I’m super, super excited to have this be the first interview on this blog, because Matt is the person who introduced me to Necromunda and Mordheim–which is really to say, he’s the person responsible for getting me into the underground/indie wargaming scene in the first place. Before I stumbled upon Cursed Manufactorum, I was freshly back into wargaming after a 20 year hiatus and I was picking my jaw up off the floor after seeing current Warhammer 40K pricing, and also wondering where the hell all those awesome Warhammer Fantasy models had gone. 

Then I saw on Matt’s blog that he does a Mordheim and Necromunda zine, respectively, and the DIY ethos and artwork of them had me hooked. So I picked up some copies and was entranced with the worlds he was describing. It’s the reason I immediately bought myself a Necromunda Cawdor Gang kit, followed some other ‘Munda and Mordheim accounts on Instagram, and delved deeper and deeper into new and exciting games from creators who actually give a fuck. 

So, for all that: thanks Matt! 

(Note on the interview: these answers are edited down from a 3 hour call we had.)

Matt = MW
CT = MMIAV

MMIAV: Give a quick rundown on Cursed Manufactorum and what you’re doing with that account. What prompted you to make it?

MW: It’s basically just a name that I wanted to put to game concepts: whether it be my take on custom scenarios, or rules, or when I make a zine or whatever I make. It’s not really a “brand” as much as it’s a single, umbrella identity to help people find the things I make if they want to find them–or stay away from them if they don’t want to see it. People can use it to say “oh, that’s the guy who puts out that Mordheim zine that I like… or that I hate.” [Laughs]

MMIAV: That makes sense. I saw in your pinned post on Instagram that you referred to it as a “collective,” which I thought was interesting. 

MW: Right, and I wanted it to be super DIY. You see people making Kickstarters nowadays to put out a single zine, and I didn’t want to do that. I think that’s crazy. Everything nowadays needs to be slick and have production value, but I came out of the zine culture. Like my buddy used to work at a hospital, and he’d make copies of my zine for me on the hospital copier. And that’s the kind of vibe I wanted this to have. And I thought “Cursed Manufactorum” sounded like it fit in the sort of “Games Workshop” style–it has that 40K feel to it. 

MMIAV: Hell yeah. And I’m assuming we’re getting ready to talk about GW here, but: what’s your earliest memory of miniatures and/or wargaming? 

MW: Down the street from my Mom’s house in Kenosha, WI, is a comic shop called Rockheads. And it was the coolest looking store; it looked kinda like a record store, with posters and artwork all over. And they had an entire room that was all miniatures. I was really into horror movies as a kid, and I loved the movie Aliens, and in the back room of Rockheads, they had a big facehugger model hanging down from the ceiling. And next to it, they had a big Space Hulk board, and Blood Angels models, and I was like, “What is this?” And I think those Blood Angels were the first GW models I ever got and painted, and I painted them with Cherry Red model car paint. 

MMIAV: That’s awesome. Do you think painting minis at such a young age impacted your tattooing/painting art style? 

MW: Not necessarily. I think what it taught me was to explore these other worlds and to expand my imagination. But when I was painting minis as a kid, I didn’t see them as “art” or anything, I was painting them in order to play with them. I wanted them to look cool on the table, but it wasn’t an expressive thing. I didn’t even scratch build terrain until I was in my 20s or something. I started doing graffiti when I was 12 or 13, and I think that was more of “art” in the sense of expression and constantly practicing and writing. 

MMIAV: Let’s talk about hardcore music. When did you first learn bass? Was there any reason you chose bass?

MW: I was in 6th grade. And I just chose it because I didn’t really wanna play guitar. I was listening to a lot of Rancid, and Matt Freeman is such a great bassist. And I didn’t want to get a drum kit because my mom would flip the fuck out. [Laughs] But I really loved bass, and the impact that really good bassists can have. 

