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Here, I share five things that caught my eye in the hobby this past week. The aim is to offer thoughtful curation away from the hype firehose of the average social media feed.
I’m especially interested in highlighting companies and creators who don’t always get the attention they deserve, the ones making characterful products that speak to narrative gamers.
The next edition will go out on Tuesday – don’t miss it!
In the lead-up to introducing some magic into our Hobgoblin battles, I’ve added some magic users and bodyguards.
All came from Ral Partha. Here’s witch elf sorcerer May Hem. Ably backed up by a characterful Kev Adams daemon, she’ll be blasting out spells for Baron Gibb’s Chaos warhost.
Then there’s Jeff’s dad, a human wizard who’ll join The Order of the Morning Glory alongside his valiant bodyguard, Sir Loin.
There was a time when you did not “build a list”. You turned up, someone at the head of the table set the scene, and the battle unfolded.
Halfway through the day, a storm rolled in. Cannon lost effectiveness. Cavalry bogged down. Infantry slogged through mud. You adapted.
No points. No balance patch. Just judgment.
Early historical games and the first wave of fantasy crossovers assumed something many players now struggle with: an umpire and a scenario. You declared intent rather than measuring movement to the millimetre. You tried things. Sometimes they worked. Sometimes they went wrong in spectacular fashion.
Warlord Games attempted to recapture that spirit with the first edition of Black Powder. No points values, just command rules and scenario play. Over time, points filtered back in because players demanded them. Many now find it difficult to play without a number telling them the game is fair before it begins.
That obsession with balance has reshaped the hobby. Tournament culture rewards predictability. Net lists circulate online. Optimised builds become standard. Players arrive already knowing what the “correct” army looks like. Surprise becomes an inconvenience rather than a thrill.
Historical gaming has not escaped it either. Systems such as the DBX family formalised army structures decades ago. Twelve elements a side. Prescribed ratios. Terrain determined in a controlled way. It creates parity, but it also flattens the unpredictability that defined the periods being represented. No one told the Mongols to rein it in for fairness.
Commercial reality plays its part. Games Workshop moved from broad hobby coverage to a tightly controlled ecosystem of its own products. Points systems standardise play and support organised events. They also make purchasing decisions clearer and repeatable. It is effective business. It narrows the lens through which many people first encounter the hobby.
The counter movement is not new. It is a rediscovery. Joe McCullough with Frostgrave and Oathmark leans heavily into narrative. Your warband grows. Your kingdom develops from the land you claim. Identity flows from story rather than a faction badge.
Moonstone goes further. Small model counts. Named characters. Rules freely available. The emphasis sits squarely on personality and evolving lore rather than efficiency.
The common thread is not the rule set. It’s attitude.
A good umpire or GM treats the table like a director treats a cast. Set the situation. Let the players act. Adapt when they go off script. Campaign play magnifies this. Commit too much force and lose it, and it stays lost. Your next game is shaped by that decision. Consequences generate tension far more effectively than a perfectly balanced 2,000-point reset.
Even historical refights benefit from this approach. Add character quirks drawn from film or memoir. Give officers a once-per-game ability tied to their personality. Let cavalry ignore the neat retreat clause if blood is up and history suggests they would. A little looseness often produces far more memorable moments than strict adherence.
Somewhere along the line, hobby time became serious time. Cost debates. Meta-analysis. Optimisation. Yet we are still pushing toy soldiers around a table. The value lies in the enjoyment and the stories that emerge, not the precision of the spreadsheet.
If you want to feel that older energy again, try removing the safety net. Run a scenario without points. Use an umpire. Allow imbalance. Accept uncertainty.
You may find the game breathes more easily without the numbers dictating every decision.
I got a set of Crooked Dice’s definitely-not-Thundercat miniatures for my Christmas and have really enjoyed painting them up.
My four-year-old daughter is obsessed with the series right now. I have a DVD boxed set of the original 1980s series, and she loves it. It was my favourite show back in the mists of time, too, so I’ve tried to do a decent job with these guys.
Next up, I’ve got the baddies to do. But I’ve already made a start on them, as you can see. You’ll get a photoshoot with all your pals soon enough, Mumm-Ra!
These are mainly original models from my 3rd edition set back in the 90s with the exception of a couple of star players.
‘Wullie’ is a converted Wargames Foundry pict, and the big tanky lad whom I’ve named ‘The Gaffer’ is from an even earlier edition of Blood Bowl. Big thanks to Ed in our Discord community for very kindly sending him to me.
I’ve been playing a mini-league with the good lady, and these guys have been dominant so far. They beat Real MovChaos 3-0, then followed it up with a 2-1 victory over Wimblegnome.
Wullie scored four of the touchdowns so far, and he’s certainly catching the eye of fans and opposition players alike.
Thrower Chuck (the other is called Chuck’s brother) and catcher Hans (the other is called Hans’ brother) have been integral in these matches, too. The lads will get a rest and a few beers now, as the next game is between Real MovChaos and AFC Wimblegnome.
White Dwarf readers of a certain vintage will undoubtedly remember Fred Reed’s iconic Howling Griffons space marine army. Then-Games Workshop store worker Fred showcased the stunning force in issue 179 (November 94), and it had a runout in the mag’s battle report a month later.
