Tales & Tactics

About Tales & Tactics

Welcome to Tales & Tactics, where we dive into the fascinating world of tabletop games. From well-known classics to the more obscure and bizarre, we explore their rules and delve into their rich histories. Join us on this journey as we approach each game with the enthusiasm of a book club, unraveling their stories and strategies.

Publisher

Neonlithic

Category

education · history · leisure

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

12 Jan 2024

Latest episode

22 Sept 2026

Latest episodes

118 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   22 Sept 2026

   BtB: Getting Into Something New

   In this episode of Tales & Tactics: Beyond the Book, we dig into how to start a new time period, setting, or subject in tabletop gaming, especially within miniature wargaming. We get into choosing models you actually enjoy working with, matching rules and scope to the kind of stories you want to tell. Managing time, money, space commitments, and reusing collections across multiple systems, all get explored. We range from Dark Age campaigns and WWII platoon games to RPGs, solo skirmish systems, and how to “tentpole” a local gaming community without burning yourself out.

2. 

   15 Sept 2026

   RaW: Close Quarter Battles: Waterloo

   In this week's episode of Rules as Written, we cover Close Quarters Battles: Waterloo from Lock 'n Load Publishing, a small-unit tactical wargame designed by Andrew Glenn that brings one of history's most investigated battles down to the ground level. Rather than placing players in the role of Wellington or Napoleon surveying the field from a command post, Close Quarters Battles zooms in on the desperate and ferocious fighting around the fortified farms of La Haye Sainte and Hougoumont. We discuss how the game's elegant rules, presented with exceptional clarity and backed by top notch production values, manage to make Napoleonic small-unit tactics like formations, morale, fatigue, command and control feel accessible and authentically weighted.

3. 

   8 Sept 2026

   BtB: The Nasty Bits

   In this week's episode of Beyond the Book, we dig into the nasty bits: why a villain has to be genuinely vile before stopping them means anything, why a setting needs real shadows before it feels like a real place, how much ugliness a game can carry before the fun gives out, and why playing the monster at the table doesn't make you one away from it. Along the way we try to draw the line between darkness that gives a story its weight and darkness that's only there to shock. Because the uncomfortable truth is that the games we love are only as good as the things in them we hate.

Who has been a guest on Tales & Tactics

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• [Guest Name]
• James Morris
• Dr Jane Doe
• Jane Doe

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

YouTube views

30,443

Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025

Apple Podcasts (US)

4.7 / 5

7 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

10 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 47 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

50

Social presence

0

YouTube

76

Engagement

32

Contact Tales & Tactics

Guest appearances

Does not typically book guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.

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Questions about Tales & Tactics