer Fantasy Role 168 00:10:20,360 --> 00:10:25,000 Play first edition, it had some pretty deep dark shit in there. 169 00:10:25,000 --> 00:10:27,880 I can tell you. It's like pentagrams and 170 00:10:27,880 --> 00:10:30,640 everything, you know? It was like the source book for 171 00:10:30,640 --> 00:10:34,120 demonology, you know, It was pretty dark in those days. 172 00:10:34,160 --> 00:10:35,440 I'll be pretty concerned about it. 173 00:10:37,120 --> 00:10:40,400 I remember, I mean, Dungeon and Dragons was my first role play 174 00:10:40,400 --> 00:10:42,520 game. I did a bit of Warhammer Fantasy 175 00:10:42,520 --> 00:10:45,880 afterwards. But yeah, I remember someone, 176 00:10:45,880 --> 00:10:49,720 one of my friends bought the, oh, what's the name of it? 177 00:10:49,720 --> 00:10:51,920 Like it's like the Demonomicon but not. 178 00:10:52,680 --> 00:10:57,080 And again, it's just like full of weird sex stuff and demons to 179 00:10:57,080 --> 00:11:00,560 the point where the book had like a warning adult content on 180 00:11:00,560 --> 00:11:04,080 its sticker. I can't imagine Wizards 181 00:11:04,080 --> 00:11:09,200 releasing anything like that. But yeah, that that was a thing, 182 00:11:09,200 --> 00:11:11,680 an official Dungeons and Dragons product. 183 00:11:11,680 --> 00:11:14,320 But it's changed. It's definitely become a lot 184 00:11:14,320 --> 00:11:18,120 more family friendly. I mean, even Jane's Workshop now 185 00:11:18,120 --> 00:11:20,880 with demonettes have sort of toned it down a little bit. 186 00:11:24,960 --> 00:11:28,120 Yeah, it's funny, isn't it? Because even like something come 187 00:11:28,120 --> 00:11:35,040 up by feed on YouTube with the the Satanic rites of Dracula 188 00:11:35,400 --> 00:11:39,440 1976 or something like that. Oh God, yeah. 189 00:11:40,240 --> 00:11:46,720 What's his name again, Sir? Guy from Lord of the Rings. 190 00:11:48,600 --> 00:11:52,200 Oh, Ian Mccullen. No, not Ian Mccullen, the other 191 00:11:53,040 --> 00:11:55,120 that he recently passed away. Yes. 192 00:11:57,280 --> 00:11:59,600 Yeah, Oh my goodness. Yeah, I've had two. 193 00:11:59,600 --> 00:12:01,480 Copies already. And yeah, you know how I mean, 194 00:12:01,480 --> 00:12:03,760 you know, everyone knows what I'm talking about, but. 195 00:12:04,880 --> 00:12:07,640 Another thing for people to complain about, I'm mislabeling 196 00:12:07,640 --> 00:12:09,400 where I'm from. The name of Chris. 197 00:12:09,400 --> 00:12:11,800 Yeah, Christopher Lee. Christopher Lee. 198 00:12:11,800 --> 00:12:13,040 That's it. I knew Chris was in there 199 00:12:13,040 --> 00:12:13,960 somewhere. Chris. 200 00:12:13,960 --> 00:12:14,440 You got it. Yeah. 201 00:12:14,440 --> 00:12:15,880 You helped me there when you said Christopher. 202 00:12:16,040 --> 00:12:17,880 Yes, Christopher Lee. Teamwork. 203 00:12:18,560 --> 00:12:21,520 I know I watched some horrific shit when I was a kid, like in 204 00:12:21,520 --> 00:12:25,040 the local library, you know, in Southport, went to library and 205 00:12:25,040 --> 00:12:28,200 you could and I was, I don't know, 10/11/12 or something. 206 00:12:28,200 --> 00:12:31,280 You could just get anything off the videos like like that 207 00:12:31,280 --> 00:12:37,400 videotapes, bank VHS then mate, the most horrific like in terms 208 00:12:37,400 --> 00:12:40,040 of like, you know, I was picking up horror movies or anything 209 00:12:40,040 --> 00:12:41,840 that I felt would be cool to watch. 210 00:12:42,240 --> 00:12:45,400 Yeah, Satanical kind of rituals. Everything, everything, anything 211 00:12:45,400 --> 00:12:49,520 was a go back then. You know that's it's weird, eh? 212 00:12:49,560 --> 00:12:53,080 You'll pack. Yeah, I mean, I guess now it's 213 00:12:53,080 --> 00:12:54,120 all the Internet stuff, isn't it? 214 00:12:54,120 --> 00:12:57,080 Everyone's just yeah, right about Googling whatever they 215 00:12:57,080 --> 00:13:02,920 want to Google. Yeah, Donkey, donkeydicks.com. 216 00:13:02,920 --> 00:13:06,480 That's probably. One of the as AS is sponsoring 217 00:13:06,480 --> 00:13:11,800 this episode. No, they wish. 218 00:13:12,520 --> 00:13:14,680 Yeah, right. They couldn't afford us. 219 00:13:15,200 --> 00:13:18,200 No mate, but I think we're a bit too good for them. 220 00:13:19,000 --> 00:13:22,800 Yeah, we we go for. A Think of those donkeys mate, 221 00:13:23,400 --> 00:13:25,200 what they must go through and what they have to endure. 222 00:13:26,600 --> 00:13:30,440 This This feels a lot like it's becoming a a clerk's movie now. 223 00:13:33,480 --> 00:13:35,520 I do miss those too, actually. Yeah, Yeah. 224 00:13:35,520 --> 00:13:39,960 But but anyhow, let's, let's let's get back on track. 225 00:13:43,360 --> 00:13:46,880 So, yeah, yeah. You said you're from from the UK 226 00:13:46,920 --> 00:13:50,240 and you sort of grew up mostly in Watford, but then you talked 227 00:13:50,240 --> 00:13:53,840 about discovering the hobby in that city. 228 00:13:53,840 --> 00:13:55,560 Was it some kind of war games club or something? 229 00:13:55,560 --> 00:13:58,320 Was it me? Oh no, it was an actual Games 230 00:13:58,320 --> 00:13:59,840 Workshop originally. Oh, Games Workshop. 231 00:13:59,920 --> 00:14:03,520 That's right, Yeah. Well, I, I had one other friend 232 00:14:03,520 --> 00:14:08,720 at school who played, so we would occasionally meet up and 233 00:14:09,560 --> 00:14:11,280 then, yeah, again, it still just builds up from there. 234 00:14:11,280 --> 00:14:14,440 So, you know, we then discovered that there, there is actually a 235 00:14:14,440 --> 00:14:17,520 war games club in Watford, or at least there was at the time. 236 00:14:18,120 --> 00:14:20,640 So his mum offered to drive us there. 237 00:14:20,800 --> 00:14:25,640 I think we went two or three times we did that, although 238 00:14:25,720 --> 00:14:33,520 again, being so new to it, like this was fantasy second edition, 239 00:14:33,520 --> 00:14:35,920 3rd edition maybe, I think probably second edition. 240 00:14:36,920 --> 00:14:44,480 So he was playing with undead and he had all of his like 241 00:14:45,280 --> 00:14:48,320 magical spells that came in the the army book back then. 242 00:14:49,320 --> 00:14:54,880 And I think I'd do dwarfs by that point, but neither of us 243 00:14:54,880 --> 00:14:58,280 had like the the winds of magic supplements so I had no idea 244 00:14:58,280 --> 00:15:01,840 about like using rune priests counter spells and stuff. 245 00:15:01,840 --> 00:15:06,000 So he'd like just stomp all over me. 9 times out of 10 he's like 246 00:15:06,400 --> 00:15:09,480 and then I do this spell and charge you with my massive 247 00:15:09,760 --> 00:15:13,560 skeletons now and all of your long beards are dead because I 248 00:15:13,560 --> 00:15:16,880 did the curse of ages on them. It's like OK. 249 00:15:18,240 --> 00:15:21,120 Nothing much has changed then. No, no, no. 250 00:15:22,520 --> 00:15:25,920 Except now I know how how anvils of doom work and things like 251 00:15:25,920 --> 00:15:29,960 that. One one small advantage. 252 00:15:30,640 --> 00:15:33,560 And then you do what I did and just roll 2 ones or what it was 253 00:15:33,560 --> 00:15:36,640 and just it blows up and kills everything around it anyway. 254 00:15:37,320 --> 00:15:42,280 Yeah, well, actually that was my my first game of the old world. 255 00:15:42,280 --> 00:15:45,800 We did a dwarfs versus ogres. So again, I'm back into the 256 00:15:45,800 --> 00:15:48,680 dwarves. I got got a big old arm again. 257 00:15:50,000 --> 00:15:51,560 You got a beard. You got a beard to suit it. 258 00:15:51,600 --> 00:15:53,000 I can't grow. A beard sometimes. 259 00:15:53,720 --> 00:15:56,840 I plan this sometime just to really get into the the theme of 260 00:15:56,840 --> 00:15:58,360 it. Yeah, I why not? 261 00:15:58,640 --> 00:16:00,640 Be the wolf king of Japan one day. 262 00:16:05,200 --> 00:16:06,720 Well, you do live near a mountain. 263 00:16:06,760 --> 00:16:10,000 A pretty big mountain. I live very, very near a very 264 00:16:10,000 --> 00:16:13,000 big mountain, so I'm I'm in for it. 265 00:16:14,240 --> 00:16:17,000 It's going to get like a big old axe and a crown and then then 266 00:16:17,000 --> 00:16:19,680 I'm good. The chronic command maybe 267 00:16:20,360 --> 00:16:29,200 exactly classic classic magic item like I never remember it 268 00:16:29,200 --> 00:16:32,080 being that good in the games like like the name like sticks 269 00:16:32,080 --> 00:16:36,040 with you but. Oh, the chronic command. 