Episode 9 Ron Palma/3DDZYN

We talk with Ron Palma. The man behind 3DDZYN.  He manufactures MDF terrain and gaming accessories.

https://www.3d-dzyn.com/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

You are listening to Tanks and Tomahawks, a miniature war gaming podcast in the Pacific Northwest. Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of Takes a Tomahawks Podcast. And I'm here with Kevin. Hi Steve, how is it how's it going? I am doing great. Great. It's uh typical rainy northwest day, but I'm doing good. So getting a little tired of the weather. Yes. I think everybody that lives in the Northwest gets to that mar mid-March, heading into April, and we all we all hope there's going to be some sunshine at some point.

SPEAKER_03 0:54

So I'm I'm hoping to be able to mow my lawn someday. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:59

Yeah. Well, one sunny day, and yeah, it'll be a jungle. So we know how that works.

SPEAKER_03 1:03

It's true. It's true.

SPEAKER_00 1:04

Well, today we have a special guest with us, uh, Ron Palma, who's the owner and operator of 3D designs. How are you doing, Ron? Good. How are you guys? Good.

SPEAKER_03 1:13

Good.

SPEAKER_00 1:14

Good.

SPEAKER_03 1:16

Um so Ron, tell us about how you got into war gaming and um and uh how long you've been doing it and what kind of piques your interests.

SPEAKER_01 1:27

Sure, absolutely. Um, well, so I've been gaming most of my life. Uh, you know, if growing up family, board gaming was the big thing. And uh uh my dad uh and my brother and even my sister, we'd all sit around and play risk, and uh it uh uh it was several nights of risk. We'd have to carefully lift the board up with all the pieces, set it up on top of the piano, you know, come back a few days later. So that's really kind of where I would say uh gaming in general and uh strategy came into play. Um and uh you know, and then for a while I I had gotten into uh into modeling uh you know, Tamiya tanks and airplanes and boats and ships, and so that kind of uh was pretty cool, you know, and then when I got to an age uh where I didn't need all those models anymore, you know, you did the firecracker BB gun thing and blew them all up and recreated a mock mac uh mock battle. So I would say it's it's those kinds of elements kind of stemmed the interest in in gaming. Um it's funny, I joined I joined the military uh right out of high school, couldn't pay for college, so that was the way I I got through college. And uh my mom, when I came back, my mom says, How come you're such a a warmonger? And uh, well, you know, now she's she's busy peeling little bits of masking paper off of my uh plastic tokens that I sell at the at the show. So um she's supporting my warmongering, I suppose. Um but fast forward, uh in the uh I guess it was the late 80s, I was uh I had joined a cavalry troop um in the military, and uh we did this big war game, and it was my my first real exposure to um actually one 285th scale uh old GHQ models. And uh, you know, going back and looking at that, GHQ actually had contracted out with the Army for the war game. And uh my uh set of rules that I've been looking at for years just came in today, which was the old uh um uh manual they used to use for the war gaming. So I was super excited that came in. I've been honching at the bit, checking the mail every day. Uh so those rules were based upon uh US versus Soviet, and it wasn't just a game, but it was kind of a miniature simulation uh that we did. And so I learned a lot about Russian tactics uh and stuff that way. So I would say that was really my first exposure to war gaming, if you will, uh miniature, miniature gaming. Uh, you know, life happens. You uh you grow a family, you go to school, you get your career started. So I kind of took a break. Um I've always been a Lego guy, so that that piece has never stopped. Um and uh so that hobby kept going on, and the modeling took a side a sidestep. And uh I met uh a guy, uh friend of mine, James Callahan. He comes up to the show with me each year, and uh he was into some gaming stuff, and uh his mom, like my mom, never let us play Dungeons and Dragons. You know, that was evil. We were gonna turn into little orcs and and be devils or whatever. Um so we never were exposed to Dungeons and Dragons, right? But uh we got to we so we got into playing with little little army men, right, the whole time. So when I we when we met, we uh cautiously you know let on that we played with little little army dudes and and rolled dice. And so uh we've been doing that for the last gosh probably 25 years um gaming. And then we found Enfilod, and uh I I can't even remember what my first Enfilod was, but it's probably been 15 to 18 years ago.

SPEAKER_03 5:40

We were when we were in Olympia, right? Was that the first time?

SPEAKER_01 5:43

Yeah, so yeah, so we we went up for the day because we had no idea what you know what all you nerds did, and and we were gonna check it out. And we had a lot of fun and we were bummed out that we had to leave you know Friday or Saturday night, I think. And so uh the next year we we came and we've been going just about every year since. I think the only one I missed was was the COVID year.

SPEAKER_03 6:07

Well, a shout out to James too. James hosts some really cool games, and a shout out to all those nerds who drop in and don't know what we're gonna we're about. So um, so you know, uh here's Ron and James dropping in, and they they learned to love us. So uh so yeah, we encourage you to do the same if you if you haven't been before. Absolutely. Did you ever did you ever do any board gaming like Avalon Hill or SPI or strategy and tactics, that kind of stuff?

SPEAKER_01 6:34

I did, um, but a lot of it was solo because I didn't have you know very many friends that did that, right? Um so so I would I literally I had in my bedroom an old drafting table, and I'd sit on one side and I'd move the figures, and then I'd get up and I'd go to the other side, and okay, I'm the other person now. I'm gonna do I gotta think like that other person. What would they do?

