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Criticizing Games Workshop Prices Is Silly!

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Here’s a hot take for ya: whining about Games Workshop prices and business practices is silly. 

Welcome to Tabletop Alchemy, where we bait the trolls with gusto!

All right, all right, all right, let me burn a fifth level spell slot and cast protection of, uh, protection from comment section hate. If you’re just a Warhammer player, that was a D&D reference. Okay, yes, obviously today’s title is meant to be click-baity, but it’s also the legit topic of this video. Let’s start with disclaimers:

First off, I don’t think wanting a company to lower their prices or do something different than they’ve been doing, I don’t think that’s silly. We all react to things, we all think things. We all think things? Yeah, I’m a good writer. 

I do however think it’s silly to waste a lot of mental energy complaining about something that doesn’t really have any solution and also just goes against plain logic. I’m not here to preach or lecture, you know that – I’m just here to shoot the [bleep] with you about tabletop gaming stuff.

So. Games Workshop. Let’s call them the Apple of the tabletop wargaming hobby. Oh, but if they’re Apple in this metaphor, then who’s Microsoft? I don’t know, I don’t think things through, where do you think you are? Miniac’s channel? Goobertown? Nah-uh, you ain’t there, you here. With me. Re-evaluating life choices, that sorta thing.

Anyway, let’s talk about capitalism. Ostensibly we are supposedly living in a capitalistic society. We don’t truly, but that’s a different video and probably different channel altogether. So IN this wonderful society, YOU, that’s right, you, sitting right there, other side of this screen, YOU can start a company. Start one today. Start one tomorrow. Whenever you want. Point is, you can literally just start a company. Pick out a name, provide a service or a product – or, you know, pull an Enron and just make shit up – but then file some paperwork, and boom – you’re off to the races. 

So what’s the point of your company? I mean like the base-level, fundamental point of the company? Unless you’re a non-profit organization – and even that’s a little iffy – but unless you’re a non-profit, my guess is one of the fundamental reasons for starting your company is to make a profit. Yeah, I know, super revelatory, right? You didn’t see that one coming at all. You wanna make some money! Put food in the fridge, a car in your garage, ducats in your bank, crypto-wallet, under the mattress, whatever. 

Now of course there are probably secondary goals, like creating something useful for people, making or providing something people love to engage with, etc. but we also live in a world where pharmaceutical companies are for-profit – in SOME countries … okay, maybe one country – anyway, the point is, they charge blatantly exorbitant fees for life-saving medication. Welcome to the world we’ve decided to build for ourselves. Have a good time!

In the overall scheme of things, Warhammer is a luxury item, just like an iWatch. And just as completely unnecessary. Warhammer – and iWatches – are solely for entertainment. There’s a whole lotta people who might wanna play Warhammer that simply can’t afford it. Luckily, there’s a whole world of tabletop games out there that they might be able to get into with less financial investment and there are thousands of videos from excellent content creators discussing exactly how one can get into the wargaming hobby for as few ducats as possible.

Just an aside here: “ducat” means “gold coin”. So for our purposes it just means money. Gimme them ducats!

So this perpetual complaint floats around the ether: why is GW so expensive? Why can’t they be cheaper? Why can’t I buy an iWatch for $200? It’s just so unfair!

Here are some things that I, personally, keep in mind: Games Workshop is selling an experience – a fully designed and immersive experience, from website to table. They are the Disney of wargaming, the Apple Store of game stores. And that experience, as well as their high-end product, is expensive to produce. And one thing I’ve learned from … living … is that almost every single thing out there is more difficult to do than an outside perspective would initially lead one to believe. 

Now, does producing all this high-end product require all of GW’s profit? No, of course not. Most of their profit goes to their shareholders and that’s a whole ‘nother ball of demented wax that needs to be dealt with. Personally I feel like the shareholder phenomenon is doing a lot of bad things for the world in general, but hey, we all wanna git rich right? 

But the shareholders are financing GW’s production costs on future projects. Invest, then ROI – that’s what everyone wants. Even you. You invest your ducats in game products and you expect a long term ROI, that’s “return on investment”, which, in this example, isn’t financial, but rather spiritual and mental. You wanna be creative and you wanna have fun with your friends. Or you wanna play a non-physical competitive sport. Or you’re collecting products ‘cause you’re addicted to buying things. Don’t look at me like that, I know what I am. Anyway, that’s your return on your investment.

Let’s get back to your hypothetical – but very possible – business. You’re running your shop, you’re making things, you’re doing things, and someone walks up to you with Marsellus Wallace’s briefcase. And they say, here you go, take this, go make bigger and better things, grow your business, make more profit. Go on, take it, it’s yours, we believe in you. Well, that sounds great right? But of course, you’re wondering, what’s the catch? They shrug and smile and say … no catch. We just want a share of your future profits. That’s fair, right? We line your pockets now, you line ours in the future. 

So. Who’s gonna turn down Marsellus Wallace’s glowing briefcase? You? Doubtful. But down the line, you realize them shareholders, they’re a little more demanding than you thought they were gonna be. And because of all this paperwork you signed and promises you made, you gotta get them some money. Every month. Of every year. Forever. Cause if you don’t, they’ll pull their funding outta your business and then you gotta fire half your staff, slow down production, lose customers, lose marketshare, and watch those digits in your digital bank account shrink like shrinky dinks. I know – I’m a wordsmith. Moving on.  

I’m sure up to this point, it sounds like I’m defending Games Workshop as a company. I assure you, dear viewer, I am not. I criticize GW and a bunch of other companies in my head all the time. And in conversation with other people, sure. Criticism is an intrinsic part of society, which is not only totally fine, but frankly, absolutely necessary. 

Criticism is definitely one way to affect a company – but there’s effective criticism and then there’s just complaining. And change in a company’s attitude or business practices isn’t gonna happen unless customers put their money where their mouths are, i.e., keeping their ducats in their pockets. Keeping their ducats in their pockets! Ducats in their pockets – what am I saying? I don’t – I don’t even know. I don’t know what I’m saying. Now don’t get me wrong, I personally feel anyone can say whatever they want about a company, free speech and all that, I’m for it, of course, and your feelings are yours, they’re no less or more important than anyone else’s, especially mine. 

But I will say this – Games Workshop has exactly 0 incentive to capitulate to most criticism – in fact, they’re usually just getting free advertising from it. The only action that will cause Games Workshop to shift its prices is their customers actually NOT purchasing GW products. And if they ever do lower prices, I’m sure somewhere in the company, existing quality will fall, somehow, some way, something will be impacted. They’ve got so many artists and designers, writers and producers, managers and technicians working for them, it just costs a lot of money to bring you a brand new bitchin’ box of Skaven or Space Marines, it just does.

