Etiqueta: Games Workshop

Interview with Andy Chambers

Andy Chambers is a games developer who started writing his own rules for fantasy battle games at a very young age, inventing rules and gaming tactics for Airfix WWII models. A lot of his early inspiration came from the SELWG Middle Earth rules system, which also gave him a life-long habit of playing the forces of evil as Orcs and Goblins.

Andy’s youth was marked by an ever-diversifying interest in gaming, roleplaying games, sinking ever deeper into gaming in general and Games Workshop’s Adeptus Titanicus game (by the redoubtable Jervis Johnson) in particular.

In late ’89 Andy sent in a submission for White Dwarf that was initially turned down. Several rewrites later he was given temporary employment and due to a willingness to do any jobs required (including taking photos of the miniatures to the White Dwarf) he eventually got a permanent job as a games developer.

He properly started by producing expansions and supplements for the 2nd edition of the Adeptus Titanicus game, Space Marine. Over fourteen years Andy worked in the development of all of Games Workshop’s core game systems, culminating with 2nd, 3rd and 4th editions of Warhammer 40,000 game, several editions of the Epic game, Necromunda, Battlefleet Gothic, Gorkamorka and Codexes.

Andy was gradually over several years entrusted with running the Warhammer 40,000 games development team, starting after 40,000 2nd edition and solidified during 40,000 3rd edition, recruiting and training a new generation of games developers and adopting the suitably evil-overlord title of “40,0000 Overfirend”. As a result of all of this, his impact on Games Workshop is largely unquestionable.

Fourteen years later, Andy left Games Workshop to pursue other projects. He began Red Star Games in June 2004 for freelance writing and games designing, worked for Mongoose games on creating their Starship Troopers line, worked at Blizzard from 2005 to 2009, officially becoming Creative Director in 2006, and he also acted as lead writer on Starcraft 2. Furthermore, he was involved with 40,000 to some extent, working with Fantasy Flight Games on some books of Warhammer 40,000 Roleplaying. This was in 2010-11 when he went back to freelancing, also he wrote novels for Black library and did the Dust Warfare game in this time. After this he’s been working for Reforged Studios as a creative director, done IP and world development for various digital games, written the Dropfleet Commander game and Blood Red Skies, his WW2 fighter combat game on the tabletop front.

Andy is one the most important developers of the Warhammer 40,000 Universe.

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Interview with Graham McNeill

After writing a story in primary school about a giant octopus smashing up a boat, Graham realised that making stuff up was easier (also a lot more fun) than reality and decided at an early age that he was either going to be a binman or a writer. Fortunately, a life on the bins wasn’t on the cards and, after escaping a stint as a building surveyor in Glasgow, he headed south to join Games Workshop’s Games Development Team. Here he worked on projects such as the Tau, Necrons, Witch Hunters, Space Marines and Black Templars Codexes for Warhammer 40,000, Conquest of the New World and The Empire for Warhammer, and The Two Towers for The Lord of the Rings. Between populating the various Warhammer universes with fiends and heroes, he’s written over fifty short stories and thirty novels for the Black Library and a number of other publishers.

Graham left Games Workshop in the summer of 2006 and spent the next decade working as a full-time freelance author, spending most of his days locked in a tiny office (or tea shoppe), dreaming up new and interesting ways to put his characters through hell on the pages of his stories. Since leaving Games Workshop, he’s ventured far and wide, continuing to cause havoc in the worlds of Warhammer as well as those of Blizzard entertainment’s Starcraft universe and travelling back in time to the 1920s to unleash eldritch horror in a trilogy of books set in the Lovecraftian vein of terror that is Fantasy Flight Games Arkham Horror.

His Horus Heresy novel, A Thousand Sons, was a New York Times bestseller, and Empire, the second novel in the Sigmar trilogy, won the 2010 David Gemmell Legend Award for best fantasy novel.

Graham left the rain-swept shores of fair Britannia in the summer of 2015 to take gainful employment with a promising band of plucky video game entrepreneurs named Riot Games in Los Angeles, working as a Senior Narrative Writer in the cut and thrust of the Narrative Discipline.

Graham is one the most important shapers of the Warhammer Universe.

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Interview with Gav Thorpe

Gav Thorpe is a writer, games developer and creative consultant who lives in Nottingham, England. Gav, who designed his first wargame aged eight using Airfix plastic soldiers, is also a New York Times Bestselling author and winner of the 2017 David Gemmell Legend Award for Best Fantasy Novel.

Gav has designed rules for miniatures and board games, written short stories, audio dramas and novels, and assisted in various capacities in the development and writing of tabletop and video games. He has also appeared on numerous discussion panels, and delivered writing workshops at literature and genre events.

He started working for Games Workshop in 1993, where he spent fourteen years working in games development, on White Dwarf magazine and the Key Design Team, so he’s written a lot about the Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 universes.

He took part in almost every aspect of Games Workshop, from assistant game developer, to being in charge of the Warhammer Fantasy game system. He has also collaborated in the development and design of several editions of Warhammer 40,000, and as well as the creation of White Dwarf magazine articles. One of his last roles before leaving Games Workshop was the supervision over all the background of Games Workshop.

In 1997, when Games Workshop launched a new fiction imprint called Black Library, he began his stage as a fiction writer with a short story entitled Birth of a Legend. His influence on the development of the Warhammer 40,000 background continues today with his work for the Black Library.

His most popular works include The Sundering trilogy, the Path of the Eldar, works from the Horus Heresy series including Deliverance Lost, Angels of Caliban, the audio dramas Raven’s Flight and Honour to the Dead, and the New York times best-selling novella The Lion.

He left Games Workshop in 2007, to concentrate on being a full-time writer. He has produced numerous novels and stories for Black Library.

He is published by Angry Robot books where you can find his epic swords-and-sandals fantasy saga gathered in the omnibus collection entitled Empire of the Blood.

On the other hand, he wrote the script and voice-overs for the Mark of Chaos computer game, and contributed to a number of non-fiction titles including Hobby Games. Furthermore, he has designed, co-developed and consulted on a number of titles both for tabletop play and in the world of video games.

He also delivers workshops at writing events such as the Derby Literature Festival, and regularly appears on panels at conventions such as FantasyCon and EdgeLit.

Gav is one the most important shapers of the Warhammer Universe.

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