Meeples & Miniatures – Episode 165 – Byron Collins / Polyversal Interview and Wargamimg Industry Round Table
Download Episode 165
Welcome to Episode 165 of the Meeples & Miniatures Podcast
In this episode, hosts Neil Shuck, Mike Hobbs & Mike Whitaker discuss what they’ve been doing (Hobby-wise) for the past two weeks, cast their eye over some of the latest hobby news and hold the first Meeples & Miniatures Round Table.
In our main feature, we interview Byron Collins of Collins Epic Wargames about the Polyversal Kickstarter
We hope you enjoy the show
Show details:
- 00:00 – Intro
- 07:52 – What we’ve been up to
- 24:05 – Hobby News
- 43:27 – Byron Collins / Polyversal interview
- 2:13:22 – Wargaming Industry Round Table
- 3:35:15 – Outtro
Hobby News
- Games Workshop in toy stores
- Advanced Song of Blades and Heroes
- 2nd Edition of Regiment of Foote
- Warlord Games announce Project Z
- New Figures from the Dice Bag Lady
- Aventine Miniatures have released some new Sassanid Infantry
- Sarissa release new crypt and graveyard
- Black Hat have new releases for Martian Empires
- Tabletop Wargames: A designers and writers handbook
- New Rubicon 28mm Vehicles
- Plastic Gnolls for Frostgrave
Tales of @NeilTheDwarf 
Excellent as always. Listening to your Roundtable discussion about computer moderated gaming, I think you left out a very large area: Naval War gaming. Back in the 90’s I played a great deal of WWII Naval engagements using a DOS based program called ShipBase III. It was a great system for moderated games, as it did all of the book keeping for your and and allowed both sides to see only the damage done to their ships. (You could reports “multiple hits and fires started” to the firing, while obscuring the actual damage.) It made for excellent games, and I would love to see the system updated.
I never even thought about Naval gaming, thanks for the info I’ll try and mention it on the next show
It just goes to show that there are some niches of gaming which are completely off our radar
I used to do a lot of modern naval gaming in my mid teens. I started off with Navwar and Davco ships, at University I moved over to Victory Games Fleet series. I never wanted to play it on a computer, but I can see why computer gaming is so suitable for this, miniatures gaming, to my mind, had its enjoyable moments but didn’t deliver an accurate “feel”
Oh, and I really enjoyed the show. I was a little bit unwell, and ended up listening three times!
you may deserve an endurance record for that
…or my head examined? (Only joking!)
We do have a listener who can beat that, though 😀
I am really enjoying the new format and structure, you guys and the D6G are my top two favourite gaming podcasts. I particularly like ‘state of the industry’ type of discussions, please keep it up.
Definitely liking the new format. I believe you are moving in a good direction. M&M and VftV are the two best wargaming podcasts out there. I’m out of the running for the Endurance Record, though, since I only listened through the most recent podcast twice.
Regarding your discussion of the differences between wargaming culture on opposite sides of the pond: much (if not most) of the US wargaming population is invisible, consisting of “basement” groups . . . not formal clubs, so to speak, but groups of about a half dozen gamers which meet at one or more of the members’ homes, that have no public profile or web presence. I gather this is rather rare in the UK due to the smaller size of the average residence, hence the proliferation of clubs with meeting rooms.
Props to Mr. Whitaker for being a Vikings fan. Skol, Vikings!
I am not going to live that down now, in my defence, I was laid low with the dreaded Lurgi at the time, so probably delirious! But even in my delirium, it was a good show.
I was very interested in your conversation about computer based rule sets and Carnage and Glory in particular.
I have been playing the Napoleonic set for the past two and half years and find them an absolute joy to use. They give all the simulation and fun you would get from a great set of Lardy rules but as Mr Clarke would say, they really allow you to concentrate on playing the period rather than the rules and you don’t walk away from the table with a headache.
The most important benefit and key difference is that the computer can monitor and calculate army and unit fatigue better than any paper based set I have come across without making the whole affair tedious.
I wrote a series of three articles that appeared in Miniature Wargames 379 – 381 about an Oporto game we staged using them and I attach a link to a post quoting the author Nigel Marsh describing the system.
Cheers
JJ
http://jjwargames.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/carnage-glory-ii-whats-it-all-about-then.html
I would also echo Jake’s comments about Shipbase III which I still use for my WWII naval gaming. They are also really very good and relieve players of the record keeping that seems to be a feature of naval gaming whilst also keeping a level of hidden damage data from opposing players that they simply wouldn’t be aware of in reality.
Catching up on episodes and just hear the talk about multi-day events. As I have to fly in from Sweden anyway, a weekend event would be a lot easier to justify cost wise than a one-day event. I would also love to be able to both browse vendor stalls AND have timeto game and socalise.