MMIAV: Yeah, I get that. I remember growing up in the early-mid 2000s just listening to stuff that you could listen to a sample of at Hot Topic: Rancid, Operation Ivy, Mighty Mighty Bosstones. And that rocked. But then I discovered powerviolence, and fully got it. Like, “Oh, all you really need is bass and feedback.” And speaking of powerviolence, what were your favorite bands you played in? 

MW: Definitely Lake Effect. That’s the one I put the most work into and really put my heart into. 

MMIAV: And that was a two piece band, right?

MW: Yeah, it was me on bass and my friend Drew on drums. And we did a west coast tour where we played Oakland, LA, and Arizona. And that was a really great experience for both of us. Then later on, I moved to Tucson, AZ, and my friend Tyler and I were playing in a band that didn’t really go anywhere, so he just turned to me and asked, “Do you want to play Lake Effect songs? I know all of them.” So that’s what we did. 

MMIAV: Hell yeah. Any other bands that you liked being in? I know you mentioned you were in some bands with Andy Hurley (from Racetraitor, Fall Out Boy, etc.).

MW: Yeah. There was a band called For Death or Glory, and we both played in that. I was the only “unknown” person in the band; everyone else was in 7 Angels 7 Plagues, Endthisday, and then there was Hurley. So it was me and Jared Logan, and we were dual vocalists, and then Ryan Morgan and Matt Mixon from 7A7P played Guitar, and Joey (Dalen) from Endthisday played Bass. Then Brandon Morgan (from Misery Signals) replaced Hurley on drums, and then Tyler Welch played bass… there were a lot of changes.

But yeah, that was it. There were a lot of things that were “supposed to” happen, but just never happened. But I don’t really get asked to be in a lot of bands. Sometimes people just do it [laughs]. Like with Noose, they just asked me if I wanted to play bass, and that was it. 

[Matt and I went on a somewhat long tangent about URBN DK, a hardcore punk band from Kenosha that signed him up to be their “booking agent” when he was 13 and they were in their 20s, and I talked about screenprinting shirts for local bands when I was 13. Both of these anecdotes are a little long to reproduce here, but they were fun to reminisce on. Thanks, Matt.]

MMIAV: What are your biggest musical influences? 

MW: I mean… I have a sort of eclectic taste in hardcore. I wish I could play slap bass like Turning Point. But I can’t. It just doesn’t sound cool. But Turning Point is one of my favorite bands, and I loved how they evolved. Crossed Out is one of my favorite bands, and their bass player was also in Heroin. They were great too. I actually like a lot of that early screamo stuff. 

[We have a long digression about Portraits of Past and Funeral Diner because they’re one of my favorite bands and Matt was/is now in a Dungeons & Dragons group with Matt Bajda (drummer of Portraits of Past and Funeral Diner) in Oakland. I geek out a lot. Matt’s band Lake Effect played with Funeral Diner in the living room of Matt’s house in Arizona. I geek out a lot more. I may actually just upload the sound clips for these.]

MMIAV: What are your biggest influences on your painting/kitbashing work?

MW: I’ve talked about it a bit on the blog, but painting-wise, I’m so CitadelPilled it’s stupid. [Laughs.] Whenever I try to be looser with it, it doesn’t fulfill the need in me. I think because of all the art forms I’ve been involved in, there’s an idea of trends, like “this is the hot shit; this is what you need to be into” mentality, and I’ll try to experiment with them and then end up going my own way. But with miniature painting, I really just stick to Citadel/’Eavy Metal style.

And for kitbashing, I just feel like I don’t kitbash that much. I see people doing cool shit, and I love it, but I just don’t really do it. I may do a head-swap or a weapon-swap or something, but that’s pretty much it. 

[We talk a bit about the idea of emulating artwork until you get comfortable with a medium and then branching out from there. This coincides with one of my ideas of “you have to know the rules in order to break the rules” which is an idea I’ll almost certainly be writing about later on.]

