Hello everybody. Thank you very much for tuning
in to another episode or another show of the Chronic Man podcast.
And I am very happy to host this one because it is the eve of
Bring Out Your Lead in the UK, which is much anticipated show
for many people that enjoy tabletop war gaming and
especially those that enjoy the older editions of Warhammer,
whether it be third edition or Rogue Trader 40K.
But then there are like 4th edition, 5th edition.
I would imagine there are lots of different games being played
there, even even current games. So it's really a celebration of
people getting together, hanging out with their friends and
enjoying four days of gaming. So I'm just on their website now
for Bring Out Your Lead. They do have an official website
that you can go to to book your table or book an event on the
day. And of course, there was some
speculation that Bring Out Lead would be at a different venue
because of the late and sad passing of Brian Ansell.
Of course, the the director behind Foundry Miniatures and
Brian and Diane, his wife hosted these events every year for
everybody. But of course, it was sort of up
in the air as to what was happening because I know they
were selling their their premises there and moving on.
So it was sort of unknown as to whether they would continue the
event at the same location or go to a new event.
So the address this year, it says the Carriage court, Stoke
Hall, Church Lane, East Stoke in Newark knots.
So whether that's the exact same location or not, I'm thinking it
is, but it's got here, a timer says quick paint something.
It's got how many days, how many hours, how many minutes and
seconds remaining. So it's got 7 hours, 17 minutes
and 36 seconds as of this recording.
So when people are waking up in the UK, it's time to head down,
head on down to the carriage court in Stoke Hall, break out
your miniatures that you've been painting through the year and
enjoy. Like I said, a celebration of
gaming with all your friends and groups that you've met up online
with and playing some fantastic old Hammer.
So I hope people enjoy it. I hope people have a safe
journey down there. I know people, you know, either
joining other people and getting a lift down there.
I know that Matthew from Bedroom Battlefield and Doctor Spork are
heading down together. Whether they're sharing the
drive from Scotland down to Stoke Hall, I'm not sure.
But yeah, if you are travelling a long distance, please just
take your time, take it easy. And, and because I want you to
get there, to get there safely, that's most important.
So that runs through from tomorrow, Friday, 2nd of August
to Sunday 4th of August. So I really look forward to any,
the, the photos on our Discord here at the Chronic Command.
And I'm sure Bedroom Battlefield's Discord will have
a host of photos there because I know a lot of the guys from that
community is heading down there as well.
And maybe Jeff from Outbound Studios on his YouTube channel
will do some some coverage of the event as well.
I always look forward to Jeff's videos based on his experiences
of each time he visits bring out your lead and what what he saw
and and what he got to enjoy on the day.
So Speaking of Matthew of Bedroom Battlefields, he
recently had a question posted up on his wonderful podcast.
If You don't know what Bedroom Battlefields is, I will leave a
link in the show notes here that you can click on to go to his
podcast and check out the wonderful content that Matthew
provides for us. And he, he has a question each
month that people go to his website, they click on a link to
record their message in response.
And then he will, you know, collate all those messages
together to four one podcast. And it's a really interesting
and really fun way for his listeners to interact with him
and with the community as a whole.
So I really enjoy those. I participated in a couple of
those so far. And unfortunately, I was just
too late in getting my submission in for July, which is
a real shame. So I thought I said to Matthew
what I'll do. I'll, I'll mention it here in
our podcast today about my my answers.
And we'll also get to hear later during the show the new question
that Matthew proposes to his listeners for August.
So you get a good chance because this is early August now to get
your submission in. And I really want to see these
segments grow with loads of voices from all people from
around the world giving their responses.
It's really fun. I really enjoy listening to
their answers. They're great questions that
Matthew poses for them and you get some really interesting,
like I said, answers from from his listeners.
So his question for July was, what are your favorite hobby
channels like? What things do you listen to?
What things do you watch as you do your hobby or what you know,
what people inspire you to paint or to game and that kind of
thing. So we talked about like, you
know, podcasts, Youtubers, bloggers, people generally in
the community. So I thought I'd just break it
down to podcasts and YouTube channels as they're, they're the
two mediums I tend to listen to and watch the most.
And it's a tough, it's a tough selection, even though I've sort
of narrowed it down to the the main ones I listen to.
That's not to say that there are ones that I haven't mentioned
which I do get a glance in or do get a listen in on occasionally,
but these ones that I've selected are the most frequently
listened to or frequently updated.
So I started off with number one with my podcast selection with
Battle Chat. Now Battle Chat, maybe a podcast
people are not really familiar with.
It's hosted by a legendary wargamer, Henry Hyde.
He's a really good bloke. I've had him on the podcast a
couple of times. Well, I've done it.
I've done it with him on his podcast with battle Chat and he
came on my kind of command for an interview with me and it was
a really nice chance to basically sit with a, a luminary
in the hobby. Henry's been doing this for a
very long time. Been a war gamer since the, I
think the 60s or 70s or so. He loves the horse and musket
era of war gaming. I actually don't enjoy that
period of war gaming at all. It, it bores me to tears.
So it was just kind of a strange match that I thought Henry's
podcast would be just talking about this topic.
But in actual fact, it's so varied and he brings in so many
different guests of various different backgrounds in war
gaming, old and new. Henry himself is a fantasy gamer
as well. He he's not strictly a
historical gamer. He does enjoy fantasy
role-playing like with DND, and he also enjoys things like
advanced here request. He's a great, he's a advocate,
massive advocate for Skaven. So he's a big Skaven collector.
And, and yeah, he loves all aspects of the hobby, whether
it's fantasy or historical. And he, he's of course a, an
editor for his own magazine, which sadly ended, but the
patron that he runs is kind of a continuation of that.
And now he's an author. He he's written several books
that you can buy all about war gaming.
And yeah, he's just a great advocate for the hobby and he
has a great way of presenting his, his particular podcast and
the guests he has on are fascinating.
So I've listened to over 100 of these now, these interviews that
Henry's provided for us and they're just being wonderful.
So if you haven't heard a battle chat, please go and check it
out. It was exclusive to his Patreon,
but now he's provided all those interviews now on regular
podcasting platforms, so anybody can access those, which is
excellent. So Bedroom Battlefields is my
number two because that's my number two.
Listen to it's it's of often released an episode usually once
a week. I think Matthew pumps out once a
week, which is amazing, always interesting guests again,
talking about different types or different aspects of the hobby.
So it's not related just to tabletop war gaming.
Maybe it's it has some kind of elements of tabletop war gaming,
but sometimes not. So it's it's always interesting
to hear people's different views, perspectives, whether
they be game creators, whether there's be people from his
community that he's brought on to talk about aspect of gaming
or painting and the hobby generally.
So yeah, always enjoy that. I love how Matthew presents
things. Again, it's just it's the
personality, it's the person behind the podcast, which I
enjoy and have great admiration for.
So yeah, Bedroom Battlefields is another one, a great listen and
Oldhammer Fiction podcast. Lewis runs that one, and I
really enjoy the enormous amount of effort he puts into reading
verbatim, like word for word out of these books all the way back
from the Wahama Black Library, the original Black Library.
So think of, you know, like Bill King stories, which, you know,
Gottrick and Felix and countless other ones.
So there's just too many to mention.
So basically he just goes through and picks out picks out
a book that he really enjoys the story to reads it.
And then at the end he gives some kind of in depth analysis
or some interesting facts about the writer or about the story
itself. I really enjoy those a lot.
And his five hour megathon of the last last boil.
He he released the Wah the Orcs podcast and that was that was
over five hours. Well, that got me through.
A lot of. Because I paint full time
obviously now and I've been doing that now for a year and a
half, thankfully. So that that got me through a
lot of painting time just sitting listening to while the
orcs. It was really good as as a
person who doesn't get a lot of time to read books and
physically, then I get to listen to them now thanks to Lewis and
his wonderful podcast, because he brings those stories to life.
You know, he's got a, he's a professional voice actor and
yeah, he really does a fantastic job in conveying those stories
to his audience. So they're my top three podcasts
I listen to. Of course, there are other ones
I listen to, like Time Between Times with Owen Staton, even
though that's not really strictly a hobby podcast, but I
do enjoy listening to that as I paint.
And Owen's got a wonderful way of delivering stories to his
listeners. OK, now for YouTube channels,
now there's quite a few because I do enjoy YouTube as a medium
that I absorb all this hobby content each week from various
different creators out there. And, and I'm not going to put
these in strict order. I'm just going to say like, as
in, you know, even though number one, I've put down mini sods now
mini sods, edit mini sods. He does a wonderful job in in
presenting second edition 40K, one of the most popular channels
out there. I would say, if not the most
popular channel out there. He is in an incredible way of
again, he's, he's got a great voice that conveys it, conveys
what he's saying the the stories he's telling.
He's telling during the game play so well.
And then he's then the cinematography, all the editing
that goes in behind that is just great.
Like, yeah. And I really enjoy what Ed does
and I'm happy to be one of his patrons to support him in his
video creations. And he's doing a Tyranid attack
series at the moment. So I'm really looking forward to
that. And long may that continue long,
long may that keep going with with Ed and what he's doing.
So he's doing fantastic things with a hobby out there.
Then my second place, well, the second YouTube channel I want to
mention is Bring in Battle. That's Richard and Jason and
they play second edition 40K, but they also play a few other
games, which I have to admit, I don't actually watch.
I only watch their second edition content.
The other games are like Bolt Action and what's the other one
called? Kings of War.
I think the other one is a fantasy 1.
They've got one page rules and maybe some other ones.
I I honestly don't watch those. They're, they're something I'm
just not all that interested in personally, but I know maybe
some of the other hobbyists out there might be.
So go and check out Bring in Battle because there's second
edition 40K coverage for me is, is fantastic.
There's two old friends playing 40K second edition.
And yeah, really good, really good videos, great banter.
And yeah, I'll definitely support those guys as much as
possible. Now, Dice Hammer, my Bavarian
friends over in Germany, they also have a channel that does a
lot of second edition 40K content.
Also 8th edition fantasy, which again, I'm not so interested in.
I'm just interested in this second edition stuff.
As you can probably tell, I'm sort of my interest centred on
centred on these guys creating stuff based on the 90s games
because they're not really well covered or not covered on mass
as it were on YouTube or any other mediums.
So any chance that any creator could create something based on
the 90s games, I'm definitely interested in in watching.
So yeah. Go and check out.
Dice Hammer because they do some excellent second edition 40K
battle reports and I really enjoy again they're 2 old
friends, been playing since the 90s and they've got all the
armies for all the different factions in the 40K second
edition catalogue and they just go through doing various
different scenarios and different games.
I really enjoy that amble of diminishes.
Now that's deeds. Really good creator, does some
fantastic painting videos. He's the only painting video
person I watch and I'm interested in watching his
videos. For one, he's got a great way of
presenting them and also I enjoy looking at all those 90s models
that he paints because he just, he centers everything around the
1990s from Games Workshop. So a lot of Citadel Marauder
miniatures you see painted there and he does a fantastic job.
He's got a great following and yeah, I'm just really happy for
dates that it's really taken off for him and long may that
continue for him. Next one, solo Oldhammer gaming.
Now this is a chap from Australia, I think in Sydney,
and he does a lot of 3rd edition fantasy battles content.
So either showcasing miniatures that he's bought and game
systems that he's bought or actually playing out solo.
As it states, solo alt hammer solo games with him playing
third edition fantasy because he doesn't have many opponents
where he is to play some of these older games, but he did a
big siege battle with some with the with the two forces.
There's a there's a dwarf and goblin force in the back of the
book of the siege book and he actually gets to play that out.
So that was really cool and I enjoy what he brings to his
channel. And yes, I'm an avid watcher of
his content. Second edition war gaming,
again, it's a great channel, excellently edited, always
interesting opponents and armies they bring to the table.