SPEAKER_03 6:57

You know, so I was playing playing solo, and that was rough, you know, but uh uh it was if it makes you feel any better, and it probably doesn't. Um I still buy board games and I only buy games that have a solo module in them. So because I'm usually I'm playing alone.

SPEAKER_00 7:15

So that's becoming a big kind of category again with a solo play game. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:23

Although uh with this board game, or not board gaming night, but this game night that we're doing at the Legion uh every four Thursday, um we've got some friends of ours and and we've gotten them into gaming. My wife and I have gotten them into gaming, and uh, we just finished the Ticket to Ride Legacy game, and that was a blast. It was uh every game was a little bit different. You added rules and you changed things up, and they had never really gamed before, and and so now they're talking about when are we gonna do the next one? So we just bought another game, uh uh kind of a campaign cooperative thing, and and keep doing that. I'll eventually get Scott and my buddy into some war games uh next. So, you know, we'll keep working on that.

SPEAKER_00 8:12

Cool. So just in your war gaming journey, has there been like a genre or a historical period that kind of interests you the most?

SPEAKER_01 8:22

Sure. Um I would say that spans uh quite the range, like my hobbies do. Um when I met James, okay, here's another nerd thing. Uh when I met James, James and I were doing Civil War reenacting uh at the time. And so early on, Civil War uh uh miniature gaming was was our thing. Johnny uh Johnny Reb uh was the rule set. Um and then uh uh Wizards of the Coast came out with War at Sea, and I had always liked naval stuff. And it was a simple rule set. I'm not a smart guy with charts and diagrams and a bunch of garbage. I want I just want to roll dice and kill things. Uh so war at sea was a blast, you know. So we would after the Civil War, after the public would leave the reenactments, we'd break out our war at sea, uh, you know, on these picnic tables and just be playing out there and all the serious reenactors would be going, you can't bring that out here, it's not, period. We're going, eh, go away, you know. So yeah, I would say start off with Civil War. Um uh I really enjoy historical a lot. I I I like history, I like um understanding uh what um you know what factors are involved on things. Um so historical has always been has been fun, but then I also like the historical setting with a twist. So pulp gaming, you know, kind of piqued my interest for for a while, and it still does. I like to go back and do it once in a while, but for a little bit, um I was doing a lot of pulp alley. Um and uh actually my first Enfilade game was uh a pulp alley game, and it was um, I think it was War in the Desert or something, but it was Casablanca, was my game that I put on. And that's kind of where um I've really piqued the interest on, hey, I can build this terrain and and make it available for people. So, you know, I had I had uh purchased a bunch of terrain from a company out of uh England and for my pulp alley game for Casablanca, and uh was sitting there putting it together and going, well, this is easy. And I've got my my background is in architecture uh and construction and manufacturing and CAD. And uh so I thought I could do this, right? I I can improve upon what I just spent a bunch of money on and build it for myself for cheap. Well, there's this local laser company. Um I thought, okay, yeah, I'll just go down, I'll I'll pay him to do this stuff, and I made some designs, and he was he was griping because you know I was punching holes in the wood for like handrails and whatnot. He says, Ah, it leaves all sorts of garbage in my bed, and this isn't fun for me. And he was charging me a ton of money to do this thing. And so I thought, I need a uh I need to buy a laser, is what I did. Well, unfortunately, or fortunately, however you want to look at it, I uh had to go on deployment with uh uh to Afghanistan, and uh I was hanging out there uh thinking, man, I miss an enfilade. That was the other enfilade I did miss. I was in Afghanistan at the time. Uh 2015, 14, 2014. And uh I was sitting there thinking, man, I I really want to make my own terrain and uh I miss some war gaming. So I made the decision when I get home, I'm gonna buy a laser. So, you know, I came home and and uh a great mentor of mine, uh Ski Schumacher, um uh he was really into modeling tanks, and uh he would play the uh God, Panzer Commander, I think it was on the computer. And that was his thing. He loved it. And uh uh so he and I went to a train show because I knew they did terrain. Um I really wasn't quite thinking, I didn't know much about um like gaming shows if they would have vendors and that kind of thing. I was just exposed to NFLOT at the time. So he and I went to this train show and uh just kind of interviewing a bunch of people making terrain for model railroads. And uh out of the six people I talked to, all of them uh had purchased a um epilogue laser, and uh they swore by it that it was made in the US, uh great customer service, parts the next day, and so I was sold. And uh talked to my dealer who lives uh up in Renton, and uh she told me the price tag, and uh it was like uh with my filter and everything, it was like $25,000. And I was thinking, oh man, what am I gonna do? That's a car payment, you know. And uh I I'm happy to say that you know, I haven't I would say that's really the only loan I took starting out this business. Um and it was more of it was well, it was a loan to buy the laser, but I have paid uh you know, I paid for it uh through my military checks, so that was another good thing about staying in the military. Um and paid that off. And everything that I've done building this business has uh outside of that laser, it has been sole just me, right? Now, it hasn't been off a profit from the company, I'll tell you that. Um but uh um it's it's it's the income that that I was getting from the military which has kept my business going. And for me, the business is one, I have a cool tool. Um don't tell my wife that's why I bought it was for me. Um but I've got a cool tool. Um I can be creative, and really kind of my goal uh is to give back to the community. The community's been really good, the gaming community has been really good for me. Um I uh and I've always stood by I want to create qual a quality product uh that uh is not super unreasonable in cost. You know, I'm honest, honestly, I make very little uh money out of it. I I haven't built profit in, which is a dumb business move. Um but I'm I'm giving back to to all the gamers, you know, it's and and like I do a lot of custom work, um, and it's uh uh it's time and material. I don't charge for custom designs if I can turn it into a product, right? So a lot of people have benefited from that. I've benefited from that. Um my very first product was actually an inspiration from Rod Fleck, one of the members uh here at Infilaud. He was we were sitting around and I had made some things for the um one of my games I put on, some rulers, I think. And uh he was sitting around, he goes, you know, I've I got this thing I want you to to design and and make. And I'm thinking, yeah, right, you know, it's custom, and you're not gonna pay for a custom thing. And he says, No, I'm serious. So uh the Roman Dice Tower that I make was my very first product that I was actually selling. And uh it continues to be a very successful product. Um he sold a bunch of them for me. He's into he's in into some groups that uh he says, hey, you should check out this dice tower, it's really cool. So that he really helped kind of kick start this is a valid idea for me. You know, it's it's it's a hobby, yes. Um I have a blast doing it, I have a blast uh contributing to people's um gaming experience. Uh and I like I like to make cool game table stuff.

