Who Won the 2023 Tabletop Minions AWARDS?

0:00 in this video we're waving goodbye to 2023 and hello to the 2023 tabletop minions Awards it was actually a bit difficult to pick winners for the tabletop minions Awards this year partially because some of the things that I was thinking about for the awards didn't come out until lateer in the year and I didn't really get much if any time with them so I I I couldn't really gauge them as well as I would have liked also I didn't really feel like this year was a banner year for tabletop wargaming it wasn't bad right just not much that really kind of sparked fire in me for 2023 hopefully 2024 will be better and there'll be a ton of things to choose from a year from now onto the awards in no particular order our first winner of the 2023 tabletop minions Awards is a 3D sculptor that goes by the name of knucklebones Miniatures these strange and quirky figures which kind of go from like fantasy to what one could reasonably call sci-fi are unlike anything I've seen before specifically in the 3D printing kind of STL space when I first saw some of these online I thought oh cool those are like some really interesting kind of old school you know handd done skulls but then I saw that

1:31 what they were in fact was computer files stls for 3D printing and I was intrigued then my next thought was that they were maybe hand sculpted and then like 3D scanned at a very high degree of fidelity I know that there are 3D scanners out there but I'll admit I don't really know much about them and how high quality they can get but as it turns out that's not how these are sculpted either they're they're sculpted in VR like virtual reality according to Matt Knuckles the sculptor who was trying to kind of mimic the older style of handd done sculpting the results I think speak for themselves they're full of character and wit and though they kind of have that old school look there's no mushiness to the details you never go wondering is that a pouch or is that part of his pants or what none of that kind of stuff things are clear but still have that sort of same kind of hand-done aesthetic I really like the second of this year's winners isn't a specific company's product and it's something that I've talked about in another video earlier in the year it's a very simple thing that you can find all over the place and it has completely changed how I paint my Miniatures technically um it's generally known as a silicone fidget popper and they come in all kinds of shapes and sizes and colors if you have kids you might already have these things laying around your house or if you don't have kids you still already

3:02 might have them laying around your house I talked about these things and some other products as well in my uh most popular video of the year pachow and they they really are spectacular the little bubbles you know the little Wells if you push them down they are the perfect place to deposit drops of like washes and speed paints from dropper bottles things that you generally don't want to put on your wet palette and then you can just dip your brush in there and apply the water wases or speed paints or whatever directly onto the model it just makes it so much easier to use washes and speed Paints in dropper bottles and dropper bottles are my preferred format for that kind of stuff now you can't knock them over and spill them they rarely ever dry out or get gunk around the edges all that kind of stuff and and they just work better and since the the the fidget popper thing is silicone right then those paints washes whatever that you put in there won't stick to it and clean up is a breeze if you can't find them locally to you I've got an Amazon link down there in the description below the next award goes to a product which is certainly not new but it's something I think that all hobbyists should at least check out at some point especially if you're trying to get goodlook like weathered models to the tabletop for games you know and you want them done quickly and easily I've used it more again this year and we'll continue to use it on models both large and small in the future and I might even try it on some terrain as well so that's why I'm putting it in here streaking

4:33 Grime enamel wash from ammo by Mig it's really just dead simple and I've talked about it earlier this year as well in a video pachow but you you paint up your model with block colors using your normal acrylics or whatever and when I say block colors I mean no worries about like shading or highlighting or any kind of stuff like that just color in the parts of the model you know blue pants green shirt whatever that kind of stuff um and it also kind of helps to make the colors maybe a little bit brighter than you might think you're going to need right and once you've got all those things all those those things black painted in and the colors have dried you just cover the model with this stuff via either a regular brush or an airbrush uh depending on what the kind of the look is that you're looking for or maybe what your workflow is you let it dry for a bit and again this kind of depends on what look you're looking for and then you just start wiping it away with cloth now don't use paper towel because it'll rip and then you'll get bits all over it and stuff like that so use some cloth and then maybe also some white Spirits maybe some Q-tips maybe some of those little makeup sponges all kinds of stuff like that there's lots of videos out there you can find on how to do this but it all depends on what the look is that you're looking for you will get Grime you will get shading you will get definition quick and easy this next award goes to a new version slf flavor of a skirmish game that I gave a TMA to uh last year this game is called kill sample process the Cy Punk version of forbidden Psalm by Kevin Ramen uh AKA

