Look, Dave, thank you so much again mate for coming on to the
Chronicling podcast. I really appreciate you taking
the time out of your day to come and talk to us.
No worries, it's actually really nice to be and nice to actually
see because we've spoken a bit online, but you have a face
there. I do.
I know it's scary, but it's it's even more beautiful now because
I've got the filters on. Yeah.
Unfiltered It's it's, it's Heimlich Kemler cosplay.
Basically my age, age and working and teaching, as you all
know, has not, has not fared me well in terms of physical
appearance. I tell you what, it's it's like,
it's like a vampire just draining every every part of you
out of your body. Teaching is wonderful.
How long have you been doing it for?
Like 8 years now. Oh yeah.
I've got nine years, mate, to 10 years total and that was it.
Now that I'm still teaching, I'll teach online, which is
wonderful. I don't.
Yeah, I'm talking about like teaching in in Kiowa.
Now, I don't know where you teach, but.
I'm. Doing a Kiowa too, yeah.
So it's not so bad. Yeah, it depends.
It depends. Like I had a great, you know, I,
I still work for the same company.
Great people, you know, mostly great students, love the kids,
all that kind of stuff. That was no issue at all.
I think it was just like that burnout, you know, 1010 years
from 1:00 till 10 and like, and there's travel time, 2 hours
commuting every day. Then the travel on top of that
going companies and all that kind of stuff.
I think it just, it just took its toll and I just had to had
to make some life changes. So I still work there part time.
I do my online lessons, which I love doing for the guys there.
So yeah, got 1 foot in, one foot out basically, yeah.
Yeah. Because I discovered you through
War Storm games, so this is a wonderful adventure you're on
mate. Some for some people, their
dream job. Yeah, I think so.
I mean, it's, yeah, it's one of those weird things where, you
know, it's not like what I would say is my original dream job,
but it's definitely Erin, like the list of things I enjoy
doing. Before coming to Japan, I was
working for Firestorm Games. So I've been and then before
that I worked for Rules of Play and before that I worked for
Games Workshop. So I've got a long, long sort of
work history with this. So it's definitely always been
something I'm interested, I've been interested in and working
in, but for for a while and I still do it.
It's actually, again, bit of a part time thing.
Writing was actually like my main focus.
So I've written a few novels still, still writing novels as
well, but again, just the market for that doesn't really work out
super great. So I was looking for another
alternative to teaching and since this was something I
already knew rather well, had a fair amount of contacts already
in the industry is like, this is a pretty logical next step.
Again, given how little there is in Japan that's not Games
Workshop. So yeah, that was sort of the
the jump in point for me. Was it April this year?
Yeah, it wasn't that long ago mate, I don't think.
No, really. Not that long ago.
Feels like it was ages ago, but literally April.
So what's that, 66? Yeah, just just over six months.
Yep, and it's been a bit of a success story as I hear right.
Oh yeah. I'm genuinely surprised how well
it's already going. I mean, it's by no means the one
it's GameStop in the world yet. But yeah, I mean, when I was
doing my business plans, you know, I went with a very, very
conservative first year, as is I think generally sensible.
And then I sort of blew past that number in the first month
and 1/2. So yeah, that was like a lot, a
lot of support both from the Japanese local community and not
so local community recently. And then also a lot of the
foreign games as well from the the games in was it board games
in Japan, Facebook groups. So there's a lot of you were
dropping with me, which is really nice.
Oh, that's great. I started sponsoring one of the
events in the yes, the Xama Xama base.
Yep, so I can miss giving price support over there to the the
American guys. And again, obviously then
they're they're shopping with me as well.
So that that's quite nice of the mutually beneficial.
Actually we're, we're looking, we were looking for sponsors for
our Wahama Renaissance events here in Japan.
Well, maybe we should talk about that, mate.
Yeah, we should. And in turn have them purchase
their Vallejo paints because I said, you know, if you've got
Vallejo paints, that's great. You've got the Army Painter
paints and products there, which is great.
So if if the guys aren't particularly well, some of them
do play Old World, they do play other games which up systems or
they might be interested in the, you know, the historical stuff
with the bold action, you know, miniatures.
You sell yourself a bit of Perry stuff there, which can be easily
converted for various different systems.
So yeah, you might have a a mutual, yeah, I mean customer
base there with us as well. So that is good thinking.
That would be rather nice. I mean, even if not, I'm
generally just happy to support more events happening because
more people playing games is always a good thing.
Absolutely. Yep, that's good.
But yeah, awesome. Yeah.
OK, nice. We can do something with that
then. Yeah, and I'm a happy customer
for the first time this morning. I did pick up some my poor
Sawyer sort of miniature to support him financially during
his, his his health problems at the moment, which is really not,
not nice to hear that Paul's undergoing such a enormous, like
life changing life ending kind of situation now that he's just
enjoying whatever time he has left within with his family.
So I was, I was very happy to pick up the very last copy of
that. And I'm definitely going to
paint it up and give that away to probably one of my patrons or
maybe for through the Crown of command or something like that
as a commemorative piece in December, maybe as a Christmas
present or something like that, I think.
So that's a nice idea, yeah. Yeah, I think that'd be nice,
mate. Nice way to honour Paul for all
these hard work and enormous amount of yeah, enormous amount
of time and dedication is given to our hobby.