SPEAKER_03 16:30

So just as a uh an aside here, so for those of you listening, Rod Fleck is a member of our organization, he's been a member for a long time. He is the city lawyer for the city of Forks. And and um and he runs a little convention in Forks called Raincom. And so they gather people around the Twilight people and the uh the and and he's he's a neat guy.

SPEAKER_01 16:56

Yeah, he is. He uh we have been sit, we've been sitting on an idea for years now. Uh he wants to build a great big blimp hanger uh with a blimp in it that we can do for gaming. And I'm going, uh man, that's a lot of work and that's a lot of money to figure out and do test run on. And he keeps telling he keeps telling me, I'm serious, I'm serious.

unknown 17:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:21

And I and I'm gonna take it's not six millimeter either, right?

SPEAKER_01 17:24

Like 28. No, no, it's not. Uh no. Not for Rod. 28. Although six millimeter, I'll I'll have to talk, we'll talk about that in a little bit. I I'm on a six millimeter kick right now.

SPEAKER_00 17:37

Well, I just want to say thank you. You did the templates for me for uh Pugesound Wargamers. We actually had a tournament on Saturday, and that was some of the prize support that we handed out. So uh so I'm assuming the same machine will do the acrylic or the MDF that you do.

SPEAKER_01 17:51

Yes, yeah, absolutely. Um yeah, funny you say that too, though. Uh what was it to 2024? 2024. Um so I'm gonna keep I'm gonna keep spitting out our our member names. Gary Williams is probably my biggest customer. Now I when I say that, he puts a lot of orders in. It's nothing nothing big, big stuff, but I do a lot of uh custom bases and tokens and and templates for him. And he put this order in. Uh he needed a bunch of uh red acrylic token things. Oh no, he needed some templates. That's what he needed. So I uh I put the I designed the templates on the on the acrylic, but there was a lot of space on the acrylic. And and I'm a big um don't waste material kind of guy, right? And you should I would say you should see my basement, you probably don't want to. Um it scraps of wood everywhere because I I can't bear with throwing something away because oh I can use it somewhere along the line. Anyway, so I was filling up the empty spaces with a bunch of tokens uh that I was gonna cut to make things a little bit more efficient. Sat down, was doing some more designing, and all of a sudden my laser shut down. And I went, that's weird, what's going on? And I look over and there's this glow against the wall uh uh next to the laser, and I went, oh no, the laser caught fire. Um the uh so red acrylic, Steve, by the way, um, burns hotter than other colored acrylic. Um and uh it had been burning for a little bit while I'm sitting next to the laser, thank goodness. Um and uh completely uh melted my bed, melted a bunch of this stuff. It warped my interior bed, and I was kind of out of business the last half of 2024. Um and uh so bought a new laser uh with the insurance money. Uh that took a while to get out of the insurance company, but bought a new laser only to find out that uh it was a half an inch too big to get through to my basement. So I can't get into my basement, sitting in my garage right now, $20,000. Luckily, a competitor, um I'll throw his name out too, things from the basement uh over on the East Coast, uh, he said, Ron, I got the same laser you just you just blew up. Um I'll sell it to you for $7,500. I went, sold, you got it. And uh we shipped it over um within a few weeks, and uh I was cranking stuff out for Infilod last year um because I was behind. And uh it's been good, but yes, we we're cutting MDF, we're cutting acrylic. Uh now when I'm cutting all my acrylic, I'm actually staging it, so I'm I'm going like every if you think of a checkerboard, I'm going every other space. I'll cut something, then on the next job, I'll go every other space to kind of space out that heat signature so I don't catch fire again. It takes me a little bit longer, but you know, it's better than buying another laser at this point.

SPEAKER_00 21:13

Well, I'm glad you decided not to not to do acrylic anymore because I really like those templates.

SPEAKER_01 21:16

So oh, I'm still doing acrylic. Oh, I'm still doing acrylic, yeah. So I'm glad I'm glad they turned out. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, very good.

SPEAKER_03 21:23

But less red red acrylic, right?

SPEAKER_01 21:26

Oh, he no, his was all red. It was just a conquer red acrylic.

