Live with GMCody

Hello, everybody, and welcome again to the Chronicle Med Podcast. Again, this is another live stream, another great conversation. It's a long one that goes over about two hours that I did with my friend and patron Cody over there in the US and Tennessee. And we had a great chat talking about his origin story and how he got into the tabletop war gaming hobby and how he's still involved with the tabletop game hobby. So I hope you enjoy our conversation today.

He also has a YouTube channel called GM Cody. And if you like, especially if you like RPG games and that kind of thing, then you'll really dig what Cody does as he brings back a lot of nostalgia type games and modern games on his channel for review. So if you think about one in the first edition role play, Rd. Trader, the original Rd. Trader book, Shadowrun AD and the 2nd edition, you know all those kind of titles from back in the 90s.

So if you like that kind of genre of RPG and tabletop game, as he does cover those as well on his channel, I would highly recommend you go and check it out and and give him a like and

give him a sub if you can. So, and hopefully Cody will come back after his break away from from the tube with some new fresh content and some new fresh ideas and that kind of thing to present for us. But in the meantime, you can know all about Cody in this interview with him that I did on YouTube as part of a live stream. So you will have like, you know, questions that have been asked during the course of the interview by our people who have

joined the stream. So just just to make you aware of what you know, how this was, how this was recorded, and I hope you've enjoyed the series so far. If you have missed them on the YouTube channel, if you'd like to see this in in a video format, preferably more than the audio format, just head over to Chronic Command Games and on the

top there you'll see a live tab. Just click on that and it's got all the live interviews I've done with all the various guests that are brought in. Some you've heard before, some voices you've heard before, and I've brought them back, which is kind of the reason why I did the live streams, to have people come back onto the show and to have some interactivity between themselves and the audience in a live format. And I have to bring those back again in the near future as

well. So please stay tuned for that. And but anyhow, guys, look, sit back at your paints, get your models out, get your painting guides and enjoy our nostalgic talk with GM Cody today. Until next time and please enjoy listening. Yeah. Hey Cody, how you going mate? Good. How's it going, man? Very good of you to join us mate, thank you so much. Good. Thanks for having me. Yeah, absolutely. Big fan of the channel. So it was. It's an honor to come on and to, you know, talk to everybody and

talk to you. Oh, that's good mate. Thank you. No, I really like you. Oh, I don't know how I found you or how we got to contact each other. Maybe you joined our discord. I think you joined our discord and then you started posting really cool Rogue Trader pics of your Harlequin army. I think that's how we initially met.

Yeah, yeah, that's exactly it. Then I I've been jumping in the paint and chat when I can and when I'm because usually every other day I'm painting and I figured might as well jump in there. That was the reason I joined the discord is to join in the paint chat. And yeah, it's been really cool to talk to all the guys there and paint some miniatures and yeah, so yeah, I think that's really how we got, you know, got to know each other a little bit. We. Meet each other.

Yeah, that's really nice. It's good that you did it, mate, because I'm. I'm glad you jumped in and did that because we found your channel and the nice stuff you present there as well at GM Cody. But a special shout out to sci-fi now sci-fi I met through the week. He jumped in out of paint and

chat as well. And he lives all the way in Newcastle and he asked about the live live stream this week and I said I'm I'm talking to Cody in Tennessee and I said it's going to be like really late for you because Oh yeah, I want I want to join. I said OK, so he, I think it's like 2:00 AM in the morning there in the UK now. So. Oh, wow. Yeah. For sci-fi, we're coming in. Yeah, that's awesome. Really happy to see. And Chris is here. How you going, mate?

Chris is also in the States and I think Chris is trying to organize a remote game with you, Cody, for Man of War or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I really want to try out some Man of War and I'm really interested to try out the remote gaming thing. That's something I've never even thought about doing until I met you guys, and it seems really interesting to do, so I really want to try it out. Cool.

And Man of War is a game I've always wanted to play and never really had a chance to to try out. So yeah, looking forward to that whenever that can happen. Awesome. OK. So yeah, Crystal and it's good for you because you're in the same time time zone. I think you're an hour difference, something maybe between Chris. And yourself? Yeah, he's Eastern Time and I'm Central Time. Right, OK. So it's good for you guys time wise to do that. That's awesome. So I look look forward to seeing

that game. I'm free this week, Chris says. He's he's desperate for somebody. Well, we'll figure something out. Yeah, it's. Kind of like a lonely hearts Discord group, remote play thing or whatever. So yeah, now Chris and Chris and Cameron are always looking for people to show and play and give demonstrations on Man of War because it's such a great game and I'm glad you guys want to

jump in and do that. So I think he did a game with the Grognard and maybe you jumped in to check out what when you were there. I don't know if you were there at all, Cody, But yeah, we're watching that one through the week. And that was really good demonstration game again, because the Grog dad's got all the stuff, all the Man of War box sets you could ever think of. 80 plus miniatures, just I don't think had ever played it or something. Maybe his uncle gave it to him

or something like that. So he's sort of rediscovering it and he's got the entire collection. So that's really nice. Yeah, that's cool. That's really cool. Yeah, so that's cool, mate. So yeah, let's let's talk about, let's talk about yourself, Cody, because you have a very cool video on your channel that I watched this week about your origin story, how you got into the hobby. But for people who probably have never seen your channel or don't know much about you mate, would

you like to introduce yourself? Sure. I'm Cody. I was raised here in Nashville, TN. I'm still here in the Nashville area. I was not born here. I was actually born in East Texas and that's where all my family's from is from Texas. But I, you know, I call myself a Tennessee and I grew up here. You know, I still reside here. So I'm a Tennessean. So I will start off before I get into the origin story, which I love a good origin story.

That's one reason I really like your channel in the podcast is I love hearing people's origin stories. So hopefully people like hearing mine, but before I jump into that, like I will say that I was a guy that was well primed to fall in love with all this stuff right before I even discovered role-playing games, miniature games, card games or any of that stuff. I you know, so my dad was a big

history buff, right? And when I was about four years old, we moved into the house that my parents live in still to this day. And my dad, or I guess that was about 3. And then when I turned 4, my sister was about to be born and he converted one of the bedrooms into his basically man cave, right? It was his study. And he was a, he's a big lover of history and he's a ferocious reader, right? So he had this just library of books and he still does.

So he converted that room to basically be his library. And he's a Carpenter. And that's why I'm a Carpenter. And he built this, you know, just wall to wall library like shelving all the way around this room and just filled it with books. And so, but my sister was about to be born when I was four years old and I needed my own room. He realized, you know, I'm going to have to have my own room now.

So he gave up his man cave, his study or whatever, and gave it to me. Well, that had a big impact on me because he left all the books in there, right? And so from a young age, I became really infatuated with all this stuff that was in there and there. It was mainly all. My dad does not read fiction at all. You know, it's all history and facts and knowledge. That's what my dad's always been all about. He's never been a lover of fiction like, like I am or whatever.

But that had a big impact on me because from a young age, I would spend all this time that was my room filled with all these books. And before I could even read, I would open up all these books about the American Civil War and Napoleon and the Aztecs and the Vikings and the Romans. And I would just look at the pictures and especially the

maps. And a lot of those old books, they also had a lot of, I remember specifically some of these like really old books from the 60s and 70s would actually have miniatures in them. You know, they'd have like these dioramas set up in the in the books with like these miniature like dioramas. And I was actually looking for one of these books because I do have it and I couldn't find it. So Needless to say, I became really infatuated with military

stuff, military history. And also my grandmother live in Virginia. So every summer I would go up to Virginia and spend the summer with her. And I have a ton of cousins. I have a big family. And basically all my cousins would come up there and my poor grandmother would load us all up in her big cargo van and drive us around Virginia, which is just loaded with American

history, right? So we would go to all these Civil War battlefields and we go up to Washington, DC, and we would go to all these, you know, Williamsburg and Jamestown and all these places. I don't know if my cousins enjoyed that stuff so much, but I loved it as a kid and especially the battlefields, you know, So Needless to say, I became really kind of hooked on that military kind of stuff in history and all that from a very, very young age.

And on top of that, I got I was in love with science fiction and fantasy and all that from a very young age. So, you know, I grew up like every all of us did, right, watching Star Wars and Star Trek.

But I was also a big fan. And it was kind of unusual for being a little kid of all these like black and white and, you know, very early science fiction films from the 50s and 60s like This Island Earth and Forbidden Planets and shows like Lost in Space and, you know, the original Star Trek, which my parents thought was real strange that, you know, a little kid

would want to watch this stuff. But anyways, you know, so and, and I grew up with all the 80s films that we all love, right, Like Willow and Legend and Blade Runner and, you know, the list goes on and on. Dark Crystal and the Labyrinth. So I just loved fantasy. I love science fiction and I had a great love of like history and military stuff. So now we get into the origin story. It actually, it's interesting because that origin video I did, I didn't mean to make that video my origin story.

And you can notice if you watch the video, I'm actually going to be talking about something else. And I ended up talking about my origin story. But since I've done that, I've actually had like started to think about it and had to go back and really piece together my memories. And I made some mistakes in that video. And I think I've piece together the history sort of. So I was 10 years old. I'm not that old by the way, I'm only 37. So I was 10 years old.

This would been the fall of 1996, so I would have just turned 10. I was entering the 4th grade and I didn't, I didn't have many friends at all back then. I had two friends, they were twin brothers and they lived right across the street from me and I had known them since the 1st grade. And when I was in the 3rd grade, they had moved across the street from me and that was the only two friends that I had in school.

And we had a lot in common, you know, comic books and superheroes and all that old science fiction stuff. Like I was talking about. They love that too. And, you know, so they, they were the two friends, the, the only two friends I had. And they were not in my 4th grade class. So I'm stuck in this 4th grade class. I don't know any of these kids. And it must have been really early on in the school year because I can vividly remember not knowing anybody's names or

what was going on or anything. And I was a pretty awkward, shy, introverted kid. And, you know, so I'm like sitting there, you know, doing whatever, probably not paying attention because I never was. I think we were doing some kind of like homework or test every, everything was quiet in the classroom. And I saw this more awkward looking kid with frizzy hair. And sorry, Andrew, by the way, because he might be watching this, but he he was just a really awkward looking kid back then.

He was a little chubby, had really like this fro ish kind of hair and just, you know, big glasses from what I remember. And he just very, very, very stereotypical, like nerdy kind of awkward kid. But I noticed he was flipping through this magazine. I could just kind of see it. He was maybe like three deaths up for me. And I was really intrigued by this. I mean, of course, like back then, as we all know, like magazines were kind of a big deal, right?

You know, like, and if you're in school and somebody had a magazine, no matter what it was, you kind of were interested in what, what is this? But I could see there was just something, something was going on there and I had to see what it was. So I get up from my desk and was asking, acting like I was going to go sharpen my pencil. And so I passed by and he closes the magazine and I see this cover now. It's the cover that you had on your, on the like the, the thumbnail here, which is the

1994 Citadel Miniatures catalog. Now, actually the funny part is I've talked to Andrew about this and he claims that he never owned this catalog, never seen it in his life. And so it might not actually have been that catalog. It might have been a different one, but that's how I remember it. So I'm going to tell it the way I remember it. So either way, it was, it was it had been between 1994 and 1996. It was one of those Citadel

miniatures catalogs. And he closes the cover and I see this World Eaters Space Marine on it. And it just blew my mind, you know, like I had never seen imagery like this in my life anywhere right up to this point. And so I was just like, yo, man, like I'm not exactly what the words are, but, you know, I was like, what is this? What, what, what is going on here? He's like, oh, and he was really excited. I, I remember that part. He's like really excited.

And he starts flipping through the magazine. He's just going 100 miles an hour, you know, and it's like in the middle of class too, you know, like we're supposed to be doing Hobart or the reason. Oh, it's this great game. It's called Warhammer 40,000. You know, it's in the 41st Millennium. He's telling me all about it, like, you know, as quick as he can. And it's, he says it's a miniatures game.

And he he's like, you collect these little toy soldiers that are metal and you have to, you know, you have to buy them and collect them and put them together and paint them. And then you build a battlefield. And then, you know, there's, there's all these different factions and all this stuff. And then the teachers like, you know, obviously is like, hey, you guys are interrupting class, go back to your desk, you know, whatever.

So I begrudgingly go back to my desk and I sit down and I could not get my mind off this brief moment. You know, whatever it was like maybe a minute or, you know, 30 seconds of what Andrew was telling me about this game, apparently. And I was immediately just hooked. I was immediately enamored. I could, I could not think about anything else.

Everything was a blur. So luckily, you know, the rest of the day, like whenever we were going on recess or lunch or whatever, he would, I was like, you know, got right behind him. I was like, dude, you got to tell me more about this. So he starts telling me all about the lore and you know, he, he knew all this stuff, right? Like, and Andrew was really more into the lore in the history, like, you know, all that stuff, like the stories more so than he was into the game, right?

Like he, he liked the idea of it as a game, but he really liked the the art and the stories. And Andrew's still kind of like that actually, even though he is still a gamer today and he plays games. He really likes the aesthetics and the stories and he's a writer too, so that makes sense. And actually that probably was a big inspiration for him, you know, being a writer, I think. And so he's telling me all this stuff and I was like, man, this is, this is awesome.

You know, like I, I got to get into this and, you know, he's telling me how to get into it. And we're like building an army on like notebook paper and, and recess and doing all this stuff. And we're actually like trying to, I, I remember actually like trying to play it on like notebook paper, you know, like, and we did, you know, we were just making up this little game because we saw there was like a, there was a battle report in either that one or maybe he had a white dwarf with him too.

Then when I saw a battle report, I was like, well, we can just play this like on a piece of notebook papers. So I, I just drew out, you know, like, like it was a battle report. And we were like, I just made-up some shit, right? We were just making up some rules. And then of course, the other kids in the class became enamored with what we were doing too. They're like, oh, whoa, you know, what's this? And all of a sudden we had all these other kids that were interested too.

