Never Paint Alone – A Podcast Recommendation
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| In The Garage |
The best time for painting – at least for middle-aged family men for whom this hobby is at the bottom of a long, long list of things to do – is that magic hour between seeing the kids off to bed and when days tribulations finally catch up to you. Hopefully, that’s a quiet hour of solitude, so it’s nice to have a little something to keep you company, whether it be movies, books on tape*, a little music, whatever helps the mind stay as busy as your hands.
One of my more recent additions is a podcast made just for guys like me, and if you’re reading this, probably for guys like you. In The Garage is pretty much two guys who sit around for an hour talking about 15mm scale miniature wargaming.
The main thrust of each conversation is 15mm sci-fi with some diversions into 15mm fantasy, and the odd discussion of less important war-gaming scales. The show is done by the guy (guys?) behind Clear Horizon Miniatures, so that company’s offerings are the most frequently mentioned; don’t let that scare you off. These guys are extremely ecumenical, and while they do engage in soft sell along with the strong tastes, they never go full GW. They discuss what they know, and understandably, they know their own products better than anyone else’s. It’s natural, and they are aware of the dangers.
The shows features two hosts. Mr. Harold, you probably know as a regular at the Lead Adventure Forums, a former grunt in the Games Workshop salt mines, the proprietor of Clear Horizon Miniatures, as well as the host of the Clear Horizon Blog. His cohort is Jason, a…well, a friend of his. (I’m sure his bio is as impressive as Mr. Harold’s, but I haven’t been able to dig up as much dirt on him.) Jason makes a great sounding board for Mr. Harold and the banter they share is both authentic and amusing. If I say they sound like wargamers, you’ll know what I mean.
That brief description doesn’t do the podcast justice. The two hosts clearly know their stuff, and they do a fine job dishing out the latest news in the hobby, provide some great tips and tricks, and even kick you in the pants to get you motivated to try new things. Even though you may never play most of the games they mention, it’s great to hear what’s going on around the hobby, what Kickstarters worked or didn’t, who is dropping new rules or new lines of figures, they touch on it all in a friendly and even-handed manner.
It’s funny, what they probably consider a negative – the informal conversational style often interrupted by the family dog or wandering child – actually adds to the charm. That’s the sort of thing we all deal with, and hearing it happen to these guys is as fun as hearing about their shoddy dice rolls at pivotal moments of a game. Just we we have played games where three consecutive ‘anything but a one and I win’ rolls come up as a three-eyed snake, we have all had the pleasure of a just-out-of-diapers toddler run past the game table sans pants. It may not be the height of professionalism, but it’s fun and charming.
So hey, if you’ve got an hour to kill at the table or in the car or on your jog around the neighborhood, give them a shot. You won’t regret it.
* For you kids out there, those are sometimes called audiobooks. Told you I was a middle-aged man.