SPEAKER_03 21:31

It was a ton, yeah, there's a ton of acrylic on that one.

SPEAKER_02 21:34

Perfect.

SPEAKER_03 21:34

Do you have anything that um uh uh business-wise that you're thinking about adding to your range or um yeah?

SPEAKER_01 21:42

I I try to do I try to do something new each year for Infilod, uh, for sure. Um you'll see if you go to my website, a lot of my stuff was was Western based because you know I it's kind of a fallback for me. It's an easy thing to to host and let people just. Have fun at without having to get too tactical or learn a lot of rules. So I got a lot of I got a big Western range. But uh yeah, I always try to add something new this year. I've got another uh new Roman dice towers based upon uh uh an existing or one they found uh in Egypt. Um so I'll be rolling that one out this year. Um I've gone with some smaller dice towers, uh compact things. Um playing this board game, the uh ticket to ride with with uh friends and family. I needed a card sorter, so I got a card sorter. You know, so I'm I'm kind of expanding a little bit into some of the accessories and and game enhancement things. Um I'm hoping uh don't tell Steve Abar this, but uh uh not Steve, but uh Chris. Don't tell Chris this. Oh no. Um but I'm trying to finish up the 15 millimeter um prison camp. Okay uh that's been sitting around for a bit. Yeah. So hopefully that will be finished. What else do I have this year? I think I got another Western building I'm I'm converting over.

unknown 23:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:12

Oh, oh, oh, oh. Uh Seth Terry um and Doug Ham, James Callahan, and myself are putting on uh York at M Falod this year. And uh we needed some medieval buildings. So uh I designed up some new kind of modular um pieces. Or think about Lego. They're uh uh based upon a three-inch by three-inch box, but then I've got a six-inch by three-inch box, and uh they've got the um facades that are all different, and so but you can mix and match them so you can stack them uh modularly like a Lego, different roof types. So we're gonna use those at York, and so I'm gonna be rolling those out as well. Um but timberella. You know, Seth said, I need 36 buildings. I went, holy smokes, what how I I gotta cut 36 buildings and build them and paint them because you're in Washington. So yeah, it'll be fun. And then um we're doing a cathedral too. So I'm doing uh the cathedral was so big that uh kind of like um uh Sam's uh government building, if you've seen that on Facebook. Uh it's pretty big and uh just from the standpoint of packaging it as a product, it wasn't gonna work, so I chunked it up um to make it modular, so you could buy the facade of the church if that's all you wanted for your table, but you could buy the other pieces to so you could have the whole massive cathedral. So um I don't know if I'm gonna get the whole cathedral done. I'll have the facade ready to go for the game table for sure. Very cool.

unknown 24:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:58

So when you do a uh building, and let's say you do it either in 15 or 28, do you try to mirror it one way back for you know 15 to 28 or 28 to 15, or does it just depend on the need or what people are looking for?

SPEAKER_01 25:11

Yeah, it it kind of depends upon what the need that uh I'm looking for for me. Um and then for you too, right? If you said, Ron, you know, I like uh I like this thing, can you do this in this scale? Or can you actually mirror it, you know, flip it, flip it on its on its side or a direction. Um so then I'll I'll create a new product out of it that way. Um a new customer, I think he's out of Iowa. Um actually he bought a um Western dice tower I had. Western being it's a building that sits on your on your table, it fits right into your terrain. You can't really tell it's a dice tower. Um, but you know, you can lift the roof lid and drop the dice in, and he spits it out the back. And he says, This is great. My son and I love it. We use it all the time. Can you make another one that I can mirror on the other side of the street, you know, that we fight on? So he just finished that one up, and uh actually uh I finished his order last night only to realize I didn't finish the instructions. So right after this podcast, uh I got to go create a ton of instructions. There's 63 images that uh I I had to draw up, and so now I've got to tell everybody how to or write the instructions on how to build it and glue it together.

unknown 26:31

Yeah, gotcha.

SPEAKER_00 26:32

So besides NFL, are there any kind of bucket list events that you uh you're looking to do either personally or through the business?

SPEAKER_01 26:40

Yeah. Um I I want to get up to uh um Canada. What is that, Trumpeter?

SPEAKER_02 26:47

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 26:47

Yeah, I want to get I want to get up to Trumpeter. I was hoping to do it this year, uh, couldn't do it this year, or can't do it this year. Um a couple of years ago, uh I teamed up with a game manufacturer, board game manufacturer. He he contacted me. Uh he made the high noon board game, and uh it's he was saying, look, I want to do some 3D buildings, I want to have it be expandable uh so it's not just a board game, but you could do miniatures if you want, and you've you've got the best product out there that that I've seen. And so I teamed up with him, and uh so the last two years we've been going down to um a convention in Atlanta to kind of promote his his stuff, and then I do a little bit of of promoting of my business down there too. So that's what I'm doing on the on the convention side, but yeah, I would I'd love to go to Historicon. I'd like to go to Trumpeter's Close because it's in our backyard, right? Um it I'd like to do it right now. I'm still working full-time. This is really a part-time business, so it's kind of hard to justify breaking away and and going on doing those things.

SPEAKER_03 27:57

It's really a weekend. It's uh but they know you up there. They would like to see you.

