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I am thrilled to interview Troy from Sonic Sledgehammer Studios, because it was Sonic Sledgehammer’s YouTube channel that got me out of a major hobby rut and convinced me to get into historical wargaming.
One of the things that I like best about Sonic Sledgehammer is that the videos are incredibly accessible. They are step-by-step, and the steps aren’t complicated. They don’t use any fancy techniques or equipment. It is just straightforward, good, and fun. Troy could paint to a higher standard than he often does (and the occasional video will go to a higher standard) but mostly he is concerned with a solid battle ready standard, done quickly and well.
Troy’s videos cover a huge variety of genres. He’ll do a little Games Workshop, a lot of Bolt Action, a ton of other historicals, some third-party sci-fi and fantasy, and he’s recently jumped into 3D printing. Whether it’s WWII, Space Marines, Roman Legion, Stargrave, Anvil Industries, Gaslands, or whatever else, odds are good that he’s dabbled in some of it.
I am so grateful he’s here to talk today:
1. What was the very first thing that got you into wargaming?
Troy: I’d been collecting miniatures for a couple of years and had a fairly eclectic bunch of toys by the time I was around 14. Of course I knew what Warhammer and its related games were, but it wasn’t until accidentally stumbling onto a rather careworn old original copy of Donald Featherstone’s ‘War Games’ in our local library that I discovered there was a way more backyard, garage band style of doing things if you wanted to get hands-on about writing your own rules or creating your own miniatures. I even tried casting in white metal by melting down old bits from spare miniatures – that did not go so well!
2. What games do you primarily play, and why do you love them?
Troy: Depending on what day you ask me this you’ll invariably get a different answer. I have a couple of shelves of wargame rules, from the requisite Games Workshop lines to Osprey’s ‘Blue Books,’ physical copies of stuff from Wargamevault, onepagerules games printed and stuffed into binders. As I find I’ve got less time to actually play a game these days, my interests have shifted slightly more heavily in favour of small-scale, skirmish-sized games featuring about thirty to forty miniatures on the table at a maximum, so games like Necromunda, Grimdark Future: Firefight, Rebels and Patriots, and things of that nature are easy wins for me right now. If I’m wanting to play something slightly bigger, it’s no great leap to bring out Bolt Action or some Age of Sigmar. Everything really comes down to the mood at the moment!
3. What made you decide to take the plunge into YouTube?
Troy: A friend of mine in America was looking to get started painting some miniatures for their Call of Cthulhu tabletop game, and wondered if I had any pointers. I ran through a short list of things they’d need to pick up and how to use them, but it didn’t quite stick – some of the concepts we take for granted in painting are a little daunting to a newcomer if they’re more used to visual learning. So I grabbed my phone, recorded a few minutes of rather stilted, stumbling explanation of a few basic concepts, and uploaded it to YouTube where they’d have access to it. To my surprise, people started showing up in the comments and asking questions that I’d try to answer, but occasionally something would basically require another video. So, slowly but surely, the idea to actually make a channel of these things went from a little joke I’d tell myself to something that was actually happening.
4. Looking back, what do you wish you had known before you got started in YouTubing?
Troy: I was never really sure about the time and, frankly, money it was going to take to make a show of things on YouTube. My workflow and skills on the video production side of things have improved over time, but that’s come through experience and trial and error rather than deliberately going to learn from others, which is probably a poor choice on my part! YouTube can be an awesome source of inspiration and encouragement on one day, and an incredible burden and responsibility the next, owing to how the array of analytics tools are designed to gently insist that you continue making videos which gain a lot of attention and traction. If you’re not making something that keeps eyes glued to the screen and people clicking ‘Play Next,’ YouTube isn’t terribly interested in making you feel warm and fuzzy about what you’re doing. I can spend twenty minutes painting a Space Marine and it’ll get an order of magnitude more views than, say, a niche historical miniature from a relatively unknown conflict. That’s something you need to be aware of if you’re going to start seriously thinking of using YouTube as a means of producing hobby guides and other related videos. The machine will make sure at every opportunity to encourage you to chase views. It can be disheartening not to get the attention on something you really put your best into, but when someone that needs it stumbles on to that tiny niche video you’ve done, it’ll mean all the more to them for it being available.
