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Yeah I miss Bottle. Although I do play everything he has come out with.

 Azreal13 wrote:
I've been conflicted about this. On one hand he's a significant part of one of my fondest periods of being a Wargamer. On the other, he participated in or oversaw some of the things that I've come to most dislike.

I guess, for me, he's been the wargaming equivalent of "You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain."

I imagine you'd have to random roll on a table to resolve the hero villain narrative

Currently reading the latest WD, and there are a few articles about and by Jervis.

Whilst you might not agree with his various design decisions (Epic 40K is glossed over entirely…..dirty boy), I don’t think anyone can deny his massive influence on war gaming as a whole.

Sure he only ever worked for GW. But being the big fish in the pond, his approach has echoed down to pretty much everyone else.

Long May he enjoy his retirement. It’s been well earned.

For those that know GW history better than i do, is there a reason or a moment that changed JJ design philosophy? Unless I'm mistaken, his latter rules seems to give a lot importance to the concept of "simplicity" or stream lining, while it certainly wasnt the case for his older rules (necromunda for example)

Player feedback would seem to be the main reason, having just read the articles.

It’s the sort of vicious circle of popular skirmish game, models people want to collect, and the initial rules not catering to larger collections, leading to the main rules being revised to cater to the larger collections, which people field, whilst continuing to collect ad Infinitum.

Stripping them down is probably a lot harder than we might think. I still hold up 3rd Ed 40K as a “baby with the bath water” error of judgement, in that whilst significantly easier and quicker to play than 2nd Ed, it was at the expense of the game actually being fun.

Little late to this topic-good riddance...just about a decade and a half to late to matter. he may have had some positive involvement in GW games generally but he is the main instigator of almost everything bad that was put into 5th edition rules wise. and his explanations for those decisions were GAK at best. you will find no love or nostalgia for Jervis here, total an Andy chambers fanboy though if that counts.

 Vovin wrote:
Here is a link to the letter Pacific was referring to:
https://www.40konline.com/index.php?topic=70533.0

And here is a Primary Source for Johnson's discussion on the topic.

http://web.archive.org/web/20060129002420/http://forums.specialist-games.com/epic/forum_b/topic.asp?ARCHIVE=true&TOPIC_ID=2532&whichpage=3


Remember kids, Johnson was the mouthpiece, he wasn't the decision maker. That was one of the reasons we had such a love/ hate relationship with him.

That he was the obligatory face to the impersonal decisions being made in the white tower.

Does this mean we no longer have to "forge the narrative" nor feel bad about competitive play?



While BFG was indeed a blessing Jervis was responsible for quite a bit of garbage tier work. Unless someone wants to actually DEFEND the 3rd Ed. Guard codex.

Does this mean we no longer have to "forge the narrative" nor feel bad about competitive play?

At GW Hamburg I, I met a new young employee who was very aware of forging the narrative but of the game/armies themselves.

 streetsamurai wrote:
For those that know GW history better than i do, is there a reason or a moment that changed JJ design philosophy? Unless I'm mistaken, his latter rules seems to give a lot importance to the concept of "simplicity" or stream lining, while it certainly wasnt the case for his older rules (necromunda for example)

Jervis has been a fan of 'streamlined and elegant' game design from a long way back. By 1990 at least. Here's a quote from the Epic 40,000 Battles Book. (Andy Chambers wrote this section. Emphasis added.)


"Epic 40,000 started out as a system called Heresy which was penned by Jervis Johnson just after he had written Adeptus Titanicus [1st edition]. I played Heresy when I joined the Studio in 1990 and rather liked it in spite of being initially horrified by its apparent simplicity. We spent the following six years developing Adeptus Titanicus instead before realising that the Titanicus system was simply too detailed to handle large scale battles. ...

When the opportunity arose to do a new Epic game we decided to totally revise the game using the old Heresy rules as a starting point."


Well, we know how that turned out...

If anything, the Epic 40,000 debacle forced Jervis to reassess his own love of elegant design, and come to terms with the fact that a lot of players like chrome and bling. And so Epic Armageddon was born. Meeting the fans halfway, as it were. There's some frank discussion of it in the Epic 40K Magazines but unfortunately I don't have them to hand.