So, yeah. So the, the main reason I really
wanted to get you on David, this is talk about a, you know, how
you got into war gaming. How did, how does this all
started? You've sort of rattled off a few
names with people and places and companies you work for, but, and
I can tell by the accent mate, you're not from these shores.
So how did it all start? No, I'm a well, actually, my
accent doesn't really give away where I'm from precisely if if
you're local, but I'm I'm a London boy all.
Right. So yeah, technically I'm from
Hendon, which is, I was getting confused.
I only lived there for like two or three years, so I think South
London, but I'm sure everyone who's in London will tell me I'm
wrong. So but yeah, no, originally from
Hendon and then I lived in Watford for most of my childhood
before moving to Wales and then Japan.
But for the getting started, it was the Watford location that
actually was my my first thing because they had the Games
Workshop in the shopping centre there with the the traditional
massive glass windows that they always had in their stores back
then. This is like, I know, late 90s I
guess. So I used to walk past it all
the time and I'd see all the brightly coloured fantasy
miniatures. And I used to love reading
fantasy books back then as well. I call sort of the Pratchett
stuff and Red Wall and things like that.
So I was always at my parents being like, I want to try this,
I want to play this. And then my parents, being quite
Christian, were very like, oh, we don't know about that.
So ultimately I went behind their backs a little bit and
bought a wood elf army of a guy at school for I think it's like
10 lbs at the time. Wow.
So it, I mean, it was mostly like the Super chunky plastic
Archers. So I don't know how much of it
they'd gotten for free from someone from around places, but
yeah, yeah, I bought that and I talked to my parents around.
It's like, oh, it's OK. There's no like, weird demons
and stuff in this. It's all good.
Don't worry about it. It's kind of escalated from
there. So they obviously they've come
around to it now. This isn't like a whole big, big
secret thing, you know? They're very supportive and I
think they understand I've not become a zealous cultist of
chaos or anything. Yeah, well, I think my parents
had the same concern. I think that was the, it wasn't
Warhammer, was it? I think Warhammer Fantasy Role
Play first edition, it had some pretty deep dark shit in there.
I can tell you. It's like pentagrams and
everything, you know? It was like the source book for
demonology, you know, It was pretty dark in those days.
I'll be pretty concerned about it.
I remember, I mean, Dungeon and Dragons was my first role play
game. I did a bit of Warhammer Fantasy
afterwards. But yeah, I remember someone,
one of my friends bought the, oh, what's the name of it?
Like it's like the Demonomicon but not.
And again, it's just like full of weird sex stuff and demons to
the point where the book had like a warning adult content on
its sticker. I can't imagine Wizards
releasing anything like that. But yeah, that that was a thing,
an official Dungeons and Dragons product.
But it's changed. It's definitely become a lot
more family friendly. I mean, even Jane's Workshop now
with demonettes have sort of toned it down a little bit.
Yeah, it's funny, isn't it? Because even like something come
up by feed on YouTube with the the Satanic rites of Dracula
1976 or something like that. Oh God, yeah.
What's his name again, Sir? Guy from Lord of the Rings.
Oh, Ian Mccullen. No, not Ian Mccullen, the other
that he recently passed away. Yes.
Yeah, Oh my goodness. Yeah, I've had two.
Copies already. And yeah, you know how I mean,
you know, everyone knows what I'm talking about, but.
Another thing for people to complain about, I'm mislabeling
where I'm from. The name of Chris.
Yeah, Christopher Lee. Christopher Lee.
That's it. I knew Chris was in there
somewhere. Chris.
You got it. Yeah.
You helped me there when you said Christopher.
Yes, Christopher Lee. Teamwork.
I know I watched some horrific shit when I was a kid, like in
the local library, you know, in Southport, went to library and
you could and I was, I don't know, 10/11/12 or something.
You could just get anything off the videos like like that
videotapes, bank VHS then mate, the most horrific like in terms
of like, you know, I was picking up horror movies or anything
that I felt would be cool to watch.
Yeah, Satanical kind of rituals. Everything, everything, anything
was a go back then. You know that's it's weird, eh?
You'll pack. Yeah, I mean, I guess now it's
all the Internet stuff, isn't it?
Everyone's just yeah, right about Googling whatever they
want to Google. Yeah, Donkey, donkeydicks.com.
That's probably. One of the as AS is sponsoring
this episode. No, they wish.
Yeah, right. They couldn't afford us.
No mate, but I think we're a bit too good for them.
Yeah, we we go for. A Think of those donkeys mate,
what they must go through and what they have to endure.
This This feels a lot like it's becoming a a clerk's movie now.
I do miss those too, actually. Yeah, Yeah.
But but anyhow, let's, let's let's get back on track.
So, yeah, yeah. You said you're from from the UK
and you sort of grew up mostly in Watford, but then you talked
about discovering the hobby in that city.
Was it some kind of war games club or something?
Was it me? Oh no, it was an actual Games
Workshop originally. Oh, Games Workshop.
That's right, Yeah. Well, I, I had one other friend
at school who played, so we would occasionally meet up and
then, yeah, again, it still just builds up from there.
So, you know, we then discovered that there, there is actually a
war games club in Watford, or at least there was at the time.
So his mum offered to drive us there.
I think we went two or three times we did that, although
again, being so new to it, like this was fantasy second edition,
3rd edition maybe, I think probably second edition.