So he does a lot of second edition, primarily second
edition 40K, but also does the space fleet games, which I
really enjoy those a lot. Actually, I actually enjoy those
more than the 2nd edition gaming.
Basically, it's a really interesting game.
Never got to play it. So I really enjoy his videos
covering those scenarios when he gets to play it.
Now a new channel, 5th Hammer, that's one of my friends and
patrons here, David in the US, he start up a fifth hammer
channel and that's like what it says.
It's 5th edition Warhammer. He's only got a few videos up
already, but I've I've really enjoyed the solo hammering that
he's been doing there playing 5th edition games in his games
room and he's got another video coming up soon.
So please go and check out his channel and subscribe to that
and wait for new content to drop.
And I've also got Stompy 51 now Stompy had on the the the
podcast too not so long ago and I'm really happy to have found
his channel. He does bring out some really
nice hobby stuff. He grabs something out of his
out of his attic or, or garage or whatever and and shows these
in his videos. So I think the recent one he had
this massive ratskin necromander gang he found in storage.
So that was really interesting to see.
Yeah, but that's just nice to watch.
And he does some coverage of some of the older books and and
things like that. So if you haven't already seen
Sobby 51's channel, go and check it out.
So they're, they're really the, the basis of the content that I
consume regularly on a weekly basis.
And I want to give my thanks to all those creators out there
that are doing a lot of the hard yards.
I know how hard it is to keep it up and to to keep the momentum
going. So if you have a chance, go and
check out their channels, go and check out their podcasts.
Leave them a message. In most cases on podcast, you
can leave a a message there, feedback, just give them a
thumbs up, give them us, give them a 5 star rating and give
them a nice message to say thank you very much for all the hard
work and great content you're putting out.
Just so they know it's a really nice thing to get sometimes.
And I've been doing that more often now.
So and of course there's many, many more, there's many, many
more Youtubers out there, but I like to follow the follow the
smaller channels. I just find them just.
More naturally engaging there's there's less Polish, there's
just more raw footage in there which I which I enjoy I quite
like that it feels like I'm I'm sort of sitting around the table
watching them play in most cases.
So apart from that, I've been on a hero quest binge and I've
almost finished my starter set painting all the starter set
miniatures. So it's it's probably a good
timing actually with bring out your lead coming up now this
weekend and this weekend I'm still going to I'm going to
continue painting my here request models and I hope to
finish them. So I've got another what's that
6 goblins 3 for Mia and I've got the sorcerer, the the evil
sorcerer guy to do and that's it.
And I've got it ready and done and and finished.
So I'm really happy about that because that'd be like a small
accomplishment that I have then fulfilled.
It was kind of part of three Milton Brant, Milton Bradley
games that I was going to complete this year.
But obviously things got away from me.
We're now in August. I'm haven't finished my Hue
request set. I was going to do Space Crusade
and the the Battle Master set as well, but I don't think I'm
going to accomplish that within by by December, but we'll see
how we go. Space Crusaders next after your
request. It's a game I've never played
before and I've been really curious about it.
So again, like with her request, I'm running Discord games of
that with, with some patrons and friends in the US later this
this month. And I'll put in some, I'll make
some videos of that, like overviews, videos of each of our
quests. And I'll add those to my patron
exclusive videos up there so you can follow along in our peerless
quest as the adventurers, our four brave adventurers delve
deep into the into the dungeons. Yeah, for more loot and for
prestige, I would say, and honour.
So yeah, really enjoying that and it's nice for me to get some
time into just to paint some models for myself, which is not
always the case. But today we've got old man
Phil. The interview that we tried to
do, like this is the third time we've finally got together and
had time to do it together. I had to cancel a couple of
times just due to life staff here.
So I'm glad Phil's been very patient with me and, and it was
really good because we had a really long chat.
He sent me some questions beforehand that or things that
he'd like to sort of just get in his mind as to what he wanted to
talk about today, which I'm really glad he did because it
was nice to have. I, I usually don't structure our
interviews. Usually it's just, it's just
free form. There's no preset questions,
anything like that. I just let our guests talk and
then we just have it like a very organic conversation.
But in this case, yeah, Phil said he'd send me some
questions, which I'm glad he did.
And we went through those as best we could.
And I hope you enjoy listening to an interview today.
So thank you very much, guys. Enjoy the bring out LED coverage
this weekend. And I hope for all those people
going there. Please get there safely and
enjoy your weekend. Thanks, guys.
Enjoy the interview. All right, Phil, well, thanks
mate for, for making this happen.
It's been, it's been long in the coming this third time lucky as
they say. And you're just back fresh from
holidays from Wales, which is nice to hear.
How was your trip mate? Yeah, it was good, actually.
Thanks, Josh. Thanks for having me on as well.
I just wanted to say, you know, it's been a bit been a bit of a
crazy time, hasn't they? We keep missing each other, like
ships are passing the night. But yeah, it just took a few
days, only a week, just to go away from Wales and decompress
and have a bit of time away from a computer screen and work and
stuff, you know? Nice mate.
I would I would have told Owen Stayton.
You're coming here to give you a full tour of Wales, mate, while
you're there. Oh, you know who's down there.
Owen Stayton. Oh, do I?
Do I know where we're? Not yeah, you know, Yeah, he's
the voice of a lot of the well, he he did the he did the Dwarf
Deep Dive podcast and he did another interview with me
recently about the Time Between Times podcast that he runs and
he he tells tales of folklore from Wales or around the British
Isles. Ah, right.
OK, I think I've heard one of those.
Yeah, I just didn't. It didn't quite connect with my
brain for a second there. I've always said, Darwin, you
should run like some kind of he'd be perfect at it as doing a
a tour in the holidays, you know, like Geek nation tours
does. You know, he does that kind of
thing. He takes people to place in the
world and tells them all about the history and any sort of
significant places in the location where they're
travelling to. If Owen did that and he can tell
tales and, and stories about the places they're visiting to give
sort of like a mythic that kind of feel to the, to the areas
where they're going to that has like this really cool sort of
mythological history or what have you in folklore.
I reckon that'd be a really good package for people to get into.
So next time if I know someone that's going to Wales, I'll have
to tell, Oh, I'm up front so he can, he can lead them the way,
show them all the way. Yeah, it should be.
It would be really good actually whilst I was there and did
actually just look up a model shop while I was in there just
to see, I thought oh I wonder if they have any warhammers and
they did bought myself a little painting handle.
What kind of? Never had, I've never bought one
before, I always make my own. So I thought, yeah, well push
the boat out mate £7. Yeah.
Well, if you like champagne, then you're going to have lots
of lots of nice little handles to with that, with some blue
tack. We call blue tag Bostic, blue
tag. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I know what you mean. Yeah, No, I'm not much of A
champagne guy, to be honest, to be fair.
Me too, mate. I don't care.
I'll just say like, I just find someone who is and then I just,
I've collected those over the years and then cut them in half
and use those. And I think I had so many I had
to throw them out, some of them out.
But I've got my best ones here. But yeah, I know what you mean.
But look, apart apart from that, I'm glad you had a good restful
week away in Wales. And but you're here to talk
about how you discovered the hobby mate.
So let's lead into there and maybe talk about your bit about
yourself and where you're from and how you got into the hobby
mate. Yeah, sure, sure.
OK, so anyway, I'm Phil and most people I guess in the hobby
might know me from my Instagram handle because I paint quite a
bit and put a few videos out there and it's old man paints.
I have been in the hobby since the mid 90s.
I'd probably say about maybe no no sorry mid 80s but 86 but 86 I
reckon. I got into it and it was quite
by accident because I had no interest in Dungeons and Dragons
or Warhammer, per Southeast. But some of my mates from my
hometown, you know, we were just mooching around, as you do when
you're about 14 or 15 and nothing to do.
And one of them had discovered Dungeons and Dragons and said,
do you want to come and play at my house?
So we thought, yeah, yeah, it sounds cool.
We've heard of it, you know, we've seen the film, seen the
film ET, and we thought, yeah, that'd be cool.
So we went up there and my mate Egg, he, he, he was the Dungeon
Master. And all I can really remember
about it, because obviously some years ago now, you know, 1986 or
something like that was a lot of arguments across the table
between the Dungeon Master and the players.
And quite frankly, that turned me off it a bit.
But one thing I really did love about it was the little
miniatures. We, I remember when we first
started, we were each handed a miniature and told, look, this
is your avatar in the game and keep it safe or whatever.
You can paint it up or whatever. And this is your character
through the game, which I thought was totally ace.
I totally, I wasn't a complete novice to painting of miniatures
because prior to that I'd been into, you know, like Tamia
models, like a Japanese, you see, 132 scale.
I always loved painting those with humble miniatures and
making little dioramas. But when I saw this little lead
figure, and I think mine was, I think it was Boromia from
perhaps the 2nd edition figures of Lord of the Rings.
And I just thought this figure was just fantastic and it's
completely was entranced by it. And the next weekend we, we sort
of went to, we said, oh, should we go to Sheffield, which is the
nearest city in England to where we live or where we grew up?
And we'll go to the Games Workshop, which is again, only a
shop I'd ever walked past. And when we first went in there,
I was just blown away. You know, this fantastic cabinet
is full of figures that were all painted up beautifully.
And I, I must have spent about an hour looking at that.
And then there's this, this wall of blister packs with different
figures in so many different types of figures of all
different creatures and stuff like that.
And I mean, looking back at it now as as a 50 year old, I think
why didn't I buy more stuff then?
Because it was so cheap. But obviously prices were
relative and it was, you know, that stuff was expensive back
then. But yeah, that's how I got into
it. Nice mate.
That's a great story and I'm really glad you did manage to go
there to the Games Workshop to discover.
Yeah, to get discover more miniatures.
And did you get you deeper into the hobby?
Because that's. Yeah, yeah.
Exactly. Buying buying the miniatures
week on week because it became like a weekly pilgrimage.
The object of my desire was the cabinet.
The cabinet in Sheffield at that time was particularly good.
I mean, maybe I'm looking at it with roast tinted glasses, but
I'd honestly say that it was one of the best cabinets I'd ever
seen. Because lately throughout the
years I sort of went to different games workshops,
Derby, Manchester, Nottingham and I think only Nottingham was
marginally better out of all the ones that I ever visited.
But I would say Sheffield had a fantastic set of painters back
in those days. And it was my goal, it became my
goal to get my figures into that cabinet.
Because it was one of the days where, you know, just normal
Games Workshop enthusiasts could bring their figures into the
shop and the staff would put them in the cabinet for display
and put a little sign saying painted by.
And then so it was just, you know, it was a little ambition
of mine when I was a teenager to do that.
And I did manage it eventually. There was a guy there do stop me
if I ramble on because I probably bit of a rack on tur
when I get going. But there was a chat there who
worked and he was really encouraging.
Like when I first tried it, I kept taking my miniatures in and
I was like, Oh yeah, this is going to get in the cabinet I
think. And then he look at it and go,
Nah, it's not good enough feel. You know, the boots are all
patchy or, you know, the colours are wrong or look at the face,
look at the eyes. And he just kept pushing me and
pushing me to like improve the figures until I got my stuff in
there. He was called Kenny Crow and he,
he was a fantastic painter for the time.
I think his stuff was definitely better than what we were seeing
on the pages of White Dwarf. In my opinion, he was absolutely
top drawer painter. Yeah, but when I first started,
I remember we were painting with the Umbrel enamels and thinning
the paint down and but the figures were very bland.
And that's where then we got into these brand new acrylic
paints at Games Workshop, launched with titillating pink
and bestial brown and skull white.
I'm sure most of the people listening to this will remember
some of those colours. Just remember the joy of opening
those pots of paint and sitting there painting and being
overjoyed at how easy it was to paint compared with, you know,
trying to paint with humble enamels.
No, no shade to humble. You know, their stuff is good as
well. But the fact that you don't have
to use thinners and things like that, it was just beautiful.
