War. If video games are to be believed, war has simultaneously changed (Metal Gear Solid 4) and never changes (Fallout). No matter to which pop philosophy you subscribe, there’s one thing of which we can be sure: War is a constant in human nature. It is this precise topic that War Remains—the latest LP from Richmond’s crossover champs Enforced—seeks to explore. It is a subject so ever-present in our day-to-day life that much of our entertainment revolves around it in one way or another. Movies, music and, of course, video games prove that humanity’s lowest point can be the crux of that from which we derive immense enjoyment. It’s not even a secret anymore that the U.S. military uses war-focused video games like Call of Duty as a recruitment tool. In our times of peace, we prepare for simulated war.
Knox Colby—Enforced vocalist and self-described “super dork”—joins us for the latest Kill Screen entry. We’re not here today to discuss the upcoming LP (though we highly recommend you pick it up when it releases on April 28 because it is an absolute ass-beater) or to be total Debbie Downers like our opening paragraph, but rather to share war stories of our nerdiest hobbies. Colby is a decades-long veteran of the controller, but also puts much of his time into painting miniatures for Warhammer 40,000—even if he finds himself standing outside of its very insular community. When we meet up with him over Zoom, the frontman can be seen unwinding outside his house with a cigarette and a Miller High Life after an extra-long day of work. A couple of drags and a few sips later—not to mention a surprise appearance by his dog Buffy—the mood quickly turns jovial as we Warhammer neophytes learn all about war gaming and the inner peace it provides. Let out your mightiest Waaagh! and jump into the fray.
What was your first video gaming experience?
I was probably 3, and my aunt and uncle gave us—my brother and I—one of those top-loading Nintendos, the first NESs. It was a portable one. That thing sucked. It was not very reliable. A lot of cartridge blowing. I think we only had three or four games. We played that probably non-stop for 3 years. What games did we have? Gauntlet, Super Mario, Darkwing Duck. I know there’s more, but those are three that stick out the most in my head. I played Gauntlet for forever. Probably weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks of my life—of my youth—just gone. Gone-tlet.
There is no better use of your time than exorbitant hours put into Gauntlet as a kid.
Yeah, when you’re 4? What else am I gonna do? I got nothing going on. That was when I lived in Delaware. When we moved to Minnesota, my mom started working at a preschool or an elementary school or something. They had PlayStations for learning games. My mom was able to rent it out. We would get it on the weekends. And this was in 1996 or something like that. We’d rent it out and all we could play on it was the learning games. I still think of them fondly. They weren’t bad and it was awesome to have a bigger console and the cooler graphics than Nintendo. I don’t know what happened, but we eventually got a PlayStation for our own. And that day, we went to [a] record store, but they also had video games; I don’t really remember it all that well. We got there for release day of Final Fantasy VII.
That game kicked our ass for years because we couldn’t figure it out. We were stupid young kids and just had no idea how to beat this one boss. And we just said, “Fuck this game,” and we didn’t play it for probably 2 or 3 years. And then I was like, “OK, I’m smarter now. I can figure this out.” And I figured it out in, like, 2 seconds. It was the dumbest thing ever. [Laughs] And I was like, “Oh my god! What have I been doing?!” What a fucking waste of life. We had leveled up so much trying to beat this boss. And then after that, we were so overpowered. And that was only the first disc! So it was like, “Dude, these next three discs are gonna be breeze.” After that, it was fine.
What are the games that you’re most interested in and what are some of your favorite titles?
I just finished the PC game Dawn of Man. That’s a really fun game. All the Square Enix games. I wish I could find some of the old Star Ocean games. All the Final Fantasy [games]. I got a pretty decent gaming PC. I got one custom built and the hard drive broke in shipping, so they sent me a new hard drive. It never really worked at all; it was really janky. And then finally I was playing on it and it just completely shit the bed. And I was like, “Well, that’s $600 down the drain. Cool.” So I said, Fuck it, I’m just gonna get a prebuild. I got an Asus. It’s midrange, it’s not the greatest computer in the world. But it’s not bad and I can run things that are pretty demanding and it runs pretty smooth. I don’t have any issues. I’m also really not like, I need the best graphics! I need the fastest FPS! or anything like that. I’m happy with it just being mid as shit.
I’ve played tons of Total War. All the Total War games are some of my favorite. Since it came out, I’ve been playing Total War: Warhammer II non-stop. It’s always running on my computer. I go back to it whenever I feel like it, play a couple of turns. That and Civilization V are the best games ever created.