Now, one of the other kids in class, within a short time frame, I'm not sure, you know, whether it was like a day, a couple days, a week or whatever. It was like, that's pretty cool. I got something cool I'll bring to school tomorrow too. If, if you don't mind that we were like, yeah, yeah, totally. He said yeah, yeah. It's really cool. I think it's a game. I'm not really sure. So the next day he comes into class and he brings this, this exact book. This was the Advanced Sons and

Dragons Monsters manual. And this also rocked my world, right? And so I was like, whoa, this is really awesome too, you know? And so I was like, yeah, it's obviously a game. I don't know how it's played. I was like, you know, I, I, I didn't understand any of the information in this book, but I could tell that there were, there was statistics in here and all this stuff and information. And I was like, hey, can I borrow this? And he's like, yeah. And so again, I just made-up

rules for this game. And I remember actually like, writing out a whole game based on just this monstrous manual. And I think I called it Castle Wars or something, and actually wrote like a whole book and drew pictures, stabled it together. And we were basically playing a role-playing game without really knowing the rules of a role-playing game. We weren't really playing D&D because we didn't know there were like, other books and stuff.

Nobody had the other books. And at the same time, Andrew tells me about this other game that him and his brother were into called Battletech. And he's telling me all about this game Battletech. So I got into all this stuff all at the same time, you know, so I, I got into miniature games, role-playing games, even card games like Magic the Gathering. It was another one that he like, told me about. And you know, so it kind of all happened at the same time.

Well me and Andrew started hanging out a lot and I started going over to his house. Specifically his grandmother's house, his parents were divorced and he spent a lot of time at his grandmother's. So I would go over there on the weekends and we would hang out and we would. And his older brother was actually a gamer, right?

And his older brother was probably, he was probably two or three years older than us. So at that time he would have been like 12 or 13. And he was actually old enough to actually understand, you know, how to play these games and was actively playing them. And he actually had like, you know, a Warhammer army, you know, a Warhammer Fantasy army. And he had Battletech miniatures and he had role-playing games

and he had all that stuff. And so I was really fascinated, you know, because Andrew like to talk about it a lot, but Joe, Joe, his brother actually played it. And so I became kind of friends with Joe too, which was kind of a story of my whole life. I always was hanging out with the, the older guys, you know, I, I would hang out with guys my own own age, but I also like was really into whatever the older guys were doing. Still am, it seems.

And so, you know, Joe, Joe and me would hang out occasionally and he would show me like his Warhammer Fantasy army. And he had like this fully painted Beastman army, which is thinking back on it, you know, he was 12 or 13 years old and he had this full, you know, fully painted Beastman army. And it was well painted. Like I, I still have some of this miniatures hanging around. I can't find them.

And they're pretty well, pretty good, you know, like not, you know, like they're, they're pretty good for, for the time and for like a 12 year old. I was like these, you know, these, these are pretty well painted. He was actually like a really good painter and probably the best I had seen, you know, up until, you know, I got to like

high school. I was like, you know, I, I thought that he was like the best painter I had seen up to that point beside, well, other than what you saw like in White Dwarf or whatever, right? And so me and Andrew would hang out and we would, I would try to get Andrew to play some games with me. And we did, we did play some games, mainly role-playing games.

And we played stuff like, you know, Shadowrun, you know, we played this and I got that book, another role-playing game I got, which I don't think Andrew played this with me, but the twins across the street that I was talking about, it was like Indiana Jones and we played the, the, the Star Wars role-playing

game. So, you know, I, I role-playing games were kind of like my early Ave. just because I couldn't afford as a kid to get a lot of miniatures, but I could afford to get like a role-playing game book, right. But that didn't stop me from buying miniatures. You know, every once in a while I go to the store and, you know, I think the main place we would go is Hobby Town USA, which it was a big chain of hobby stores here in the US. And I'm not sure if they're still around or not.

I think they're mainly all closed down. There might be, there might be a couple open, but there's none around here anymore. But that was the place that was the closest place we could go. And they had a really big, a really big gaming section. You know, they had like two whole aisles of, you know, role-playing games and miniature

games. And they had one whole aisle that was just dedicated to Games Workshop stuff, you know, So, you know, that's where we would go and buy our role-playing games and miniature games and all that stuff. And so, you know, me and Andrew are playing games and stuff. And I think the real first like war game we played was probably battle Tech because that Christmas of 1996, Well, I, I originally asked for the Warhammer 40,000 box set.

And my mom's like, no, you know, like you're, I, I don't know why. I, I guess she was like, you know, you're maybe like a little too young for that or whatever. I don't really know. But she was just kind of like, yeah, well, we'll wait on that. What else do you want? And I said, well, maybe, maybe it's too expensive, I don't know. But I asked for, you know, the Battle Tech box said that was the next best thing. So she got me the Battle Tech starter box.

I think it was the 4th edition. And it had just come out and it came with two paper maps and a bunch of card standies, not any miniatures, which I kind of got gypped because the previous one actually came with all these, like, plastic miniatures, right? But like, I didn't know the difference. I didn't care. It was awesome. And the cool thing about Battletech, well even today, but especially back then, was that was a fully self-contained war

game. I think that was probably the perfect war game for me to get into at the time because you could get a lifetime of fun out of just that one box. You didn't need to get anything else. You know, it had everything you needed and it had tons of options in there and you could expand outward. And we did eventually, but I had years of fun just out of that one box set. And so I would say Battletech was actually the first proper war game that I like bought and

actually played. And, and I think it's actually kind of crazy 10 years old that I actually knew how to figure it out how to play Battletech. I, I think that just, and I heard this on one of your podcast, actually, you were talking to somebody about, you know, a lot of adults don't think kids were able to learn complex games. Are, you know, able to retain rules like that. But I beg to differ because I did, you know, I was playing battle tech and stuff at like 10 years old.

Now, we might have got some things wrong or whatever, but I, you know, we were playing like full games, battle tech on a regular basis and having a, having a good time. So anyways, we, you know, so from the ages of like 10 to like 12, that's pretty much how it went. I, we did a lot of role-playing either one-on-one with me and Andrew or maybe his brother. And occasionally like Joe would, you know, play Warhammer with me. He had some extra like stuff and we'd play.

And actually when I was the first like Games Workshop big box that I got, I think I was, it was my 11th birthday. This would been 97. I got the Warhammer Fantasy 5th edition box set. The one there on your back wall is the one I that was the first Games Workshop like product that I got. And I remember going to get that with Andrew. We went to the store and my mom's like, OK, that's what you want. So we went to Hobby Town and she said, you know, pick out what

you want. And I think originally I wanted to get the Warhammer 40,000 box set, but they didn't have it. And then I was like, maybe we'll get Blood Bowl instead. And Andrew's like, I think Andrew talked me into getting the fantasy box set. I was like, OK, let's get fantasy. So I got the fantasy box set immediately. We went home and we went to the craft store first, actually. And I talked my mom into buying a piece of, you know, just green felt that we could lay over the

kitchen table. I was like, oh, we got to have a battlefield. And she's like, OK, so she takes us to the craft store. I'm like, I need a four foot by 6 foot, you know, piece of, you know, whatever. So, you know, we went to the craft store, got that and then like immediately we get home and me and Andrew like hardly like gluing together, you know, all the miniatures so we can play a game of, you know, Warhammer Fantasy.

I'm like reading through the rules trying to figure this game out and I don't we were, I, I remember us like trying to set it up by the end of the day, but I don't think we actually played a game that day. But we did eventually like play a lot of games out of that box set. And that was a fantastic box set and a very, very good entry to

the hobby. And it, you know, it came with that little castle tower in the the Hut and it came with basically everything you needed except for the magic system. But there were no magic users in the box set. So it was fine. And then eventually, like I took that over to Andrew's place and Joe was really keen on, I think me and Joe were playing, you know, with his Beastman and my like, I used the Bertonians and we were playing some little games like that. And he has some Burtonian

miniatures. And he would give me, he gave me some, you know, a few more figures to fill out my like Burtonians that he, he just bought just a paint. And he's like, well, I'm not going to use these here. You have them, you know, and he gave me some more like Burtonians so I could fill out the Burtonians. And he's like, I really want those lizard men. And I really hate these beast men because he, Joe would always

lose every game he played. Like he, he just like he, I remember him like coming home from the game store and course me and Andrew, like, you know, how did it go? You know, how did the game go? And he's like, I got my ass kicked and you know, it was terrible. Like I hate these, I hate these beasts, but you know, and so finally he's like, I'm really, I really like these. I really like these. Like lizard man.

How about we make a trade for your lizard man for my beast man, I'll trade you one for one, which was an amazing deal because these were all base. Most of them were metal figures, you know, and I think he just wanted to get rid of them and wanted to try something new. So I traded him all the lizard men for an equivalent amount of beastman. So now I had like a a beastman army made-up of partly metal.

And some of them were like the Monopo's, you know, like beastman warriors with the halberds or whatever. But that that was a killer trade. And that was my first, I think that was probably my first like metal citadel models. And they were all painted too. He, you know, he painted them all.

So, you know, I played out of that fantasy box set for a while with Andrew and I tried to talk the twins in a plan occasionally, but for the most part, like nobody was real hot or in heavy on fantasy, you know, at being a kid that age. So it was kind of hard to find like people to really get into it. And so my interest in it didn't dwindle, but I just couldn't find anybody my age that was really that interested in playing. Like Andrew would play occasionally with me.

Joe would play when he, you know, had time or whatever, you know, when he wasn't hanging out with, you know, the cool kids. And you know, like the twins weren't really into it. They were more into the role-playing games. So I was, by the time I got to 6th grade in middle school, I wasn't really actively like playing war games, but I was still, and I wasn't really, you know, I was role-playing, but it

was not real heavy. I didn't have like an organized group or anything, but that all changed when I got to middle school. So when I got to middle school, I met this kid. Well, you had two choices in middle school, right? You could join, you could be in the gym class or you could join band. So band sounded a much more appealing for a couple reasons. One, I didn't feel like going to gym class and running laps every day. But the other reason is I wanted, I wanted to be a musician.

I wanted to play drums and so I was like, yeah, I'm going to I'm going to take bands. So I took band on the on the on the assumption that they could teach me to play drums. I don't know what I was thinking. So I get into band and short but funny story that's unrelated to gaming. Like so I get into band and they had like tryouts for to join the percussion section for a bunch of 6th graders that never played anything.

Right. So this did, you know, hindsight, I'm just like, what was this guy thinking? Why would you try out a bunch of like 12 year olds? You know, they'd never played an instrument in their life. But anyways, we had tryouts. So I go in there and he gives me a pair of drumsticks and he's like, you know, he plays a couple like, you know, rudiments and tells me, you know, to follow along. So I'm like playing along and he's like, stop, stop, stop. He stops me real quick.

He's like, you'll never be a drummer. You just don't have it. He's like, you know, go out there, pick out another instrument that you like, but you're not going to be a percussionist. So I go outside and I look out in the band and I'm like looking at all these instruments I really was not interested in, like I, I wanted to play the drums. That's what I joined band 4. So I'm, I'm like looking around, like sleeping the band class and I see this really weird looking,

twirly looking horn. It was a French horn and there was only one kid that was playing it, another awkward nerdy looking kid. And so I was like, well, he looks like my kind of people and that looks really cool. And I'm like, I want to play that. And he's like, OK, yeah, you know, that's a pretty hard instrument to play. But he's like, you know, there we only have one French horn. It it'll be good to have another. So yeah, you can play the French horn. So I ended up playing French

horn. Now, the funny part is I actually did become like a really good drummer and played professionally and all this stuff. And years later, I, I kind of got revenge on that guy. Like my brother, when he went to middle school, I sent him one of my demo tapes or one of my albums from one of my bands. It was like, hey, tell him your brother Cody sent sent you this. And you know, just just tell him I, I did actually become a

drummer. So that's another story in In the Hole. But you know, that guy admitted defeat in the end. He was like, Oh yeah, you know, tell your brother he was, you know, he did really well, blah, blah, blah. So anyways, so I ended up playing the French horn and I met this kid also called Andrew. Different guy. And so me and this kid are talking or whatever and, you know, for a couple weeks.

And of course, because we're, you know, we're band mates and we're playing the same instruments that we're always like communicating with each other. And within a couple weeks he brings in AD and D book to class and I'm like, holy shit. You know, like you're into D&D and he's like, yeah, yeah, I'm, I'm into D&D and like, you know, I play D&D and we got a couple other kids to play D&D and stuff. He's like, hey, you know, you should come, I'll see if you can come play.

You know, we got this group, we play every Friday night. You should, you know, you should come hang out and play with us, but you got to be invited to come, you know, like I, you can't just show up, you know? So ANYWAYS, so I'm like, OK, well, you know, see, you know, see, see what you can do or whatever. So the kid that ran the group was named Dustin. And Dustin was older than all the rest of us. He was in the eighth grade and

we were in the 6th grade. And so Dustin was like, I, I've been talking about all these people like they're the, the worst dorks of all. But dusted was really the dusted really was the icing on the cake. I mean, he, he looked like that, that nerd from the John Hughes films with the curly hair. You know what I'm talking about? Like he looked just like that kid. And he had this like bomber jacket that he wore every day and he, he never put on deodorant.

So he smelled terrible. And he had these huge like 1980s, like, you know, 20 years out of date, you know, glasses and just the whole deal. The only thing he was missing was like the pocket protector, you know, so I had seen this kid around, so I knew of him, but I didn't know him. And so, you know, a couple weeks go by and we're I'm in computer class and Andrew comes up to me, the other Andrew.

And he's like, hey, you know, I talked to Dustin and he says, you know, you can come play with us. Like we need another player if you want to come. Like we're going to play this afternoon. I'm like, yeah, totally. You know, so I called up. I, I, maybe I called my mom. I don't know if I did or not. I, I really don't know. May, I probably just took off, you know, to be honest, I don't really know. But I will also say, you know, I hadn't mentioned this up to this

point. My parents were really not excited about me being into any of this stuff Also, and that's really worth noting. You know, I grew up in the South and I was definitely a, a product, you know, the Satanic Panic thing that was still going on strong here in the South in the 90s. So my parents were not thrilled at all with me being into D&D and match at the gathering and battle, battle tech they didn't care about.

