Building A Welcoming Wargaming Community From Pensacola To New Orleans

Want a blueprint for growing a miniatures community that lasts? We sat down with Stephen to trace a path from a 1997 hobby spark to a thriving Gulf Coast Warmachine network that stretches from Pensacola to Mobile, Mississippi, Georgia, and New Orleans. The through-line is simple and powerful: shape events around people, not just pairings. That means charity brawls with heart, narrative arcs that welcome casual players, and store partnerships that prioritize space, schedule, and support.

We trade notes on beginner on-ramps that actually work, like choosing starter forces with fewer layered rules and designing teaching nights that reward curiosity over perfection. Stephen shares how moderating the Warmachine & Hordes Beginners group informed a “first-contact” ethos: greet with a smile, answer plainly, and make space for new voices. We also explore how online content is fueling growth again, with fresh channels breaking down fundamentals, list-building, and lore without the gatekeeping vibe that scares people away.

Of course, we nerd out on models. The Kithguard trolls have us buzzing about ambush mechanics, kit-bashed aesthetics, and a reimagined gargantuan that looks ready to stomp into stories and tournaments alike. We weigh in on starter boxes like why Frozen and Forgotten lands so well and how to connect paint nights to play nights by looping in school art clubs and youth gamers. The goal isn’t a perfect meta. It’s a ladder anyone can climb: show up, play, learn three things, and come back next month.

Whether you’re rebuilding a scene or just getting your first 30 points on the table, this conversation offers practical steps, honest encouragement, and a reminder that the next champion might start with a borrowed army and a warm welcome. If this resonated, subscribe, share with your playgroup, and leave a review with the one idea you’ll try in your local community.

Enjoy A 10% discount on all purchases from:

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Chapters

• 0:00 Warm Welcome And Guest Intro
• 2:48 Weather Banter And Setup
• 9:38 Steven’s Hobby Origin Story
• 16:12 From 40K To War Machine
• 21:12 Factions Collected And Favorites
• 26:52 Charity Events And Press Ganger Roots
• 32:02 Rebuilding The Gulf Coast Community
• 39:12 Store Support And Space Matters
• 45:52 Coordinating Regions And Narratives
• 51:32 Beginner Tournaments And Mindset
• 1:00:52 Moderating The Beginners Group Online
• 1:07:12 Positive First Contacts And Teaching
• 1:15:02 Social Media, TikTok, And Reach
• 1:21:12 Speculation, Lore, And Facts
• 1:27:52 Kithguard Hype And Model Teases
• 1:35:12 Plugger, Deuce, And Table Lessons

Transcript

SPEAKER_02: 0:51

Hey there, listeners, NJT here, bringing you fresh perspectives on all things war machine and building the community we surround ourselves with. Remember, we're not just tactics. Hey there, Angus. How's it going? Doing well, Tony. How are you? I'm doing great. Well, we got a little surprise today. We do? Yes, we do. We have Steven on with us today. He's coming in remotely. Very cool. Yep. How are you doing, Steven?

SPEAKER_03: 1:16

I am doing well. How are you both doing tonight?

SPEAKER_02: 1:19

Doing great. How are you, sir?

SPEAKER_03: 1:21

Uh love loving every possible minute out here.

SPEAKER_02: 1:24

Yeah, I was gonna say, as compared to the northern Illinois, Southern Wisconsin blizzards that we've been dealing with over the last two, three weeks.

SPEAKER_03: 1:33

I do not have I'm not dealing with blizzards in uh the Florida panhandle, thankfully. Yeah. Otherwise, my wife would be very upset.

SPEAKER_02: 1:41

That is definitely one of the things that even the people up here still regret, I will say. That they they kind of complain about that and they really look forward to one day leaving.

SPEAKER_03: 1:53

At least you don't have hurricanes.

SPEAKER_02: 1:55

That is very true. But we have tornadoes. Because we're in the Midwest, so we do get a lot of the tornadoes. We're not in Tornado Alley, but we do get them from time to time.

SPEAKER_03: 2:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 2:07

Well, so do we actually so I was gonna say, I'm like, but you guys get the ones that come off the ocean, which is even worse. And your wind speeds are a lot higher. Today we're gonna give you a little bit of an interview. Give you a little bit of time to talk about your community, your hobby, and I really want to kind of put to you some of the questions that we've been asked, and then as someone who's active and involved in fostering multiple different types of communities, want to just give you a moment and kind of share that with our listeners. First, I would like to say thank you. And I saw in the recent Facebook post where you were doing the charity event for the Toys for Tots. Yep. I definitely want to say thank you. I saw this shirt. I was very uh kind of tickled pink for that.

SPEAKER_03: 2:59

Yeah, that's very cool. Appreciate it. Well, thank you very much for sending me that. I figure it was a good opportunity to rep it.

SPEAKER_02: 3:06

Yeah. And I just listened to the War Manchester episode today, and they spent a fair little bit of time about talking about the community, fostering the community, being part of the community, and it really kind of struck home with that. Do you know what the War Manchester podcast is?

SPEAKER_03: 3:24

Uh yeah, that's the one that uh Jamie Perkins and China do out of uh yeah, over over the the not a steam for not a Steamforge podcast to Talking War Machine, I think. Yeah. I think I started listening to their most this is their WTC part two episode.

SPEAKER_02: 3:41

Yeah, I think it's I think it's their third episode they just released. Something like that.

SPEAKER_03: 3:45

I was I was listening, starting to listen into it on the way home. I didn't get to the community part of it yet.

SPEAKER_02: 3:51

Yeah. Oh, spoiler, I'm sorry about that.

SPEAKER_03: 3:53

Oh no, no, I I I you're you're not the first person who's com I've seen comment that they did a little great bit on it. So I'm looking forward to hearing what they have to say.

SPEAKER_02: 4:03

Yeah, it was really nice to hear, and it really kind of spots uh spotlights a few different things, which again really drives home to the point of what we're doing and what you're doing. Well, let's start with when did you get started in the hobby?

SPEAKER_03: 4:20

Let's see how far back do we want to go on that. Well, let's let's go back to when I first got into miniature into miniature war gaming. That would have been 1997 when I was in Annapolis, Maryland. Um I walked into this little store next to the movie theater where they were selling this that had called a Games Work, Games Workshop satellite store there. Looked at some of the stuff, it looked cool, found out a couple people that I a couple of friends and other people that I knew that I went to school with out there also were playing Warhammer 40K. So I got into that and played Warhammer 40K with them pretty much throughout all four years that I was in college there. That's where I got, started painting miniatures, playing the game there. Got out of college, I was in the Navy, bounced around a couple duty stations, never really connected with any of the 40k communities in the places that I went. Then in 2007, I think it was, I was in Seattle and got a demo of a game called War Machine. And that's how I got hooked into this particular into this particular game.

SPEAKER_05: 5:39

Would that be Mark I?

SPEAKER_03: 5:42

So that was actually just at the changeover between Mark I and Mark II. I think they were just releasing the Mark II rules, and they were just releasing models for the first new Mark II army, the Elves, the Retribution of Syra. And since I was a new person and they were a new faction, that seemed like a great army to start with. I started off my war machine career playing uh the Retribution of Syra for a long time, actually.

SPEAKER_05: 6:12

Very cool.

SPEAKER_02: 6:13

Yeah, as a red player, that was definitely one of my Okay, I I found them more challenging to play.

SPEAKER_03: 6:21

So I was like, they were they were an interesting army to start the to start the game with, especially at that point in time where you didn't have quite the breadth of options that some other factions did.

SPEAKER_02: 6:35

Yeah, I would I would definitely agree. They were a little more limited, but they definitely packed a punch. Are you still playing elves today?

SPEAKER_03: 6:44

I am. I kind of go back and forth between them and some of the other stuff that I've cut that I've since collected over the years. Let's see, looking over at the case across my office here, what all do we have in there? A lot of a lot of uh elves, some legacy Signar that I built that I built at one point in time, um Storm Cygnar Storm Legion, which is my primary Mark IV faction right now. Uh, but I've also got Infernals, some Gators, um, and a little bit of Legion of Everblight that I picked up primarily as an excuse to build and paint an Archangel.

SPEAKER_05: 7:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_02: 7:23

Very cool. I was gonna say one of Angus's new uh quiet side projects is Gators.

SPEAKER_05: 7:29

Yeah. Been accumulating them slowly.

SPEAKER_03: 7:33

I'm hoping that we see them fall onto the my minifactory release schedule after Pharaoh next, because that would be cool to see them come back. Definitely.

SPEAKER_02: 7:45

I think we've actually been talking, we think we're gonna see convergence.

SPEAKER_05: 7:51

Yeah, I think that's going to be the paid set of files after Crucible Guard. Because I was on the Baron Dice website and they've got uh convergence up there.

SPEAKER_03: 8:06

I hadn't seen those yet. I gotta check have to check that out later.

SPEAKER_05: 8:08

Although, to be fair, I've been up there since and they now also have Grimkin up there, so who knows?

SPEAKER_03: 8:15

It'll be a surprise.

SPEAKER_02: 8:17

I I will definitely say there there has been some slight tweaks and edits, but they are allowed to do whatever they want to do. But it also, when you see it pop up and drop back down, uh just put that a little bit into the folder saying that that's probably on the chopping block at some point.

SPEAKER_03: 8:32

Indeed. But to finish answering your question, I really got into the game there after right around that or two. I we had a good community there where I lived in Washington State, kind of across the water from Seattle. Started learned to learn to play the game with the retribution, had a attended a lot of fun events there. Uh my local press ganger, one of the things that she was really big on was, and then this will you'll see where this comes back later, is doing events where we could to benefit the community. Did a lot of charity events, things called the breast cancer brawl, uh food machine where food drive plus event. And I kind of always really thought those were a great idea and have tried my best to carry those forward through the years as I've bounced through a couple of different communities. Uh I when I left Washington State, I spent some time in the DC area. Very large, vibrant community kind of around there in Northern Virginia.