270 00:16:36,040 --> 00:16:37,320 Well, the doors didn't really need it. 271 00:16:37,440 --> 00:16:40,120 I think it but it was very good in that it was like an 272 00:16:40,120 --> 00:16:45,560 unmodified 10 and right for the unit that is leading, but it it 273 00:16:45,560 --> 00:16:49,640 also if it's if it's on your general, it goes out 12 inches, 274 00:16:49,640 --> 00:16:53,240 but it's not unmodified though. So for goblins for me, been 275 00:16:53,240 --> 00:16:55,720 playing night goblins. Yeah, it was like an essential 276 00:16:55,840 --> 00:17:00,080 auto include mandatory choice. That 50 points is definitely on 277 00:17:00,080 --> 00:17:03,520 your warlord because it was just it was the the backbone that 278 00:17:03,520 --> 00:17:05,839 kept everything going and everything together. 279 00:17:05,839 --> 00:17:08,960 Otherwise in the old world, I would assume that. 280 00:17:10,119 --> 00:17:12,359 Sorry, what's that? Goblins like leadership. 281 00:17:12,359 --> 00:17:16,319 Sixth base, Weren't they? Five base five. 282 00:17:16,400 --> 00:17:19,240 OK, yeah. So that that 10 is a winner. 283 00:17:20,079 --> 00:17:23,240 Yep, Yep. So you really needed that to to 284 00:17:23,240 --> 00:17:25,240 just make them any, you know, like a viable choice. 285 00:17:25,240 --> 00:17:28,240 But I think from 6th edition onwards, they got rid of it. 286 00:17:29,640 --> 00:17:32,760 I think Taurus, Thomas Pirin and even said that it was it was a 287 00:17:32,760 --> 00:17:38,000 really broken broken. So I think that was the first 288 00:17:38,000 --> 00:17:39,320 thing he did, just got rid of that. 289 00:17:40,040 --> 00:17:42,280 Well, fair enough. I guess it makes sense if it's 290 00:17:42,280 --> 00:17:45,840 changing the entire theme of the Army to goblins low leadership 291 00:17:46,160 --> 00:17:48,680 except when you got this crown then then you get. 292 00:17:48,840 --> 00:17:54,840 Yeah, kill the kill the leader. Yeah, that's it. 293 00:17:55,640 --> 00:17:57,880 That's what it came to, yeah. Just kill the leader. 294 00:17:59,080 --> 00:18:01,080 Yeah, no, for my so you've seen the explosion. 295 00:18:01,080 --> 00:18:05,120 So my my first game of Old World with dwarfs I tried a sort of an 296 00:18:05,120 --> 00:18:12,760 artillery line plus some troops against ogres and pretty much 297 00:18:13,000 --> 00:18:16,280 all of my artillery killed itself within two turns. 298 00:18:16,280 --> 00:18:21,480 I think my cannon fired once and never got to use the stone 299 00:18:21,480 --> 00:18:25,720 thrower and then yeah everything else just been boom. 300 00:18:26,520 --> 00:18:29,400 So luckily the rest of the army performed, but that was quite 301 00:18:29,400 --> 00:18:32,240 amusing just watching 1 artillery piece explode after 302 00:18:32,240 --> 00:18:35,760 another. So that they don't use artillery 303 00:18:35,760 --> 00:18:37,920 dice anymore, do they? No, they do. 304 00:18:37,920 --> 00:18:40,000 In the old World, they're back. Oh, they're back. 305 00:18:40,000 --> 00:18:43,200 Are they OK? Yeah, so the, the only thing 306 00:18:43,200 --> 00:18:47,360 they've really removed is the guest ranges on Canon. 307 00:18:47,360 --> 00:18:50,840 So you you just choose the point where you want to go now. 308 00:18:51,960 --> 00:18:55,360 So you, so whatever, like it, however far in front of the unit 309 00:18:55,360 --> 00:18:57,120 you're shooting at, you're like, OK, let's go in there. 310 00:18:57,520 --> 00:18:59,760 And then you roll your artillery dice and you scatter dice as 311 00:18:59,760 --> 00:19:05,280 normal, which I like. I mean, obviously I I being an 312 00:19:05,400 --> 00:19:11,080 old school player, I always have a fondness for Guess Rangers, 313 00:19:11,960 --> 00:19:14,760 and it's one of the reasons I'm still quite good. 314 00:19:14,760 --> 00:19:15,920 I'm guessing you're probably the same. 315 00:19:16,320 --> 00:19:20,760 I like eyeballing how far a meter is, you know, it's one of 316 00:19:20,800 --> 00:19:23,080 those sort of lifelong, weirdly useless skills. 317 00:19:23,080 --> 00:19:26,760 But yeah, all because I worked out by basilisks and cannons. 318 00:19:29,080 --> 00:19:33,120 Well, yeah, like at school we did like technical drawing and, 319 00:19:33,480 --> 00:19:37,520 you know, we did like trade skill type stuff. 320 00:19:37,520 --> 00:19:40,560 I work my dad, you know, in factories, various factories 321 00:19:40,560 --> 00:19:41,880 over the years, that kind of stuff. 322 00:19:41,880 --> 00:19:44,960 So, yeah, we always had, you know, we're always like cutting, 323 00:19:44,960 --> 00:19:46,600 measuring and all that kind of stuff. 324 00:19:46,600 --> 00:19:49,640 I don't know how much they do nowadays, but yeah, I think that 325 00:19:49,640 --> 00:19:52,680 was my biggest gripe about, apart from the magic system, 326 00:19:52,680 --> 00:19:55,200 that the biggest gripe about 8th edition for me is that they got 327 00:19:55,200 --> 00:19:59,440 rid of that and it just became this kind of, OK, well, I'm 328 00:19:59,440 --> 00:20:02,880 going to shoot this particular war machine and, and the guy I 329 00:20:02,880 --> 00:20:04,480 was playing with had like a template. 330 00:20:05,280 --> 00:20:08,080 Cut out on a a four piece of paper and he actually drawn out 331 00:20:08,080 --> 00:20:11,840 all the base sizes like 20 mil, 25 mil and he just plonked it 332 00:20:11,840 --> 00:20:14,400 straight on top of the unit and you can see exactly how many he 333 00:20:14,400 --> 00:20:18,320 would hit. And yeah, it just no, it just 334 00:20:18,320 --> 00:20:21,400 left a bad sort of taste in my mouth or my beer. 335 00:20:21,800 --> 00:20:26,440 So from that point onwards, but I can see for the simplicity and 336 00:20:26,440 --> 00:20:30,800 for time, yeah, I can see that that being definitely a factor. 337 00:20:31,520 --> 00:20:36,760 And it also, it also results in like, OK, well it deviates. 338 00:20:36,760 --> 00:20:39,200 You can roll the scatter dice this how many inches? 339 00:20:39,200 --> 00:20:42,560 And then, you know, determining exactly the point where it lands 340 00:20:42,560 --> 00:20:45,320 and you know, using your tape measure to line up exactly where 341 00:20:45,320 --> 00:20:48,080 it goes. I can see where it it creates a 342 00:20:48,080 --> 00:20:51,440 lot of arguments sometimes, maybe for younger, younger 343 00:20:51,680 --> 00:20:54,320 players. Yeah, I don't think I've ever 344 00:20:54,320 --> 00:20:58,160 seen anyone agree on the true direction of a scatter dye. 345 00:20:58,960 --> 00:21:03,520 Yeah, yeah. I've I've had it, we always try 346 00:21:03,520 --> 00:21:06,560 and like roll it this, you know, Gainsby before, roll it next to 347 00:21:06,560 --> 00:21:08,880 the unit. So it's like you, you don't have 348 00:21:08,880 --> 00:21:11,200 very far to go. But even then, you know, it 349 00:21:11,200 --> 00:21:13,560 always just looks a little bit off someone's hands, a little 350 00:21:13,560 --> 00:21:15,960 bit unsteady. I mean, it's fine. 351 00:21:16,160 --> 00:21:18,320 It is. It's not not the end of the 352 00:21:18,320 --> 00:21:20,520 world thing. But yeah, if you're a bit more 353 00:21:20,520 --> 00:21:24,200 competitive minded or taking a lot more seriously than I can 354 00:21:24,520 --> 00:21:27,160 imagine, that gets quite frustrating for people on either 355 00:21:27,160 --> 00:21:30,600 side of the table. Yeah, for sure. 356 00:21:31,800 --> 00:21:34,360 But at the same time, I, I agree with you, it's it's really 357 00:21:34,360 --> 00:21:38,680 annoying when whoever's using whatever mega weapon is like, 358 00:21:38,680 --> 00:21:42,440 well, as long as I don't roll A1, that unit's dead. 359 00:21:42,480 --> 00:21:45,880 Like you know there should be a little bit more variable in play 360 00:21:45,880 --> 00:21:50,160 is nice. Yeah, for sure mate, for sure. 361 00:21:51,080 --> 00:21:52,240 I'm actually painting a dwarf now. 362 00:21:52,240 --> 00:21:54,800 Actually right now. It's all easy. 363 00:21:55,680 --> 00:21:58,760 It could be your your your soul has been entered into this 364 00:21:58,760 --> 00:22:00,800 through your voice and through the microphone at this very 365 00:22:00,800 --> 00:22:03,400 dwarf. Well, as long as we look after 366 00:22:03,400 --> 00:22:04,840 it, it's OK. I I will. 367 00:22:05,080 --> 00:22:06,280 Well, it's not it's not actually mine. 368 00:22:06,280 --> 00:22:09,760 It's it's a customers one. It's it's the it's the new 369 00:22:09,760 --> 00:22:12,080 Talisman version from Hasbro Games. 