Behind The Tracks: Midland Railway - All-Day Epic Warhammer (Single) (2026)

I played lots of Warhammer during my teenage years, and my favourite version was always 2nd Edition Epic (Space Marine and Titan Legions). At the start of 2024, we had a bunch of gigs that fell through, leaving us with a couple of months of band downtime. Getting the album finished was frustratingly slow, and I felt like I needed a bit of a mental break from all the music industry stuff. The most effective way to achieve this was through throwing myself into another hobby I could get completely absorbed in, so I played some game of Epic Warhammer with my friend Mark. I also started an Instagram account for my painting and battle photos and reports, and have ended up connecting with the community of people who share the hobby, and over the last 2 and a bit years, I have been playing and painting quite a lot, and have met some great people through it.

Later in 2024, I started enjoying making music again. I had joined Wheezed, the Weezer tribute band, and there are a couple of slightly unusual dischords that appear in many Weezer songs. It would be much easier to demonstrate on video, but these are 5th chords, either with an extra note added a 5th below the root note, or where the root note is a semitone lower than you would expect with a 5th chord. I tried using a couple of these together and seeing where it went. I ended up with a chord sequence I liked. It seemed to have something of a feel-good vibe to it, so I needed a lyrical topic that would fit the feel of the song, and Warhammer seemed like a perfect fit - it offers an exciting escape from regular life in the best way possible, so perhaps the song could make the listener feel that way? I then set about telling a story, through the song, of an incredibly exciting battle (based on a battle I had with Mark in early 2024, where my Warhound Titans lived a charmed life to snatch a very improbable victory from his marauding Orks). I wanted the song to be something that captures the excitement of a great battle and celebrates the hobby, and might be something you would want to sing along to on the way to a tournament.

Sometimes, bands write songs about niche interests to try to tap into a particular trend, and it can be quite obvious they have no genuine interest or knowledge about the subject, so it comes across as rather phoney and commercial. I wanted to leave the listener in no doubt that I know my stuff, so the song goes into great detail about the events of the battle. However, the 2nd Edition Epic is a rather niche form of Warhammer, so I wanted to reference relatively iconic units that people who play other games set in the 40K Universe are likely to have some knowledge of, to slightly widen the appeal of the song.

My hobbies in music and Warhammer mostly exist alongside each other, but through this song, I was able to combine the two.

Behind the Recording

I felt pretty sure I had come up with something really good, but my bandmates were not convinced back in late 2024 and early 2025. It was a song that really divided opinion. I thought that after a bit of time in the studio, though, people would realise what a great song it was, so I was determined to get it recorded.

I wanted to record this one with Andy James (Through The Roof Recordings), with whom we had previously worked on Unwavering Optimism and the album version of Bedroom Analysis. He is exceptionally good at making guitar riffs sound amazing, with drums that really bring the energy through. While this song is very pop in lots of ways, it needed that energetic punk-rock side to come through, too, and I thought Andy's style would be perfect. I also like that he takes a lot of pride in trying to make his recordings sound as great as possible - there's nothing worse than trying to work with a producer who is uninterested in your song!

I thought Travis got the feel of the song just right in the drums. I was very happy to have Dan Newberry join me in the studio for a guitar recording session. He had previously recorded the lead parts on She Loves Ted Bundy and is an unbelievably talented guitarist (who also has an interest in Warhammer). I think the lead parts he played gave the song the extra musical layer it needed. Once we had these down, I felt very confident about the end result. Kat (who is way better than I am at Warhammer painting, but refuses to let me show her how the game works) played the basslines, and we layered up the vocal harmonies together. Andy mixed it and got it mastered, and I remember the reaction of our manager, Jay, when we sent it to him - he loved it, despite having no idea what I was on about lyrically! All things considered, I think this is my personal favourite recording I have ever been involved in.

Support independent metal journalism — Visit the official BTC store