Necromunda 1st edition is an odd one because it had to be based on 2nd ed 40K's core rules, which was Rick Priestley's design rather than Jervis's. I doubt JJ had much chance to jervisify it.

 aphyon wrote:
you will find no love or nostalgia for Jervis here, total an Andy chambers fanboy though if that counts.

I love Andy C's work on the fluff, but I reckon Jervis is/was a better designer of 'simple yet deep' core game systems. Andy tended to overcomplicate things with special rules and exceptions. Or, conversely, he'd strip too much out of the game when streamlining and have to awkwardly bolt it all on again later (cough 3rd ed 40K cough).

One of the reasons Battlefleet Gothic is so good is that it's based on a core game system by Jervis (Heresy > Epic 40K > BFG), but with a double helping of classic Andy Chambers background and style slathered on top.

Don't get me wrong though--Andy did a great job adapting the ruleset to space battles, with additional elegant mechanics like the shields/blast markers and Brace for Impact rule. The whole thing started with Andy and Jervis using the Epic 40K rules to fight space battles during their Piscina IV campaign.

When developing Epic Armageddon after the failure of Epic 40K, Jervis commented that one factor in BFG's success was Andy C's use of detailed fluff to make the different ship classes in BFG feel more special and unique than they actually were ruleswise. A tank in Epic 40K was just a short statline in a block of similar statlines, and so was an escort ship in BFG. Not a special rule in sight. But the BFG rulebook gave you several paragraphs of fluff on each ship class, full of history and famous ships, rather than just a single-sentence description. I guess you could say it put all the chrome and bling into the background rather than the rules.

Chambers is responsible for Starship troopers the wargame, which not only was (imo) one of the best squad-based sci-fi wargames I've ever played, but also THE best example of assymetrical gameplay in a wargame. The core rules for Dropfleet Commander are also excellent (and sadly ruined by the horrible land-based element of the game that had to be there for the name to make sense). Both games leave everything GW ever produced far behind in terms of quality imo.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Stripping them down is probably a lot harder than we might think. I still hold up 3rd Ed 40K as a “baby with the bath water” error of judgement, in that whilst significantly easier and quicker to play than 2nd Ed, it was at the expense of the game actually being fun.

I kind of violently disagree with that statement, particularly the last part.

Andy Chambers - for me the smartest guy at GW ever.
I've given also some credit to Gave Thorpe for his Harlie experimental codex (JJ not so much).

Cronch wrote:
Chambers is responsible for Starship troopers the wargame, which not only was (imo) one of the best squad-based sci-fi wargames I've ever played, but also THE best example of assymetrical gameplay in a wargame. The core rules for Dropfleet Commander are also excellent (and sadly ruined by the horrible land-based element of the game that had to be there for the name to make sense). Both games leave everything GW ever produced far behind in terms of quality imo.

I picked up some Dropzone Commander terrain boxes since I really love having portable terrain when travelling. What did you like best about Dropfleet Commander core rules that made it exceptional compared to the ground rules?

The ground rules are fine, but what I really like about DFC is the signature system where LOS is limited by detection range instead of weapons, and how certain actions boost that so you can fire all your guns in one turn, but your ship will light up for everyone to see, meaning it's likely going to be shot at in return. That and essentially you only roll for critical damage once, when you hit half-HP, instead of trailing paper chits around every time someone dinks you hard enough.

How you feel about this article is probably going to depend on your philosophy about wargaming in general. But for anyone who isn't familiar with it, it may help explain why GW never seems to quite get balance right.

 Azreal13 wrote:
How you feel about this article is probably going to depend on your philosophy about wargaming in general. But for anyone who isn't familiar with it, it may help explain why GW never seems to quite get balance right.

This article. One of several things that lead me to conclude that JJ was a less-than-positive influence on the games. In his "later years" with GW, at least. I do think his retirement may be a positive overall.

Blastaar wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
How you feel about this article is probably going to depend on your philosophy about wargaming in general. But for anyone who isn't familiar with it, it may help explain why GW never seems to quite get balance right.