SPEAKER_01: 9:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_03: 9:42

Some of the folks that I played with there are still very active in the local community and also in and the overall national meta. But from there, I spent about three years there, got to go back to Washington State, kind of helped the local community there, get got back into the local community there, kind of helped maintain it through the COVID years, and then helped kind of pull it back to life post-COVID before I moved to Florida, and got to Florida about the time that Mark IV was announced.

SPEAKER_01: 10:19

Okay.

SPEAKER_03: 10:19

So community where I live in around Pensacola, Florida, had kind of started to die off kind of in that late Mark III COVID time frame. Uh there were some folks over in Mobile that were starting to revive their local community. So I took the and I took the lead here in Pensacola with a couple of other folks that were still really interested in war machine and have been working for the last couple years to really start to revive the community, both here in Pensacola and also what we generally kind of dub the Gulf Coast War Machine. What we um kind of Pensacola, Mobile, Alabama, Southern Mississippi, and really all the way into we're trying to continue to wrap in the folks over in uh New Orleans.

SPEAKER_01: 11:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_03: 11:15

That that's that's quite the span. Well, it's I mean, it's about a three-hour drive from Pensacola to New Orleans. So it's definitely doable for like a weekend event. Really, it's that short of a drive. It's yeah, it's actually not that bad. Because it's, I mean, it's a big, it's a single highway stretch all the way from one to the other.

SPEAKER_02: 11:38

Because I'm I'm sitting here, I'm looking at my six-hour drive that I gotta make in like two weeks, and I'm like, holy cow, I could get from there to there in three hours. Like, it takes me longer to get to St. Louis.

SPEAKER_03: 11:51

It might be three and a half. Depends on how fast you drive, I guess. It's actually not that far. We actually it's actually depending on but sometimes we f we act my family and I, we actually fly out of New Orleans rather than Pensacola where we live, just because it's such a bigger airport and the flights are actually a lot cheaper sometimes. Oh, geez.

SPEAKER_02: 12:12

That that's a good little thought. Gotta save that money for those models. Need a Thunderhead. Yeah. Death Jack. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 12:21

I've got my eyes on Thunderhead. I'll make a nice addition. I need to probably pick up some I need to pick up a few other things for Storm Legion as well. Yeah. See how they we'll see how things continue to develop over the next year. But yeah, so we've done a pretty good job, I feel, in the last couple years growing the community here, both in Pensacola and the folks over in Mobile. Um, we also have there's a pretty good group kind of up around the Atlanta, Georgia area that comes down for some of our big events. That's about a five and a half, six-hour drive down for them. How many did they have? They had four people that came down for a charity event to support Toys for Tots that we we did in Mobile last weekend. So we had, I think we had four folks from Georgia, one or two from over from Mississippi, a couple of us from Pensacola, and then another four, I think, from there in Mobile.

SPEAKER_05: 13:27

That's really cool that you're pulling that much of a draw from so many places.

SPEAKER_02: 13:30

Yeah. I was gonna say we're we're we're struggling getting people to drive 30 minutes, most or less hours. Um yeah, we uh we we've been bouncing around to different hobby stores and we've been checking out what the community is like, seeing what the feel is, how active is War Machine. And I will tell you you travel about 45 minutes north, there's a good vibrant community from where we're roughly located. You drive like an hour south near Chicago, another vibrant community. In between us, it's virtually dead. Because either people are traveling north or going south. So one of our goals is to establish a southern Wisconsin, northern Illinois kind of group to help facilitate that. And we're finding different places. One of the stores that we played at, the space is a little too limited for what we're doing. And we actually just ran into a new store that opened up, what, about three, four weeks ago?

SPEAKER_05: 14:34

Yeah, I would say uh probably about five weeks now.

SPEAKER_02: 14:39

Okay. Yeah, but uh I went in, I spoke with a store owner, played a game over there with uh one of my sons, and ended up talking for probably, oh geez, probably at least an hour and a half. And he's got thousands of square footage available for gaming, and he said, if we want to start running things over there, start getting stuff over there, he's more than happy to facilitate. Yeah, it's an awesome little shop. Well, I shouldn't say little. It's cool, substantial. And he's also even looked at potentially expanding if the interest continues to rise, because he was running uh 40k tournaments and realized for a little bit extra than what he's paying to rent out these spaces, he could have his own storefront, and that's what he chose to do.

SPEAKER_05: 15:24

Yeah. And there's gotta be like what 18 plus six by four tables.

SPEAKER_02: 15:30

Uh in the main room, there's what, six? And then there's another room across the hall. Right. Massive. And then he's got even another one that he said is just empty right now. Yeah. So I mean, we could end up having a number of tables out there just to expand. And that's uh Second City Games.

SPEAKER_05: 15:49

Yes. Okay. It's an Island Park.

SPEAKER_02: 15:51

Yep. So it's it's for me being in Kenosha, Wisconsin, we're about 45 minutes north of there, but it's a real easy drive. It's straight down and just hop off and you're right there. For me, it's a three-minute drive. Yeah, I was gonna say it's so much closer for you. That was one of his big selling points.

SPEAKER_03: 16:09

Always nice to have this the store in your backyard. Yeah. Yeah. And he sometimes literally.

SPEAKER_02: 16:13

Ooh. Yeah. Angus, Angus has always made a lot of commute, always a lot of drive. And when he said that this place was pretty cool, I was like, all right, maybe you know what? We'll go down there, we'll take a look. And he joined their Discord group. And then between him and Chris, there's people getting excited about War Machine. I spoke with him. He, from what I know, he said on Monday he was going to look into becoming a retailer and already is looking and is excited about War Machine, which made me very happy and excited because just by us coming in there, seeing us play, getting excited, it just it's building that community that we want. And we're going to be probably shifting focus from some of our other locations to that one because there is that much interest, that much activity, and the people that are in between would probably make the drive knowing that there's this level of setup.

SPEAKER_03: 17:08

Yeah, that's it's great to have that's kind of a key thing is having that store that really is excited about supporting you and supporting your community. I've been pretty lucky about having that here where we are in Pensacola and having one when back when I was in Washington and some other places. I know not every place is not every place is as fortunate is as fortunate. But I mean, you also mentioned that you've got like another vibrant community that's like an hour north of you, and another good one that's about an hour south.

SPEAKER_02: 17:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 17:41

Yeah, so I don't know how much you've tried to link in with those guys. Like I mentioned, they're the two big things we've got around here immediately close to us is where we are in Pensacola, and then the group over in Mobile that are only about like 45 minutes an hour away. And we do a lot, we we try a lot between the two of us to like coordinate our events. Hey, you're what weekend, what months are you gonna run events, what months am I gonna run them? So we really kind of try to overlap each other's schedules and maximize opportunities for people from one store to go to the other. Um, the other thing that we've started doing is we have a lot of casual players, kind of where we are, not a lot of competitive people. Um, so we started pulling out some of the old black tide narrative events that Privateer posted back at the early part of the Mark IV period, and we've run and we've been running through some of those scenarios. We ran through like the first trio of them at our store in Pensacola, the second trio there in Mobile, and then we're gonna bring for the third group back to Pensacola. So we're kind of moving them back and forth, just kind of encouraging people from one side to go to the other, and vice versa.

SPEAKER_02: 19:01

Very cool. I'm supposed to go up to the one up north and they're gonna be running a tournament. And I asked, I was like, hey, how beginner-friendly is this tournament? And they're like, not very. And I was like, oh, good. But they volunteered to come down by me and to get some games in to kind of judge and get a so that way I can get a feel for what it would be like to play competitively. And I just realized I'm a little outmatched and uh outgunned, out-equipped for any of that, but I am gonna try to go up there, if nothing else, than to observe how they play and to see what their community is like. And they've always been very helpful, very kind, and very encouraging, even with new players that I've seen come into their community, and it's been wonderful to see. One of actually, we had a listener who actually just reached out to us and will be coming to join us for a game on Sunday.

SPEAKER_03: 20:03

Great. That's that's awesome that you're getting that you guys having this forum is allowing you to bring additional people in.

SPEAKER_02: 20:11

And that's one of the other things is that with the group in our north and in our south, they are more focused on the higher level competitive play, where we're much more of the casual play, but we are looking at branching out a little bit, learning the reps for competitive play. So that way we can foster the whole community and not just necessarily staying at a lower level, but to be in all levels.

SPEAKER_03: 20:41

Right. And I think one of the things you'll probably find is that even in a community that has a lot of that leans more competitive, you will find people that enjoy casual as well. So having being the the epicenter where that can come in provides a very symbiotic relationship between what you've got and what some of those others have.

SPEAKER_02: 21:06

Yeah, absolutely. And that's another thing that, again, I reached out and I said, hey, how beginner-friendly is it? And it was a very truthful answer, but was responded with, I'm willing to teach you. I want you to learn this community. I want you to learn the full aspects of what this game can be. And that for me is super exciting.

unknown: 21:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 21:27

And that's one of the things that probab one of the things that's really kept me with War Machine for so long now is the community that we have. And the fact that generally across the board, we have a lot of very welcoming people who will bring in new people, will help teach you the game, will help fostering you an enjoyment for this thing that we enjoy. And also, I for you, I would, and for anyone else listening here, I will inject my own personal feelings of mine here. I don't like the concept of, oh, is this a beginner-friendly tournament? Any tournament can be beginner-friendly if you walk into it with the right mindset. If you walk in there, it's like, hey, I'm still learning this game. I understand that a lot of these people here probably know it a lot better than I do, and that I'm probably gonna go Owen something at this event.

SPEAKER_02: 22:21

Owen 32.