So he was playing with undead and he had all of his like
magical spells that came in the the army book back then.
And I think I'd do dwarfs by that point, but neither of us
had like the the winds of magic supplements so I had no idea
about like using rune priests counter spells and stuff.
So he'd like just stomp all over me. 9 times out of 10 he's like
and then I do this spell and charge you with my massive
skeletons now and all of your long beards are dead because I
did the curse of ages on them. It's like OK.
Nothing much has changed then. No, no, no.
Except now I know how how anvils of doom work and things like
that. One one small advantage.
And then you do what I did and just roll 2 ones or what it was
and just it blows up and kills everything around it anyway.
Yeah, well, actually that was my my first game of the old world.
We did a dwarfs versus ogres. So again, I'm back into the
dwarves. I got got a big old arm again.
You got a beard. You got a beard to suit it.
I can't grow. A beard sometimes.
I plan this sometime just to really get into the the theme of
it. Yeah, I why not?
Be the wolf king of Japan one day.
Well, you do live near a mountain.
A pretty big mountain. I live very, very near a very
big mountain, so I'm I'm in for it.
It's going to get like a big old axe and a crown and then then
I'm good. The chronic command maybe
exactly classic classic magic item like I never remember it
being that good in the games like like the name like sticks
with you but. Oh, the chronic command.
Well, the doors didn't really need it.
I think it but it was very good in that it was like an
unmodified 10 and right for the unit that is leading, but it it
also if it's if it's on your general, it goes out 12 inches,
but it's not unmodified though. So for goblins for me, been
playing night goblins. Yeah, it was like an essential
auto include mandatory choice. That 50 points is definitely on
your warlord because it was just it was the the backbone that
kept everything going and everything together.
Otherwise in the old world, I would assume that.
Sorry, what's that? Goblins like leadership.
Sixth base, Weren't they? Five base five.
OK, yeah. So that that 10 is a winner.
Yep, Yep. So you really needed that to to
just make them any, you know, like a viable choice.
But I think from 6th edition onwards, they got rid of it.
I think Taurus, Thomas Pirin and even said that it was it was a
really broken broken. So I think that was the first
thing he did, just got rid of that.
Well, fair enough. I guess it makes sense if it's
changing the entire theme of the Army to goblins low leadership
except when you got this crown then then you get.
Yeah, kill the kill the leader. Yeah, that's it.
That's what it came to, yeah. Just kill the leader.
Yeah, no, for my so you've seen the explosion.
So my my first game of Old World with dwarfs I tried a sort of an
artillery line plus some troops against ogres and pretty much
all of my artillery killed itself within two turns.
I think my cannon fired once and never got to use the stone
thrower and then yeah everything else just been boom.
So luckily the rest of the army performed, but that was quite
amusing just watching 1 artillery piece explode after
another. So that they don't use artillery
dice anymore, do they? No, they do.
In the old World, they're back. Oh, they're back.
Are they OK? Yeah, so the, the only thing
they've really removed is the guest ranges on Canon.
So you you just choose the point where you want to go now.
So you, so whatever, like it, however far in front of the unit
you're shooting at, you're like, OK, let's go in there.
And then you roll your artillery dice and you scatter dice as
normal, which I like. I mean, obviously I I being an
old school player, I always have a fondness for Guess Rangers,
and it's one of the reasons I'm still quite good.
I'm guessing you're probably the same.
I like eyeballing how far a meter is, you know, it's one of
those sort of lifelong, weirdly useless skills.
But yeah, all because I worked out by basilisks and cannons.
Well, yeah, like at school we did like technical drawing and,
you know, we did like trade skill type stuff.
I work my dad, you know, in factories, various factories
over the years, that kind of stuff.
So, yeah, we always had, you know, we're always like cutting,
measuring and all that kind of stuff.
I don't know how much they do nowadays, but yeah, I think that
was my biggest gripe about, apart from the magic system,
that the biggest gripe about 8th edition for me is that they got
rid of that and it just became this kind of, OK, well, I'm
going to shoot this particular war machine and, and the guy I
was playing with had like a template.
Cut out on a a four piece of paper and he actually drawn out
all the base sizes like 20 mil, 25 mil and he just plonked it
straight on top of the unit and you can see exactly how many he
would hit. And yeah, it just no, it just
left a bad sort of taste in my mouth or my beer.
So from that point onwards, but I can see for the simplicity and
for time, yeah, I can see that that being definitely a factor.
And it also, it also results in like, OK, well it deviates.
You can roll the scatter dice this how many inches?
And then, you know, determining exactly the point where it lands
and you know, using your tape measure to line up exactly where
it goes. I can see where it it creates a
lot of arguments sometimes, maybe for younger, younger
players. Yeah, I don't think I've ever
seen anyone agree on the true direction of a scatter dye.
Yeah, yeah. I've I've had it, we always try
and like roll it this, you know, Gainsby before, roll it next to
the unit. So it's like you, you don't have
very far to go. But even then, you know, it
always just looks a little bit off someone's hands, a little
bit unsteady. I mean, it's fine.
It is. It's not not the end of the
world thing. But yeah, if you're a bit more
competitive minded or taking a lot more seriously than I can
imagine, that gets quite frustrating for people on either
side of the table. Yeah, for sure.
