Grown Men Playing with Toys
Grown Men Playing With Toys is a Warhammer 40,000 podcast about getting better at the game without it feeling like a job or chore.
Join longtime friends Erik and Steve for practical discussions of strategy, list building, painting, and the lessons learned from games that went brilliantly.....or spectacularly wrong. Drawing on their systems engineering backgrounds and different approaches to 40K, they explore where casual and competitive play meet, with plenty of stories and friendly disagreements along the way.
This is a podcast for players who enjoy thinking seriously about their toy soldiers and laughing with the friends across the table.
They said we were too old. We said, “Hold our dice!”
Episodes
51 episodes
51 - Show Me the Doctrines!: Breaking Down the New Space Marine Codex
The Space Marine codex is here and Erik is more excited than he's been about anything not named Emperor's Children. With Cousin Josh along for the ride, the guys dig into how swapping Oath of Moment for combat doctrines changes the way Erik bui...
50 - Hold On to Your Butts: Riding the 11th Edition Codex Rollercoaster
Erik opens with a feeling of the day that turns Steve's stomach. With the Orks codex out, Space Marines days away, Custodes about to be on preorder, and balance updates coming fast, 11th Edition feels like the top of a rollercoaster's first hil...
49 - Michelangelo vs. the Assembly Line: Three Perspectives on Painting in Warhammer 40K
Cousin Josh joins Erik and Steve for a full hobby episode on the painting side of 40K. Erik sits at the assembly-line extreme, Steve at the masterpiece extreme, and Josh in the middle, where the guys hypothesize that most of the community lives...
48 - Burning Bright: Playing as the Underdog in Warhammer 40K
Cousin Josh joins Erik and Steve again as they break down a game between Erik and his oldest son that turns into a masterclass on underdog strategy. Erik's son, fully back into 11th Edition, decides he can't beat his dad's Custodes in a straigh...
47 - Shake the Snow Globe: A Check In On Some Of Our Favorite Factions
Cousin Josh joins the chat (literally) for the first time, heckling Erik and Steve from the sidelines while they take a step back from the week-to-week to talk macro direction of where their favorite factions are headed. The guys trade pe...
46 - The Nerfing Eye of Sauron: Erik's Favorite Factions Take One on the Chin
A balance update dropped this past week and several of Erik's favorite factions got hit with nerfs. Steve declares it a "feelings podcast" and the guys work through Erik's frustration before landing on the real point: how to pivot a list instea...
45 - Finding Your Nemo: Faction vs Force Disposition Specialization
Team USA won WTC and Steve blindsides Erik by admitting that he has fanboyed over it a bit. The guys break down how a Guard player ground out key tournament-clinching wins and why "keep it simple and execute flawlessly" beat out other tea...
44 - My Other Army Is a Flowchart: The Deliverability Problem
Erik is back on Orks and built a "just for fun" Da Big Hunt list that somehow tabled a CSM Defiler heavy army despite calling the Waaagh! in Round 1. This has Steve's attention and the guys dive into why this strategy might have been the ...
43 - Are You Not Entertained?: Why Playing 40K at Your LGS Hits Different
Erik and Steve were supposed to sneak out for a game at the Local Game Store (LGS) this week and instead got stuck at home, so naturally they spent forty-five minutes turning that disappointment into a full breakdown of why playing 40K at the L...
42 - I'm Not Dead Yet: 40K's First Balance Update
Steve is fighting off a Nurgle infection, Erik is fighting off bad habits with Cursed Legion Necrons, and everybody on the internet is convinced their faction is dead. Spoiler....they're not dead yet. Erik and Steve are back to disc...
41 - Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho: Barnhammer's First Taste of 11th Edition
Erik is back from vacation to find that Barnhammer has been played without him. He's definitely not feeling jealous, FOMO, or left out and DEFINITELY is not punishing Steve for organizing it without him by making Steve lead the episode as...
40 - I Feel the Need...The Need for 11th
Erik is back from the tabletop trenches with a full debrief. He is two games deep into 11th Edition, has played four factions, and is ready to hype Steve up for an upcoming week of Barnhammer gaming. Along the way they cove...