And touching on their prices, other than those $35 and $40 heroes and commanders, their boxes of multi-miniature units are really not that much more expensive if you compare them figure-for-figure cost-wise to similar quality single miniatures produced by other companies. But don’t worry about GW, we might get what we want sooner rather than later. The 3D printing revolution is just getting started. We’ve got AI that can create illustrations from a descriptive sentence and we’ve got print-on-demand centers in most countries that allow smaller game systems to produce and ship products locally to customers, we’ve got virtual tabletop simulators for people who want to play tabletop games with their friends who live on opposite sides of the planet! There’s a lot of disruption going on, a lotta change and it ain’t gonna slow down. We are all spoiled for choice. 

All right, that’s enough for now, drop an angry comment below or a thumbs down, whatever makes you happy, and I’ll see ya when I see ya – go roll some dice!

You like them eyes? Big eyes? Go roll some dice! Know how many times I’ve said that? You know how many times I’ve said the go roll some dice line? I’m not gonna tell you. See ya!

How To Create A Pantheon For Your Homebrew World

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A mass of skeletal fiends, a field of undead, claws and rips its way from the once-consecrated, now-defiled earth. On the hill overlooking the ancient cemetery stands an odd band of heroic mercenaries, there a cloaked silver-haired rogue, here a brutal dwarven fighter, and stepping into the center, backlit by the swollen moon, a figure in glittering full plate commanding the attention of the shuddering blight below. 

They bolster their shield, that gleaming symbol of stout defiance in the face of creeping death, vowing the light of faith shall never darken beneath the onslaught of evil. Raising one gauntleted fist to the heavens, seeking to call down a great smiting of the enemy from their god above, in their heart of hearts beseeching their deity for the privilege of being a conduit for the divine’s cleansing wrath. And as the tide of shambling death surges forward, gnashing rictus grins, mad rattle of the unholy risen, they call upon their lord – 

“What’s my god’s name again?” The player’s looking at you. It’s an honest question. You hold up a finger, pull out your iPad and hastily flick through your notes. Where’s that damn google doc with the links again? 

A guide to the gods! Yes! For your players, for your world, just for fun even? Let’s talk about how you even start creating a complete pantheon of deities to rule and harass the denizens of your world. 

Greetings good humans and welcome back to Tabletop Alchemy, where your host has a face for radio and we chat about all kinds of weird and wild tabletop hobby stuff. 

So you’re creating a world – I’m sorry, your BUILDING a world, you’re world-building – and your world needs religion! Cause the denizens of your world need something to fight over. And something to blame their troubles on. Something to have faith in and from which to draw power. Beings of light to worship and plead with, shadowy things to bargain and make deals with. 

So yeah, you need some gods. And some demi-gods. Maybe some saints, maybe some devils, some celestial family squabbling that leads to world-shattering cataclysms. The fun things gods can do!

All right, today I thought I’d share how I’ve gone about creating the pantheon for my homebrew DnD world. And maybe some of these thoughts can inspire or help you in creating your own set of tyrannical, power-hungry, soul-eating deities.

What’s the main goal of having a pantheon for your rpg world? 

To me, there’s the obvious game mechanic of player characters needing some outside forces that justify entire character classes – cleric, druid, warlock, et cetera. In fact, there are probably more classes and sub-classes that need some kind of deity in the game than don’t. Wizards yank power from some ethereal aether of magic and everyone else needs to tap into some kind of divine essence to justify where their lightning bolts come from. 

But another reason a pantheon exists is to literally help shape the societies in a world. There’s just something extremely fundamental about humans believing or having faith in something unseen, something inscrutable and vastly more powerful than our mere human-ness. And these beliefs basically create instant methods of introducing conflict and factions within your world. 

A third reason is, in my opinion, creating stuff is just fun. It’s actually another fundamental human drive, this need to create. So coming up with a pantheon is just another facet of your world you get to pour creativity into. And you can literally do anything you want! I mean, it’s gods, you’re the ultimate god of your world.

So here we are, at the stereotypical “dreaded” blank page. As most successful artists and writers say – put something on the page, just make it “not empty”. Doesn’t matter what it is, just put something down.

The first thing that occurred to me was a number sequence. Three. Six. Nine. I like the implied symmetry of that sequence, even though it’s not really symmetrical. Now, you’re gonna generate ideas based on stuff you’ve been exposed to, ideas you’ve encountered and considered, media you’ve watched and read, everything out there you’ve processed through your own personal filter. And your imagination is gonna do it’s thing, it’s gonna run its algorithm on all that stuff and synthesize new ideas that you can slap down on this blank page and bloody it up so you can get into the mess of creation.

Now I come from a writing background originally and as much as I wish I could paint, sketch or draw original art – I really do wish I could do those things, we might talk about that in another video. So the next thing that occurred to me after the 3 – 6 – 9 sequence was alliteration: the words “Six Saints of Sinners” popped into my head so I wrote ‘em down. Then “Nine Daemons of Darkness”. At this point, nothing you write down is a waste, no matter how silly or random it feels initially. It’s all sorta raw material you get to work with and refine as you go.

As this idea sorta coalesced, I also got an image in my head from the number sequence. A triangle. Or more specifically, a pyramid. The gods are a pyramid scheme. Perfect. Anyway, I felt there was this geometry forming, which of course is not really geometrical in the maths sense. The actual geometry of fitting triangles inside a pyramid would probably be 1-3-5, and that’s actually a completely viable hierarchy if you wanted to go with that.

Also, I’m definitely not trying to say you should start your pantheon creation process with a number sequence. Not at all. My point is that you should just start writing down or drawing stuff and see where it goes. Go with the flow is exactly what this is all about.

I didn’t have any verbiage for the number three, but the number sequence and these two phrases – Six Saints of Sinners and Nine Daemons of Darkness – kicked off my overall pantheon idea. Personally, I find a lot of published pantheons to be overly crunchy, insofar as the number of deities they include. I thought with this 3 – 6 – 9 structure would help me keep a handle on just how many gods I was gonna create. Keep things simple, stupid, that’s what I told myself. But of course, we all know, there’s not a single thing in the universe that is as simple as we’d like to believe. Well, in some cases, maybe a lotta cases, things are often more simple than we assume. Okay, okay, I’m trying to stay away from rabbit holes, let’s move on. 

