40K Friday: MiniWarGaming

 

"They Play and Call It Work"

Something a little different this week ...

For those unfamiliar MWG is a miniature wargaming enthusiast site and YouTube channel that's been around for close to 20 years now. They made their way mainly focusing on 40K but they have always included some other games as well. For a while they had a physical store, then transitioned into mainly the YouTube work, and expanded over the years as well. Recently they started doing a lot of 3D printing and ran some Kickstarters for 3d printable terrain. 

Dave and Matt - the two main guys here

They were one of the early 40K YT channels that got big, probably the biggest for several years, and they were one of the first to monetize it - before Patreon etc. - with their"Vault" program where some videos were free on YT and others were in the Vault behind a paywall. It worked really well for them for I would say a long time. They are a bunch of polite Canadians, focused more on narrative and creative stuff, less on the tournament thing, and a lot of people talk about how MWG helped get them into the whole hobby. So they were well-known and well-liked in 40K circles - some nice guys who found a way to live the dream of doing miniature stuff for a living.

Lately though it hasn't been so great. Their views have been declining. They proved that that this could be done and now other players have entered the game and are doing better than the originals. The last few years have seen Matt, one of the two founders, make multiple videos telling everyone that times are tough and they'd really appreciate people signing up for the Vault. They knew -and announced  - that they were in trouble and to their credit they did try some new things but it apparently was not enough.

The single biggest misstep they made though was probably the Ravaged Star Kickstarter they ran in 2023. It brought in 1.6 million dollars - great! - for a very 40K-ish miniatures game with a bunch of boxed sets of minis and rules and a lot of people were pretty excited about it. However as we ride towards the end of 2026 it has not fulfilled, communication has been thin, and backers are now rioting. It's a pretty colossal failure for a team that is online posting YouTube videos multiple times per week. 

That all came to a head this week as multiple other YT'ers started posting videos and asking questions about it and about MWG in general. MWG announced layoffs of most of their staff.  It's been all over the 40K internet and YouTube this week and in response they too released a video opening up about the state they are in, how they got here, and how they plan to get through it. It's a shame things have reached this level for a group of people everyone liked and who have been a part of the online element of the hobby for years. 

For me I have been a Vault member in the past because I liked what they were doing. The 5th-6th-7th edition 40K years were peak for them and they were a lot of fun to watch. I've never met them in person and I've never been to their bunker. I backed some of their recent terrain Kickstarters because it looked solid and they had managed to fulfill the first few of those with no problems. I did not back Ravaged Star - I remember them hyping it up but then (and now) I have absolutely no need of another game that's pretty much alternate 40K and whose miniatures I did not particularly care for. I suppose I dodged a bullet there but I feel for the people who did jump in, trusting Matt and Dave, only to see it fizzle out and vaporize. 

To be fair they did say the money for the Kickstarter is separate and it will be fulfilled, that they just did not realize what they were getting into when they did it (not uncommon honestly) but there were no dates given and considering the first wave was supposed to be "on a boat" multiple times now over the last year I wouldn't expect anyone to give them the benefit of the doubt. As much as I like them, well, once you take people's money you are obligated - regardless of what the crowdfunding site's terms say - to deliver or you will pay a price. When your normal business depends on people liking and watching your content on a daily basis you have really put yourselves out there and it's going to be a hard fall if you fail. I have seen more anger and venom directed at MWG this week than I've seen in the last 15+ years combined. The worst thing I've seen said about them before was that they were pretty loose with the rules in their batreps and that was not an unfair comment but it has reached a whole new level now. It's sad to see a reputation built up over all that time devastated this quickly.

One final comment: MWG used to be a lot of fun to watch because Matt and Dave were on it and in the videos and making a lot of the content. Banter Batreps, Beat Matt Batreps, APOCALYPTICON!,  "Mark of Dave" comments when going through an army - they were the faces of the endeavor, not just the owners. I would say we liked them and that as much as anything else was a big part of their success. As time went on though, they were on the channel less and less. A lot of the people they brought in were good, but it wasn't Matt and Dave. Also, as time went on, it became apparent that they were not all that thrilled by or interested in these later editions of 40K. As other channels sprang up with say, 8th edition, and started cranking out new formats and new approaches to making videos they kind of stayed the course or even pulled back. It felt like their hearts were just not in it anymore. I get it, I don't always love the newer editions either, but if you want to make money doing this kind of thing ... current edition 40K is the vast majority of what people want to see. If you cut back on that how do you keep going? Sure I'll watch a 4th edition 40K batrep in 2026 but how many other people will? Oldhammer and Midhammer have a definite presence online but is it enough to sustain a 40K channel at their past or current level? I'm pretty comfortable going with "no" there. 

Anyway, I've watched these guys a long time, liked a bunch of what they've done, my kids and I used to watch their stuff weekly, and it's just hard to see their current state. I really hope they can right the ship, handle their obligations, and find a new course so they can stick around for us to watch in the future.  

Necessary Evil: Third Time's the Charm - Session 2: Why is it Always the Sewers?