SPEAKER_03: 22:24

Oh, and whatever. Yeah. Um, you will learn so much in those three to four games that you play that day. I think you will find that it is worth every moment of your time. But just make sure you're communicating that with your with your opponent, especially like, hey, I'm beginner, I'm new, I've only got a few games in. This is like the second time I played on clock. This is the first time I played at a hundred points. And your average person will be happy to help you out. They aren't gonna let you in, but they will probably tailor how they're play they're they're playing to help you.

SPEAKER_02: 23:03

Yeah, and that's and that's actually. I know Angus and Chris are both eyeing a tournament coming up, and they will be they've already said they're like, We're gonna go out there, we're gonna get stomped into the ground, but we're gonna go and try. Yep. And I'm I'm about to have fun doing it.

SPEAKER_05: 23:22

Yep. And the next recording we're gonna talk about how we got stomped.

SPEAKER_02: 23:27

Right. And you know, and that's and I don't go ahead.

SPEAKER_03: 23:32

Don't think of it as getting stomped. Think of it uh as what did you learn? What did you see from the game? Hey, that was a cool strategy. I never knew you could use a model in that way. Or, hey, this is a neat thing I that I saw. Maybe I can try that. That that those are the things that I encourage you to look at at every game, but especially at a game in those cases.

SPEAKER_02: 23:55

It is definitely something I I want to reiterate that it wasn't that I was told don't sign up. It was a I asked a question saying, is this a tournament that would be good for beginners? And the answer was no. Which, hey, that's I'm glad to know that. Because then that prepares me a little bit more to walk in on, like you said, I know I'm gonna get stomped in, I know I'm gonna lose every game, but or you know, what happens is is you show up, they're expecting a certain level of play, you start playing, they don't know how to react to it, and then you end up beating somebody because they just can't predict on how you're gonna move these models. Which by the way, I have done that a couple times. I have lost games because I didn't know how people were gonna play, and I was like, okay, cool.

SPEAKER_03: 24:43

Like, I've totally did not do what I expected you would do.

SPEAKER_02: 24:46

I legitimately I've been baited out, and I'm like, hmm, this looks way too easy. There's something there, I'm missing something. I'm missing something. No, they just made a mistake and I overanalyzed it, and I ended up losing because of that because I was too busy overanalyzing everything. All right, let's shift focus a little bit. So we've talked a little bit about your history. We've talked about how you got into the game. You have an obvious love and passion for this game and the community for it at large, and hence you've taken on a role as moderator for the War Machine and Hordes Facebook group for beginners. What was one of the main drives for you in that aspect? And this is coming from, you know, a podcast that we kind of are beginners, we are returning players. So we relate to that Facebook group where we see people post saying, hey, we're we're coming back, we're from Mark I, Mark II, we're coming into Mark IV, and they are lost. And I have seen when I joined it, I have seen you very active, and I've seen you talking a lot. And that is something that for us here with not just tactics, that uh it's very big for us to see that that fostering is there and you're doing it digitally and physically. How have you found the digital community to be?

SPEAKER_03: 26:26

The digital community is overall it's pretty it's I think it's pretty good. I mean, I think I think the digital community and anything you do fosters or generates uh a different experience than physically being in the same room with with someone, as anybody who's ever spent time on a digital form in the internet, can probably on the internet could probably tell you. But overall, the war machine community, ours is pretty good. You don't get a whole lot of people who will come in and say, hey, I don't understand this, or oh, I don't can someone explain this to me, and people will just jump on them and can try to torch them in into the dirt for being foolish.

SPEAKER_02: 27:17

Going between Facebook and Reddit and seeing all of those interactions where I've seen where people have gotten ripped apart never for a question, but more so for a response, is you ask a question and you're genuine, but then if you immediately kind of retaliate or you change certain things, I've seen it go sideways, and that is across the board. But I will definitely say, as far as a war machine community goes, and seeing it from Reddit, Facebook, different areas, I've seen that it's largely supportive. Especially if you come out and say, hey, I'm new, you see a whole community swarm and just kind of uplift that new person, which I will say is not in all war games. I wish it was.

SPEAKER_03: 28:15

Yeah, yeah. And I don't, I will admit I don't there aren't a whole lot of other war game communities that I've been deep into in in the recent years, but I've I've heard that similar thing from enough people that at this point in time I realized that yeah, that does sound that it must be that it's pretty unique to our community, and it's a pretty awesome thing. And you mentioned the f the War Machine Hordes for Beginners Facebook group that I kind of go in. And I kind of approach it with that same idea. It's these are people who, I mean, if you are trying to get in the game and you've and you stumble across this group and think of it as your place to start, I want it's making sure that they have that that first interaction that they have with a member of the community is a positive one. And it goes for digital and in person too. Hey, the first time that somebody walks by the table and says, Hey, what are you guys doing? It should be a greet with a smile. It'd be a hey, we're playing, we're playing War Machine. Have you heard of it? Not a, I'm in the middle of my turn right now. Don't speak to me.

SPEAKER_02: 29:23

I I will definitely tell you, uh, these guys probably get fed up with me on some of the stuff. Is there's people that come up and be like, what are you doing? And immediately I'm walking away from the table, talking to them, showing them models, explaining what it is. And it it's just, it's one of those things that I I enjoy that aspect. I enjoy community building. And it's always been more of a I would say a passion of mine. I would say it's a passion of Angus's. It's a passion of all of us that are active in this community. And knowing that by having these positive interactions and positive experiences with everyone, you're allowing to have other people come in and join you and just really get to learn. And now, because you have these new people, they're gonna bring experiences that you don't have, that I don't have. They're gonna bring in their own experiences. And now all of a sudden you'll have a new player that you're gonna be playing against, potentially, that can show you different things. Like you said, going to these tournaments, learning different like techniques and different things that you never even thought of. I've always found that having a bigger, broader community base allows for a much larger expansion of just knowledge.

SPEAKER_03: 30:45

Yeah. And on top of that, I mean, so you if you if you you know if you look across, there's some there's a lot of old names in the war machine community. I mean, and some of us are getting or some of us are getting on into our for in our forties and somewhere older. I mean, I remember when I first started playing this game and I go to a convention, there was always the joke of there there was kind of the the half-joke tournament of the the grey the the I think it was, was it TempleCon actually ran the Greybeards tournament and it was for anyone who was like 45 and older. Well, guess what? Now most of the half the over half the community is 45 and older, right? Myself included. Yeah. But I I say that because we've got to bring the new pe these new people in if the community wants to continue to grow and live for the next over the over the next couple of decades. Because that new player that you step away from your game and show a model to and talk to the rule the rules about today, I mean that could be that same player could be the the 2027-2028 Iron Gauntlet champion or on the 2027 WTC team or someone who's helping run the next big event at Lock and Load. You don't know where these people are gonna land once they come into the community. And but if we don't bring them in, we're never gonna find out and we'll lose that opportunity.

SPEAKER_06: 32:16

Yeah, completely great.

SPEAKER_03: 32:18

They might go play Warhammer or something.

SPEAKER_05: 32:21

Right. I was super excited uh when Steamforge was doing their Black Friday stream on TikTok. I was thrilled that they were doing it on TikTok because that's gonna just bring in all the young folk.

SPEAKER_02: 32:33

That I still don't understand how it works. The only reason I'm on there is because my wife would send me tons of videos and I'm like, I I don't even I don't have it. I don't want any of the just send me a Facebook reel. I'm better with that.

SPEAKER_03: 32:46

Yeah, no, I find TikTok to be infuriating, but it the only reason that I'm on TikTok is because Steamforge Games did a Black Friday stream.

SPEAKER_04: 32:56

We do.

unknown: 32:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 32:57

I was gonna say it's like it sounds like everybody except for me. Yeah, my wife loves TikTok, and so she sends me all these videos and reels and clips or whatever they're called. TikToks, maybe. I I don't know. So yeah, that's the only reason I know anything about it, and even then, I'm not I I don't understand it. I I really struggle with social media, hence the reason that if you see me posting anything, it's really rough because I don't under I've been a part of Facebook since it came out. Like back when you had to have a college email to get in. I'm from then, but even then I never really used it. It's been learning social media and learning how this stuff engages is interesting. And seeing, especially now, as I've been learning more because of the podcast, it's been great as a tool to help build the community, interact with other communities, and to kind of pull everybody in together. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 34:01

And that's that is the great thing about it, is it causes our community, our the wider community to be just so much more connected. I mean, we're no longer these little insular communities scattered all over the country that rarely like cross-pollinate unless somebody goes to a big convention. Nowadays, us myself in Florida is can get to interact with you folks there in the Midwest and build the relationship. I get to chat with chat with other folks as they're doing streams in other parts of the country. It's such a great opportunity that we have in front of us, I think. And but at the same time, there's just so many options, it quickly becomes overwhelming, I think, too.

SPEAKER_02: 34:52

I I would agree with that. It's the overwhelming oh, what it what do they call that? Uh paralyzation of options? Or what what is that that phrase called? Paralysis of choice? I I can't remember what it is. I'll have to figure that out later. But Yeah, I know what you're talking about. Yeah. Anybody who knows what I'm talking about will understand my lack of verbiage. But it it becomes one of those things that I remember just even alone looking into War Machine and how I wanted to kind of go with it and where I wanted to go with it was kind of the problem because I didn't know where to start. There was so much, and even for looking at your beginner group, I was like, am I a beginner? I I've been around for many years, but I never really lasted very long in any particular edition, and I I was hesitant. I didn't really know what the actual answer would have been.

SPEAKER_05: 35:55

I think the uh only time we were really active in War Machine before Mark IV was Mark II.