So, keep things simple, stupid and – case in point – I immediately made the idea more complex. I thought the top three gods might actually have multiple facets, or perceived entities that were actually the same being. You know, a diamond has facets and which facets you actually see depends upon your viewing angle. So if each facet of this hypothetical diamond was a different color and you and your friend are looking at this diamond from different sides, you might say, “This diamond is blue.” And they might say, “Nope, it’s yellow.”  Instant conflict. Over the same object. So my top three gods are perceived or interpreted as twelve entities by different factions in my world. Hold on, it’s getting confusing, I know. Let me explain.

So I have a background in Catholicism because I grew up in a very Catholic household. When I was like nine or ten I had to read the entire Bible. I’ve never been truly religious, in fact, I’d call myself agnostic going back as far as first grade when I was surprised by my realization that everyone seemed to be interpreting the Bible *literally* rather than figuratively. 

No offense is meant toward any faithful out there – I’m agnostic, that means I’m just saying, “I don’t know.” But this is all content for some other channel. Yeah, the proverbial rabbit hole channel.

Here though, my admittedly shallow knowledge of the Bible became inspiring. I considered the idea that Christians have this strange sort of almost “soft magic system” type of pantheon. Specifically what’s known as the Holy Trinity. So there’s God, there’s Jesus, the Son of God, and then there’s the Holy Spirit. And these three entities are individuals and yet simultaneously are aspects of the same entity. 

Yeah. It’s like a soft magic system – something that’s deliberately obscure in comprehensibility. This type of thing imparts an “other world-ness”, a “beyond-human-understanding” quality. And I thought, yeah, that can be cool in my pantheon. Gods should be inscrutable. And it allows me to basically have more gods than the number three implies. 

So I kept riffing. Three S-tier gods. Each one has four worship-able – worship – worship able – worship-able aspects. 

I decided there were probably two humanoid aspects based on perceived gender. And then, what does every rpg need in its cosmos? Gargantuan creatures! Of course, right? So that’s a third aspect right there, the monstrous aspect. 

And my own background of fiction and non-fiction consumption has definitely left me with this feeling that symbols are often ascribed with power by humans, and so I decided the fourth aspect would be a symbol, or even cooler, a “cypher”, a facet absolutely devoid of gender of any type, of even nature or corporeality, physical-ness, et cetera – a symbol that some people might worship as representing and simultaneously BEING the god itself. 

So this got real complicated real quick but ultimately it’s just a stream of consciousness, I was just writing down whatever came to mind. It’s kinda like sculpting. You have a mass of medium – in this case, connected ideas – and you just sort of mold it and shape it – you can use this same technique for writing or drawing, whatever, just let the ideas flow. You can – and WILL – prune that crazy out-of-control banzai tree of ideas soon enough. It’s always gonna be better to have too many ideas and be able to cut ‘em down than not have enough. And giving yourself freedom to write down anything, no matter how dumb it sounds, that’s, well, that’s freedom. You feel free. And that’s very conducive to creativity. Although limitations are also conducive to creativity.

Anyway, I took a break on the S tier gods and moved on to the Six Saints. Now at this point, I knew that graphically speaking, since there were going to be Nine Daemons of Darkness, there was this implied geometric or visual structure to the Pantheon that included a gradient from light to darkness. Very simplistic, of course. Light and Dark, that’s the way of the world, or at least how a lot of us humans see it. So I knew that this middle tier of deity was the gray zone. Where the light and dark mix. And what or who in a universe lives in the gray zone the most? To me, that’s humanoid emotions and intelligence. 

Just a note, I keep saying “humanoid” rather than human because of course in my D&D world and probably most of yours, there are plenty of D&D races – elves, dwarves, goblins, tabaxi, you know, whatever. It seemed wrong to just lump them all into the term “human” if “humans” are in fact just another race of beings. So I’m leaning into “humanoid” to collectively refer to all the people or races in my homebrew world. I don’t particularly like the word “humanoid” because it’s still “human” centric.

So I’d love a different word that refers to the collective intelligent life on a fantasy world but I just – I don’t know what that should be. Probably because I’m just under-read. Maybe … Anthropomorphity. All of humanity! All of anthropomorphity! I don’t know. Panthropomorphity. Panspyria! These aren’t words, I know that. But if you have any ideas for what to call the collective intelligence on a world that isn’t all human, help me out in the comments. Seriously. No, seriously, I need help. They won’t let me outta here.

So back to the gray zone of anthropomorphity. I don’t think that’s gonna stick. Anyway, my Six Saints of Sinners are gonna represent humanoid-type mental aspects and drives. The Nine Daemons’ll represent the darker emotional aspects of those same people. But I also notice the math again, the numbers. Six is cleanly divisible by three and so I can to align two Saints with each S-tier god. I figure these Saints are all demigods, whatever that means. I mean, I know what a demigod is – beings with partial or lesser divine power than those s-tier entities – but really, demigod can mean whatever you want it to mean. Cause the space between a human and an all-powerful god is vast indeed. And within these two-by-two-by-two separations, I can have each pair of Saints be of an opposing gender. 

Now, I know the idea of gender in our society is rapidly evolving, and that’s totally fine and to be honest probably an inevitable part of human evolution. More and more as we progress into the future, I’m often reminded of the excellent comic book series Transmetropolitan by Warren Ellis – I mean, the concept of Hunter S Thompson dropped into a cyberpunk city? It’s glorious. I highly recommend it. 

In my own head space, when I’m referring to “gender” as far as my Pantheon goes, I’m thinking more along the lines of how languages other than English have word conjugations referred to as “masculine” or “feminine”. One of the deities in my Pantheon is called Saint Sellastian, nominally the “masculine” half of the god Umbrael’s pair of Saints. Masculine in this case doesn’t mean biological, it just means some members of society might ascribe certain attributes of their choosing to that particular entity. 

And this notion of different people ascribing different attributes to the same entity is an intrinsic part of my home brew world’s religions. It’s back to that hypothetical multi-colored diamond thing I talked about earlier. Here in our real world, on a personal level, I feel that many of the religions and religious factions that exist are describing and worshipping and arguing about the same thing, just from different perspectives. And I find that endlessly fascinating. 

I also specifically did not want to create a separate pantheon for different races – that, to me, is a road into mind-numbing chaos as far as world-building goes. For me! Just for me. I ran with this idea that, for example, the elves worship the same four aspects of Umbrael as the lizard folk do, but they would argue about the look and qualities and scriptures pertaining to Umbrael, even though it’s the same entity. It allows for the inevitable religious conflicts that are part of any world, even with a limited pantheon. I mean, look at just Christianity! There are who knows how many factions of subtle differences of belief in the same damn thing! We create so much fun and games for ourselves, don’t we? 

So the Nine Daemons of Darkness, a.k.a. The Shroud, these things are basically embodiments of the seven deadly sins with a couple extra to round up the number. Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Pride, Lust, and  Envy. Hold on, this not even my desk. 

