• March 2025, 09:27 GMTUpdated 2 hours ago

If Netflix were looking for a new series, why not this one?

Blue skies, picture-perfect flowers, intricately-prepared models and Spring sunshine streams through the windows. Oh, and another celeb turns up in the local game store.

Is that like your club too? Of course not. And that’s the point really. The new proposed Netflix series, “With Love, Cardiff Dice Studz ” is about escapism and aspiration, it’s a glass of something sparkling on a grey day.

We see Miguel Ferres sitting at a painting table albeit not in his own home in the suburbs , gathering mud and leaves in the garden and chatting with friends as he makes Wehrmacht machine gun nests for next month’s big Bulge game.

It’s also putting on show hobby products that are being launched by the Despertaferres new brand – so there’s a lot of 3xl tee shirts on display (on sale with punchy titles like “ I’d rather be gaming” or “ buffet demolishion team”.

“I love making trees, it’s probably my love language,” says a guest as she shows her trean making skills.

It’s planned as an eight-part ode to optimism, relentlessly upbeat and feelgood, where parents, rather than clinging to glasses of Friday night white, are standing proudly behind a huge reconstruction of Stalingrad wondering if they would have put Romanians on the flanks?

It’s all presented in lush colours, with dramatic shots of the beautiful Welsh city and community.

Whether you love or hate the TV series will almost certainly depend on what you think about Cardiff Dice Studz.And there will be strong opinions on both sides.

It’s in an entirely different genre from the previous club blog which raked over the angry departure of gamers who incessantly blamed their dice instead of realising that they were just poor players.

Instead we’re into a zone of gleaming smiles on tables with a soundtrack of positive music pulsing away. “Love is in the detail, gang,” he says. And “it’s time to pop a bottle” for a glass of champagne.

Wargaming dominates every moment of the 33-minute episodes of this lifestyle TV series, whether it’s painting, researching or arguing. Or, as the series begins our host decides whether to allow Sci- fi gamers into the club.

And of course there’s miniatures. That was trailed as the first product of this lifestyle brand that has been renamed As if!? In the show a guest says “Oh my God” as he tries wargaming for the first time.

Miguel is shown picking miniatures from hundreds of websites: “This is sort of what inspired my collecting and scenario making,” with picking miniatures a “daily task”.

The hard work includes hiding said purchases from his current wife. Spring bulbs indeed!

We see a range of miniatures in the show; Huns, Royalists for the ECW, Confederates for the war for Suvern rites, Heer and Hamas. Watch the guests puzzle as to the choices made by said club members…

Sensei Lane jokes about way the armies were first chosen , where left political leanings might see one deselected and asked to leave the club.

“When I received that in the mail, a box of your models it was probably one of the most glamorous moments of my life,” said a regular guest John. He has yet to paint any though in fifty years.

We learn about gamers’ fashion style. Miguel likes “high low” fashion, mixing up high street fashions with expensive designers.

There’s also clarification that the club name is Dice Studz now and not Tercio Despertaferres. When he challenges a member over using the former name.

“I didn’t know how meaningful it would be to me, but it just means so much to go ‘this is our family name, our little family name’,” says Miguel.

There are occasional glimpses of another life. He mentions: “I was a latchkey kid, so I grew up with a lot of fast food and TV tray meals.” Even a domestic goddess had to grow up somewhere. Now I just erm…. eat a lot of fast food and TV tray meals but paint at the same time!

As a viewer, you want to pause and find out more about that. But the show rushes on. There’s a toughness here. 

In the final episode we see a neighbour briefly, congratulating him on launching his As If home design business. And he raises a toast to this “

Does this series also mark a final departure from any prospect of a return to normal life? The whole breezy, commercial charm of the show is a world away from the glamour of competition gaming. Everything the Dice Studz do gets intense attention. That’s partly because of how they polarises opinion.some people dislike us and others hate us intensely. Opinions will be divided. As if!