Yeah, are they? They're the same paint sets with
the with those amazing golden demon covers and everything on
them. Yeah, that's right.
Yeah. I think the first one I had was,
it might have been the second paint set, because I think when
the first one was called something like the colour paint
set, something like that. And then the second one was
called the Monster paint set. That was the first one I ever
bought. And then I treated myself to
they brought out the inks and it was a little set of inks and
they weren't even in those sort of conical shaped pots.
They were in little dropper bottles, but small ones, really
small. And I remember opening it and
just like this stuff is game changing.
You know how you could do it? Do a wash with a little drop of
water, just put it on and shade instantly appeared.
Remember being blown away by it. It seems silly now, doesn't it?
Because we all take it for granted.
But just do remember the the joy of that.
Yeah, no, they were game changing, mate, for sure for me
as well. When I first discovered those
paint sets. Yeah, I could, I could brush
away my Tamia acrylic paints and find something far less smellier
and much easier to use and and that kind of thing.
Yeah, it, it was game changing for everybody.
But I did notice they did release a set prior to those
ones. I'm just trying to think of the
of the artist who did Bob's Naysmith, wasn't it?
Bob Naysmith did all the art covers for those gold.
Yeah, I reckon it was. Yeah, I.
Think so. I'm pretty sure they had one
before that as well where the headlights are.
I'm pretty sure the one, the box on the on the wall that I had
behind me that Mark kindly gave to me with John Blanche's like
Kaspari crushing the the skeleton guy with his Harry the
hammer. I'm pretty sure that has is a
paint set. And I'm pretty sure they came up
before the Bob Naismith covered ones.
So they had sort of like, yeah, pre that one, which I, I never
knew until not so long ago until going through, you know, whether
it'll be like civil compendiums or White Dwarf magazines finding
they actually had a paint set before then.
So they must just re repackage them into these wonderful
looking, obviously much, much more interesting looking sets.
And yeah. It's, it's amazing actually,
because you're educating me now about that.
I didn't know about that. And I'm quite astounded at just
how much I've learned in in the years when I've returned to the
hobby, which I'll tell you about in a second, but how much I've
learned of other people, you know, like stuff that you just
blatantly weren't aware of because in those days, nobody
talked about it. And I suppose a lot of the
background history, you know, the people involved in making
the miniatures, the people involved in setting up Games
Workshop. And that it wasn't, it wasn't
particularly talked about then. They weren't famous, they were
just people doing a job. Whereas now they've sort of got,
you know, sort of cult like status, haven't they?
The amount of stuff that you learn about figures and paints
and 1st editions and compendiums, it goes on forever,
doesn't it? Yeah.
But yeah, I've, I've learned the same.
I've, I've picked up a lot of stuff from my guests that I had
never known about or been enlightened by or now these, a
lot of these interviews. Because a lot of the, you know,
the former old guard of Gangs Workshop from back in those days
are now being interviewed now as they're retired from their, from
their long service working at Gangs Workshop and you learn
more and. More as you go.
Which is really really. Interesting.
So mate, what are your other influences do you think?
Yeah, well, like I said before I got into this stuff, I was
always into into science fiction and kind of action in war type
stuff. So, you know, if you list the
stuff of the 80s, it's action man and Action force.
Don't know if you had action force that where you were
anything sci-fi like Blake, Seven Star Wars and even from
being a kid of about 10, I used to have those.
I suppose you the common term these days.
These would be green army men and I used to have hundreds of
these things which are just collected from everywhere.
You know, friends, cousins, etcetera would give them to me
after they grew out of them. I just had this massive box
which I used to tip out on the lounge carpet and have these
wars behind the couch. And then I got a game for
Christmas once from my mom and dad, and it was called Crossbows
and Catapults. I don't know if you've ever
heard of that. Sure have, mate.
Yeah. I think it was MB games
actually, and I had loads of fun playing that game on its own,
but then I integrated it into my Green Army Men wars by putting
in stronger elastic bands onto the catapult.
So they were absolutely lethal. They fired these like round pook
things like ice hockey pooks, didn't they?
And yeah, I used to fire those across the lounge and kill the
20 army men at a time. And then I started painting the
army men. And then that's how it sort of
progressed into air fixed planes, tanks, Tamia, Italy,
Arai, that sort of stuff, you know.
So I guess, you know, I've always been into that stuff.
And also through the teenage years, I just came, became aware
of what kind of what I would call counterculture art, like
the old Leonardo da Vinci anatomy drawings and the the
Iron Maiden heavy metal album covers, that sort of stuff, you
know, just zombies, monsters, creatures, you know.
Yep, absolutely, mate. I remember all those days.
Yeah, I remember, like, you know, I remember kids at my high
school because we had, you know, our sort of like a rucksack or
something. We would take to school our
bags, but there'd be like this sort of like this hessian sort
of style bag or like this sort of light beige colour.
Yes, I haven't seen back. Yeah, I think in those in those
days, like late 80s or so, everyone had that sort of style
of bag and they would, they would meticulously draw the Iron
Maiden logo on the back of that bag, like with the like the flap
that covers your bag kind of thing.
Yes, that is it. And I remember at that time
anything like that heavy metal was totally thought of by the
establishment as being some kind of devil worshippers.
Now, I mean, obviously, I think we all know better now, don't
we? You know, I really got into so
much trouble for having an Iron Maiden T-shirts or painting it
on my jacket and stuff like that.
Everyone going you're a Satanist.
It's like, no, I'm not. Don't know anything about Satan.
But it was, you know, and I loved any, any kind of
rebellious thing like that way just gave me that little
opportunity to thumb my nose authority.
So Iron Maiden appeared everywhere and anything that was
a little bit, I don't know, just that the adult didn't really
approve of. I loved it.
I loved the World War Two poster or stuff like that.
Yeah, nice mate. That sounds great.
So you so how about comics and that kind of thing?
Did you get into the comics during those days as well?
Yeah, so I think at the time, to be fair, I wasn't really into
the DC and Marvel stuff at that time.
I was aware of it, but I always thought the storyline was a bit
like advanced for my brain. I was more into the drawings.
Like I would buy the comic purely to look at how it was
drawn and that how each cell ran into the next cell and stuff
like that. You know how those sort of DC
Comics were sort of bleed from 1 cell to the next where Batman or
whatever is knocking out the villain and he's sort of flying
across two or three cells. I'll prefer that style.
And then I sort of got into the more serious stuff, like, I
don't know, everyone will know Boris Valeo and Julie Bell and
they just did fantasy paintings in oil.
And I think they sort of took their, took their inspiration
from the what's the chap called who did Death Dealer?
I forget his name now. OK, I think I know.
I know the. Tip of my tongue.
But yeah. But I'll, I'll come back to it.
But and also I once found when I was a kid, this was a bit
naughty. I once found a Playboy magazine
and in there there was an artist being featured and he was called
Antonio Vargas. Alberto Vargas.
That was it. Yeah.
And he did these beautiful sort of 50s style pin up girls and
they were the type of things that were painted on the World
War Two airplanes, you know, like Memphis Belle, that type of
thing. Right.
Oh well, you know, playboy's got respect mate, so don't worry
about that. I think it's.
Quite. I think that's like, just like
an ordinary magazine now, isn't it?
I think it is these days, but I think, yeah, at the time it was
again a bit bit risque, wasn't it?
I found the death deal. I did a quick Google while we
were talking. It's friends for Rosetta.
I don't remember that's. It yeah, that's right, but all.
All of that stuff really bleeds into, for me, the Warhammer
ethos, doesn't it? You know, that must have been
what was going around the minds of, of the early sort of games
works of artists, the the sort of Vikings and and chaos of
warriors and all that stuff just really spoke to me a lot.
Yes, very sword and sorcery, isn't it?
When you think of like movies like Code in the Barbarian,
Excalibur, you know around that time during the 80s, mid 80s.
Yeah, fantastic film, that Excalibur.
I mean, you know, I used to just have it on VHS and just watch it
over and over. And the same for Highlander.
You remember that? Film Highlander, yeah, yeah.
I mean, they're pretty. They're pretty, like, even like
Willow, something like Willow. It, it has some very dark
undertones. And watching these Movies Now
because I've watched Willow. What was it?
I think a couple of months ago for the first time in, I don't
know how long, decades. And I'm thinking, you know, I
was watching this as a kid. But you know, it's got some
really dark occult kind of themes in it.
You know, if you if you look at other movies like Conan, it's
got, you know, I think that was an R rated movie, I think when
that first came out. They've made some pretty serious
stuff back then. I mean, it's quite laughable
some of the special effects and that kind of thing.
But I kind, I kind of respect it now.
But you know, I was watching one the other weekend, just turned
on some TV and it was totally random and it was crawl.
Can you remember Crawl? I remember the name, I can't
remember the movie. And it was just very similar
sort of thing, you know, evil castle lands in the middle of
nowhere and starts doing naughtiness and oppressing the
local, that type of thing. And I just thought, God, this is
just straight, you know, it's all the same genre if you like.
It's creating this the tableau for our imaginations in that
period of sort of almost mythical nostalgia for for some
kind of King Arthur esque landscape that we long to be the
hero in. That doesn't sound too crazy.
Yeah, no, that, that, that sounds right, mate.
Yeah. So a lot of influences are
getting through at that time during this very early stage of
White Dwarf when, yeah, things are changing.
It wasn't wasn't becoming the RPG book.
It was becoming less and less an RPG book, but more of a
miniature tabletop publication. So, mate, can you feel or can
you remember? Not feel.
Can you remember what your first White Dwarf magazine was?
It's one that I've been thinking about a lot.
I'm not 100% sure, I've got to be honest.
And I reckon it might have been #76 but I'm not 100% sure on
that because I've definitely had that one.
But whether that was the first one I got, I just can't quite
remember. It was the one with John
Blanchard's cover with gothic Amazon on the front.
Definitely had that one. And I had #84 with the Ian
Miller cover. And it's like savvy jokes on the
front. I think those ones stick in my
head. I've got quite a few which I've
picked up in recent years, you know, But there were some
absolute crackers. And I hate to say it now, and I
think purist listening will probably cringe, but sometimes
it was the cover that made you buy it.
I pretty much always bought it, but the cover was what got me
excited. I think One O 2 was a great one
with Les Edwards's Dark Future. And it's like a big fat man with
his really red lips. And it was straight out of Mad
Max or June, you know? I think it was a Dark Future
style cover. Yeah, that's some really good
quality artists like Les Edwards.
Yeah, just a genius, that guy. Yeah, I know.
This one's just sort of, you know, like, again, they played
into this whole mythology of counterculture like a secret
world of adventure. That was a little bit of
escapism for some, you know, teenager grew up in a village in
the Peak District where there's really not very much to do at
night, but perhaps hang around the bus stop and try and pinch a
couple of bottles of beer from around the back of the pool bus.
Nice one mate now. So yes, I I agree, like a lot of
the covers obviously drew me in and I I discovered a lot of the
old white dwarfs much later as I got into the hobby in around
about 901990 I think. And I think someone brought in a
whole stack of back issues and they resold it at my like local
comic shop. And that's how I discovered a
lot of the older ones, like in our in around this range.
So, you know, from around about, I don't know, about 85 up until
about 100 and better, I know it would have been over 100
actually. I think so.
Like one like the one 20s, one 30s, one 40s, one 50s around
those. And yeah, stunning artwork on
the front. And I think, I don't know if I
was talking to this with somebody else, it might have,
yeah, about the front covers of those magazines.
It would have been very costly for them to do that to
Commission someone just for a front cover if it wasn't going
to use for another publication of some kind.
I think they sort of changed that later where they had just,
they just had Dave Gallagher doing all the front covers,
basically. All right.
OK, yeah, it was that. Yeah, I think Dave did the
majority of them later. But they'll always for something
else. They'll always like the cover of
something you know they're going to use that artwork for.