SPEAKER_01 28:03

Yeah. Yeah. Good. I hope so. I think that's the hardest thing was getting the word out, right? I mean, I'm very much uh a northwest um you know entity, only because of inflot, really, you know, in this group. Um, but I'm trying to trying to get out across the across the US. I've had these backyard dreams of you know being the uh um who was it, a foreground of the US. You know?

SPEAKER_03 28:33

Well, but then I mean just speaking for myself, I mean, um I've had foreground, I've had Sarissa, and I've had 3D design, and it yours is every it's competitive in every way with them. So I think uh you have a great product.

SPEAKER_01 28:48

Thank you. Thanks. Yeah, it's just word of mouth at this point, is I think is what we need to do.

SPEAKER_00 28:53

Yeah. If you want to add to that Southeast Asia line in 28, I wouldn't compare some fire, maybe some firebases type stuff.

SPEAKER_01 29:01

So so here's so thanks, Steve. Here's all you really have to do. Because I get I get design block once in a while. You know, and a lot of stuff if if I'm not getting any business, it's what game are James and I going to do next? And then I start thinking about terrain, right? And so we build it for myself, for build it for us. Um if you have any ideas or aspirations, or man, gee, I'd really like to have this thing, shoot me an email and let's talk. Uh, you know, what's the feasibility of it? Like I said, I'm not charging a design fee if I'm turned into a product. Now, with that said, I had a guy tell me, hey, I want to build a custom game table. Can you do it? I said, Yeah, I can do it. You're gonna you're not gonna charge me a design fee, right? And I went, I'll never be able to sell your game table again. So, you know, I'll be reasonable with you, you know, we'll work something out, but and I'm not gonna I'm not gonna charge you an arm and a leg, but I'll never be able to resell this, you know. Right. Right. But but yeah, send me your ideas. Send me your ideas. You sometimes if I if uh I'm not understanding what you want, a quick sketch or a snapshot off the internet of I want this, can we do it? Yeah, we'll talk and figure it out.

SPEAKER_00 30:17

Yeah, awesome. So what's on your workbench right now? What's I know you I've seen a lot, I follow you on Facebook, I've seen your Pony War stuff, which was really cool. What's what's on the workbench right now?

SPEAKER_01 30:31

Okay. Uh I'm finished. So I am putting on Pony Wars this year at Inflaud. Um, and you can thank Gary Williams for that, because I purchased that Pony Wars thing he had at the Bring Em Bye last year. Um which was stupid. Um because it turned me into a monster, is what it did. So I I I was painting those things up and uh they were quick and I was really impressed, going, man, I can crank out armies. So I immediately ordered um Zulu stuff from Bacchus and I ordered their uh medieval stuff. Uh so I and I painted I would needed a break from Pony War, so I painted up three groups of of of uh uh medieval uh Saxons and uh Vikings and Normans. And um what was fun about that was I I had all these good guys sitting around, I'm thinking, what am I gonna do with these guys now? And then I dusted off my saga rules, and I'm just using a base of guys to replace a single figure in saga, and it's been a blast. And so I've scaled down the saga rulers to be, I think Ba Bacchus said uh two-thirds scale. So I've I've got a set of two-thirds scale saga rulers now, um, so I'll be bringing those to Envelod. And we've been playing that uh a lot too. So that's been a been fun. And I just put a stupid order in for some uh medieval six millimeter James. So James is not good for me, actually, and I'm probably not good for him either, because we'll just be sitting around. We have a paint night every Wednesday night uh online, and James says, What are we gonna do next? And you know, I'll throw something out, and suddenly he'll have the rule book, you know, or he'll do the same thing for me. I just ordered these minis for you. So he threw out the idea of hey, have you ever thought about doing Starship Troopers? So we found some 3D, 3D print stuff. So what's on I'm coming back to your your your question, Steve. He says, What uh um you've ever thought about Starship Troopers? I just ordered these off of eBay, and he doesn't have a printer. Um and so he got them. I went, okay, yeah, I done, I got him. So I ordered a bunch of stuff from them too. And um Starship Troopers came in, and I was just painting away on those things. They're going quick. And uh so we're gonna be putting on uh uh a Starship Troopers game at Enfilod this year, too. Um we're going to loosely base it on Pony Wars rule set just to kind of keep it going. So it's it's you against the bugs. Um and uh interestingly enough, uh I I've started I'm playing around with some AI stuff for um work, and I said, I wonder if it can write help me write a set of rules, you know, on this. And uh I'm using a couple of of AI I so what I do is I I'm currently in software and I uh I schlock an online training program called uh Global eTraining. And uh they have a great AI engine for creating training courseware. And uh I tested it out on uh some rules. I was doing a demo for a customer, and they're all architects and engineers, and I wanted something kind of whimsical and say, look, look at how good this is. And I said, build me a set of rules that's based upon Pony Wars, and it it kicked everything out for me. And I'm going, okay, now I just need to proof it, make sure conceptually it works. And so we're gonna be doing that. But uh, that's what's on the workbench uh Starship Troopers and finishing up the terrain for Pony Wars, which will also be used in Starship Troopers. Um trying to get the last couple of designs out for inflod, you know, and and I've my head is filled with so many designs and things I I just keep rotating through what if I get stuck on a problem trying to figure out how would I make this work if I was building the kit. So I'm always after how do we build the kit simply. I try my best to hide the the holes and the slots for the for the uh pieces of wood. I try to incorporate as much um architecture into that to hide them better. Um and so I if I get stuck on something like that, I take a break and I go move to another project, right? So that's why my project bin is full of all sorts of design ideas that just haven't come to fruition yet. I'm still trying to figure out issues uh and getting them out.