And again, we have some satisfying math: each S-tier god can have a pair of Saints and a triptych of Demons. And thus, there are three more triangle geometries within the greater structure – pyramids everywhere! So I just like the coolness of the sequencing, it feels both organized and poetic, even if all the mathheads out there are freaking out about the falsehood of any actual geometry in my nonsense here. 

Sorry, guys. It’s okay to get twitchy – I get that way about words sometimes. Aesthetic vs aesTetic? Makes me shudder. 

All right, so now I’ve got a list of 18 entities and an established hierarchy. Organization is a key part of a pantheon, because pantheons are just like literally everything else we experience in this life – structured, in some way. Everything is fractals!  

So having the organization nailed down, for me, is a big deal. Now I feel like the foundational work is over and the fun work is just beginning. Cause next we get to come up with all the details, all the cool attributes for these entities: fancy names, bizarre symbols, spheres of influence, powers, followers, congregations, even stuff like where they live, you know, if you’re into the, like, extra planar stuff, you know like the Ethereal Plane, the Elemental Planes, all that cool stuff.

Here’s a quick overview of how I broke down the spheres of influence for the pantheon in my world. Each tier gets a title, the Luminary, which is the S-tier gods, the mightiest of the almighties. The Silver or The Sinners’ Saints, those are our six demi-gods who operate within the grayest area of influence. And the Shroud, the nine demons of darkness, those things crawling out of the shadows. The titles were just a way for me to sort of reinforce this light to dark gradient thing.

World Anvil, which produces this page we’re looking at right now, offers a really helpful series of prompts in their world-building templates. One of those was a suggestion for coming up with idioms, phrases people might say when referring to the gods or swearing or just general exclamations in conversation. And again, these are just fun ideas I am continuing to work with that lend a bunch of consistent flavor to the world for my player characters. Stuff like “Saints be damned!” or “By the gray!” or “What in nine shades is that?!” Just good little dialogue bits for NPCs.

Here are the S-tier gods, their two masculine/feminine aspect names, their monstrous aspect name, the name of their symbol or cypher aspect and their spheres of influence. You see I’ve got one entity presiding over and within the sphere of Nature – this includes the four elements and the biosphere; I’ve got one presiding over and within the sphere Spirit and Mystery – this covers time, magic, death, the unknown; and the last presides over and within humanoidkind, encompassing language, intelligence, art, philosophy, and emotion. It’s all highly scientific!

Then we have the Six Saints, pairs of which align with or serve one of the S-tier gods. And all I’ve got so far for these are crazy titles and nicknames, which kind of evoke what they have influence over or affect in the world, and that’s all I need for now. Development on these entities can and will continue for a long time I’m sure.

Last, the demons and the list of their areas of expertise. And you see here I’ve got a note for myself: Other things that fall under demonic influence within the hierarchy of the three pyramids are plague slash sickness of the body (that’s Izosh the Nature god’s purview), insanity slash sickness of the mind (that’s Athron’s purview, the god of humanoidkind), and corruption slash sickness of the soul (Umbrael’s purview, the god of Spirit and Mystery). You can see here exactly how my original random idea of using numbers and math to sort of structure out the Pantheon continues to sort of focus and direct my future musings on possible additions and details concerning the religious aether of my world. 

Now all of this is just using my own world building as an example. You’re building your own pantheons and worlds in ways that make sense to you and what you wanna see and tell stories about. There are tons of ideas out there and your mind is gonna work differently than mine. Almost certainly it’s gonna work better than mine. 

Basically the bottom line is, maybe there are some ideas in here that can help you crank out your own pantheon. Technically, as I said before, the only idea I’m really trying to share here is the notion that you can just start slapping ideas down and start futzing with ‘em – pretty soon you’ll have a something interesting and cool and above all else, usable! Playable!

So, go crush some dreams with the whims of your deities and make your world tremble with their unearthly presence. And always remember to have fun while doing so. See ya!

Priming MDF Terrain

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They say that everyone knows the best way to prime MDF terrain is with a rattle can. Because MDF is water-absorbent and lacquers fill in better. But what if you live in an apartment or other space that is not conducive to rattle can spraying (like me)? Will primers fill in all that precision laser etched detail? Are your water-based paints gonna warp the material of those miniature buildings and barricades? What if we sealed the MDF first in a matte or gloss clear coat? Or does any of this nonsense matter at all?

Today we gonna find out, ‘cause not only am I’m new to MDF terrain, but I, ironically, have quite a bit of it buried in the Pile of Opportunity. And also, I like to share. 

[intro]

Welcome to Tabletop Alchemy, where we’re not embarrassed to be noobs and try out new things. I’m Ignatius and you’re you and we’re on this tabletop hobby journey together. 

So, as I said, I’m new to the whole laser-cut MDF terrain scene. There’s a ton of it out there and a few years ago, I imported some rather … large collections of MDF terrain kits from England and Australia. Specifically from TT Combat and Knights of Dice. And on top of that, I’ve already built all the kits. That’s right. Mostly while watching Season Two of Critical Role. Yeah, I’ve had these things for a while. Anyway, the point here is that I have a ton of miniature buildings to paint up and I’ve never painted a lick of MDF.

I’ve chosen the most basic, simple, almost throw-away model I have in my collection to run today’s tests on. Actually, this entire video production is a test for me – I’ve never produced a “work desk slash tutorial” type of video before and the process definitely has a learning curve to it. So I’ve tried my best and I’ve learned quite a bit about the actual shooting side of things, so hopefully in the future I’ll get better at making this type of content.

That all said, when looking at this MDF terrain, the first thing I notice is how fine the detail is on these things. I was kinda worried that primer and paint might fill in all this stuff, and I’ve heard from various sources online that detail could in fact be lost depending on the type of paint or primer you use. The MDF itself has a tooth to it that creates this subtle texture and I didn’t know what to expect putting paint over that either.  

Real quick, for those of you that wanna know, MDF stands for Medium Density Fibreboard. It’s made by breaking down hard or softwood into fine particles, and then re-combining those particles with wax and a resin binder to create a workable end material. Terrain kits are made out of pretty thin sheets of this stuff, thin enough that prosumer-grade lasers can cut right through it. And also etch in all these tiny details. And the details are actually really cool and I definitely didn’t wanna lose any of that if possible.

I glued up the kits with wood glue and as you can see, the parts don’t always go together as easily as you’d hope and I didn’t always take the time to be super-precise. You could put a lot of work into these kits to make really tight, finished display pieces out of them, like sanding and filling the flat dovetail joints, et cetera. But, really, we’re tabletop hobbyists – who’s got time for that? We wanna role some dice!

