With those ears I was destined to grow up into either a nerd, or a flying circus elephant.
Like many wargamers this all started with an older sibling. In a fit of “I don’t wanna play the wizard, he’s crap” fury over a game of Heroquest one Christmas I smashed one of my brother’s goblins, and my parents made me replace him. We did this by popping to Games Workshop Sheffield (as advertised inside the box!), my brother got some goblins and a new hobby and I got a slap… But I didn’t get into wargaming yet…
Fast forward a few years to 1993: my brother, dispirited and full of teenage angst (and probably White Lightning if I’m honest), destroyed most of his collection with a friend’s BB gun.
Later that day, in my Nan’s bin, I find just enough parts to build one plastic predator. I paint it Legion of the Damned colours (they were on the side of the box and looked badass) and wander down to the same GW. A huge ‘good vs evil’ participation game was going on over a 5ft bridge across a massive river. I show a staff member my clumsily repaired tank, and he says: “Legion of the Damned can’t have tanks anymore, so you can be Chaos instead, go blow that tall thing’s legs off.”
In my imagination it looked just like this one! (Image credit: Games Workshop.)
Two Lascannons and an Autocannon later (with a bit of help from seasoned players) one Eldar Dreadnought is sent back to Ulthwe with a serious limb deficiency, and I am absolutely hooked.
How about Moonstone, when and how did you stumble over this game?
This isn’t even its final form!
I had picked up Firespitter as a potential Mordheim model after Kickstarter recommended it (whilst I was buying other goblins that I still haven’t painted, and found last week in a box), but promptly forgot entirely about it. If it wasn’t for Rob over at Firestorm Games, it may have stayed that way.
The old Firestorm Games Cardiff was right behind Cardiff Central train station, and at the time I was playing a lot of Malifaux and Necromunda in the evenings. I’d been making demo boards as a side-gig for a few years at this point for all sorts of systems (Malifaux, Dead Man’s Hand, Bushido, Batman, Flames of War, Dreadball, the list is pretty big) and Rob (Firestorm’s owner and an old GW colleague) was a regular customer. One day I pootled in to play some games, and Rob was chatting away to some bloke when he saw me coming in and dragged me into the conversation.
Trivia: We stole all the sand from the Millenium Stadium.
This Tom chap was making a new skirmish game, and he had been admiring one of my tables. He wanted a table for demo games and photography, and coincidentally Rob had been singing my praises as I walked in. We had a quick chat; he asked what he could get for one hundred British pounds, and I said I’d see what I could do. The cobbled board you can see in the first Moonstone Rulebook was the result, and whilst not my best work, it does look pretty good and is still going, which is impressive for any carpentry of mine!
In the meantime, I’d gotten to know Tom a bit better, and played a few playtest games too. Even from early on, the game blew my mind; the tactical choices, the gameplay options, every rule seemed to make sense to me. I played in the first-ever tournament in Cardiff (where I think I encountered Brother Daniel for the first time and got whupped) and went all in on the Goblins, winning best painted enough times to get the Faeries too, and my Dominion roots were well and truly set.
When did you start working for Goblin King Games?
The hidden mine was my first Tauber Easter Egg..
After that first board, Tom came back for another try (with a bigger budget), and I made the snowy mountain board. Tom is an excellent commissioner as he knows exactly what he needs and is willing to let you go crazy within those boundaries!
One pandemic, two children (one each), three Fae treehouses, a Cabin Bug, A Church of Gary, and the Sunken City of Moonreach all passed by, and by then we had a pretty good working relationship. I even helped out one year at UKGE as he had a last-minute cancellation, so he gets to see me in action running demo games and sales like an absolute boss (thanks GW training!).
The next year I attended Andy Tutton’s tournament at Beachhead (my best-ever event performance as it happens, with my Troll troupe getting me in the top five, a never-to-be-repeated feat!) and Tom, who had a stall, very kindly offered to take myself, Caroline and my adopted boglin out for a meal that evening. I wasn’t to know that the Goblin King had an ulterior motive, however. GKG had reached a point where even working full-time he needed more support, and my unique combination of skills (take that Liam Neeson) plus how well we worked together already made me a great fit. Tom offered me the role; I thought it over (briefly) and decided that yes, I would take my absolute perfect job working for a game I love and a boss I had massive amounts of respect for in an industry that had given me joy my whole life.
It was a hard decision, as you can tell ;)
Talk us through the sorts of things you do at Goblin King Games.
We made Moonreach together just before I started full-time.
I like to say I do a little bit of everything, just worse than the specialists! I can’t write amazing worldbuilding or beautiful stories like Suzie, but if you need a quick in-character quote, I’m your man. I can’t write rules as clever or as multidimensional as Joe or Tom, but I can think of bad puns for ability names and playtest with the boys at Newport Games Club. I am nowhere near as talented an artist as Patrice, but I can knock out a silly sketch in an hour or so. I’ll never be painting cabinet-standard minis, but I can hammer out demo minis and terrain like nobody’s business. I can pack an order pretty quickly, but no-one on earth is as fast or reliable as Gilly.