Fred’s army was a source of inspiration to many young hobbyists in the mid-90s and is still talked about more than 30 years later. One man who’s gone above and beyond in his nostalgia, however, is Jonny Watson of the Jonny Watson Gaming YouTube channel. Jonny did the ultimate homage to Fred’s Howling Griffons by assembling and painting his own tribute act:
Jonny Watson’s Howling Griffons
I had the pleasure of chatting to Jonny about this project and the opportunities it brought him, from interviewing Fred Reed himself to being featured on the hallowed pages of White Dwarf. We covered his origin story, returning after the inevitable deep freeze, and how running a YouTube channel can supplement and enhance your hobby when you’re not playing the algorithm game.
When Rick Priestley casually says, “What you’re doing sounds entirely normal to me,” it becomes clear how strange modern wargaming culture has become.
On a recent two-part episode of the Tabletop Miniature Hobby Podcast, Priestley, co-creator of Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000, listens as Jason and Mark describe big tables, no points, Games Masters, imbalance by design, and campaigns driven by story rather than symmetry.
To him, none of this sounds radical. It sounds familiar.
Narrative wargaming is often framed as a niche revival or a reaction against competitive play. Priestley rejects that outright. Narrative play is not a rebellion. It is the foundation modern wargames were built on.
Before points values and mirrored tables, games were shaped by scenario and judgment. Sieges were unfair. Last stands were desperate. Balance was not calculated. It was agreed.
Early British designers such as Featherstone, Grant, and Young did not rely on points systems. They assumed good faith, shared imagination, and players who wanted the game to be interesting rather than optimal.
So what changed?
When Balance Became an Ideology
Points values began as a convenience. They helped players build collections and find games quickly. Over time, that convenience hardened into expectation.
Modern balance culture assumes that a properly designed game should resolve to a near-perfect 50/50 outcome between equally skilled players. The result is list optimisation, meta-chasing, and games whose outcome is often decided before the first dice roll.
Priestley does not condemn this approach. He simply questions what it produces. Efficiency, perhaps. Predictability, certainly. But not always joy.
The Games Master We Lost
One of the clearest casualties of this shift is the Games Master.
In the episode, Jason describes running vast multiplayer games overseen by a GM who introduces events, resolves disputes, and keeps the story moving. Priestley immediately recognises the model. This was early Warhammer. Early roleplaying games. Early wargaming.
The GM was never a workaround. They were the engine.
Attempts to replace that role with campaign books and flowcharts were understandable, but limited. You cannot automate trust or improvisation. A referee works because everyone agrees they are there to make the game better.
As Priestley puts it, the only rule is that the Games Master is always right. Not because they wield authority, but because the group has given them responsibility.
Another striking thread in the conversation is how casually the group ignores rules.
Forgotten mechanics are handwaved. Unclear outcomes are resolved with a roll and a decision. Priestley admits that even with systems he helped write, momentum matters more than correctness.
This is not carelessness. It is confidence.
Narrative players are not anti-rules. They simply refuse to let rules dominate the experience. Systems are scaffolding. If something blocks the flow of the game, it is removed.
In a hobby obsessed with precision and FAQs, this mindset feels quietly subversive.
Not a Rejection, a Reminder
Priestley is not calling for the end of competitive play. He is arguing for memory.
Narrative gaming never died. It was crowded out of the conversation. What groups like Jason’s are doing is not inventing something new. They are remembering how the hobby once worked and choosing to make space for it again.
The most radical idea in modern wargaming is not breaking the rules.
I’ve just finished setting up a game of Hobgoblin, which sees the debut of my recently completed 15mm Chaos army. They’ll be allying with Grabbum’s greenskin horde to lay siege to the small but mighty forces of Lord Marshall Longfellow.
Evil warlord Baron Gibb leads the chaos host on Wyther Spune the manticore.
The baddies are a very Battlemasters-esque alliance.
I launched my 15mm collection with a bunch of monopose units, which I have great nostalgia for. But I added this dynamic mob of shieldmaidens recently. They were a lot of fun to paint, and I’m chuffed with the outcome.
Likewise these beastmen. A very characterful unit.
Their allies, Grabbum’s greenskin horde.
And the vastly outnumbered Order of the Morning Glory. Can they possibly survive this sweeping tide of Chaos? We’ll soon find out!
This year, I got back into Blood Bowl after a 30-year hiatus. I even bought a modern Games Workshop kit to build my AFC Wimbelgnome side.
Of course, they needed some worthy opposition, so here are their bitter rivals – Real Movchaos.
I actually owned the Chaos All Stars in the 90s, including star player Lord Borak. But only the beastmen survived the great hobby hiatus. I painted those up back in 2021.
Those gave me a great basis for a squad, but I wanted to add the Chaos Warrior players to the roster.
I picked these guys up on Ebay, but they were in pretty bad nick. Fortunately, I managed to get them cleaned up and painted, and I’m quite happy with the outcome.
I’m looking forward to getting them on the pitch against AFC Wimbelgnome. It should be a real culture clash, for sure!
Finally, I painted them up and put a gloss varnish on the caps. They’ll be ideal for 28mm skirmish games in either sci-fi or fantasy settings, and will also make for handy ‘fungus forest’ features at 15mm scale.
