Meet the BATT Family
Who's Who Behind the Mics
Mark has long been considered a nerd by all who have ever met him and at this point it’s a title he’s proud to wear. A frequent hobbyist when it comes to comic books (particularly DC), technology, and a desperately eclectic mix of music it all pales in comparison to his love of board gaming. He has worked with many companies in a volunteer/event judge/street team capacity (highlights being Stonemaier Games, AEG, and Wizkids). The phrase “I read the rules so you don’t have to” might as well be stamped on him somewhere because there are more rulebooks on his endtable than anything else it seems. His favourite thing to do is simply sit down with a group of people and play games. Particularly favourite titles are Libertalia: Winds of Galecrest, Nemesis, Twilight Imperium IV, Cubirds, and Kanban EV.
Mark’s vocal style has been developed over the past decade of running live trivia with a national company at a local bar, so if you’re ever in South Bend on a Tuesday night there’s a good chance you’ll hear him unleashing knowledge and putting hecklers in their places. When that’s not happening, he tries to be the best husband possible (thank you endlessly Natalie for letting him take all the time it takes to create the podcast!) and father to his boys.
When the divine beings were creating the entity known to us as Scott, they accidentally put in too much sass, sarcasm, and sharp wit. And now we have to deal with him. Scott has always lived in the Midwest, mostly in Indiana but for a formative time they did live in St. Louis Mo. Scott is our resident “Theme Queen” a self-administered title speaking to Scott’s love of a strong IP or strong theming in the board game sphere.
Their favorite titles include Century: Golem Edition, Betrayal: Legacy, & Clue: Master Detective. When Scott isn’t playing board games, You will either find him on the Twitch channel that he created, TheaterGeeks or going by the roller derby name Treblemaker as he announces games for South Bend Roller Derby and has travelled with them and announced at several different tournaments.
The History of Board All The Time
Mark moved to Indiana in the summer of 2015, engaged to his now wife. When he was getting introduced to all of her friends, Scott was on the list. Apparently she had never brought anyone around quite like Mark though, as when Scott met him at a local game store in town, and after chatting and playing games for a couple hours, he confidently stated that “[Mark] has to be a time traveler. There is no way that I could just like a person this much right away.”
An annual tradition of making sure that the games being taught at GenCon were tabled, led to a more serious friendship. The two stayed mostly casual until the summer of 2022 when Mark put out a call in the weekly gaming group through to come and play Viticulture World early. Some passing conversations and connections through the next few months, especially at GenCon 2022, meant that the ground was laid. Over the intervening months Scott had seriously resurrected his Theater Geeks crew and had a desire to expand into podcasting.
Scott created TheaterGeeks Entertainment, LLC in 2018 with one of his best friends. The business was created as their Twitch channel started to grow under the new cast. Scott started playing Tabletop Role-Playing Games live on the channel by request, and the current cast has been together for several years now. They showcase a love of the gaming trope with players that have been on local theatrical stage productions both on stage and behind the scenes, plus they have individuals that have a love of cosplay and other art forms.
Realizing that Mark was a trove of gaming knowledge and analysis that would pair well with the more laid back, consumer-styled approach that Scott takes to board gaming they started to have serious conversations about the podcast during GenCon 2023. Once they both realized how serious they were about the idea, microphones were purchased, software was installed, and the first steps of pre-production began.
Unfortunately you’re unlikely to ever hear the first batches of content that were created during that time. Despite the conversations being ones they enjoyed doing, Mark hadn’t quite figured out all the basics for recording and there were issues that they found restarting the whole thing (and tossing something like five recorded episodes away) was the better approach. Thus full production on Board All The Time truly began in April 2024 and continues on to this day. While improvements are continuing to come with every episode, the BATT team feels proud of everything they’ve released thus far.
Thank you so much for taking a chance on our podcast and we can’t wait to hear what you think!