SPEAKER_00 35:15

Well, I can sympathize. I'm sitting here at my workbench and I've got some 28mm Viet Cong Rubicon with some 15mm Battlefront French tanks and some American Revolutionary War 28mm, all staring me in the face because yeah, I kind of get burned out and I'm like, all right, I need a change of pace.

SPEAKER_03 35:33

And so Yeah, this yeah, it's just what we do, right? We clutter our lives with all these competing interests, and then we have to play games with them all.

SPEAKER_01 35:43

So yeah, yeah, absolutely. I I would say for me, really the the painting has been the most enjoyable. Uh I I have found that it's it's just calming, it gets me into a good headspace. Um I have a lot of fun. I do enjoy playing games, but man, if rules are complicated, I'm just I I don't get it. You know, I just just show me, tell me what I have to roll. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 36:10

This is what I want to do and how can I do it. Yeah. Right, yeah, exactly. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 36:18

Exactly. Yeah. We have a a group that meets up on Wednesdays. Kevin's part of that. And I think that's the theme for all of us, too, is like the simpler, the better. So if it can feed onto one sheet of paper, both sides, then we're down for it.

SPEAKER_01 36:32

So now you're the two sides versus the single side. Yeah. Well, so the bigger print. Okay, I got it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 36:41

So we've been we've been play testing a set of rules um for Chris Leach out of White Rock, and um and uh it's a set of skirmish rules. And you know, Chris doesn't do skirmish rules, he does mass battle rules, and so he said, I had this idea. And and you play skirmish rules. What would you think? So uh so we agreed to uh so we agreed to get Moral and they were really fun, but I could put all everything on the on one sheet of paper, all the mechanics on one sheet of paper, and then on the back I could I could have the um unicaracteristics for all the uh things in the game. And if we if I can do that, I'm really happy. I'm really happy. Good.

SPEAKER_01 37:18

So when you're doing that, um is do you laminate your cards or your your sheets so you can write on them, scribble notes on them, or is it just printed new printed sheet of paper?

SPEAKER_03 37:28

Actually, um, because we're kind of in contact with him and he's changing them constantly, it doesn't make a sense. Uh I do I have a laminator and I use it a lot. Um, but um in this instance, no, I'm not laminating it. Um and Eric Donaldson's kind of our designated note taker, and so he always um writes down the ideas that we had to send on to Chris. And he's really responsive, it's fun. Very good. Yeah, it's been a lot of fun. Um I was gonna ask you something, and I forget what it was. Um I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_01 38:04

You're good. Well, I had a thought when uh Steve mentioned the Rubicon figures. James and I did those last year. Um the figures are awesome, they're great. The glue sucks. The glue, the the the plastic sucks because you can't use standard plastic glue on it. You gotta use that ABS glue or whatever. Um but I had a bunch of torsos and heads left over when you start doing the figures.

SPEAKER_02 38:29

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 38:30

So I took a bunch of my uh my army guys and I had them wading through a muddy river so I could reuse all those figures that way. They look good. So I'll just swap them when they go into the into the delta, you know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:44

Yeah, I was telling Kevin they're uh if you don't like building models, then don't buy those figures because they're anywhere from eight to ten, twelve pieces per figure between the hats and the heads and the pouches and stinks for twenty. Uh I've been using the tester stuff and it's been working okay for me.

SPEAKER_01 39:04

So yeah, I think James had to buy me the uh the blue lid uh Tamiya glue.

SPEAKER_00 39:11

Yeah, yeah, that usually works pretty good. The nice thing with with these kinds of models is if you use like a you know like a super glue and you mess up because the hands are, you know, you're trying to get the rifle in the hand the right way, you're stuck, and then you're popping them off. So this gives you a little bit of working time.

SPEAKER_02 39:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:28

Yeah. And the other thing is like if there's like a little bit of a ledge on like a shoulder, you can take some of that glue and just put a little bit on there and it'll kind of just melt it down and blend it in. So it makes it a lot easier.

SPEAKER_01 39:41

Their uh Rubicon's uh deuce and a half kit was very enjoyable, you know, and you you think, well, it's just a truck. It was it was good, and it wasn't super challenging, but the detail was great. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:56

Yeah, I've got a couple of their I forget what size it. It it was the gun trucks that they used in Vietnam, but I've got two of those models, and I have hopes of converting one of them into a gun truck. But now I guess they're working on a gun truck. I guess a uh kit, you know, an upgrade kit for that. So I'd really like to do the 50 cal, the quad 50 on the back, yeah. Oh yeah, that'd be fun. Or the uh I think it was called King Cobra, the stripped down M113 that they stuck on the back of one of those things. Right, yeah, right. It's just super cool looking.

SPEAKER_01 40:25

Yeah. Now and Kevin, you were doing Vietnam stuff too at some point, right?

SPEAKER_03 40:31

See, now we are like um we're in conspiracy because there's like three of us who have Vietnam stuff. And it's like uh we just need to talk about it more. And so, Ron, I was introduced to my first game of bolt action last week. I'd never played bolt action before. And I loved it. I thought it was hilarious. Um, I thought it was really fun to play and it was really simple to learn. Um, so we're interested in, I think, doing something with bolt action in Vietnam. And I Steve was you know kind of clued me in on hey, there's uh some groups that have been doing some um expansions of bolt action for Vietnam. So I'm interested in giving that a whirl. So yeah, I'd love to get I'd love an excuse to get my stuff out.

