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The Gav Thorpe Interview - Dysartes & Gav Thorpe | |||||||||||||||||
ChaosIs there going to be any more Chaos stuff in the distant pipeline? I heard rumours of power-specific Knight and Warrior sprues, and plastic knights for that matter...Heard mention? You mean my designer's notes for Storm of Chaos? We have made sure that there is plenty of room to expand the plastics range for Chaos in the future, though for the time being Chaos is taking a step back as we focus on some of the other armies - they've had over two years of attention, time for someone else to feel the lurve! Why can't Beastman Chariots have Marks of Chaos? Particularly in regard to the fact you can only have Undivided characters in them. Chariots, to all intents and purposes, are mobile impact hits waiting to happen. If Beasts chariots had Marks, they would invalidate Warrior Chariots simply because of their points value. It was for the same reason that we took out the Marauder chariots. Are the Norse merely part of Chaos now? Marauders are Norse obviously- so are ALL Norse Chaos? I'm continually amazed at this - have people actually READ Hordes of Chaos? In particular, the piece of colour text regarding the Were? To say that any of the marauders are one single thing is foolish - it's like saying that all the Indo-European peoples that crossed the continent for centuries were all the same. The point to remember is that Norsca lies mostly under the shadow of Chaos, and if one doesn't want to wake up to find they've grown hedgehogs instead of legs, one pays proper respect to the gods. The Norse, in particular, are a people with their own culture, traditions and society; they are war-like and respect strength and power, but they're only 'evil' if you happen to be living in the village they're raiding! The Kurgan, on the other hand... Considering that Beasts of Chaos upon its release only got about half the model range redone, with the (older) rest looking very out of place compared to the new one, and half the new models being of very low quality (Trolls/Ogres), I felt that BoC is a pretty low-priority army and not taken as "seriously" by GW as the other armies (Especially the chaos Mortals). While the book for the most part is lovely, I feel they haven't been getting the support they should have. What're your thoughts on this? I disagree. The fact that they have their own book and are a distinct part of the range shows that we consider them an important part of Warhammer! The sheer scope of Chaos, with basically a requirement for five different versions of many characters and units, make it a very unwieldy range to produce and manage. Given the wide number of commitments the Studio has at any given time, we have to divide resource as sensibly as possible. Generally, we'd like to think that when we remake models they are an improvement, however, if we were to have remade more of the range, this would have impacted heavily on the rest of the release schedule and the project might not have been possible at all. We can't do everything for everyone at once, and so instead opted to do what we could and leave our options open for later development and releases. With regards to the Slaangor and Tzaangor, can you explain why they haven't been released yet, or at least why the Khorngor and Pestigor were released? Would it be possible for some concept art for the Slaangor and Tzaangor to be released, so people have some idea how they could convert them? See above. We know from experience that Khorne and Nurgle are the most popular gods, by some margin, and so were our priority. Slaangor and Tzaangor will be something we'll get back to - at the moment they are an opportunity for some suitably Chaotic colour schemes (Tzaangor work well with leopard spots and tiger stripes for that exotic look, for instance, while albino Slaaneshi Bestigor are also very distinctive). Were you at all disappointed with the Chaos Horde of The End Times' rather pitiful progress in the Storm of Chaos? I was surprised, rather than disappointed. Given popular opinion regarding the potency and flexibility of the Chaos army, I thought they would make a better showing. I think it better to refer to my concluding thoughts for a more in-depth discussion of why I thought the result ended up the way it did. Would you say that Chaos, as an army, is possibly over-played when compared to other armies such as Tomb Kings and Orcs & Goblins? I know when I go gaming, I tend to see more Chaos armies than anything else. Chaos has always been and will always be a pivotal part of Warhammer, and it was our aim with the 6th edition iteration to return them to their rightful place they enjoyed during their heyday of the Realms of Chaos books. It's interesting that the greenies are mentioned in the question, because these are actually one of our most popular armies - not least because they have been in two of the three boxed game versions of Warhammer (or perhaps vice versa?). Maybe players in your area just don't like gobbos! Are there any plans to "put back" Malal into chaos? None at all. Aside from any old copyright issues, I personally find the idea of the anti-Chaos Chaos god inconsistent with the way Chaos is supposed to work. However, the idea of personifying the self-destructive side of Chaos is an interesting one and formed much of the inspiration behind Be'lakor. Other RacesAny chances of getting plastic Dwarfs that have knees?What does a Dwarf need knees for? He's not going anywhere. Will an army of Cathay or Araby ever see light of day? As an army? Unlikely. There is a Warmaster Araby army being done at the moment, though. It's a sad fact that we currently cannot continually keep adding armies to the ranges - the range is simply too large for many people to stock as it is. We are looking at ways that we can manage this better, particularly with regard to the use of direct sales, and if we can resolve these issues we may have more freedom to explore these areas in the future. However, a whole army is a massive commitment of resource, and with Warhammer we already have a huge choice of images and playing styles - it is debateable whether a new army is good service to our customers, rather than using that time and manpower to deepen and broaden our existing armies.. What army lists are to be contained in the Lustria Campaign book? You'll have to wait for an official announcement for that. There are some good guesses floating around... Mermen?! You mentioned a while ago Gav, how you'd like to revisit that old classic. Just wondering if that was at all founded and/or what you were taking at the time of making that statement? It started as a gag, but it's also