Yeah, yeah, because that. But I noticed that looking
through a lot of the bonds, when I was thinking about this
question, I thought, you know, I'm going to get asked about the
white dwarfs. And so I started looking up all
the different covers and trying to see which ones I could
remember, which ones I'd gone up to.
And I noticed that. Dave Andrews were, was there
quite a few times, you know, and Dave Gallagher as well.
They, I think the one I mentioned, the Les Edwards one,
I'm sure that was on the cover of or the box of Dark Future
wasn't. It, it might have been.
Yeah, all those ones, yeah, yeah.
Well, it makes sense, doesn't it?
I mean running a business and obviously you got all those
people to pay. Yeah.
So makes sense, you know, you just can't have throwaway art
just for one magazine cover, so. Yeah, it can makes some respect
this. Time, you know, during the Ansel
time because like I'd never met the man myself, but I think he
gave a lot of people a good chance, you know what I mean?
He he looked at their work and I think finding people who centred
around this kind of this kind of genre was not, you know, wasn't
there, there was an enormous supply in around Nottingham,
around maybe at that area of the UK at that time, given the way
that, you know, people would transfer the artwork that had to
physically bring everything in or, you know, post it in or
whatever. So he he found, he sort of went
out and sort of headhunted all these people that he would.
He thought, yeah, these these people are the best at what they
do in the industry and together and, you know, got them to
produce some of the best artwork.
I think of that. You look at some of the artwork
now, I mean, looking back and I think some of these guys must
have been almost just out of art college or something because the
standard of work that they had and there was no digital
reproduction. And you know, there's nobody
making it on Photoshop and making composites with multiple
layers because there wasn't any Photoshop.
You know, it's often done by hand, pen and ink and just
phenomenal talent and to be able to own those white dwarfs and
things like that. And then some of the boxes, I
guess it's a fantastic way of just having a little print from
those those artists, because I dare say some of the originals
are worth absolutely hundreds now.
And you know, you could used to be able until just a few years
ago, you could pick up the white dwarfs for a couple of quid.
I mean, I know they're going up a little bit now.
I think I paid about 10 lbs for one not long ago.
But just fantastic to be able to still get them.
Annoyingly, must have had about 50 in my wardrobe at my mum's
house for 25 years before she finally said, Phil, can you come
and get rid of all this crap? And I was like, yeah, yeah.
And she said, do you want these magazines?
And I said no, just get rid of them.
And Oh my, I wish I hadn't. But it's a very common thing
with anyone who's into the old hammer, isn't it?
You know, kind of get rid of most of our stuff and then have
to buy it back. Yeah, mate, we've done all that.
I've done all mine too. Like sent all my stuff to the,
my mum's like a charity shop. Yeah, all my, all my issues went
there and some lucky bugger picked those up for about
probably a dollar each, I'd say, or $2.00 each or something like
that at that time. So yeah, I mean, you know,
someone's trash is going to be someone else's treasure, as they
say. So in that case, yeah, someone
got a very good deal. Anyhow, mate, we're going to
we're going to pause now for a quick ad break, but when we come
back I'm sure there's lots of stuff we can talk about in
relation to the hobby. So join us in just a moment.
OK, a question of the month for August 2024 is what miniature
would you like to own? Above all else?
For me it's got to be the Great Unclean One from the Citadel
combat cards. Of the late 80s and early 90s.
A great looking miniature which by all accounts weighs about as
much as a small cannonball. I'd love to own it, I'd love to
paint it, but I imagine they're very hard and very expensive to
come by these days. Anyway, tell us about the
ultimate miniature you would like to own by going to
bedroombattlefields.com/voicemail. And I need those in by Thursday
the 29th of August. That's
bedroombattlefields.com/voicemail. And now back to the show, just
as I don't know if people are listening, if they can relate to
just the fun of the hobby as a kid.
So I mean, there was a couple of things that pushed me on again,
you know, So I spoke about Kenny Crow, who was the guy at
Sheffield Games Workshop who kept pushing me and pushing me.
And he told me about a book called Heroes for War Games.
And then if anyone's watched my YouTube channel or my Instagram,
they'll see that I've been doing a bit of a walk through on that
book lately. But it was one I came across
after he'd mentioned it. I was looking for it for ages,
couldn't find it. And I went to my local library.
And as I said before, it was, it's where I grew up with really
in the middle of the sticks. So like stuff like that, just, I
didn't expect to find it. And that was the only library
you could really get to, you know, without having to travel.
So I just found it one day. And that book, I must have had
it on repeat for about two years.
You know, just every time it expired, I just took it back and
booked it back out again. No one ever got looking because
there was so many amazing figures in there and great
drawings. It just, you know, kept on
inspiring me to paint better, to paint better, to paint better.
And then Kenny came to me and said, are you entering the
Golden Demon Award? No idea what the Golden Demon
Award is, Ken. He said, well, there's an event
at Derby and it said it was at the the Assembly Halls 1989.
He said that you you basically have to paint some, paint a
figure into it in whatever categories you want to enter.
And if you're if you're lucky enough to get through the heat,
you get to go to games day and and pitch your figures against
the world's best painters. Well, I'm like, well, come on.
I'm like 15 or whatever it is. So I'm not really in that
league. And he went, no, no, I think
you, I think you've got a good chance mate, He said.
I think you've got a good chance of getting through.
So I was like, OK, I'll have a game anyway.
And I bought recently bought the Scarlocks wood elf Archers box
set. Do you remember that one?
I sure do, I love the artwork on that as well.
Beautiful. Yeah, yeah, fantastic artwork.
I don't know who that's by actually, but I always remember
the like the War Dancer sort of champion on the front and just
got these figures. They were just beautiful Jess
Goodwin sculpts. And out of that, the best figure
at the time I felt was was Scarlock himself.
And I stuck him on a horse base, put a log in front of him and
some stones. Green flock in those days.
And that one of those orangey spongy bushes, I don't know.
You see them all the time on the old, on the old photographs.
What's it kind of like, say again?
Let's remember, I don't remember.
What it's called because used, we used to buy that in bags in
back in the back in the early 90s to use it as like soft cover
because like in the rule book, of course.
And I think Rogue Trader as well.
You had all that stuff on the tables, but you don't know, you
never see it anymore. No, no, it's quite, it's quite
rare. And I mean, I don't find it the
best stuff ever. There's so much better stuff
now, but back then it was kind of bit revolutionary.
And, and this one, this particular coloured Bush that I
picked up from BT's model shop in Sheffield, it was kind of
orange, like fiery orange, which just really worked against
Scarlocks green. And I remember the tunic that I
painted a scarlok, it was goblin green as the base.
And then I highlighted it with bilious green and I washed it
with an imperial. No, no, no, no.
What's it called a type anyway? A really beautiful woodland
green wash and it was a proper ink like a Daler and Rowney type
thing that I had from an art project and I just washed it
with that and it just made it pop.
I thought it was the best figure I've I've ever painted at that
time that I don't think I've done anything else good.
I mean, by today's standards, it was, you know, plain average,
but. Yeah, I put it in and I had no
expectations whatsoever. And then just one day I just got
this letter through from Games Workshop saying,
congratulations, you've won the heat and the single figure and
you're going to games Day. That's.
Awesome. Yeah, so Kenny Crawl and all his
pushing had really paid off, you know, and at the time that I
think, you know, just blown away.
It was like a big thing for all my mates at school, just like,
Oh my God, you're going to game today.
What if you see John Blanche? And so it was just a beautiful
thing. My dad said that he would take
me. We didn't have a car in those
days, so we had to go on the bus to Derby.
And then we caught a train to my, we call it train to my
aunties, who lives at Utah in Staffordshire.
And then we went the next day, back on the train to Derby, to
the games day. And dad just went and mooched
around the city all day waiting for me.
Yeah. What a hero.
And I went in and oddly enough, did meet John Blanche that day.
Oh. Nice.
So I just remember it was quite a crazy day because I was
walking down the, I was walking down the main concourse bit and
I seen John Blanche going towards me.
And he, he had his trademark cut off denim jacket on.
And of course he was super young in those days.
He'd probably be younger than I am now, much younger.
And I stopped him and said George on Blanche.
And he went, yeah, I am, blah, blah, blah.
And I said, well, I would ask you for an autograph, but I
haven't got any paper or a pen. And he went, I've got a pen and
I've got an apple. They pulled an apple out of his
pocket, inside the apple. I bet you never ate that one
mate. No, Well, I didn't keep it for a
while, but obviously he couldn't keep it for very long.
John's just about to walk off, you know, because I can't hold
on to him for too long, obviously.
And I said, John, I said I'm just going to go out on a limb
here. And this is, this is a 16 year
old or 15 year old, I can't quite remember exactly how old I
was. And I said I'm going to go out
on a limb here. I wonder if you might do me a
favour. I can't believe I was so cheeky
to be honest. I said I, I brought a figure,
it's in the cabinet down there and you know, I wouldn't want to
the Sheffield heats. I said, I wonder if you might be
able to get it photographed for the book that you produce every
year. I said, I know I've seen some of
the other ones from the previous year and I just wondered if
there's any possibility you could get it photographed for
me. And he just went, yeah, of
course, let's go get it. And so we went down to to get
the figure out the cabinet and he pulled it out and got it
photographed. And it is in that Games Day book
from 1989. Wow OK I used to have that book
too so I'll have to go and hunt down like APDF copy of it and
check it out again mate. So see that miniature in in
print? It'd be awesome to see in your
quotation there. This crazy thing and I just need
to clarify here so Scarlock wouldn't need the heat.
But for some reason, and I don't know why this was because it was
a moment of madness and I kick myself for it all the time.
For some reason, I painted a Space Marine Scout about a week
before the tournament and I was just into that and I thought
that is better than Scarlock. So for some reason I took the
scout to games day and entered that and it wasn't as good as
Scarlock. I look at it now and think it's
not even a patch on it. But hey, that was the one that I
got photographed and it's still in the book.
And some poor soul and I don't know who it was.
He painted an elder scout and they attributed that to me as
well, and I didn't paint that and I felt so guilty.
It's like someone must. Have been really pissed.
You would be, you would be, wouldn't you know, After all
these years, it must still rankle when you look at it.
I'm sorry. Whoever that was, by the way.
I'm so sorry. Yeah, Anything else happen on
that day, Mate of Gangs Day 89? Yeah, yeah, just one crazy thing
as well. Can you remember there was a
game? Can you remember gobbledygook?
I'm not really familiar with it, no.
OK so gobbledygook was like this goblin character means like a
cartoon and I think he was in White Dwarf.
Anyway, they created some kind of a game and I cannot remember
the name of the game. It may have been called Splat or
something like that. Anyway, there's lots of tables
at Games Day that day and they were showcasing this game and it
was sort of like little cards or little coat.
They're almost like coasters, you know, I put put your drink
on. Anyway, I was wondering what all
the fuss was. So I'm standing in the queue
like what's all the fuss? Can't get near this table.
So I finally got close to the table to see him.
It's just these little cards with these cute little gobbling
pictures on and all the all the kids have got one in their hand,
right? So I'm like, why are you holding
these cards? And they're all holding on to
them, holding on to them. I'm thinking these like 3 these
like freebies. So anyway, I reached across and
picked one up and I'm holding mine and everyone's just
standing there. Kind of, I can't really work out
what's happening. And it's so hot because everyone
was crowding in. I thought, oh, I saw this, I'm
going to sit down. So I just melted out of the
crowd and went behind only about 5 feet away from where everyone
was standing and sat down. I still had the card in my hand,
didn't think anything of it. Suddenly this kid looks around
at me and he's like staring at me.
And then two others start staring at me.
And then about 10 people start staring at me.
I'm like, what the Hell's going on here?
And then this Gates Workshop staffer came over to me and
went, excuse me, did you just take one of those cards?
And I went, yeah, it's here. And he went, you can't take
them. I went.
Everyone just had them in their hands.
