How do you start a post about two subjects that are a huge deal? Not only have I hit 100 posts and 13,000 views for my blog, but what better time to post an interview with one of the most influential people in the history of wargaming, and especially Games Workshop, Andy Chambers. I've been a huge fan of Andy's work since first looking in White Dwarf. From his tales of the Piscina campaign, the various specialist games and codices he's written to his entertaining rivalry with another of the GW legends, Jervis Johnson.
"Hello Andy, thanks for taking
the time out to answer these questions, its greatly appreciated. What
are you currently up to in the worlds of Tabletop, Roleplaying and
Videogames?
Hi Kevin, currently I’m
working as a freelancer on a number of different projects for myself
and other people. I’m writing 40K-related fiction for the lovely
folks at Black Library. I actually just started the third novel in a
trilogy about Dark Eldar but I’ve also been doing short stories
and novellas for them as well. A little company called Fun to 11 was
good enough to put my card game ‘Flame War’ up on Kickstarter
and that won it’s funding so it’s now been published. I’m
working on a WW2 tabletop fighter combat game called Blood Red Skies
which I hope to get published next year. This year I’ve undertaken
a fair bit of sub-contract work through Alessio Cavatore’s
Riverhorse Games so I was working on early drafts of Fantacide for
Architects of War and wrote a Soviet supplement for Bolt Action from
Warlord Games.
You're well known by many as
one of the more influential people to have worked at Games Workshop,
helping to craft games like Warhammer 40,000, Space Marine and Titan
Legions etc, What was it like when you first joined Games Workshop?
What was the atmosphere and the people like?
Very small and a little
Kafkaesque at times. The first GW studio when I started working was
in a place called Enfield Chambers in the centre of Nottingham which
was a distinctly Victorian-looking space which was one side of a
quadrangle overlooking a tiny courtyard. There was ‘eavy metal (as
was) sales and management on the bottom floor, miniatures designers
and writers on the second, artists and paste-up (physical paste up
back then, with glue and scalpels) on the top. I shared an office
with Jervis Johnson and he proved to be the nicest man in the world.
Jez Goodwin and Richard Halliwell (the original designer of Space
Hulk) were both just down the hall, along with Bill King (of Felix
and Gotrek fame) who was the first real writer I’d ever met. I
learned a lot very quickly.
Come 14 years later, you part
ways with the company. What were the reasons for your departure?
When you left, did you feel
you had done all you could achieve at the company? After you ended
your tenure at GW Which of your creations were you most proud of?
Hmm, that’s a difficult one
because you can always achieve more. Nonetheless I’m proud of what
I achieved while I was there and the entertainment that it’s given
to others. The project I’m proudest of all about was Battlefleet
Gothic as I’ve got a bit of a thing about space ships. BFG was fun
because it was a chance to do a whole game from ground up; rules,
miniatures, background and art. Have to say that the Armageddon
campaign was also amazingly cool to be an instigator for, and that
working on Chaos, Orks, Tyranids, Tau, Necrons and the Skaven made
me proud because people responded so well to them – although none
of those are my creations.
After leaving Games Workshop
you joined Blizzard and worked on computer games, was there a
different mythos between working on tabletop games compared to
videogames?
There’s a lot of
similarities but there’s a lot of differences too. Videogames are
a lot more multifaceted than tabletop games – you don’t just
need art, for example, you need animation, lighting, effects,
environments and sound to bring that art to life on screen. That
makes them a lot more complicated to create so the team size is a
lot bigger and communication becomes the key challenge. I have to
say that having worked in the videogames industry I am just
awestruck by the amount of passion, dedication and professionalism
that goes into creating games you all too often play over a few
evenings and then discard.
One of the things I used to
love about Games Workshop, were some of the specialist titles, three
of which you wrote, being Necromunda, Battlefleet Gothic and
Gorkamorka. How does it feel to you about Games Workshop
concentrating on 40k, Fantasy Battle and Lord of the Rings? Do you
think there is room for these games to make a comeback in the future?
