Tactical Immersive Experience: Miniatures Combat with Simon [S4E2]

In this week's episode, we chat with Simon about using soda cans and pizza boxes as terrain, the shift away from miniatures in TTRPGs, and the incompatibility of the Seattle real estate market with large-scale miniatures combat. Plus, Jake gets grumpy about indie TTRPG marketing.

Simon (whom we met at OrcaCon) owns Strix Publishing and runs the Brush Wielders Union and the associated podcast as well as a Horus Heresy fan podcast. He has a ton of experience in TTRPG publishing, including work on Warmachine, Hordes, Iron Kingdoms 2e, Eclipse Phase, The Hammer and the Stake, Dune: Adventures in the Imperium and Unhallowed Metropolis. As a result, this conversation goes very far afield of our original plan to talk about minis, because Simon really has such a depth of experience. We wound up chatting about folk knowledge and traditions in popular games, the history of D&D's status as a cultural juggernaut, and the extremely nineties television show Kindred: the Embraced. Here are those stats on the most common systems played on Roll20, in case you were wondering. Some previous Campaign Spotlight episodes come up in this conversation:

• Sam talked about some very cool 3D combat terrain
• Jesse used the Dune: Adventures in the Imperium system for his campaign
• In this Dungeon Lore episode we talked about Chainmail and the miniatures combat systems that led to D&D
• In this Dungeon Lore episode we talked about some of the business practices that ultimately sank TSR.
• In this Dungeon Lore episode we talked about the rise of actual plays and their impact on home TTRPG campaigns.

Simon also discusses some fun rulesets:

• Dungeon Crawl Classics (not a minis combat system, but a fun OSR TTRPG)
• Necromunda (a very miniatures-intensive Warhammer system)
• Strength and Honour (a wargame system for battles in the ancient world)
• Test of Honour (a miniatures system focusing on samurai skirmish combat)

After we recorded this interview, Simon sent us some pictures of the incredible minis he's painted! Head on over to our website to check them out.

Thanks to Delta for introducing this week's episode! Delta is a player in Jake's long-running home game.

Thanks to Goblin Society Games for supporting this week’s episode! Go check out their website and take a look at Mukrag’s Compendium of Curios, the HELBINE setting, and all the other cool games and supplements they make. Through July 23, if you purchase Goblin Society Games products on DriveThruRPG, they'll donate 10% of the proceeds to Partners in Health.

If you like the music on the show, go check out more of Reilly's music. You can also .css-j9qmi7{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:row;-ms-flex-direction:row;flex-direction:row;font-weight:700;margin-bottom:1rem;margin-top:2.8rem;width:100%;-webkit-box-pack:start;-ms-flex-pack:start;-webkit-justify-content:start;justify-content:start;padding-left:5rem;}@media only screen and (max-width: 599px){.css-j9qmi7{padding-left:0;-webkit-box-pack:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;justify-content:center;}}.css-j9qmi7 svg{fill:#27292D;}.css-j9qmi7 .eagfbvw0{-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;color:#27292D;}