Amen on this!! At least the plastics allow you to somewhat fudge the extra weapon crews, especially when the frames have things like maps etc on them. I would also add creating a variety of body types so my tubby sgt or strapping 6 footer rolled up in At The Sharp End can be accurately modelled! :)

Well worth waiting for, agree with everything you said, Rich.

Oooh. Some compatibility tables between manufacturer ranges would be golden

Shipping has come crashing down on what I'd hoped to have been my next big project. Rather disappointed.

Manufacturers constantly struggle with the issue that they can't produce enough of figure X and only ever need to spin the casting machine more than 2-3 times for figure Y. Because X is a high demand figure like an SS trooper with a sturmgewehr and Y is the bloke hauling ammo nobody wants. That's why 3D printing could cover that gap. They can produce a whole range of limited use models at a reduced cost. We're already seeing models no sane classic manufacturer would dare make because none would buy something like an M2 Medium or Dicker Max or some other model only ever produced in the low single digits. They can make artillery crew or support personnel. One French company did a vignette based on French WWII comedy where three men from a transmissions unit are trapped behind German lines in 1940 and cause all kinds of hilarious havoc. If you sculpted and cast those models the traditional way you'd be bankrupt before you even started. Now, the models are there to be printed and every STL sold is extra money in the pocket. When it comes to 3D printing I feel we are still in the early days once the options for making, distributing help to broaden the market and more people have access to easy to use good quality printers, we might see stuff we could not even have dreamed of before. Back in the day when we were assured that plastic models were only an option for the five richest kings of Europe and the industry could never afford it, we believed that the market could only ever carry the most popular WWII and Napoleonic models. Meanwhile I can go to a store pick up a box of Conquistadores, Rus Infantry or WWII Italians. I was amazed when I saw an ECW set. So unless the UN bans all wargaming, or something really bad happens, we might find that 10-15 years from now this golden age may only have been a preamble to the start of something even more amazing.

I had wondered why it wasn't there while I had my breakfast this morning.

Gamer’s common sense argument and reasoning

Well said, Nick! Although some people do enjoy the simulationist aspect of it, I'm not one of them. I'd rather play a fun game 9.9 times out of 10. I remember a WW2 sea combat game I played in which was like your Napoleonic example. Every shot was compared against armor, the speed of the ships down to the half knot, etc. and a number was arrived at. Then a 20-sided was rolled to see the impact. But a 1 was always a miss and a 20 always a hit. After 4 hours when the ships were finally in range, I suggested we roll the dice first as 10% of the time it would give us a result without running the calculations. I was regarded as crazy. The "battle" was ended shortly after due to time and everyone else seemed really happy and debated who would have won.

Good singing, great listen on design theory! 🍻

Excellent stuff. I game at 6mm and 28mm but, as you mentioned, I too would love to try a larger scale such as 1:32 - the vast number of great armour kits available would be one advantage but as you also mentioned: terrain storage is the greatest put-off. Having to make a set of terrain at that size…and store it…and one set is never enough, now is it?😅

Great listen! Cheers 🍻 🎄🎁

Focus on the destination, rather than the journey.

Excellent explanation. To be honest, computer games have pretty much dealt with the technical aspects for us, taking away the need to look up tables and tracking far more factors than would be expected to maintain a smooth tempo of a game.

By far my favourite advent panto contribution so far 'Wolf Spider' Nick! Love all that you guys do to make our hobby fun and enjoyable. Keep up the great work. Feliz Navidad! 🍻🍻🍻👍

Another great snippet. I agree that a designer needs to align the rule mechanism with the final outcome he's aiming to achieve. For many years "complex" was a synonim of "good" on the wargame table (anyone remembers WRG 6th ??) ... thank God, we had Toofatlardies to show this was not true.

That introduction needs a trigger warning.