SPEAKER_02: 36:01

Yeah, because we we ran some intro stuff in one, we played in two, I came back, bought a bunch of stuff in Mark III. I've been buying stuff in every every edition, like from Mark I to Mark IV. But getting games in, it's just it was bad. For me, in my experience, was trying to play was just very rough. And the community, from my perspective, and this is this is why I say from my perspective, is I don't want to paint the players that were around here in a negative way, but the community that we were around was very toxic. And I've said this time and time again, I don't last long in very toxic communities. And from what I've seen, especially with Steamforged and the way that they and with what they just said today, really drives home my perspective and what I've been saying for months, if not many years, is that this community will only survive with more building and more, like you said, by bringing in those new people to continue fostering this generation. That's the reason that my kids are learning how to play. They see me have fun, they want to get involved, they start learning, and now I've just fostered two children for the next generation of gamers. I'm working on the third one. He just needs a little bit more time. He he's not uh he doesn't have quite the attention span quite yet. Give him another two years, we'll be good to go.

SPEAKER_03: 37:42

Yeah. It's always I always love it when seeing people come in, bring their kids to the game into the game store, and their their kids are actually enjoying playing. One of my locals here, he's also running our he's also being been our GM recently as we're running through an Iron Kingdom RPG, and we're doing a one-shot coming up, and his middle son is gonna be joining us is gonna be joining us for that. So I'm looking forward to it. That should be a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_02: 38:16

Believe it or not, that has been something that has been a topic of conversation for us. I have run DD games for, oh gosh, I I don't even want to say how long, but it has been a topic of conversation for us to potentially uh do that as some extra content, is gauging what the community would like and see if people would like to hear me and some of the crew here run an actual Iron Kingdom's fifth edition game.

SPEAKER_03: 38:46

Yeah, I think that'd be I think that'd be neat. I've seen some other folks do uh RP various RPGs, but not no one that I've seen do Iron King do Iron Kingdoms, though. Just doesn't because I don't think it has quite the the appeal as some of the the lar the the wide appeal that some of the other stuff does. But it'd be neat to it'd be neat to see, and I think it's always good to have other things have people out there who are covering stuff that doesn't necessarily get covered. I mean, I think that's one of the things that I've really appreciated about you all and what you do with this podcast, is there's a lot of podcasts out there that talk about large events and competitive and the competitive meta and how new releases fit into their hundred-point lists. There aren't a whole lot of other people out there talking about playing games at 30 points and the and the lore of the very of the various faction factions nowadays. So when I saw you guys hitting that, I was like, that that's great to see that.

SPEAKER_02: 39:53

And that is definitely one of the things that I've been striving to do is I want to kind of hit every command starter, and then we will start branching out from there. It's been a task, and I mean, I'll give credit where credit is due. I have sat there and in previous episodes I have said some stuff, and then I've gotten a magic little bird that would drop me a message saying, Hey, by the way, that wasn't exactly accurate. This is the accurate information, and this is where it is, which by the way, thank you, Steven.

SPEAKER_03: 40:26

I I you're welcome. No, truly I and it It's not facetious. And I'm sure I'm not I'm I'm sure I'm not the only magical little bird that's dropped that's dropped in on you because the the the hard thing when you start diving into and talking about the lore about a game that's been around this long is everybody that hears you is gonna have their favorite characters. And if you don't paint that favorite character in the correct light, oh you better believe you're gonna hear from them.

SPEAKER_02: 40:59

And believe it or not, I will tell you, and this is and this is why I say this I've only had one person, and it was on Reddit, that came at us for when I oh God, I don't even remember her name. But the uh the uh Falcier. Falseer, thank you, that it was listed in the lore in that section as an assassin. And they're like, that's not that nope, that's that my girl is not an assassin. I was like, but it states it in the lore, black and white, it says it here that that's what she is, and they did not like it, but when I did point that out, it was wait until you guys start diving deeper into Signar and Kator.

SPEAKER_03: 41:42

I guarantee you they're gonna find you're gonna find some more people who have very, very strong opinions about certain cat about certain characters. Don't talk bad about Sorja. Oh yeah, she's my girl. Oh no, no, don't do baby, do not do that.

SPEAKER_02: 41:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 41:56

Uh so we uh we actually do that people that are gonna drive to tell you their opinions.

SPEAKER_02: 42:02

And and the thing that we've been trying to do is be very matter-of-fact. We're using straight lore and no interpretation, and I'll even say if I think it is an interpretation, I will say, This is how I interpreted, this is what it said. And then people can say, Oh, I agree, I disagree, and that's perfectly fine. I want the conversations to happen. I want this info, I want there to be catalysts, but I want it to be over facts, not necessarily speculation. And but I do think speculation from time to time is wild. And that was actually one of our conversations that we did have was, you know, interpretations. And this is how I read something and how I interpreted it, and you had read something and you interpreted it differently. And it's I think having those great conversations, and especially being able to see things differently and how to broaden our perspectives is also what makes this game great. That's what builds this community into what it is, is having those broader views and having the those fun conversations. You know, it's a game, don't take it personal. Most definitely.

unknown: 43:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 43:17

And there's there's so much history, so much lore in this game. It's fun. You can sit around and talk about that stuff for hours, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_02: 43:23

Yeah, with the TikTok when the guy came on, their lore master, I was like, yes, and I I got so excited. I dove in, I walked in, and I just started listening. I was so enthralled. I think I missed that segment. Yes. Actually, you came on right after that. Okay. Cause I want to say you came on right before the battle.

SPEAKER_05: 43:47

Yeah, I joined right when they were wrapping up the uh core rule books.

SPEAKER_02: 43:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_05: 43:53

And auctioning those off.

SPEAKER_02: 43:56

Now I'm trying to remember the timeline of what that was, and I don't remember. I'm sure that we could pull up an old video and find out, but uh here nor there.

SPEAKER_03: 44:05

Go back and go back and listen listen to the I'm sure I think they recorded the whole thing. Just go back and find where it was, where it was in the 12 in the 12-hour stream. I mean, with my job, I could somewhere in the first four hours.

SPEAKER_02: 44:19

Yeah. But that's uh that's another thing that I've also talked about. And because again, we're hyper-fixating on community today, but we're we're gonna branch off that here in a little bit. But another thing that I've been praising is the fact that you see a lot of the I'll say the higher-ups at Steamforge being active in the community. And it's not like them sitting up in a tower looking down at us as the players. It's they're competing, they're playing, they're doing all this stuff here with us. They're painting models, they're putting them on the tables. For me, I can get behind those people much faster, and I can actively support them. I might not agree with 100% of their decisions, or I might have questions, but again, I'm still supporting them in what they're doing because they are us.

SPEAKER_05: 45:19

Yeah, no, they're good folks. Occasionally make some questionable decisions.

SPEAKER_03: 45:23

They're a really good, solid group from every from everything that I've that I've seen so far. And I think if you really scale back and look at when War Machine probably had its high point under privateer press, I think you'll find a lot of those same sort of things. I think it sells good things for where this game where this game is headed in the over the over the next couple years.

SPEAKER_02: 45:52

Yeah, I I would 100% agree. So that actually is a great little breakaway point. What do you think about the Kethguard?

SPEAKER_03: 46:03

I think that they are going to be so so for Kick Dart and I think they're gonna be really interesting. I think they're gonna be neat to see them on the table. I think there are some people there are some painters and hobbyists out there that are going to do amazing things with those models that will make my eyes pop out of my head with shock and amazement. Uh personally, I have never none of the troll factions or armies really pulled me in, so I'm not gonna probably be playing them. But I think they from the Steam Forge side, they've done a really good job with the last couple of armies of trying to give each one some kind of mechanic or something about them that makes them feel unique. And if Kithguard, that's gonna be really leaning hard into things that they can do with the ambush mechanic, I think that's gonna be really exciting to see on the tabletop.

SPEAKER_02: 47:09

I would agree. I know I am super excited. I'm unfortunately stupidly excited that I'm already looking at it, going, okay, it's coming out in February, I'm already marking off. Like, what do I want to get? How am I gonna build out? Like, I already know it's gonna be a problem. But it is, and I do appreciate the fact that they said that this army is gonna have a bigger learning curve. But I think they risk remarkable.

SPEAKER_03: 47:36

I think we saw that a lot with gravediggers too. If you go if you kind of go back and look at gravediggers, I think they had a very similar situation. Um, and this may be them just preparing people in a way that we didn't have that preparation conversation with gravediggers. That yeah, there's a lot that you're gonna be able to do with this with this army, and don't expect them to be amazing the second they hit they hit the the table. They hit the t they hit the tables.

SPEAKER_02: 48:08

Yeah, and and that's again, that's one of those things that I do enjoy is that learning curve. Like the other day I just put down old Umbre for the first time, and I ran them against my son, and I made a few tactical errors, and by a few I mean three, because I can pinpoint exactly what I did wrong when. And it was all within one round. But it's one of those things that when I sit back and I look at it, I love those learning moments, those things. Sure, I might get a little frustrated and I'll like hyper focus on what happened, where things went awry. But then I come back and I'm like, hey, guess what I learned? And it's always some sort of learning moment. That's what I love about this style of game, and that this one branches out across the war gaming industry is those moments where back in Warhammer Fantasy Battles, I don't want to say I had a lot of those because I really didn't, but I gave a lot of people those situations. And I was always very open, very coaching, very good with that. And now I'm on the receiving end in War Machine.

SPEAKER_03: 49:25

Like I said earlier, we all we all gotta start, we all gotta start somewhere. Oh yeah. A year from now, you're gonna be the person giving the coaching moments and not just receiving them.

SPEAKER_02: 49:34

So I hope not. I hope that I am still always gonna be getting punched down on because if that means that I'm gonna be sitting at those tables where those people are that good and they're beating up me. Guess what?

SPEAKER_03: 49:45

I've already climbed enough to be like, yeah, I've done my on the receiving end of some of the of some of those moments, no matter how long you play or no matter how or how good you get.

SPEAKER_02: 49:57

That's very true. I I'm like I said, in a couple days, I'm hopefully gonna go get wiped. Uh, but it'll be a great little learning moment for me, and I want to see what that will entail.