Did you go from the NES to the PlayStation and then to PC right away?
Oh, no. We got the first-gen PS2s that, like, I think, what was it, half of them didn’t even work. They were recalled immediately because they were all pieces of shit. Ours “worked,” and I played a lot of Armored Core 2. You guys remember that really weird game The Bouncer? It was like a Final Fantasy beat ’em up. It was really strange.
It was so fun, though. It’s really short but it is phenomenal. You can burn through it in an evening. But it’s a super fun time.
All I saw was the cover with, like, a dude with anime hair and it said “The Bouncer,” and it was a Squaresoft game. I was like, “That’s gonna be a really cool Final Fantasy.” No, it’s completely different. And I went into it being like, “This is it? What the fuck is this?” But I played it and once I finished it, I was like, “You have to play it again. Oh!” It’s one of the games that you have to keep beating it to open the game up more.
There’s another game—a PC game—like that. I think it’s called Way of the Samurai. There’s no losing the game, it just has 700 different endings. What you do determines the outcome. It’s technically short. If you die on the first thing, it doesn’t say “You Win,” but it doesn’t say “You Lose,” either. It just has a short story, that’s it. A lot of different endings in stuff like that is pretty cool.
I think those were really the only two games we played. I played the fuck out of Armored Core. My brother’s working on this album. He’s trying to figure out this late ’90s aesthetic. I sent him two game soundtracks. I sent him Jet Set Radio soundtrack and the Armored Core 2 soundtrack. Both are fucking banging. They are so sick. It’s just that late ’90s industrial techno kind of shit.
Then we got a Nintendo 64. That didn’t really last all that long. We found an old Sega Genesis just so we could play Mortal Kombat. That was the only game we cared about that was on a Sega. I remember we kept it in the garage. It had a really tiny TV for it. I don’t know why we did that. All we would do is just stand there at the work bench and play Mortal Kombat. In the garage. In Minnesota! [Laughs] That’s not where you want to be. It’s negative 30 here, let’s go.
Did Sega Genesis play drop off really hard around October?
Yeah, it didn’t really last long. I think we got it at a pawn shop or something for, like, $40 and got the game. And then we played that for, like, maybe six months and we were just, like, over it.
Dude, me and video games in Minnesota was a thing. I had two Gameboy Colors and the Gameboy Color Pikachu edition, the yellow one. So I had three Gameboys for no reason other than I had to get the link cable to link them up and trade Pokémon back and forth so I could get them all. No one else wanted to share, so I was like, “Well, I’m gonna cheat.” I think everyone cheated. I think I had everything. Once we got that first Playstation, it was over. I was like, all of my money was going directly into video games.
I [Michael] somehow ended up with three PlayStation 3s, so I feel your pain.
I drunkenly bought one a couple years ago. I think I was trying to play Metal Gear Solid V. Maybe I was trying to play all the other ones. It did not last long. [Metal Gear Solid] 4 had already been out for years and I was like, “Finally, I can get a PS3 for cheap,” and I blackout bought one off of eBay. I was like, “Damn, my bank account’s low. Oh, well.” [Laughs] And then a week later a PS3 shows up with Metal Gear Solid games in it. I was like, “Ah, shit. Oops.”
I played [Metal Gear Solid:] Peace Walker, [Metal Gear Solid 3:] Snake Eater. I think there’s another one on there. All I did was play Metal Gear Solid on that. And then I moved in with a buddy who had got a PlayStation 4. He got Red Dead Redemption and [Metal Gear Solid V:] Phantom Pain. I stole all the screen time from him. I played those things non-stop. I think he played Red Dead for, like, maybe two days and I played it for 7 months. I was such a dickhead, I should have just gotten my own. Those games are fantastic. I love the Metal Gear Solid franchise. It’s so sick.
We heard rumor that Konami might be returning to Metal Gear Solid but without Kojima, obviously.
I want nothing to do with it. If it’s not OG, I don’t give a shit. I mean, I will watch gameplay and I will read reviews. I’m hesitant to actually purchase that. If it’s on Steam, I might buy a demo or something. I don’t know. Ugh, I’ll buy it.
[Laughs] A whole emotional rollercoaster.
My will is this thin. The only one that I’m still staunchly, I’m not buying it, is Total War: Warhammer III. I’m not buying it.
Why is that?
