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On December 1, 2017, I sent an email to Matthew Glanfield (Miniwargamer Matt) with the subject line “Your Show Saved My Life”. And I wasn’t kidding or exaggerating. I’ve mentioned before on this site that I deal with chronic illness, specifically schizophrenia. And there have been times in my life when I just didn’t want to be alive. 

But in 2017 I discovered Miniwargaming, the miniature wargaming site and YouTube channel that features battle reports from all sorts of places, but especially Warhammer–Games Workshop stuff. Yes, there will be the occasional historical wargame, but it’s really just World War II Bolt Action. The vast majority of their content is Warhammer 40,000 and Age of Sigmar. 

And I discovered this channel, fell in love with it, and just began watching it religiously. There was something soothing about the battle reports–they’re the perfect blend of fun and calming that was just what I needed at that point in my life. 

One of the things that I love about Miniwargaming, and one of the reasons that it resonated with me so much is that it is overwhelmingly positive. Miniwargamer Dave is well known for his love of all things Chaos, but it is the most heartwarming brand of World Eaters that you’d ever meet. (He has done several videos, like this one and this one, that just show that he’s a good caring guy, a family man. One of the things I enjoyed most during the pandemic was Miniwargamer Dave’s lockdown content where he taught his wife how to play tabletop games.)

Of course, Miniwargaming is making a big splash right now with the release of their own toy soldiers–the Ravaged Star miniatures, which will soon be their own miniatures game all on their own. (Currently they’re very good proxies for Chaos Space Marines.) This was after a kickstarter that was a long time coming, and I’m happy to report that my box of the Dominiran miniatures arrived this week. The models are every bit as detailed and beautiful as I was led to believe. 

(I do admit that, when it comes to tabletop miniatures, Chaos is not my thing. There’s just too much trim and it drives me bananas. This is why I chose the Dominiran miniatures rather than the Veil-Touched. The former are more Chaos culty while the latter are very Chaos Space Mariney.)

But the point of all of this is that I am extremely grateful for the role that Miniwargaming has played in my life, in my mental illness recovery. I’m happy to report that I am far, far healthier now than I was in 2023 when I sent that email to Matt Glanfield. 

This post is in no way sponsored by Miniwargaming, but I’d encourage any war games fans to join their vault membership. Miniwargaming puts out half of their content for free, but he other half is in the vault, a members-only area where you can see all of the good, behind the scenes stuff. I like the vault because my favorite content is the narrative campaigns, and getting only half of those isn’t nearly as fun. 

Anyway, this is just my way of saying thanks to Miniwargamer Matt and Miniwargamer Dave. May their channel and miniatures lines live long.