a great fantasy archetype. Nigel Stillman wrote up a Fishmen Regiment of Renown years ago, which was a giggle, and we even put Fishmen onto our design schedule for a while, just as a placeholder. I doubt anything will happen, but you never know! When will there be an official FAQ for the Bretonnian Army Book? As mentioned earlier, we're currently resolving some issues regarding how to use the website to the best effect for Games Dev, and Q&As are part of that discussion. More a suggestion that a question, but would the studio consider putting 'test' army lists in White Dwarf for some of the minor human realms, such as Tilea, Estelia, and Araby? No. At the end of the day, we produce a miniatures wargame, and unless we were able to provide the miniatures for players to use, it's nothing more than an exercise in rules for rules' sake, something we continually try to avoid. Rules and army lists have to be considered in the wider context of the hobby - that of modelling and actually gaming. Is there any chance there's gonna be a revised Snotling list, even if only as an appendix? Pleeeeeeeeeaaaaaaseee? What's wrong with the one you've got? General WHFBAs well as plans for Chaos Dwarves etc. are their any army books you would like to redo, like Skaven or Dwarves?As I mentioned previously, the main driver for a revisit is the state of the attendant miniatures range. With the games systems being their most stable in a long time, the idea of a 6th book or 7th edition book is no longer appropriate. Over the coming years we will come back to armies, update models and their army books or codexes, and this is likely to continue for as long as people keep playing. The cycle of these revisits, on the other hand, will be a lot slower, allowing us time and resource to explore other avenues of the hobby and gaming. It is easy to not accept the present, to continually regret decisions made in the past or to forever look forward to the next revision. However, the army books and ranges as they currently stand are what we have, and what we must play with. There will always be a part of a book that you would, in hindsight, do differently, but acceptance of this and patience that there will be an opportunity to come back to it as part and parcel of the discipline of a games developer; and a player for that matter. How will you encourage younger gamers to play fantasy? Is Ogre Kingdoms the way forward? Why would we want to? We create games that appeal to us, and luckily for us that appeal has spread to other people. If the appeal of Warhammer is for more committed, slightly older gamers, than so be it. Though it may not get quite as many new starters, those that pick it up tend to stay in the hobby. Warhammer is in a very healthy place right now, there's no need to change the formula. What are your thoughts on the Storm of Chaos outcome? Please see my conclusions on the Storm of Chaos website. On the whole, I was every pleased, and in fact overwhelmed in particular by the response to the background and players participation in creating their own storylines. It makes me very confident for future activities of this kind, and I think we're more likely to let players 'run the show' in the future, than to try to create the kinds of narratives we did with Eye of Terror and Storm of Chaos. Are there any areas of Warhammer in which you would encourage gamers to send in contributions (as opposed to "Fix High Elf" revisions)? What does GW want to see from gamers these days? There is already a wide discussion of various topics from individual armies, the general games mechanics or particular miniatures. It is far more useful for use to browse along these fields of thought rather than to receive specific suggestions ro queries; at the end of the day 'groundswell' opinion over an extended period is more of an influence on our thinking than any individual point. As they said in the British Telecom ad, just keep talking! How will the distinction between errata and Q&A be in future? It seems to me that lately various things (like actual rules changes and additions) have been addressed in Q&A instead of errata. There have been some contradictions in the approach of late. We'll be able to make more comment on how this will be handled in the near future. Where do you see Warhammer in 10 years time? Will we have armies from all continents? eg. Nippon, Ind. Or do you think its better to leave areas unexplored and to people's imagination? Certainly we need to leave areas of mystery to excite the imaginations of ourselves and players alike. In ten years time, I see a lot more plastics, and a wider variety of gaming styles. With the army book range nearly complete, we can look at other types of supplements, including larger and smaller battles, sieges, allies, mercenaries and all the rest. Overall, I see it as still being a really fun place to be. Any plans for more fluff books in the same vein as Loathsome Ratmen? Black Library is dedicated to releasing more background books, but they are a separate division of the company. You would be better off directing this question to a member of Black Library staff. Do you know that every time someone uses the word 'fluff' instead of 'background', a kitten dies? Do you intend to bring out some form of book which has all of the FAQ's and Updates since 6th Edition started? Its currently very hard to keep track of what questions have been answered where etc. At the very least perhaps some form of list on the GW site explaining what Annual/Chronicles has what FAQ/Update would be helpful. Not as a book (although that was the idea behind the Annuals). We do want to make the website a more functional resource for this information. Which game mechanic do you like best, which do you like least? Although there are some issues with it, I really like the Ratling Gun in principle - the idea that you have to decide whether to keep turning the handle and rolling more dice is good fun. It's a question of caution versus greed (the problem being that caution is too effective at the moment). Worst mechanic? Not sure there's one in particular, but I have a deep unsettling feeling for any games system that requires you to roll low instead of high. There's something not right with wanting a dice to come up a 1 instead of a 6! Is there any chance on convincing Forge World to up its production rates for fantasy miniatures? Essentially, making resin kits is still very much cottage industry-style production process, and the guys already work flat out producing what they do! Next: Warhammer 40,000, Black Library and more..... | |||||||||||||||||
Want to discuss this? Or anything else? | |||||||||||||||||
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