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Sorry if this has been discussed previously. Discussion on Warseer (confirmed by Brimstone) that he is leaving. No confirm on Alessio also leaving.

http://warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=128708&page=2


Brimstone:

Second yes Gav is leaving GW, he's put in a hell of a contribution both to Games Workshop and Warseer and I'm going to miss him.

I'm pretty sure Alessio is not leaving however.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh well now!

Isn't he responsible for the current C:CSM?

So that leaves Alessio and (the relatively new guy) Phil Kelly, and a bunch of guys I don't know anything about. Jervis goes without saying.

- Salvage

Good news. I don't think I recall him ever writing anything good.

I wonder why people switch sides when someone they once hated leaves. It was fun to read that thread.

I believe Phil Kelly did the eldar codex (and the ork one???) They seem the better of the new group of codexes.

Kelly is doing the Xenos codexes apparently, and knocking them out of the park. Jerv & friends are meanwhile beating the marines down to a lower balance of power. As I mused last Friday at the game store, it's looking like ...

Marines vs Marines = good game, few heavy weapons, basically equal armies with unique units and options, lower amount of carnage means objectives more important

Xenos vs Xenos = good, tactically challenging high stakes game, loads of powerful specialist troops great at what they do, high amount of carnage

Marines vs Xenos = marines cannot bring enough specialist kit needed to crush xenos, but xenos have many weapons designed to obliterate MEQ, making for an "unforunate" game and match up as far as the marines go

I also proposed an apparent division of 40k into "Jervishammer" and "Kellyhammer," but that's pretty extreme and quite off topic :S

- Salvage

The funniest thing I read from Gav ever, was his tactic suggestions in the...6th edition Dwarf Armybook. Solid gold right there.

The examples used a single enemy unit. Because we know how often dwarfs outnumber their opponents...

Greets
Schepp himself

My first thought was whether there are other shoes to drop. Seems like they've lost a lot of talented creative people in the past few years (Gav wasn't the best rules-writer, but he was a good writer and probably strong on the conceptual side). Of course, Jes is still there, but he supposedly makes a lot of bread.

My second thought was that the time is right for Phil Kelly to pick up the mantle of 40K Overfiend. I'd be interested to see how the studio would do with Phil in charge leading some new blood.

Boss_Salvage wrote:Isn't he responsible for the current C:CSM?

No, he wrote most of the fluff for it, but most of the rules were by Alessio. Mr. Thorpe just put up with the abuse for it.

The studio isn't, hasn't been, divided into fantasy/40k/LOTR teams for ages. They pretty much all work the codices and move around as required.

AFAIK, Gav was working on the Dark Elf army book for later in the year. Only things I've heard about that are : regenerating hydra (well DUH !), plastic cold one riders--maybe a chariot perhaps, plastic corsairs and "something" that can be bought to make the whole army stubborn. that is NOT their special rule apparently.

Obviously they are rumours but from generally good sources.

reds8n wrote:"something" that can be bought to make the whole army stubborn. that is NOT their special rule apparently.

All stubborn, blech. Though funnily I was thinking about it the other night and wondered if they'd give all dark elves poison or some nonsense

- Salvage

You know, I never took sides on Gav because everyone I ever heard talk about him colored him 15,000 different shades of suck-ass. Me, I tend to look at the body of work as a whole: if something sucks, it's because the people at the top either employed the wrong people, put them on the wrong projects, failed to guide the artsies properly (which goes right along with proper artsie placement, of course), or put into production a piece of work that was actually a piece of crap. Or, they just let it fly out there in an attempt to sell more models, money being the great motivator in business (SUPRISE!!!).

If GW puts out a crappy product, do you blame the person who deposited the turd, or the person who authorized mass production of said turd?

Speaking of leadership? How much control does an "overfiend" have of his games system? One would guess from the name that it would be all-consuming, however that doesn't match up to what I heard about Andy and his departure. Yeah, I keep out of touch, it's an interest thing.

Gav sucked at writing 40k rules because he scoffed at game balance. Everything he wrote for 40k was terrible.

Fantasy players seem to love him though. They should have just left him on the fantasy team and he wouldn't have been so hated.

grizgrin wrote:If GW puts out a crappy product, do you blame the person who deposited the turd, or the person who authorized mass production of said turd?

Fair point, and it's why I don't give Gav and Alessio complete blame for the recent Chaos stuff. Seems like they must have had a lot of internal constraints and pressures.

Speaking of leadership? How much control does an "overfiend" have of his games system? One would guess from the name that it would be all-consuming, however that doesn't match up to what I heard about Andy and his departure. Yeah, I keep out of touch, it's an interest thing.

No direct knowledge, but in my mind the Overfiend would be the guy with the vision for the game who also gives direction to the people working on it. Jervis is kind of in a vision role, but I don't think he's really involved in the nuts and bolts of it in terms of rules, etc.

my faith is now reaffirmed and my prayers have been answered...... oh happy days !!!!!! now if Tuomas Pirinen comes back all will be well in warhammer. although alessio has done good work on his books in the past.... anyway i cant stop dancing !! WOO HOO !!!