SPEAKER_01 41:11

Okay, yeah, no, cool. We uh I think uh James and I were doing um was it NAM NAM68 or something like that? Yeah, yeah. Which was was good. We had fun, he and I had fun doing it, but it's it's hard to do at a convention, right? Um and then uh so last year, so Doug Ham uh had uh created this uh this rule set called anything but sixes, and we've been doing Napoleonic Cavalry is where we started. And then we thought, well, we're getting tired of Napoleonics. Doug's not, but the rest were kind of getting tired of Napoleonics. And so we went medieval, so we did anything but sixes for for Vikings. And then James uh adapted the rules for Vietnam, so we did anything but sixes for Vietnam. And uh so we'll have to get you a copy. And it it was it was fun, it was it was pretty cool.

SPEAKER_03 42:05

So just to bring kind of the story full circle here, one of our earlier guests was Brian Sheen, and he's getting ready to publish anything but sixes. I think it's called Bad Sixes or something like that. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and uh he's getting ready to publish those.

SPEAKER_01 42:17

So good, good. We've been bugging Doug for years to get some of his rules published. He still won't publish the Napoleonic stuff yet, but I'm glad the the bad sixes or anything but sixes is uh is is coming out. Because we've we've all talked, we get together for with Doug uh every year after Infilad uh in August, and we sit around and talk about which man, we could use this for these this genre and whatnot. So we're we're kind of hashing those things out. So I think what we'll see, I'm hoping, is variations to that rule set, but for different genres.

SPEAKER_03 42:52

Yeah, I think I think that when you can do that, that really works great. I these rules that we're doing with Chris Leach, he's looking at the same kind of thing. He's got he's got this horse and musket set of rules that he's developed, and he he's got this range of gunpowder um periods he wants to do, and there's a set of uh ancient medieval rules that he's done as well. So Okay, that's great. That's great. Um hey, so uh before we uh before we wrap up, I was just wondering if you could talk a little bit about your efforts to get something going in Canby. Um and um and let the listeners know, hey, this is when we do it and where we do it, and there you go.

SPEAKER_01 43:29

Absolutely. So um I'm a member of the uh Canby American Legion, post 122. It's in Canby, Oregon. Uh for those that are you know up north and don't know, have never heard of what Canby is or where it's at. Canby is uh thirty miles south of Portland and thirty miles north of Salem, Oregon. So we're halfway in between. Um Steve comes down to Oregon City once in a while. Um and it's I'm I am eight minutes from the game store, or I'm sorry. eight miles from the game store. So south of uh Oregon City as well. And then so that what we're trying to do is collect everybody here in that Portland Greater area to come do a game night. And with me being in the Legion, we have a great hall. And it's a two it's a two-floor uh hall. They've got they've got a um I'll say a bar lounge that uh because of the night we do it right now they do bingo upstairs but when we do the gaming downstairs uh in the lounge bar area. But families are welcome, um kids are welcome because it's a private it's a private club, right? And so part of the American Legion's um charter is to help out with the community, you know, bring bring community in, um obviously help vets out. And so um they had tried a game night um a couple of years ago and it wasn't successful and I said look I want to do it. I want to I want to bring in games. So it's right now it's it's kind of open from the standpoint of it's not just solely tabletop miniature war gaming. It's games. It's a community. So let's, you know, if you've got a favorite board game, you got card games, you got dice games, I'm hosting miniature games and uh bring them. Come come and we're just trying to grow that so that people have a place to go play. The hope is and my goal is is to get it to the point where we could do a you know enfilade south kind of thing down here. The room is big enough uh upstairs. I've had over 200 people uh from my retirement my military retirement party up there um space for vendors right so that's that's my ultimate long-term goal is to is to use that space to do that but right now we're meeting uh every fourth Thursday of the month um uh talking a little bit with Will president of Inflaud um it's that's a tough night only from the standpoint of a lot of the other game shops locally have things going on on on that same night. I'm limited by when the Legion is available at this point. So right now it's Thursdays but if we can get it to be more popular we could we might be able to change the day and for sure if we can get it to be more popular we could be renting it out for I'll say pennies on a weekend or a Saturday anyway, kind of like some of the smaller events we've got going on Northwest. So that's kind of the goal for Thursday of each month we'll have a game night uh unfortunately this month next week I won't be there um but uh we'll pick it back i there'll be people available if you want to come bring your games and play um you know meet meet other people like um similar with similar interests um I don't have we haven't s set up any video gaming yet but I know that's popular in with groups too so um but yeah it's uh I ultimately is I want to I want to put a convention on down here for for our group right our Infylog group that's that's the goal to get there I need support of you guys of of the group to come down and play games at the Legion uh on the on that Thursday and help grow this and it it's it's sort of centrally located between you know Salem and Portland and Gresham and Beaverton uh so yeah for Will it's an hour drive south of Vancouver you know it's it's tough but uh we make it happen. Well if I can make it down nobody gets to complain so yeah I know I know it cheers to you um so uh Ron we wrap up our uh we wrap up our pod with uh with a hey do you have any miniatures or books or um or something you're listening to right now that you um that you're really enjoying and you'd like to you'd like to shout out um man I'm just I'm just cranking up for NFL right now so my my mind is is in the uh is in the arena of I need to get a bunch of minis painted for James so he can put on his Starship Trooper I think we're calling it bugs game um yeah and and looking up references so if you want to say what am I reading right now I'm I'm reference materials is what I'm reading at this point.