5. What makes you most optimistic about the future of the hobby?
Troy: The sheer range of opportunities for small-scale producers to enter the realm of 3D printing is incredibly interesting to me. People like to repeat the mantra that “3D printing will kill tabletop companies! We’ll all just print miniatures at home!” and… no, I seriously doubt that. Not at any time soon, certainly! 3D printing is itself a hobby with a new set of skills, demands of a space to work and have what are still hazardous chemicals stored for use, and a willingness to diagnose and fix what are sometimes some incredibly weird, fringe problems that might crop up. Cassette tapes didn’t kill the music industry, home printers didn’t kill publishing, VHS didn’t kill big-screen theaters; 3D printing isn’t going to kill plastic and metal miniatures. There will always be demand for a product that comes out of the box the way it should every single time, right? However, where the technology makes me optimistic is that it opens up a whole world of
possibilities for people to get their sculpting and designs on the world stage in front of thousands – tens of thousands – more people than would ordinarily be the case. With more large companies moving to 3D proofs and masters for their production processes, it’s interesting to me that so many more talented people out there are able to hone their skills and make a go of getting their work into the world. Whether they carry on independently or get picked up and sign on with a larger production house, I think that’s a really neat aspect to 3D printing that oftentimes gets overlooked: the chance to see and share new talent.
6. What makes you most pessimistic about the future of the hobby?
As costs for raw materials continue to rise, I think we’re going to see more companies looking toward the concept of longevity for miniatures, and instead releasing more books and other add-ons for their games. If someone can afford to invest in an army for your game just once and you’ve still got to see a consistent return out of a customer in order to support your business, then a trickle of necessary books and updates for your games are going to yield more over time. It’s certainly easiest to point to Games Workshop as the biggest example of this – Sisters of Battle players with their two Codex releases in just over a year will know what I mean – but they’re not the only ones that have been gently probing the idea of a ‘living universe’ concept as a way to continue making ancillary sales. I want a book I pay thirty euros for to last a couple of years at least, you know?
7. If you could make one change to one game or one IP, what would it be?
Troy: Ultramarines would be red. No, in seriousness, I actually have no real answer to this. I’d love to see more game universes and model ranges continue to open up and become accessible to more players where they’re able to see themselves represented in some form no matter their background, but I don’t seriously know how I’d go about that. If I could change anything, it would really be to remind people that lore and background in a fictional setting aren’t fixed, immutable concepts which must remain sacrosanct. Fiction is a lens turned on our own world, and as that changes it makes sense that the stories we’d tell with that fiction will change as well. Star Wars, Doctor Who, video games, books and movies from long-running franchises can’t keep repeating the same tales because the conditions which gave birth to their worlds just don’t remain stationary. Look at the size of the Simpsons household in a show that’s been running for three decades, and somehow it’s still only Homer pulling in a wage that pays for that place? My change, I guess, wouldn’t be to a single game or IP, but to turn that outward on fandom as a gentle reminder that change isn’t in and of itself a terrible thing. If something you’ve loved for thirty years changes, consider why. What new opportunities does that create within the setting? What new stories or variations on an old theme can be explored or re-examined as a result?
8. What advice would you give to someone who is just getting into the hobby?
Troy: Don’t worry one jot about getting things ‘wrong.’ There’s no such thing. You’ll paint a squad of miniatures and then discover some detail about them is incorrect or they don’t belong to a particular army or what-have-you, and in all seriousness? That doesn’t matter. Our hobby time is often spent in service of a goal; painting an army, finishing a large character, playing a specific game or so forth. What matters in the long run is whether or not you enjoyed the time spent in the work, the actual hobby itself. If you’re pleased with the result and it turns out, say, the colours are wrong? Well, you know better for next time. These minor hiccups aren’t worth spending days or months poring over old books or scouring the internet for decades-old articles which might have been superseded by a new publication just so you can paint the right trim on a Space Marine’s shoulder. Enjoy what you’re doing and you’re doing it the right way. Everything else is just gravy.
Thank you so much to Troy from Sonic Sledgehammer for the interview! We’re so excited to see what videos you have coming down the line.
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