But at the same time, I, I agree with you, it's it's really
annoying when whoever's using whatever mega weapon is like,
well, as long as I don't roll A1, that unit's dead.
Like you know there should be a little bit more variable in play
is nice. Yeah, for sure mate, for sure.
I'm actually painting a dwarf now.
Actually right now. It's all easy.
It could be your your your soul has been entered into this
through your voice and through the microphone at this very
dwarf. Well, as long as we look after
it, it's OK. I I will.
Well, it's not it's not actually mine.
It's it's a customers one. It's it's the it's the new
Talisman version from Hasbro Games.
Oh nice. And surprisingly the miniatures
are actually quite good. So I mean the the dwarf is
pretty static. I mean, 2 headed axe, you know,
you know, he's walking across his chest.
It's it's kind of a classic dwarf pose.
But yeah, I mean, compared to some of the atrocities of of the
soft plastic, PVC plastic of of yesteryear of other games that
I've played. And these are not too bad at
all. So they're actually quite nice
to paint. I think the the worst one I saw
those was the Dungeons and Dragons attempt at replicating X
Wing, the dog fighting game. OK, then give us all those.
So we, we obviously went this as well as working at Firestorm and
we got a pretty big stock load in because obviously it's
Dungeons and Dragons that's popular.
X Wing was pretty much at its height of popularity at that
point. Everyone was playing it.
So like, yeah, let's jump on to that.
And they released the most half assed pre painted molten
thingies I've ever seen in my life.
You've probably seen like the classic Scout Marine pose where
they they've painted the eyes on it just like white splotches
with little blue dots in it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
In fact. They made that good.
Oh geez, it was. It was like appalling.
The Dragons were OK, like if you wanted a dragon for whatever
game you're playing, if you stripped it down and repainted
it. The dragon models were fine but
the infantry like you had like all the Spears like weird wobbly
sticks on them. Yeah, it.
Was it was not good? So funnily enough that game did
not sell super well and I think it died on wave 2.
Right, yeah, I think the fancy Flight 1 as well had some
shocking shockers, real shockers in there, PVC plastic
miniatures. This is going back quite, quite
a number of years now when they had the license, but yeah, they
were just shocking. And so it's good to see that
now. I would presume that most, the
most of the modern PVC plastics that are getting made out of
China or whatever they're getting made out of are all 3D
designed and they're using plastics that don't warp or bend
OR give you the wonky swords and you know, all that kind of stuff
now, which is good. So which is nice.
It gets people into miniatures, you know, it gets gets your
board gamers into miniatures, you know, So I think that's
nice. I mean, kick Kickstarter now
like so much emphasis is based on how cool are the models in
the board game you're buying. So it's it's definitely a huge
crossover there now. Yeah, I think, I think C1 sort
of set the set the standards there, the benchmark and then
everyone's just trying to catch up with them I think.
And I think 3D design is yet has taken off massively.
And that's that has helped a lot to bridge that gap, you know,
between, you know, tradition, even though a lot of stuff is
traditionally sculpted. I think they're what's it called
dungeon massive, massive darkness.
I think it's called like the dungeon crawl.
Oh yeah. Yeah, that's really interesting.
I really would love to play that at some stage.
But all of those miniatures are hand designed, all hand sculpted
from the French masters from the Rackham era.
You know, all those guys, they started that guillotine games
and yeah, all that's done by hand.
And they then they make the moulds in, in Taiwan or China
here and, and then make the PVC models out of those.
And they look really, really nice.
You know, they look fantastic. Loads of character to them.
So yeah, it's, it's a good, good cross blend between the two, the
traditional meets, you know, technology kind of thing.
And I've even seen now another Belgian guy that I follow,
Dennis Cornella, he's actually sculpting them, sculpting his
miniatures by hand traditionally, then scanning
them, making STL files of the scans, which is another sort of
step, which I think is another great way.
You know, you can buy the physical copies or you can buy
the STL copies of the miniatures, which is a great way
of doing it. Anyhow, we're sort of running
out of time for this very first part and a half of our
discussion today, David. So I'm going to take a quick
little break here and then we'll be come back.
We'll talk more about, yeah, your early days of gaming and
how that's evolved into Warstorm games now.
So we'll be back in just a moment.
Crippling gaming addiction? Yeah.
Warstorm games, yes. OK, back in a second.
I'm excited to announce the return of the Hirohammer Fanzine
Issue 4, which is due in March of 2025.
If you have never heard of the Hirahama fanzine, then please
visit hirahamahyphenfanzine.com to download your free copy of
the first three issues today. And thank you to all the people
that have reached out to help contribute to our hobby
magazine. Now let's get back to the show.
But but anyhow, mate, let's talk about hobby now.
You you discussed before about buying a 10 LB army, which is
amazing. That's that's a super saving
deal, that one with the wood elves.
So wood elves were your first army, I take it?
Yeah. Yeah, they were my first
Warhammer army, so trying to remember the order of events.
Yes no, yeah, it's the Wood Elves say army.
I I think it was like the the gateway into it.
I don't think I had enough stuff from that to really call it an
army at the time. It's like it's my what else
army. So yeah, it may be like 20 of
those plastic Archers. And it was like from the starter
set of the game, I think. So there wasn't like a a bunch
of infantry or cavalry? I think it was mostly just those
Archers and possibly some war dancers if I remember correctly.