But Warhammer, they were kind of like, it's OK, you know, like they, they weren't, they didn't really understand it. My dad kind of understood it, but he's, you know, so they weren't, they weren't like, they weren't completely turned off by that, but they were, they were also kind of like uneasy about it, you know, with all the demons and chaos and stuff. But other than that, you know, I was like, Oh yeah, look at these imperial guard and stuff. My dad's like, all right, you

know, that's all right. You know, So they, they were OK with that. But so they weren't, they weren't really too hot on me, like playing D&D and stuff.

But that didn't stop me. In fact, it probably just incurred, you know, I mean, you know, when you're a teenager, young teenager especially, and your parents tell you not to do something, you know, you just want to do it more, you know, and especially if it's something you're really interested in, right, you just become more enamored and interested in it. And I think that's actually part of the reason why I'm so obsessed with it today, because it was kind of this forbidden

fruit. And so I took it all in. Well, I took it as much as I could when I'm young. And now that I'm, I'm an adult, you know, I can do what I want. So it's just like, you know, I, I still, as I'm passionate about it, as it was when I was young and probably more so now, I probably appreciate it more maybe.

So anyways, that afternoon, like I walk to Dustin's house and it's like a few miles, you know, the other cross, it's across the Main Street on the other side of town that I'd never been to. And so I walk over there and we go to Dustin's house and we get there and it was like the most stereotypical, you know, D&D scene you could ever imagine. So we like go into his house. It's like this very 1970s eighties kind of house.

And we go down the stairs and I can already hear like, you know, there's like, you know, clamoring going on down there. And there was this big old kitchen table, huge, huge dining room table down there. And this massive basement that has like wood panelling, a giant like floor TV, you know, like one of those old like wooden TV's, like on the floor. They had like a dartboard down there, a fridge. And it was like dark and kind of dinky down there.

And, you know, so I was, you know, it, it it was it was great for a bunch of teenage boys to go down there and have a place to hang out. And it was it was a big space, too, you know, it was a big space almost the size of the rest of the house, you know. So I get down there and introduce myself and Dustin's like, hey, how's it going? You know, you know, and he was Dustin was like, you know, you know, how to play D&D and stuff. I was like, yeah.

And up to this point, I'd only played really a little bit of D and DI didn't own any of the books. So I was kind of bullshitting my way through it. I really didn't know what I was talking about. And I was just kind of like trying to play catch up. And so we Needless to say, we started playing D and DI started playing D&D with those guys. But we played a lot of role-playing games. We played, you know, D and DAD and AD and D Second edition. We played Gerps.

We were playing Shadowrun, Vampire the Masquerade a little bit, even though like, we were a little too young to understand the vampire thing, but we did play it a little bit. We played all kinds of stuff and that group was great. But what happened is Dustin left middle school the next year and got to high school, and he started falling in with this like goth, like punk kind of crowd and got a little too cool for us, right. I was still invited, by the way,

which was interesting. I guess I was cool enough to hang out with the older high school goth kids or ever, but he he kind of like pushed the rest of the guys to the side. So I continue playing with Dustin for a little while, but I wanted to play with my other friends. You know, that I'd made that were my age and you know, I'd met a lot of other guys that were my age through that group.

And So what happened is we kind of broke off from Dustin's group and made our own little group and we started meeting at the other Andrew's house. And that was great because his mom did not give two shits about what we did there. You know, his mom just let us go crazy, which is good and bad but you know, whatever, she's just like all right, you boys have fun and just like what's your room? And we did whatever, you know what the hell ever. So we had the run of the place, which is great.

So we started doing that like every Friday night. And then one night I'm like, and I would spend the night there and I would walk home like Saturday or Sunday, you know, we'd play for like 2 days straight. Not get any sleep. And then, you know, I would walk home Sunday morning with my dad yelling at me on the phone, tell me to come home and do chores and mow the lawn and all that stuff. And so, you know, so, but one night when I'm staying over there at Andrew's house, I'm

like sleep. I'm sleeping on the floor and he's sleeping in the bed and I look up on his shelves and I see some miniatures up there and he's got some Space Marines and I'm like, oh shit, I'm like, you're in the Warhammer 40,000. And he's like, yeah, he's like, I, I didn't even know you knew what that is. So I was like, yeah, totally. Dude, I love Warhammer. And like, I've been looking for people to play with and stuff. And he's like, well, we should

play some Warhammer 40,000. And I'm like, heck yeah, we should. And so I was like, well, I'm going to start, you know, I'm going to start a, I'm going to start a Warhammer 40,000 army now. I, I, I forgot to mention too, that the other box set that I had bought when it came out was Gorka Morca. And we actually played that a lot because yeah, yeah, we played Gorka Morca a lot. And I still love Gorka Morca to

this day. I know it's kind of like the red headed stepchild of GW games, but I I still have like a fun place for Gorka Morca. And the great thing about Gorka Morca for a bunch of young kids was you didn't need a lot of stuff to play. And the miniatures were cheap from what I remember, I think it was like 10 or 15 bucks for a box of orcs. And all you needed was like a toy truck and convert that and you're good to go.

And but I actually got the big box set and every like the twins would come over and Andrew would come over and his brother and we'd all play Gorka Morca on my floor, you know, and I was kind of the game master, like 'cause I had the rules and stuff and we'd all play Gorka Morca. So through doing that, I had already collected a bunch of orcs. And also before that my cousin had acquired something that I

was seeking and never got. And I got the visual aid here, which was the Warhammer 40,000 Second Edition box set, which was like the Holy Grail of what I wanted and never could get. And so he just, I, I told my cousin about this stuff and he's just like, Oh yeah, he's like, I'm going to go get it. And I'm like, what do you mean you're going to go buy it? And he's like, yeah, I've got money, I'm going to go buy it. And so I was kind of jealous about that.

He actually went and bought the Warhammer 40,000 Second Edition box set before I got my hands on it. And he was real guarded about it too. He didn't want me to like look at it or touch it or anything, whatever. He got it like he went into the other room and locked the door. It was, it wouldn't let me in. And then finally he came out of the room and like open the box, let me look at it and stuff and, and I helped him put the miniatures together. And then eventually, you know,

he did. He wasn't the smartest guy in the world, so he didn't really understand the rules, but I I was like, well, let me borrow the rule book and I can figure it out. And he's like, OK, so I borrowed the rule book and actually figured out the rules, I guess and went back. And so, you know, when I go over to my cousin's house, we would play Warhammer 40,000 second edition out-of-the-box set. And I did acquire a few more like orcs that Joe would give me.

Joe was always give me miniatures. You know, he gave me some like mega knobs and you know, an orc war boss. And of course I had the Gorka Marcus stuff. So I had like now I have like a sizable like orc army and the stuff that my cousin just gave me like the orcs out-of-the-box set and he got some space ring. So me and my cousin were actually like playing second edition, I guess before this a little bit.

And on the again, on the floor, right, with no proper terrain, we would just have like boxes, you know, and whatever, you know, maybe some army men like terrain, like some of those like, you know, plastic, you know, sandbags and stuff, whatever we could scrounge up, we didn't really matter and we would just lay it out on his floor and play 40K. We just play floor hammer, right? So Fast forward back to middle school, you know, Andrew tells me about the space rings and stuff.

And I already had like all these orcs and but they were really poorly painted because like most people, I think, you know, when you get in, especially back then, we didn't know about, I didn't know anything about priming miniatures, right? I didn't know what the right paints were and I was using terrible paints. I don't remember what these paints were called. I think they were Armory paints and Armory I think is still around. But these were really the ones that I got back then.

We're just these were terrible. You know, like I, I can remember how bad these were and on top of not having like proper brushes, I just had whatever cheap brushes I got from like the model store. And, you know, it didn't know how to prime miniatures, right? And so like, you know, this army, this orc army I had was just like awful looking, right? I, I eventually learned pretty pretty quickly that I needed to prime the miniatures. I think I saw it in a white

dwarf. You know, they showed you like, yeah, you need to prime your miniatures first and do all this. So I, I think I got a little bit better by the time I got to middle school. And so anyways, Andrew had these space rings. I'm like, yeah, I'm going to start a new army and I'm going to start, I'm going to start some Imperial Guard. And so that for my birthday that year when I was 12, my mother got me like an Imperial Guard boxed army. Like it was like the big box, you know what I mean?

You remember those like they had the big like boxed armies. And she got me that, which was amazing, right? Because that wasn't cheap. And I put all that stuff together. And now I kind of had a little bit more knowledge about how to paint and like put stuff together and how to clean models. I've learned all this while, you know, experimenting, buying random models and painting on the orcs and stuff.

And so I had this pretty sizable, you know, I don't, I don't know how it was probably 1015 hundred points of Imperial Guard or whatever. And we started playing, we actually started playing, you know, 40K start edition because that's what came out. Now, at the time, I really didn't care, you know, I just didn't see, I didn't see the difference because I was a kid, right? Like I, I, I think everybody else made a big fuss about it, but like at the time we didn't care.

It was just 40K to us and some kid at school had the rule book and he had like bought the box set and he didn't really care for it. And he, he heard me talking about it. He's like, hey, I got the, the rule book if you want it, I'll just give it to you. I was like, OK, so he, he gave me the rule book. And this is the rule book that we played with back then. This is the exact book. So we started playing third edition because that's what was out.

And I think that was probably actually a good thing for us being young teenagers. I think 3rd edition was probably a good place to start because it was, even though I like second edition better and probably still did back then, I think it was more easier and accessible for everybody else, right? So me and Andrew started playing and Andrew was kind of a spoiled

kid, right? His parent, his parents were divorced, but they were like fight for his love and they would just buy him stuff, give him, he was an only child too and they would just give him stuff. And so he got whatever he wanted. So quickly he had this like huge Space Marine army and his dad, his dad bought him when they went to a auction at the Games Workshop store and they had a professionally made Games Workshop studio made table. He bought it.

And so that was awesome. That was an awesome way to like really get properly introduced. And so we had this like awesome table and we had all this awesome terrain. And the other thing he got was he got a fully painted, like studio painted metal Necron army, like the old Necrons, you know, like so big money, right? And like his parents were just like, get, you know, get him whatever he wanted.

So, but that was cool for me because I, we go over to his house and we stopped playing D&D and just started playing 40K all the time. And it was like every Friday night, I think the other guys kind of got pissed because we were like, Nah, man, we're playing 40K all day. Like you either you either get a 40K army or like you know, whatever. We played D and DA little bit, but it was mainly like 40K was like what me and Andrew were all into playing on this awesome board.

And then the other guys started getting 40K army. So like one guy had like he got Dark Eldar and another guy got Space Marines and I think another guy got Eldar. And so we had like five or six guys that would come over just about every Friday night and we would play other stuff too. We'd play like Axis and Allies and D&D and whatever, but a lot of 40K, you know, we and me and Andrew were so obsessed with it.

We'd even bring it to school and play like in the cafeteria and just set up like, you know, trays and Coke bottles and play 40K like during lunch and stuff, you know, like we were that obsessed with it, you know. And so that was really like the time that I properly got into it, even though I got into it a few years earlier, like this is like now I had seriously got into it. I found people that actually played it, you know, I was actually like learned how to

paint models. And also around this time, like I was just telling you, there was a Games Workshop store that opened and that was the first Games Workshop store we had here in Nashville. And it opened in the big mall. There's a big like mall here. It's still there. And so we'd go up to the Games Workshop store all the time. And these guys really, really were great, great guys, right? Like they really took the time out of their, it took a lot of time to show us how to do things properly.

They were like, yeah, you know, like this is how you, this is the kind of glue you need. This how you glue together your models. You know, they showed us how to clean the models, get rid of the mold lines. They showed us how to paint, you know, like they were like, you know, they would give us painting tips and stuff and we'd sit in there and paint and and they let us play there. You know, we could bring our models in there.

And they had, you know, they had, it wasn't a big store, but they did have like two or three tables set up. And if it wasn't busy, you, you know, you can bring your stuff in and play. So we go in there and play on their, their tables and stuff. And they were really cool group of guys. And in fact, I'm still friends with one of the guys that work there and he, he works at another game store that I frequent.

So that's kind of cool. So anyways, through middle school, I, we, we were playing 40 KA lot and fantasy. I couldn't really find anybody to, nobody was interested in playing fantasy with me. And I'll, I will say that I was way more interested in fantasy than I was 40K always. But I just never could find anybody that wanted to really was as interested in it as I was. It was always 40K40K. So I, I just, you know, 40K was cool to me too. It still is.

But like fantasy was always, especially back then was really what got me going. But I just couldn't find anybody that wanted to play it. So we during middle school, we would just play 40K and then by the time I got to high school, all those guys that I was playing with went to a totally different school than me. We, we got totally split up.

I was the only one out of that group that went to a totally different high school because I lived on the other side of the street, the other side of the tracks, if you will, And they lived on the other side and they went to a totally different high school than me. So we totally lost contact and that group broke apart. Now, they didn't stop me from gaming. I was still role-playing with the twins and I had a few other people that we played with and

stuff. But I've met a whole another group of guys and they were much older than me. They were all seniors when I was a freshman in high school. And one day I was in the cafeteria and we're I was running D&D. And that's what in high school, if there was like a free moment, we were playing games of some sort, right? Like whether it was magic or maybe some kind of miniature game or D&D or whatever, board game or whatever, we were always playing games.

And so during like some kind of, it was kind of like a, it wasn't, it wasn't like lunch or anything. It was some kind of pep rally or something. And we never went to the pep rallies. We went to the like the cafeteria and it's like, you know, all the misfit kids would go there instead of going the, you know, the pep rally. So it was like all the heavy metal kids and the punk rockers and the stoners and, you know, the gamer kids and the nerds and all that.

So we're in there playing D&D and there's another group of guys right behind us playing D&D. So I was like, holy shit, you know, anytime you see a gamer, I was just like, hey, you know what's up? And one of the guys knew me, you know, because he had, he was older than us, but he played with us in middle school because he lived right down the street from Andrew. And he recognized me. And he's like, oh, hey, what's up, man? I hadn't seen you in a while.

I'm like, hey, what's going on? I'm like, and he's like, yeah, have you met all these guys? I'm like, no, I haven't. They say, hey, this is Cody. Cody's really cool dude.

