Ep.77 Evolution of Megatron 3000: Adapting to V3 | Bolt Action Podcast

Welcome to tabletop tommies i'm johnny and i'm phil and today we're joined by ali to talk about megatron 3000 how the scotch scene is looking for tournaments and generally how he's finding tournaments so far in v3 yep i have to say thank you very much guys for having me back on i think it was maybe about this time last year yeah i think it was yep yep you guys gave me some air time to talk about the Megatron 3000,

but with the onset of version 3, some things have changed, some things haven't with Megatron 3000, and I guess that's been led by a lot of the events that have happened within the UK and globally, trying to draw out what's good and repel what's bad about full action version 3.

Which even that sentence will light up people's conversation bar um we can't even decide on that we need an apaq on that not another one i've got to say i'm more interested in the stuff that hasn't changed because in v2 it was unique even amongst the v2 tournaments yeah and so i'm curious i know you've carried a lot of the elements through but obviously under a brand new version i'm genuinely curious what you've done i mean do you want to talk through what v2

looked like and so you can talk about what you've kept and how you've kept to because i mean for anyone who doesn't know the theater selector thing was the the real usp wasn't it yeah that was it really was so in bowl action version two when the concept sorry when the megadron 3000 was conceived theater selectors weren't very wildly used other than you know particular themed events or at club or local level and it was all based on a conversation i with one scottish player who i have never named

i never want to give him credit for it i mean he's a good guy we're good pals but i'm not giving him the credit because it'll send his ego off off the scale but he complained to me that ali what's the point of us buying these books all we do is take out a couple of cool units and then basically throw.

The rest away we never use these theorist selectors etc etc so i decided to go all in and the megdron 3000 was born and that we only used theater selectors once a theater selector was chosen it could never be chosen again so every army was going to be unique in the sense that its formation was unique and that helped me you know drive ticket sales you know it gave people an impetus to buy a ticket early to get the theatre selector that they wanted.

And I put the pack out so far in advance that people could select a theatre selector and build specifically for it. I think I always put ticket sales like 10 months out. So there was this enormous lead-in time. And then I never advertised, and I still don't advertise it as a competitive event or a thematic event or a historical event, because it kind of is all three at the same time.

You're bringing themed historical lists, but the players have a competitive mindset when they're driving these lists. And it's only a one-day event. It's three games, and it's 1,250 points, which, depending on where you ended up, that was still quite a large points level in version two.

And I think it was within the Scottish tournament circuit it was one of the larger points levels and so it also made, it also gave value to all the theory books, the Warlord Games and Osprey printed of which they're still on my shelf, I think there's 25 of them and some of them are fantastic, some of them are really great, Fortress Budapest, my favourite mine as well, it really is Brian Cook, one of the main contributors there. I'm lucky enough to know the man from my time spent in Australia.

I was also a huge fan of, and I've said this in many different places, the Operation Sea Lion and Operation Gaugant, the invasion of England that didn't happen. I love those books. Man of taste here. Just absolutely phenomenal what-if scenarios and what-if armies that should be getting produced more. So it gave value to those books not just from the special units and so that clicks onto V3, so version 3 and.

It's the big unknown we had that, early glimpse of the platoon formation, the different platoons that you could make your army out of and it was excitement and dread in equal measure but what I needed to do was watch other tournaments run, and also experience going to a V3 tournament, which I think a lot of our, I think for all of us, it was World Open War in Southend. It was my first V3 tournament.

Yeah, it was our first two-dayer. I think, yeah, we'd both been to maybe a one-dayer before, but in terms of the proper kind of launch for a two-dayer, it would have been World Open War, yeah. And then there were other events. I went to a few other one-day events and also gathering, not gathering data, but getting the feel of the room from the rest of the community. in the US, Europe, UK, Australia.

But the one key indicator that I had to wait on was the release of the first army book, Armies of Germany. I wanted to see what the format of the book was, and what I was specifically looking for was where they're going to do theatre selectors or I truly thought they were going to bring out special platoons that you could set alongside the rifle platoon, time platoon, heavy platoon. And I thought there might be, you know, like 1939 Wehrmacht platoon, you know, this is, you know.

That's really what I was hoping for, like a Battle of France platoon where you get more tanks, but obviously you're limited to what tanks you can take. That's exactly what I was really hoping for as well, that we basically get the platoon selector as your national characteristic basically, rather than you just get to be fanatic or stubborn. That was one of my big hopes, yeah. I really hoped for it as well, but that didn't happen.