370 00:22:12,760 --> 00:22:16,520 Oh nice. And surprisingly the miniatures 371 00:22:16,520 --> 00:22:21,760 are actually quite good. So I mean the the dwarf is 372 00:22:21,760 --> 00:22:24,880 pretty static. I mean, 2 headed axe, you know, 373 00:22:25,280 --> 00:22:27,560 you know, he's walking across his chest. 374 00:22:27,560 --> 00:22:29,600 It's it's kind of a classic dwarf pose. 375 00:22:29,600 --> 00:22:35,440 But yeah, I mean, compared to some of the atrocities of of the 376 00:22:35,440 --> 00:22:40,680 soft plastic, PVC plastic of of yesteryear of other games that 377 00:22:40,680 --> 00:22:43,200 I've played. And these are not too bad at 378 00:22:43,200 --> 00:22:45,320 all. So they're actually quite nice 379 00:22:45,320 --> 00:22:48,960 to paint. I think the the worst one I saw 380 00:22:49,040 --> 00:22:54,760 those was the Dungeons and Dragons attempt at replicating X 381 00:22:54,760 --> 00:23:00,160 Wing, the dog fighting game. OK, then give us all those. 382 00:23:00,760 --> 00:23:04,920 So we, we obviously went this as well as working at Firestorm and 383 00:23:04,920 --> 00:23:08,200 we got a pretty big stock load in because obviously it's 384 00:23:08,480 --> 00:23:10,280 Dungeons and Dragons that's popular. 385 00:23:10,560 --> 00:23:13,640 X Wing was pretty much at its height of popularity at that 386 00:23:13,640 --> 00:23:14,920 point. Everyone was playing it. 387 00:23:15,880 --> 00:23:17,240 So like, yeah, let's jump on to that. 388 00:23:17,440 --> 00:23:23,760 And they released the most half assed pre painted molten 389 00:23:23,760 --> 00:23:25,960 thingies I've ever seen in my life. 390 00:23:27,200 --> 00:23:30,840 You've probably seen like the classic Scout Marine pose where 391 00:23:30,840 --> 00:23:33,640 they they've painted the eyes on it just like white splotches 392 00:23:33,640 --> 00:23:37,320 with little blue dots in it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 393 00:23:37,800 --> 00:23:40,440 In fact. They made that good. 394 00:23:40,440 --> 00:23:45,400 Oh geez, it was. It was like appalling. 395 00:23:45,520 --> 00:23:49,640 The Dragons were OK, like if you wanted a dragon for whatever 396 00:23:49,640 --> 00:23:53,040 game you're playing, if you stripped it down and repainted 397 00:23:53,040 --> 00:23:56,080 it. The dragon models were fine but 398 00:23:56,080 --> 00:23:59,240 the infantry like you had like all the Spears like weird wobbly 399 00:23:59,240 --> 00:24:01,280 sticks on them. Yeah, it. 400 00:24:02,000 --> 00:24:05,920 Was it was not good? So funnily enough that game did 401 00:24:05,920 --> 00:24:09,880 not sell super well and I think it died on wave 2. 402 00:24:11,080 --> 00:24:16,720 Right, yeah, I think the fancy Flight 1 as well had some 403 00:24:16,720 --> 00:24:20,360 shocking shockers, real shockers in there, PVC plastic 404 00:24:20,360 --> 00:24:22,560 miniatures. This is going back quite, quite 405 00:24:22,560 --> 00:24:27,280 a number of years now when they had the license, but yeah, they 406 00:24:27,280 --> 00:24:31,000 were just shocking. And so it's good to see that 407 00:24:31,000 --> 00:24:33,720 now. I would presume that most, the 408 00:24:33,720 --> 00:24:37,600 most of the modern PVC plastics that are getting made out of 409 00:24:37,600 --> 00:24:40,960 China or whatever they're getting made out of are all 3D 410 00:24:40,960 --> 00:24:44,440 designed and they're using plastics that don't warp or bend 411 00:24:44,440 --> 00:24:48,200 OR give you the wonky swords and you know, all that kind of stuff 412 00:24:48,200 --> 00:24:53,040 now, which is good. So which is nice. 413 00:24:53,880 --> 00:24:56,200 It gets people into miniatures, you know, it gets gets your 414 00:24:56,200 --> 00:24:59,800 board gamers into miniatures, you know, So I think that's 415 00:24:59,800 --> 00:25:02,680 nice. I mean, kick Kickstarter now 416 00:25:02,680 --> 00:25:06,600 like so much emphasis is based on how cool are the models in 417 00:25:06,600 --> 00:25:10,640 the board game you're buying. So it's it's definitely a huge 418 00:25:10,640 --> 00:25:15,000 crossover there now. Yeah, I think, I think C1 sort 419 00:25:15,000 --> 00:25:20,000 of set the set the standards there, the benchmark and then 420 00:25:20,000 --> 00:25:22,360 everyone's just trying to catch up with them I think. 421 00:25:22,720 --> 00:25:26,720 And I think 3D design is yet has taken off massively. 422 00:25:27,960 --> 00:25:30,600 And that's that has helped a lot to bridge that gap, you know, 423 00:25:30,600 --> 00:25:34,240 between, you know, tradition, even though a lot of stuff is 424 00:25:34,240 --> 00:25:39,880 traditionally sculpted. I think they're what's it called 425 00:25:41,240 --> 00:25:43,960 dungeon massive, massive darkness. 426 00:25:43,960 --> 00:25:45,560 I think it's called like the dungeon crawl. 427 00:25:46,800 --> 00:25:49,480 Oh yeah. Yeah, that's really interesting. 428 00:25:49,480 --> 00:25:51,800 I really would love to play that at some stage. 429 00:25:52,560 --> 00:25:56,040 But all of those miniatures are hand designed, all hand sculpted 430 00:25:56,280 --> 00:26:00,360 from the French masters from the Rackham era. 431 00:26:00,360 --> 00:26:03,240 You know, all those guys, they started that guillotine games 432 00:26:03,240 --> 00:26:04,880 and yeah, all that's done by hand. 433 00:26:04,880 --> 00:26:09,080 And they then they make the moulds in, in Taiwan or China 434 00:26:09,080 --> 00:26:12,800 here and, and then make the PVC models out of those. 435 00:26:12,800 --> 00:26:13,880 And they look really, really nice. 436 00:26:13,880 --> 00:26:17,880 You know, they look fantastic. Loads of character to them. 437 00:26:17,880 --> 00:26:21,240 So yeah, it's, it's a good, good cross blend between the two, the 438 00:26:21,520 --> 00:26:24,400 traditional meets, you know, technology kind of thing. 439 00:26:25,360 --> 00:26:29,560 And I've even seen now another Belgian guy that I follow, 440 00:26:30,200 --> 00:26:33,240 Dennis Cornella, he's actually sculpting them, sculpting his 441 00:26:33,240 --> 00:26:36,240 miniatures by hand traditionally, then scanning 442 00:26:36,240 --> 00:26:41,200 them, making STL files of the scans, which is another sort of 443 00:26:41,200 --> 00:26:44,600 step, which I think is another great way. 444 00:26:44,600 --> 00:26:47,080 You know, you can buy the physical copies or you can buy 445 00:26:47,240 --> 00:26:51,000 the STL copies of the miniatures, which is a great way 446 00:26:51,000 --> 00:26:52,960 of doing it. Anyhow, we're sort of running 447 00:26:52,960 --> 00:26:55,640 out of time for this very first part and a half of our 448 00:26:55,640 --> 00:26:57,560 discussion today, David. So I'm going to take a quick 449 00:26:58,160 --> 00:27:01,080 little break here and then we'll be come back. 450 00:27:01,800 --> 00:27:06,880 We'll talk more about, yeah, your early days of gaming and 451 00:27:07,000 --> 00:27:11,600 how that's evolved into Warstorm games now. 452 00:27:11,600 --> 00:27:12,760 So we'll be back in just a moment. 453 00:27:13,600 --> 00:27:14,960 Crippling gaming addiction? Yeah. 454 00:27:14,960 --> 00:27:18,800 Warstorm games, yes. OK, back in a second. 455 00:27:19,200 --> 00:27:22,240 I'm excited to announce the return of the Hirohammer Fanzine 456 00:27:22,240 --> 00:27:25,760 Issue 4, which is due in March of 2025. 457 00:27:26,600 --> 00:27:29,240 If you have never heard of the Hirahama fanzine, then please 458 00:27:29,240 --> 00:27:35,520 visit hirahamahyphenfanzine.com to download your free copy of 459 00:27:35,520 --> 00:27:39,720 the first three issues today. And thank you to all the people 460 00:27:39,720 --> 00:27:42,520 that have reached out to help contribute to our hobby 461 00:27:42,520 --> 00:27:44,760 magazine. Now let's get back to the show. 462 00:27:44,760 --> 00:27:50,600 But but anyhow, mate, let's talk about hobby now. 463 00:27:50,840 --> 00:27:53,960 You you discussed before about buying a 10 LB army, which is 464 00:27:53,960 --> 00:27:55,800 amazing. That's that's a super saving 465 00:27:55,800 --> 00:27:57,560 deal, that one with the wood elves. 466 00:27:57,560 --> 00:27:59,520 So wood elves were your first army, I take it? 467 00:27:59,520 --> 00:28:02,600 Yeah. Yeah, they were my first 468 00:28:02,600 --> 00:28:08,400 Warhammer army, so trying to remember the order of events. 