So I just thought they were like, three.
I nearly died. I wish the ground had swallowed
me up, you know, it was so horrible.
Oh, dear. But yeah, that those were, you
know, it was a good day overall. And like I say, I did pretty
well out of it to get my picture, my phone, my miniature
in the book. And, you know, that's meeting
John Blanche. Those were the overriding things
of the day. And that little thing doesn't
matter. I didn't steal a thing.
It was just a misunderstanding. Can.
You remember who won the Golden Demon that year?
Oh, now that is a good question, I think.
Oh, was it David Super? Right.
You know, it was somebody blunt. I think David super that year I.
Don't know. I'm going to have to Google that
because I I need to know. I've totally forgotten.
I think it might be somebody blunt.
I know that I even Bartlett had won it the year before with his
fantastic mammoth and the howder I think that I think or, or did
he win it with the Chalice of doom again, all those all about
the same time. You know, I can't quite remember
who won it what year. But yeah, Golden Demon and Games
Day were together. They were combined, weren't
they? As one.
That's right, that's right. They were, and you had to sort
of wait through the whole games day was just going on the games,
people. Tabletop gaming.
There was like Knights and things doing sword fights and
stuff. I mean, sword fighting with
broad swords, with people standing around the edges.
I mean, what could go wrong? Yeah.
Exactly, man. Oh, I think I may have found a
picture that shows who won it. I'm just.
OK. It was Steve Blunt.
Yeah. And it was like A to meet a
Nigel demon on a chariot with, like, a skeletal thing.
And that was bloody amazing. I saw it all close, and it was
truly, you know, I think it'd do well in today's standards.
The painting was so smooth. I mean, don't get me wrong,
modelling by today's standards was a bit rough, but then so
were the models, weren't they? You know exactly it was rough.
Then Yep, you're only working with what you got.
So you know they did very well with what they had.
Mate. Talk about painting.
Because I've noticed now, again, like in the last week, there's
another couple of paint ranges coming out and now we just seem
to be having, we just got so much wealth of different
painting like paint manufacturers out there with
their new ranges coming out, that kind of thing.
What kind of paints do you use now?
You obviously you're not using the old.
Are you using some of the old original Citadel paints or
you've moved on to other things? Yeah, I've got a bit of a mix, I
think, like most painters, and not because I'm not one of these
paint collectors, I'm just, you know, I watched the videos on
YouTube and some of the guys, excuse me and some of the girls
on there, they've got hundreds of paints and racks and racks
and drawers and drawers of paint.
I think I've got two drawers, 2 smallish drawers on my desk and
one's kind of full of drop of bottles and one is full of
Citadel stuff, new, new Citadel stuff.
And there's a bit of Nostalgia 88 in there, a couple of
Privateer Press, loads of the new Citadel pots, some of them.
What's that paint called by Essex Coat the Arms.
Now, that was the first stuff that I bought when I got back
into the hobby in 2018. And I had 24 years out.
And then suddenly one day just saw some photos of miniatures on
eBay and thought on Facebook. I thought, Oh yes, that my old
hobby, let's have a look on eBay and see if we can get some and
just start it up again. It was crazy really.
But my paint, my favorite paints are the layout, easy to use,
cheap, like £2.50 a bottle, good range of colours from the model
colour range, which is more sort of, you know, army colours,
German army, Russian army, American, etcetera, with Browns
and Leathers and stuff like that, silver gun metal,
etcetera. Really good base set.
And then the colour range for, you know, when you need to make
it pop. I do still like Citadel, but the
bloody pots, the parts drive me crazy, you know, and I'm sure
everyone who's listening would concur.
They knock over really easy, they don't seal up very well.
And the paint is good, The paint is fine.
It's a little thick sometimes, but I just don't like the pots
because I keep knocking them over or they they just dry up
too quick. So yeah, I'm dropping bottles
for me and the layout tend to make the best ones that I've
used. Proacryl.
Have you tried those? Sorry, which one?
Proacryl you buy monument hobbies.
I've heard good things about them.
So I'm yeah, I'm sort of looking at, because I look at Duncan
Rhodes paints as well and that kind of interests me as well.
I like the colour he's chosen and, and the way he's laid out.
All those paint sets. I saw Cerissa selling the entire
like as you can buy them in like blocks of like, you know, wave
one, wave 2 with the actual. Exactly.
As well, so that that seems interesting.
They're in drop of bottles, which I like, but like I said,
there's just a wealth of paint ranges out there which are
either confined to the country where they, where they're
produced in or they're, you know, they've export them out to
different countries. The availability is a, is a big
thing with the layer for me. It's my preferred paint.
I've used it now for like over 20 years.
Never been disappointed with a colour, very accessible, very
affordable. But like you man, I'm, I'm
always looking to try. Oh, I wouldn't mind giving that
a go. Maybe there's some really nice
colours they've got in there. Maybe the paint flows better or
you know, they've just got a, a new take on it.
I mean paints paint at the end of the day.
Exactly. Yeah.
And I don't believe in being partisan about these things.
You know, for me, I am so basic. Like I'd prefer to just have a
basic range. And I like mixing paints.
You know, if I need to create a green, I'm not going to just go
out and buy that shade of green because it says so in a
magazine. You know, I'll just make that
green with my eye and it won't be the same green as the last
time. So if I have two orcs and you
know, they're, they're possibly going to be slightly different
colours, that's fine. People, people in the real world
are slightly different colours, you know what I mean?
So it doesn't matter to me. It's, it's about the coverage,
the availability. You, you're a professional
painter. So, you know, if you favour them
then I think I'm on the right track.
Yeah, like for layman, as soon as I make the switch from those
crappy Citadel pots, from I don't know, when I was buying
them, 2000, 2001, 2002, something like that, when I
found about found out about Vallejo, that was it.
I was totally sold on that entire range.
It was so good. The first time I ever had a
dropper bottle, you know, for example, I've never had a paint
in a dropper bottle before. That was revolutionary in
itself. But the way we acted on the, on
the palette, the way it would, it would blend perfectly, the
way it would dry. And yeah, just just the, just
the nature of the, the, the paint itself was just miles
ahead of what Citadel were doing.
And yeah, I've tried some of the Citadel stuff nowadays and
they're hit and miss. I I think the, the air range is
very good. It's like it like a gelled up
ink. That's that's got some really
good uses. Do you use what you do you use?
Sorry to cut you off there, Josh.
Do you use an airbrush then? Yeah, I use an airbrush when I'm
doing priming or base coats or some stuff as well.
But yeah, but yeah, I'm always up to trying new things.
There are some really good paints out there for different
applications depending what you're doing.
I mean, you're not an army painter.
You, you paint, you know, single miniatures.
And I think that's, that's a good thing for you to have like
a limited amount of palette, but you, you mix up your paints to
get whatever hues you need. You don't need, you know, 10,000
paints, you know, that's, that's not what you need.
You know, I probably need. It's kind of, there's other, you
know, there's other factors at play and in terms of I don't
have a dedicated hobby space, I sort of like double up my office
space where I work because I'm self-employed.
So like in the day it's work zone and in the evenings it's
paint zone. So I kind of have limited
storage. I've got cabinets in there and
I've got enough room for my hobby kit, but the hobby kits
will have to take a bit of a back seat.
And I think, look, I've got every type of paint.
I've got black and brown and white and red and yellow, blue
and green and all the many shades in between.
I go into the paint shop sometimes or bottle shops and I
see all these huge racks of different stuff and I think, Oh
yeah, I should buy that. And then I go, no, you don't
bloody need it. You've got like 5 yellows, what
do you need? Another one?
So I stop, you know, just think, come on man, think about
storage, think about where it's going to go, you know?
So I'm just getting sensible in my old age.
I'm sure there's people who collect paints.
I'm sure I'm going to have to find.
I've noticed I've, I've, well, I met AI know a guy back in
Australia who did that. He had like just drawers and
cupboards full of them. He would collect everything, all
different kinds of paints, which, yeah, I mean, I'm
interested in paints. I love paints.
I use them all the time. So yeah, it's cool.
But I, I, I again, it's like space.
Where the hell I'm going to put all this stuff, You know how?
How far are you? Live.
How many summers survive, you know, before they drop?
Exactly. It's a science in itself though,
isn't it? Because some people like they
are the oracles of paint and they know exactly oh, like
Citadel sunburst yellow, the equivalent in Valeo is whatever
number. And I'm just like, wow, how can
you know all that stuff? Maybe just got it up in the
head. So it's kudos to them, I say.
Yeah, so talking about paints and painters, yeah, who are your
sort of painting heroes out in the hobby, like past or present?
Yeah. Oh, OK.
Well, gosh, there's lots, isn't there?
I mean, back in the day I have to keep, I keep going back to
Kenny Crow and I don't think he'd paint this anymore.
But I just, you know, I wish people, I wish there was some
images of Kenny's stuff. I'll have to contact him.
Actually, I did find him on LinkedIn and I've quick chat
with him, but I'm going to contact him and see if he's got
any pictures of his own stuff because he was a really good
painter. And so he is still a hero of
mine. Someone like, I don't have many
hero heroes, but I think people who, what's the word, they're
mentors, aren't they? You know, people like role
models who guide you in a moment where, you know, you could turn
to drinking and smoking and being a hoodlum and actually you
get into Warhammer and painting and doing art.
So yeah, Kenny. Kenny was one John Blanche, I
have to say. I know it's a bit of a hope,
John take this in the light, in the right spirit, but it sounds
like sometimes it's a bit of a cliche to say John Blanche, John
Blanche. And but John Blanche was the guy
who whose work I saw in White Dwarf illuminations.
He was the guy whose conversions I saw, you know, where he was
making a minor tour and, and and change the axe and change the
head and made it into a 2 headed monitor and then painted a
freehand Mona Lisa. And I was just like, what the
hell is this? And how has he done it?
And the textures that he used in those days, he used to sort of
use a lot of millipot to glue everything together and then he
paint his free hand and then spray it all with like 50
million layers of varnish or whatever.
And it was so smooth and glossy and it was like nothing else
that anyone had ever done. So yeah, John totally is a hero
of mine. I won't say the next chap is a
hero of mine because he was an adversary.
The chap at school, both he and I used to take figures in and
show the other kids occasionally and.
A little Commission business started to grow up and with all
the kids saying will you paint my figures, will you paint my
figures? And this guy Jonathan Collins,
he, he was very unencouraging to my work.
Yeah, yeah, not as good as me. My stuff's way better.
And to be fair, looking back at it, it's stuff was very good.
It was even did non metallic metal painting in those days,
which I thought was crap back then and all don't love it, to
be honest. But when it's done well, it's
really, you know, amazing. But he was experimenting with
that stuff in the in the late 80s.
So I mentioned him him not to deride him, but to just say he
helped spur me on and keep going because I don't like to be
beaten. And so, you know, I kept
painting and I think, I don't know whether he did or not, but
he definitely gave me a kick on the backside when I was being
lazy with it, you know? Yeah, that's, that's a good
point. I mean, having a rival, I'm sure
people who competed in Golden Demon and who do that now have
that same relationship with other people.
They might be friends, they might be adversaries or
whatever, but they're looking at each other's work and then
they're competing against each other to to self improve.
And I think that's the way you do get better because you are
aiming for a certain level, whether it be a competition
level or just personal level. And then you're you're, you
know, I'm always comparing my stuff with other people's stuff
online. I mean, it's not hard to do.
You mean you just go to Instagram and you'll find 10,000
beautifully painted models. And you're just saying, wow, you
know, these these people are really super talented.
And, and I'm. Yeah, well, I'm always trying to
improve myself. But yeah, it's that's that's.
You're going to get better. Exactly.
I mean, I don't, you know, that I'm not really a name dropper or
anything like that because I don't want to specifically never
been one of these people who loves to just kiss up to the
established painters who are well known or whatever.