39 - Thanos-Snapping My 10th Edition Lists: Erik Gets a a Clean Slate for 11th
In this episode of the "Grown Men Playing With Toys" podcast, Erik and Steve dive headfirst into the early days of 11th edition. Fresh off the MFM drop, deep in terrain mechanics, and (for one of them) staring down a freshly nuked wastela...
38 - Where's the Beef (List)?: Playing Beefy Armies and Force Disposition Theory
In this episode of the "Grown Men Playing With Toys" podcast, Erik and Steve take a hard left turn from their planned agenda and end up somewhere much more interesting. The cliffhanger from the All-Star Game has been rattling around in Steve's ...
37 - You Had One Job: The Dramatic Conclusion of Our 10th Edition All-Star Game
In this episode of the "Grown Men Playing With Toys" podcast, the GMPWT 10th Edition All-Star Game gets its dramatic conclusion. The lists are built, the terrain is set, the store owner has been recruited as celebrity dice roller, and absolutel...
36 - Our 10th Edition All-Star Game
In this episode of the "Grown Men Playing With Toys" podcast, Erik emerges from his mad science cave with an idea to help Steve with the end-of-edition doldrums. The result is the most creative thing they've attempted yet.....the GMPWT 10th Edi...
35 - Nobody Told Me the Dice Hit Back: Why We Sign Up for Hard Things, On and Off the Tabletop
In this episode of the "Grown Men Playing With Toys" podcast, Erik shows up to record still licking his wounds, this time from a rough road race. Only this time his own son quote the podcast back at him like a tiny, devastating life coach. &nbs...
34 - Pantheon of Woe: Population.....Me: Autopsy of a Necrons vs. Ultramarines Collapse
In this episode of the "Grown Men Playing With Toys" podcast, Erik confesses to a crime against his own hobby — being a grouch for two days because he played poorly in a game that he was playing against himself.Steve holds it together lo...
33 - There Is Only War... and Middle Child Syndrome: Sorting Every 40K Faction by Birth Order
In this episode of the "Grown Men Playing With Toys" podcast, Erik and Steve do something they probably should have seen a therapist about first — they apply the science of birth order psychology to the entire Warhammer 40K universe.The ...
32 - Be Excellent to Each Other: What Learning Age of Sigmar Taught Steve About Faction Identity
In this episode of the "Grown Men Playing With Toys" podcast, Erik and Steve do something a little different — Steve takes the wheel while Erik rides shotgun, and together they explore what happens when you step completely outside your comfort ...
31 - Where We're Going, We Don't Need Roads: A Crusade League Retrospective and First Look at 11th
In this episode of the "Grown Men Playing With Toys" podcast, Erik and Steve do something a little different — they look backwards and forwards at the same time, connecting the dots between the past seven months of Erik's Crusade League and the...
30 - I'm Terribly Sorry Sir. I'm Afraid You Are Mistaken: Scouting Our Own 40K Mistakes
In this episode of the "Grown Men Playing With Toys" podcast, Erik and Steve do one of the most uncomfortable things in 40K — they turn the camera on themselves and ask the question: what kind of mistakes do I actually make, and why do I ke...
29 - Mo' Models, Mo' Problems: Impulse Buys vs. Going All-In on an Army
In this episode of the "Grown Men Playing With Toys" podcast, Erik and Steve tackle one of the most common experiences in the Warhammer 40K hobby — the impulse buy — and discover that they couldn't possibly approach it more differently.S...
28 - No More "And Then.....": Rating 40K Keywords and Abilities on Pure Fun
In this episode of the "Grown Men Playing With Toys" podcast, Erik and Steve do what grown men do best — argue about made-up words on plastic soldiers and ask the question no Warhammer 40K content creator has been serious enough to tackle: are ...
27 - List Hammer, Math Hammer, Feelings Hammer: The Stages of Grief After a Balance Dataslate
In this episode of the "Grown Men Playing With Toys" podcast, Erik and Steve discuss the community’s negative reaction to a recent Warhammer 40K Balance Dataslate. The conversation frames players’ reactions as a progression thru the steps of:&n...