They changed a lot. The whole heads-up display is ugly as shit. I’ve watched so many playthroughs from streamers. It just doesn’t seem worth it, like, at all. I don’t see a reason to spend $60, $70 on that thing. They’re like, “Oh, they made the map bigger. It’s twice its size now.” It was already fucking huge! Like, huge! And now it’s impossibly big? Good god, man. No, I can’t do it. It doesn’t make any sense to me. I’m completely satisfied and totally know the ins and outs of Warhammer II. There’s really no point to start all over again and try to learn the changes that they made to the battle system and everything. I don’t care enough.
You’re a big fan of Warhammer. When did this start? How did you come across it?
I first came across it when we lived in Fredericksburg, Virginia. I was 10 or 11 and my buddy Caleb that lived on the other cul-de-sac, he had a bunch of Space Marine models and Tyranid models. We painted them and they were terrible. They looked like a 10-year-old painted them. And then we moved. That was the only time I had really been around it or had seen it. When we moved down to Chesapeake, Virginia, I had kind of just forgot about it. But that’s also when I started going to hardcore shows and punk shows and metal shows and stuff.
I can’t remember where I was or how old I was—it had to be mid-20s, so maybe 10 years ago or something—it somehow crossed my brain again and I was like, I remember that being kick-ass. I found a hobby store. There’s only one hobby store in Richmond that carries Warhammer stuff and it’s, like, an hour west of where I live. I was like, Dude, I’m never going here. I’m gonna go once and I’m gonna drop a ton of money. I got $200 of paint, paint brushes, the knives, the clippers, all the accoutrement that comes with it. The $15 primer, put a fucking gun in my mouth, Jesus. It’s so stupid, but you can’t help it.
It’s so expensive!
Yeah, for no reason. They know it’s for no reason, but it just has “Games Workshop” on it, so you have to add 100% onto it. So, I just started painting again. I was like, Wow, this is really fun. It’s totally a skill. It’s so cathartic and I get a lot out of it. The more you do it, the better you get. Right now there’s this huge explosion of YouTubers doing painting tutorials, doing speed tests, How many minis can I paint? Two armies in 24 hours? If I paint 4 hours a day, how many can I get done in a week? Stuff like that. Some of these god-tier painters, you’re watching them and it’s so disheartening because they’re so good. [Laughs] There’s a lot of them that try and teach techniques of certain things—like dry brushing, wet blending, all that stuff—that you can just fall down that well so easily. Now, me and my girlfriend have a painting night where I work on a couple of models. I’m working on a gift for a friend right now. It’s this D&D figure that I saw last time I went to buy some Space Marines. It’s this big frog monster. My friend’s an amateur herpetologist; he tries to find snakes and turtles and stuff like that. I was like, I’m gonna paint this for him as a gift. I’m gonna make this cool crate packaging and put a bunch of holes in it and bloody handprints. It’s gonna be fucking sick. [Laughs] I’m spending at least 3 hours a day on that whole project for the past week. I’m trying to get it done by tomorrow. I think he’s coming into town next week, so I’m like, I have to get it done.
Do you have a preference between Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000?
Yeah, I would love if Warhammer fantasy came back. It’s a huge upset to me. I love orks and I like orks of the old world more than I like orks of 40,000. I mean, both are hilarious and really stupid, which I love. I like the square bases more than the round bases because everything looks more uniform [and] regimented out rather than this circle mob of people. It just seems more like classical war gaming. I don’t have a hatred for 40,000, not by any means. But if I have a preference, it’s gonna be fantasy. I think they’re coming back with Warhammer [the] Old World, but I don’t know what that’s gonna look like or what they’re really going for with it. I think they might just be updating the rules, trying to make it a little bit more streamlined. Which, if that’s the case, then I might actually start playing it.
There’s no way to even get Warhammer fantasy stuff except what’s on eBay. It’s egregiously marked up, because it’s really rare to find. A perfect example: There’s a faction called Tomb Kings—which is basically Egyptian pharaoh skeleton mummy people—and they’re extremely rare. They’re way more expensive. For my birthday, my girlfriend bought me a Tomb Kings model that was still in the original packaging and everything. She didn’t tell me how much she spent on it. I was like, “You dropped money on that.” It’s an OG pewter cast, so it’s really heavy and fucking huge. I was like, [Heavy sigh]. “You love me too much. You love me way too much. Never do that again. That’s way too much.”
Warhammer is very multifaceted. Not only is there the tabletop game, there’s the collection of miniatures, the painting, the whole library of books that have been written about the universe and the video game adaptations. What part of the Warhammer universe is most appealing to you?