This article. One of several things that lead me to conclude that JJ was a less-than-positive influence on the games. In his "later years" with GW, at least. I do think his retirement may be a positive overall.

I hope his retirement doesn't mean that his thoughts brought up in the article leave with him - though 9th edition so far seems to point otherwize unfortunately.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:

Sunny Side Up wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
Jervis ended up in a position as the sort of interface between corporate GW and the fanbase. But a lot of what he did with the specialist games and how he communicated leads me to believe that he was very pro-fan.

And like I said, when I met him he was lovely to everyone at the convention, really patient and polite and genuinely nice to everyone.

Sure. But he also ended up essentially in the same job for 30 years, doing game design with an every rotating cast of mid-20s to mid-30s guys on the cramped open-plan office desks next to him and no "career" or "promotion" since the days of Tony Blair.

Maybe he had some nice GW stock and/or a favourable contract from the early, early, early days and didn't need/want it, but he certainly never got to anywhere "important" in GW from a business perspective.

Alternate take, he spent decades doing a job he loved, touched the childhoods (and er, adulthoods) of millions and is retiring to a well-deserved rest.

Probably doing better than I will.

Yea, it's possible he got the dream job, was able to stay at it for his entire career and then retire with a nice nest egg. I know plenty of people who wish they could have a career like that. Some might give him slack for lack for ambition, but seeing some of the sociopaths that occupy the top offices at my company, I don't blame him for not aiming higher.

Still glad to see him go. As others pointed out, his views of balance and gaming were not necessarily good for the long term health of a game. He wanted to make games for Johnny, but wouldn't acknowledge that Timmy and Spike exist (reference to MtG types of players).

*edit* got names mixed up.

 Azreal13 wrote:
How you feel about this article is probably going to depend on your philosophy about wargaming in general. But for anyone who isn't familiar with it, it may help explain why GW never seems to quite get balance right.

J-Files was always a, well, special column in WD. There was an issue where he talked about special characters and why you shouldn't use them regulary, but the pics in the WD were full of them. At this time, Nigel Stillman was still (...) around and told you things like never changing or adapting your army or use allies. On the other hand you had battle reports with beardy combinations and articles about how to beat your opponents. And it's not like Jervis was a fool or saint in his own battle reports - in a Man'o'War game he added some Nurgle ships to compensate the weakness of the Dark Elves.

Jervis wasn't the head of games design at GW, ever. He created some games on his own (BB, Advanced Space Crusade, Advanced Hero Quest, the Wargame Series) and was involved in others. Regarding Epic 40k, it was primarily Andy Chambers. Same with 40k 3rd edition. He published some experimental Vehicle rules in the Citadel Journal during 2nd edition - it's more or less what we have now, with S, T, W and so on. Looks he didn't had that much influence some people suggest.

I don't know how balanced Warmaster (Rick Priestleys child) was, but Tuomas Pirinen's (a really good gamer) Mordheim was fun but surely unbalanced. Gorkamorka (Chambers and Thorpe) too. Necromunda as well, though kinda better (at least in my memory).

Cronch wrote:
Chambers is responsible for Starship troopers the wargame, which not only was (imo) one of the best squad-based sci-fi wargames I've ever played, but also THE best example of assymetrical gameplay in a wargame. The core rules for Dropfleet Commander are also excellent (and sadly ruined by the horrible land-based element of the game that had to be there for the name to make sense). Both games leave everything GW ever produced far behind in terms of quality imo.

Spoken like someone who hasn't seen the light of middle earth sbg

 Azreal13 wrote:
How you feel about this article is probably going to depend on your philosophy about wargaming in general. But for anyone who isn't familiar with it, it may help explain why GW never seems to quite get balance right.

Well if you want balance you don't use points. With points you never can get balance. Nor is it its purpose. Purpose for points is quick way to get game set up regardless of balance.

tneva82 wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
How you feel about this article is probably going to depend on your philosophy about wargaming in general. But for anyone who isn't familiar with it, it may help explain why GW never seems to quite get balance right.

Well if you want balance you don't use points. With points you never can get balance. Nor is it its purpose. Purpose for points is quick way to get game set up regardless of balance.