SPEAKER_05: 50:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 50:13

Beware of Plugger. That guy is gross. Oh yeah. Angus played Plugger for the first uh went against Plugger for the first time, and he's like, dude, they ripped apart my juggernaut in one turn.

SPEAKER_05: 50:24

Yeah. I was not expecting that.

SPEAKER_03: 50:27

But you haven't lived until you've watched Plugger rip rip apart another heavy warjack in one shot. Well, I no, was it one shot?

SPEAKER_05: 50:37

No, he had to burn all of his focus. Okay. Yeah, he brought down a juggernaut.

SPEAKER_03: 50:41

And I've never seen anything bring down a juggernaut. You've seen Plugger go in, rip apart it, rip rip uh another heavy warjack in half with one attack, and standing there with with two focus with two focus saying, Well, what do I do with the rest of my focus now?

SPEAKER_06: 50:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 50:57

See, I've killed one with chum.

SPEAKER_02: 51:00

Yeah, but not in one round. No. It took part of two.

SPEAKER_06: 51:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 51:07

But even it's definitely the moments that the dice say, okay, I'll give you this this one time so you can tell the story about it.

SPEAKER_02: 51:16

Yeah, but it seems like that's more of a common occurrence with Plugger, though, which by the way, looking to get a plugger.

SPEAKER_03: 51:23

Oh no, no. Plugger is Plugger is really good. He he is worth he is definitely worth his points. And you definit if you've got him across the table, you definitely need to look at that and say, okay, what is my plan for trying to what am I committing? Run? Yeah, yeah. What am I committing? I don't want to play, I'm not gonna bl I don't want him to play his game. Right. I want him to play my game. Yeah, yeah. Fortunately, I had another juggernaut which was able to dispatch plugger. But and sometimes when you've got what are jugger, what are juggernauts like 11 points? When you've got an 11-point head like the juggernaut, that might very well be the game you want to play. Is I'm gonna put this juggernaut here and let Plugger kill it. And then I'm gonna come in and rip Plugger apart in in response. That that might be your best plan.

SPEAKER_02: 52:15

Yeah. And I because at first we've talked about it and we talk some tactics outside of the game, and you know, we we really I would say War Machine takes up a good part of our days, and then between uh the podcast and everything else, it it kind of just builds up from there. But it is one of the things that we do talk about is Angus had just said, I maybe was it today, maybe it was just recently. He said, he's like, Man, I always thought Plugger was really expensive for his points. No, no, he's worth every one of those 17 points.

unknown: 52:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 52:55

Yeah. And that's and that's crazy. Because I actually I've always said I've loved that model, especially the extreme version of him. I'm like, that model is so good. And then I kind of read his rules, I was like, man, this sounds really good. Then he went up against Angus, and Angus went up against Plugger, and he was like, dude, this guy's really good. I'm like, all right, I need a plugger today. Because I I want to take my uh my hellslingers, I'm gonna turn them into grave guard. That's that's my plan.

SPEAKER_03: 53:28

Yeah, I think I think that there's because they're on that side you get access to more gun to more gun mages, which is always uh provides you some nice little some nice little synergies to toy with in there. Oh yeah. Especially if you dump the uh what are they what do they call them? The charger 2.0 light jack. Take the you take the Patriot and give it the uh the dual shot the dual shot cannon and it basically turns into the new ver the Mark IV version of the old uh Cygnar Charger.

SPEAKER_02: 54:00

Well, I was gonna say that's pretty much like Deuce but a non-character model.

SPEAKER_03: 54:05

Yeah, non-character light deuce.

SPEAKER_02: 54:07

Yeah. Which I I I looked at that too, and I was like, this is like Deuce light, but much cheaper. I was like, I could probably get behind this. Still get the powerful attack, still get all sorts of stuff. I think. It's been a minute.

SPEAKER_05: 54:24

Deuce is good too, but man, plugger. That was so wild. So what about Deuce and Plugger? It's not gonna be my favorite day.

SPEAKER_03: 54:38

I'll have to take four drones. Then you get to make a choice. Do I want to die by a by gun cannon or do I want to die by trench knife?

SPEAKER_02: 54:50

Those are very fair and accurate statements because you're either getting shot or you're getting stabbed. So I like that.

SPEAKER_03: 54:59

Hey, War Machine is a game all about choices.

SPEAKER_02: 55:02

So yeah. How many models do I want to lose and when?

SPEAKER_03: 55:06

Oh man. Yeah, but back to what you were saying at the beginning, I think Kithguard are gonna be a really fun faction. Troll are always they're always fun models just to, if nothing else, just to look at and watch them play. I think I'm gonna, I'm gonna in the thing I'm looking forward to the most for Kithguard is for every model coming out, looking at it very closely and trying to pick off, okay, what model did they salvage that weapon from? Or what did they tear that armor piece off of?

SPEAKER_02: 55:42

Oh yeah. That I've already seen there's like some that have got like Caudor guns and they've got like Cygnar armor and like all sorts of stuff.

SPEAKER_05: 55:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 55:53

The heavy that they've shown off a couple times at conventions and pictures has this like chainsaw strapped to its arm. I don't know if you've seen that model, but uh I'm still trying to figure out where that chainsaw came from.

SPEAKER_05: 56:09

No idea of the pattern.

SPEAKER_03: 56:10

I still haven't decided I still haven't decided what model they've what what warjack they ripped that chainsaw off of.

SPEAKER_05: 56:16

Yeah, the only thing I have pinned down is the uh double cannon off of the Conquest on the Super Heavy.

SPEAKER_03: 56:24

Oh yes. There was also it's got like the Conquest's cannon on its back. It's got like a nomad's, or it's like a juggernaut's axe in one hand, and then it's got like a cyclone, like a Signar and Cyclone's chain gun on another hand.

unknown: 56:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 56:43

That was that was definitely and a couple of tusks that probably it cut off of a scorn mammoth just for giggles.

SPEAKER_06: 56:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 56:53

I also, by the way, I like the look of the Fortress King, and I really want to see what that thing's gonna look like on the table.

SPEAKER_04: 57:01

Oh yes.

SPEAKER_02: 57:02

Or yeah, Fortress King, yeah.

unknown: 57:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 57:05

I think that sounds right.

SPEAKER_02: 57:06

I mean, you see pigs using cranes to move bombs across the sky. So I'm the I'm excited to see how that's gonna be and how that's gonna play out.

SPEAKER_03: 57:18

The other thing I like about it is they didn't invent a new type of king to make this gargantuan. Because we've already had the Mountain King, the Glacier King, the Sea King, and then the Abyssal King. They didn't make a a new king. What they did is they just took the old mountain king and reimagined it.

SPEAKER_05: 57:43

Right.

SPEAKER_02: 57:45

I mean, it does have some 40k orkiness to it with that metal faceplate and things like that. But I'm here for that.

SPEAKER_03: 57:54

A lot of the other things in gift cards.

SPEAKER_02: 57:57

I I know. Yeah. Trolls are basically orcs. Yeah. I again have a little 40k army of mind. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 58:05

As I sit back and I just keep looking at my shelves. Yeah, I did was it last last year, I did paint up some brine bloods, and I painted up what was it? I paint up Admiral Boomhowler, a heavy, a light, a unit of marauders, and then a surgeon. And they were a lot of fun to paint, but they definitely confirmed for me that I'm glad I didn't pick them up as a full faction, because there is so much detail and so many fun little things that you can paint on every single model. You can just go down a rabbit hole and get lost in the neverland of painting.

SPEAKER_02: 58:45

I will say this since you brought it up. Uh, let's take a moment for the fallen Admiral Boomhauer. Nah. I was gonna say that was fast enough. Uh hey, we we got like half a second in there. Hopefully she's gonna join the Black Fleet. Uh that, okay, so I was actually gonna ask uh I was gonna ask Steven about that. So now that Admiral Boomhauer has passed away, there has been some speculation on the next round of Cricks. Do you think she is going to be an admiral for the Black Fleet?

SPEAKER_03: 59:25

I think the Black Fleet will demote her and make her a captain. Just to annoy some troll just to further twist the knife into the the the Trolkin community there.

SPEAKER_05: 59:35

I like it.

SPEAKER_02: 59:38

Okay. That sounds fun for me. No. Uh that that that was a very big conversation in and outside of the podcast.

SPEAKER_03: 59:48

And and if I can just really I'll take a tangent for a moment here. One is that I do really like what they're doing with these narratives at all these conventions. Um, and they're actually letting the narratives drive things that they're doing for both the story and the game.

SPEAKER_02: 1:00:05

I a hundred percent agree. I did see a little bit of verbiage though, that kind of made me kind of question some of the validity there. And I saw that it said it said something to the effect of the results of the games may influence or impact like future whatever. Yeah. But I saw it said may. So I was like, oh, this might already have been decided no matter what.

SPEAKER_03: 1:00:39

That's a legalese caveat. Yes. They gotta say. They've probably already got like a couple of like a couple of different ways that it could go. It's just a matter of which one is it going to go.

SPEAKER_02: 1:00:52

Yeah, you've got Extreme Boom Howler for the Brian Bloods in the back, and then you've got her in Blackfleet, and then you just see a guy in the back with a hammer waiting to see what the result is and smashing the one that didn't win. Nah.

SPEAKER_05: 1:01:03

They're not going to devote that kind of time to sculpting models that aren't going to get released. They might.

SPEAKER_03: 1:01:10

Nah. Yeah. Well, I mean, you can sc I mean, honestly, you can sc nowadays you can you can sculpt, you can do initial sculpt runs pretty easy.

SPEAKER_05: 1:01:20

Yeah, but still, I mean that's considerable time on Blender, whatever they're using.

SPEAKER_04: 1:01:26

That's fair.

SPEAKER_02: 1:01:27

Yeah. Another quick little hot take, staying on the trolls here because they've been a very big point of interest for a lot of people. What do you think of General Gunborn?