469 00:28:08,400 --> 00:28:11,200 Yes no, yeah, it's the Wood Elves say army. 470 00:28:11,200 --> 00:28:17,080 I I think it was like the the gateway into it. 471 00:28:17,560 --> 00:28:20,760 I don't think I had enough stuff from that to really call it an 472 00:28:20,760 --> 00:28:24,720 army at the time. It's like it's my what else 473 00:28:24,720 --> 00:28:30,840 army. So yeah, it may be like 20 of 474 00:28:30,840 --> 00:28:34,480 those plastic Archers. And it was like from the starter 475 00:28:34,480 --> 00:28:41,360 set of the game, I think. So there wasn't like a a bunch 476 00:28:41,360 --> 00:28:43,480 of infantry or cavalry? I think it was mostly just those 477 00:28:43,480 --> 00:28:47,360 Archers and possibly some war dancers if I remember correctly. 478 00:28:48,400 --> 00:28:51,440 I'm. Trying to think that like, what 479 00:28:51,440 --> 00:28:52,800 would they've actually got that from? 480 00:28:53,520 --> 00:28:56,040 And I can't for the life of me work out how they had those 481 00:28:56,040 --> 00:28:59,960 random assortments. I guess maybe someone Christmas 482 00:28:59,960 --> 00:29:02,600 presents and stuff they just didn't want anymore. 483 00:29:02,600 --> 00:29:05,680 But yeah, yeah. So I saw Elves and that was like 484 00:29:05,800 --> 00:29:10,360 my introduction and sort of painting because once I had the 485 00:29:10,360 --> 00:29:12,360 models and I was like telling my parents like, hey, I've got 486 00:29:12,360 --> 00:29:14,880 these now, so can I buy some paints to paint them? 487 00:29:15,880 --> 00:29:19,080 We went into that, but then actually the first game I 488 00:29:19,080 --> 00:29:22,560 started properly playing was Epic. 489 00:29:23,600 --> 00:29:27,480 Oh good man. So again, the friend of mine 490 00:29:27,480 --> 00:29:30,160 from school, yeah, it's a wonderful game. 491 00:29:30,160 --> 00:29:34,520 And I keep looking at the the new version, what's it called? 492 00:29:34,520 --> 00:29:37,560 The adapters Imperialis. And I keep being slightly 493 00:29:37,560 --> 00:29:40,720 tempted by it, but there's no one here who plays it. 494 00:29:40,720 --> 00:29:44,560 So it would be me painting tiny models for the sake of painting 495 00:29:44,560 --> 00:29:49,120 tiny models. But yeah, no, my friend from 496 00:29:49,120 --> 00:29:52,400 school, that was like the game he wanted to play before we both 497 00:29:52,720 --> 00:29:56,600 eventually ended up back into Warhammer and I got my dwarfs. 498 00:29:57,120 --> 00:30:03,240 So yeah, I think I had an orc, orc epic army and he had a space 499 00:30:03,240 --> 00:30:07,600 Marine epic army. So that that was like our first 500 00:30:08,640 --> 00:30:13,560 first kind of proper gaming experience and my my first 501 00:30:13,800 --> 00:30:18,080 tabletop gaming experience, which is a hell of a game to 502 00:30:18,080 --> 00:30:21,000 start off with, I think. It's a beautiful game to start 503 00:30:21,000 --> 00:30:22,280 off with. That's how, that's how what we 504 00:30:22,280 --> 00:30:27,120 did me and Chris, because, yeah, because Warhammer was just way 505 00:30:27,120 --> 00:30:29,800 too expensive to get into. He he didn't particularly like 506 00:30:29,800 --> 00:30:33,680 it either. And Rogue Trader was out at that 507 00:30:33,680 --> 00:30:36,080 stage. And I think it was the same kind 508 00:30:36,080 --> 00:30:41,560 of, you know, financial limitations and getting the 509 00:30:41,560 --> 00:30:43,200 miniatures and all that kind of stuff. 510 00:30:43,200 --> 00:30:45,440 So yeah, this we just went in on. 511 00:30:45,520 --> 00:30:47,960 I just took a punt on Space Marine Second Edition. 512 00:30:48,440 --> 00:30:51,520 And that was it for us that we just absolutely loved and adored 513 00:30:51,520 --> 00:30:53,560 that, that the whole system, the whole game. 514 00:30:53,680 --> 00:30:59,000 So we spent many, many weekends playing that on the floor, on 515 00:30:59,000 --> 00:31:00,640 the carpet. Right. 516 00:31:00,640 --> 00:31:02,040 Yeah. Which was at Battlefield then, 517 00:31:02,040 --> 00:31:05,640 yeah. Yeah, when I, when I finally got 518 00:31:05,640 --> 00:31:09,040 into 40K, actually that would have been I think 3rd edition 519 00:31:10,720 --> 00:31:15,400 again, a different friend of mine, he got a Blood Angels army 520 00:31:16,280 --> 00:31:18,320 and I think I had Elder first for that. 521 00:31:19,320 --> 00:31:23,160 And yeah, that again was like on on the floor, shoe boxes for 522 00:31:23,160 --> 00:31:25,920 terrain and random bits of cardboard. 523 00:31:29,560 --> 00:31:31,280 Yeah, yeah, that's good, good times. 524 00:31:31,280 --> 00:31:35,720 That was like, I must spend 1213 at the time I guess. 525 00:31:37,840 --> 00:31:40,400 Yeah, well, a while back anyway. Yeah. 526 00:31:40,400 --> 00:31:41,760 Good days, mate. Good days. 527 00:31:43,120 --> 00:31:44,960 Yeah. Yeah, I cherished those moments, 528 00:31:44,960 --> 00:31:46,320 even. Yeah, because I was thinking 529 00:31:46,320 --> 00:31:48,960 about terrain, because we didn't have any terrain. 530 00:31:48,960 --> 00:31:50,880 I didn't have trees or anything like that. 531 00:31:51,520 --> 00:31:55,680 Maybe I had, yeah, Maybe I had some stuff left over from my 532 00:31:55,680 --> 00:31:57,760 train set because that was the first thing I got. 533 00:31:58,080 --> 00:32:02,800 My dad got me into, you know, building train sets and the 534 00:32:02,800 --> 00:32:06,520 terrain, the paper mesh shape, hills and tunnels and stuff like 535 00:32:06,520 --> 00:32:09,000 that. Maybe I had some bits and pieces 536 00:32:09,000 --> 00:32:12,040 leftover from that to use as trees and what have you. 537 00:32:12,040 --> 00:32:15,280 But I remember like getting lichen bags of lichen. 538 00:32:15,280 --> 00:32:18,840 That was a that was a, a God save, God saving thing. 539 00:32:18,840 --> 00:32:21,120 That was because you just needed a bag of that and you got like 540 00:32:21,120 --> 00:32:24,640 shrubs and instant kind of, you know, vegetation on the 541 00:32:24,640 --> 00:32:27,960 tabletop. But again, we didn't have a 542 00:32:27,960 --> 00:32:29,760 table. We just had the floor, which 543 00:32:29,760 --> 00:32:33,440 evolved into a table tennis table because that was the craze 544 00:32:33,440 --> 00:32:35,920 back then. All the game, all the guys in a 545 00:32:35,920 --> 00:32:39,640 gaming group would go out and try to find a table tennis table 546 00:32:39,880 --> 00:32:42,640 in the newspaper for like 50 bucks or something like that, 547 00:32:42,640 --> 00:32:46,480 you know, second hand. And that gave us the instant 548 00:32:46,480 --> 00:32:48,680 green, you know, table for us to play on. 549 00:32:48,680 --> 00:32:53,200 It was great. And I still have a memory of 550 00:32:53,200 --> 00:32:56,920 whatever's left of my memory back in those days of me, 551 00:32:56,920 --> 00:33:04,200 Marcus, Brad and I think another guy playing epic Space Marine in 552 00:33:04,200 --> 00:33:07,200 the 90s on that, on that table tennis table. 553 00:33:07,880 --> 00:33:15,560 Yeah, I'll make good times. That's what we're missing. 554 00:33:19,120 --> 00:33:21,480 Just exactly right. That's the vital in green. 555 00:33:21,720 --> 00:33:23,600 Green. I think someone put posts up in 556 00:33:23,600 --> 00:33:27,680 on Facebook in the second edition 40K group about that, 557 00:33:27,680 --> 00:33:30,160 you know, what was people, what were people eating when they're 558 00:33:30,160 --> 00:33:34,200 playing second edition in the 90s? 559 00:33:34,200 --> 00:33:36,560 And I think strangely enough, I think I was the only person who 560 00:33:36,560 --> 00:33:38,720 put McDonald's down. I thought was very, I thought 561 00:33:38,720 --> 00:33:40,520 that was unbelievable. I thought most people eating 562 00:33:40,520 --> 00:33:43,720 McDonald's, most it was pizza and God knows what other 563 00:33:43,720 --> 00:33:46,480 combination of culinary desert delights they could come up 564 00:33:46,480 --> 00:33:48,280 with. But yeah. 565 00:33:48,880 --> 00:33:49,200 You. Know. 566 00:33:49,200 --> 00:33:55,240 Kind of, you know. No, we we didn't really have 567 00:33:55,240 --> 00:33:57,560 much of that where I was. We were kind of like on the 568 00:33:57,560 --> 00:34:01,560 outskirts of the city. Well, I'm sure your stomach will 569 00:34:01,560 --> 00:34:03,360 thank thank you for that wholeheartedly. 