 

Our Villains:

• MEGASTRIKE - Strong, radioactive Russian mobster brick. Played by Paladin Steve. A returning character from the prior attempts at this campaign.
• LEGION - Demonic leader of a criminal organization. Face with a sidekick and a lot of resources. Played by Grognard Mike.
• NIGHT BLADE - Sword-for-hire, a mix of melee offense and melee defense. Played by Shootist Will, another returning character.
• NIGHT TERROR - Intangible assassin, stealthy with a side order of ranged combat capability. Played by Variable Dave and yet another returning character.
• Y2K BUG - AI in a stolen robot body. Tech-guy and mainly good at ranged combat, not terribly strong or tough - for now. Played by Battletech Terry.
• THE MIGHTY XYZZIFAX -  Wizard who traveled here from another world. Ranged combatant, heavy defense, and a lot of flexibility. Played by Blaster - a character returning from a completely different game!
• PHANTOM BLADE - Yet another sword-guy who eventually broke out of the same prison camp and followed them to the warehouse. Whole bunch of melee offense, not a ton of defense - but he can self-heal. Played by Invisible Paddy.

We begin with MegaStrike stealing a house. Half-jokingly. He's not really strong enough to carry a house - at least not very far. He's the only one staying in the warehouse at the moment as everyone else relocated to Legion's much cushier safehouse. He decides a mostly empty place is not good and so starts stealing furniture and decor (and possibly a house) to brighten the place up. 

At the safehouse Legion is busy analyzing and judging the other escapees and reaching out to various contacts to figure out how badly damaged her organization is after she was arrested. Night Blade is doing katas or some other sword guy thing, Bug is checking out the internet connections, Night Mist is calling some contacts as well while Xyzzifax starts trying to figure out how this world works.

Dr. Destruction soon calls with a "request" - he needs the team to grab that heavy box in the warehouse (guess who will be carrying that) and head down into the sewers to find another villain's secret lair and plug it in to a power source there. Looking for a suitable entrance - the box won't fit through a regular manhole - they believe one can be found in Miner's Hill a neighborhood a short distance away. The group makes some preparations, gathers again at the warehouse, appreciated the new decor, and heads out. 

Getting into the sewers is a simple enough task but finding a secret entrance to a villain's lair is not and so it takes a couple of hours of sloshing around to find a likely passage and it happens to be full of G'roks! These are an alien creature, sort of a gator-hound monster, that the V'Sori dumped into the sewers recently to thin out the resistance that keeps using the sewers to move around. 

These things are fairly tough and Phantom Blade, leading the attack, is chomped-on pretty well by several of the beasts. Then the strange wizard demonstrates the power of fireball in any universe and blows most of them away with a massive detonation. Phantom Blade uses his mystical meditation powers to recover from his brief experience as a chew-toy and the party begins examining the dead-end passage.

They soon discover that a) there is a concealed door here and b) they have been followed for some time by members of the Underground. There is a brief conversation in person between the resistance members and the villains and via radio with their leaders but it all works out and they then travel through a maze of caverns and tunnels that are not part of the sewer to make their way to an Undergrounder outpost. 

The leader they meet is ... Valerie Ramirez, the woman they helped bring out from the prison. Nightmist had been thinking they might have a bit of a thing before she left that day so he especially is thrilled to reconnect with her. After some discussion about what they are trying to accomplish Valerie agrees to have her people guide them to Terron's old base. Yes, they do know where it is but no, they are not going to enter it - they lost people when they found it and she's not interested in losing more. 

Two of the Undergrounders lead the party through a maze of yet more tunnels to a passage that ramps up into a lighted room. The guides will go no further so it's time for the villains to take the lead. Phantom Blade leaps on up, Legion (and bodyguard) fly up, as do Megastrike and Bug. The space is limited to a single room and not a huge one so they spot the power generator right away. They also spot the mean-looking robots spaced around the room, plugged into the walls - especially when their eyes light up and they begin moving towards the group!

The visual on these is "metallic robot with swords instead of hands so I'm going with some Necrons here.

Phantom Blade once again takes a serious beating (4 wounds!) and the bodyguard is injured as well but the villains are no pushovers themselves and while it does take more time than the g'rok fight - and they suffer more injuries - the villains do eventually wreck Terron's robot guardians with magic, swords, and guns. MegaStrike manages to do little during this, missing his swings, and this earns him some grief from the others. PB also takes some grief for both his performance in the fights and his attitude in general and decides to change his name to "Edge Lord" - might as well own it.

After the fight MegaStrike and Y2K Bug connect the device to the generator and call it in to Dr. D who congratulates them on getting it done.   

GM Notes

This was a good run with the players settling into their characters more and more and everyone getting more comfortable with the rules - including me. During the session (for any game) I jot down any rules questions that come up and then look them up before the next session so I knew where our rough spots had been in Session 1. We all know Savage Worlds pretty well but it can still take a session or three before it's instinctive again.

Structure-wise I'm starting off every session with some time for the players to do what they want. It's been an indeterminate number of days since the prior run, what has your character been doing, what are you doing today, is there a project you are working on, etc. I feel it's especially important here because this campaign is very much built as "NPC gives missions and PC's go do them" and I want them to feel like they have options. They are, after all, super-powered individuals of some capability living in a modern high-tech city. Even though it's living under alien occupation they can pursue or investigate ideas or schemes of their own so I'm trying to ensure there is room for it every session. Now some of my players don't care that much about it but some do and I'm hoping they pull the others along. I'd like them to develop enough contacts, rivalries, and familiar locations to make it feel like a living place - we shall see.