The other thing I was looking for was what units were going to be in this book now my daydream was that they were going to fold in all the units from all the theatre books and make the armies of books really fat, and they kind of got like 85% there for it yeah I hate sounding dirty, but there's a few things that I thought could have been in armies of Germany that weren't, and they're all fringe cases that just stuff I liked, but there were stuff that

was in the FAQ and the other, like the flak panther or Colian, like they make the model for it. They made drills for it and the V2 errata FAQ document. And then it just didn't. The one that surprised me was the Gavir sniper because we made snipers a bit pants and so having a double shot sniper, cause even at the end of V2, when we were playing with this, it wasn't an auto include necessarily.

It was good but like you still had to have a place for it and it just seemed such an obvious thing to slip in because it didn't require much like rules adjustment or anything because it basically just says take a second shot that was the only rule and so that was really weird that that didn't make the cut yeah it was it was odd so it's a little odd things like that but once i had that knowledge from the armies of germany book i could make a

decision about the megatron 3000 in version 3 and there had also been enough noise by this point about the platoon structures and seeing how far it could be pushed, And I realized that the theater selectors from version two were still applicable, and they truly are, in my belief. And the event will have to prove itself. But with only minor tweaks, so the only two changes within any theater selector is any mention of a lieutenant gets erased and it's replaced by a platoon commander.

Any mention of a captain or a major gets erased and it's replaced by a company commander. Everything else will stay the same. The points level is going to stay at 1,250 points. The unique theater selector, the unique selling point of the tournament is the same, so it's the theater selector. Once it's taken, nobody else can take it. The only provision the players have is that there has to be a version 3 unit entry that matches the units listed in the theater selector.

I am willing to be flexible in some respects. And an example of that already is the Schutzen squads from Western Desert. They are not replicated in armies of Germany. Here, German here, infantry, that's it. You replace Schutzen squads with them. There's a blanket provision that there are no free units of any type. And the Schutzen get the free guns. Yeah, there are no free. So they're not getting the free guns either.

No, so the Schutzen... So that's interesting, because are you giving people the special rules that comes with the theater selector? Do you know what I mean? Like the Hungarians have the Hussar tradition one where your tanks can lead the way, basically, I think. So are they still getting those special rules? Those rules weren't tied to a theater selector, though, from memory. Those were alternate national characteristics. Yeah, so they weren't specific to one singular theatre selector.

It was in Case Bloom in this case, yeah. You can use these national characteristics with the theatre selectors from that book. I think in Budapest, there are special rules that are attached to selectors. So if anyone hasn't selected them yet... No, that's what you're saying there. That's accurate. There are special rules tied to theatre selectors, and they're all applicable. My great example is from one of the D-Day books, Hedro Ambush. Hedro Ambush, yeah, I was going to say.

That's applicable to the points level. Yeah, you go for it. In the Stalingrad Theatre book, Soviet forward artillery observers get to fire twice. Yeah. That happens. But your national special rules are the printed version 3 national special rules for your army. So any British, selector, their forward artillery observers will get to fire twice. They can pick whatever it is, Vengeance, all that other nonsense that they all like.

The Germans, Hitler's buzzsaw is still there, the officer training is still there, Panzerace, that'll be a thing, but that's tied to your unit selection, not at, It's not a trait. It's always everywhere. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, sure. So things, Ali, like, so as you mentioned Stalingrad, one of the Soviet selectors, you can upgrade all infantry units to Fnatic, or certainly a lot of them. Is that going to come across? So you'd pay the points for the V3 equivalent, but because you've chosen that

selector, you're allowing those units to be upgraded to Fnatic. Correct. Yes, that is a thing. So that trait is tied to the selector, and there's a points value assigned to it. So, yeah, that happens, 100%. I'm sure, and this might change. No, that was it. I was going to give an example of the American motorized infantry, but that's a unit-specific thing. Yeah, and that one's quite an easy one to port over because the rule is fairly standardized.

The Germans got the same one in their recce platoon where you get to reroll to disembark, basically for a pointer model.

Mechanized infantry seems to be a almost a universal special rule now doesn't it rather than linked to the german unit or the american unit yeah yeah it's weird that that didn't become a universal special rule to be fair because it's been printed so many times in v2 that we could have just thrown it in the main rulebook at this point it's a bit like there was another one that came up a while ago wasn't it was it's fieldcraft a universal special rule now yeah yeah

yeah i can remember oh you know what it was it was behind enemy lines where everyone keeps getting behind enemy lines except under a different name yeah yeah so ali how are you managing or certainly what do you how are you thinking about managing for example multiple armored vehicles because in in v3 you can take an armored platoon with up to five vehicles but the v2 theater selector may only have allowed naught to one armored car and naught to one tank in in the old days.