All right, enough of my excuses, let’s get on with it. Keep in mind this is just a series of tests and I’m not finishing the model up for this video – we just wanna see how the different primer techniques work. I’ll most likely repaint this entire model at some point to actually finish it up.

I wanna try out five specific techniques:

One, airbrushing acrylic primer. Here I’m gonna use Stynylrez gray. Cause that’s what I got. I like this primer, I haven’t tried Vallejo or ProAcryl, or some of the other brands, maybe I’ll try something new after I use all this stuff up. 

Two, airbrushing matte varnish followed by primer. Here I’ll use Vallejo’s Mecha flat varnish. I seal my minis with this stuff all the time.

Three, airbrushing gloss varnish followed by matte varnish followed by primer. I’m sure this sounds ridiculous. The idea with this one is that gloss varnish is typically much more durable and protective than matte varnish and I’m wondering if it might seal the MDF better than just matte varnish on it’s own. The matte will go over the gloss to bring back some tooth for the primer to bite into.

Four, hand painting on a coat of Modpodge and paint mix. I’m planning to use acrylic inks to tint the modpodge – spoiler: that doesn’t go well, so I end up using, well, you’ll see.

and Five, just airbrushing paint right onto the MDF.

I’m using one of the cheapest airbrushes available, the classic $30 Masters G233, cause that’s the only airbrush I own. And I use it for two things: priming miniatures and clear coating them after they’re painted. Here’s an interesting detail about that airbrush: apparently Iwata failed to protect it’s patent on it’s general internal airbrush design at some point and so this brush right here is almost an identical copy of the Iwata HP-C. Now it’s parts quality and machining are almost definitely not up to par with an Iwata’s but still, I think that’s funny. Anyway, this brush is what I call a beater, you can push a lotta crap through it and if it jams up beyond repair, just order a new one. All that said, I do clean this thing after each use and it’s worked fine for me for years. I’ve only ever used the largest needle for paint volume, but one day I wanna try the smaller needles and see if this thing can actually do any kind of detail work. 

And that said, let me declare “I declare” I am not savvy with airbrush work. Dumping primer on a model is one thing, doing actual artistic paintwork with an airbrush is definitely another.

All right, first thing I did was label each wall with the technique I planned to use on it so I could keep track after the primer and paint went on. I started out with the gloss varnish, since it’s the lowest level of application. I use a bit of airbrush thinner or flow improver with the clear varnishes, it just seems to help stop clogging in the brush. I just use a bit, I don’t thin the varnish nearly as much as I would actual paint.

After cleaning the gloss out of the brush, I gave the gloss coat a bit of time to dry and then I put down the matte coat over the gloss … and over the raw MDF on this face of the building.

Then it was time for the gray primer and I was instantly surprised by what happened. It seemed to highlight the surface details really well. Didn’t seem to fill in anything. The MDF does seem to soak up a bit of the primer but nothing like I was led to believe was gonna happen. I sprayed a pretty liberal amount of primer just to see what it did. To be honest, the primer going right over the MDF itself seems to work great.

So onto the ModPodge. As you can see, the acrylic inks reacted … weird. It’s like the inks congealed into colored sand or something. My inks are fairly old, I guess, I mean I don’t know what qualifies as old for artist’s inks, they’re a few years old for sure, but as you can see here I put some on the paper just to see if there were chunks or anything but it looked fine. It’s just the ModPodge looks like cream of wheat cereal or something. So, craft paint to the rescue! This is typically what I put into the ModPodge for base coating terrain foam pieces, I just thought the inks would be cool to use. Apparently not. Anyway, I slapped the tinted ModPodge down kinda like normal, maybe a “little” thinner than I would have on foam pieces, but I just wanted to see what it would do to the detail etched into the MDF. As you can see, the ModPodge is not great at going on smooth, which is typically fine for rougher, organic ground-type terrain. 

All right, let’s take a look at the base coat results. The ModPodge dried as expected, little bit gloopy, got some nice runs in there, has that kinda smooth, sealed finish. Not sure what it’s done to the details yet, we’ll see with paint on top of it. The straight primer side looks awesome. The MDF still has a relatively rough texture but in scale it’s actually very fine. The details are sharp and there doesn’t seem to be any filling of the etched lines anywhere. The lines in the roof are particularly shallow but they show up with no problem. 

Now the side with matte varnish under the primer looks a tiny bit rougher but it’s barely perceptible. It does feel … hardier? I guess is the word. Visually it just seems to have a bit more of that micro-stucco look – again, barely perceptible. The double varnished side, with gloss under the matte coat and primer on top, has an even more pronounced micro-stucco look and feel. But again, this isn’t something that’s gonna be noticeable on the tabletop at all. It’s very subtle, but you know it is there. Still, all that said, the details remained crisp.

Okay, now for some paint. I’m trying out a line I’ve never used before, some Army Painter airbrush paints. I don’t like regular Army Painter paints, but I do like their washes. Of course, right? But this brand of airbrush paints is probably the most economical line of airbrush paints on the market. I got a small selection of colors I thought I’d make use of in terrain painting. I started out using a fairly dark brown but it ended up being very close to the primer color so I switched to a lighter brown for better contrast – you know, so we can actually see the paint going on. 

Side note about airbrush paints, I understand that these are just convenience purchases, obviously you can thin down any paint and shove it through an airbrush. But you know we all like to try out new tools and paints and whatever else we can spend our hard earned ducats on in this hobby! It’s an affliction, leave us alone!  You can see my expert airbrushing skills on full display here, those overcharged air pressure splatters are completely intentional and artfully placed. Don’t argue with the artist. 

Now just to see what it’s like I thought I’d slap some craft paint over the roof since that’s the typical technique I use for sort of basing organic terrain features. Just mixing some in here and there, bit of streaking to discolor the roof, maybe go for a mossy sorta thing, simple, fast and definitely not how I would approach an actual terrain piece like this. Rough, slapdash organic techniques like this can totally work – if you’re a better artist than I, but I can already tell I’m gonna wanna do some full-on paint jobs on these buildings, using the airbrush for the base coats and then of course some actual try-hard dry brushing (as opposed to this nonsense you see here, where I’m just knocking paint around to see what the MDF is like). The texture is so fine on this model that haphazard dry brushing like this isn’t gonna pick out a lot of detail because the detail just isn’t pronounced enough for that kinda thing. 

Oh yeah, here’s just putting some paint directly on the MDF and to be honest, it seems to work just fine. I’ve said “fine” a lot in this video and it’s starting to bother me. The material does soak up a bit of paint, so two or three coats are probably necessary, but in the end, this could work just fine – good lord! 