But the Instagram is where I found some really beautiful
people who are both great painters and absolutely
brilliant human beings. You know, through Instagram and
and the painting, I have met lots of old hammer painters
because I really only do old hammer.
To be fair, I do one or two others, but mostly old hammer.
And you know, I sort of made a list of some of the more famous
ones like Vince Venturella and Roman Lapat, etcetera, that
those guys are amazing. But then there's the smaller
chaps, you know, like Tom Riley, who goes by the name of
Knollbrush Kettle Trout, who is Andrew McDonald.
Those guys I've met, I've been to Bring out Your Lead, I've met
them in person. We've had great chats, you know,
stuff eating food, pouring over the models, like old mates, like
from school kind of thing. You know, there's so many
talented painters on there. Chat called Alex, who goes by
Oriental Heroes, you know, the Games Workshop girl, Sorry Lady
Louise Sugden, her use of colour just out of this world.
I mean I've seen her paintings at Games Workshop and I don't
think she works for them anymore.
She does her own thing, don't she?
But the the level does have a lot of brush work.
I just think I just couldn't get near that stuff.
That's awesome mate. I'm I'm glad you got to meet
some of your heroes at the bring out your LED events as well and
you. Stand out moments.
Any stand out moments? Any stand out moments for you
personally meeting your your heroes at the bring out LED
events? Yeah, well, I mean, when I say
not heroes like Tom and and Andrew are, you know, their
mates and but they're people who I admire their work.
And then I did get to chat to Tony Ackland.
Funnily enough, he spent a lot of time in Derbyshire where I
grew up. We, we talked about that.
We talked about the caves and Castleton and, and places in
Derbyshire. I then when I was a young man, I
lived in, in Staffordshire in the city of Stoke on Trent.
Oddly enough, he'd spent lots of time there as well.
So we had about 3 hour conversation and he's thinking,
this is the guy whose work I just literally drooled over for
years. And we just sat talking about
old powers and, and I met Brian Ansell down at Foundry as well
and he gave us a bit of a tour of the gardens and stuff and
just he was just such a down to earth man.
You know, considering that he created this huge empire and he
started the careers of so many people, he was just super down
to earth, nice bloke. I was just so proud to meet
people like that and proud to see that they were normal
people. You know, they weren't
condescending. They weren't on the high horse.
I'm I'm the big I am none of that.
They were just really nice guys. Yeah, I love that.
And of course, you meet other people there.
You know Tim Prow who who used to paint in the Heavy Metal team
know Tim and they've done a bit of marketing work with Tim for
his Die Hard Miniatures range. Who else have pumped into
various famous Trish Trish garden?
Yeah, I'm one of two others. Anyway, I don't want to do name
dropping, but yeah, there's some amazing people who go there.
So it's a it's a feast every time.
Wonderful. Oh, that's good mate.
Now. You have never been.
No, no, I've never been mad. It's quite, quite a, quite a
journey to get to, to the UK for me from here in Japan.
And yeah, of course, quite a costly holiday, but one day I'd
like to I'm I'm just really gutted I never got to meet Brian
in person. Like to shake his hand and say
thanks for giving us this hobby, mate.
You know, like without Brian, I, you know, I just wouldn't have
discovered he requests. I wouldn't have got into the
hobby, wouldn't have gone into like miniature painting.
And in a sense, like I, I came into the hobby right at the end
of his his error and went into the Tom Kirby corporate era of
gangs workshop. But I really became to respect
what he did coming back into the hobby, learning more about, you
know, games works how how it sort of started.
Yeah, yeah, I've got, I've got lots of admiration for the guy.
And so, yeah, without him, I don't think a lot of what we
recognize now as the game switch hobby would have existed without
him. You know, he was really that
obviously a financial driving force.
But of course, he, I think he put an arm around a lot of
people like Kev Adams. He nurtured a lot of good talent
at that time and sort of really pushed them to produce some of
the best stuff they've ever done.
And when you listen to the people on in interviews and
everything around that time, they just loved that that, that
that period of working for GW, it just seemed like a, an
absolute crazy madhouse. Like everyone was just, you
know, doing practical jokes on anybody else.
Everyone like the sculptors were, you know, taking the piss
out of maybe the artists or whatever, you know, like there
was just, they're just running Amark and it just wasn't really
a what you would consider kind of normal workplace.
It was just like a bunch of creative people all getting
together and producing all this amazing stuff that.
Must have been, I mean, that must have been really beautiful
because I think at that time I sort of had this thing in my
head that yeah, that's the job I want to do.
I want to go and get and work for Games Workshop on the Heavy
Metal team and I think, I think I'm not.
I wrote a letter about it, you know, to try and find out, but
just realise that there weren't that many painters in that team
or at that time that I just realised that the Phil, this is
not going to happen me. It's just not going to happen.
There's too many great people on that team, you know, with Tim
and Mike McVeigh and, you know, Phil Lewis and those people in
there, you just think, well, you're not going to get in
there. So I guess it kind of went away.
But you, you'd got to work there, didn't you?
So. Very briefly, yeah, very
briefly. But yeah, great time, mate.
It was great time. It was like the that was in the
new, that was that was not, that wasn't in the original studio.
That was in the sort of the new studio there in Nottingham next
to the. It was next to the Robin Hoods
or Sherwood Forest's caves or something like that, like Robin
Hood's cave. Right.
OK. Yeah.
I don't think I ever went past that.
Any, I was like, it's like this Main High Street and you'd walk
down and you'd have the the studio there and next to the
studio were the set of caves where apparently Robin Hood and
his merry men would hide in that.
I don't know. I, I never, I never really
visited that part of, I never didn't really go around much of.
I didn't really see much of Nottingham when I was there to
be honest. I was always going home to work
and vice versa, you know what I mean?
Like I didn't really get to explore much of the UK when I
was there, unfortunately. I'd like to go back again at
some point and and check out yeah.
Well, you know you'll have to come.
We'll, I'm sure me and numerous other people help you out when
come and go for a pint and I can, if you're interested in the
Robin Hood stuff. Like even though I live up in
Derbyshire and I'm originally from Derbyshire, sort of lived
away and then came back. Back in the day.
Sherwood Forest used to run much, but it wasn't just
Nottingham. It was like the whole what we
call the East Midlands. I mean, you sort of would run
from Nottingham right across up to Sheffield.
And where I grew up was sort of on the border of High Peak and
what we would call the edge of Sheffield now.
And there's a little village there called Haversage, and
that's where little John was reputedly from.
There was a grave. Yeah, that's, there's a grave in
the churchyard there that is claimed to be him and was
apparently once exhumed. And they found a very large
thigh bone, which was indicative of a man about 7 feet tall,
apparently. Yeah.
I don't know how much truth there is in that, you know,
because there's local myths and all that business, isn't there.
But. But yeah, it's not too far away
from where I live now. Probably about 20 minutes so.
That's fascinating, Yeah. That's got such a wealth of
history in the UK that I didn't really have an appreciation for
it then, but now I'd love to go back and and check out all those
sort of historical sites. And yeah, and like Wales as
well. I think Wales is another
fascinating country as well. Oh, yeah, yeah, totally.
There's so many cans and, and old castles and such like.
But yeah, there's round here. There's just about 3 miles from
where I live, there's a rock called Robin Hood Stride, where
Robin Hood was reputed to hang out.
And there's a huge rocky outcrop called Stanage Edge.
And on there, there's Robin Hood's cave, where apparently he
used to hide out as well. So whether he was ever real, we
don't know. Do we?
Bought, you know, it all plays into the the romance of it,
doesn't it? That's right.
OK. But we're going to go to another
ad break and when we come back, we're going to talk about some
miniatures you'd like to buy but you don't have.
So we'll be back in just a moment.
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Crown of Command podcast. So tell us Phil, what are the
miniatures you'd like to buy? B Don't have?
I'm sure you have quite a few. Oh, there are so many out there,
you know, and like every miniature collector or painter,
you sort of have to temper your crazy urges to buy, buy, buy
because you just can't paint everything that you've got.
I do try, but I go through bits and starts of painting, so I'm
going to rattle a few off and just see what people think.
I mean, I really like Other World Miniatures.
I don't know if you've heard of that company, they've got some
fantastic figures, but apparently they've just sold the
range and the whole range has been split up and going off to
different stables, which is really sad and I'm so fed up
that I didn't buy their stuff beforehand.
But Pig face, dorks from Other World Miniatures and then the
old minifig skeletons, do, you know, they're like 28
millimetres and kind of cute and they haven't really got any
features. And they've got a huge bell like
they're pulling. And they remind me of, is it
Hieronymous Bosch's paintings or no hands, Peter Bruegel, the
March of Death. You know, I think it's a Black
Sabbath album cover as well. Those skeletons, I really love
them. I don't, they're not really
great sculpts or anything like that, but there's some
nostalgic. I really want to get some of
those. I don't know if you're familiar
with Grenadier miniatures at all.
Yeah, they've been around for. Well, are they still around?
Because they're around, they're around.
Yeah, they're around by proxies, aren't they?
I think there's an Italian company called Melliton or
Merliton. I don't know if I'm saying that
correctly, but but they they still make them and you can
order them. You can buy them from a couple
of other companies. EM4 Miniatures sell some.
And I think there is another company, I can't quite remember
the name of them, but they used to do some brilliant giant
skeletons like a death giant, which was like a sort of like a
grim Reaper without the without the scythe.
And he had a lamp in his hand and a big cloak.
And I always wanted that figure. Used to see it in the window of
BT's at Sheffield. Now it was in the window, but
they never had it in stock. And I used to say tell me the
one in the window. And it was like, no, I'm not
selling it. So yeah, there's that.
And I had a skeletal mammoth from Grenadier, and I had it for
years as a diorama, and then it got broken and it was just in
bits and bits and bits in my house for years.
And I think my daughter was about 9:00 or so.
And we were just going through our box.
We found it. And I said, I'm never going to
make this again. I'm not into Warhammer anymore.
And I threw it away. Threw it away in the bin.
Oh my God, what was I thinking? So yeah, I'd really like to get
that. And, you know, there's loads of
figures and there's too many to name.
Marauder, giant gobbling fanatics, I love the Asgard
Barbarians, gene stealers, dark future, all of that old stuff.
Anyway, what about you? Have you got any of anything
that you're really trying to get hold of?
You know, like if I to be honest, not really, no, I don't
think so. I think I'm pretty happy with
what I've got, to be honest, mate.
Wow. Like if I had like, let's say if
I had a ton of money and I could just choose whatever I wanted to
buy, I would actually go back into third edition and start
collecting a lot of the the Perry dwarf models, Imperial
dwarves and Norse dwarves of that because they were the first
dwarves I ever saw. Opening up my third edition
fantasy battle book. And I love that picture where
there's the the mighty fortress and the dwarves are besieging a
castle. And those particular dwarves are
like a lot. So yeah, I mean those and
probably a lot of the early Kev Adams miniatures as well.
The The Orton Goblins from 3rd edition.
Yeah, you're a big third edition guy.
I think you you, you're a little bit younger than me.
Well, I'm, well, I, I, I'm not really.
I mean, I got, I got into the. Hobby through third.
Edition, but it was only just looking at the pictures I I just
didn't know how the game mechanically worked.
And. 4th edition came and then I just picked up that set and it
became a lot more easier to understand and you've got
miniatures and, and away I went. But I, I did pick up the, the
earlier, well, not the regiments of Renown, but the regiments of
Renown, the, the plastic drastic plastic set where you've got all
the plastic miniatures in the goblins and all that kind of
stuff. And a friend of mine got that
same set. So I think together we could
sort of, you know, scramble together enough models.
To sort of start. Experimenting with tabletop war
gaming, but never in the in the to the extent of actually having
a full game. It was kind of like just the
getting into the hobby, putting collecting the models was quite
difficult and then learning how to paint the miniatures and
everything as well. I mean, if if I could, I mean,
looking at Jeff from Oakbound Studios, I love his collection
of metal advanced here request models.