I don't know what you mean by handle it. This is one of the benefits of it. Okay. Manage, then. Manage. Mitigate? I don't know. Manage and mitigate I don't think are needed. Because here's the trick. In version two, this event saw more tanks and armored vehicles than you would normally find at a normal event because of the nature of a lot of the theater selectors.

You would almost find that there are theater selectors that are armor platoons in the old tradition in that they would have a command vehicle plus two core vehicles and then you would have infantry, etc. Or you would have a lieutenant in the old days, but platoon commander now, two infantry, and then you would have zero to two tanks and zero to two armored cars. So what the theater selectors did in version two, they let the players have more armor than they normally would in a normal event.

Whereas now what I believe yet to be proven is that the theater selectors are actually forcing players to have less armor than is now the norm in version 3 and I truly believe that's what this is a big call but I think that's what players want is that there's this feeling and it's true that version 3 is no longer an infantry game, it's an armored game it's a tank game within the trade. I believe that the theater selectors.

We'll rebalance that by having slightly less armor on the table compared to what version 3 does yeah i don't think it's necessarily about just the armor either it's that the version 3 selected like i've joked on the pod a number of times about basically just take whatever you want now no one cares pay 21 points get an officer you can have another four of them you can have another six of them have whatever you want and the benefit of the theater selectors is each one gives you a

benefit but at a cost so like the ones with lots of tanks only have three troop choices for example or the ones with lots of troops have less armor so like the us i think it was battle of the bulge used to be able to take loads of bazookas but you had no armor basically and the armor you did have turned up late and so that's what i think the strength of theater selectors is that each one has a unique strength but you have to pay for it by having something that's

your weakness and and it's also it's not open season and your choices of tank so if you do get 0-2 tanks the list is short, you're not able to mix and match you're not able to pluck a fleet of, Panzer II's Sky.

So is it perfect no it wasn't perfect in version 2 it's not perfect in version 3, but it still keeps its unique selling point and it's popular it's still popular, I mean sadly the ticket sales went on later than I would normally like to have done, but quite a way actually I don't think ticket sales went out until February, when normally they'd be on sale the October, the year before. But the reasons for that were it was the waiting game to see how the chips fell with version three.

But from memory, we've got a player capacity of 46 players and I'm sure I've got 29 tickets sold. And we're still, what, April, May, June, July. We're still like four and a half months out. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's plenty of time for people because most people who are going to this kind of thing, they're relying on their stockpile of models anyway.

A few of them will probably use it as an opportunity to build a brand new army, but I think for a lot of people, they'll lean on a platoon they've played before and just sort of like develop that for v3 and i do i think that the selectors are a lot of fun like i'm getting bored i used to really enjoy building armies like just theoretical armies like oh what if he did this and now it's dumb like this because there is no like oh how do you how do i build a force like this or where you just use the

the usual selector so i think that restriction actually adds a lot of creativity and fun And so I think, yeah, it's a really good format for us. No, I hope that it works. And I actually, I believe that it will. I truly believe it'll work and that the theatre selection books have still got life in them and those formations that they offer the player base. So, yeah, the event itself takes place on August the 9th in Stirling in Scotland. The venue's called Common Ground Games.

Ticket price is £21.50.

Very reasonable yep three games also includes a hot lunch with a soft drink and a packet of crisps or chips depending on you know where you're from the great thing is with this event I've had international players turn up I've had players from Denmark and the United States come up to play. Come over to play, come up to play. You know, they've managed to arrange holidays and annual leave to take it in, so it grabs people's imagination.

As you said, Johnny, it gives a good excuse to build a nice themed army and it puts those limits on yourself that you don't just turn up with. Yeah, the impossible thing. I also think it'll give players a nice relief that they can mix and match their infantry again. Yeah. So you can have one squad of engineers, you can have one flamethrower team, then you can have two squads with light machine guns. So no, it's good. Yeah, without having to take 12 officers in your office. Yeah,

exactly. And it also means, and this is where players have got to try and think now. So we're using all the version 3 gameplay roles. We'll be using version 3 orientated missions, version 3 units, but technically version 2 army restrictions.