570 00:34:03,440 --> 00:34:05,840 You'll live a few years longer than than me mate, that's for 571 00:34:05,840 --> 00:34:09,080 sure. I was at some point. 572 00:34:09,440 --> 00:34:12,280 There's a few years when you're when you're 90, isn't it? 573 00:34:12,280 --> 00:34:14,040 You know when you're in, you're in bed and you can't walk 574 00:34:14,040 --> 00:34:17,040 properly and everything hurts. Not not a few years extra when 575 00:34:17,040 --> 00:34:17,880 you're 20. That's. 576 00:34:18,120 --> 00:34:25,320 That's the wrong now. Actually, I'm 50 anyhow, anyhow, 577 00:34:25,320 --> 00:34:27,480 we're sort of we're sort of off the rails again. 578 00:34:27,480 --> 00:34:30,360 We'll get this train, let's get this dwarf land train back on 579 00:34:30,360 --> 00:34:34,400 the on its tracks. And so you had, you had your 580 00:34:34,400 --> 00:34:38,880 wood off army and then you had. Epic was the first propagating. 581 00:34:38,880 --> 00:34:42,560 Epic epic. The orc epic army as well. 582 00:34:42,719 --> 00:34:45,840 So how did this turn into working for Gangs Workshop? 583 00:34:48,040 --> 00:34:53,840 Well, I think this was, Oh yeah, it would have been like by five 584 00:34:53,840 --> 00:34:57,840 years after I started with the epics, yeah, I would have been 585 00:34:57,840 --> 00:35:01,280 about 1212 or 13, maybe a little bit younger. 586 00:35:01,600 --> 00:35:05,360 So I've been playing the games for about, yes, seven or eight 587 00:35:05,360 --> 00:35:09,560 years by the time I was living in Wales. 588 00:35:09,560 --> 00:35:11,840 And then there was a Games Workshop much closer to me. 589 00:35:11,840 --> 00:35:16,040 So I was going there pretty much every weekend and just doing 590 00:35:16,040 --> 00:35:18,520 whatever stuff they were doing there, playing with people. 591 00:35:19,400 --> 00:35:21,520 I was pretty friendly with the staff. 592 00:35:21,520 --> 00:35:24,120 I was about to go up to university and needed a part 593 00:35:24,120 --> 00:35:27,000 time job. So they were the first place I 594 00:35:27,000 --> 00:35:29,560 went into. They happened to be hiring at 595 00:35:29,560 --> 00:35:34,400 the time when I was looking. And yeah, sort of went through 596 00:35:34,400 --> 00:35:37,600 the the classic Games Workshop interview process. 597 00:35:37,960 --> 00:35:40,240 I don't know how much has changed now because again, this 598 00:35:40,240 --> 00:35:48,360 is a fair, fair while ago. But yeah, so I was working as a 599 00:35:48,360 --> 00:35:56,840 part timer from when I was 18 through to about, yeah, 2122 600 00:35:56,840 --> 00:36:00,640 when I finished university. And then I jumped into a 601 00:36:00,640 --> 00:36:06,120 different job after that. But yeah, it was, it was good. 602 00:36:06,120 --> 00:36:07,600 I I enjoyed it for the most part. 603 00:36:08,320 --> 00:36:14,400 The the corporate style of games workshops a little mixed. 604 00:36:16,800 --> 00:36:21,560 I think again, a bit of a problem with a lot of the bigger 605 00:36:21,560 --> 00:36:28,440 hobby companies is they either end up being kind of mismanaged 606 00:36:28,440 --> 00:36:32,560 because everyone's super buddy buddy and we're all in it for we 607 00:36:32,560 --> 00:36:35,200 love the hobby, but we don't really understand the business. 608 00:36:35,200 --> 00:36:38,200 So we're just sort of doing what we love and hoping for the best. 609 00:36:39,480 --> 00:36:43,040 Or it becomes like super corporate and then you're just 610 00:36:43,040 --> 00:36:45,280 constantly trying to fight with like, we need to do this because 611 00:36:45,280 --> 00:36:48,120 people want this. And then corporate is like, no, 612 00:36:48,440 --> 00:36:50,120 don't do this. This doesn't make money. 613 00:36:52,040 --> 00:36:55,240 Yeah. There's always absolute fight 614 00:36:55,240 --> 00:36:59,480 with with businesses, but yeah no for the most part it was 615 00:36:59,480 --> 00:37:03,600 pretty good. Used to do all the Thursday 616 00:37:03,600 --> 00:37:06,960 night battle bunker stuff. So not Thursday night. 617 00:37:07,600 --> 00:37:10,600 Saturday night battle bunker. Thursday was warstorm was 618 00:37:10,600 --> 00:37:11,440 firestorm. Sorry. 619 00:37:14,040 --> 00:37:18,160 So yeah, Saturday, Sundays for the late night gaming in 620 00:37:18,160 --> 00:37:20,920 Cardiff. And we used to like for a small, 621 00:37:20,920 --> 00:37:25,320 small shop, we used to get like 20 or so players coming in and 622 00:37:25,320 --> 00:37:28,680 then there was a pub next door and you know, the older guys 623 00:37:28,680 --> 00:37:30,560 would go down to that while they were waiting for the game and 624 00:37:30,560 --> 00:37:34,880 come in a bit afterwards times. Yeah, good, mate. 625 00:37:36,360 --> 00:37:38,840 Yeah, I'm sure you have some really good memories there of 626 00:37:38,840 --> 00:37:43,200 that time. So then you eventually came to 627 00:37:43,200 --> 00:37:46,120 Japan. Yeah. 628 00:37:46,120 --> 00:37:49,720 So we, we always sort of involve the gaming or gaming yourself 629 00:37:49,720 --> 00:37:52,440 with other people during that time from, you know, from the 630 00:37:52,440 --> 00:37:55,840 times of Games Workshop to up to now when you came to Japan. 631 00:37:56,680 --> 00:37:58,760 Pretty much, yeah. I mean, there was, there's maybe 632 00:37:58,760 --> 00:38:03,520 like a brief window where I stopped playing Games Workshop 633 00:38:03,520 --> 00:38:10,040 stuff. So I think it was either 4th or 634 00:38:10,040 --> 00:38:13,280 5th edition of 40K. Just sort of put me off for a 635 00:38:13,280 --> 00:38:20,360 while right as I was like my my minor gripes with Games 636 00:38:20,360 --> 00:38:23,160 Workshop. I hope they'll forgive me they 637 00:38:23,160 --> 00:38:25,840 listen to this. You're selling this stuff now? 638 00:38:25,960 --> 00:38:28,920 Yeah, Yeah, I know. But I'm making them money. 639 00:38:28,920 --> 00:38:33,480 They've got it most to me. Basically, yeah, because I was a 640 00:38:33,480 --> 00:38:37,320 part timer. So I think it was 4th edition 641 00:38:37,920 --> 00:38:43,360 was just being released and obviously we had to run demo 642 00:38:43,360 --> 00:38:45,480 games for people. That was like a big part of the 643 00:38:45,480 --> 00:38:49,720 job. It's they gave free rule books 644 00:38:49,720 --> 00:38:52,840 to all of the staff except the part timers. 645 00:38:53,440 --> 00:38:57,600 And then they wanted the part to buy like this 50 LB rule book, 646 00:38:58,000 --> 00:39:02,320 which at the time that's like as a weekends of work. 647 00:39:02,320 --> 00:39:06,080 You know, why? Why am I having to spend my 648 00:39:06,080 --> 00:39:09,680 money to teach the game that you want me to teach to people? 649 00:39:09,680 --> 00:39:12,280 Like give give me a rule book, please. 650 00:39:15,040 --> 00:39:17,360 And then, you know, considering like all of the discounts you 651 00:39:17,360 --> 00:39:21,440 got at the time anyway, it just felt it was, yeah, it was it was 652 00:39:21,880 --> 00:39:23,440 not not a great move on their part. 653 00:39:23,440 --> 00:39:30,560 I felt so that that annoyed me. And then basically from that I 654 00:39:30,560 --> 00:39:32,640 just because I didn't learn the rules, like I don't have a rule 655 00:39:32,640 --> 00:39:33,600 book. I'm not learning this. 656 00:39:33,600 --> 00:39:38,320 I'm not paying to learn this so I I stopped playing games 657 00:39:38,320 --> 00:39:40,800 version for a while and I got into war machine. 658 00:39:43,720 --> 00:39:46,480 So I don't know if you have you played War Machine at all. 659 00:39:47,080 --> 00:39:49,440 I have tried it, it just wasn't my thing mate. 660 00:39:50,240 --> 00:39:53,640 No, that's, that's fair. It, it stopped being my thing 661 00:39:53,640 --> 00:39:58,240 pretty quickly too, for a while again, because like a lot of my 662 00:39:58,240 --> 00:40:01,880 friends are playing it. So I sort of, I persevered for a 663 00:40:01,880 --> 00:40:06,080 while. But that was, yeah, this sort of 664 00:40:06,080 --> 00:40:11,840 a side thing, I think for a few years it was mostly sort of role 665 00:40:11,840 --> 00:40:19,080 play games for a good four or five years until I then working 666 00:40:19,080 --> 00:40:24,600 for Firestorm. And then just working with 667 00:40:24,600 --> 00:40:28,560 Firestorm is like, OK, let's let's give tabletop games 668 00:40:28,560 --> 00:40:30,680 another go. And then I went back into a war 669 00:40:30,680 --> 00:40:33,080 machine first because that was the most popular game at the 670 00:40:33,080 --> 00:40:37,480 time, and then they kind of screwed that up. 671 00:40:38,160 --> 00:40:42,840 So I jumped back into 40K and then I moved to Japan. 