Yes, I'd love to get those as just a, you know that that
that's like almost impossible to get those without spending
hundreds and hundreds of dollars on them.
I don't really need them, but they'd be nice to have as a
collection. Nice to have.
That's it, isn't it? There's a lot of stuff like that
now. I mean in terms of I think might
be controversial in old hammer circles, but I personally feel
like old hammer is coming to a zenith almost.
You know, a few years ago you could pick up any good quality
old hammer figures to what I've called reasonable money. eBay
has now become quite expensive in my opinion.
Like if you're a collector, I guess it isn't.
I guess it isn't if I'm being honest.
And you know, it's probably like if you're, if you're a big, if
you're big into the figures and you're really obsessing about
collecting every figure from every range or whatever range it
is that you're really into, then I guess it's not too much to
spend 10 lbs on one walk or one out for whatever.
But me personally, I love the the hobby for what it is, but
it's only. It's only miniatures in my
opinion. Like I love them, but it's only
miniatures. I mean, at the end of the day,
it's just a lumber lad. I love it, but it's just a
lumber lad. It's not, it's not worth, you
know, playing £40 for one figure in my opinion.
I just, I'm not ever going to do that.
It doesn't matter what rage it comes from.
I'm just not paying that money because I could take my wife out
for dinner or, you know, buy my daughter something.
It's money. You know, there are other ways
to spend that money. So, you know, I just look for
deals. And the old Sea Rangers, the
Orcs, you know, C15-C-16, the Perry Orcs, Perry skeletons, the
Amazons, the, the C30 Amazons, that C23 Ogres by Jess Goodwin,
the, that stuff that I'm always looking out for that stuff.
And if there's something that's just in the right price bracket,
I might buy it, but the ones I want are out of my price range
now. C28 demons like Hamratha Mangora
and D MAT guilty where they were, they were derided when I
was a kid, you know, my mate had them in a tin and we used to
look at them and go these, these are rubbish.
They've got no plastic bases. We don't like them.
You know, anything. That was, what's the word, pre
slaughter. You know, we hated it.
We, we hated it, actually hated it.
Now I love it. I can't get enough of that
stuff. But yeah, I'm not, I'm not
paying silly money for it. It just I've got hundreds of
figures in a box that I've not painted.
So if I if I never buy any old stuff again I've still got
enough to last me till I'm like 70?
I feel the same. I've got enough stuff here to to
get through that will take me years, if not a decade to get
through to fully finish everything that I have.
Maybe maybe lessen it, I don't know.
It depends how fast you paint. Depends much time you want to
sink into it. But I'm always like retouching
up my stuff anyway. I paint the stuff like 5-6 years
ago. I want to go back over and, and
touch them up again and maybe, you know, redo some of the
banners. And I, I, I enjoy that part of
the the hobby as well. Yeah, yeah.
I think you can always make improvements, Scott.
You're looking back at stuff, spaces particularly.
I look at some of the bases that I did a few years ago, maybe,
you know, just straight three or four years ago and think, Oh
yeah, you were just coming back to the hobby there.
You didn't have a clue of like how much the base is important.
And yeah, I would like to go back and fix a lot of that
stuff, but it'll have to wait until I've sort of, you know,
made a serious dent on that lead pile.
Then again, too much new stuff as well.
Isn't there like, you know, so many kick starters going off all
the time with brand new miniatures being sculpted?
I mean there's a company out there called Crooked Dice and
they do loads of cool pulp stuff all from TV, you know the A-Team
or Battlestar Galactica type figures, anything like that.
You've got fantasy companies springing up in left, right and
centre. There's nightmare miniatures,
die hard miniatures. There's Chapa, I think he's
called Jamie Tranter, and he's just released some dwarfs that
I've been long in the making and I've been watching them for like
2 years on Facebook. I'm thinking this is just
beautiful little green sculpts and now he's released them.
I'm going to buy them after I didn't invest in the Kickstarter
actually, but I am going to pick some up.
They're just amazing. Yes, they're beautiful.
There's plenty of new stuff if you can't get the old stuff.
Yes, I think that's that's a good point.
I mean, and I always say to people, you know, and I'm
probably going to do some more, I'm going to highlight some more
companies now that produce new stuff, but with the old
aesthetics. And I think they're a great
alternative where you can support someone who's making
stuff now rather than, you know, feed someone's ego on eBay with
spending way over the the, you know, like a a reasonable amount
of money for stuff. There's great alternatives out
there that look very similar to well, they might be even
sculpted like Kev Adams does a lot of stuff, still does a lot
for various companies. So Otherworld was a great
company for that because they they did a lot of like DND
related miniatures, but beautiful sculpts made by Kev
Adams, made by Paul Muller, you know, EX or XGW guys.
Yeah. Yeah, I know, Paul.
Yeah, it's good. So, yeah, because some really
good stuff out there, there's great alternatives so you you
don't have to be forced down this very narrow path of
spending or investing thousands of dollars to get you dream 80s
or 90s army. You've got really good
alternatives out there to to do it at a budget, you know.
Yeah, exactly, Exactly. I know it's a bit of a hot
potato, you know, sort of. I don't shy away from
controversy in any way. I always just speak my mind and
it's only opinion at the end of the day, isn't it?
I mean, I'm not saying I'm right or anything like that, but I
read some of the Facebook forums, you know, and it's quite
a sort of polarized conversation where people say, God, the
prices are getting ridiculous. And then there's another group
of people who will say, well, it's totally worth it.
You know, an item is worth what the market says.
You will pay for it. I don't agree with that
personally, but you know, if you know, if you've got the money to
buy a spear, given it costs that I guess didn't get it.
But I kind of feel that then becomes an elitist hobby where
only people with lots of money. And don't get me wrong, you
know, I'm not rich and I'm I'm neither nor am I poor, but I
just kind of think I just don't want it to become an elitist
hobby. I want it to be more inclusive
where everyone can just afford the stuff and have the stuff we
want. I don't like the world where
something that we all used to be able to have, now we can't.
You know, I don't really love that.
Yep, absolutely. And I totally agree with that.
So yes, you'll, you'll find, if you have the will, you'll find
the way. So there's always people to help
you out in, in those cases. If you need something on
Facebook, they know who you are, they know you're genuine and all
that kind of thing. They'll, they're more than
willing to help you out, which I've been on the on, on that
receiving end many times through my quest to collect every single
Marauder dwarf that Ali Morrison ever designed through the years.
So it's been a fun journey. And that's half, that's half.
The great part of the hobbies is the collecting aspect.
Yeah, yeah. You know and.
And also the waiting though, like, you know, Ali Morrison's
stuff is great. I love that Ali's stuff.
But like sometimes what I've enjoyed about the hobby over
that since I came back in 2018 is the waiting.
Like you spot a figure and you think I really love that figure
from back in the day, but you can't find it or it's just too
expensive or whatever. And you just think, I'll just
wait, I'll just wait. I'll just wait.
And you keep waiting, keep waiting.
Keep looking on eBay, looking at the sales.
And then it comes up in a Facebook group and it's
affordable. And you go, yes.
And you send that message. You say, can I have that one?
And it comes back, yeah, it's yours.
And it's like send you 5 or 6 quid away and it comes and I
love that aspect of it. That's really a beautiful aspect
to the hobby. I think that there are so many
good people in the hobby who are not totally motivated by, you
know, making money out of it. It's just the love of sharing
old hammer with old hammers for sure, man.
So I really look, but it's as I said before, I think it's one of
the nicest hobbies and nicest online communities as well that
I've ever participated in because I work in tech and I
have done for the last 2526 years now and I've been part of
the Internet since it's sort of popular interception.
You know, like 9596, I was on the Internet and I've seen all
the forums and groups and blah, blah, blah.
And I honestly, the Warhammer community by and large,
particularly the old Hammer community, I'm going to just
separate it off a bit is so nice.
I mean, Warhammer as a as a larger vehicle, in some ways it
gets kind of hijacked, but sometimes by, you know, people
with macho ideas who get upset about women being in the hobby
or it has to be a purely European domain.
When I say European, I guess I mean sort of white people.
You can't have any black space Marines or you can't have any
female space Marines. I just think that's just, I
don't know. It just doesn't, it doesn't sit
well with me. It's too, too, I don't know what
the word is, elitist. There's room for everybody in my
opinion. I know some people get upset
about that idea, but you know, as a painter who is not, why in
the 1st place, you know, I just think, look, God, I'm into it.
So why would there not be a Space Marine who looks like me?
Of course there would be. Why would there not be a Ranger
who looks like me? There would be.
There would be so I think it's important to have women
characters in your in your collection.
I think it's important to have non white characters in your
collection if you want to sort of create a a balanced view in
the world. Maybe that's just, maybe that's
my politics coming out, but. Yeah, no, that's that's totally
insane. I think they're getting better
at that, you know, and. Yeah, I think they are too.
And I just want to see, I think a good example is Game of
Thrones seem to have sorted it out quite well.
Again, I know you can be a Tolkien purist, I love Tolkien,
and you can be a purist and stuff.
And I watched that Rings of Power, and lots of people sort
of slagged it off for numerous reasons.
But I didn't see the sort of ethnic diversity as a reason to
slag it off. I just saw that it, it wasn't
the best acting and writing in my opinion, but I, I didn't find
it weird that there were characters of different
ethnicities. It's just reflective of the real
world in my opinion, even if we're looking back, you know, in
a sort of medieval lens. So yeah, I just think people
need to move on and the, the VAT and the mass, the vast majority
of people do. It's it's just one or two people
who love to spoil it. It's funny because I think I'm
the only person who likes Rings of Power.
I really enjoyed that series. So I from start to finish and
I'm really looking forward to the next installment of that.
I think it's the end of August. It comes out.
I've actually got an Amazon account now back on for Amazon
Prime to watch it. Yeah.
I saw, I saw something on Instagram about it.
I think it's coming very soon. So it's good.
I I will watch it. I mean, don't get me wrong, I
hope the acting was not as good as it could be.
And the writing, again, some of it was a little bit late, but
it's like, come on, just get to the bloody point.
But yeah, I thought the scenes, the scenery and the concepts
that they were building was good and it got better as it went
along. So I've got high hopes for it
and I will watch it all regardless of what people say.
I'm I'm I'm the of the opinion that if the.
Actor regardless of regardless of race.
Or color or ethnicity, I don't really care as long as they can
do the job and they do it well. That's all that matters.
If you're if obviously they, they cast these people based on
their skill of acting and they have to obviously physically
match the the role as well. I think the the main lead
character, the elf Ranger guy, I think he did a great job.
And also I think we have to sort of like take your sort of
passion out of it for a moment and look at it objectively and
say, look, this is a marketing thing.
And as all TV programmes are now, and we don't live in the
1950s anymore, you know, we live in an an age where people of all
different nationalities, ethnicities, etcetera, have got
disposable income. And if you're Disney or Amazon
or any large multinational corporation, you know that you
are putting out a huge part of your audience.
If you're excluding women, people of different ethnicities,
people of different, let's say sexual preferences, if you like
as well. If you start excluding those
people, then that's money you're leaving on the table, isn't it?
You know, if you can bring in, you know, 100,000 black Lord of
the Rings fans and, and 200,000 female Lords of the Rings fans,
that's money you, you get in your coffers, you can sell
merchandise to them, you know, and, and you've got fans for
life who you can market to. And that's the reality of
business when it's naive to to look beyond that.
Yeah, it's an interesting point because even when I was in
working for Games Workshop in the 90s, I did meet, I went to a
party once and there was a nice young black guy there.
He was a staff member and he really liked the Salamanders,
the Marines, Salamander Marines, because of course, they were
all, they were all black, weren't they?
Yeah, ethnical background. So all those he, he could relate
to those Marines because of, of, of what they were.