So there's not going to be this. there's not going to be platoon commanders you know, falling out of the sky there's only going to be one and a company commander so you're going to have to take care of them, Yeah, that will be really interesting rather than just saying you have a rifle platoon with these units that are relevant to that theatre selector then you take a recce platoon actually limiting it to, the one platoon commander you know, however many squads you can take in that

theatre selector that will be really interesting Yeah, so from memory. Five infantry squads is actually the limit one platoon commander so the leadership bubble is going to have to be quite concentrated. I think people will be mad if they do not take a company commander in this format.

So I would expect I couldn't leave home without one at 1250 especially when there's no other, three other platoon commanders running about That's really interesting because I'm still not sold on the company commander Still not sold on him there. So it's fascinating that you're seeing him as an absolute auto include for your list.

No, not for every list, believe me. And I have not taken on every list, but when there is no limited numbers, of other leadership bubbles around, so that there is only ever going to be one platoon commander and thinking again, version three pins are flying everywhere. Yeah. I think he's an essential one in this format. The great thing is, if everybody takes them, the first couple of snap to actions will be absolute pandemonium.

It'll speed the game up, to be fair. But then, what is there now to fear? In a snap to action, there's not going to be five multi-launchers launching. Well, there might be one guy that can do it.

But, well, if everyone's got to think about the version 3 rules, minimum ranges of weapons, the adjusted points cost of some of the tanks yeah yeah it's really good i i'm excited about it and as are 29 other people so far with space for more have you had much many questions so far from those that have signed up as they start to try and build their army and their list and so on yeah i've had i've had players run their prospective

list past me just to say can you check that this is legal before I go out and buy. And there have been elements I've had to pick up. People have things like if you've got an armor platoon, you need to have transport for everybody. So it's just doing the maths. It's like your spotters for your mortars count. Just those little things. And I said earlier, the guy that's asked about the Schutzen squads, there's no entry for Schutzen in version 3.

So we'll replace Schutzen with a here squad. And that's how you get it.

But obviously there's you know i haven't been able to please everybody no there are units that just don't exist yeah and and i'm not i am not gonna i am not gonna try to make them up that's that's not i want i want as much version 3 content and events, that i can't possibly have with the exception obviously of the of the theater selectors you know this might ruffle some feathers but i'm not i can't you can't live in denial the version 3's here.

You can't keep wishing for the things you liked about version 2. I've made a big concession keeping the theater selectors in to keep the DNA and that feeling of what the Megatron 3000 is. But everything else has got to be as version 3 as it can be. Presumably you're allowing armies of US, maybe armies of Great Britain? Oh, absolutely. As soon as the book's published, I think my cut-off date is only like two weeks before the event. I've really let players go right to the publications.

Oh, yeah. Because as soon as those army books come out, they've got more unit entries to pick from. And that, I believe, is another reason why the ticket sales have dipped a little bit and people are waiting. You know, armies, as we record, the armies of the United States should be out sometime in this calendar month. And then, what, April, May, June, July? Till end of July, Armies of the Commonwealth come out. So that'll give the players some leeway to pick.

It'll be interesting to see how many people take theatre selectors for the Soviet Union and Japan, given that because of where Megatron is, those books won't be out at that point, so they're having to pick their units from the main rulebook.

Yeah, I should really just be able to have a quick look and a quick scan because one of the big admin things of this is keeping the player list up to date so that people can quickly look on and see what the selectors have been taken.

Yeah, yeah. I was looking to go at one point but for personal reasons it's not going to work and I had one German selector in mind which very recently got taken which was the Interhell selector from Stalingrad, and I was also thinking about one of the US selectors but it was very much dependent on what comes out in the armors of us yeah yeah see how it goes if i don't achieve the full 46 you know caleb but you know i can use i can use that as a good spin-off to to say that.

Scottish the scottish tournament circuit has had its strongest start to a year ever in terms of numbers okay you know traditionally we kick off in february with a doubles event called spring offensive and I'm sure this year we had 32 or 34 players so obviously that's divided by two to get the sort of doubles pairings but that's the strongest start of spring offensive. Recently there was an event called Northern Lights in Aberdeen and.

Geographically it's a bit of a drive sorry Aberdonians even for central Scotland it's two, two and a half hours but a lot of us still make the Pilgrimage North because the event's always, good in terms of how it's run and how it's organised and it was again this year and I think this year there were 28 players which is the highest number they've achieved. For a singles event. So again, that's a good strong showing. Next event is in Glasgow, and it's called the Guns of Broomlawn.