I've game with him a lot like, and he's, and he introduced me to everybody and he's like, you should come over and game with us. And just like that, everybody's like, yeah, come game with us. So I started going and gaming with these guys and they were all like three years older than me, you know, which was, that's a big difference when you're like 15 and they're like 18, right?

So, you know, they were, you know, that's a really different mindset and just that's a big leap in years when you're that age. So I matured really quickly hanging out with these older guys. So I started gaming with those guys and it was mainly role-playing games. And we would, every weekend, it'd be like Friday night, they'd come pick me up and we would spend all weekend again, it was just like middle school.

We'd spend all weekend gaming and they drop me off Sunday evening and that was that, you know, like, and that was that's how it was like, I mean, it was like non-stop too, you know, we didn't, we'd hardly slept. It was just a smorgasbord of, you know, Taco Bell, Mountain Dew, like usually alcohol, maybe some weed, you know, because we are, you know, teenagers and and a lot of like role play games and none of those guys were into

war games really. And so the war gaming kind of fell off for a little bit until my sophomore year. There was a game store that opened, a new game store that I heard about that opened like in this really seedy district of close to close to downtown Nashville. Not quite there, but it was like it was in a weird, weird location. It's like in an industrial area. Like you could not even like see it off the road.

And we just heard about it and you know, hearing like any time there was like a there weren't that many game stores around here. So if like a game store opens, it like spread like wildfire. Hey, there's a new game store that opened. So we go up there to this new game store. And to this day, it's still my favorite game store I've ever been into. And it was called the Jolly Roger and it quickly became our hangout spot. And the guy that owned the Jolly Roger was this guy did was named Jay.

And Jay was about he was probably in his late 20s, maybe 30. I don't really know how old he was. He he wasn't, you know, he wasn't much older than like 30. And me and Jay quickly hit it off and became really good friends. And again, you know, I always got along with the older guys. And but the one thing about Jay was he loved Warhammer and he had an amazing collection of Warhammer armies.

Like he just, he had probably, I don't even know, you know, I mean, just just about every army for 40K in Fantasy and in a store, he had, you know, these incredible tables and all this terrain. He was really into Warhammer, you know, And so there was a big group there that was playing Warhammer 40K in Fantasy. I was like, oh shit, you know, like I really want to get involved in this. And by that time I actually had a job that I had my first job

and started working. So I had some money though. And Jay was like, yeah, you know, he taught me how to he he was like, well, if you ever want to play, just come up here, you can use one of my armies and just play. And he would do that like you just he was like, what army you want? You want Imperial Guard Space Marines, you know, And so me and him started playing fantasy all the time and I started playing fantasy with all the guys up

there just using Jay's armies. And eventually what happened is Jay just sold me his Chaos store for me. And he had this fully painted, you know, old school Chaos store for me with orcs and everything. And he sold it to me for like dirt cheap, maybe, maybe the whole thing. It was like 300 bucks, which is even then was a steal, you know. And so I would go up there just about every weekend and play Warhammer Fantasy with these guys. And it, that was, that was great.

It was, it was a blast. And then we played 40K too. And then we played, you know, some more, you know, going through high school, I played fantasy and 40K and then towards again the high school, it kind of dropped off because I, in the, all this time being a teenager, I started playing drums and I got really good and I started playing in bands and music kind of took over over the gaming. I still loved gaming, did not lose interest in it, but that kind of took over over the gaming.

And by the time I was 17, especially 18, that's, that's, you know, I, I, that, that was way more important to me. So it was literally sex, drugs and rock'n'roll, you know, kind of took over over the gaming. I still did it, but it was kind

of like secondary to that. So by the time I got out of high school, that was really dominating my life because I was playing in bands and, you know, making some money doing it, meeting girls and, you know, doing drugs and all that stuff, and just having the time of my life, right? Like, it was great. But by the time I got to my 20s that kind of like, I kind of like burned myself out, you know, that the music thing, really didn't I?

I realized, you know, the music thing's not going anywhere. Like especially in Nashville. I mean, Nashville, TN, they don't call it Music City for nothing, right? Everybody, every other person plays guitar here. So it's like, it's a very competitive scene here. And I just, I'm not a competitive person. Be honest with you. So like I just did, I, I, I just kind of got tired of trying to compete with everybody else.

And I still, I still play music to this day, but I just do it for myself and fun and you know, whatever. But I realized I needed like a real job, right? Music was not going to be like a viable career really. So my dad's like, why don't you come work with me? And I was like, all right, so I did. And he's like, hey, you're really good at this. Why don't you go to trade school for a year and kind of get, you know, learned up and I can pay you more and you just come to

work for with me full time. So I did. So I went to trade school and used up all the money I'd saved. And luckily my grandmother had put aside some money for me for college or whatever. So I had some money and I went off the trade school for a year in Saint Louis. Well, I was only really had enough money to like, I didn't have enough money to go like cruising around or buy anything or, you know, I didn't have cable, I didn't have Internet.

I was in complete isolation. I didn't know anybody there. I didn't have enough money to even go to the game store, which was like 45 minutes away. So I spent a lot of time there just thinking, listening to music, playing music and reading a lot of books. You know, I read a lot of books during that watch. I've always been a big reader. But, you know, when I didn't have anything else to do, I read

a lot more. And I was also thinking about like, when I get back, like, I was like, I started, you know, thinking a lot. And I was like, I really want to get back into miniature gaming. I haven't done that in a while. I really want to get back into this. And so the next year when I got back home, I started working and actually was making decent money at the time and was single, right? You know, So I had a lot more

money to blow. And so I got back into miniature gaming and I think initially I got back into I, I didn't want to get back into Warhammer because I did have like, I did try to get back into it when I was about 19 or so. And I had a really bad experience. Like I, I tried getting back into it and went up to the store and the guys there were just like completely unwelcoming.

They, they did not like, they like I walked into the store and like nobody said hi to me. Nobody offered to play a game with me. Nobody introduced themselves. And when I asked people, they're just like, yeah, you know, I mean, it was not a welcoming experience. So I was like, you know what, F Warhammer, F these guys. I, you know, I'm not going to, I'm just never going to play Warhammer again. That really turned me off a Warhammer dealing with that, those guys.

So I started looking at other miniature games and I think the miniature game I kind of settled on was Malifo actually at the time. Yeah, it because it just looked different. I thought it, I was like, well, I liked it. The some of the miniatures looked really cool. I like the card mechanic that

sounded really cool. And also what was appealing about it was I could actually play it on a small space and I was like, well, I and the other thing is I, I was like, well, I could buy like a bunch of little of these war bands and maybe that way I could talk people into playing it with me. So I did, I'd like bought all this Malefo stuff. And so I tried, you know, talking people into playing it and like nobody was interested except for my brother.

I, I haven't mentioned my brother in this whole story, but my brother actually grew up with me and I forced him to play games all the time and still do actually, you know, I still call him up. I'd like, hey, you want to play a game? But he's like, yeah, you know, so my brother, my brother is kind of a gamer too. He's not as into it as I am, but he's always been a gamer a little bit by force. You know, I kind of press gamed

him into playing. So my brother played with me, but other than that I couldn't talk anybody in playing. And then I used to frequent this comic store all the time. And the owner of the comic store was like, hey, I'm going to start carrying like you're in the miniatures and stuff where I

was like, yeah, yeah. He said, well, I'm going to start carrying Warhammer stuff and one of the guys here is going to run like a, a, a league here and we're going to do Warhammer Fantasy and we're going to do Warhammer 40,000. He's like, maybe you'll be interested in that. And I'm like, and I was like, well, maybe he's like, well, it's like all new players, you know, so it's like none of these guys have played Warhammer before.

So it'll be like a new crowd. And that's kind of what that was really appealing to me because I'm like, Oh yeah, you know, like a fresh, a fresh group that doesn't have any preconceptions. And you know, you know, it's basically like building a new community. And that sounded really appealing to me, so I agreed. I was like, yeah, yeah, that

sounds really cool. So initially I bought up all this Warhammer Fantasy stuff because he told me like, there's going to be Warhammer Fantasy. And I show up to the first meeting and nobody's playing Warhammer Fantasy. Everybody's playing 40K. And I'm like, OK, well, I guess I'm going to start a 40K army. So I started a 40K army. I kept the fantasy stuff. Yeah, it was, it was a really good group actually. And we played for quite a few

years. And even though I started, I didn't really, I didn't really enjoy the rules as much, but I did enjoy painting the miniatures and hanging out and all that stuff. But it was around that time and this is like, this is we're talking about like 2010 is when, when I got back into it. And around that time I I was playing for a few years and we were playing, we all of a sudden it started to get really competitive and everybody

started going to tournaments. And I got really caught up in that too, and did well too, I must say. You know, like I did do good, like in the tournament scene and stuff. But it got to the point I just got sick of it and realized I wasn't having fun. And I would come home every day with like a splitting headache. And I was like, OK, I got to do something else.

And so meanwhile, my friend Andrew, the original Andrew from way back in the day, he, me and him still, you know, we played in bands together and whatever, but we kind of had a falling out in our 20s. And he started coming back around again. And one day he comes over to my place and he's like, hey, man, I was just in the neighborhood. I just want to drop by, see what you're doing. I'm like, yeah, come in. So we're like having a beer and hanging out. And he goes to my, like,

backroom. And that's where I had all my war game stuff. And it was insane at that time. I just had like, I was buying everything, right? So I just had like all these armies everywhere. And he's like, what the hell, dude? He's like, you got back into this stuff. I'm like, yeah, yeah. He's like, man, this is really cool. And he starts looking at the miniatures. He's like, I remember this and blah, blah, blah. He's like, I was like, well, we

should play some games. And he's like, totally, man, yeah, totally. So we start playing with the current rules, which I think we're like 5th edition at the time, and we play like one game and he's like, this sucks. He's like, this is terrible, dude. He's like, this is nothing like, I remember it. I was like, I was like, yeah, what do you mean?

And he's like, you remember, like we used to play like you remember all the crazy shit back in the day, like the shock attack gun and vehicles going out of control and like, what happened to all that? I'm like, I don't know. I was like, he said we should play, you know, the old version we played. I was like, yeah, you're right,

we should. And so I started like looking around and kind of thinking about it and I found the 2nd edition Battle Bible. So I printed that whole thing off, got it all bound up. I printed off all the tokens and the templates and all that stuff. And we started playing second edition and just kind of like I left 5th edition in the dirt or whatever it was at the time. And we just started playing second edition and everybody thought we were insane for doing this too.

We'd go up to the store, but they'd be like, what do you do? What do you guys playing? We're like, we're playing second edition 40K and everybody's like, why? Why would you play? You know, everybody was just so blown away that we were going back to this old game and that's, and we, we just like, that's all we did. We just played second edition 40K when we finally, we stopped playing at the store and we just ended up going to his house

every weekend. I'd go over there on Friday and we drink a lot and we'd play 40K second edition and we talked a couple of our other friends into trying it out and it became like a regular thing. So I guess that's kind of my origin story, like, you know, nutshell leading up to this point and what's led me up to where I am now. So I know I've talked a lot and this has been a pretty long wooded thing, but maybe you got some questions or other people do, I don't know. Oh.

Yeah, you got a brilliant. Do whatever. Bit of let me just check this again. Yeah, a bit of audio replay reverb there. I think it should be OK now. But yeah, mate, you got a very extensive history into the miniature gaming and playing side of it. And then on your channel you sort of go and talk about that. Yeah. Feedback. That's right. Kind of fixed and it's really interesting.

Yeah. I really enjoyed your video and you, you, you talked a little bit more extensively about parts of your story there as well, which I found very interesting. And I. And like you all, I love a good origin story and everyone's got something different. Even. Come through into the same sort of pathway, usually through Games Workshop, but we all have a different way of entering the hobby.

And we all all, and I think a lot of us and I, you know, talking about most people here, we've we've come from sort of isolated regional areas of the world and somehow we've found it, you know, just by chance, it's just come across like you, you with your friend at school, with him flipping through a white dwarf or a catalogue or something.

And for me, it was like, yeah, through here request and discovering my local comic store and then opening up all this big world of games of Games Workshop that I've never seen before. And yeah, we all have our own sort of entry pointing to the hobby. And then if if you're lucky enough, you it's it sticks with you and you keep carrying on and, and and your adventure grows through the people you meet and the games you play. So that's pretty awesome, man.

So you have a good break. Let's go, Let's go through the let's go through the comments mate. So you have a good smoke and a drink and we'll have a look. We'll have a look to see what the guys are saying here because we had a few people coming in and thank you everybody who's joined us. So Chris is here and also we've got Cameron. They are two great guys on our discord and doing our man of war and Chris does a lot of other

stuff at second edition 40K. He does Necromanda, blood bowl maybe I think space Hulk. We did space Hulk like remote players on our discord channel. Yeah, right on. Yeah, so it's good to see Cameron here. sci-fi is still awake and is still with us, which is amazing. I don't know what time it is there in the in the UK and it must be like 3:00 AM or something. So he says it might have been white dwarf 182 mate. He checked on Google. Maybe that's what your your

childhood friend and it's it's. Very possible. It was definitely one of the catalogs that I initially saw. But Andrew did have him and his brother had a subscription to White Dwarf. And so I did some digging because on your Discord I noticed you had like a thing that said, you know, your first white Dwarf. And it got me thinking about what my first White Dwarf was.

So I ended up going and looking at like the white dwarfs from that period and I think I figured out which one it was, which I can't remember off the top of my head what issue it was, but it's the one with the, the space ring chaplain on the front. That's the cover of Angels of Death, Angels of Death codex. And that was definitely the

first White Dwarf I saw. I specifically remember that because right around that time Andrew brought the catalog, he brought a white Dwarf. And that's the first one, you know, he let me look through and we're like reading through it and I, I definitely remember like the battle report in there and like the Andy Chambers interview. And Andy Chambers was like my guy back then. He'd be very happy to know Cody. He'd just joined that discord. I saw that. Yeah. Yeah. That's really.

Cool looked at himself and Adrian Woods there, so now you guys can interact with them and ask some questions and send your love and praise to them for all these years of great gaming memories and in the hobby. So it's really wonderful that they accepted our invitation to join us there and and interact with you guys, which is even brilliant More is better. I I hope to get them on a live stream like this so you guys can interact with them in real time. Yeah, that'd be awesome.

