Transcript
Half the stuff I come up with for the beginnings of videos never works because of the requirement to have a thumbnail and title that summarizes whole thing. Hard to build up any suspense or sense of mystery when you’re supposed to show the thing before you even talk about it.
I know, I just gotta get better at making thumbnails. Just let me complain and avoid the taking responsibility. It’s what I do best.
But in the meantime, you’ve seen this thing over my shoulder for quite a few videos now. I kinda wanted to run a contest and give a little prize to whoever first guessed exactly what it is. But I couldn’t figure out how to do that either.
This is why you tune into this channel, I know. Perfect, expert knowledge from a perfect expert who gets right to the point. Every time. You’re welcome.
Anyway, today we’re gonna talk about the company who made that thing and how their product could be a great substitute for tabletop terrain and miniatures.
Greetings good humans and welcome to Tabletop Alchemy, where we talk sometimes about one of my favorite products and companies in the world that has nothing to do with our hobby and try to make it … have something … to do with our hobby …
Here’s Rowan Witchbane in a cameo, or as we in the industry call it, a lame attempt at maintaining the dear viewers’ good will! You don’t even look a the camera. It’s over there. What do I pay you for?
All right, let’s start with my classic sales pitch, often delivered in the aisle of a toy store, triggered upon hearing someone bemoan the sticker price of any particular LEGO set. And no, that’s not a facetious statement, I have definitely given this pitch several times in several toy stores. Once in a while, I am indeed “that guy”. Once in a while, you are too, let’s not kid ourselves. But you know, we try, right?
Ok, here we go:
Actually, Lego is a great company that makes an excellent product that has more value than you initially think when you’re just looking at that retail price. I’ve got five reason why.
Number One. My mom has a big plastic tub full of all the Lego pieces my siblings and I played with as kids, right? Now, the grandkids play with this same tub of Lego. And when I give a brand new Lego set to a niece or nephew or cousin, I know all those new pieces are going to work just fine with all those old ones. What company in this world makes a product right now that is 100% compatible with products they manufactured fifty or sixty years ago? It’s the literal opposite of “planned obsolescence”.
Number Two. Lego parts only lose value in one way: if they’re broken. And they are notoriously hard to break. That doesn’t mean they don’t break, just not very often. There’s a huge market for pre-owned Lego, you can always re-sell any Lego piece for typically as much – but usually more – than what you paid for it. Some folks literally invest cold hard cash in Lego parts. You know, as opposed to like precious metals. Seriously, there are people that do this.
Number Three. Lego is a medium more than a simple product. I mean, you buy one set of Lego and you can build an infinite number of things out of it. That alone gives it enormous value, way more than even paints or clay that will eventually run out or dry up, et cetera. And as a medium, it inspires creativity just by the very nature of what it is and how it works. And it works equally as well as a cooperative activity as it does as a solo activity.
Number Four. The Lego Company, which is currently a privately held company, meaning there are no shareholders demanding short term profits, the Lego company has set its own sustainability goals – and consistently met them. Their main headquarters in Denmark where all the design work and some packaging is done is 100% sustainably powered from an energy perspective. They are transitioning from their traditional petroleum-based plastic to more sustainable plant-based oil synthetics and already manufacture a small percentage of their pieces in this new material.
Number Five. Who doesn’t like Lego? Kids, adults, octogenarians, everyone has fun creating with Lego. And of course working with it teaches all kinds of concepts, from arts and crafts to math and engineering to design and fabrication. It’s a truly fantastic product with a fantastic philosophy behind it.
But, what in the world does Lego have to do with our tabletop hobby? I’m sure most of you know where I’m going to go with this, I mean, it was in the thumbnail. Or the title. It was spoiled somewhere.
I think Lego can be a pretty cool alternative to crafting terrain or painting miniatures. Actually, I should say, an alternative to “using” traditionally crafted terrain or painted miniatures in tabletop games. And this goes for both tabletop RPGs and skirmish games.
Now when I thought about this video topic I had no idea this existed. Yep, a whole sub reddit dedicated to rpg Lego builds and ideas. This shot of a manticore battle is pretty cool. Just googling “lego skirmish game terrain” brings up a ton of inspiration.
My first encounter with this idea was at a Lego convention in Silicon Valley – Bricks By The Bay. Someone there was running Zombicide games with 100% Lego assets, from terrain to minifigs. Another staple of most Lego conventions are huge Star Wars battle boards, they’ll be like five feet long and have hundreds of troop minifigs and ships and sometimes really big chunks of terrain. Actually there are always a ton of builds – wait, a ton of MOCs, if I don’t get the nomenclature correct LUGs are gonna deploy AFOLs to come after me – I’m kidding of course, most AFOLs are very nice people, just like tabletop hobbyists. Anyway, there are always tons of MOCs – that stands for My Own Creation – that look like fantasy and sci-fi terrain. There’s always something amazing to trip out on. I bought a damn book just about this one Mouseguard village build, it was so cool! And I was even able to buy a couple 3rd party Mouseguard minifig heads! They are pretty rad.