SPEAKER_03: 1:01:39

I think it is both hilarious and amazing. I mean, he's hanging out of a tank, barely fitting in the tank, and he's like, I've got a bazooka and a tank. Because the tank gun isn't big enough, I also need a bazooka.

SPEAKER_05: 1:02:00

Also, to be fair, the model that we've seen has just been unpainted resin, and it's hard to see all the details in 3D printed resin.

SPEAKER_02: 1:02:08

Yeah. And Angus has been up.

SPEAKER_03: 1:02:10

It also might not be the final be the final model.

SPEAKER_02: 1:02:13

That's very true. That's what I said is I said I kind of hoped that this was not the final product. Because again, we're also now to be fair, this is me being hypercritical. You can't really tell a whole lot from the photos that I've seen. They're grainy, they're not great photos, they're not like you're seeing some of them that are high res inside a display case where the lighting's really good. This is somebody taking a quick photo on the floor of a convention. So it's not great. Right. And again, I'm being hypercritical. I understand that. I'm not I'm just saying that from what I could see from my perspective, which also, by the way, not wearing my glasses, and I should be wearing my glasses, but from my take on it, I was like, God, I and I even had said I'm like, I wonder if this is not the final product, or I hope it's not, because I can't really tell what it exactly I'm looking at. It looks like this, but it might not be. I can't tell. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 1:03:16

I would venture to guess at this stage in the game, that's the final model.

SPEAKER_02: 1:03:21

It could be. That again, there's still that could be a model that's not seeing daylight for another six to nine months. Yeah. That'll probably be at the tail end of the kith card releases.

SPEAKER_05: 1:03:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:03:34

So not exactly sure what we're looking at, but I do and there was a lot of uh I'll say, because Chris is a troll player, he was very excited to see Gunborn return in any way, shape, or form.

SPEAKER_03: 1:03:50

And uh Oh yeah, I did not think that we were gonna I did not think that Kithgard would see a new Gunbjorn model. I thought he would be I thought he would go the route of characters that we've seen in the lore like Strakov or Kray, who have kind of moved away from frontline duty, and we'll we'll see them in the we'll see them in the lore, they'll have stories about them, they'll interact with characters that we do get to play on the tabletop, but we won't ever see them on the tabletop themselves anymore.

SPEAKER_02: 1:04:22

Yeah, kind of also I was wrong. And then like kind of reading a little bit on them and the way that they posted some of the stuff, it was uh was it Madrak? The uh the guy who oversees.

SPEAKER_03: 1:04:37

Yeah. Matt Madrak, who's the the the the chieftain of the Southern Creole, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:04:42

Yeah, so he basically put Gun Gunborn, or however we're gonna pronounce him, uh put him out in charge of the the Kith Guard, which I really thought was interesting because we were talking about it and I was like, hey, he might just be kind of like how Denagra is leading the Cricks right now. That might be what's going on with Gunborn. He's gonna take this, you know, passive background character kind of concept, but now we see him actively on the forefront, which is very exciting because I can tell you right now, Chris is going to main him, and I haven't quite decided what I'm gonna do yet.

SPEAKER_03: 1:05:27

And it has given it has given Crix players hope that one day they may get a return of Dirt of the Negra to the field.

SPEAKER_05: 1:05:35

Here's hoping.

SPEAKER_03: 1:05:36

And yeah, and I'm just and I'm just I'm just sitting here crossing my fingers that there will be a great flash of light at the hedgehold, and Hayley and Haley will reappear into the storyline and the community's collective and the community's collective heads will explode.

SPEAKER_05: 1:05:53

Well that's what I'm honestly hoping for is a two-player starter set, Dinagra and Haley.

SPEAKER_03: 1:05:59

Which Oh I I don't I don't know if the cheers of joy or the cheers of horror would be louder.

SPEAKER_02: 1:06:10

And I will say, because we we saw in the AMA when they were on Reddit, they said that they were working on a two-player starter set that would blow to quote blow our minds.

SPEAKER_05: 1:06:25

That would do it.

SPEAKER_02: 1:06:27

And and that's where Angus and I were sitting there talking, and he's like Denagra Haley. Yeah, he's like Denagra Haley, it's gotta be. And I'm like, I I don't know. I'm like, there that I'm like, that's that's some to blow our minds, that's some big words. But to be honest, they've been fulfilling what they've talked about. So time will be our friend. And I will be eagerly eagerly awaiting. Because I don't think there is a two-player star set that I have not bought yet. Yeah. No, you've got them all. Yep. I'm just sat there and just some. What was that? Duplicates of some. Yeah. Well, that's what happens when you gotta give your kids some.

SPEAKER_03: 1:07:11

Looking at the shelf, checking them off there. Yep, yep, yep. Okay, good.

SPEAKER_02: 1:07:14

Yeah, I I sat there, I was like, well, I got Signar, I got Cador, Brine Bloods, I have Chimera, and now I got this other one. So yeah, I've I've got them all. And the kids, when we did our little episode with the two boys, and we were talking about it, and I had them look at the models and what they thought. I figured it might so as a parent, looking at their, you know, my kids, and I was like, okay, John has Cricks, Eli's been playing Cygnar, they're gonna flip-flop, Eli's gonna go for the undead, and John's gonna go for the Dusk uh Feign of Nero. And it was the exact opposite. John's like, nope, undead, that's me. And Eli's like, yeah, I'm all about those cats. And I was like, okay, well, good. At least you both agree to not everyone's like, I want the Orgoth, or I want the elves. I was like, good, okay. We can split this up a little bit.

SPEAKER_04: 1:08:09

I can justify that.

SPEAKER_06: 1:08:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:08:11

Kids will always surprise you. Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_03: 1:08:16

So you had mentioned earlier, does your daughter play? No, she does not. I have when she was younger, I got her to paint some miniatures. Um, I've tried to talk her into it a few times, but I learned I learned when she was very young that I not to try too hard to get her interested in my things. Because she's the type of spirit that if you try to get her interested in something too much, she will swing the other way hard just to be rebellious.

SPEAKER_02: 1:08:51

Yep. I was gonna say, when you push them in one direction, they run to the other.

SPEAKER_03: 1:08:56

Well, no, no, no, no. It's not even push. It's like, I'm gonna try to kind of gently try to nudge you in this direction, and you're going the other way.

SPEAKER_02: 1:09:04

Yeah, luckily, I don't necessarily have that. My my kids have I've shown them things like I've shown them DD, I've shown them uh Warhammer Old World, I've shown them War Machine. Every time they've had a lot of fun, they've learned. Uh, my boys still love DD in that aspect. And when I had them in Old World, they had fun, but they didn't. It was very not confusing, but it was very tedious having that many models and trying to, you know, learn and try to do things, and then all of a sudden something falls over. And it really was kind of rough for them to learn.

SPEAKER_03: 1:09:48

And then Yeah, it can be a lot to keep track of for young, especially for especially especially for young for younger kids for younger kids. Um, two of our newer players are in their teens. We got two newer players, two of our newest players who are in their teens, and even for them, sometimes it's a lot, it's a lot to keep track of, a lot of math to try to do on the fly.

SPEAKER_02: 1:10:08

Yeah, which luckily my kids are all of my children are very mathematically gifted, so they are the math is not an issue at all, and they've actually found War Machine to be much more enjoyable. And this last game I played with Eli, I actually kinda I had him, I had a learning moment for him where he went ahead and he he's been playing enough now that he went ahead and he made some uh activation errors. So he went and he activated this one guy, moved him, and then he went back and uh started casting spells, and then he went to go back, and I was like, no, no, no, you already finished that one. You ended your activation, you went on to the next guy. He's like, Oh, yeah. I was like, Yeah. And I knew, I knew as like as a parent and as somebody who's teaching this, with somebody who's had enough experience at this point that that was the crucial moment. I knew from this point on he's gonna have it locked in. He's not gonna make this mistake again, because he saw the direct consequence, which he ended up still beating me, no problem, but whatever, I guess. It's those fun little coaching moments, especially because it's I'm not being hard, I'm just saying, hey, this is what the rule is. I've told you this about seven or eight times now. You've had enough games under your belt that you should know this. And he learned very quickly. And again, my kids are very active in this, and he's already asking, when are we gonna go play again? Uh, at the new store. He really enjoyed himself. So we're already looking at branching out there.

SPEAKER_00: 1:11:50

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_02: 1:11:51

Yeah, and and that's one thing that I wish I could have more. I'm actually, uh the funny thing is, is I actually was just approached by a friend of mine who has zero interest in the community or hobby, but his wife, who is an educator, asked him to talk to me and said, Hey, the game that you play is that Warhammer. And I was like, No, it's called War Machine, and I quickly and you know, educated him on what War Machine is, and he said that they have a Warhammer Club at their school. And I said, Well, I am going to be trying to figure out about either procuring a starter set or something and getting that built up and painted, and then I will either see about donating it to the school or getting that in their hands so that way they can go ahead and they can have that, and if I find out what days it's on, maybe I can assist in that, or if it's something along that line.

SPEAKER_03: 1:13:00

I'll usually just have like some yes, like starter sets that they that some little 30-point starter sets or something that people at the club can come just play. And it's a great opportunity, like we just said, to it's another great avenue to just get more people into the game.

SPEAKER_02: 1:13:16

And I mean, looking at the price point between War Machine versus Warhammer in general is substantially different.

SPEAKER_03: 1:13:26

Yeah. The other thing that you can do when you start looking at school club at school clubs like this that I've heard some people look into is while you're sitting here doing uh you're get doing the gaming club, most schools have also have like some art clubs. So you can always kind of try to cross-pollinate to your your gaming club and the school's art club and do like do a miniature paint event or something.

SPEAKER_01: 1:13:51

Yeah, definitely. I didn't even think about that. That is a fantastic idea.