And I'm sure he's had to try and get more tables and more space. He's upwards of 30 players. And that's a one-day event, isn't it? And that's a one-day three games. That's brilliant. And in terms of format, formats are always different. Aberdonian format was 1,250, and they had the provision that your minimum spend on your rifle platoon was 425 points, let's say. So your core rifle platoon had a minimum spend on it before you went off and did other things.

The Guns of Broom Lone, he's maintained his format from version 2, which is 1,500 points, but he's got a 15 order dice cap on it and he always just wants to see the big stuff.

Yeah and there's a few other limitations but nothing that's bottled ending like that so no it's it's it's a strong it's a strong start for for our community and it's a good indication that version 3 is uh been accepted you know it's here games are being played in clubs and in garages and it's yeah it's enjoyable i and i have truly enjoyed every game i've played nice jumping back to your selectors and something else we mentioned sea lion is that in play for megaton yeah yeah so if i want to

take my my nuns my disguised paratroopers because they don't have an entry is the problem you see i don't think oh he's reaching he's reaching. This is terrible because i'm thinking how am i going to take these duns with their pistols Yeah, well, podcasting, but I am reaching for the book. Yeah, because they're all unique unit entries. That's the problem is what I'm thinking, you see. That's it, though. If there's no unit entry for version 3, then you don't get to play it.

I'm amazed no one's put in, though, to ask you about Celania, because that one is a lot of fun. Yeah, but I would have to automatically tell them no. I cannot make any exceptions on the rule of cool. Not even for nuns. Not even for nuns on the run, I'm afraid to say. You know, you could maybe discuss getting it, you know, as a commando section. Maybe. And then just use proxy miniatures. I wouldn't be opposed to that. I'm never going to be opposed to that.

What are the nuns? Boy Scout, Urban Militia, Shire, Veteran Urban Militia Patrol, Club Shooting Team, I'll look, they're in there somewhere. Well, if the nuns are off the table, if we can't do the sea lion, that's me out, I guess. But Scottish Nationals is the month after, though, isn't it? What's happening with the Scottish Nationals this year? So the Scottish Nationals is, I want to say it's in its 9th or 10th year of running.

It's a long-standing event. and it is going to be held in the same venue in Stirling Common Ground Games on 20th and 21st of September 2025, and I believe it is going to be Scotland's only two day bolt action event and it's going to be, so the format, is going to be 1,100 points, it will be 1 to 2 rifle platoons and then 0 to 1 of every other platoon type after that, Interesting So, yeah, so one or two rifle dunes, then zero to one tank, heavy sport, race engineers, etc, etc.

Whatever you call these, these platoons, I can never recall specific names. 1,100 points have added. What was the thinking, Ali, to limit the number of sort of supplementary platoons to just one? It's a byproduct of what we see in the community. I don't want to limit, I don't want there to be limits of, you know, only one observer or, you know, maximum two multi-launchers of any type. I don't want to go down that path. The hard composition starts with the army structure.

So one to two rifle platoons and then zero to one of every other support. It means we don't get to see all these campfire horror story builds that people love to talk about. You see them spoke about, but you never actually see a photograph of 15 FT-17s on the table. I've never seen it. I'd love to see it, though. Yeah, but you would love to see it. You're crushing my dreams over here, Ali. You won't let me run the nuns, and now you won't let me see 15 FT-17s.

You hear about it, but you never see it. There are all these horror stories out there. So that's that's where that came from and listen i'll be straight up i was maybe 40 sold on using the version 2 single genetic reinforce platoon yeah i'm game for that i have said this in other sort of media channels but i was really close to pulling this trigger but it's that voice that I've mentioned earlier. Version 3 is here and we have to be part of it.

So, you know, the month before I've conceded in using the Theor Selectors, but that was what the Megatron 1000 was and is and should be in the future. Whereas the Scottish Nationals is, you know, it's part of the Scottish community, and it should move with the times. It can't, I don't want to be, I don't want it just to be my personality within it. It's got to be part of the game, which means it's part of the community and it should be accessible to all players.

So players that are new to version 3 that don't have any memories of version 2 it's just that once again a story for them.

They should be able to access the Scottish Nationals I think also the element is we want variety in tournaments and what the tournament is I think sort of leans into what you make your restrictions so the Scottish Nationals is sort of like the major tournament in Scotland it's only two days you said you want it to be a generic tournament you want it to be sort of standard v3 so that everyone can come and have a standard game and then the

sort of the generic reinforced platoon which i do think still has a place that's a great one for like a one day quirky tournament so you play something different a bit like how megatrons are quirky one day because you get to play theater selectors and i think each of them has their own like merits and demerits and depending on what players are looking for i think you have to sort of lean at the restrictions accordingly.