Yeah. So yeah, thanks again, sci-fi for checking that up, mate. So that's awesome. Okay, Cameron said I couldn't have figured out battle attack at 18 years old. I don't think I could have figured it out either. So Cody, you're just, you know, you just, you just had the right mind. You're just wide into gaming, I think at a very young age.

Well, I, I, there was another part of that story about like, I think one of the reasons I memorized, and I'm still pretty good at rules today, but I was really good as a kid because I couldn't get any of the books. Like I said, I was kind of forbidden from getting the books. And there's a funny little story about that, especially with the

D&D stuff. My, I would have my mom drop me off at the bookstore and I go in there with notebook and pen and actually like copy the D&D rule books in a notebook by hand or memorize everything. So at one point I remember being a teenager and like, I literally had that whole rule book, like memorize, like it was, it was amazing. I don't know, you know, I would just sit there and be like, Oh yeah, Magic missile. It does this and this and this

and I can't do it anymore. But back then I had like all that stuff, like just memorize. So I think that really helped me in my early years and also with Warhammer too, I didn't have a lot of the books and I just kind of memorized all that stuff, you know, I just, and so I, I, I quickly just learned and adapted to memorize rules, you know, And of course, you know, being young, I'm sure we weren't doing everything 100% correct.

But I, I, I do remember we were actually, you know, like, you know, me and my cousin playing 40K and like, we were playing fantasy and stuff. We were playing pretty close to what it was supposed to be, you know, and you know, all that stuff. So yeah, I think I always had a pretty good knack with rules when I was young.

And also, I think I commented on this before, maybe on your channel or just talking together, But as you, as you started talking about your earlier gaming history and walking to that, that kids basement and then you got the older, older kid called Dustin. It's like, you know, the, the, the cast of Stranger things, you know, and playing all D and DSI love that opening sequence of them playing.

I think it's the very first episode of episode one series one of stranger things with the rules sitting around the table playing dungeons and Dragons. It brings back a lot of great memories, even though I was never a big role player, but I did try aid advanced dungeon Dragons second edition with friends. And at that stage they were really into like dragon Lance. And I think we've sort of

touched on that before as well. And I still have a lot of fond memories of the artwork, Jeff Easley of that of that era. Yeah, I got a good stuff, Larry Elmore hanging out behind me there. Yeah, Larry. Elmore is another legend, isn't he? Yeah. Signed by Larry Actually. Oh, brilliant. Yeah, and I, I've met Larry quite a few times. He's a really, really good dude. Yeah, he's a really nice, really nice guy. I actually drank whiskey with with him one night.

We were, we were at Gen. Con and I'd met him earlier in the day and had one at like every time I'd go there, I'd get a print signed. And so I got a print signed. And then later that evening we went like right by the Convention Center and we were having a drink and eating a

burger or whatever. And Larry Elmore was there at the bar and I was like, shit, I'm going to go buy if somebody told me, like, if you ever want to talk to Larry Elmore, buy him some whiskey and you know, he'll talk to you. And so I went up to him. I was like, Hey, how you doing, Larry? And like, he remembered me. He would say, Hey, how you doing? You were that, you know, guy asking me, you know, because I was asking a bunch of questions and stuff.

I was like, you mind if I buy you a drink? And he's like, Nah. And so I bought him a whiskey and we're sitting there drinking Jack Daniels for a very short time. It was just like 5 minutes or something and just shooting the shit. And he's, if you ever meet Larry, he's a very, very like down to earth, very personal guy. And like he, everybody that wants to talk to him, he gives

him his full attention. As much as you want to, you know, interact with him, He's he's a really, really good dude. So yeah, Larry's cool. What a great opportunity, mate. Yeah, that's wonderful. Yeah. I love, I love the artwork from the old D&D second edition era. The books, well, you know that in that time and during the 90s, you know, they were pretty hot stuff. You know, the Dragonlands books were massive then. You know, the whole series, the entire saga.

I don't know how many books with like 12 books. I think it's banned out too. It's a lot now, yeah. I mean, they just came out with some more recently, yeah. And that's, that's something I didn't really talk about, but like the art is really what grabbed me to from the beginning. I've always been a big art guy. I still love art. And that's what grabbed me initially was the art of all that stuff. And to me personally, you know, just my preference.

I think the art of the 1990s in the games too, just the games in general. I think that was like the golden age of everything gaming in my opinion. And I, I'm kind of lucky that I kind of, I was at the tail end of it, but I still experienced it. And I think that was a great time to get into gaming. And but it was the art that really got me first, you know, like that's what it just, I mean, every time I looked at one of those pieces and still do it, just, it just my mind would just

go to all these places. You know, modern art doesn't really do the same thing. I mean, there's, there's a lot of great artists out there, don't get me wrong, and a lot of great art and stuff, but it just doesn't grab me the same as like a lot of that older 1980s and 90s art does, you know? It just, it really drives my imagination crazy to this day. Like, it's just such good stuff, you know? Yeah, I think, I think you're right. I think for me too, I can really appreciate the older style.

Well, any, any traditional artist I can really appreciate because digital, digital art obviously has taken its role now in terms of the amount of stuff they can produce and how they can access it digitally, how they can send stuff and that kind of thing. I get it, I get it. But it's like, OK, I'll make a mistake. I can just erase that and do it again. You know what I mean? Like digital art is kind of like

you sort of can erase things. You can import things with, with traditional art, it's some some guy, some man, some woman who's got like who's, you know, using a, a paint palette with a brush and actually putting that onto a canvas. And if they make a mistake, they might have to just throw the whole thing out and start it again.

You know what I mean? Like there's some, there's an, there's a, there's an enormous amount of talent and experience poured into that canvas piece of paper that whatever they're doing. Yeah. Digital art definitely requires some skill. It's definitely art. Like I'm not going to, I'm not going to deny it, but the thing I like about hand drawn art and hand painted anything like that handmade art is it has character

to it, right? Like it has, it brings out the personality deep inside that person. And so every piece of art, like I can tell you, like you show me a Larry Elmore, I can tell you Larry Elmore, you show me a Clyde Caldwell. I can tell you that's Clyde Caldwell. You show me John Blanche or Ian Miller or you know, all these guys or all even all these great comic book artists. I'm a big comic book guy.

And so, you know, like you show me any of those guys, usually I could, I'd be like, oh, yeah, that's Larry Elmore, you know, that's John Blanche. You can just tell like they have it has a personality to it that I think you can't really get. You can get it in digital art and there's some guys that can do it. But I think the difference is those guys that can express it in digital art, they started with physical art, right? And they just translated it to

digital art. So they're using the same principles, but you have a lot of younger guys that started with digital art. And so it's kind of the other way around, right? And they're, they're learning to do everything in a very samey kind of way. And it's just kind of like it all just kind of like passes over me, to be honest with you. Like I'd look at a piece of art and I'm just kind of like it. It doesn't do anything for me because it doesn't have that unique character to it.

It's kind of the same. And I've heard you talk about it with like hand sculpted miniatures, right? I, I really love, that's one reason I collect and love the old miniatures is I love the character. They're pieces of art too, you know, and like, I love collecting those just to look, look at them like they're just, there's so much character and personality in them.

And again, you can tell like if you've looked at enough miniatures, like you know, who the sculptor was, you know, 'cause there's certain like characteristics and things to, you know, their character and their art really comes out in their miniature. So I like, I, I, I still think that's the best way to do art. And I still really, I really, really appreciate, you know, visual art of any sort. It's, it's amazing to me actually that people can do

that. I never, I had a little bit of artistic skill, but never that's one thing I wish I had more than any other like skill is to be an artist 'cause I just love it so much. You know, and I never really had a, the right like knack for it or whatever. I had a little bit, but not I, I wasn't that great of an artist, you know? Now me too. I wish I could, you know, I, I sort of did a bit of drawing

when I was younger. And because my mother's an artist, my grandfather was an artist and my father dabbled in art at school, he wanted to be like a graphic designer. My, my, my sister's now a full, you know, full time graphic designer and illustrator. So we've always had that in our family. I've really wanted to do like being an illustrator or, or at least a concept artist or something like that, but I just didn't put the time and skill.

I was always into painting miniatures and but I think if I could trade it I would, I think. Yeah. I could trade all that skill and time I put into miniature painting into like, you know, graphic, graphic art or whatever. I think I would have done it. And because you're really sort of you, you, like you say, you're putting your own signature into you every piece you do so that it becomes very identifiable. OK, Well, that's you're like Paul Bonner. You know, you. It's unmistakable.

And when you see an orc, even when he does like humans. Yeah, yeah. War Zone and stuff like that. It's a very iconic way he he portrays his characters and the style he draws and paints in and that kind of thing. It's just a Paul Bonner. That's a Paul Bonner, Paula, like Mark Gibbons. Another one. Very distinctive style and, you know, incredibly talented guy. And now he does a lot of digital stuff, which I get because he has to do that for sketches or he's got to do that for the

companies he works for. They just require that kind of level. And it might be just easier for him to sketch, sketch out a whole lot of concepts, send them off to the companies and say, yeah, that's that's a go ahead. And maybe he does a cross between, you know, laying out the illustration in black and white, then scanning on the computer and then doing all the digital art for color and that

kind of thing afterwards. I can see there's a cross plane and there's like a demand for that kind of stuff because of the amount of art they need these days. They just don't have the finances to say, hey, you know, yeah, we love your paintings and we'll we'll pay you for like 2 months just to finish one piece. It just doesn't happen anymore, you know, with the shame. All right, so let's go into the other comments. We've got Dan the man, Dan Buehman. Good to see you Dan.

I really love your musty war gamers live streams either. On Oh yeah yeah, Dan for the musty war gamers, you know, you know. Dan Musty, OH. Good. Absolutely. I watch Murderly Great. Stuff. Oh that's awesome. OK. I love their live streams, Rusty. Yeah, yeah. Hello. Hello. Correct. So what it was what it was called his channel, I forget now. It's he does a lot of battle tech stuff. And yeah, he's he's a really

nice guy. And there's Palmer in Canada and they sort of share the hosting between the two of them every fortnight and really enjoy their conversations and the topics they bring up every, every fortnight. So I'll leave a, if I, if I don't leave a link, go and check out Musty War Games on Facebook or something and you've got links there to check out what they're doing. Then let's see Chris says. Fellow middle school French horn player here. Well, there you go.

You're not lying there, mate. We have you to share that, Chris. Yes, I think he just did it for the chicks. Yeah, OK, all. Right man, I just. Get successful then. I'm not going to go into details, but in high school those band chicks were crazy man. OK, what's what happened to dad stays bad? That's all I'll say. So. And kind of fix is here to join us. How you going mate? All the way from Australia.

What does sci-fi say? Sounds like a pub scene for the American Werewolf in London. Totally. So, sci-fi, you still awake? It's amazing. You were playing old and inferior. Inferior over new and improved madness Or enlightened. Yeah, well, like my My name Madman. In Japan, it's that's exactly what we're doing. We're playing crazy old games from the 1990s like Kodi and all of us, yeah, we might be mad, but we know what's good.

That's the thing, you know, even even people come into the hobby nowadays, and I always find this very fascinating, like young people like yourself, Cody, who maybe didn't experience like Rd. Trader when it was out, but you went back and thought, shit, this is a good game. You know, I like what they did here. And in some ways it's far more interesting or entertaining than, you know, the modern

iterations of this game. So. Well, I've, I got really interested in, I've always been interested in history of anything. So if I get into something, I want to know everything about it, and that includes digging into the past. And so like with everything I got into, I wanted to know what came before. So like with D and DI, I started playing other versions of D and DI, got into AD and D 1st edition and original D&D and played all those and collected

those. And it was the same with every like game I played. And Warhammer was no exception. I didn't know about Rogue Trader until I got older. And when I got back in the second edition, I, you know, that was right around the time like the old hammer movement was starting, like it wasn't really like kicked off properly yet, but it was starting to get going. Like I was starting to see like these blogs pop up and stuff and I started seeing like stuff about Rogue Trader.

It was like, that's really interesting. And Andrew actually went and bought the Road Trader book. And so when we were playing Second edition back then, we started playing Rd. Trader too, and we got into that as well. And so like, yeah, I've always been really interested in the history of gaming as well. And like, I think not just from a historical perspective, I actually like to play those games.

I think there's still merits and a lot of those old games, like there's something to be had there. Like I, you know, there's there, it's, there's still good games and there's something be had, right? Like I, I don't think just because the game's old, it's inferior or there's nothing to see there, right? So, yeah, I've always been into older games. That's nothing new to me. That's good mate, That's good. That's good to know. OK, what does sci-fi say?

If he's still awake? That was a towel that needed an old pub fly place and purpose beers for the telling. Thanks for sharing. Yeah, it was, mate. It was good. Yeah, that's wonderful. OK, now whoa. Got some more things here. What we've got here. Robo dogs here. Yes, very much. Right. So I didn't mention it, but when I got back into gaming, I've always wanted to play historical games.

Even when I was like first got into gaming, I remember going up to Hobby Town and seeing all these historical miniatures and I was really in love with military history even as a kid. And there was a group there that met at Hobby Town USA that actually played historical games. And they were playing like Fire and Fury and you know, what was the other one? Some World War Two game and stuff. But there were these old guys and I remember like they would be like, you know, pushing me

away. Like, you know, step away from the table kid. Like we don't want you, you know, like they did not want some little kid hanging around their table or whatever. So but when I got older and got back into gaming, I found out that there was AII was very interested in getting into historical games. I just didn't know anybody that was interested in it.

And I found a group here that had been here for 30 years and I didn't even know about it. And they met at the gaming store that I used to go to and still go to to this day. And so I started gaming with those guys and still do. And it's a very old school historical war games club. So what I mean by that is they have a, they don't play in a game store anymore. They actually have an office building that one of the guys owns. And they they play there every Tuesday night.