MMIAV: What was the first 7″/tape you ever bought? It could be an LP, too, but I think 7″s are what hardcore is all about.

MW: Yeah, my mentality is that the best format for punk bands is the 7″, because a lot of bands just don’t have the stamina to write a great LP. But my first 7″ was probably this local Kenosha band called 10-96. But I remember buying a Misfits tape. Legacy of Brutality was probably the first LP I bought. 

MMIAV: When did you get into ‘Munda/Mordheim? I don’t know how those games fit into your personal chronology, but those are the games that I know you from. 

MW: Right. So when it came out, Rockheads had this big Necromunda display, with a whole wall of miniatures with the hazard stripe packaging. And I was kinda like, “what is this?” Because it wasn’t fantasy, and it wasn’t 40K. And I knew about the other GW stuff, but the packaging was so different. Then later on, I came back and they had the cardboard terrain from the Necromunda box all set up and were playing on it, and I was like “whoa.” But I didn’t really get a lot of miniatures back then. 

And then I had this friend in high school, Ian, who was the only other vegan straight edge guy I knew in my town. (Later on, he actually ended up hopping trains out to the pacific northwest and sitting in redwood trees, so they wouldn’t get taken down.) Sorry, so much personal information. [Laughs.]

MMIAV: Nah, man, this is literally what it’s all about. 

MW: Yeah, but Ian’s mom cooked vegan pretty often, so I’d go over there for meals. And his family was a little nerdy, and they’d play games all the time; like, they taught me how to play D&D. I remember coming over and they were playing 40K–his dad and his little brother–and they were playing orks. Then another time I came over, and they were playing Necromunda. So that was my first exposure. 

When I moved to Milwaukee in my 20s, there were a bunch of other vegan straight edge kids in the neighborhood, and they all played Necromunda. So that’s what we’d play. I was in NYC around the Christmas that Mordheim dropped, and my girlfriend at the time and I went to the Games Workshop store. And my girlfriend wasn’t super interested until she learned there were Skaven, and she said “wait, there are little rat men?” [Laughs.] But, yeah, we lived in a shitty studio apartment, and we didn’t have any cable or anything, so we just played Mordheim a lot. And that’s the game that fully got me “into” tabletop gaming. 

When the Covid lockdowns happened, I was looking for stuff to do, so the girl I was dating and I went to a game store to get some RPG stuff, and I saw that there was a new edition of Necromunda. I asked if they had Skavvies, and the guy at the store had no idea what I was talking about. So I asked if they had any Chaos-oriented gangs, and he showed me the Corpse Grinders. Then I just got really into Necromunda. I was painting and making terrain. But my girlfriend and I ended up breaking up, so I had all this shit I had made, but didn’t have anyone to play it with. 

A while later, a new local game store called Old Guard opened up, and this tattooer I know, Rob Pauly, checked it out and told me there was a Necromunda night there every Thursday. (That’s where I met JDinthesumpsea.) In that group, a few folks had heard of Mordheim, so we kind of branched out and now we do Mordheim Mondays (a little inconsistently), and then Necromunda every Thursday. I’ve never missed a Thursday. 

MMIAV: Are you working on any upcoming events?

MW: Yeah, so for my personal/tattoo art, I’m working on an art show in Japan called Super Friends that Matt Bajda asked me to do. He’s worked for RVCA for a long time, and they have a huge presence in Japan. So I’m doing that, and I wanna make a flash sheet for it, and then have a corresponding miniature for each flash sheet. Sort of tie it all together. 

For gaming, I’m doing a 1995 Necromunda campaign for Fractured Realms Fest in September. And then I’m doing another Mordheim event at Beefy Wizard Con, which will be around Labor Day. I’m gonna go to Under the Dice Fest, but I’ll probably just hang out and play some pop-up games. I have this idea for a local event here. There’s a bowling alley and bar that’s down the street from me, and they’ve been doing Magic the Gathering tournaments lately. So I have this idea for an event maybe during Adepticon called “The Grimdark (Bowling) Alley”, which would be a sort of loose, impromptu event. But I know Adepticon is really overwhelming, so maybe I’ll just do it another time in the Winter. But those are my only events I’m doing personally. 