672 00:40:45,600 --> 00:40:49,040 Did you have high expectations of finding a player group in 673 00:40:49,040 --> 00:40:51,560 Japan? No, not at all. 674 00:40:52,440 --> 00:41:00,120 I think when when I moved here, I brought my Blood Bowl team and 675 00:41:00,120 --> 00:41:04,400 my Malafo stuff because it was just small and I liked the 676 00:41:04,400 --> 00:41:07,760 models. So I had those. 677 00:41:07,840 --> 00:41:10,040 Oh, and Guild, Guild Ball, I had that with me as well because the 678 00:41:10,040 --> 00:41:11,800 same reason, just small and I liked the models. 679 00:41:12,520 --> 00:41:14,960 So I was like, on the chance I find someone who's sort of 680 00:41:14,960 --> 00:41:18,840 interested, it's a very low buy in point to sort of get someone 681 00:41:18,840 --> 00:41:22,440 else to play. And then I've played any of 682 00:41:22,440 --> 00:41:23,600 those games since I've been here. 683 00:41:26,600 --> 00:41:27,800 So what? What? 684 00:41:28,280 --> 00:41:30,040 Because I think you're, you're like me. 685 00:41:30,040 --> 00:41:34,320 I I live in an isolated area of Japan, not close to the major 686 00:41:34,320 --> 00:41:37,040 cities. And you live in Shizuka 687 00:41:37,040 --> 00:41:39,360 Prefecture at the base of Mount Fuji. 688 00:41:39,360 --> 00:41:41,200 I believe. I'm not I'm not exactly the 689 00:41:41,200 --> 00:41:43,600 pinpoint location exactly where you are, but. 690 00:41:44,760 --> 00:41:47,920 Yeah, I'm so honestly, Mount Fuji is still pretty far away. 691 00:41:47,920 --> 00:41:50,720 It's like a four hour drive. It just how does it feel? 692 00:41:51,200 --> 00:41:55,160 Yeah, it just, it's so weird on the perspective, like it looks 693 00:41:55,160 --> 00:41:57,640 super close. But yeah, if you try and drive 694 00:41:58,160 --> 00:42:00,440 good, 3-4 hours. Wow. 695 00:42:00,640 --> 00:42:04,520 OK, yeah, yeah, it's, it's, it's big. 696 00:42:05,880 --> 00:42:08,760 So, but I'm, I'm still kind of far away. 697 00:42:09,680 --> 00:42:12,720 So if, if you are, if you're in a car, then it's super 698 00:42:12,720 --> 00:42:16,680 convenient because the Tomei exit's like 3 minutes away. 699 00:42:17,480 --> 00:42:19,040 But not even that. Yeah, it's you can. 700 00:42:19,040 --> 00:42:22,160 You can see the Tomei exit from my house effectively. 701 00:42:22,880 --> 00:42:25,680 Right. OK, it might because I know one 702 00:42:25,680 --> 00:42:29,400 other, a friend of mine here, Tom, was interested in coming to 703 00:42:29,400 --> 00:42:32,720 one of your Age of Sigma events at some stage. 704 00:42:33,960 --> 00:42:36,560 So I might come down there with my epic Space Marine one day, 705 00:42:36,560 --> 00:42:38,120 mate, who knows? Nice. 706 00:42:38,960 --> 00:42:41,320 I mean, I'd have to pick up on me again, but I'm I'm 707 00:42:41,320 --> 00:42:42,200 definitely. Up for that? 708 00:42:44,520 --> 00:42:48,680 We'll bring some old hammer to all of the Hawthorne games. 709 00:42:48,840 --> 00:42:54,280 Yes, but so So what what what became the like? 710 00:42:54,280 --> 00:42:57,160 I know you talked about you know your your writing experience and 711 00:42:57,160 --> 00:43:00,360 you you're a you're a professional writer and you 712 00:43:00,360 --> 00:43:02,880 write books, but you're looking for another Ave. apart from 713 00:43:02,880 --> 00:43:05,160 teaching. What sort of crossed the line 714 00:43:05,160 --> 00:43:08,200 then for you to start up War Storm Games? 715 00:43:10,560 --> 00:43:16,040 So that's a hard one to answer in a direct way. 716 00:43:17,480 --> 00:43:22,960 I think mostly it was the fact that, and I mean my, my boss 717 00:43:22,960 --> 00:43:25,120 himself has said this, this isn't like a big secret or 718 00:43:25,120 --> 00:43:28,440 anything. So teaching is not a long term 719 00:43:28,440 --> 00:43:33,760 profession in Japan like you either I think start your own a 720 00:43:33,760 --> 00:43:39,440 Kiowa here or you got to find something else after a while. 721 00:43:40,120 --> 00:43:44,080 So I've been doing this for eight years now, six years with 722 00:43:44,080 --> 00:43:49,000 the place I'm at. And it was a case of, you know, 723 00:43:49,000 --> 00:43:50,640 what, what, what am I doing next? 724 00:43:50,640 --> 00:43:55,520 I don't, I didn't have the aspirations to be an English 725 00:43:55,840 --> 00:44:02,320 school owner just because of the level of where I am. 726 00:44:02,600 --> 00:44:08,040 And that sort of that constant stress and fight to find and 727 00:44:08,040 --> 00:44:12,360 keep new students. It's like that that's always a 728 00:44:12,360 --> 00:44:15,640 thing. And you know, you're, you're 729 00:44:15,640 --> 00:44:20,480 providing for that like a sort of a not, not like a life 730 00:44:20,480 --> 00:44:24,960 altering service, But given the importance of English within the 731 00:44:24,960 --> 00:44:28,120 Japanese education system, you know, I think if you're offering 732 00:44:28,120 --> 00:44:33,920 an English service and it's not as good as it can be, that's 733 00:44:34,000 --> 00:44:37,600 that's not great like that. That's a pretty serious thing. 734 00:44:37,600 --> 00:44:40,280 And I think, you know, obviously there are some good schools 735 00:44:40,280 --> 00:44:41,960 here. I also think there's a lot of 736 00:44:41,960 --> 00:44:44,840 people who just get into it. They think it's an easy, easy 737 00:44:44,840 --> 00:44:47,560 way to make a bit of money and it is if you want to be lazy at 738 00:44:47,560 --> 00:44:50,080 it, you could definitely go down that route. 739 00:44:50,320 --> 00:44:53,880 But that that wasn't for me. I didn't want to sort of not do 740 00:44:53,880 --> 00:44:58,360 something I'm like very passionate about when it's such 741 00:44:58,360 --> 00:45:03,440 a big deal students. So then it came down to like, 742 00:45:03,440 --> 00:45:07,440 well, what can I do that's not teaching my Japanese? 743 00:45:07,440 --> 00:45:10,680 I don't have any of the, the certifications, so I couldn't 744 00:45:10,680 --> 00:45:12,160 get like an office job or anything like that. 745 00:45:13,000 --> 00:45:16,320 My Japanese is possible. But yeah, I'm, I'm not a 746 00:45:16,320 --> 00:45:19,600 professional speaker or a fluent speaker, I guess would be a 747 00:45:19,600 --> 00:45:24,360 better term for it. So then I thought, yeah, you 748 00:45:24,360 --> 00:45:28,560 know, the, the war gaming came around again because we have a, 749 00:45:29,920 --> 00:45:33,720 a second building on the, the property here we're in because 750 00:45:33,720 --> 00:45:36,000 we're in the countryside. We've got quite a large space. 751 00:45:36,560 --> 00:45:39,520 So we've got our main house and then as a second older property. 752 00:45:40,720 --> 00:45:43,520 So it was just a dumping ground. I was like, well, I can just 753 00:45:43,880 --> 00:45:46,920 turn that into a shop. Oh, brilliant. 754 00:45:48,440 --> 00:45:50,960 Because for the part of the Games Workshop contract, you 755 00:45:50,960 --> 00:45:54,000 have to have a physical location now, right. 756 00:45:54,680 --> 00:45:58,720 So that there was for a while they were testing out like 757 00:45:58,720 --> 00:46:01,560 online only, only stores. But because people are just 758 00:46:01,560 --> 00:46:04,120 doing super discounts and stuff and it was like just really 759 00:46:04,120 --> 00:46:07,160 undercutting everything. They, they put a stop to that 760 00:46:07,160 --> 00:46:10,480 like, no, you must have an accessible brick and mortar 761 00:46:10,480 --> 00:46:14,440 store open for X number of hours every week before we'll even 762 00:46:14,440 --> 00:46:16,880 consider. So I was like, great, OK, open 763 00:46:16,880 --> 00:46:19,640 the space, get some tables in there. 764 00:46:21,160 --> 00:46:24,480 So because it's already on my property, you know, I'm not 765 00:46:24,480 --> 00:46:27,600 paying rent to anyone, which was the main things. 