I'm. Trying to think that like, what
would they've actually got that from?
And I can't for the life of me work out how they had those
random assortments. I guess maybe someone Christmas
presents and stuff they just didn't want anymore.
But yeah, yeah. So I saw Elves and that was like
my introduction and sort of painting because once I had the
models and I was like telling my parents like, hey, I've got
these now, so can I buy some paints to paint them?
We went into that, but then actually the first game I
started properly playing was Epic.
Oh good man. So again, the friend of mine
from school, yeah, it's a wonderful game.
And I keep looking at the the new version, what's it called?
The adapters Imperialis. And I keep being slightly
tempted by it, but there's no one here who plays it.
So it would be me painting tiny models for the sake of painting
tiny models. But yeah, no, my friend from
school, that was like the game he wanted to play before we both
eventually ended up back into Warhammer and I got my dwarfs.
So yeah, I think I had an orc, orc epic army and he had a space
Marine epic army. So that that was like our first
first kind of proper gaming experience and my my first
tabletop gaming experience, which is a hell of a game to
start off with, I think. It's a beautiful game to start
off with. That's how, that's how what we
did me and Chris, because, yeah, because Warhammer was just way
too expensive to get into. He he didn't particularly like
it either. And Rogue Trader was out at that
stage. And I think it was the same kind
of, you know, financial limitations and getting the
miniatures and all that kind of stuff.
So yeah, this we just went in on.
I just took a punt on Space Marine Second Edition.
And that was it for us that we just absolutely loved and adored
that, that the whole system, the whole game.
So we spent many, many weekends playing that on the floor, on
the carpet. Right.
Yeah. Which was at Battlefield then,
yeah. Yeah, when I, when I finally got
into 40K, actually that would have been I think 3rd edition
again, a different friend of mine, he got a Blood Angels army
and I think I had Elder first for that.
And yeah, that again was like on on the floor, shoe boxes for
terrain and random bits of cardboard.
Yeah, yeah, that's good, good times.
That was like, I must spend 1213 at the time I guess.
Yeah, well, a while back anyway. Yeah.
Good days, mate. Good days.
Yeah. Yeah, I cherished those moments,
even. Yeah, because I was thinking
about terrain, because we didn't have any terrain.
I didn't have trees or anything like that.
Maybe I had, yeah, Maybe I had some stuff left over from my
train set because that was the first thing I got.
My dad got me into, you know, building train sets and the
terrain, the paper mesh shape, hills and tunnels and stuff like
that. Maybe I had some bits and pieces
leftover from that to use as trees and what have you.
But I remember like getting lichen bags of lichen.
That was a that was a, a God save, God saving thing.
That was because you just needed a bag of that and you got like
shrubs and instant kind of, you know, vegetation on the
tabletop. But again, we didn't have a
table. We just had the floor, which
evolved into a table tennis table because that was the craze
back then. All the game, all the guys in a
gaming group would go out and try to find a table tennis table
in the newspaper for like 50 bucks or something like that,
you know, second hand. And that gave us the instant
green, you know, table for us to play on.
It was great. And I still have a memory of
whatever's left of my memory back in those days of me,
Marcus, Brad and I think another guy playing epic Space Marine in
the 90s on that, on that table tennis table.
Yeah, I'll make good times. That's what we're missing.
Just exactly right. That's the vital in green.
Green. I think someone put posts up in
on Facebook in the second edition 40K group about that,
you know, what was people, what were people eating when they're
playing second edition in the 90s?
And I think strangely enough, I think I was the only person who
put McDonald's down. I thought was very, I thought
that was unbelievable. I thought most people eating
McDonald's, most it was pizza and God knows what other
combination of culinary desert delights they could come up
with. But yeah.
You. Know.
Kind of, you know. No, we we didn't really have
much of that where I was. We were kind of like on the
outskirts of the city. Well, I'm sure your stomach will
thank thank you for that wholeheartedly.
You'll live a few years longer than than me mate, that's for
sure. I was at some point.
There's a few years when you're when you're 90, isn't it?
You know when you're in, you're in bed and you can't walk
properly and everything hurts. Not not a few years extra when
you're 20. That's.
That's the wrong now. Actually, I'm 50 anyhow, anyhow,
we're sort of we're sort of off the rails again.
We'll get this train, let's get this dwarf land train back on
the on its tracks. And so you had, you had your
wood off army and then you had. Epic was the first propagating.
Epic epic. The orc epic army as well.
So how did this turn into working for Gangs Workshop?
Well, I think this was, Oh yeah, it would have been like by five
years after I started with the epics, yeah, I would have been
about 1212 or 13, maybe a little bit younger.
So I've been playing the games for about, yes, seven or eight
years by the time I was living in Wales.
And then there was a Games Workshop much closer to me.
So I was going there pretty much every weekend and just doing
whatever stuff they were doing there, playing with people.
I was pretty friendly with the staff.
I was about to go up to university and needed a part
time job. So they were the first place I
went into. They happened to be hiring at
the time when I was looking. And yeah, sort of went through
the the classic Games Workshop interview process.
I don't know how much has changed now because again, this
is a fair, fair while ago. But yeah, so I was working as a
part timer from when I was 18 through to about, yeah, 2122
when I finished university. And then I jumped into a
different job after that. But yeah, it was, it was good.