Here’s my MOC that I took to display at the show. The roof is removable, and making it was a pain in the ass but I really wanted this “thatched roof” kinda vibe. The minifigs are built from official Lego parts and 3rd party custom parts. But hey, looks like a war band or adventuring party to me!
All right let’s be honest. Building Lego terrain, even at minifig scale let alone at 28mm or 32mm, can take just as long or in some cases, longer, than crafting traditional terrain. And builds can get more expensive than using regular hobby materials for sure. The flip side of that is, as we’ve already pointed out, anything built out of Lego can be rebuilt into new stuff … I think there’s a formula for this. Yeah, there it is. And there’s also that re-sellability of all Lego parts.
I do think you could build scatter terrain or dungeon tiles or walls pretty quick. Rubble, little sci-fi bits, trees, even whole forests. Look at these Lego trees, they are pretty sweet and these kinds of builds are not super expensive to pull off. And if they break, you just put ‘em back together.
Now speaking of scale, there might be an issue regarding skirmish games, but I bet if you just used similar sized base plates, everything should work out relatively fine. Definitely for D&D or tabletop rpgs I don’t think this is an issue.
Now also like I mentioned, there’s a huge 3rd party market with which to engage. You can buy, sell, and trade Lego parts. Bricklink is by far the most well-known but there are several sites like this.
All right, hold up, before we go any further. The Lego hobby can be just as addicting as our own tabletop hobby. And I know. And you’ve been warned.
But check this Bricklink site out, it’s kind of amazing. You can search for individual parts by color, type, quantity, part number, part name, you can search for sets, you can find out what sets a particular part was originally distributed in. You can compare prices from multiple stores selling the same parts. You can buy new, unopened sets, used sets, you can look up a set, save its parts list and then run a cross-reference search for all of those parts and find all of the stores selling all of the pieces you would need to build that set. It’s basically endless. Look, we can buy a single banana. Just one. You know, for your pirate monkey or whatever. We should all have at least one Lego banana. It’s just a cool miniature.
But what about other people’s designs and builds? There are all kinds of sites that sell or even offer free building instructions. This site, Rebrickable, sells instructions folks have made for alternative builds you can make with just the parts from official Lego sets you already own. There are browser-based 3d building environments you can use to create a build virtually and then punch out a parts list and order the parts and bam, you’ve got a MOC IRL.
As for custom minifigs and minifig props, there are awesome creators out there who offer plenty of products to drain your wallet – I mean provide you with very cool custom parts that are basically indistinguishable from official Lego parts. In fact, a lot of them apply custom print designs to actual Lego pieces.
You can also buy Lego in bulk, either 2nd hand or sometimes from Lego itself. Probably my favorite activity at Lego conventions – aside from just gawking at all the amazing builds in person – is to visit the bulk parts sellers where you can comb through 55 gallon drums of pieces and ferret out just the cool parts you want, and then pay for them by weight.
You might already have some Lego in your house. Revealing a Lego scene could be a fun thing to surprise your players with, or you could taunt your potential war-game opponent with things like “My Lego minifigs are gonna kick your space marines’ armored asses!”
Wait, what?
Ha! You read it, I totally knew you would!
Pardon me.
Actually, I did put together a whole female space marine squad … and they’ve got an attack drone too.
Here’s another thought, maybe Lego’s a way to introduce kids to various games. And you know, you can put ‘em to work – I need seventeen Lego trees, don’t come outta your room til they’re done! Free labor!
This channel’s getting demonetized for sure.
Anyway, Lego for me fits right into my tabletop hobby … appreciation? Obsession? Fixation? Thing that I like? Whatever the word is for it, Lego kinda hits the same serotonin receptors as miniatures do, for me. It’s got the building element, the designing element, the playing element. I mean, it’s different for sure, but its more similar than it is different.
The way I got back into Lego was a friend showing me a Lego store some years ago and I saw this set right here. I mean, I hadn’t paid attention to Lego for like 30 years, and I was just so impressed with how detailed this Ecto One was, I was like, whoa, this looks like an actual miniature, like a model. And so I bought that set and building it was so cool, I instantly graduated to an adult fan of Lego status.
Now I know Lego is not really going to be something you guys would probably really use in your tabletop games, but you never know. I just wanted to share.
Ah, so many hobbies, so little time.
Well, if you fall in, have fun exploring the Lego rabbit hole.
See ya on the other side!