They also play there on Saturdays. And basically they schedule out games. So one guy will be like, I'm running World War 2 this week. And his responsibility, he brings all the miniatures, he sets up all the terrain and he referees the game for everybody, right? Like so that's the way that club plays. So I definitely got involved in that. And I have several different historical armies. I have American Civil War in

three different scales. I have Napoleonics, I have American Revolution. My favorite period is obviously like the 19th and 18th century. That's always been what's fascinated me the most. So American Civil War, Seven Years War, Napoleonic Wars, any of that stuff I really love, especially American Civil War like that because, you know, being in Tennessee, like I can literally drive 30 minutes and I'm on a Civil War battlefield, right.

So I grew up around, you know, American Civil War history all around me. So that's always really fascinated me. So that's my kind of thing for historical gaming. But I'd love, I love all that stuff. So, you know, I, I still regularly play historical games for sure. And I really like them, Yeah. Oh, that's good, man. That's great. Last, you've got an army in three different scales. That's that's unbelievable. You're a real historical gamer. Yeah.

Because that's a real game. Yeah, so my earliest is seems pretty boring compared to Cody. No drug, sex and rock'n'roll for Dan. It's just straight on the farm out of out of college I think for him, unfortunately. Good to learn to play the drums, mate. That's what it was. What do we got here? Can I can? It's going to click on it. Yep. Have a Borgassus ball, space Hulk or whammer quest Cody. Yeah, I definitely dabbled in a

lot of the specialist games. Like I said, we, I, I played a lot of Gorka Marca back when it first came out, but we also played Necromunda. I I've dabbled in all those games. We played a little bit of Warhammer Quest. We played a little bit of Space Hulk. You know, if somebody had it, we would play it throughout the years.

Back in middle school. We played a lot of Hero Quest actually, which was actually way after our time, like I didn't, you know, because we, I did not grow up when Hero Quest came out. But what happened is we found it at a garage sale and we started playing that a lot and loved it. And then later on we acquired Warhammer Quest and we did, we did play that occasionally too, but we kind of liked Hero Quest

better for some reason. I think it was just a lot easier and more enjoyable and more accessible for everybody. But I I love Warhammer Quest. It's a great game. Space Hulk. I have played a little bit like a conventions and stuff. Mordheim, I've played a lot of Mordheim. I played some Blood Bowl. I've got Blood Bowl there in the closet and some teams. So epic. We played a little bit of epic

War Master, you know. So yeah, I've kind of dabbled with just a lot of a lot of the GW stuff, you know, I haven't played everything, but I've at least dabbled in a lot of it, right. Yeah, good, mate. OK, that's nice. Yeah, I think, I think for me also hear requests is just, I don't know, maybe it's not just nostalgia, but I think I just enjoyed it more than Wymer Quest. Maybe you're right.

Maybe it's just the simplicity of it, the system, Anybody can just get in there and start playing. Wymer Quest would have brought these different layers and it's still good. It's still, it's still nice and it's got a lot of a lot of depth to it, a lot more than regular hear request. But I like advanced hear request a lot more I think personally, but. Oh, do you? Yeah. Yeah, I never played advance. Request Yeah, I love. It, I've never played advance to your request.

I've always wanted to play it and I I've been watching you play it on your channel and it's been really interesting. Yeah, I I'd really like to give advance to your request a try sometime and I'd like to play some more him requests again too. I think that was probably that was that was probably my favorite like dungeon crawler game I ever played and I didn't really get to play it a lot.

So yeah, I need to I need to revisit Warham request at some point and would like to play advanced T request sometimes. Well, we should try, we should try asking Chris, because Chris has got the whole base game and everything. And I've played it with him recently for the first time since 1995. Or when it was it came out. Yeah, One one thing I've thought that I've forgot about. Why my question? What I liked about it the most was it's all driven by cards. Right.

Yeah, you, you flip the card and that's what the next tile will be to flip the card. That's what the monster encounter put the card. This is what. And I love that randomness to it. And it's it's. All AI driven, so it's like you can just play cooperatively and that's an excellent feature about that game. So yeah, it's got its merits and I think I'd like to try it more. And I like to play the Kaos Warrior and that, that sounds awesome. I never got to do that back in the day.

Yeah, we were selling that at games, which it, when I was working there, we were selling Lama Quest. That was that time when it was out. And but I just didn't have people to play with. And when I started working in games worship, we just didn't play games. And you were sort of just doing demos and stuff like that. But yeah, it's got a, it's an untapped little gem there. I've had a lot of then I started

hanging out with all the guys. I'm 10 years older than you, Cody, so we'll get along fine playing a remote game. There you go. Heck yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm still hanging out with older guys, so you know. Hang on, wait, wait, hang on me. I'm anxious. OK, so we've got Rubber Dog. I know nothing about Battletech. Do people still play it? Oh, for sure, yeah. I mean, Battletechs I think bigger than it's ever been.

Like it's had this huge resurgence, which is kind of kind of pissed me off because what a so like, you know, when I got back into gaming, like in 2010, battle tech was one of the things like I was like, I want to play some battle tech again. And I bought like all this battle tech stuff and nobody would play with me, right? Everybody's like, oh, battle tech. Oh man, that game is like old and washed up. Like it's, it's so difficult and ancient. The models look stupid and

everything under the sun. Like nobody wanted to give it a try. And Andrew did play with me to give him credit, but he wasn't like that into it. And then all of a sudden they kind of rebooted it, which was a great move, a smart move. They didn't really change the rules, which is something I do love about battle Tech. Like it's pretty much the exact same game it has been since whenever like 1984 or whatever it came out.

It's it's pretty much the same. But with the reboot, like, yeah, now it's like huge, like people are like playing battle tech left and right, right. Like it's just it's crazy. And actually I I've been playing some battle tech with, I have one friend here that will play like a lot of these old games with me that I game with regularly. And he's got a really nice set up for battle tech. And we both have tons, hundreds of Max and we play a lot of battle tech too. So I still love battle tech.

OK, cool. All right, that's good. Yeah, I've heard a lot of people talking about. Musty games as well. They're talking about it in Tim last week he talked about it, You know, so it seems like there's either the old crowd coming back or this is a new crowd of people playing battle tech. And yeah, it's seems very popular in Ireland. I don't know why, but there's a lot of Irish people who play it. Yeah, seems seems to be that way.

Anyway, maybe I'm wrong there, but it just seems they've got like actual dedicated groups of people playing the game and like organized play and stuff like that. So Dan says and iterates yes rubber dog Battlesech is still very popular so because I know that rusty on his channel he does a lot of battle tech stuff there yeah, it seems to be a big

resurgence and battle tech. I think they re released the simplified rule set also, but I think the plastic miniatures that Cody was alluding to too and I think Tim showed me, they're all sort of those kind of horrible PVC things, which is sad to see. But I'm sure you can buy maybe the metal ones somewhere you can still get on know what about yeah, can't get a lot about that stuff and. But. Yeah, I don't really know much about that'll take, to be honest, but seems almost

slightly interesting. Cody, how do you have the time to be into the all these things? Do you have a do you not have a phone Exactly. Throw away your bloody cell phone, a smartphone. That's really distracting. Yeah. I don't really spend a lot of time on the phone, but I don't know man, like. I'm I'm a busy guy. I've always liked to keep busy. Yeah, me too, man. I have, you know, my, my dad's always laughing at me because he's like, what are you doing

tonight? You know, he's because he knows I'm going to be doing something. Drinking, drinking with the boys down the pub. I'm always. Like I'm always busy working on something like I'm. Just I'm very active, whether that's like making music or painting miniatures or playing a game or doing YouTube. Like I just like to keep busy. I don't really like sitting around watching TV and all that stuff.

Like I like, I like to keep busy and keep active, but I really don't know, I really don't have time to do everything. And that it does become a kind of a problem, you know, So I kind of have to, I literally have to make like a, a schedule now because I have so many things going on, you know, but it's fine, you know, I, I, I like it. I like, I like keeping busy and I like that I have, you know, plenty of hobbies to, to keep my mind occupied, you know. Yeah, that's a good mate, isn't it?

It's a good thing. I'm, I'm like you mate too. I'll just go. Nuts. See, if I don't have things to do, I've got to keep my hands busy. I've got to do something. Otherwise, yeah, I'll do something silly like drink a lot of alcohol or something. Probably. Yeah, me too. Go, go, go and get a real life. I'll have to catch a rest tomorrow, but it's very light now. My sleep. Yeah, sci-fi, you better get to sleep, man, because I think it's like 4:00 in the morning or something like that.

Now one more questions. Unforgiving. Yeah, much like well, much like advanced hear requests. Very unforgiving game. Hear requests, add bit more forgiveness, I think. But yeah. Yeah, both of those game systems were, you know, you're going to die. Like if you saw my advance request adventures leading all the way to the final, then you would know why you'd see, You'd see the evidence. Was there remote? Ahq. Let's do it. Yeah. I'm more than happy to do it for you guys.

We got to party together. Let's do it. We'll do it on Discord or something. Oh, we'd love to do that. We'll have to work out a quest. I might. Do something on orcs or something. Orcs and goblins use my he request miniatures in there and just do some kind of dungeon like that. Maybe you guys can design it or we get two people vote on or get someone to write a little quest preload or something to it. And we'll preload, I should say.

And then we'll we'll sort of form something around there. That'd be quite cool. And surprised that Josh was a big Infinity player in the past. How about you, Cody? Yeah, I definitely dabbled in Infinity at one point. When I got, when me and Andrew were regularly playing games about 10 years ago or so, we started playing a lot of other stuff and I still do. I like, I like playing a lot of other games or trying things out. And at that time, I definitely, we definitely were, we were

trying out. Different stuff and we played. Infinity for a while and we really enjoyed it when we were just playing me and him. And then we started going up to the shop and playing it because there was a big group that was playing it actively and that's, I got really turned off by it. This for one thing, there were way too many. I, I I don't mind complexity at all. But there was a lot of. Like little bitty special rules all over the place. It was kind of a mess and hard

to keep up with. And the other thing, it was just way too competitive. I'm not really that much into like the competitive like tournament scene anymore. And around here are local scene with an. I don't know if Infinity still a thing here anymore, but at that time. Like everybody was just all they were worried about was playing like tournament competitive games with Infinity. And so I was really turned off by that and we just kind of stopped playing it.

The other thing I didn't like was the miniatures are beautiful, but they were a pain in the Dick to put together. They were, they were a real pain in the ass to put together and I did not enjoy putting those things together nor did I really enjoy painting them. They're not really that group fun to paint for me, so I hope I never see another fucking Infinity miniature ever again. Yeah, absolutely.

I really, really mean that. So yeah, I, yeah, I've done my, my, my. Thumbs and my fingers still hurt when I talk about it because the pain, I put those, my fingers through the tips of my fingers, putting those things together, cleaning them up and then pinning them into these really tiny little, you know, they were just so small to drill into the arms and that kind of thing to pin them on their bodies, mate,

let's just hell. And then you have to then I'd have to cut the tabs off, drill into the feet and then pin them into, you know, resin bases and stuff like that. Yeah. Never, never again, Never again. And yeah, but it was fun while it, while it was there. I still love the, the guy who designed all the left models, really. On Juan Navarro, I think his name is. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Brilliant guy. Yeah, brilliant. Stuff he did. Amazing.

Of course, now it's all 3D digital sculpting and I and I, I got to say for the stuff, one of the guys who does it, I think it's, is it Jag JJAGI think he's another Spanish sculptor, but amazing stuff that he's done with 3D sculpting and he's really, really talented. But yeah, I mean, you know, I, it seems to have dropped off a lot. Even Australia was massive into Infinity but then it's just all died out and and people are just going on to other things. So. It's a shame because it's a good

company. I really like Carlos. I like CB as a company. The people behind it are really good guys. But yeah, I think their game for me. And I think with Kodi too, like he talked about 40K where he came back with migraines and it was just horrible. Like you just like, I just need to get out of this. That's why I changed from Infinity to doing the older stuff because it was like simple fun. And we laughed. That was the thing about you never laughed at all.

You know it was so. Serious, you know. Everything and everything was on that one dice roll, you know, like I think I'm talking about it like I needed nineteen or less on AD 20 A roll 20 and I just like threw the bloody dice, you know, it's became so intense. I thought, no, I can't do this anymore. I just can't do this anymore. I've got to take got to step away and do something else and maybe come back to it.

I just never did because I went into like 5th edition and it's like no, or 4th edition or whatever. And I said no, no, sorry, not doing that. I'd rather play like second edition 40K and never go anywhere else out of that. That was just, it's just in one big sandbox. You've got all the rules, you get all the add-ons and stuff like that. That's it. I'm happy it's all contained.

That's the thing. Now, the other thing I want to talk about with you, Cody, because we talked about this before on a paint chat, was that you also played Warhammer. Renaissance or Renaissance? Absolutely. Like I said, I've always loved Warhammer. Fantasy and what happened is I found this guy, which is Jack, the guy that I mentioned earlier, the guy that I play with now. Now Andrew moved away the cross

country several years ago. So I don't get the game with Andrew anymore, but I met Jack several years ago when I first started getting back in gaming and he jumped in our 40K group and the, the guys there treated him like shit, you know, And so like, I really do not like that. If if there's a new guy that wants to get into the, you know, into the group or gaming or whatever, I treat him with the hospitality. I'm like, hey, how you doing, man?

I'm Cody. Like you want to play a game and instead, like this guy, like plays game of them and just like tables in and one turns like, you know, see you later, dude. Like and I'm just like, dude, that's no way to treat like the new guy, right? Like, so I saw Jack over there playing this game with, you know, I was playing 40K and he's over there playing with this other guy and this guy just wipes him out like two turns and Jack's like packing up his stuff. And I was like, hey, man, I'll

play a game with you. I'm Cody. What's up? You know, like introduce myself. And so we got to know each other and really cool dude, like Jack is probably, you know, one of the nicest people I've ever met in my life, just a really nice guy. And we share a lot of like the same sensibilities. Like we, we'd love, you know, we just love to play games to play games. And we're not like super competitive. I mean, we, we play to win, but

whatever. So anyways, when me and Jack started playing 40 Ki learned that he played fantasy. And I'm like, oh shit, you play fantasy. Like, you know, I have a fantasy army and nobody will play with me. So we started playing fantasy and at the time it was 8th edition. So we started playing 8th edition a lot. Like we, I just stopped playing 40K pretty much except for second edition. And we were playing fantasy and every week I'd get together with Jack and we play fantasy.