SPEAKER_03: 1:13:56

Yeah, because there's a whole nother half of our of our hobby that we haven't even really we haven't really touched on a whole lot here, is that is the painting and the hobby, the hobbying aspect of it is there's there's people in our community that barely play, but have vast collections just because they love painting these miniatures. And that's that is amazing. That's perfectly fine. That's another way to enjoy the hobby, is just being able to sit there and paint and paint this stuff, because the quality of miniatures and that they've made over the oh over the years have just constantly gone up.

SPEAKER_02: 1:14:37

Yeah. And that that was actually something that we had talked about in a previous episode was what is the hobby to me is not necessarily the hobby to you or to Angus or Joe or anybody else. You know, I'm more of a gamer. I love building the models, I love putting them together, I love getting them on the table and running. Painting was always a secondary thing, and with my some of my issues that I have, it painting for me is a struggle. And I kind of have to work myself up to going to paint, and then I paint for a while, and then I kind of fall away because I'll get frustrated or whatever the case is, or I start shaking a lot, and it it kind of comes and goes in the severity. But when it does creep up, I stop for a while. And I've been on one of those uh kind of upswings where I've had to kind of stop painting for a little bit, and I'll probably be coming back here relatively soon.

SPEAKER_03: 1:15:41

Yeah, three you got three kids. You should have plenty, plenty, plenty of opportunities to get stuff painted. Just line them up, give each of them a couple of models, and say, All right, guys, here's your here's your here's your scheme, here's what I want. The first one to finish all their models gets another extra 30 minutes of screen time.

SPEAKER_01: 1:15:56

Yeah, but then uh you I yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:16:01

Um I mean, I I could put them out there and be like, you need to have at least three colors on there. You need to have like look at what the tournament restrictions are and be like, get it to rec for the record, for the for the for the record, don't do that.

SPEAKER_03: 1:16:14

That's a horrible idea.

SPEAKER_02: 1:16:15

I yeah, I know. I'm like, oh God.

SPEAKER_03: 1:16:17

It would just I I'm not I'm not here, I'm not here to encourage anyone to turn their to turn their kids into a miniature paint miniature painting sweatshop.

SPEAKER_05: 1:16:26

Uh your extra screen time is only for studying a war machine. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:16:31

You get to read that app. You need to know everything about Tanagra John. Oh man. Staying along the kids' line, I do enjoy seeing the kids when they are playing, and I'm working on getting uh table set up around here so that way they can play more, even if I'm stuck at work for 12 hours. They can actually still get some games in. And like John said off recording, that he's gotten to put the the models out on the field a couple times. John only gets a chance to game one out of three weekends. And with that, he does maximize his time when he does have the ability to come out and play. And I absolutely love seeing that that is a primary focus for him, and that this game does pull him away from electronics and really drives home the stimulation and mental capacity that this promotes.

SPEAKER_05: 1:17:41

Yeah, it's been really excellent watching him and Chris's son Tom get into this. Yeah. They've both dived all in. Yeah, Tom is all over it.

SPEAKER_02: 1:17:52

It's great to see.

SPEAKER_04: 1:17:53

That's really cool.

SPEAKER_03: 1:17:53

That's really cool.

SPEAKER_02: 1:17:55

Yeah. And uh I'm I'm only again, I I I keep saying like we're only getting started. And we have been, oh geez. Almost four months now, we've recorded four about four months now. August eighteenth. And it is something that we kind of sit back and I look at it, and we're a third of the way into a year, and I'm still as not energetic, because that that's not that's not a valid word. Um I'm very excited, and every time I get to sit down and I see something new, my my batteries get recharged. Talking with you, talking with other people in the hobby and in the industry again revitalizes me to keep I don't want to say trudging on, because that that's very negative. I'll say charging forward because every time there's a little misstep, I miss a Facebook post, or I I've I'm very like strict with myself. It's I just see the community every time I've posted just uh comments on all different aspects of this and it's awesome. I love it. And I love seeing how the community at large is just again we we've talked about different kids' events, different all sorts of things. The shop that we're talking about, they're already talking about trying to run a tournament coming up into the new year, which I've kind of said, let's let's push it off a little bit. Let's let's wait till like the new rules for 2026 come out, and then you know, let's give it a couple weeks and then we can start looking at that bit more aggressively. Gives me a little bit more time also to read up on things and make sure that I'm uh well up to snuff and we're ready to go.

SPEAKER_06: 1:19:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:19:59

Just wing it.

SPEAKER_05: 1:20:02

If we're wrong, we're wrong, we'll figure out for the next time.

SPEAKER_03: 1:20:04

Well, that's figure it out as you go. There we go. Theme of today figure it out as you go.

SPEAKER_02: 1:20:09

Yeah, yes, yeah. Oh, geez. Yeah. Unfortunately, that is the story of my life. So for people that didn't know, uh NJT has uh converted a Discord into the Discord that it is that we're using now, and I will probably be putting that out to The public here probably in the next few weeks and uh kind of go from there. We've talked about how you enjoy playing Retribution and you've got some of the other guys, and how you've been just kind of streamlining Storm Legion. What would be your favorite starter? Be it a command starter or uh command cadre.

SPEAKER_03: 1:21:01

Like the two the two player bosses that they put out?

SPEAKER_02: 1:21:03

Uh i it could be, or it could just be a particular faction or one of each.

SPEAKER_04: 1:21:12

That's a good good question. So think to think about that for a second. Yeah. I actually think Necrofactorium has a really good command cadre.

SPEAKER_03: 1:21:25

It's got a good selection of models that synergize together really well, teaches you some kind of basic things that some kind of good basic things that the faction does, and doesn't have a whole lot of crazy rules you have to think about. It's actually one of the things with the Signar uh Hellslingers and the SKS that I think is makes them a little challenging as starting forces, is they've got a lot of rules, a lot of things you gotta think about. Well, and a lot of, hey, this model's alive, the unit gets this, and they've got all these shot types and all these other things you gotta think through.

SPEAKER_01: 1:22:11

Yep.

SPEAKER_03: 1:22:12

And it's a lot when you're still just trying to learn the game to also think of all of these little individual things that something that things can do. So I think the best the best 30-point starter groups are ones that don't have quite as many rules that the per that a new player has to jump into or has to try to absorb when they're still trying to learn the game as well.

SPEAKER_02: 1:22:43

I I would agree with that. I as somebody who picked up the Necrofactorum just recently, putting them out there and playing, I found them to be very, I would say easy to learn. And my first game with them was a 50-point game. So I never played with them, and I dropped down and I run a whole 50-point army with them and did pretty well. Doesn't mean that the learning curve wasn't there because I definitely looked back and was like, oh, okay, so I messed up here, messed up there, but it still was one of those things that I was able to kind of see. Now, what would you say would be the best two-player starter box?

SPEAKER_03: 1:23:25

I really think the most recent one, the Frozen and Forgotten, is a really good box. I think it gives a lot of for the lot of the same reasons I already said. I think it's a lot of the it's good models that give you a good entry point to a couple of different ways things that you can get into. You can either go Yorgoth C Raiders or the new um the new one that comes out when it comes out. You can go into that one. The NIST side allows you to go a couple of different directions as well with it. And again, it doesn't have a lot of a whole lot of extreme of extra rules that you got that you that you have to be thinking about. And those models. And then so many of those models just really look cool. We go back to talking about hobbying and painting. There's so many things that you can do with either of the with either of those boxes to just really do some fun things to put paint on models.

SPEAKER_02: 1:24:27

I agree, especially looking at the the dusk side of things, they definitely I don't want to say they look more simplistic to paint, because they're not. But as compared to the level of detail that you would need to do with the Orgoth models, especially at coloring in for the skulls and everything else there, there's high levels of detail to both, but I think you're looking at more I don't want to say washing on the dusk side, and while you see on the other side it's gonna be a lot more dry brushing. You're gonna see it's a lot of different I don't want to say techniques that you're gonna be looking at, but I I definitely agree that there's gonna be a lot of fun painting with both of these, and as more and more people get their hands on them and as more come out, I'm really looking forward to seeing some of these paint schemes.

SPEAKER_03: 1:25:27

Right, and you and because and and and I think they also you can go very detailed if you are a skilled miniature, if you've got some past skill as a miniature painter, you can go and do some very detailed work on both of them. But if you're not and you're just getting into it, you can also do them very basic, and I think they'll still look good.

SPEAKER_02: 1:25:50

I agree, because I'm already looking at how I'm gonna end up painting my dusk side, and I looked at it and I'm like, okay, I know I can get these cats done, and I could probably get them painted probably in about 30 minutes apiece. And that's again, all I use is speed paints because again, they're a lot more forgiving than what I'm gonna be trying to do. Um, especially when you shake and all of a sudden you twitch, and now all of a sudden there's paint that you can't remove. Now it's a problem. Or you gotta strip the whole thing and start over. And that is definitely not something I have time for. What is one thing you are excited about for in the future of War Machine?

SPEAKER_04: 1:26:36

One thing, huh? I'm excited. It's a big question.

SPEAKER_03: 1:26:41

No, no. There are a lot of things to be excited about, but I I am excited for I mean, I'm excited to see where my local community goes over the next year. We've grown a lot. We've interconnected what we do in the immediately where I am in Pensacola, and then where and our closest kind of sister group there in Mobile. We've connected what we do here with the folks up in Georgia a lot better. Um we've started bringing in some folks from Mississippi into the larger conversation and starting to make inroads to really connect with the folks over in New Orleans, and I'm really hope, I'm really looking forward to in the next year to try to really start bringing together and intermeshing all of that and really kind of trying to build this like larger southeast meta. And that as a concept really kind of excites me. There are some existing big events that we can probably eventually lean into to do war machine at. There's a few that are potentially gonna that are that are always kind of smaller ones that we might be able to start making some inroads on to, but I think there's a lot of opportunity for us to do that. And that's probably the thing I'm most looking forward to in the future is just locally how much excitement I'm starting to the how much the wider excitement is starting to bleed in locally and what we might be able to do with that.