I imagine for myself though I’ll be going with the primer coat and then matte sealing a completed paint job – probably with gloss and then matte over that. To really kick in the durability of terrain like this, I would prefer to hard coat the pieces with industrial rattle can varnish because those products are typically much stronger than this hobby acrylic stuff, but as I mentioned, I’m just not in a place where I can easily make use of rattle cans. 

You ever spray lacquer in your apartment? Yeah that … that’s a mistake.

All right, so the overall end results and my opinions on these tests. TLDR – which I guess this should have gone at the beginning so you didn’t have to skip through this entire video … All right, TLDR, my favorite technique and the one I’ll go with in the future is just laying down primer and then paint with an airbrush. Weathering, washes and details can go on with regular brushes after that. The sides with the matte and the gloss plus matte undercoats do seem to be a tick “harder”, they feel a bit more solid or protected. That’s to be expected, but I don’t think the time and expense of laying down those sealing layers is really worth it in the long run. The paint and primer coat seems hardy enough and nothing rubs off when I give it a good scrub. 

All in all this has been a pretty worthwhile experiment for me – now I know what the details will look like after paint, which was the thing I was most interested in. And I’m actually surprised at how well the details hold up, even with that thick-ass ModPodge the details are still mostly there. 

All right, that wraps it up. For me a success, for you probably a boring video that needed the TLDR at the beginning and not the end. But hopefully and if you live in a space where you can’t rattle can and you’ve got a cheap airbrush, and you haven’t worked with MDF terrain kits before – that’s a lotta caveats – maybe this information has helped a little bit. 

These terrain kits are actually really cool. This one is very very simple in detail. I’ve got plenty of others that are really nice.

All right, well … go paint something! See ya!

Video Games Are Killing My Imagination

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Transcript

One of the reasons I have felt stymied in my pursuit of this hobby is my measurable decline in imagination. “Declining powers of imagination” … now that’s a phrase fraught with terror for me personally and one I never thought I’d utter, especially relative to myself. In the past decade or two of self-examination, I’ve come to believe that my penchant to get hooked on video games of specific types and titles is the cause of this decline. 

Welcome to Tabletop Alchemy, where we shoot the shit about the rpg and skirmish game hobby stuff. All right, let’s get into it.

Imagination, in my own forever-layman’s opinion, is similar to other physical human attributes, i.e. physical strength, mental prowess, et cetera. It’s a muscle that needs to work out lest it become … flabby or emaciated from disuse. 

If you wanna be able to do 50 pushups a day, which is a worthy goal, then you gotta … do … pushups. And it’s not that you gotta do 5 a day for a year and then you’ll be able to do 50, no no no, you gotta do 5 a day this week, then next week you gotta do 7 a day – and so on and so forth. You gotta work them muscles out! You gotta sweat. You gotta put the time in. And if you do, you’re guaranteed results. And there ain’t many guarantees in this life, that’s for sure.

So HOW are video games killing my imagination? Well, let’s illustrate this with a specific example. Let’s use Skyrim, ‘cause we both know we both know that game. So I load up Skyrim, grab my controller – yes I am a console gamer (with one very specific exception, we’ll get to that later) for two reasons: 1) my console is in the living room hooked up to the big tv where I like to chill out and burn precious time watching YouTube or slaying dragons; 2) the games I like are typically shooters and so pulling a physical trigger is something I just really cotton to, so to speak. 

So I load up Skyrim, there’s my custom character who I molded the digital flesh of, chose the hair style and color for, picked out some cool tattoos and scars, there she is, my badass wood elf rogue in her badass, intricate leather armor. And now we’re walking through an amazing biome with towering cliffs and glowing fairy trees and now we’re fighting some draugrs with our magic-imbued daggers and throwing fireballs and it’s great fun. The music is epic, the sound design impeccable. We head into Solitude – my aesthetically favorite Skyrim town – and visit the local weapon smith. The architecture is awesome, the interiors highly detailed, moody and strewn with collectibles and valuables and decorative items I can buy or steal and put into my own player-owned house. And on and on and on, right?

And now what is it that I do NOT have to do, at all, to engage with and experience this amazing world and the adventure it holds? That’s right, I don’t have to imagine anything. That part of my brain, that muscle in my brain, gets to be lazy, gets to sit on the proverbial couch and lick Cheeto dust of it’s fat sausage-like fingers. And when do I play Skyrim (let’s say, for the sake of this particular argument, I’m playing right after it was released): I play it for hours and hours every day. For a long time. Cause we both know, one play-through isn’t enough. You gotta make more characters, try out different spells, different weapons, put different classes of armor on that 3d paper doll just to see what looks cool. And all of this feels GOOD! Not only do I not have to get up outta my Lazy Boy to run around in this monster-infested fantasy landscape, but I don’t even have to think to hard. I just get to react and experience.

After years and years of this, though, what I’ve found is that when I try to write something or create, it’s much harder than it used to be. Like, REALLY difficult, in comparison to how I used to feel. I feel tired and at the first sign of having to put in some mental effort, I feel like quitting. I feel like getting up from the desk and returning to that Lazy Boy and hitting that main line of Skyrim on the Xbox.

Fifteen years ago I wrote screenplays for other filmmakers, I produced my own short films, ten years ago I made my own feature film, six years ago I made a fantasy action adventure web series and after that … I haven’t made hardly anything. When I sit down to work on my current projects, things we might talk about in future videos, it feels much more difficult to push through a work session of imagining new, fresh, exciting ideas – versus how I used to be able to work decades ago.

Video games create these low-level virtual realities that are becoming more and more detailed every year. And if you’re experiencing someone else’s creative vision, specifically built so you DON’T have to spend energy imagining things, I can’t see how your imagination’s growth isn’t affected in some way. Unless you work hard at specifically avoiding that. 

Now this is all anecdotal to me and my experience. I’m know there are plenty of people out there who are inspired by the games they play, they go on to create like I used to be able to do. I just wanted to discuss this in case anyone else out there was feeling the same way as me. Video games could be a factor.

So I did mention there was one exception to the console gaming and now that I think about, there are actually two exceptions: Minecraft and Tabletop Simulator. Minecraft is similar to our tabletop gaming hobby in a metaphysical way: it has an almost infinite number of ways in which to engage with and enjoy it. Sure, some people play Minecraft strictly as a competitive action video game but many more people, myself included, enjoy it as a creative outlet where you get to build things, all kinds of things, from simple architectural structures to intricate, logic-based mechanical devices to code-based game development to voxel art. 

And the PC version – known as Java Edition – is a much better experience on mouse and keyboard than controller or touch-screen, at least for me. Tabletop Simulator on the other hand is simply a way for me to engage in tabletop games with friends and family who are far away. So those two games don’t really seem to hinder my imagination, at least not from my internal viewpoint.