I think with Space Hulk and
Dreadfleet GW have shown some willingness to meet player desires for
new and shiny things. The concentration on the big three is a purely
pragmatic business solution from GW’s point of view to having
finite resources to apply. From a personal perspective it makes me
sad as I think the games you mention did a lot to expand the
universe in interesting ways. Fortunately Fantasy Flight Games,
Cyanide and Relic have all done good things with the GW license over
recent years so there’s still hope for stuff outside the norm.
Do you still keep up with the
games you worked on? For example, have you tried the Sixth Edition of
Warhammer 40,000? If so, how do you feel about the direction Games
Workshop has taken?
I generally pay attention to
the chatter and read reviews but I’m usually too busy playing my
own stuff or work-related games to game. Personally I like what I’ve
heard that in sixth there’s been a conscious move away from the
tournament-centric approach of fifth. Tournament rules are great for
established players that want to test their skills but they have a
distinctly chilling effect on the fun factor of a game in my
experience. I’ve always felt that its better for a game to be
first and foremost engaging, enjoyable and approachable for new
players while the chess champions stuff can always come later.
Starcraft II garnered a lot of
critical acclaim, do you feel like there is a lot of difference in
terms of how the media perceives videogames compared to tabletop
games?
The media pays virtually zero
attention to tabletop games for the simple reason that it isn’t
mainstream in comparison to the multi-billion dollar industry that
is videogames. Really comparing the two is a bit like comparing
Premier league football and crown green bowling. More money gets
spent on videogames than movies
these days, which is presumably why Hollywood keeps attempting
Frankenstein-like collisions of the two. That being said I’ve seen
a resurgence in tabletop gaming over the last decade simply because
videogames are becoming so pernicious that folks seem to have
decided that they still like to play something else. Fortunately
specialist media on the web has done a lot to knit the worldwide
gaming community a lot more tightly together and that’s something
I think has strengthened the hobby immeasurably.
What tabletop, roleplaying and
videogames are you currently playing? Are there any hidden gems out
there you'd like to tell people about?
Currently I’m playing;
X-Com Enemy Unknown (which is fantastic, though I really want a
Necromunda version of it), Borderlands 2. I play in a weekly
role-playing group that’s been going for over two decades.
Tabletop I’ve been playing Dust Warfare, Bolt Action, Fantacide,
lots of Blood Red Skies and a little bit of DBM. For hidden gems I
would recommend any of the above, plus Small World is an excellent
board game I’ve enjoyed a lot and Ascension is a fun game based on
deck building mechanics. For a straight card game FFG’s Space Hulk
card game is good fun and worth a try.
You've got a huge catalogue of
work written by your hand, is there any you wish you could go back
and tweak or change? Is there one game you'd love to write, perhaps
on a franchise that doesn't have a game written for it?
Everything and nothing
really, you learn as you go so there always changes you wish you
could make but you only know what they are after you’ve done it if
you see what I mean. I’d definitely tweak with BFG if I had the
chance to as there’s a few core mechanics I would do differently
in hindsight. I liked the Starship Troopers miniatures rules a lot
but I would go back and clean up the rulebook if I could. It would
be nice to streamline some of the ideas to make the rules easier to
learn. Things I would like to do – a 2000AD based wargame based on
A.B.C warriors, Nemesis the warlock or Rogue Trooper. Those stories
were really influential on me when I was growing up. I’d also like
to do an 1950’s Alien invasion game with National Guard vs the
flying saucers sometime, thought I think that’s more of a
board/card game than one for miniatures.
Finally, apart from your
current projects, what does the future hold for Andy Chambers?
Moving house shortly, which
will be nice because I’ll have space for a games room at the new
place. I’m working on self-publishing, or rather publishing with
the help of partners, with Blood Red Skies and hopefully other
titles over the next year or two including co-writing some Weird War
2 e-novels with Bill king. In the longer term, growing old
disgracefully and probably dying in penury.
Andy, thank you again for
answering these questions, it’s an honour and a privilege to be
able to feature this on my wee little blog.
And that there folks is the 100th post on this most humble of blogs. Its been an amazing run, and hopefully shall continue to be so for a long time to come. I'm hoping to get some more interviews by various people in and out of the industry, so keep a look out for those. Thanks again to Andy Chambers, a true gent and legend of our incredible community. Onwards and upwards!
Images owned by Games Workshop, Fantasy Flight Games, Blizzard Entertainment and myself.