6:04 optimistic nil or optimistic nil I'm not I'm not quite sure um this game which is again Standalone you don't need you know forbidden s to play it but it's based off of The Forbidden Psalm rule set from like I said a few years back is again a visual Feast worth your time just to read and enjoy but it's also a really fun and in-depth cyber Punk Skirmish miniature agnostic rule set you play with you know 28mm normal models but you play on a pretty small board like 2ot x 2 foot either solo Co-op or versus you have a crew of five that you play against the like AI controlled enemies and such and this rule set has added much more depth and crunch in comparison to forbidden Psalm special crew members with like specific roles uh cyberpunk body modifications more in-depth equipment rules and and it's more more it's just more game you know what I mean like when you when you play small skirmish games sometimes they can feel kind of light you know and frequently that's exactly what I'm looking for personally I don't know about you but sometimes I'm just looking for like a light fun rule set but this game through its depth and theme and crunch really sets itself apart if you asked me hey Uncle Adam uh what miniature kit did you build the most times repeatedly this year you know for some weird reason I don't know why you would ask me it's kind of a strange question to ask honestly you know but I don't I don't judge uh anyway the the answer would be

7:35 very easy actually and it's also the next winner uh on our list this year the M4 Sherman medium tank kit from warlord games I built four of them almost back to back to back and they were they were honestly a real joy to construct which I was I was building them for me and Vince's newest game called tanks for the apocalypse it's in our new Zen snarl again this is certainly not a new product from warlord it's kind of a staple of the bolt action line and it's been around for a while that said I'd never built a 28mm World War II tank before and it was a lot more fun than I thought it would be after building them I started to Kit bash them to different degrees with like simple stowage and you know things like that but two of them are still in progress and may potentially show up in an upcoming kit bashing video soon those will be very very kit and uh this great kit uh like as a base will really help that process a lot I listen to a lot of podcasts while I build and paint minis I need to be listening to something while I'm hobbying otherwise it seems weird to me I find I don't listen to too many hobby podcasts however sometimes it's the quality you know there's there something about the production or whatever sometimes it's the subject it's a game I don't play sometimes it's the personalities but not not too many hobby podcasts seem to keep my attention this TMA winner the HIV

9:05 scum podcast has kept my attention and provided me enjoyment since I first learned about them at adepticon back in March of 2023 hives scum is a reference to NECA of course but this group of guys and it is a group right usually there's four or five or more in the podcast they play a lot of different games they love morheim probably Above All Else however so much so that they're running the biggest morheim event in the world the New England morheim open or Nemo again this upcoming in in January actually just this this year um the conversations are all about like kit bashing cool game mechanics DIY games and terrain and sometimes like music and Cryptids and you know different things like that as well they're are really nice supportive group of dudes and listening is like kind of like sitting around hanging with a gaming group start listening these last two things are more of a kind of coming soon kind of award and they're both games games I have watched played both in person and in battle reports and I own them now and look forward to building and playing them soon one is cyberpunk red combat zone from monster fight club and the other is Judge Dread from warlord games I got cyberpunk red combat zone at Gen Con this year back in August I watched several different demo games in the booth and got to talk to some of the designers about like game Concepts and stuff like that it's a cyber Punk Skirmish game played on a

10:37 small board about the size of a kill team board or so and it comes with two teams in the main starter box and some like card terrain that's full color like ruins and stuff like that and there's a cool like hard plastic shipping container in there as well there's also tokens and some dice and cards and stuff like that it's a quick and smooth rule set with tons of like other gangs for you to choose from and other Force Es as well you can you know change your your list out or play different forces whatever you want my models were about half built before layout for the Zen for snarl started in the fall and so now that that's done I want to get back to them now Judge Dread was a game that I ordered online recently after watching the 2012 Carl Urban Masterpiece dread on some streaming service or other I had seen it in the theater when it originally came out and I used to buy the comics like way back in the day that you know the movie was based on I knew there was a skirmish game out there but I didn't know much about anything about it really you know after watching several bat reps of course from Guerilla miniature games I pulled the trigger and ordered the starter and a bit of terrain I really like the asymmetrical play style there's always more gangers than judges which kind of makes sense and the models are pretty nice too so that's this year's tabletop minions Awards congratulations to all the winners and if you think that they sound interesting you should check them out links are down in the description destion below uh these are my choices right but what do you think should have been on the list what did I miss let me know again down in the comments down below I hope you

12:08 had a great year in your hobby and I hope that you have a great 2024 as well if you liked this video please hit the like button to help me out and help the channel as well it helps spread the word subscribe to see more videos every single Friday and thanks for watching hey