SPEAKER_03 48:37

So you're although are you reading it hindline right now is that what the deal is watching movies and reading high line.

SPEAKER_01 48:46

Exactly although I just I did just pick up a new book um it was miniatures uh miniatures for leaders or something like yeah war gaming for leaders I think and I'm reading that for my work uh my work um because I'm I'm gonna put some of the strategies to work there I'm a product manager for uh for the company I work for so nothing fun right now and after inflod we'll we'll break into the into the fun relaxing what I got going on Steve what do you got going on?

unknown 49:15

What do you got going on?

SPEAKER_00 49:16

Uh well again I've a little of everything we yeah we've had the tournament you know last week and that was uh last Saturday that was a good turnout and I think everybody had fun uh right now I've just got a whole mess of stuff on the table that's not really getting done but but Ron I would agree with you too for me that time I get to sit down and just do some painting uh is just uh I don't know if therapeutic is the right way but but yeah it just kind of settles your mind and you know when you're painting you kind of have to focus on solely on what you're looking at and so kind of kind of gets rid of all the clutter. So I would say for right now for anybody that uh you know if painting's not your thing or you just don't think you're good at it I would just say keep keep trying at it because you will get better over time. It just takes a little bit of time and you know uh like anything uh you know whatever the end result is for you you know it's in the eye of the beholder and if you like it then that's all that really matters.

SPEAKER_03 50:14

So and you'll and you'll find your own technique and your way of doing things that'll make your life easier eventually.

SPEAKER_01 50:20

And then they'll change.

SPEAKER_03 50:22

Oh they will yeah yes they will well um so it is that time of year when the baseball bats will be swinging and T-Mobile will be full and um I'm pretty excited about that. And actually um uh I'm disappointed about something that didn't happen this week and that was I was supposed to get it together with some really old friends that guys I've known for 40 years and we played a lot of um baseball board games back in the day um uh and um we actually have I actually have painted miniatures reveresco baseball players to play baseball with and uh there's a set of rules called Shirko Grand Slam baseball that's played on a gridded hex board with tokens and the tokens represent baseball players well you can do that with miniatures and um so we were supposed to get together and play a little um kind of four by four uh tournament on Monday and unfortunately two of the guys uh guys that I've known for who are older than me and um I've known for a long time both had to have eye surgery uh surgeries uh this week so um so it fell through but I'm hoping that we'll be able to get through my fantasy baseball draft is on um is on March 30th so uh looking forward to that so it is is getting to be that time of year so I'm pretty excited. Good.

SPEAKER_00 51:50

Yeah good sounds like fun yes um so Steve how was uh talk about your tournament last week yeah it was a uh mid-war flames of war tournament so it was a Pacific themed uh the Pacific came book came out about I think mid year last year um and nobody had really played it a lot and so we wanted to do something that was themed more towards that but we knew if we did that we'd probably have four people actually show up to play so we had to open it up a little bit uh with a few other books just to get a good turnout. And 12 players we had uh a couple guys come up from Oregon Jacob and Dan and then uh there's a gentleman named Charlie Clay and he kind of travels for uh work and I believe he lives in Arkansas and he was out and so he he played so 12 players and the good thing it was he had an even amount of players so I didn't have to play playing and trying to run a tournament at the same time it's not the funnest thing to do. But uh yeah it was a good turnout um a lot of armies that people hadn't played. Japanese have a lot of special roles in Flames of War and there was a lot of I was doing a lot of uh I guess uh rules lawyering here and there so uh and people hadn't played it before but I think everybody had a really good time and it was a good turnout and we had that there at the the game wizard and blue sky hobbies in Lakewood so they've been uh really good for us.

SPEAKER_03 53:06

And last weekend was also the drumbeat south uh gathering at uh the Shahalas Veterans Museum uh we had about 32 folks turn out um uh we had games in the morning in a morning period and an afternoon period um and I got a chance to run my uh playtest my offline game and it was really fun um it wasn't perfect but I learned a lot um and uh had some wonderful folks who helped me play tests and it was super we also had uh good turnout from Oregon um uh we had Dale and uh Vic Pekka up from uh from they don't live in Portland I know but um uh but from the area and uh they they participated in my game we had a couple other guys from Oregon too but it was really fun it was a it was a good gathering I I enjoyed it quite a bit. Well Ron I will put uh links in the show notes to um 3D design um appreciate everything that you're doing for the for the community and thank you very much for your service uh thank you it was really great to have you on absolutely giving us some time today yeah yeah no this was this was this was good and it's always a pleasure visiting with you guys when when I can get a chance to but yeah this is interesting thanks for letting me uh you know uh advertise my my stuff you know it's pretty cool too well you know we have we have game designers we have um we have merchants we have um manufacturers in the Northwest and we want to highlight you guys we want to highlight your work it's really important to us really good appreciate it yeah appreciate it okay all right well everybody thanks for listening today and we'll talk to you on the next episode thank you for listening to the tanks and tomahawks podcast if you'd like to reach out to us you can find us at tanks dot tomahawks at gmail dot com or join us over on Facebook at the tanks and tomahawks Facebook group