Father and son duo Rob and Norman join me for a chat about wargaming in the family, their local wargaming club, and their imagi-nations campaign.

• HAWKS wargaming club
• Rob's blog
• Norman's blog

If you’ve come across 28 Magazine before, you’ll know about its striking aesthetic, stunning artwork, and incredible photography. On this episode of the Tabletop Miniature Hobby Podcast, I’m joined by editor Sampsa Nylund to find out more about 28, not just as a magazine, but as a community.

There’s also an audio battle report of a slightly homebrewed version of Song of Blades & Heroes. I set the scene for this scenario a few weeks ago, and it was time to get down to it and roll some dice.

Our guest this week is Kevin from our Discord community, who talks about his hobby origins going up in smoke and then returning years later via his young son. He also enjoyed a career sculpting for TV sets and designing costumes, and we talk about the overlap between this and the tabletop miniature hobby.

Let's hear your answers to the question of the month for March 2024.

Also, you can now get your answers in for the April QotM.

Have you ever introduced a Warhammer 40k or Age of Sigmar player to a non-GW game?

How did you go about it? What game did you suggest or play? And what was the response?

Record your answer

An audio battle report from a recent game of Planet 28, followed by a plea for voice feedback, a plan for a new game, and some random setting ideas. Here's all the photos and other such links.

Josh—a former Eavy Metal painter from the Goblin Green bases/Red period—started the Crown of Command podcast early on in the pandemic. It has since become one of the best podcasts for the HeroQuest generation, and he's also grown a brilliant YouTube channel around it.

The Crown of Command has also enabled Josh to run a thriving Patreon where he delivers painting lessons and has gone full-time as a commission painter.

Open Combat is one of my original and favourite miniature agnostic skirmish games. On this episode, I'm joined by Carl Brown who created it along with a cool little medieval strategy board game called Lucrum. You can find all of Carl's games on his website secondthunder.com

It's vox populi time, our question of the month for February 2024 was: Warhammer: The Old World - Will you be playing it? (If so, why? If not, why not?)

Thank you so much to everyone who submitted.

The new question of the month (March 2024) is: What hobby-related thing have you recently changed your mind about?

Submit your voice feedback here.

And a massive thanks to Alternative Armies for sponsoring this episode. Here are the 15mm fantasy buildings I was talking about. 

I'm joined by Ed from our Discord community, who drinks a staggering 17 pints during the course of this episode and lambasts me for my anti-competitive views.

There's much to catch up on after so many great conversations on the podcast, recently. Here's an attempt to do just that:

• Voice question of the month - will you be playing Warhammer: The Old World?
• A game of Brutal Quest in Mordheim, ships for Armada
• Basing miniatures before undercoating them (15mm trolls)
• Best miniature game mechanics
• Painting Jareth/David Bowie the Goblin King (and a Kev Adams demon)
• Review of the Sci-fi Skirmish Scenarios book
• The Slow Hobbyist Manifesto
• Single miniature and arena combat game ideas

With the obvious exception of Games Workshop stuff from the mid-90s, Joe McCullough’s games probably get more coverage on the Tabletop Miniature Hobby Podcast than any other. Fortunately, Joe’s a lovely guy as well as a brilliant games designer, and has been gracious enough to guest on the show not once, not twice, but three times!

• Joe McCullough on creativity, inspiration, and gnolls (March 2022)
• Frostgrave, Stargrave, Silver Bayonet, and the Worlds of Joe McCullough (Sept 2021)

In our January 2024 round, we’ve some new releases to catch up on, including Frostgrave: Fireheart, Old Bones, and Rangers of Shadow Deep: Tenebrous Citadel. On top of that, there are some listener questions and a few of the recurring ones I’ve been asking other rules writers.

On that last note, I’ve also started to compile answers to the “favourite game mechanics” question into one blog post, too. You’ll also find answers there from Gav Thorpe, Andy Chambers, Tuomas Pirinen, Jervis Johnson, and Alessio Cavatore.

Chris Snyder joins me to talk about his two favourite topics - Man O' War and remote gaming. Special thanks to Warbases for sponsoring this episode.

I'm joined by another lovely member of our Discord community, David of the 5thHammer Youtube channel. On this episode, we discuss his hobby origin story, opening old blister packs, and the art of having patience.

Cam's another positive member of the Bedroom Battlefields Discord Community, and he joins me for a chat about his hobby origins, being a good steward of the hobby, and his love of Man'O'War.

Also mentioned on this episode:

• The Slow Hobbyist Manifesto
• Usborne World of the Unknown books
• The Lambton Worm

Jamie, AKA Kazdok from our Discord community joins us to talk about his hobby origin story, writing his game Of Knights & Quests, and the simple tactic of painting one miniature a week.

Mark's back for a wee chat about various hobby topics, including:

• Survey: What's been your game of 2023?
• Hobby goals, resolutions, and hopes for 2024
• Collecting more scenarios, as opposed to more rulesets
• Sci-fi Skirmish Scenarios - great book by John Lamshead
• Stargrave: Dead or Alive
• Labyrinth
• The Argos Catalogue

Mark and I chat over a range of hobby topics, including ImagiNations, painting 15mm, Space Weirdos, and getting into Mantic's naval combat game Armada. I also talked about a recent narrative scenario I've been planning for Song of Blades & Heroes.

We recently published written Q&As with Jervis Johnson and Rick Priestley on BedroomBattlefields.com. Lewis from the excellent Oldhammer Fiction Podcast was kind enough to record them for me, meaning you can now enjoy them in audio form.

Also mentioned on this episode:

• Warbases - a brilliant company making terrain, movement trays, and more
• Send us a voicemail - What hobby-related thing have you recently changed your mind about?

Stuart from Great Escape Games joins us to talk about his journey from Games Workshop store manager to Wild West gunslinger. As well as running the Cardiff store, Stuart also had a couple of his armies featured in White Dwarf and even won a WFB staff tournament whilst working at GW.

These days, Stuart has traded in his red jersey for a Stetson, as one of the big focuses of Great Escape Games is Dead Man's Hand. For the past decade, DMH has given players the opportunity to fight out gun battles in the Old West, and it'll be given some TLC in 2024 with its new edition Dead Man's Hand Redux - coming to Kickstarter at the end of the month!

The main focus of this episode is to talk through my recent blog post of the same title: Solo, Co-op, & Narrative Wargaming Campaigns

Also Mentioned

• Interview with Rick Priestley
• Feedly and Instapaper
• Realm of Chaos, Cosmic Horror, & Lovecraftian Random Events
• Echoes of the Abyss: Planet 28 Battle Report
• Recent Goblin paintjobs
• 15mm stuff
• Patreon
• My First White Dwarf