SPEAKER_02: 1:28:19

I love hearing that. It's seeing what the community is going to do.

SPEAKER_01: 1:28:24

And that's huge.

SPEAKER_03: 1:28:26

And that's I think is that goes in. I will and now that now that I've given you my one, I'm gonna give another one as it's gonna as it's gonna be very similar. I'm also looking to see the wider community and white where thing where things grow in the net over the next year. Because there's been a lot of community growth, not only with it within the United States, within the US and worldwide, I feel, this year. And I think one of the biggest indicators of that for me of how much excitement there is and how much War Machine is growing, is if you look at content creation, where we kind of started the year, and where we kind of end and where we are now, there are a bunch of new content creators that have either kind of come back or started up. There's of course yourselves. There's a podcast from up in the folks I think are up there around Ottawa called the control phase. There's a couple of YouTube channels that have started up as well. Some over a gentleman named by the name I think is named Aaron, who runs a YouTube channel called Dice Down Gaming out of the UK. He's done a lot of great stuff. Um Ryan Cheruboga come back with this with his channel, The Spell Rack, which he's done some really good videos, especially if you're trying to get into the game. And I've shared a couple of those into the the beginners group because I really think they've been good for people that are really starting to get into the game or start to improve their play. But there's just been so much new content creation out there this year, and that's really, I think, an exciting indication of how much this game is starting to grow.

SPEAKER_02: 1:30:16

That is absolutely true. And as somebody who does look a little bit at our analytics and I see things, I mean, of course, the United States is number one for us as far as listeners go. Then we've got Germany, Australia, United Kingdom, Canada, Ireland, Sweden, Singapore, Belgium, Norway. And that's just over the last 30 days. So I look at that as not everybody wonders, like, oh, how many people are concerned with how much interaction they get. I enjoy seeing interaction. I love seeing interaction, but also at the same point, this shows me where the community's at. This tells me how active the community is across the world. And we're tiny. I mean, as far in the grand scheme of things, we're brand new, people are listening, which blows my mind, even still, it's mind-blowing. The fact that I have anybody that listen to us ramble um about our love of the hobby and the game is nuts to me. But it's again, it it just falls in line with what this community is about, and I love it.

SPEAKER_05: 1:31:33

Yeah. I believe one of the uh guys you mess out at the store on Sunday is a listener.

SPEAKER_02: 1:31:39

Uh I'm not gonna say who the person's name was, but the one that you played against? Yeah. Oh, awesome. Even better. Yeah, I I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_05: 1:31:46

Because he recognized the shirt.

SPEAKER_02: 1:31:48

Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. I so okay. Uh so little uh fun little fact. Typically, when I go somewhere new or anything like that, I don't talk about the podcast. I don't wear my shirt. Uh, I don't wear any anything that identifies who we are because I don't want possible deniability. No. Also, yes. No, um, it it it's one of those things that I don't want it to come across as ingenuine or fake or anything like that. I want this to be a real experience. I want to get to see who these people are, and if I like what I'm interacting with, or if I feel like it's a good fit, then I will say something. And eventually I do if I feel like it's a good fit. And there has been times where it hasn't been, and I haven't said anything. But I mean, going across and looking at just the growth that there is in all things, this has been one of the best experiences. Like you said, I never thought I'd be sitting down behind a microphone talking about war machine. I mean, I talked about potentially doing this for like DD, but even then, I was like, yeah, there's so many people out there, who cares? What are we gonna bring to the table? There's nothing new. And then kind of like what you said, there's not many people that were doing what we're doing right now, where we're kind of talking to people that are new. We're talking about the people that aren't at that meta level where they need to make sure that they've got, you know, this specific unit in this specific spot for the objective. We're barely getting our objectives placed on the table correctly, much less going for them. Um so we're we're still learning, and that's where I appreciate when we've had some other people on and when we've all talked, or when we interact with a lot of these people, a lot of them are new and or they're coming back. And that's why I'm like, that's why I did this. That's why we're doing this, is because we mess up just like everybody else, and you know, we we really want to kind of push it forward and be like, you know what, it's okay to make mistakes. I want everyone to have fun. And some of the best times are when you make a mistake and you get to laugh about it.

SPEAKER_05: 1:34:13

Yeah, I think we have one really competent player in our group.

SPEAKER_03: 1:34:16

Yeah, yeah. Paul's very good. Hey, I mean, like like we said, we've all everybody everybody's starting somewhere, and you guys have you guys are documenting your start, and it's been great, it's been great to see. And it's like I said earlier, I think it's something that it needs to be seen out there. People need to see that not everyone playing this game are playing to top tables at the next at the next convention. There's plenty of us out there that are just trying to play and have fun and push our little pretty pretty painted toy sh soldiers around on a table. Absolutely. Uh just want to play with my toys. Yeah, right. Exactly. What are you guys looking forward to for the next year for the for the next year?

SPEAKER_05: 1:35:03

Uh well, I'm really looking forward to the Pharaoh. Getting my hands on those STLs.

SPEAKER_03: 1:35:10

The bacon.

SPEAKER_05: 1:35:11

Yeah, I was gonna say the pigs. I'm also really excited about uh the infernals.

SPEAKER_02: 1:35:17

I I would agree. I've looked at the infernals, they seem very interesting to play. I've never played them. I've wanted to play them, but we'll see.

SPEAKER_03: 1:35:28

Yeah, the I think that right now my game bag's got a bunch of my retribution in it. I played them at the event I was at this past week, and I'm probably gonna play them through at least the next couple of months. And then once, yeah, once the infernal stuff drops, we'll see what they they get any rules updates. I'm ext I'm expecting based on what they did with Crucible Garden, the little bit that I think they talked about during the live stream, it is that we'll get some new infernal models, which would be cool. Yeah, so I'll probably roll my infernal my once those drop, I will probably get someone to print them, get them painted, and then roll my infernals back out for a little while once they've got some new toys.

SPEAKER_02: 1:36:15

I they did confirm that they're doing uh they're releasing, was that a Hellmaster?

SPEAKER_03: 1:36:21

Yeah, there's gonna be a new Infernal Master, yeah. But if they kind of follow the model that they did with Crucible Guard, then we might also get like a character horror and a character unit, which would be cool.

SPEAKER_05: 1:36:37

Yeah, I would assume so. Um They're very much trying to make sure those releases mimic the standard releases with a name character unit and a name Jack or monster.

SPEAKER_02: 1:36:50

Probably one of the things that I'm excited for is I'm actually going to go to some of the conventions this year. I know I've already got Adepticon set up. I'm gonna be looking at kind of diving in there because that's real close to us. For me, it's like 45-50 minutes away. That far? In Milwaukee, yeah. Okay. It it's it's a straight shot, but then you get off and then you gotta go travel around a little bit. It it's it's about 45 minutes.

SPEAKER_03: 1:37:26

I don't envy your blizzard, uh, envy your blizzards. I do envy your proximity to several several really good-sized conventions.

SPEAKER_02: 1:37:34

And uh, let me tell you, with lock and load, I realized how close it was. I'm like, oh, I could have went.

SPEAKER_03: 1:37:41

Uh and there there was some people that asked if I was gonna go. Yeah, I spent a lot I spent a lot of time in Washington State when Lock and Load was being run in Seattle, so I got to go to a lot of those.

SPEAKER_05: 1:37:53

Yeah. But I was so close to hopping into the car and driving down there and getting the dragon.

SPEAKER_02: 1:38:01

Grab me a death jack. Yeah. Yeah. Whole turkey.

SPEAKER_03: 1:38:08

So that's uh I'm I'm hoping I I'm I'm really hoping and I might try I'm gonna try next year to get up to Nova. Um that's another one that I don't know if I'm going to, but like I said, I was I was in that area for about three years playing War Machine, and I still know a fair number of people that in the in that local community in that area that I'd love to go up and see again.

SPEAKER_02: 1:38:36

That is one that I I've been toying around between Vegas and Nova. I think I'm gonna swing to Nova. If I do go, I'm gonna if I can, uh I should have the vacation time, but I gotta double check on weekends and see where the vacation board lines up for me. But if I'm able to do it, I'm gonna try to get uh I'm gonna try to get Adepticon and Nova this year.

SPEAKER_06: 1:39:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:39:08

That would be my hope. Yeah, I'd like to be, I'd like to be able to get I would love to get back to being able to do like one or two, like a convention or two every year. There's just so much it's just so much fun.

SPEAKER_02: 1:39:21

And that's and that's something that I would love to see. And seeing the community at large out there at those conventions and how they build and how they're blowing up, and again, I'm I'm not gonna go into any other spoilers for you, but uh in the episode that we had talked about that's brought up as well. And I'm I'm very excited to see what that's gonna be like. Experiencing that first hand will be very exciting and interesting. Indeed. Well, I think that's all I'm gonna have for today. But Angus, do you have anything else for Steven?

SPEAKER_03: 1:40:01

Not at the moment.

SPEAKER_05: 1:40:02

Okay, thanks for talking with us. All right.

SPEAKER_03: 1:40:05

Well, thanks for having me on, guys. I really appreciate the opportunity to get on here and talk with you and talk a little bit about War Machine, talk about some of the stuff we've been doing down here around Florida and southern out and southern Alabama and what we got coming up in the n in this year.

SPEAKER_02: 1:40:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:40:24

And that's something that anyone out there is traveling down to around Pensacola or Mobile, look us up.

SPEAKER_04: 1:40:33

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_03: 1:40:35

All right then. Well, you guys have a wonderful rest of your week and a wonderful holiday season. You as well. All right. Thanks, Steven. Thanks for coming on. My pleasure.

SPEAKER_02: 1:40:49

Take care. Take care. Have a good night. Bye.