How would one rate GW's understanding of theme? The game mechanics (and yes business model) leave much to be desired, but they certainly know how to pull and keep an audience. What practical lessons can historical wargames take from GW? Certainly Warlord's Bolt Action goes to great length to appeal to basic WWII tropes with disparate, but sexy, troops all combined into a larger unit players can put onto the table. Is the theme of WWII losing its appeal or relevance? I would argue no given the spate of films over the past few decades and the uptick of interest in WWII "history" in books and KZbin. If not though, why doesn't the audience for wargaming find WWII as attractive as 40k, and what can we or should we as a community do about it? In contrast there are successful Euro-style board games where the theme is just a veneer over the mechanics that seem to draw the players. How many Catans are there now? We've got CoC, CoC Modern, CoC Vietnam and Ashley's CoC sci-fi in the works - can we call these re-theming of the CoC rules? I am not entirely sure we can - CoC Ancients would certainly be a theme too far. Anyway, you've got me thinking on a grey Canadian winter afternoon - thank you for that.

Great episode. Some of the best games I have ever played in were ones which had a really strong theme and even in games where I've lost, the knowledge that I've contributed to following and developing that theme has given me great satisfaction and ended up with a good result all round.

Gosh, this one gave me a lot to chew over and I will have to re listen to it again to make sure I got every point you made as it made me re-think how I'm writing my SF version of CoC, which I've been struggling with for the last couple of years.

Interesting discussion. Listening to Sidney, I see two different topics emerging. On the one hand, everything related to to the process of designing wargames; on the other, how to best engage the audience to the hobby. Both are interelated for sure, in the sense that as a designer, you will probably have to think about the "user expericence". But in my opinion these should be two doifferent discussions. I will love to hear Richard and Nick talking about the wargame design process in future calendar windows.

Fascinating stuff Sid. I more-or-less finished an article about scenario design that I was going to send to Nick for the Lardy Mag but in the end I decided it was the wrong audience. At the scenario design level I decided theme was a nice-to-have option; a way to focus your thinking about what you wanted the scenario to achieve. However, I wouldn’t want to let “I must think of a theme first” to get in the way of the creative process.

That was very interesting thank you for sharing those recollections. I recall a lot off schoolmasters who had fought in WW11, and family relations. Cheers.

I do like my old 1/1200 sailing ships. They are a good compromise between fitting on the table with room to maneuver and still seeing some identifiable details on the models. I did consider the scope of desired game before committing to the first purchase - I wanted to do 1-on-1 and 4-on-4 actions as well as larger fleet battles with the same collection. I’ve seen a few attempts to do Trafalgar in 1/700 and they obviously get a bit crowded on the table. Yet I remember some fans of big fleet games scoffing at 1/1200 as too large for anything but small actions, preferring only 1/2000 for full sized fleets. As long as the rules used reflect choices at the correct level of command, I’ll be happy.

Great listen. Never Forget 🎗️💝

A very interesting discussion about the evolution of infantry small unit tactics since 1860 to 2WW. Learned today: the change from firing lines to blobs was in 1866 when Prussians and Austrians confronted

Thanks for sharing these personal insights - that sense of a tangible, if second hand, connection rings true for me, and my father recounting his father's experiences in ww2. I hope to visit PNG where the latter served next year (if the stars align) with my dad so he can see them first hand before he is too old to travel. But even physical connection - like the type 95 NCO sword my grandfather collected at the Japanese surrender at Wewak (which he attended) - make it seem real, even if I rue the younger me not taking the chances I had to talk with more veterans about their experiences.

After several decades playing wargames, I have settled to a compromise where games with minis are restricted to skirmish encounters (40-80 models) while large battles or operations are played with board wargames.

Great chat!🍻🎁🎄

Is an ideal weekends gaming one that blends large and small. Two tables one 6 mm that looks at company and above and the other 28mm where you battle the close quarter actions from the main table

Looks pretty cool I'm keen to try it. Two questions How you you make shooting more effective without breaking the game.? Maybe give a trait to archers that re rolls all failed hits? Also did you play test a method where the supports can only support 1 unit per combat? . You where saying that if they didn't move you can support units beside you or on a diagonal? It'd be interesting to play that they can only support once.