Another reason I think video games, for me, is killing my imagination is they usurp time I used to use for reading. Now, there are a ton of things in this current society that compete for and capture our attention and take up precious time. For me personally, though, as I’m sort of allergic to anything with an infinite scroll, it’s video games that hook me in and keep me playing rather than reading or even watching movies. 

Reading is like that pull-up bar you hung in the bedroom doorway for two days and now hides under the winter coats in the closet (what? that’s just a random metaphor, man, c’mon). Anyway, reading is like a pull-up bar for your brain, in particular for your imagination. Because it not only facilitates the usage of your brain but REQUIRES it. And every day, I feel like we all get a little less inclined to read – and when I say “read” here, I’m referring to the consumption of fiction and non-fiction that isn’t “comment-based”. You know, like, “hey, I read Reddit for 17 hours today, I feel great!” Cause, be honest, nobody feels great after reading any comment section for too long. Let’s face it, there’s just a [bleep]load of dopamine dealers in our faces all the time, and they’re all legal and they all feel good in the moment. Even the ones that make you mad. Especially the ones that make you mad, but that’s just emotional provocation for clicks, just somebody hacking your limbic system.

Now I know the bottom line is that I’m responsible for choosing to play video games instead of reading or playing a Warcry match or running a D&D session. I get that, I accept full responsibility. This is in fact one of the reasons I decided to create this channel. For me, Tabletop Alchemy is one way to kind of force myself to operate and engage with a hobby that fosters imagination rather than time sinks like looter shooters. Years ago I broke a two year addiction to World of Warcraft, and I’m happy I did. I don’t have generally addictive personality, but I do have a couple of specific things I get trapped by – one of those is video games. 

I’m definitely not trying to say that this is the same issue for everyone. You know me, this channel is – and I would argue MOST YouTube channels are – completely subjective, opinion-based endeavors. If you play video games and you like ‘em, and you’re happy with your life, that’s awesome. Seriously. I just had to take some time for self-examination and I determined that this theory of video games forcibly alleviating the use of my imagination, versus like a novel or piece of art, et cetera, this theory really resonated with me, in my specific case. 

I’ve found that tabletop games and producing content for this channel are helping me work out my imagination, simple as that. D&D in particular – though this would be true for any rpg – is really helping kickstart my imagination workouts. The very nature of role playing games are fundamentally imagination-based exercises. If you’re writing or creating your own adventure for your players, that’s just doubling the workout. Even if you’re just running a pre-written adventure module, the act of running a game session REQUIRES heavy lifting from the old noggin. Inventing dialogue, describing scenarios, reacting to player actions, this activity is all mental and imagination-based and I love it. It’s challenging, but it’s challenging in that good way, like a gym membership that actually entices me into returning for more workouts. 

All right, that’s it. As always, I love to hear other people’s opinions down in the comments but yeah, get outta here, that’s the end of the video. See ya next time on Tabletop Alchemy.

The Art of Collecting Miniatures!

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If you’re like me, you have been lovingly cultivating, feeding and growing your own personal treasure trove of miniatures and terrain pieces like a venerable gold dragon presiding over its hoard. Some people desperately want us to feel bad and refer to this mass of plastic riches as our “pile of shame” and yet – you and I both know, this is really our Pile of Opportunity!

That’s right, we seek and acquire miniatures and models on a scale far beyond our mere earthly ability to paint and base such vast numbers of hobby-related products. Some say we may be afflicted. Others stand in awe of our overwhelming stock of plastic crack. And some relate to that invisible drive, nay, compulsion! to recreate our friendly local game store’s stockroom in our own home. 

Greetings good humans, I’m Ignatius and you’re you and we’re all stuck on this rock together. Welcome to Tabletop Alchemy, where we deal in the dreams and nightmares of our tabletop gaming hobby.

All right, let’s talk about these Piles of Opportunity. Or as I like to call it: The Art of Collecting Miniatures. 

Now we all buy models for use in our games, we’ve got all kinds of excuses, you and me, excuses and mental gymnastics to game ourselves into buying more stuff. We succumb to advertising – which is just our brains losing battles against a highly sophisticated industry of behavioral scientists deploying artificial intelligence algorithms to exploit our base human responses – and we’re all addicted to those tasty little dopamine treats. Hey, we’re human! It is what it is.

So as far as the art of collecting miniatures goes, I’ve got three rules for myself. 

The first rule of collecting miniatures is … we don’t talk about collecting miniatures. The second rule is … We Don’t Talk About Collecting Miniatures. [pause] You knew that was coming, don’t even front.

All right, jokes aside, I do have three rules of thumb that I consider intrinsic to artfully collecting miniatures.

Rule Number One – The Rule of Cool

Now, I gotta preface this one with the idea that I don’t play large war-games. I don’t build army-scale … armies? So if you play Age of Sigmar or Warhammer 40k or Kings of War, or other games where you need to field like acres of units, you’re stuck sometimes having to buy miniatures that may not fit the Rule of Cool according to your own aesthetic within the army you’re playing. But the Rule of Cool definitely applies and sometimes even drives my own purchase decisions when considering skirmish games and Dungeons and Dragons. 

For me, the rule of cool means that I need to really, REALLY, like a miniature in order to drop some cash on it. I’ve gotten more stringent on myself as time passes with this personal internal metric. If I even think for a second that something about a miniature just doesn’t inspire me 100 percent, I pass on it. Usually. Every solid rule has exceptions and of course the rule of cool is no different. 

Rule Number Two – Multi-usage

I gauge every miniature on whether or not I can use it in multiple games. My typical internal question is “can I use this model in D&D?” because most miniatures I look at, aside from the growing arena of 3D printable sculpts, are from skirmish or war-game types of studios. Games Workshop makes a ton of really badass miniatures – but if I don’t think I can use a wicked cool GW model in a D&D campaign or a skirmish game, I’m gonna pass on it. Now this is just for me, of course, you gotta do you, figure out what you want from your miniatures. 

For example, 99% of the big Warhammer command units, these massive models with hero or commander characters on big ol’ mounts or whatever, I’m never gonna be able to use those in a game outside of Age of Sigmar or 40k. So I just don’t invest in those. 

But again there are always exceptions. As another example, I picked up a GW Daughters of Khaine Morathi kit because it absolutely fits the Rule of Cool for me AND I can totally see putting her on a table as a “BBG” (big bad guy) in a D&D campaign. Can you imagine my players seeing Morathi appear in front of their little hero miniatures? I can hear the shock and awe already. 