And then I realized I didn't really. Well, OK, So what happened is we went to a tournament like a couple years later and this is the first time I'd played 8th edition with other people and playing with Jack was OK. Like if we we. Had fun because Jack. 'S a good guy and it was all in the spirit of fun, but we went to this tournament and I realized like that was like the worst experience I'd ever had in my life. You know, it was it was horrible.

Besides, besides the fact that like there was a lot of beer there and like, you know, that was fun and everything and got to play some Warhammer, I realized that 8th edition as a game was complete garbage. Everybody had the same kind of army, like every army looked the same.

The guys that were playing it were complete Dick heads, you know, nobody would, you know, and it's so the first day I was like in last place in the tournament and it was a 2 day tournament and I'd already, you know, it was in another state. It was in Alabama. So I go to this tournament, I'm in last place. The beer kind of help to. Make the day a little bit better. So the second day I come back and the tournament organizer, what like was looking, you know, lining up the games and he's

like, oh, you're Cody, right. And I was like, yeah, he's like, he's like, man, I'm really shocked that you came back today. I was like, well, I mean, like I paid to play and, you know, I'm here to play some fantasy, like Warhammer fantasy. I don't care, man. Like I don't care if I win or lose. He's like, you know, he he personally was like, hey, man, like I'm really, really impressed that you came back.

That shows great sportsmanship and like, you know, that's awesome that you there was a lot of people that just dropped out like the second day. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because, you know, they were there to win or whatever. And like I was. Like play games and he's like, dude, that's really awesome. You showed back up and like play and everything. He's like, good on you, dude. Like pat me on the back. He's like, go have fun.

And actually that second day was awesome because it was all the people that had lost the previous day. And so we did, you know, nobody gave a shit, right? We're just like getting drunk because there was no, they had like kegs of beer there. It was like 10 bucks and you could drink all the beer you wanted. So we're like drinking beer and having shots under the table and just a blast while all the guys that are winning are up there like at the at the front, like super serious and like, you

know, trying to win for what? Like, I don't know, you know, because I mean, what are they going to win? Like, you know, $50 a beer? Yeah, I mean, like, so we're just having fun. We're having a blast. But that tournament made me realize I really didn't like 8th edition Fantasy. And Jack kind of came away the same way. He was like, he got his ass kicked too, by the way. And he was kind of like, we both kind of came back and like this game really in that great.

And I was like, you know, we should, we should like try out some of the older versions of Warhammer Fantasy. Would you be into that? And he's like, yeah, I think I, I think I could, you know, get behind that. So I started looking in like I played 5th edition back in the day. I played 6th edition. I, I didn't play 7th at all. I don't know anything about it. I from what I hear, it's just like 6th.

So I was kind of looking around what the best version of fantasy is. And a lot of the older guys were telling me, hey, need to look at 3rd edition. Like that was like, I think you would really like it. And I was like OK, so my girlfriend at the time bought me and I still have it. She bought me the 3rd edition fantasy hardback rule book and the Army's book for my birthday one year. She saw she saw I was looking at it and she surprised me with it. And that that was a great like

birthday present. So we me and Jackson are playing third edition fantasy and 3rd edition fantasy is a blast. Like I love it, but it is, it is crazy. Like it's insane, right? Like, and we were both like, this is fun. This is really fun as hell. But like we maybe, maybe we should look at something different. So we started looking at other like systems. I started buying other like

games and stuff. And then I found Warhammer Renaissance and I was like, man, this, it, I think it had just like come out like on Facebook and like, I was like, this looks really cool because it was kind of like Warhammer 4th edition with a little bit of like modern alterations, tiny modern alterations, but it still had that old school Warhammer Fantasy feel. I was like, this is exactly what

I want. So we started playing Warhammer Renaissance and we, we, we were playing that a lot right before COVID happened. And of course, you know, COVID happened and kind of like killed everything. But yeah, yeah, we, I, I played a lot of Warhammer Renaissance. I haven't played it recently, but I've been really itching to get back into fantasy and I think when we do get back into it, that's what we're going to play. That's become my favorite version of fantasy now for sure.

I really like it. Cheers mate. I'm going to, I think it's 12:30 I think. Oh, it's 1240, I think. It qualifies me to have my first drink of the day. Oh, there you go. So cheers to you mate. So thanks again for joining with us. And yeah, I think why my Renaissance is it's part of our group too. We play it all the time. We used to play. I had got the guys into 5th edition. 4th edition would have been a massive stretch. 3rd edition almost impossible.

Yeah, Renaissance basically bridges that gap. I think the older, newer, newer gamers, older miniatures, newer miniatures, all the profiles, new profiles, and it sort of just merges everything in together so everyone can play. Everyone has something familiar to them, whatever edition they played, and everyone enjoys it, has fun. And yeah, you still got the crazy 4th edition magic, which is awesome. And yeah, I, I really enjoy playing. I think it's it's.

Even though I love 4th edition. I love all the books and everything and but yeah, Renaissance means we're playing the game 'cause if I said if I was like stubborn and said, Oh no, I'm not playing anything, I'm only playing like 4th and 5th edition, I would never play a game. Yeah, I mean, so Renaissance is kind of like it's the saviour that we, we just needed that just to get people on getting the images on the table and actually throwing some dice and

having fun. And it's an awesome step. Like it's a living rule book. So it's all for free. Just download everything off the Facebook page you're in.

You know, that's that's the that's the other thing I really like about it is I. Don't yes, much as I like collecting the old stuff, it's gotten more expensive over the years and it that makes it really great that we can just go download the rule book every year in the army book and and they have like an extensive army list, you know, like more extensive than they did in like 4th and 5th edition.

So yeah, I, I really love it. I, I, it's definitely will be my go to for Warhammer fantasy for now on for sure. I still like I I, you know, if somebody told me, hey, let's play Warhammer 5th or 4th or I would be all about it. Me too, you know, but I think you know my go to for now on. It's gonna be Warhammer. Renaissance. Yeah, I still need the nostalgic, nostalgic kick of picking up the 4th edition books. And reading through and flipping through, I love all that.

But I can see why Renaissance is a positive mood because basically, like Nick has done Nick here in Japan, he's worked with Boulder. Boulder's the guy who created the set and worked with him in order to, you know, check all the spell descriptions, make sure they're all, you know, free

of any kind of ambiguity. You know, just making sure everything looks really clear so that, yeah, OK, some people will say, well, it doesn't really matter, You know, we can just roll A4 plus whatever, and that's fine too. But you want something that's really streamlined. So when someone comes into the game fresh, they can read everything and everything makes sense. Everything is clear, The terminology is right.

And then there's no sort of, well, what we do here or whatever, those kind of moments, because Warhammer is a system where a lot of that comes up more so than any other game I've ever played. There's a lot of like, OK, what these two interactions overlap each other or they they you know, they clash. What what takes precedence? What you know, what happens here in this situation?

So the more clarity, the more feedback they get, the more input they get into the game, the better it's just going to be for everybody. So that's awesome. That's great you're playing it because it surprised when you said, oh, yeah, I'll play one more renaissance. Like, wow, really awesome. That's good. Now we we haven't played it since before the pandemic. But I would like, I would like to jump back into fantasy. Now, unfortunately, I don't really have an intact fantasy

army right now. My chaos army is in kind of pieces. And I do have a third edition era orc army that needs to be painted and a third edition era wood elf army that needs to be painted. But I tell you what I really want to do is I want to rebuild that chaos door for me. And I'm really that's like the one regret I. Have in life is.

Selling my Chaos doors, but with all the new 3D sculpts, I think that's going to be like my, probably not my next project, but it's going to be in line for this year, is to do Chaos Dwarves. I think I want to do that. And then we maybe play some fantasy. Yeah, cool. And hopefully, hopefully we can rope in some more people. I do know some more old fantasy enthusiasts around here and they're all playing Kings of War right now, which I have no interest in.

But I think I think I could convince a couple of those guys to play some fantasy again. I'd be like, hey, you know, we're playing fantasy. Like check this out, like Warhammer Renaissance. I think. I think I could probably convince a few more people we get something going. Yeah, for sure, man. I think once they see you playing it, and that's the thing

about one. Renaissance, if they see you playing it, they've got more inclination to actually invest their time in in building an army, painting and start playing it again. You know what I mean? If you just talk about and say, yeah, let's play that and then it sort of just drifts off and no one does anything about it. So like in our situation, like tomorrow, I'm going to go down to casual to play it with the guys.

And we have, well, we did have about I think 10 people, 10 regulars, which is awesome, which is amazing for like Japan. It's incredible. Now we've got now tomorrow we've got nine people. I'm trying to get another guy coming down tomorrow if he can to play. So we're we're sort of losing people who lost Justin. Unfortunately he moved away because of work to Hong Kong. But now we've got another guy coming in.

We've got two other guys coming in who are urban Japan traveling and they wanted to play in the tournament as well. Like it's not really a tournament. It's like games day kind of thing. But it's good to see there's some kind of growth. There's some kind of stimulus there that people say, hey, these guys actually playing, you know, every couple of months they're having a some kind of games day and having a piss up afterwards. Let's go and play, you know, and

it's just fun. It's really welcoming. It's like you never play. You haven't played one more that sounds. Don't worry, it's not not a tournament. Come in. Let's get miniatures on the table. You'll pick it up in no time and you'll be laughing and you know, you're having a having a beer as you play. And you know, it's just a good atmosphere. It's nothing like a tournament. Because when you say when you say the words tournament, it's this PTSD like, Oh my God, no,

like you had that experience. Like, oh, no, no thanks. I'm not going to go to that. It's not like that at all. We do record the points, but it's not it doesn't mean the end all thing. It's like it's just for fun. You know the the best I I tell you like so. I used to play a lot of tournaments back in. The day and the best tournament I used to go to, they don't do it anymore, which is really unfortunate. It used to. What was that tournament called?

It was called like the Wall or something and they played it in Alabama and it was invite only. He had to get invited and it was in a bar. They rented out a bar for a day and had a 40K tournament there. And it was a blast because like if you, if you came with like a power army list, you were not invited back the next year. It was all about getting drunk

and having a good time. And it was, it was so much fun because like the scenario, you know, they'd have a different scenario every game and it'd be like this wacky, crazy thing and everything involved drinking. So if you captured an objective, you'd be a shot blast and you had to buy your opponent a shot, right. So everybody would just get wasted and just have a good time. And that was the best tournament I've ever been to.

And it's it's kind of a shame that it's not around anymore, but that that that guy had a good idea. That was a lot of fun. Yeah. That gives me good ideas actually, how we can do ours. Like even if it's just. Like not a tournament, like just us playing kind of thing like, yeah, you, you get, you complete this objective or something like that. Yeah, you get a shot of, you know, whatever.

You know, I think that's a really fun idea because what I don't think you and UK would agree with me, and I think a lot of the guys here would agree with me too, with the limited time we have and that limited time we're going to have to choose between all those games that we want to play, You know, when we get to the table, we want to have a good time. It's part of the enjoyment of the social aspect.

It's the game itself. And it's like, yeah, when I get together with friends, I know I'm just going to get guaranteed a good time because I know the guys, we have fun. There's no competitive kind of ego in there. It's just and we, we, we, we play, you know, to win. Of course you can play because the winning feeling is nice. But you know, if the way you do it, I think is a, is a big part of the game. And yeah, absolutely, Yeah, yeah. And we've we've all come across

various. Different types of. People in in our war gaming hobby that we probably never want to see ever again Oh yeah, absolutely. But you stick, you stick with yeah, you stick with the guys that. You know you know who are real. Human beings and you know, really like to play for fun and, and like you say, have a few drinks, have a bit of fun and enjoy the game for what it is. But narrative gaming is a big thing now. Narrative gaming is really

popular now and I like that. I like the aspect of narrative of gaming because it's not just like it's a pitch battle, very symmetrical. It's kind of like you're thrown in the situation and here's the background and, and like Rd. Trader does that very well. It portrays a story very well and it can really throw you a real big curveball and you just need to work your way through it. But it's really entertaining at the same time. So I think those kind of scenarios look really, really

popular now, I think with games. Yeah, I've always been in the narrative gaming, and I think that's because I hung out with my. Friend Andrew, and he's a narrative guy, you know, he, he was a writer and like that he had that mind. So even when we were kids playing games, he'd be like, what's the story here? You know, like we got to and he'd come up with this elaborate like story and background and stuff.

So I've always been into that. And the other thing that reinforced that for me is the historical guys, because when you play like I play like there's, there's two types of like historical games. There's like the competitive historical games and there's scenario based historical games, right? Like, and I like the scenario based where you're either playing a historical battle or you're playing something based off history. It's a, it may be a made-up battle, but it's based off of

history, right? It's based. And so like you have a referee that comes up with these objectives and all that stuff. And so that kind of reinforced it for me too. So I love having, I love narrative gaming and I love having a narrative to the games and I'm pretty lucky and that the people I usually play with enjoy that kind of stuff too. I, I mean, I'm fine with just be like, OK, you know, we're playing 1500 points, all right, bring your army and we're going to set up terrain.

I'm fine with that too. Like that's, that's all great and all, but I really like having that narrative and I like continuing that narrative too, because you know, you play the game and you can see the narrative unfolding in front of you as you're playing. And that's one thing about the older game rules too, is they kind of encourage that narrative, right? Like Rd. Traders, second edition, 40K, old versions of Fantasy 4th and 5th edition really have a lot of narrative built into the game.

So as you're playing the game, the game mechanics themselves encourage that narrative to play out in front of you and you see it all kind of playing out and you're imagining this thing happening, you know, for real. It's not, it's not like playing 40K now where it's just like very, very abstract, right? Like it's a lot more granular. And I really like that. That's one thing I really like about those older rule sets is I

get really immersed. You know, I especially Rogue Trader recently, like I've been revisiting Rogue Trader and me and Jack have actually been playing Rogue Trader. And he, I was like, OK, we're going to play this because he's never played Rogue Trader. And I was like, OK, the spirit of this game is, you know, it's a narrative experience. So I'm going to let you like set up the terrain, you come up with

the scenario. He provided the miniatures and he was kind of the GM, but we were both playing. And so he set up this whole scenario and everything. And like, we started playing and like, it was just, we, we played two games like that late the past few weeks. And it was just like some of the IT, it was amazing. Like how immersive that was, you know, like, like the, the story just really like unfolded and like, we were like, well, what are we going to do? Like in the next game?