Wise words. I’d forgotten about the count down clock. Another of your excellent ideas. I still think deploying bad guys in the shadows is one of the best and most narrative game mechanics I’ve ever seen. 🫡

It's the eighth Sidney! 😆

Thanks for the video and for the whole calendar. I am having a great time listening to the wargaming chat and soaking in the game design wisdom 🤓

Very interesting bit, interesting concepts to consider.🎁🎄

I found Midgard one of the best structured and more clear set of rules you have published so far

I grew up in the shadow of WWII, having had relatives who fought in that great struggle. So naturally I grew up fascinated by those events. To this day, the shear size of that conflict continues to captivate me. I think a person could spend very nearly their entire life studying the events of WWII and still not be able to take it all in.

Another good episode! Cheers.

What tv is Nick watching where there’s a war film on?

Judging from the size of my miniatures collection assembled over decades, WW2 should be my fave period but it’s not. Not by a long chalk. Prior to ‘Chain of Command’ there were no rules that came even close to simulating WW2 on the tabletop. Tried several systems and they all got bogged in trivialities and long-range firefights. Gave up on WW2 gaming completely - until I discovered Lard. Napoleonics has long been my poison of choice - can’t beat the sheer glamour of the uniforms - but that also stalled when I got bored of the unrealistic ahistorical flavour of most rule sets. Again, Lard came to the rescue around 2017 and I’ve never looked back! So thank you guys, for restoring my interest in this wonderful hobby!

Enjoy the mince pie

What makes a period your favorite? Not easy to answer;, but like Nick ,WW2 was the first love and for many of the same reasons: the small plastic soldiers and tank models (copied as I discovered years later to Airfix by a local Spanish company called Montaplex) that my parents bought every now and then, and the discovery of the Tamiya kits in my trips to the UK in the summers of the 70s to study English

Got divorced, freed up loads of space 😂

Good points. I aproached "out of hobby space" a decade ago, and fixed it like this. A better storage solution - Stacked Pizza Boxes, steel inserts to hold magnetic bases. Labels on everything. Cut down on unplayed rules - I was the guy who bought so many rules. I had a cull of the ones I never played. Cull the unplayed armies - The army I bought for the rules I never played. Each one was processed: Gifted, stored or turned into a viable army. I've ended up with five regular rulesets and matching armies. It's enough. Downsizing the table certainly works for skirmish games, and some smaller unit battle games. There are two significant drawbacks to switching to a smaller scale. You have to buy, paint, base the same armies in a new scale - which seems wasteful. The ageing human eyeball often makes the smallest scales less viable as we grow older.

I rented a bigger house. I am not sure this is a solution it meant I purchased even more stuff as I now had more "space".

Buy a largar house! Selling stuff (painted or not) is straight heresy

I’ve just moved the previous two years’ Steel Lard games into a storage facility. Realistically I need to start selling stuff.

Awesome topic as I have just reached this point 😂😂

Lol, I ran out of "hobby space" this past June! You're right on point too, it stimulated thought for me to decide what I wanted my hobby space to be. I wound up downsizing and focusing on just the hobby games and models I would be immediately using. Excess games and items I, in part, donated to a local gaming club and to a friend. Also there is a company here in the states that is excellent in dealing with reselling used games and items, Noble Knight games located in Wisconsin. I also, as you did, downscaled the size of games I am playing to require less space. Great topic and chat, Sidney! Merry Christmas! 🎄🎁

Thanks for that insight. Sounds like a list for Santa. I'm retired and my paint table is coming free soon. What would Rich like? Can I get that invoice for Christmas please? 🎁

It's a wonderful hobby we have, great listen today! Looking forward to the rest of the windows this year! 🎄 🍻 🎄