I I enjoyed it for the most part.
The the corporate style of games workshops a little mixed.
I think again, a bit of a problem with a lot of the bigger
hobby companies is they either end up being kind of mismanaged
because everyone's super buddy buddy and we're all in it for we
love the hobby, but we don't really understand the business.
So we're just sort of doing what we love and hoping for the best.
Or it becomes like super corporate and then you're just
constantly trying to fight with like, we need to do this because
people want this. And then corporate is like, no,
don't do this. This doesn't make money.
Yeah. There's always absolute fight
with with businesses, but yeah no for the most part it was
pretty good. Used to do all the Thursday
night battle bunker stuff. So not Thursday night.
Saturday night battle bunker. Thursday was warstorm was
firestorm. Sorry.
So yeah, Saturday, Sundays for the late night gaming in
Cardiff. And we used to like for a small,
small shop, we used to get like 20 or so players coming in and
then there was a pub next door and you know, the older guys
would go down to that while they were waiting for the game and
come in a bit afterwards times. Yeah, good, mate.
Yeah, I'm sure you have some really good memories there of
that time. So then you eventually came to
Japan. Yeah.
So we, we always sort of involve the gaming or gaming yourself
with other people during that time from, you know, from the
times of Games Workshop to up to now when you came to Japan.
Pretty much, yeah. I mean, there was, there's maybe
like a brief window where I stopped playing Games Workshop
stuff. So I think it was either 4th or
5th edition of 40K. Just sort of put me off for a
while right as I was like my my minor gripes with Games
Workshop. I hope they'll forgive me they
listen to this. You're selling this stuff now?
Yeah, Yeah, I know. But I'm making them money.
They've got it most to me. Basically, yeah, because I was a
part timer. So I think it was 4th edition
was just being released and obviously we had to run demo
games for people. That was like a big part of the
job. It's they gave free rule books
to all of the staff except the part timers.
And then they wanted the part to buy like this 50 LB rule book,
which at the time that's like as a weekends of work.
You know, why? Why am I having to spend my
money to teach the game that you want me to teach to people?
Like give give me a rule book, please.
And then, you know, considering like all of the discounts you
got at the time anyway, it just felt it was, yeah, it was it was
not not a great move on their part.
I felt so that that annoyed me. And then basically from that I
just because I didn't learn the rules, like I don't have a rule
book. I'm not learning this.
I'm not paying to learn this so I I stopped playing games
version for a while and I got into war machine.
So I don't know if you have you played War Machine at all.
I have tried it, it just wasn't my thing mate.
No, that's, that's fair. It, it stopped being my thing
pretty quickly too, for a while again, because like a lot of my
friends are playing it. So I sort of, I persevered for a
while. But that was, yeah, this sort of
a side thing, I think for a few years it was mostly sort of role
play games for a good four or five years until I then working
for Firestorm. And then just working with
Firestorm is like, OK, let's let's give tabletop games
another go. And then I went back into a war
machine first because that was the most popular game at the
time, and then they kind of screwed that up.
So I jumped back into 40K and then I moved to Japan.
Did you have high expectations of finding a player group in
Japan? No, not at all.
I think when when I moved here, I brought my Blood Bowl team and
my Malafo stuff because it was just small and I liked the
models. So I had those.
Oh, and Guild, Guild Ball, I had that with me as well because the
same reason, just small and I liked the models.
So I was like, on the chance I find someone who's sort of
interested, it's a very low buy in point to sort of get someone
else to play. And then I've played any of
those games since I've been here.
So what? What?
Because I think you're, you're like me.
I I live in an isolated area of Japan, not close to the major
cities. And you live in Shizuka
Prefecture at the base of Mount Fuji.
I believe. I'm not I'm not exactly the
pinpoint location exactly where you are, but.
Yeah, I'm so honestly, Mount Fuji is still pretty far away.
It's like a four hour drive. It just how does it feel?
Yeah, it just, it's so weird on the perspective, like it looks
super close. But yeah, if you try and drive
good, 3-4 hours. Wow.
OK, yeah, yeah, it's, it's, it's big.
So, but I'm, I'm still kind of far away.
So if, if you are, if you're in a car, then it's super
convenient because the Tomei exit's like 3 minutes away.
But not even that. Yeah, it's you can.
You can see the Tomei exit from my house effectively.
Right. OK, it might because I know one
other, a friend of mine here, Tom, was interested in coming to
one of your Age of Sigma events at some stage.
So I might come down there with my epic Space Marine one day,
mate, who knows? Nice.
I mean, I'd have to pick up on me again, but I'm I'm
definitely. Up for that?
We'll bring some old hammer to all of the Hawthorne games.
Yes, but so So what what what became the like?
I know you talked about you know your your writing experience and
you you're a you're a professional writer and you
write books, but you're looking for another Ave. apart from
teaching. What sort of crossed the line
then for you to start up War Storm Games?
So that's a hard one to answer in a direct way.
I think mostly it was the fact that, and I mean my, my boss
himself has said this, this isn't like a big secret or
anything. So teaching is not a long term
profession in Japan like you either I think start your own a
Kiowa here or you got to find something else after a while.
So I've been doing this for eight years now, six years with
the place I'm at. And it was a case of, you know,
what, what, what am I doing next?