We're already like creating a campaign based on these just impromptu like narrative games. And I think those older games really, really enforce that and encourage that not just in their, their, their, their style, but in the rules themselves, you know, just because of, of how the rules interact with the game. Like they really encourage a narrative style and it just unfolds naturally whether you want it or not, right? Because all this wacky shit is

happening in front of you. And it's, it's like a movie playing out or like a comic book or whatever, you know? So it's, yeah, I, I'm really into that and I love that. And I think that's a big part of war gaming for me is the immersion. Like it is I, I love that, you know, and, but I'm sure some people out there will say, well, Josh, your favorite game is epic. Space Marine and it's not narrative at all. And that's true. It's not. It has no narrative in built whatsoever.

It's purely a tactical game, but I love it because of that. I love the hidden deployment set up. It's all for war stuff. It's I know where the objectives laid out and there's no random there's no sort of random element to it so much but apart if you play, if you play orcs, there are some sort of random roles you've got to for the mad boys, which are just hilarious. Every time they get shot, you got to roll up two dice and see what happens to them.

They might play dead or they might run off or they might just go completely Rambo on on the enemy and something like that. So it's got some fun random elements into there. But the straight epic spaceman is just very kind of straight cut. There's no proof, you know, there's not many, there's not many chance you need to roll on that kind of thing. Whereas Rogue Trader is this really. It's built for randomness. Oh for sure, Just your creation of your army like the orcs.

You know, I don't have much experience. With the whole system, but for the orcs itself, yeah, you're basically saying, OK, I want to play this particular clan. This is the limitations or prerequisites. And from there it's all random, you know, And that's that's the beauty of it, I think. And the name generation is random. The, the weapons are random and then you sort of got to build your army around that.

And I think, I think the Nigel Stillman philosophy of wargaming really is built around that kind of thing where you create an army and you it's fixed. It's that's it. That is your 1500 point Rogue Trader war coming, for example. And then you just play that forever. You know, I think that's a real beautiful thing.

But if it's a it's a thing of its time and but I think it's nice that people like us are sort of revisiting those things that we missed out maybe all of our past that was sort of rediscovering them now. Well, I will say like, you know,

you was talking about like epic. Epic not being a narrative game rules wise, but you already come from that narrative mind space, you know, so you can play any rule set and if you're in that narrative mind space, like the rules don't have to enforce that to create a narrative, you know, So I, I think you know that you, you already have that narrative and unfolding in front of you because you grew up with that narrative experience of playing a lot of these older games. And that's still hot.

How I approach any game, whatever we're playing like I, you know, it doesn't matter what it I think also it kind of for me, it comes a lot of that probably comes from the role-playing experience too, because I've always been a heavy role player and still AM. And so I kind of want to role play too when, you know, when when I'm more gaming, I'm like, I am this Orac were boss or this Harlequin, you know, whatever, you know, grand Harlequin or whatever, you know, so like, and

it come up with a name for the guy and like start thinking about like what his background is and stuff and like really putting myself in the headspace that. And but I I like that. Like it's it's an escape and it's yeah, it's really cool. Rogue Trader. It's been really interesting to revisit that game. I will say I don't think I'll be honest, I don't think it's the greatest rule set. Like rule set wise, I think second edition is a better rule set.

But all the ideas in row trader I think are amazing. You know, like all the all the aesthetics of it, the all the wacky ideas and the free form expression of Rd. Trader is really, really cool. That's what I really enjoy about Rd. trader. The rule set I actually think has a lot of flaws. It has, I'll be honest, like it has a lot of problems. I feel the same way with 3rd edition fantasy. Like I love, I love the same thing about third edition fantasy.

It's got a lot of like the aesthetics are amazing, the arts amazing, the ideas and they're crazy cool. But as a rule set, it's, it was better like in 4th edition, 5th

edition. So what I think I'm probably going to do is take a lot of the ideas of Rogue Trader and interpret those in probably second edition and such, you know, like I, I think that's probably the way I'm going to approach it because I, I have found playing row trader again, I'm like, there's a lot of rough edges in this real set, You know, you know, I mean, it's not a bad rule set and for the time it's great, but I, I think like, you know, it, it definitely has

some things that could be better. And I think second edition was better in my opinion, But you can still take those ideas and bring them into second edition. And in fact, if you look at a lot of those old battle reports and stuff, a lot of the, you know, the studio and stuff, we're still kind of doing that. They always, they were still kind of playing in that, that narrative like style and stuff from the road trader days. And, and so that's, that's I, I

think Rd. trader is a great inspiration is basically what I'm saying. You know, I think that's like the main like thing I love about Rd. trader. I love I I still would like to play more of it and like experiment with it, But overall, like as a game, I think second edition 40K is really like my sweet spot for 40K, you know yeah, I think I'd agree with you there because yeah, if.

I think the cards for second edition built the narrative around you get the mission cards, you get the strategy cards, and it sort of tells a story within the game through the randomization of those cards. And I think I like that. I like that how it does that in second edition. So yeah, it's it's kind of like if every edition has their kind of memorable parts or things

that did better. And and then, you know, you just find the edition that you want to play or like you say, take things, extract things that you want from an edition and sort of built into that. And Rick Priestly, I think said, I don't know who said it, but he said that he likes when people play the games, but he's sort of disappointed when they don't want to change it or they don't want to evolve it somehow make

it their own game. So I think even 4th edition, if you if you look in those books, he always comments or has some kind of commentary to say, you know, use these rules as a pure guideline and please feel free to change it in any way you want to, to suit your play style. So if you take 4th edition fantasy, for example, but you like third edition aspects of 3rd edition, you can sort of just import those into 4th edition and play as your own sort of home brew rules and that

kind of thing. Yeah, yeah, for sure. So yeah, it's it's very flexible. It's it's your own game, you know, make. It make a make of it as you as you will, because in those days like Rd. trade and that kind of thing, it wasn't a competitive game. And I think that's the beauty of those games. They were not designed for tournaments. They were not designed for competitive play, organized play.

They were designed for you and your friends to create some kind of scenario play out at play out some kind of narrative and enjoy that experience. And I think Cody, you'll you'll agree with me that those narrative experience games we play are the most memorable of all the games we've ever played. You know what I mean? Like that at the time when someone set a scenario or, and there are moments in games where you think, oh, man, I'll never forget that.

That's so cool what happened there, because it was just so against the odds, but I managed to overcome it. My role to, you know, to 66 or things like that, which, you know, does stick in your mind forever. Yeah, exactly. The campaign sets for 5th edition are of particular. Interest of me because I didn't play those during the day and I only did those when I came back to playing 5th edition Warhammer.

And they are just beautiful because what it really gives you is it sets the background for you. Each, each of the the four-game scenarios you play have some kind of consequence. So if you're the winner, like if you, if you're the protagonist and if you win the game, you have certain benefits. If you lose the game, you will lose certain, certain benefits Towards the end for the final, final, penultimate, you know, 3000 battle, 3000 point battle. I love how they put them together.

I think the guys who wrote those, I think Nigel Stillman did some, I think Rick Priestly did some, Thomas Puranan did a few as well. And I think they did it for the reason of creating a narrative thing where characters weren't the dominant thing. They had a name, they had some sort of special weapon or something like that. But every everything apart from that was just your troops. There was nothing really special, you know, and they had

all the maps laid out. They had like special rules for everything, like the the the grudge of drunk had drunken minors. They'd like this really cool rule where they either had, you know, they'd either, you know, either get drunk and throw up and do nothing for the turn or that they'll should have charged forward in some kind of drunken rage. Yeah, though it had some really beautiful rules in there. And I think it was so. And those games are very memorable to me playing those

scenarios for sure. Oh, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. I remember the only one. I I actually. Bought one of those back in the day, right after I bought the 5th edition box set. I bought the High Elf and Dark Elf one, which I can't remember the name of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I saw you and Paul played the first scenario of that and originally like me and Andrew were like, OK, I'm going to, I think I was going to play High Elves and he was going to play the Dark Elves.

It never happened. And we started buying a few models here and there, but it never panned out. But I did actually buy that like campaign. And I remember it was, it was amazing. It was glorious. I never looked at the other ones. I never got it. I mean, I think I've looked at them nowadays like PDFs and stuff, but I've never never got to peruse really through the through the other ones. But yeah, those were really cool looking really cool. Yeah, absolutely, mate.

So they're they're really a gem you. Can you can import other like he play one of renet renaissance with those campaigns easily. You know you can put any kind of rules that in there kind of fixes. Got to agree with Cody Tony Tony socket together is way better, that's for sure. I think you're all good there and then my good mate Camilo. Damn, I missed this. Glad I got to pop in to say hello. We'll watch the full video afterwards. Good name Camilo. It's good to see you here mate.

In Australia, is that Camilla the the Space Wolves guy? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love that video. Yeah, he's a great guy. Yeah. Yeah, That was the first video I saw on. Your channel was that? Video you played with him with the Space Wolves and I loved him through all his Space Wolves and talking about like the history of his army. Yeah, really cool dude. Yeah, I want to get Camilla on the live stream if he if he's up to it, if he wants to.

Come in and talk about his history to into gaming and stuff that'd be really fun to do with him. So rubber dog. I wish you had the chance to see Joshua's pre yes, Falaheimer Winter Pano and his his left and his pre sectorial Tunguska he painted for Melbourne player. They're truly phenomenal. Thank you very much mate. I did yeah. They were my first commissions. I did. And when I first did commissions in Australia, I did all Infinity stuff.

So I did a big Toha one for my good friend Paul in Melbourne. And then, yeah, I sold my huge JSA army to another guy in Australia, which I kind of regret about that. I I really like that army. But again, it's kind of like the opportunity was there, I needed the money, same old story, nothing's changed. And then the Pano got sold as well. And you know, you know, it's the story of my life really. I paint and sell. That's, that's my, that's my job.

Paint, play and sell. That's the paint, paint, build and play. Whatever it is with the Dave Taylor, it's the opposite. It's the paint, build and sell. So yeah, mate, yeah. I really enjoyed doing those at the time. I loved Infinity. That was that was everything for me. Like that was the only game I ever played, the only miniatures I ever painted. I really enjoyed that time when I did it and 2nd edition, the artwork, the miniatures, the

books were brilliant. And 3rd edition sort of detracted slightly because it went into digital artwork, digital sculpting and that kind of thing. But I still see, I still see, you know, I still keep looking at it. But I think it all looks very much the same now. Everything looks the same. Nothing looks distinctively different. And that's kind of the, the off putting thing for me about it now. So yeah, hell yeah.

Thank you, GM Cody. Nice. Absolutely keen to be part of the live stream to talk. About narrative. Army building and converting. Well, let's do it mate. We'll set you in for April, my favorite month of the year. And Camilo, you'll be on here, right? And, and, and Cody's going to be chatting to you and asking you lots of questions, I'm sure. OK, well, Cody, we'll, we'll over two hours, mate. Look, I don't want to keep you all night.

I know you have your wife or partner there probably wanting to hang out with you or something like that. You probably want to go to the toilet probably, or eat something or do something like that.

Something it's something you need to do apart from talking with me. But look, it's been an awesome time, an awesome chance to catch up with you on the live stream And, and that way hopefully people can can see you and, and hear your story and and know you better and check out your channel, which is GM Cody. Is that right? That's right. Yeah, I got a little YouTube channel. GM Cody. I mainly it's very low production. I I, I do that on purpose. Well, it's just like this.

As I say, it's just like this. Yeah, it's exactly like this. So I just. Turn the camera on and I talk. I like. It and I just talk about old games I like. The one difference I would say that sets me apart from a lot of people is I go really in depth. So if I'm looking or viewing at a game, I don't care how long it takes. I go through the whole book and look through the whole thing. I don't care about chasing the algorithm or all that stuff. Like I just do it for fun.

I I love talking about games. I love games and I do a lot of role-playing stuff. I do, you know, I do some live plays on my channel and I'm part of some other games too. I run games. I am the game master, right? GM Cody, but I also play in some games with some other people. Just about every week you'll see me. Either playing or running a game.

On my channel but lately, you know, obviously I'm a big war gamer too so I've been wanting to do some more war gaming stuff on the channel and I'm trying to expand out into that so yeah go check it out GM Cody and see if you like it or not you know yeah no I'd like I said I I when I met you and thanks for joining our. Discord community because that's how we met. I took like you talked about your channel. I thought I'm going to check that out then and I saw your videos.

You reviewed Rd. Trader, the book, so basically the PDF of Rd. Trader, which is really interesting. You go through all the parts of the, of the actual book itself, the artwork and how to construct armies and the sort of philosophy behind Rd. Trader. I really liked the 1st edition role play one you did because I love that book. It's one of my, my books I've gotten was about 15 years old. It's awesome. So yeah, please go and check out Cody's channel. It's, it's full of great stuff.

It's got a lot of AD and D in there. AD and D second edition, other role-playing supplements and books that Cody's really passionate about talking about. And mate, look, overall, I'm just really happy that you, you come on and we, we found each other because I think, you know, we really clicked it off or hit it off when we first started talking. We, we, we liked the same things and it's just really nice that we got together mate, and we can do this together, mate. So cheers to you.

I, I drank all my, my sake now. Yeah, cheers, dude. I really appreciate you having me on. It's it's been great. Yeah, I've been, I've been really having a lot of fun connecting with you guys on Discord talking about all these old 90s GW games because that's a huge, like passion of mine is 90s GW. So, you know, that hits all, all the stuff for me. Awesome. Well, you've got a nicer subscriber, Camilla, to subscribe to your channel. AD and D and also Vampire. Which vampire is great.

Yeah, so that's good. So go and check out Cody's channel. It's good stuff. I like how Cody presents it, and he just talks from the heart, which is what we want to see. OK, buddy. Well, you enjoy the rest of your evening, and I'm going to see my little Pokémon boy downstairs and see what he's up to. All right, let's go back. OK, brother. Take care, man. Peace.