As of right now, it’s the painting and the video gaming. I don’t like the [tabletop] game all that much because it’s very complicated and very up to interpretation in terms of the rules when you play it. I’ve watched people play it online and there’s so much cheating going on! It’s, like, encouraged to be a dickhead. Your biases to win makes everyone do the most fucked up things possible. They’ll roll a dice and it’ll say 3 and he’ll grab it as fast as possible and be like, “OK, that’s 6.” It’s like, What the fuck? No it’s not! But the other guy wasn’t looking. It’s so scheming. It’s like, Oh, that’s gross.
There’s so many horror stories of people gaming at hobby stores. Everyone gets this inflated ego of like, “Oh my god, he’s last year’s champion!” and he walks around like he’s a king. It’s like, “You’re a dork. We’re all dorks. Shut up!” It’s so weird. Who wants to be King Dork?That stuff, I’m not a big fan of.
They do this thing that’s like a streamlined 40k now called Kill Team, where it’s only 5 models and the rules are super simplified. My girlfriend’s trying to get me to do that just for fun, just to check it out and see if I like it or not. Her and all of her friends, they play Kill Team instead of the full 40k game. So, maybe, I dunno. If she gets me into it, I’ll do it. But I’m not gonna do it on my own.
There’s something to be said about nerd cockiness that is just its own realm of stupidity.
It’s so cute. It doesn’t matter who you are or what you’re into; there’s always someone who wants to be at the top of the anthill. And that even comes with painting, that comes with games, that comes with life in general. Someone wants to be King Dork no matter what, and it ain’t me.
There have been a number of different video games throughout the years with varying degrees of success. Total War and Dawn of War are RTS games, Inquisitor – Martyr is an isometric RPG and Vermintide and Darktide are full-on FPS. What are you favorite video games? And what do the video games get right about Warhammer and what do they get wrong about Warhammer?
Warhammer is all about scope and scale, this huge macro. It’s not about one guy; it’s about 400,000 skeletons charging down a hill against 7,000,000,000 rats. That’s what I want. The idea of a first-person shooter or a tactics game—one guy can only move two squares and then end turn—that just seems so boring to me. I enjoy it when it’s this kind of zoomed out look of this whole globe encased in war constantly and all these massive armies and stuff like that. It’s visually awesome to play and to watch. It’s so sick. I’ve had some [battles] that took me so long and I was like trying to not pee because I was so terrified. I would win by the hair of my ass and it would be like “Save Replay?” I’m like, Hell yeah I’m saving that replay. I’m gonna watch that, I’m gonna show everybody that fucking fight. It took me two hours! Really epic. And then when it’s over, you’re just physically and emotionally drained. I mentally put myself through something. I didn’t think it was gonna be that taxing. [Laughs] I thought it was gonna be fun! I’m done for the day, I can’t do it no more.
The Warhammer universe is massive and it’s pretty daunting to new players or people who are just getting into the hobby. What would you say is a good entry point for people?
I would honestly start with the Warhammer 40,000 rule book because it explains every faction in grandiose detail and also has all these lore stories to kind of really get you into the mindset, into the world. And then from there, I would find a faction that you like and buy their army book, because then it’s just a gluttony of lore and stories. It really kind of explains in far deeper detail the faction that you like. And then from there, you can read all the books about whoever that you like the most and then you become so sucked into the world that you can’t get out of it. [Laughs] You’re just fully engrossed in this one weird thing, which is fine with me.
What’s your faction of choice?
Orks, baby! I think the lore is funny. I think the way they’re supposed to be played is really fun because you’re not supposed to care. You have to go in with a sense of humor. If I win, it’s gonna be hilarious. If I lose, yeah, it’s kinda par for the course. [Laughs] This thing isn’t built to win; it’s just built to fight. A few games that I have watched where orks are playing, the people that are playing orks have to be super laid back. Just be like, “Oh, OK, I need to roll 30 dice.” They don’t even roll them, just kind of drop them. They’re not even looking. And those are the funnest ones because they end up winning all the time. [Laughs] So, it’s so much fucking fun to watch this dude and this army—who really don’t care—stomp these well-curated armies that people have put so much time and effort to put together.
They don’t even know how guns work; they just believe that they work, and that’s why they’re always full of ammo. This shoot-y thing shoots, and it will shoot just because they believe it. It’s so sick. They think if you paint yourself purple, you’re invisible. If it’s yellow, it explodes bigger. [Shrugs] Great. I love it. It’s so stupid. Even in the lore, there’s this one instance where this ork spaceship loses power and it’s just floating in space, so all the orks get out and push it. Fucking awesome. That’s so funny. It doesn’t make any sense; it doesn’t have to.