I don't, I didn't have the aspirations to be an English
school owner just because of the level of where I am.
And that sort of that constant stress and fight to find and
keep new students. It's like that that's always a
thing. And you know, you're, you're
providing for that like a sort of a not, not like a life
altering service, But given the importance of English within the
Japanese education system, you know, I think if you're offering
an English service and it's not as good as it can be, that's
that's not great like that. That's a pretty serious thing.
And I think, you know, obviously there are some good schools
here. I also think there's a lot of
people who just get into it. They think it's an easy, easy
way to make a bit of money and it is if you want to be lazy at
it, you could definitely go down that route.
But that that wasn't for me. I didn't want to sort of not do
something I'm like very passionate about when it's such
a big deal students. So then it came down to like,
well, what can I do that's not teaching my Japanese?
I don't have any of the, the certifications, so I couldn't
get like an office job or anything like that.
My Japanese is possible. But yeah, I'm, I'm not a
professional speaker or a fluent speaker, I guess would be a
better term for it. So then I thought, yeah, you
know, the, the war gaming came around again because we have a,
a second building on the, the property here we're in because
we're in the countryside. We've got quite a large space.
So we've got our main house and then as a second older property.
So it was just a dumping ground. I was like, well, I can just
turn that into a shop. Oh, brilliant.
Because for the part of the Games Workshop contract, you
have to have a physical location now, right.
So that there was for a while they were testing out like
online only, only stores. But because people are just
doing super discounts and stuff and it was like just really
undercutting everything. They, they put a stop to that
like, no, you must have an accessible brick and mortar
store open for X number of hours every week before we'll even
consider. So I was like, great, OK, open
the space, get some tables in there.
So because it's already on my property, you know, I'm not
paying rent to anyone, which was the main things.
If it's OK, you know, my worst case scenario was I put like, I
just like ¥500,000, like half ¥1,000,000 into like stock and
furnishing. And then, you know, if it all
goes tits up, well, I've still got a whole bunch of plastic
toys I can either sell off to make most of the money back or
hey, I've got like 50 new armies now.
You know, it was like very low risk entry point for me, which
given what I know a lot of start up game shops go through, I I've
definitely had an easier route with my situation.
I've been very lucky there. So it just kind of like fell
into place ultimately, I guess is the short answer for how I
got into the war games, like I like games.
I want a new job. I have an empty building.
Let's let's just do it. Let's roll those dice.
Yeah, yeah. When I, when I saw the pictures,
I thought, wow, that's, that's really brave of David to do this
because I, you know, I know you've got a family and
everything. I don't, you know, if I could do
that, like at the at the risk of losing everything, you know what
I mean? But knowing that now you had to
like abandoned building and you sort of just restored it and
converted into a game store. I think that's a brilliant
opportunity, mate. I think that's fantastic.
And then to see people there gaming there and you can see
people on the Facebook group that you've got there.
And I was like, wow, there's, there's actually people gaming
and playing games and not just Games Workshop.
They're playing, you know, bold action or what have you.
And, and it seemed quite a number of, you know, people
there actively playing, which is really nice to see as well.
So it's great that you're sort of building a little community
of players and gamers around your store.
Well, you say around my store, I mean, I sort of I opened with
the plan of having 8 gaming tables because when I, when I
was talking to one of my old Co workers from Firestorm, he's
like the events manager there. So I just told him like, you
know, getting some advice on what would be a good number of
tables to actually have and like, what would be his
recommendation for setting up. And yeah, 616 was basically like
the magic number of this lets you run like 16 player spaces is
a good size tournament. So that that was my aim.
But ultimately, because I am a little bit farther away from any
sort of train stations and public transport isn't so great,
I wasn't expecting a huge number of players to actually come
down. And then I've got people
travelling from Chiba and Nagano and stuff.
So like I've got a lot of guys driving.
Yeah. Again, like 3-4 hours to come
down and play these events, which is amazing.
I, I was very surprised by that. But again, I guess it's the
whole, if you build it, they will come.
Yeah. Nice, mate.
That's great. Yeah.
I'm really happy that people are making the effort to come out
there because like you say, unless you don't tell anybody
about it, no one's going to get there, no one's going to come,
no one's going to know anything about you.
So hopefully that will grow and hopefully you get some young
blood in there, Some, you know, young Japanese boys or girls
curious about painting or playing some of these games
you've got on your shelf. And you know, you sort of build
it that way as well. So you've got some local guys
and local kids coming in and playing games and buying
product, you know, and growing the the tabletop war gaming
hobby as we know and love. For the last Bolt action event,
we actually had a family come down from Nagano to play in
that. So I got the yeah, dad, dad and
his two sons. So yeah, you know, you're
definitely seeing like that kind of like family culture of
playing, playing games come up. And it's not been confirmed yet,
but I'm hopefully off to one of the universities in Chiba before
the end of the year to run some demo games in the university as
well. So kind of Oh.
Right. As that's hopefully on the
table. So I mean, that'll be obviously
for students only. So it's not, I can sort of
advertise, but yeah, like just trying to get into places like
that is on my my plan just to sort of run more games and
choose more people to the hobby. And again, you can like as a
language learning thing because obviously the games are mostly
in English. So it's a, it's a double win.
You get to have fun and do some English.