I have got a player pack in my pocket that I've written just if there was ever a gap or opportunity to quickly run it out. And it's having the Reki platoon as the core choice. And then having, I think it's like Reki, God, I wrote it ages ago. Reki platoon is a core choice. Yeah. Whether it's one, you have to have one. And then it's zero to one of all the other platoons except the artillery platoon. So everything's about movement.

Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Everything's about movement. So it's almost trying to recreate the old tank wars, the old tank wars, tank platoon. So all your infantry would have to be zipped up, at least for your record platoon. So just as a quick, you know, point of difference, just something fun. But again, that just encourages even more tanks and armor, which people kind of freak out about now. No, I don't mind them. Yeah, I don't mind either.

It depends on who you listen to in the world I think it depends whether you came prepared or not as well because I think if you come expecting two tanks and then you face four then yeah it's a bit of a shock but if you came knowing that you might face six tanks and you face four you're like oh easy.

It's been my experience so far in version three that nobody's prepared for, nobody has enough nobody's expecting it nobody's expecting enough and maybe I just used too many tanks but, I imagine you've got some good price support for Megatron, do you? Traditionally, we have always done really well with the Megatron 3000. And early on, it's always been my goal to try and put a prize in everybody's hands. And I know I probably would have said this last time on the podcast.

That the Megatron 3000 is just one part of the Scottish menu of full action events. And each event treats their prize support and household awarded differently. Some do raffles because they're trying to support their club or local gaming hall or gaming group. Then there's other ones that are limited, just first, second, third.

Microphone 3000's goal is prize for everybody, and to do that we need sponsors and this year so far I would like to thank MicroArt, oh sorry I'm going to say these are in no particular order but I think they're just however I've written them down on this random bit of paper but MicroArt Studio, Mardav Miniatures Gamemat EU Albus Studios, Wargames Atlantic 3D Printing Valley Coed Designs, First Core Anyscale Miniatures, Osprey and Warlord Games that is so far I do have a lot of other emails out

there to chase up and those sponsors are providing different levels of prize support for different activities and I'm not sort of ready to announce properly yet. I will also be getting my trophies from a Scottish company called Demonscape. And Demonscape also do a lot of your pin markers. They've also got a good range of damaged vehicle markers now that we need, you know, steering column, damage, turret jam, slow, immobilized. What else is there? I've got a whole stack of them. I don't know.

I just always hope you destroy it and i don't have to worry about it i'll just show you if i if it's ever at risk i'll just turn so you get the rear shot and then i don't have to worry about all this nonsense just turret jam etc yeah i've never played turret jam and i don't i'm hoping to never play turret jam to be honest so if we turret jam you johnny you just like i destroyed, yeah but oh well that was embarrassing what i'll do is i'll i don't know what

i'll do next turn i'll do a 180 so that you can shoot us in the rear plate and finish it off and then i don't have to worry about it anymore. Shoot it properly. But yeah. So no, those are the sponsors so far for the Megatron 3000. And I suppose for that as well, as a point of difference, the following month at the Scottish Nationals, and this is something I started last year, was that there are prizes sponsored by Warlord Games for first, second and third.

And then all the other prizes, sorry, there are only going to be five other prizes and they're going to be supply crates. And within those boxes, there's only going to be produce from Scottish wargaming companies and wargaming suppliers. And every round, one of those boxes will go to the player that puts a winning ticket in first, a winning result slip in first. Now, I think in the past, or at least I know I did last year, I limited those prizes to only go to the foreign visitors that we had.

And I have no idea if those foreign visitors are going to have that many. I don't know how the player pack is going to be received, if players are willing to travel, et cetera, et cetera. But the idea is that these supply crates are a showcase for the Scottish wargaming industry. And last year, we had at least five companies supply vouchers and samples of what they can do. And I'm hoping to do so again, and I'm just hoping to grow that again.

And we also threw in some Scottish food produce. There was a can of Ambrou, Tunnock's tea cake, you know, really good Scottish produce. So I'm hoping to do that again. And again, that's just a unique selling point, for those visitors that are coming to Scotland for the Scottish Nationals. So again, and it's a different thing. And for the Scottish players, the month before, you just had Prize Bonanza and the Megatron 3000. Yeah, sure.

So, you know, your next event is focused on your gameplay and how you can actually, you know, play the game and put results in. So yeah, little points of difference.