766 00:46:28,200 --> 00:46:36,400 If it's OK, you know, my worst case scenario was I put like, I 767 00:46:36,440 --> 00:46:41,920 just like ¥500,000, like half ¥1,000,000 into like stock and 768 00:46:41,920 --> 00:46:45,560 furnishing. And then, you know, if it all 769 00:46:45,560 --> 00:46:49,920 goes tits up, well, I've still got a whole bunch of plastic 770 00:46:49,920 --> 00:46:53,360 toys I can either sell off to make most of the money back or 771 00:46:53,360 --> 00:46:55,320 hey, I've got like 50 new armies now. 772 00:46:58,320 --> 00:47:04,320 You know, it was like very low risk entry point for me, which 773 00:47:04,880 --> 00:47:09,840 given what I know a lot of start up game shops go through, I I've 774 00:47:09,840 --> 00:47:13,360 definitely had an easier route with my situation. 775 00:47:13,360 --> 00:47:16,720 I've been very lucky there. So it just kind of like fell 776 00:47:16,720 --> 00:47:20,840 into place ultimately, I guess is the short answer for how I 777 00:47:20,840 --> 00:47:23,120 got into the war games, like I like games. 778 00:47:23,240 --> 00:47:25,880 I want a new job. I have an empty building. 779 00:47:26,280 --> 00:47:29,720 Let's let's just do it. Let's roll those dice. 780 00:47:30,320 --> 00:47:33,160 Yeah, yeah. When I, when I saw the pictures, 781 00:47:33,160 --> 00:47:36,160 I thought, wow, that's, that's really brave of David to do this 782 00:47:36,160 --> 00:47:38,480 because I, you know, I know you've got a family and 783 00:47:38,480 --> 00:47:40,360 everything. I don't, you know, if I could do 784 00:47:40,360 --> 00:47:44,440 that, like at the at the risk of losing everything, you know what 785 00:47:44,440 --> 00:47:46,360 I mean? But knowing that now you had to 786 00:47:46,360 --> 00:47:49,120 like abandoned building and you sort of just restored it and 787 00:47:49,120 --> 00:47:51,280 converted into a game store. I think that's a brilliant 788 00:47:51,280 --> 00:47:53,120 opportunity, mate. I think that's fantastic. 789 00:47:53,600 --> 00:47:57,680 And then to see people there gaming there and you can see 790 00:47:57,680 --> 00:47:59,800 people on the Facebook group that you've got there. 791 00:48:00,480 --> 00:48:02,920 And I was like, wow, there's, there's actually people gaming 792 00:48:02,920 --> 00:48:05,200 and playing games and not just Games Workshop. 793 00:48:05,200 --> 00:48:08,080 They're playing, you know, bold action or what have you. 794 00:48:08,080 --> 00:48:11,680 And, and it seemed quite a number of, you know, people 795 00:48:11,720 --> 00:48:15,480 there actively playing, which is really nice to see as well. 796 00:48:15,480 --> 00:48:18,560 So it's great that you're sort of building a little community 797 00:48:18,720 --> 00:48:21,080 of players and gamers around your store. 798 00:48:22,200 --> 00:48:25,880 Well, you say around my store, I mean, I sort of I opened with 799 00:48:25,880 --> 00:48:31,160 the plan of having 8 gaming tables because when I, when I 800 00:48:31,160 --> 00:48:34,360 was talking to one of my old Co workers from Firestorm, he's 801 00:48:34,360 --> 00:48:37,280 like the events manager there. So I just told him like, you 802 00:48:37,280 --> 00:48:41,480 know, getting some advice on what would be a good number of 803 00:48:42,040 --> 00:48:44,080 tables to actually have and like, what would be his 804 00:48:44,080 --> 00:48:48,400 recommendation for setting up. And yeah, 616 was basically like 805 00:48:48,400 --> 00:48:53,760 the magic number of this lets you run like 16 player spaces is 806 00:48:53,840 --> 00:48:55,920 a good size tournament. So that that was my aim. 807 00:48:56,480 --> 00:49:01,040 But ultimately, because I am a little bit farther away from any 808 00:49:01,040 --> 00:49:03,320 sort of train stations and public transport isn't so great, 809 00:49:04,200 --> 00:49:07,000 I wasn't expecting a huge number of players to actually come 810 00:49:07,000 --> 00:49:09,800 down. And then I've got people 811 00:49:09,800 --> 00:49:13,800 travelling from Chiba and Nagano and stuff. 812 00:49:13,800 --> 00:49:16,160 So like I've got a lot of guys driving. 813 00:49:16,800 --> 00:49:18,880 Yeah. Again, like 3-4 hours to come 814 00:49:18,880 --> 00:49:21,560 down and play these events, which is amazing. 815 00:49:22,520 --> 00:49:25,280 I, I was very surprised by that. But again, I guess it's the 816 00:49:25,280 --> 00:49:27,240 whole, if you build it, they will come. 817 00:49:28,640 --> 00:49:32,480 Yeah. Nice, mate. 818 00:49:32,480 --> 00:49:33,640 That's great. Yeah. 819 00:49:33,760 --> 00:49:36,320 I'm really happy that people are making the effort to come out 820 00:49:36,320 --> 00:49:40,240 there because like you say, unless you don't tell anybody 821 00:49:40,240 --> 00:49:42,800 about it, no one's going to get there, no one's going to come, 822 00:49:42,800 --> 00:49:44,040 no one's going to know anything about you. 823 00:49:44,040 --> 00:49:48,400 So hopefully that will grow and hopefully you get some young 824 00:49:48,400 --> 00:49:51,440 blood in there, Some, you know, young Japanese boys or girls 825 00:49:51,440 --> 00:49:54,960 curious about painting or playing some of these games 826 00:49:54,960 --> 00:49:58,840 you've got on your shelf. And you know, you sort of build 827 00:49:58,840 --> 00:50:01,720 it that way as well. So you've got some local guys 828 00:50:01,720 --> 00:50:05,040 and local kids coming in and playing games and buying 829 00:50:05,040 --> 00:50:08,840 product, you know, and growing the the tabletop war gaming 830 00:50:08,840 --> 00:50:13,160 hobby as we know and love. For the last Bolt action event, 831 00:50:13,680 --> 00:50:18,360 we actually had a family come down from Nagano to play in 832 00:50:18,360 --> 00:50:21,480 that. So I got the yeah, dad, dad and 833 00:50:21,480 --> 00:50:25,280 his two sons. So yeah, you know, you're 834 00:50:25,280 --> 00:50:27,400 definitely seeing like that kind of like family culture of 835 00:50:27,400 --> 00:50:33,440 playing, playing games come up. And it's not been confirmed yet, 836 00:50:33,880 --> 00:50:40,200 but I'm hopefully off to one of the universities in Chiba before 837 00:50:40,200 --> 00:50:43,080 the end of the year to run some demo games in the university as 838 00:50:43,080 --> 00:50:44,640 well. So kind of Oh. 839 00:50:44,920 --> 00:50:48,320 Right. As that's hopefully on the 840 00:50:48,320 --> 00:50:49,880 table. So I mean, that'll be obviously 841 00:50:49,880 --> 00:50:51,440 for students only. So it's not, I can sort of 842 00:50:51,440 --> 00:50:55,600 advertise, but yeah, like just trying to get into places like 843 00:50:55,600 --> 00:50:58,720 that is on my my plan just to sort of run more games and 844 00:50:58,720 --> 00:51:02,000 choose more people to the hobby. And again, you can like as a 845 00:51:02,160 --> 00:51:05,760 language learning thing because obviously the games are mostly 846 00:51:05,760 --> 00:51:08,520 in English. So it's a, it's a double win. 847 00:51:08,520 --> 00:51:10,720 You get to have fun and do some English. 848 00:51:11,800 --> 00:51:13,880 Yeah, that's good, mate. We should, We should definitely. 849 00:51:13,880 --> 00:51:16,720 I don't know if you know about it, but in Tokyo there's like a 850 00:51:16,720 --> 00:51:21,240 games show, like as in as in board games, tabletop gaming. 851 00:51:22,640 --> 00:51:25,280 There's some kind of exhibit that's held every year and now 852 00:51:25,280 --> 00:51:28,640 they've started including miniature games, miniature based 853 00:51:29,040 --> 00:51:32,040 tabletop games. I'm really keen to go down 854 00:51:32,040 --> 00:51:33,360 there. And I don't know if it's like a 855 00:51:33,360 --> 00:51:36,120 lottery system where you just put in your application and if 856 00:51:36,120 --> 00:51:39,280 you're lucky you'll get accepted and be able to come down and 857 00:51:39,280 --> 00:51:42,680 reserve a table. But I would love to run Test of 858 00:51:42,680 --> 00:51:46,120 Honour as a game there for people to try out. 859 00:51:46,120 --> 00:51:49,680 It's it's, it's so much fun. It's very thematic, very easy to 860 00:51:49,680 --> 00:51:52,960 pick up and play and you're just playing and enjoying and killing 861 00:51:52,960 --> 00:51:56,160 other samurai in no time. So yeah, we'll have to. 862 00:51:56,160 --> 00:51:58,520 We'll have to look at that and see if we can make sort of like 863 00:51:58,520 --> 00:52:02,040 a joint stall, you know, so warm storm games on one side, cram 864 00:52:02,040 --> 00:52:03,280 the command games on the other that. 865 00:52:04,000 --> 00:52:09,960 'D be pretty cool actually. I'm being probably next year now 866 00:52:09,960 --> 00:52:16,360 realistically, but a friend of mine, Annie, who is the owner of 867 00:52:16,360 --> 00:52:18,360 Bad Squido Games. Yeah. 868 00:52:18,360 --> 00:52:19,120 Annie Norman. Yeah. 869 00:52:19,680 --> 00:52:22,480 Yeah. So yeah, she used to work out of 870 00:52:22,480 --> 00:52:27,760 the back of Firestorm when I was working there, but obviously now 871 00:52:27,760 --> 00:52:31,160 she's she's off on her own and she's doing very, very well for 872 00:52:31,160 --> 00:52:32,760 herself, which is. Yeah, she is. 873 00:52:33,760 --> 00:52:37,400 But she she stocks a really nice range of Samurai models. 