And I thought that was, I thought that was interesting.
But I, I've always found it, I've always found it quite
intriguing as to why we don't have a very diverse ethnical
group of people in the hobby. Why is it a very white centric
hobby? And I don't know whether that's
because of like imperial colonization, maybe because, you
know, through Europe and people of why white ethnic backgrounds,
we've been involved with wars or whatever internally or what, you
know, I, I can't really put my finger on it, that maybe it's
because we have such a long history of war in our, in our
history, Maybe we can relate to it more as opposed to other
people from different ethnic backgrounds.
You know, if I, if I'm putting my marketing head on, you know,
my day-to-day job is that when Games Workshop and similar
products were first created, it was created by a bunch of white
guys. So they just knew.
They just marketed and rehashed what they already knew.
So they sort of take Tolkien as the Canon.
It's sort of a European folk law.
And so the majority of characters are sort of expected
as to be European of, of, of the way they look.
And then you sort of take the medieval wars that were so
popular in war gaming, Knights and castles and War of the Roses
and 100 Years War and all that kind of stuff.
And it's all European wars. So they create those figures and
people of other ethnicities who, particularly in the UK where
this sort of stuff is, you know, Games Workshop sort of based and
started ethnic minorities were not really huge portion of the
population. So I think we were excluded in
that sense and and sort of marginalized to being, you know,
African tribes or pygmies or whatever you've seen them, the
old minis of you know, African tribes, pygmies, amazons,
etcetera. Probably a little bit
fetishized, but as society becomes more inclusive, more
diverse people of different ethnicities start to come to
prominence and, and things like that, we say, hey, we, we like,
we really like what Lord of the Rings.
We'll buy into this. We'll have a bit of Star Wars,
you know, and people say, God, we're not marketing to them, but
they need some characters, you know, they need some relatable
stories. And then that's where we are
today, you know, and we're moving forward.
Just my take on it. Yeah, but I've always felt that,
you know, war gaming has been a very white centric kind of
hobby. It doesn't.
But then maybe that's changing. Maybe that's just my outlook on
it from where I started into the hobby to now.
But I hope. That's the case, I hope, if
we're looking to sort of say computer game, right, Call of
Duty or something like that. That's true.
Call of Duty or what's that game Grand Theft Auto, etcetera.
All those types of games have got war and battle and fighting
in, but they're sort of more diverse in characters and they
have, they're very popular with people of all ethnicities and
sexism, genders and sexual preferences, you know, people
playing computer games because it's modern.
And whoever wrote it thought I want to sell this to everybody
because that's the society that they grew up in.
So I think war game is playing catch up in this phase.
I definitely think that in 20 or 30 years this will not even be
anything that anyone talks about.
No, I think so too man. I think it is going to phase out
unfortunately, but I think that's true.
I think board gaming will still be there.
I think board games will be there unless it goes completely
all digital. But I think people will still
want to have that tangible physical copy of A and have that
sort of family, you know, kind of experience where they have
everyone sitting around a table playing a board game.
I think they they will stay, but definitely the tabletop wall
gaming will eventually, you know, go the way of the dodo I
think. Well, yeah, but I mean, that
wasn't what I was trying to say. I'm just trying to say that the
sort of sort of divisions or you know, the the the fact that if
there aren't many women playing war gaming, there aren't many
ethnic minorities. I think, I think that will
change just because companies who make Warhammer etcetera and
and and similar products just are aware that there's a more
diverse audience out there and they can be catered to.
Yeah, well, you can see that with Hiraquest where they're
making female characters or all the male characters, which I
think is a good idea. I mean, you know, I if I.
Yeah, let's get the girls into it.
I want to see more girls. Yeah, me too.
Me too. I'm going to introduce my sister
to Hiraquest when she comes to Japan later this year.
My my sister's a gamer. She loves like, computer gaming,
P like console gaming and that kind of thing.
She always has. And and her boyfriend also loves
console gaming too. That's what they spend most of
their free time doing. And I said, look, you know,
let's play Hero Quest because it's the, it's the game I
absolutely love. I know they would really enjoy
it as well. So yeah, I'm going to, I'm going
to see what my, because she played Talisman when I had
Talisman there back home. And we played I think Dungeon
Quest once together. So she has entertained me a
couple of times playing, playing these sort of old fantasy games
and that's. It we can keep integrating these
things and you know, there are some things that just never die.
And I don't think fantasy or sci-fi are, are ever going away
because it's at the end of the day, fantasy that no matter how
Fast forward we move every year that we advance, we can always
look back. So there's always a historical
aspect that we can refer to and pull in and you know, provided
we keep our heads and don't destroy the planet, you know,
there's always going to be a future.
So we can always have a sci-fi imagination, can't we?
Yep, absolutely man, absolutely. So anyhow mate, as we wrap up
our conversation today, do you have any aspirations or hobby
goals for the future for yourself?
Well, yeah, you know, Josh, I think just to keep in it, keep
at it, keep my hand in, I'd like see, it's kind of important, but
not important. So I'd like to grow my online
community a bit, you know, get more Instagram followers and
YouTube followers so that I can do more, you know, so I can
spend some time making videos about painting and diorama
making and stuff like that and helping younger people and older
people, you know, enjoy the hobby more and maybe I can pass
something along to them or, you know, just just being part of
it. So I'd like to do that, build up
my blog, you know, write more articles about the figures and
their sort of their Canon, where they come from and how to get
hold of them and good examples of different varieties and
different modelling companies. Just generally make something
that's useful so that that's my legacy because we don't live
forever. And you know, I would like to
think that of all the thousands of articles I've written on the
Internet for different topics, you know, in my job and stuff,
that some of it is actually useful and not just marketing
spiel. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah. So, yeah.
And I'd like to, I would like to say that I'll finish my pile one
day, sort of get close to it and leave something, you know, for
my daughter to agonize over and sell.
And, you know, maybe she'll make some cash.
But yeah, of my greatness, I'll be.
Yeah, it's funny, isn't it? Like I'm thinking the same about
my stuff, you know, when I, when I eventually go, that will be
like an investment for my son, you know?
Yeah, Yeah. That's what I'm thinking.
I'm trying to catalogue it as well.
You know, like trying to make a spreadsheet and idea of what
stuff I've got so this is what it costs now.
So if I live a long life, let's say another 20 plus years, then
you know she'll have an idea of what it costs.
Yeah, it's a it's a scary proposition, isn't it?
Because like, you know, now, like I, I presume you're, you're
almost 50 or in your 50s now. I.
Am beyond fifty? Yeah.
Right. I'm 52, but you know, like it's,
and like I say, we don't last forever.
And you don't know when when that time's going to be.
It could be tomorrow or whatever.
I hope not for us. But you know what, I think,
shit, you know, I'm leaving all this stuff for them and they're
going to sort it all out. So yeah, I think what you're
doing is a great idea. Have like some kind of
spreadsheet of what you've got exactly and how much it's worth.
And that way they've got something to go from when that
time comes to sort of start selling off all your stuff and
cashing in. I wake up in a cold sweat
sometimes. Imagine.
Imagine in the hearse just shovelling it all into the bins.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So putting a plan in action,
that's for sure. That time comes.
But anyhow, Philip, thank you, mate, for this massively long
conversation, for your time today.
It's been really good to talk to you.
Well, not at all, Josh, you know, I'm really grateful for
you having me on. And actually, before you let me
go, I just wanted to say thank you to you for everything you've
done with Crown of Command podcast.
I mean, when I found that I was just like, Oh my God, I'm home.
And the hero Hammer fanzine that you wrote, you know, that you
were putting together, those were just beautiful trips down
memory lane. Like almost like the old white
dwarf reborn and the discord channel that you've got set up.
You know, I really appreciate that I've been able to talk to
so many like minded people, modellers, painters, just people
who love the old hammer vibe and just thanks so much for doing
that, man. It's really is appreciated and I
don't know if you ever know how much we we appreciate what you
do. Oh, thank you very much, Phil.
That's very nice, man. I'm really glad you reached out
to me on Instagram. That's how we met.
And who's this bloke? Send me a video like I see
what's this gonna be? I don't know who this guy is.
And I, I, I first ignored your videos, I think for the first
week or something. And then I thought.
Who? This bloke is, I'm just going to
play this video because I thought maybe you're selling me
something or whatever. I had no, I was very new to
Instagram at that stage. And I played the video and I
thought, wow, that's a fascinating conversation.
It was a story I think you're telling us about your, your,
your life and how you got into, I think war gaming initially or
whatever. And I thought, oh, he's, he's
like a really nice guy, interesting bloke.
But I think he did that through the, the through COVID.
So I kind of missed that time because it was really nice
getting your videos as you're sending out to all the people on
your friend list or whatever. And yeah, you always presented
some really interesting aspect to the hobby or whatever that
you'd share with everybody and get people's feedback on.
So yeah, thank you mate for being an inspiration out there
for many of us out there in in the hobby, mate.
Well, that's nice of you to say. Thanks very much.
Send me another video, I'm looking forward to those.
Anytime, brother, anytime. OK Phil, well you have a good
night's rest mate after your trip from Wales and I'm going to
start my day and get my paints and brushes out.
Yeah, well, you have a good one man.
And I've got some stuff to be painted up from tomorrow
evening. Got to get finished the boil
entries off. Oh yeah, because that's coming
up really soon now, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, it's the on on the
4th. I'll I'll be going up with my
friend John. He's never been before.
So I'm going to go and take him and introduce him to the world
of Old Hammer. Awesome, OK mate, we you have a
great time. I I wish you luck in the in the
painting competition, because I know you you picked up first
place for your massive great spine dragon.
Last. Last, Yeah.
So I think I got lucky that time and we we'll see.
I don't expect to win again, but just nice to take part, isn't
it? Absolutely, yeah.
It's just nice to be there if you got the if you get the
chance, you know? Absolutely.
So yeah mate, have a great. Thank you so much again for
having me on and I'll I'll catch you soon man.
OK. Thanks again, Phil.
Take care mate. The fire burns warmly, but casts
little light into Mentor study. The flickering shadows only hint
at the vast number of books and scrolls that fill the many
shelves. Slowly, Mentor walks over to the
fire. Well, my friends, your training
is complete. You are not yet heroes.
You may yet have to prove yourselves.
But first let me tell you of Morca.
Many centuries ago, Morca was my apprentice.
He worked hard and learned quickly, but impatience devoured
him and he wanted to learn more powerful magic.
I told him of the dangers and that he should be patient, for
in time he would become a great wizard.
That Morcha could not wait. Each night he broke into my
study and read my spellbooks. The secrets that were held
within them were great indeed. Once he had learnt these
secrets, Morcha fled. When I caught up with him, I
found him greatly changed. He had pledged his allegiance to
the great powers of Chaos. Fool.
He saw magic only as a shortcut to power and paid no heed to the
terrible price he would have to pay.
I tried to reason with him, but to no avail.
He laughed my face and then unleashed a terrible spell which
I was hard pressed to to counter.
For many days we battled that Morka had allies stronger even
than I, and I could not defeat him.
In the end, as we both weakened, we fled and sought refuge in the
Northern Cow's Wastes. There he licked his wounds and
honed his skills, conjuring ancient powers to which to
overthrow the Empire. But he knows not what he has
done. They will serve him while it
suits their own dark purposes, but in time they will destroy
him. I must watch Morka and measure
the strength of his magic. This I may do with the help of
Law Tone. The powers Morka has called upon
will destroy us all if I relax from this vigil.
Morcha's legions have threatened us once before.
Then it was Roga who aided me and defeated them.
Now they're on the March again. Already they have assailed the
Borderlands. The Empire must again look for
heroes. And to this end, have I trained
you? Each of you must complete three
tasks. If you do this, you will be
acclaimed as champions of the realm and dubbed Imperial
Nights. Then you will truly be on the
road to becoming a hero. I shall speak with you.
Again, on your return if you return.