Nice. if you've listened to us this far then obviously you're enjoying the sound of ali's voice and so perhaps you should check out his podcast um what sort of stuff do you feature over there ali so the podcast i co-host is called two guys one dice cup and i co-host that with my friend phil from harash's cairns and when i host that i am al golden eye unicorn our acronyms and names there come from the Blood Bowl tournament scene.

Myself and Phil are very active playing Blood Bowl and have been for a long, long time. And the podcast originally started with pretty much all Blood Bowl chat, but a lot of people have reminded me, it's like, yeah, but every podcast talks about bowl action and what you're doing. And so we've diversified. So we've started to do different product reviews for bowl action.

Whenever it comes time to talk about events, we don't just talk about Blood Bowl events, we talk about bowl action events as well and during the six years we've been recording and putting podcasts out, I have slowly worn down Phil to play bowl action. Even to the point where Phil operates his own 3D printing company called Granite Miniatures and you'll be able to find him on Etsy but he's picked up some, what do you call it? Manufacturer's licensing agreements. Okay.

For bolt action. For bolt action. Yeah. And he's enjoyed some good sales through that. So yeah, if you do want to hear some more of my voice and also you know, for yourself, the tabletop Tommy's, you guys are all bolt action.

So if you're listening to this podcast I'm sure you listen to other channels and I do crop up on other bolt action podcasts and YouTube channels from time to time. So fairly frequently, some might say. Well, you know, and a funny thing was my wife looked at me when I told her I was recording with yourselves and she's like, what, so they're making money off you now, like everybody else. I wish.

But it was that joke. It's like, yeah, but I don't, I don't produce enough original content to fill a whole podcast channel every day. But happily, I do enjoy what I enjoy most about it is that other type of community. When I get to interact with, you know, I don't think it'd be offhand to mention their podcast the Snafu podcast from the United States, they've got their own thoughts and opinions and ideas about what the game is and how the game should be.

The Cast Dice Network with Brad Moran coming out of Melbourne, Australia again, another continent, another community that has different ideas and views and I get to share mine and also hear of theirs. And then you've got that European vibe from Bo Mortensen on his YouTube channel. Again, thoughts and feelings on Bo La Action from Denmark and Central Europe. So I enjoy being able to dip into all these communities and share my ideas and the stories I've got.

I really enjoy the game and enjoy sharing how it can be done differently.

Because those guys are wrong a lot of the time but but they're also right a lot of the time as well so i'm really interested ali to hear your with beau to hear how the last event went for you i've been watching your your your journey through you know i'm going to take tanks and i'm going to take air observers and i'm going to take the next thing to get rid of air observers and so yeah yeah so it's it's a It's been a naturally evolving journey through Pop-Action

version 3 that I've really enjoyed. But I've also developed this stigma towards the limits that people put on things that I'm seeing crop up. Because when you're limiting one, you're just empowering another. And the best example is the five Panzer III lists. Which I've seen crop up in Sweden and other places, great, use it. It is an amazing tool, and I highly recommend it. But to beat it, okay, I suggested air observers.

There are other ways to beat it. But if you limit the air observers, you're just empowering tanks. In a future recording with Bo, I'll be talking about the veteran tanks. If you wanted to shut that army down, three U.S. air observers will sort out in about 10 minutes. Because I didn't have any counter, I didn't have any flack at all.

But then if you let the air observers in something else comes along to beat them and it's that constant flow of rock, paper, scissors or the other options to beat it. Once you start limiting putting limits on things you just empower others.

And it frustrates. It's frustrating. yeah johnny you often said this in v2 that as soon as you start as an event you're stricting some noughts or two multi-launches flame throws whatever you're just shifting not the problem but you're shifting it into another direction and like you just said ali something else moves forward and you know goes into pole position and then you've got to counter that exactly and we saw that right at the death of version two there was a fantastic

experiment it was done by a gentleman called russell wright in england and it was the gurka stewart list and i think over the course of two or three events he gathered all the british gurka themed lists together and he averaged the number of you know lieutenants gurka units yeah stewarts brain carriers engineers and he just averaged them and then he took that average list or somebody took the average list and did really well because this is the list we have.