This is the interview that we’ve done the most research for. I [Michael] knew very little about Warhammer. It’s something that was interesting, but just a little bit too much for me to take in on top of all the other shit I do. I watched an hour-long lore dump of a video. Some of it stuck, but they get so nuanced.
Welcome to the world of mega-nerds, dude. You though D&D was nerdy? No. It can always get worse.
I think it’s why it’s so popular and why Games Workshop is number one in terms of war gaming. They’ve done such an incredible job of curating and maintaining their IP to such a high standard. That’s why there’s no movies, why there’s no TV shows and stuff. If something were to be made, 40 billion nerds would have a problem with it because something would be missing. That’s why no one dares tackle it. Henry Cavill’s gonna try. He’s also a huge nerd, so he knows that he has to get it right. The fact that Amazon’s backing it, they’ll have a budget. If they had it for, what’s that awful show? [Lord of the Rings: The] Rings of Power. If they had put all of those resources into that god-awful monstrosity, if you’ve got a mega-nerd behind it who refuses to get it wrong, then it should be… half-decent.
How much would you say Enforced is influenced by Warhammer, if at all?
Probably not at all. I mean, it influences me, so it plays some role in the lyric writing at some point. Probably subconsciously, but I’ve never written a song about Warhammer. I don’t have a Bolt Thrower-level allegiance to it. I think that’s sick that they do that, but I don’t think I’d do it actively. But also, if you put 10,000 hours into playing it, it’s probably seeped into your brain at some point. I did have a version of lyrics that had a reference to Skaven, but I ultimately didn’t use them. I’m gonna use it at some point. I can’t help it. It’s a sick line. I’m probably gonna save it for the next album. When the vibe is right.
Have you ever spent an off-day on tour checking out any game shops?
Nah, they’re pretty rare. They’re never on Main Street. They’re really off the beaten path, which I think is kinda sad because it kinda makes it so much more closed off and sequestered. Maybe dorky incel people like it that way, but it’s really hard to get to. I live 10 miles from it now, and it’s still a bitch to get to. It’s not easy, it’s not accessible. I think that also has a lot to do with war gaming, period. It seems like it doesn’t want to be accessible, but it totally should be. They only want the uber nerd to even come inside. So, if you’re just curious about something, they already don’t like you because you’re not a nerd yet. You are false nerd, get out of here. Maybe I’m just not dorky enough. I think I’m there, but I might be too cool, I don’t get it.
Warhammer has been a huge influence on the metal scene and it even has its own lyrical theme tag in Metal Archives. What do you think about the Warhammer universe makes it so appealing to the metal audience?
’Cause it’s brutal as hell. [Laughs] I mean, what’s there not to love infinite aeons of wars of humans and aliens across billions of planets? It takes it to such a level of brutality. Warcraft doesn’t take it to the umph degree that Warhammer does. I grew up playing Warcraft and StarCraft II, but it needs a little bit more of brutal violence, chaos, evil gods. Just, more. In comparison, the IP is thin. Whereas Warhammer and Warhammer 40k is a monument to world-building. I think they had a MMO game for a little bit, and I remember playing it, but I don’t know if it’s still around or not. I don’t think it was all that popular.
Are there any other games that you’re looking forward to this year?
Well, if you said that there’s another potential Metal Gear on the way, probably that. I’m not the best at keeping up with shit. I just kind of find something that I like and I just kind of ignore everything else. So me trying to get into something new is very hard. That’s anything; that’s music, buying a new pair of shoes, merch, stuff like that. I just like my thing. I don’t want anything else. Probably that Metal Gear Solid game if it actually comes into existence. Like I said, I give up, I’ll probably check it out. If Warhammer III goes on sale, I’ll buy it. [Heavy sigh] The taste in my mouth has changed. Bitter.
Check out GOG. They typically have really good sales on stuff like that.
What is GOG?
GOG [“Good Old Games”] is from CD Projekt, the people who made The Witcher and Cyberpunk 2077. It’s basically their launcher. It was designed mostly for these older PC games that you couldn’t get a hold of. They have all these sales that are crazy. It’ll be, like, 75%, 85% off.
Yeah, I’m looking. Yo, this is nuts! Oh my god, there goes all the money I just made. Settlers [of Catan]? Oh my god. Civ IV? Yo, OK, we’re done here. Fuck. Yo, Metal Gear Solid for $10! Oh my god! OK, alright, you’ve made me a very happy man.
War Remains comes out April 28 and can be pre-ordered here.
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