Rule Number Three – Organization

All right, we both know we’ve got miniatures and terrain pieces crammed in boxes, stashed under beds and in closets, buried in basement bunkers, maybe even squirreled away in attics, et cetera. We both know the feeling of surprised excitement when we open some box or other looking for something and stumble across a miniature or two or twenty that we completely and utterly forgot even existed. Not only does it exist, our dopamine hit says, but it exists IN OUR POSSESSION! That’s right, the Pile of Opportunity has excelled once again! And then we stuff it back in the box with the full and fully flawed confidence that we’ll be working on those miniatures as soon as next week! 

What’s the saying? Oh right, “rinse and repeat”.

So organization. Hey, relax, I know you’re freaking out. You’re like, dude, Ignatius, I AM organized. Or, dude, Ignatius, I know where everything is. No, you don’t. But that’s okay – this is a painless method of organization. You don’t have to unearth your collection, you don’t have to put things in labelled boxes, you don’t have to organize a single physical item in your Pile of Opportunity. You can organize everything virtually. It’s a simple concept really, but it does require one extra set of actions at the time of purchase. Get a picture of that miniature you just bought – take a pic of it on your phone, swipe the box art jpeg from the website, whatever, just get a picture. And then rename that image file with something that relates to categories you want to view your collection with. Like I have here, I name all miniatures that are dwarfs with the start of the file name being Dwarf underscore. Or Monster underscore. Or Undead underscore. After the underscore, put whatever name I wanna refer to that mini as. And if you do this with every miniature you collect, you’ll have a very simple visual gallery of all the miniatures you own. After I paint a mini, I remove it from the Pile of Opportunity gallery.

For me, all these rules apply to terrain as well, just the same thing – especially Rule Number Two – Multi-usage. Most terrain can be used in any game, so it’s really not that big of a deal.

Now, of course, all these things are just suggestions. There is no one way to do any of this hobby stuff. Or even any of this life stuff. This is how I’m currently operating as far as collecting miniatures and terrain, and I just wanted to share in case my thoughts might inspire some ideas in other folks. If you have other methods for controlling and operating your Pile of Opportunity, drop ‘em down in the comments, I’m always looking to upgrade and widen my thoughts on things and I’m sure a lot of you out there feel the same.

Until next time, let them dice roll! See ya!

What Can You Expect From This New Tabletop Hobby Channel?

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Greetings good humans, and welcome to a brand new tabletop hobby channel: Tabletop Alchemy. I’ll explain that title in a bit. First off, my name is Ignatius. Yep, Ignatius. And yeah, it’s a cool name now that I’m not, like, you know, seven.

I’m sure the main question is: what kinda content should you expect from me? Followed by “why bother watching” and maybe “who is this old dude and what’s he doing here?”

First and foremost, this is a variety channel within the tabletop hobby space, which is why I’ve called it Tabletop Alchemy. You know, alchemy is essentially the mixing of different elements in the hopes that something new emerges.

I like Dungeons & Dragons, I like Warhammer, I like skirmish games, I like painting miniatures, crafting terrain, writing adventure content for rpgs, making maps, I like sci-fi/fantasy as a genre from books to movies to art and everything in between. Couple things I dig outside this tabletop hobby are Lego and Minecraft. Hey! Who’s the geek here?

My professional background includes filmmaking, special fx, videography and photography. I started out in the film industry creating miniatures for movies like Titanic and The Fifth Element – in fact, my very first job was fabricating the front end of the Earth warship from Luc Besson’s epic sci-fi adventure flick. And right there, you can see the little canvas lifeboat covers I made for the James Cameron flick. As an indy filmmaker I wrote a sci-fi/horror flick for a friend of mine to direct called The Men Who Fell, which was shot on the original DVX100 standard definition video camera with an anamorphic lens – for those of you that know, you know. I co-wrote and directed my own feature film called Lisl and the Lorlok, it’s a dark fantasy for kids and their grandparents [laugh] and it played on Russian TV for a while. Then I made the first, uh, let’s call it the first volume of a cheesy no-budget fantasy action adventure web series called Freelancers The Series.

[insert scene from freelancers]

I’d really like to remake that as a full show with a real budget someday. My dream scene to direct is masquerade ball that devolves into a pitched sword fight and magic duel. 

All these indy projects were done on shoestring budgets – “shoestring” being generous – and they’re not great by any means, but they were an intense amount of work and pretty wonderful to work on.

My background as a tabletop gamer, briefly, is probably like a lot of folks out there in my age range. I stumbled into playing D&D at the end of high school, played it through a few years in the Army, and then got into Shadowrun and cyberpunk and that’s when I started painting miniatures and eventually fell into the Warhammer warp. I played 40k 2nd edition, Warhammer Fantasy 4th edition and even Bloodbowl 3rd (yeah, I think 3rd edition). I had too many armies, too many ideas, et cetera. Then I got the job in the film industry working in special fx and that killed my gaming hobby right quick. Working on models in an industrial shop 60 hours a week for a few years can do that to a person. And then I went off into filmmaking territory and didn’t find my way back into the tabletop gaming hobby until a few years ago. I’ve always loved miniatures for some reason and I found D&D was alive and thriving. And then Stranger Things hit and we know what’s happened since then. 

So, what can you expect from Tabletop Alchemy. Like I said, I’m interested in all kinds of facets within this gleaming gem that is our tabletop hobby. I’ll be discussing a variety of tabletop topics related to writing and designing rpg adventures, crafting terrain for skirmish war-games and rpg scenarios, painting miniatures and trying out new techniques and tools and stuff like that, discussing fantasy books, movies and series as well as artists and filmmakers … I might do some product reviews once in a while, maybe conduct an interview or two with other creators or artists, or just share things I find really interesting. And I’ll most likely talk about life philosophies that somehow pop into my head because of and along with all this tabletop stuff. 

My goal is to drop a video every Thursday, and within that release schedule I plan to have a monthly category structure that includes one D&D or rpg-related video, one skirmish game-related video, a crafting or painting video and the fourth monthly video will be on whatever tabletop hobby thing has caught my interest. 

I’m fully aware that this not how one is supposed to engineer a YouTube channel – we’re supposed to pick a niche and drill down on that niche until we’re burned out or simply don’t do anything else. I know myself enough by now to know how and why I get burned out on things, and it’s really because I’m interested in a lot of different things. Producing content for Tabletop Alchemy is designed in some ways to help me put a dent in my own Pile of Opportunity but overall this channel is dedicated to sharing and discussing OUR journey – that’s right, you and me – our journey through the tabletop gaming hobby.

So there it is – welcome to Tabletop Alchemy. A little bit of everything, but with specific focus. Let the dice roll – go do something.