Hello World!

Raleigh, NC. Best Hobby LLC is happy to announce its launch! We're a US-based, globally-minded maker of Miniatures Battle Games. Our first game, Zeo Genesis, is in beta playtest with public demos premiering at Adepticon in Chicago, Illinois in March '23.

Who are we?‍

Our founder Daniel Block has 30 years in tabletop and computer gaming. Best Hobby is his dream, a fully-tooled creative and manufacturing company that can produce anything it can imagine, in-house. The team working on our first game includes Andy Chambers on game design and Gav Thorpe on narrative design, with Dan Morison tackling art as our concept lead.

We are working with a variety of other talented designers, artists and sculptors from around the globe.

What are we making?‍

Our first game, Zeo Genesis, is a scalable skirmish sci-fi game set in a stunning far future, featuring armored suits called Zeoforms. Amidst one hundred suns, two factions fight for the future direction of humanity..

Why Miniatures Battle Games?‍

These are the games we love and want to make. Assemble some highly detailed fighting figures, paint them up and shove them into battles! Call them toy soldiers, or collectible figurines if you must, but we love painting and playing with our dear little plastic friends. Also, "wargame" sounded a bit grandiose for the close encounters we're going to be focused on at the start.

What kind of miniatures are these?‍

Our goal is to make multipart, hard plastic kits for the core of our games. We will also embrace some 3-D printing and STL options along the way; but the core of what we do is aimed squarely at hard plastic.

What do you mean by fully-tooled manufacturing?

Unlike many companies we have our own milling and injection machines here in the US. It's a little crazy for a small company, but we have big plans and are starting how we mean to continue!

When will you release Zeo Genesis?

We'll be in a constant playtest and iterative launch cycle in 2023. Our goal is to have the base set out this year, with add-on sets announced at the same time. The realities of the world may intrude, see 2020 et al, but we're well on the way to ship this year.

Who is Andy Chambers?

Andy Chambers is a veteran writer and games designer with more than thirty years of experience. He is best known for his work in the Warhammer 40,000 universe. From 1990 to 2004 he worked at Games Workshop as lead designer for three editions of the Warhammer 40,000 miniatures game (2nd, 3rd and 4th), as well as titles like Warhammer Fantasy Battles, Necromunda, Space Marine, Titan Legions, Epic 40,000, Gorkamorka and Battlefleet Gothic. In 2005 Andy moved into PC gaming to work on the hit real time strategy game Starcraft 2 by Blizzard Entertainment. Since 2009 Andy has worked as an independent freelancer designing games and writing for a variety of publishers, recent works include; the Dark Eldar Dysjunction trilogy for Black Library, short fiction and a novel set in Paolo Parente’s Dust universe (Zverograd), the Strontium Dog, Slaine and Judge Dredd miniatures games for Warlord Games’, plus Armies of the Soviet Union, Ostfront and Empires in Flames books for Warlord’s Bolt Action system, Hawk Wargames’ Dropzone Commander game and Blood Red Skies the game of WW2 mass aerial combat. Andy has continued to design games and write fiction for a variety of publishers including; Black Library, Fantasy Flight games, Hawk Wargames, Dust Studios, Phoenix Labs, Playmotion, Sega Interactive, Booming, Next games and Digital Extremes.

Who is Gav Thorpe?‍

Joining Games Workshop at the age of nineteen, Gav Thorpe was a staff writer and games developer on the Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 universes for fourteen years, and has also written novels in those worlds for the past twenty years and more. His most popular works include The Sundering trilogy, the Path of the Eldar, works from the Horus Heresy series including Deliverance Lost and Angels of Caliban, as well as the Siege of Terra novel The First Wall, the audio dramas Raven’s Flight and Honour to the Dead, and the New York times best-selling novella The Lion. His novel Warbeast won the 2017 David Gemmell Legend Award for Fantasy. He is published by Angry Robot books where you can find his epic swords-and-sandals fantasy saga gathered in the omnibus collection entitled Empire of the Blood. Gav has worked on, and is currently working on, numerous tabletop and video games, including as a designer, writer and world creation consultant. He also delivers workshops at writing events lincluding the Derby Literature Festival, and regularly appears on panels at conventions such as FantasyCon and EdgeLit. He lives near Nottingham with his partner Kez and son Sammy. More here: https://gavthorpe.co.uk/author/