Yeah, that's good, mate. We should, We should definitely.
I don't know if you know about it, but in Tokyo there's like a
games show, like as in as in board games, tabletop gaming.
There's some kind of exhibit that's held every year and now
they've started including miniature games, miniature based
tabletop games. I'm really keen to go down
there. And I don't know if it's like a
lottery system where you just put in your application and if
you're lucky you'll get accepted and be able to come down and
reserve a table. But I would love to run Test of
Honour as a game there for people to try out.
It's it's, it's so much fun. It's very thematic, very easy to
pick up and play and you're just playing and enjoying and killing
other samurai in no time. So yeah, we'll have to.
We'll have to look at that and see if we can make sort of like
a joint stall, you know, so warm storm games on one side, cram
the command games on the other that.
'D be pretty cool actually. I'm being probably next year now
realistically, but a friend of mine, Annie, who is the owner of
Bad Squido Games. Yeah.
Annie Norman. Yeah.
So yeah, she used to work out of
the back of Firestorm when I was working there, but obviously now
she's she's off on her own and she's doing very, very well for
herself, which is. Yeah, she is.
But she she stocks a really nice range of Samurai models.
She does. I'm I'm hoping I've already been
in contact with her. I've been a bit lazy and just
bouncing out obviously the financials.
But yeah, I want to get the the Samurai from her in stock
probably next year now, so that that definitely work out.
Yeah, I'll definitely pick up a few of those because I really
like Annie's models. I think she did it, she did a
range of like female shield maidens as well.
And I know about this the the samurai range that she has.
So yeah, that'd be really nice to see that sort of diversity in
in different kinds of model ranges as well in your shop.
So it's not just Games Workshop, you have alternative miniatures.
Yeah, from different companies and the sort of smaller
companies that need a bit of a yeah, just need some more, you
know, some more eyes on their on their product.
And yeah, that sounds great. Yeah, I mean, I mean, when I
first started doing the, the Bolt action, you know, I, I read
do Warlord games and their international trade Rep there
was pretty excited to hear someone in Japan's like, hey, I
want to fucking stuff like yes, please.
How do we, how do we make this happen?
Well, no, it's, it's definitely, I mean, I'm, I'm always, I've
always been a fan of the Games Workshop product.
Like I, I do think they make high quality product, but at the
same time, you know, there, there is so much stuff that's
worth trying and playing. I mean like the one I'm adding
to the website now is Moonstone. Yep.
So again, getting that in stock again, actually someone I used
to work with at Games Workshop, Mick Green is the the manager
for that. So yeah, it's, it's, it's kind
of funny how a lot of people I know are just running these game
things now. But yeah, I mean, Moonstone, you
know, it's an award-winning game.
It genuinely looks fantastic. And a few people already asked
about it. So I'm, I'm excited to get that
in store just out of stocking Infinity as well.
So with N5 coming out. So yeah, no, I definitely want
to get as much as I can in because even if it's like just a
small holding of core products, someone will want to try it, you
know, and you just, you never know who's going to find like
their next favorite game that they really connect with just
because you had something for them to try.
So I I think variety is important for sure.
Yes, I think so too. I love independent game stores
for that reason, because there's always something there that
maybe you've never seen before or you've seen advertised or
seen on a video. And then you get to see the
actual physical product in front of you and hold it and all that
kind of thing and, and make your decision there and there.
But yeah, it's good, man. I'm really glad that it's
growing and that it's becoming a success for you.
And long may that continue into the future.
And I hope to honestly hope to get down there to meet you one
day and to to see it for myself. So I'll have to find out exactly
how far away it is from Ibaraki, Japan.
I would imagine about 3 or 4 hours.
Probably. Yeah, we were down that way
many, many years ago. My son was really young to go to
the Fuji Highland Park to go and see Thomas.
Thomas. Landlord it is.
Yeah. So yeah, just the adjoining
prefecture there. Yeah, although again, even
that's not super close to where I.
Am OK. Like such a long, like just
prefecture, but then even like what they class as Fuji and
again the Fuji name gets thrown around a lot so that the Fuji Q
Highland is actually nowhere near the city.
It's nowhere near Fuji. Yeah, exactly.
Nowhere near the the, Yeah. But you can see obviously see
Mount Fuji quite clearly from that.
As you say, it's so big, it's so enormous that you can't miss it.
So it's really nice to see just for the enormity in the, the,
the spectacular nature of, of Mount Fuji.
It's really impressive. So yeah, mate, I look forward to
coming down there at some point in the future and saying hello
and seeing, seeing the store physically.
But until then, we'll keep in contact and keep in touch.
And I'll be looking out on your web store for things I can pick
up here and there. Certainly the paints, the Valea
paints and the, the Army Painter paints.
I'm, I'm curious about now. So I might pick up a few pots
and see how they go and, and go from there mate.
So look, David, thank you very much again for coming on the
Crown of Command. And like I said, we'll keep in
touch and hopefully have you back on maybe for an event or
something that you're running or sort of a catch up in the future
that. 'D be awesome.
Well, thank you for having me. It's been been nice actually
talking. Yes, it's it's been good to talk
to you mate, even though we've sort of met online, but it's
great to to put a face to the name and a voice as well.
And and we'll we'll catch up again soon, mate.
OK, so until then, take it easy. Yeah, you too.