MMIAV: I mean, that’s a lot of stuff going on. What are you working on or building right now?

MW: I’m still climbing my Mount Everest, which is putting together this 4th edition Imperial Guard army. Which is pretty much a remake of what I had when I was in my 20s. So I’m kind of working on that, which is a slow process. But in the meantime, I found these old metal Cadians, and I ended up converting them to Necromundan Spiders. I’m always working on my Necromunda board. I have a few more pieces to throw together to make tiles. I have a friend named Jackie, and they make really good fantasy terrain; so I really wanna work on a Mordheim board with them. But they have 3 kids, so they’re always busy. I’m making some stuff for Ash Waste Weekend (in November), and I’m building a Cawdor Redemptionist gang for that. I have an idea for UTD Fest, for Rusted Demon, where I [REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED]. 

MMIAV: Hell yes. I can’t wait to see that [REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED]. What are some of your favorite new games you’ve played in the last year?

MW: My favorite is probably Splatter Knight. One of the things I love about it is that it’s miniature agnostic, but also setting agnostic. You can kind of take whatever you want, and throw it on the table, and that’s “The Hollow”. The only other newer game I’ve really liked playing is 1490 Doom, but it’s hard to find people to play with. I also really liked Inhumane Harvest. 

[We have a brief discussion about how people seem to be resistant to trying new games, which is something I’ll be touching on in a later post.]

I bought Ratking from Maude, which I like a lot, but I can’t find anyone to play with. Snak28 is sort of a similar situation. One thing I love about Fiver (creator of Snak28) is that they have their style–which is, y’know, everything’s covered in sprinkles and candy–but Fiver will submit one of their minis for Golden Demon every year. And every year, Adepticon will put Fiver’s mini in the display case, and then a few hours later, they’ll find some “rule” it broke. And then they’ll disqualify the mini. But it’s awesome to me that Fiver does it every year.

[Speaking of minis “breaking the rules” we talk about this post from Matt’s blog, which I love]

MMIAV: I love that. Alright, what are your top 5 hardcore releases of all time? 

MW: Oh man… the top 5 hardcore records for me, in no particular order, are: Crossed Out’s first 7″; Integrity’s Humanity is the Devil; Spazz’s Dwarf Jester Rising; The Repos’ first LP… How many is that, 4? [Laughs.] I wanna say Scholastic Deth’s Killed by School, because it was so influential to me, but I also wanna say Holding On’s Just Another Day. That was a midwest hardcore band doing youth crew when youth crew was not cool. And they weren’t very positive, they were pissed off. But yeah, that’s 5 (technically 6). 

MMIAV: Final question… what are your thoughts on the new Necromunda Skirmish edition?

[This was actually something we didn’t cover because Matt put out this blog post a day before we did the interview – SO GO READ THAT! https://cursedmanufactorum.wordpress.com/2026/06/30/necromunda-summer-preview/ ]

Matt wants to shoutout:

DURZ
BLERZ
Shankley has a Brush
Deboe Hobbies
Shaun Blackthorn
Jay and Dale of JD in the Sump Sea
Ty of ipaintsmallthings
Benjamin of Purp miniatures
Rob Pauly & Evagelyn
Draugr
Fractured Realms
Dungeons and Hammers Peter
Karstic Domain
Marbleheads Comics and Games and Brian Miller
Frank (as Fuck) Austin
Farmer Joe and the Ash Waste Weekend crew
Kitbash Chaos Mike
Ian of Portcullis Zine
Goob
Tanner Simpson
Matthew Bajda
Tyler Is Alright at Painting Grecco
Chris from Slow Death Games
Splatter Knight Michael
Dave Reckoning and Peaches
Craig Gibeaut