874 00:52:38,160 --> 00:52:41,400 She does. I'm I'm hoping I've already been 875 00:52:41,400 --> 00:52:44,840 in contact with her. I've been a bit lazy and just 876 00:52:44,840 --> 00:52:46,640 bouncing out obviously the financials. 877 00:52:46,640 --> 00:52:50,560 But yeah, I want to get the the Samurai from her in stock 878 00:52:51,080 --> 00:52:54,680 probably next year now, so that that definitely work out. 879 00:52:55,840 --> 00:52:57,840 Yeah, I'll definitely pick up a few of those because I really 880 00:52:57,840 --> 00:53:02,440 like Annie's models. I think she did it, she did a 881 00:53:02,440 --> 00:53:05,920 range of like female shield maidens as well. 882 00:53:05,920 --> 00:53:10,720 And I know about this the the samurai range that she has. 883 00:53:12,320 --> 00:53:15,120 So yeah, that'd be really nice to see that sort of diversity in 884 00:53:15,120 --> 00:53:18,160 in different kinds of model ranges as well in your shop. 885 00:53:18,520 --> 00:53:21,840 So it's not just Games Workshop, you have alternative miniatures. 886 00:53:22,520 --> 00:53:24,880 Yeah, from different companies and the sort of smaller 887 00:53:24,880 --> 00:53:29,160 companies that need a bit of a yeah, just need some more, you 888 00:53:29,160 --> 00:53:32,360 know, some more eyes on their on their product. 889 00:53:33,160 --> 00:53:37,880 And yeah, that sounds great. Yeah, I mean, I mean, when I 890 00:53:37,880 --> 00:53:42,000 first started doing the, the Bolt action, you know, I, I read 891 00:53:42,440 --> 00:53:46,000 do Warlord games and their international trade Rep there 892 00:53:46,000 --> 00:53:49,680 was pretty excited to hear someone in Japan's like, hey, I 893 00:53:49,680 --> 00:53:52,160 want to fucking stuff like yes, please. 894 00:53:52,160 --> 00:53:54,160 How do we, how do we make this happen? 895 00:53:56,440 --> 00:54:00,200 Well, no, it's, it's definitely, I mean, I'm, I'm always, I've 896 00:54:00,200 --> 00:54:03,280 always been a fan of the Games Workshop product. 897 00:54:03,280 --> 00:54:08,240 Like I, I do think they make high quality product, but at the 898 00:54:08,240 --> 00:54:12,320 same time, you know, there, there is so much stuff that's 899 00:54:12,320 --> 00:54:17,320 worth trying and playing. I mean like the one I'm adding 900 00:54:17,320 --> 00:54:21,800 to the website now is Moonstone. Yep. 901 00:54:23,000 --> 00:54:27,440 So again, getting that in stock again, actually someone I used 902 00:54:27,440 --> 00:54:31,440 to work with at Games Workshop, Mick Green is the the manager 903 00:54:31,440 --> 00:54:33,280 for that. So yeah, it's, it's, it's kind 904 00:54:33,280 --> 00:54:37,400 of funny how a lot of people I know are just running these game 905 00:54:37,400 --> 00:54:39,760 things now. But yeah, I mean, Moonstone, you 906 00:54:39,760 --> 00:54:41,000 know, it's an award-winning game. 907 00:54:41,000 --> 00:54:44,640 It genuinely looks fantastic. And a few people already asked 908 00:54:44,640 --> 00:54:46,720 about it. So I'm, I'm excited to get that 909 00:54:46,720 --> 00:54:51,000 in store just out of stocking Infinity as well. 910 00:54:51,280 --> 00:54:55,600 So with N5 coming out. So yeah, no, I definitely want 911 00:54:55,600 --> 00:54:59,960 to get as much as I can in because even if it's like just a 912 00:54:59,960 --> 00:55:05,840 small holding of core products, someone will want to try it, you 913 00:55:05,840 --> 00:55:08,000 know, and you just, you never know who's going to find like 914 00:55:08,000 --> 00:55:11,800 their next favorite game that they really connect with just 915 00:55:11,800 --> 00:55:14,840 because you had something for them to try. 916 00:55:15,400 --> 00:55:17,720 So I I think variety is important for sure. 917 00:55:19,200 --> 00:55:21,960 Yes, I think so too. I love independent game stores 918 00:55:21,960 --> 00:55:25,440 for that reason, because there's always something there that 919 00:55:25,440 --> 00:55:28,280 maybe you've never seen before or you've seen advertised or 920 00:55:28,280 --> 00:55:29,760 seen on a video. And then you get to see the 921 00:55:29,760 --> 00:55:32,840 actual physical product in front of you and hold it and all that 922 00:55:32,840 --> 00:55:35,720 kind of thing and, and make your decision there and there. 923 00:55:35,720 --> 00:55:38,280 But yeah, it's good, man. I'm really glad that it's 924 00:55:38,280 --> 00:55:41,320 growing and that it's becoming a success for you. 925 00:55:41,880 --> 00:55:45,240 And long may that continue into the future. 926 00:55:45,240 --> 00:55:47,760 And I hope to honestly hope to get down there to meet you one 927 00:55:47,760 --> 00:55:53,080 day and to to see it for myself. So I'll have to find out exactly 928 00:55:53,080 --> 00:55:56,080 how far away it is from Ibaraki, Japan. 929 00:55:56,080 --> 00:55:58,080 I would imagine about 3 or 4 hours. 930 00:55:58,760 --> 00:56:02,960 Probably. Yeah, we were down that way 931 00:56:03,200 --> 00:56:05,680 many, many years ago. My son was really young to go to 932 00:56:05,680 --> 00:56:09,240 the Fuji Highland Park to go and see Thomas. 933 00:56:09,240 --> 00:56:10,600 Thomas. Landlord it is. 934 00:56:10,680 --> 00:56:14,480 Yeah. So yeah, just the adjoining 935 00:56:14,480 --> 00:56:17,280 prefecture there. Yeah, although again, even 936 00:56:17,280 --> 00:56:18,760 that's not super close to where I. 937 00:56:19,080 --> 00:56:26,280 Am OK. Like such a long, like just 938 00:56:26,280 --> 00:56:30,280 prefecture, but then even like what they class as Fuji and 939 00:56:30,280 --> 00:56:33,360 again the Fuji name gets thrown around a lot so that the Fuji Q 940 00:56:33,360 --> 00:56:36,480 Highland is actually nowhere near the city. 941 00:56:36,600 --> 00:56:38,320 It's nowhere near Fuji. Yeah, exactly. 942 00:56:38,320 --> 00:56:42,120 Nowhere near the the, Yeah. But you can see obviously see 943 00:56:42,400 --> 00:56:45,880 Mount Fuji quite clearly from that. 944 00:56:46,280 --> 00:56:49,920 As you say, it's so big, it's so enormous that you can't miss it. 945 00:56:50,320 --> 00:56:54,920 So it's really nice to see just for the enormity in the, the, 946 00:56:55,120 --> 00:56:57,920 the spectacular nature of, of Mount Fuji. 947 00:56:57,920 --> 00:57:01,640 It's really impressive. So yeah, mate, I look forward to 948 00:57:02,160 --> 00:57:04,760 coming down there at some point in the future and saying hello 949 00:57:04,760 --> 00:57:07,000 and seeing, seeing the store physically. 950 00:57:08,040 --> 00:57:10,520 But until then, we'll keep in contact and keep in touch. 951 00:57:10,520 --> 00:57:13,560 And I'll be looking out on your web store for things I can pick 952 00:57:13,560 --> 00:57:15,520 up here and there. Certainly the paints, the Valea 953 00:57:15,520 --> 00:57:17,880 paints and the, the Army Painter paints. 954 00:57:17,880 --> 00:57:20,840 I'm, I'm curious about now. So I might pick up a few pots 955 00:57:20,840 --> 00:57:24,640 and see how they go and, and go from there mate. 956 00:57:24,640 --> 00:57:26,640 So look, David, thank you very much again for coming on the 957 00:57:26,640 --> 00:57:29,480 Crown of Command. And like I said, we'll keep in 958 00:57:29,480 --> 00:57:32,800 touch and hopefully have you back on maybe for an event or 959 00:57:32,800 --> 00:57:36,120 something that you're running or sort of a catch up in the future 960 00:57:36,120 --> 00:57:37,400 that. 'D be awesome. 961 00:57:37,400 --> 00:57:39,120 Well, thank you for having me. It's been been nice actually 962 00:57:39,120 --> 00:57:41,840 talking. Yes, it's it's been good to talk 963 00:57:41,840 --> 00:57:43,600 to you mate, even though we've sort of met online, but it's 964 00:57:43,600 --> 00:57:46,600 great to to put a face to the name and a voice as well. 965 00:57:47,680 --> 00:57:50,040 And and we'll we'll catch up again soon, mate. 966 00:57:50,040 --> 00:57:53,080 OK, so until then, take it easy. Yeah, you too.