Which codex was he responsible for?

I know he did the Original Blood Angels. What else did he do?

Gav gone? Ok!

Alessio not gone? Hmmm...

Wasn't he responsible for the horror that is the Skaven army book?

Nice! I saythis not as a gamer, but as someone that occasionally likes to read some 40k/WFB related fiction (those Kage books are so bad).

Alpharius wrote:Gav gone? Ok!

Wasn't he responsible for the horror that is the Skaven army book?

horror ? what a ridiculous statement ! that book was brilliant ! 4 different clans to play, competative in tournaments for the power-gamers, yet you can still build balanced armies for the comp-queens and the fluff-nutters still had room to build their armies.

compare that with Gavs Dark ELf book . nobody was happy with that non-sense. even GW had to admit it and they released a fix for the dark elves. fluff changed, lists were boring and uncompetitive. much like his attempt at dwarves.

Alessio also wrote the Vampire counts book, which repeats my statement about skaven, its a book that appeals to all 3 player archtypes. Alessio played in tournaments and wrote his book with that in mind, while gav wrote fluffy storied in white dwarf and wrote his books from that point of view.

Gav could not write rules for a game of rock paper scissors much less a wargame, he will not be missed. Hopefully they will pull in Rick Preistly and Robin Dews since they are ushering in the return of the old crew. The stupidest thing GW ever did was get rid of Tuomas Pirinen, that man could write rules. GW Hire back Tuomas to save your core games!

KiMonarrez wrote:Which codex was he responsible for?

I know he did the Original Blood Angels. What else did he do?

He gave us T8 Wraithlords and the oh noes Starcannon from the 3rd ed Eldar book, which resulted in much bally-hooing from Marine players. That plus the Rhino rush BA codex made him one of the more maligned designers. That's not saying the BA book wasn't creative.

It was creative, as long as you wanted to field a Rhino Rush BA Army. If you wanted to do anythign else with that army, aside from fielding 6 Dreads, you were SOL.

Not only did he give us "T8 Wraithlords and the oh noes Starcannon", he also gave us Shining Spears that cost 50 pts. and had a single S5 non-PW attack each. Oh, and a pew-pew laser attack, great! And let's not forget the 4+-to-wound Wraithguard! That he could think up all of these and put them in the same codex proves without a doubt that he had no clue as to how the game was played.

gorgon wrote: My second thought was that the time is right for Phil Kelly to pick up the mantle of 40K Overfiend.

Sadly it seems we will never get to see Codex or Army book Fishmen. I was so eagerly awaiting it release.

Rats fleeing a sinking ship perhaps?

carmachu wrote:Rats fleeing a sinking ship perhaps?

Maybe he just got tired of the crap. I'm sure when you've worked for a company before they go public and then after things seriously change. He might have just been fed up with the business decisions.

stonefox wrote:Good news. I don't think I recall him ever writing anything good.

I wonder why people switch sides when someone they once hated leaves. It was fun to read that thread.

This is so true. I for one will laugh like a maniac when whoever replaces him writes stuff even worse than him. It will serve everybody right for saying he was bad for the hobby.

Meh. People come and people go. Change is a good thing.

I don't know - I don't see it as rats fleeing a sinking ship. It's just turnover - the folks that have been leaving GW lately have been with the company a while now. It can't be too surprising that they're leaving.

As far as Gav, specifically, leaving, I'm in the "glad to hear it" camp. It's not just his rules that were bad, his fluff was bad, and his writing was bad. I know all the DA players were ga-ga over Angel of Darkness, but while it might have given more info on the origins of Cypher and the nature of the Unforgiven, the writing was still crap.

This best describes why Gav had to leave:

3) What were the games designers thinking when they gave falcons the ability to have extra armor so all hits are always glancing, unless you can shoot them on turn 1 before they move and have a fair chance of killing them?

GAV
They were thinking that Falcons are Armour 12 so anything with S6 and above can potentially destroy them 1/3 of the time even with a glancing hit. Perhaps players should try less lascannon-like weapons for the job, and more multilasers and assault cannons.
And is there an chance the unbalanced rule may be altered in the future?
The only time rules would change would be in a new Codex: Eldar, which obviously wont be for many years yet.

and of course for the fantasy players here's this little Jewel:

7) Does taking a Steam Tank down to half wounds net you half VP's for that model, or do you have to kill it outright to gain any VP's whatsoever? Is it a warmachine or a unit?

GAV
Warhammer, P102: Models that fight on their own and not in unitsK are worth half their points value in VPs if reduced to half their starting number of wounds or less. Thats crystal clear. Sorry, that was a bit of a waste of a question.



you can find the Q and A with Gav from the Necro at this link: http://thenecro.yuku.com/topic/365?page=5

Honestly, I don't rate Gav's codexes nowhere near to work by say Phil Kelly - but he's been around long and was liked within the GW and clearly loved the worlds of warhammer, so I am not sure its a good thing he goes. Then again, it felt so horrible to hear Andy C leave, and it turned out allright, and I really liked Andy's work.