Beasts of War – OnTableTop – Phase III: Time for speculations and conspiracies

[solarParticipant 2781xp 0]

I first found BoW back when it was just a YouTube channel and the first video I watched was John doing a Halloween skit. This was waaaaaay before the website was a thing. Way before Wayland, and way before GW copywrite striking all the YouTube content.

Back then there was Miniwargaming and as far as I can remember that was about it on YouTube for hobby stuff so BoW caught my attention as it was a more “British” hobby channel that I could relate to.

I think one of the main issues now is that YouTube is totally saturated with hobby content now and a lot of it is high quality as well. Beasts of War has kind of become a victim of its own success as it has helped to inspire so much competition.

Personally I think that BoW needs to lean into what actually attracted so many people to the channel in the first place which is the personalities that featured on the videos. I was sad when Darryl and Andy and Sam (and John for a while) and Romain disappeared one by one but Im sure there were very good reasons why this happened so wont go into that now.

I think that BoW should try to do some collaborations with some of the UK YouTubers out there to gain some traction, its probably the main thing that I can say BoW doesn’t do that seems kind of obvious. I think BoW could be in a good position to make itself as some kind of centralised hub for British hobbiests which I feel is what it was initially aiming. At the moment it feels like a kind of news aggregator site and I dont really think that is what the market is demanding. Ironically I feel that over the years BoW has slightly lost its way and its identity and its showing.

However if that sounds like Im being really negative Im not trying to be, I still regularly visit BoW and will continue to do so, Im more trying to explain why I think BoW isnt as big as it really should be.

Basically less GW reveals as you are just ****ing into the wind there (GW does these themselves now along with 50,000 other YouTubers), more community engagement and collaborations with other big UK channels.

[limburger 21739xp 1]

I like the ‘news aggregation’ of OTT.
Sure, there’s some duplication with the “big” companies that have their own newsletters that I’ve subscribed to.

However there’s also news from the smaller companies that don’t have such options or that aren’t on my radar.
Besides … one website to rule them all and in hobby space bind them is a good goal for phase 3 …

I bet Gerry would love to see a collab with Marco Frisoni 😉 (and then chain him to a painting table in his basement … 😀 )

[templar007 52378xp 2]

I miss the meat and potatoes shows.

 

Like…….

 

“Flames of War for the Win”

and I’m not saying just that game system, it’s the format.  Digging into the PLAYING of the game.  Strategies, why’s, how comes and if this then that.   That format made me want to spend time on the system that I had invested in.  By watching and learning from it I felt like I was really a part of the “Flames of War” community.   Not just a guy who bought a game that had been advertised on a show and now that someone had my money, there’s no further need for follow up.

 

I do understand that not every game can have a support show.  But it is what I enjoy!

[limburger 21739xp 2]

Flames of War FTW is how I first encountered BoW as it was known.

I’d love to see more of that kind of content.
Think of it as the kind of show that follows after the unboxing, “getting started in …”, “Let’s play …” for any given game.
The themed weeks often do this, but there’s not a lot of follow up afterwards.

Maybe a format that does a deep dive into a different system every month ?
Or a comparison of a specific feature in several different games. “How does … work?”

 

oh … and can we get a “Talking Tanks with John” feature ? 😉
Needs more tank ranting 😀

• This reply was modified 1 month ago by  limburger.

[Author]

Posts