Ask Jervis: the answers
A few months ago we asked you all for your questions to send to GW Design Studio head honcho Jervis Johnson. Due to some overly sensitive spam filters our original questions didn’t make it to Jervis but we were able to rectify that problem and Jervis quickly sent along his answers to your questions.
Thanks very much to Jervis for taking time to answer these questions and also for getting them back to us so quickly.
Will GW take up, or has it already, the rumoured “Advanced 40K”(namely a move back to the detail of 2nd Edition) which supposedly Andy Chambers was working on before he parted ways with GW?
A: You gotta love those Internet rumours! Andy wasn’t working on an ‘advanced’ version of 40K before he left, and this certainly isn’t something we ever plan to do - we’re very happy with the rules as they are. What might be being referred to is a variant of 40K, a bit like Kill Team, but about space ship boarding actions. In the end we decided that if we wanted to do something like this then we’d be better off simply bringing out Space Hulk again, and that remains our position now… And before that sparks off a brand new set of rumours, no, we don’t have any plans to bring out a new edition of Space Hulk any time soon, but we would like to when the time is right.
Given your place as product and hobby strategist within the GW, what do you think was the best improvement you have managed up to now and what improvements you hope to enact in the future?
A: I think its important to first say that it’s not my role to make the decisions about what Games Workshop does and what we bring out. What I do is help move plans from concept to actuality, mainly by scoping new projects out and helping write design briefs, or sometimes designing new material myself. I know it sometimes comes across as if these things are all my own ideas, but in actual fact I work as part of a talented team, and we work together to decide what direction to take.
That said, I think the most important improvement is to move away from being overly fixated on competitive ‘tournament style’ gaming, and towards a more balanced approach that covers all aspects of the hobby, be it painting Citadel Miniatures, fighting themed battles, running campaigns, playing pick-up games, competing in tournaments or whatever. This is one of the reasons that I’m so excited about Mighty Empires for Warhammer, and the upcoming Apocalypse expansion for 40K. Both do a lot to show that there are many different ways to play our games, and to question the assumption that the hobby’s only about collecting a 1,500 or 2,000 point army designed purely to win pick-up games. Pick-up games are one way to play, but not the only way to play.
What are your/GWs views on older gamers & how do you keep them interested in GW games?
A: As an older gamer myself I think they’re all wonderful, erudite people who are the shining lights of the hobby. Well, most of them, most of the time, anyway : )
Seriously, though, experienced hobbyists are really important to us for the reasons I’ve just stated, and we take their needs seriously. What we have to do, though, is balance this against the needs of everybody else in the hobby. It’s no good producing things that experienced gamers will love if it confuses less experienced gamers, for example.
This is part of the reason that we’re trying to ring fence what we’d call our ‘core’ books � ie the rulebooks and army books � and make sure that they provide the material all hobbyists will need, be they are hardened grognard with years of experience, or a new player that has only just played Battle of Skull Pass.
However, as every experienced gamer knows, there is much, much more to the hobby than what we cover in our core books. In order to explore these other areas of the ‘hobby in full splendour’, we’re planning to bring out an increasing range of supplements and expansions, as well other cool and interesting things too that are not directly rules or game related. The trick is to make sure that these things add depth to the core hobby but don’t end up changing it or modifying it. Cities of Death, Mighty Empires and Apocalypse (when it’s released) are all examples of this new approach.
I think it’s these expansions and the desire on our part to explore these other areas of the hobby that will keep experienced gamers coming back for more � if we get it right there will always be something new and interesting to try out.
Will you ever design more board games such as Battle for Armageddon, Horus Heresy or Doom of the Eldar?
A: I don’t know if I will, but I can certainly see us having games like this somewhere in the Games Workshop range at some point in the future. There are no immediate plans to do any more board wargames, though.
When will there be a mass combat (i.e. unit based) system for Lord of the Rings?
A: There already is such a game � its’ called Battle of the Five Armies and it’s really very good. We don’t have any plans to do anything like this for use with our 25mm range, at least any time soon, but it is something that come up regularly when we have discussions about the future of the Lord of the Rings Battle Strategy Game, so I wouldn’t rule it out all together.
Where does he see himself, the GW hobby and the tabletop market in 5 years?
A: This is an almost impossible question to answer, it really is. If you’d asked me the same question five years ago I’d have no idea that we’d have ended up where I am now. But, if pushed, I’d say that more people will be collecting, painting and playing games with Citadel Miniatures in five years time than they are now, and that I’ll still be around, causing trouble and sticking my oar in.
I have always been confused as to why WHFB units must always maintain a “blocked” cohesion while WH40k has a “looser” format in its units.
A: It’s simply because most troops on the Warhammer World are trained to fight in formed units with regular ranks and files, just like the Ancient Roman or Napoleonic troops where in our own history, while the troops of the 40K galaxy are trained to fight in looser formations, like our own modern day soldiers.
What is your opinion of prepainted miniatures? Do you think that there is an opportunity there for GW to get more gamers involved with prepainted figures?
A: We’re not going to make any pre-painted miniatures, for the simple reason that we consider painting to be a really important and vital part of the hobby. Does this make it harder to recruit new hobbyists � yes, it absolutely does. Would we be happy to make people think that painting isn’t a part of the hobby � absolutely not! So we won’t be adding pre-painted miniatures to the range. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve nothing against games with pre-painted miniatures, it’s just that they’re part of a slightly different sort of hobby to our own.
Would you say that the Specialist Games experiment was a success?
A: Well, it had its moments certainly, and we learnt a huge amount about how we can best support the specialist range now, and what we can do to promote the games in the specialist range and make them more popular in the future. Unfortunately these things were learnt because Fanatic just didn’t achieve what we wanted it to. Once we realised that this was the case we really had to go back to the drawing board and start to come up with a new plan. I’m very hopeful that the lessons learnt mean that next time round we’ll be able to do a much better job with the Specialist Range.
How do you manage work, family and gaming?
A: With difficulty!
Actually, I’m only partially joking about this, because as any busy parent will know, juggling work, family and personal interests can be a challenge. What I try to do is to put my family first and make sure that I spend as much time with them as possible while still having enough time to do my job and play games (in other words, I try to get my work/life balance right).
I also try to keep my own personal hobby separate from my work hobby. With my personal hobby I can do whatever I like simply because it pleases me, while at work I need to think about the needs of all of the people that take part in the Games Workshop hobby. In other words I try to keep ‘my hobby’ separate from ‘the hobby’. This is harder than one might think, but it’s an important lesson for anyone working at Games Workshop to learn.
Did you think that when you first started at Games Workshop that your career there would have lasted as long as it did? Is your “inner child” still amused that you get to play games for a living?
A: I never in my wildest dreams expected my career to take the path it did. I joined as a humble telesales guy, who used to call up the toyshops and games stores that carried out games in the UK and take their orders. If you’d told me then that almost twenty-five years later I’d still be at Games Workshop, and what’s more I’d be a game designer answering questionnaires about the games we make, well I’d have laughed you out of court.
And yes, my inner child is both amused and rather glad that I get paid to play games. When I get stressed, perhaps because a deadline is looming, or because people are telling me that it’s the end of the world because Deathwing Terminators are only allowed one Assault Cannon, I try to take a step back, take a deep breath, and say to myself “I’ve ended up with a job where I get to play games for a living - how lucky am I!”, and suddenly it all seems a lot better : )