Distilled it, matured it boiled it down, all the event packs let this list run this is what you take, and that's maybe the path that people are going down and it's a rabbit hole but I am on my own journey and I conform to whatever the event format is, but what's important and I hope that other players think about this as well is that watch where you get your information from, it's quite fortunate that I'm talking to Phil and Johnny but Phil,

He provided a little snippet of information from last year when you took some veteran tanks, purely by accident. It was English Open at Warfare. I was the Gumby, so I wasn't planning to play. We had a dropout on Thursday afternoon, so I had to step in and play. I wanted to obviously play as quick as possible with the lowest dice count as possible. I just painted up the New Winter US. I had a bunch of Shermans lying around

that had already been painted. and I ran some veteran Shermans and did surprisingly well. Dropped that into the pod. We then communicated offline about it and then you took the idea and ran with it, which is fantastic. It was grabbing that snippet and then it's also looking at what I've seen locally and beyond. With autocannons and light mortars and anti-tank rifles and lots of dice and just watching how they've played.

Then it's grabbing the information about pins you know how quickly pins get dealt out and then some of that was down to my own gameplay where i had lots of auto cannons and i had a new it was during our doubles event i had a player who'd, done any V3 games, but we buddied up in version 2 lots of times. And I tried to show him, I was like, we are about to pin out that unit of veteran infantry. It was an absolute beast. It was like 10 British paras with 20 LMGs sub-machine.

It was behind hardcover. It was a fortress of bad guys. But I said to him, I was like, look mate, here's the tactic. We're going to stick two pins on it now. They've got their company commander nearby. They'll pass a test and do something. They'll be down to one pin. Then as soon as they've done that, we are going to dump nine pins on them and they're going to disappear. Do you think that'll work? I'm like, it's going to work because I had four heavy

autocannons. There was two infantry squads. I had a sniper. There was enough on hand at the worst roll-in that we could put 12 pins on it. Once they'd activated and they couldn't rally it off later on. Exactly. And then we dumped on and when that unit got to six pins, that's when our opponents realized, it's like, what was going on with stuff?

Because at some point when they were on four pins, it's like, oh no, you're never going to kill them all because they were making all their hardcover saves. I don't care about killing you because you are going. And they went. So it was watching that ability to dump out all those pins and remembering back to the problem I had with the five panzers, getting pinned out by air observers or getting stuck in the I'm like, I know how to solve that.

And then pulling it together. Then I tested out the veteran panther when I was testing out armies of Germany. And nobody has an, I promise you, nobody's got an answer to a veteran panther. It's absolutely, absolute destruction on tracks. And then, but then that distilled down again to, okay, what else do I need? And then. This is a conversation for another channel and another time, but it's what else do you need on top of some veteran tanks to win games? Veteran tanks, yes, exactly.

Because veteran tanks are great. But what else do you need to win games with that? So, yeah, I am really enjoying version 3, and I hope that comes over whenever I speak on a media channel. Yeah, definitely. I think it's really important, Ali, what you just said.

Be careful, it's too strong a word, but be mindful of where you get your information from, who you listen to, because there are people out there saying, this is the way this is the only way etc and it just may not be the case you dump it into a one day event dump it into two day event and what you think is you know the build actually because we're so early on into v3 there are going to be ways to unpick it there's going to be other things to counter it you know we've heard the phrase rock paper

scissors but we've also heard the phrase of rock paper scissors plus another three things on top of it because it isn't just like one two or three builds it's six or seven things potentially and it's the quirky things catching people out as well. I think we commented on this after Beachhead where you had good V2 players, like very good V2 players, taking sort of a very standardized V2 list and being caught off guard by something that was just bizarre.

Someone had basically thrown everything in the kitchen sink into a list and they weren't ready to counter it yet. But obviously that only works for a limited time span before you sort of work out the strat to counter it. And so I'd say that rock, paper, scissors is, it's in flux all the time. As it should be. Well, Thank you for listening. And huge thank you to Ali for joining us. Hopefully we've got many excited people already signed up to Megatron off the back of that.

And I imagine Scottish Nationals is going to be a big one this year, I think as the first V3 Scottish Nationals. But again, thank you for coming on, Ali. Aye. Pleasure as always. Thank you so much for letting me come on. If you are ever in need of a third chair later on in the year, I'm sure I will have even more things to talk about because, you know, I've talked about the path I'm on in version three.

I already know the next step after veteran tanks and i cannot wait to roll out at some point i'm going to fail and it's going to be awesome too yeah we absolutely would have you back later on you know i'm enjoying listening to your journey with bow and i'll be really really keen to you know get you back on to talk about tournaments in the second sort of six months you know we're in that first six month period at the moment let's see how things settle

as we get towards september you know later on this year and and towards the one year anniversary good stuff well Thanks again, Ali. That's everything from me. Ta-ta for now. Ta-ta for now. Ta-ta for now. Oh, he said it!