That all sounds very glamorous and fun, but the truth is most of that awesome stuff is the marginalia of my daily work. I spend most of my time answering emails, communicating with retailers, sorting out issues and managing the stock so we can keep supplying the Moonstone junkies out there! I’m also Tom’s sounding board; he is possibly the most perfectionist person I’ve ever met when it comes to work, and he can deliberate over something as simple as a 1% height change on an undead hunting mercenary for hours, so having me there to talk things through has definitely sped up that process without lowering quality!
Finally (and when I get the time!) I build terrain. Lots and lots of terrain. Tom’s biggest contribution to my life wasn’t giving me a job, but saving my marriage by taking the terrain I was constantly making out of my wife’s way…
The Booty’s Bilge board was soooo expensive!
Tell us more about the terrain you build, how do you get the ideas? Do you just “work out” how to build stuff, or do you have some go-to sources?
I didn’t think I’d end up writing about windows in one of our blog posts.
That’s a tough question because it varies wildly; sometimes Tom will realise we need a specific terrain piece for photography or a scenario, other times I’ll be out and about visiting stately homes or ruins and think, ‘need that!’ or Suzie will write some off-the-cuff lore thing, and I’ll dive on it like a ravening Wendigo. Once the idea itself is given/formed/spewed out, I’ll research if there is anything historical I can use to base it on- like Terry Pratchett; both Tom and I think the best fantasy has one foot grounded in reality, so the research can be very important.
A good example is my Church of Gary - I’d been looking at small Welsh churches as well as ‘Beadhouses’ (or Bettws), and liked the fact that from above they were often cruciform in shape, so the deity (in theory) could look down on them. This made me consider what Gary’s church looked like from above, and a ‘sun shape’ was born. That made sense until I started looking at historical sundials and sun worship; then I thought, ‘What if the whole church is a giant sundial? Six sides, with 12 corners mark the hours, and the central tower gives the shadow? ‘. The inside is pretty much stolen from an ancient church at St Fagan’s, with a tomb, seats and a raised platform for speaking. I have no idea why I added the pigeon loft other than the tower looked too straight, and I wanted an excuse to buy some Bad Squiddo pigeons…
As for how I build things, firstly it’s a LOT of experience from my GW days, building stuff in the basement with Stu McCorquodale (now of Great Escape Games) and prepping stuff for Games Days and big events with Steve from GW Cardiff. I’d learn by trying, and practice definitely helped, as well as all of GW’s old terrain guides. Now, however, there are tons of amazing resources out there online, and when I want to learn a new technique (like the cork cliffs on the Moonreach Board or the foam leg on the Goose house), I’ll find a video or written-up guide first. I follow the Terrain Tutor, Blackmagic Craft, Bearfoot Miniatures, MS Terrain Labs, EonsOfBattle, and Artifex Maho, to name a few, plus some dollhouse and miniature railways pages; there’s so much to learn out there, and I want everything I make to be better than the last piece.
My goal is to build something better than the massive Tower that Tom was given by an amazing European builder. I haven’t got there yet, but I will, Garydamnit!
What stands out in your memory from the past 10 years?
Wow, it’s been a crazy few years even if I’ve only been here for a small chunk of it compared to everyone else! If I had to pick out my most memorable moments:
Seeing the Shades tokens, which I did a lot of the art for, actually on the shelves at B.I.G. As someone who’d never imagined my art would be worth anything, there were some big emotions on that one.
Travelling to America for Origins, meeting the fans out there and just being amazed by the enthusiasm the people so far away had for the game; it was a whirl and so stressful at times, but just a unique experience overall.
The people at events, you guys/gals, and others, are absolutely incredible; the volunteers who help, the customers we see every time even if they just come over to say hello, (I see you ladies in your WW2 re-enactment gear at Salute and love you!) and being with the full GKG team. When you spend a lot of time in an office hoping people like what you are doing, it is enormously rewarding to be surrounded by all that love!
Naming Abra-Cadaverous, never going to top that flash of inspiration.
My wife’s first words on seeing Tom for the first time - “Oh my God, his skin looks like honey…” - despite my obvious ego damage, I still tease her for that!
Going to Origins in the US was exhausting but incredible.
If you could go back to ten years ago and tell yourself something, what would that be?
That first board - don’t use 6mm MDF, it’s going to warp and you’ll be adding batons through the cobbles in a few years. Use 9mm instead, it’ll be heavier but won’t warp at all. Also Patrick Rothfuss still hasn’t written book 3 yet so manage your expectations there.
What do you hope for the next ten years?
Well, the poison I’ve been slipping into Tom’s Steak and Stilton bake seems to be working, as he’s slowly losing energy (that or he’s got a new-born baby and sleep deprivation), and I’ve sabotaged several key words in Suzie’s spellbook that should result in something explosive. Joe won’t notice I’ve taken charge as long as I keep feeding him character briefs, so I think my takeover should be complete in about 7 years at this rate?
There is so much more to come from us, in 10 years, we’ll hopefully have multiple games under our belt and enough miniatures to sink a small boat. Until then, I’m super excited about books 3 and 4, keen to get Tom working on his next project, starting to use our YouTube channel more with shorts, games and painting stuff, and hoping to get a few more trips to events outside my area now I’m more mobile after learning to drive this year!
Everything is exciting, I’m excited. Tom’s excited. Suzie’s excited. Mike and Gilly are excited. Joe raised one whole eyebrow. You should be excited too!
Mick
Viscount de Green has a nice ring to it…