Points are part of balance. Points, used correctly, should be a good representation fo a unit's power in-game. Adding points until you reach a list of a desired points limit is not that quick, either.

This conversation is sprouting heads like a hydra!

Cronch wrote:Chambers is responsible for Starship troopers the wargame, which not only was (imo) one of the best squad-based sci-fi wargames I've ever played, but also THE best example of assymetrical gameplay in a wargame. The core rules for Dropfleet Commander are also excellent (and sadly ruined by the horrible land-based element of the game that had to be there for the name to make sense). Both games leave everything GW ever produced far behind in terms of quality imo.

Fair point. I've heard nothing but good things about the Starship Troopers wargame, and reasonably good things about Dropfleet. Either Andy C's skills have improved over the years, or he was held back by GW management mandates before he left. ("Stop rocking the boat Andy, we can't change THAT!")

Wasn't the Starship Troopers game based on what Andy wanted to do for 4th ed 40K? If so, it implies that he wasn't satisfied with how the 3rd ed 40K system turned out.

Dryaktylus wrote:
J-Files was always a, well, special column in WD. There was an issue where he talked about special characters and why you shouldn't use them regulary, but the pics in the WD were full of them. At this time, Nigel Stillman was still (...) around and told you things like never changing or adapting your army or use allies. On the other hand you had battle reports with beardy combinations and articles about how to beat your opponents. And it's not like Jervis was a fool or saint in his own battle reports - in a Man'o'War game he added some Nurgle ships to compensate the weakness of the Dark Elves.

I always read Nigel Stillman's advice as somewhat tongue in cheek. The one where he said you shouldn't change your army or use allies was part of a slightly silly list suggesting that if you could win games without ever varying your army build, you would undeniably prove that your victories came from PURE UNADULTERATED TACTICAL SKILL and could lord it over your opponent forevermore.

It was definitely the case that, in the 2nd ed 40K and 4th/5th ed WFB days, there was constant friction between players who wanted to play competitively with tight, balanced rules, and players who liked a more freewheeling style where all kinds of strange combos and surprises were possible (but which could be horribly abused). I suppose it's inevitable once you move away from a system that requires a gamesmaster.

Dryaktylus wrote:Jervis wasn't the head of games design at GW, ever. He created some games on his own (BB, Advanced Space Crusade, Advanced Hero Quest, the Wargame Series) and was involved in others. Regarding Epic 40k, it was primarily Andy Chambers. Same with 40k 3rd edition. He published some experimental Vehicle rules in the Citadel Journal during 2nd edition - it's more or less what we have now, with S, T, W and so on. Looks he didn't had that much influence some people suggest.

As quoted above, the core game system of Epic 40K was based on a system Jervis designed (Heresy). How much it was revised for Epic 40K I don't know.

Adeptus Titanicus 1st edition was also by Jervis--a totally different system--and that went on to become Space Marine, Titan Legions, etc. Basically classic Epic in its heyday. Epic 4th edition (Armageddon), yet another system, was also JJ's work.

Didn't Jervis also do the basic AoS rules? Not that that will increase his popularity in some quarters...

Dryaktylus wrote:I don't know how balanced Warmaster (Rick Priestleys child) was, but Tuomas Pirinen's (a really good gamer) Mordheim was fun but surely unbalanced. Gorkamorka (Chambers and Thorpe) too. Necromunda as well, though kinda better (at least in my memory).

Rick Priestley was also involved in Gorkamorka, since it was another game based on 2nd ed 40K's engine. (Apparently Andy Chambers hated working on Gorkamorka.)

The poster child for 'unbalanced as written' was probably Gav's Inquisitor--or so I hear--but that was meant to have a gamesmaster who would look after that end of things, so it doesn't count.

In general I think GW's games have often been designed from a 'mates after hours' viewpoint--a group of regular gamers who know each other and can reach gentlemen's agreements on what to allow and what to veto in order to make things fun for everyone. It's not really a philosophy that lends itself well to pick-up games, or to more competitively minded players. Epic 40K had heaps of cool scenarios and optional rules, but didn't even bother with army restrictions like 'no more than 10% of your points on flyers'; they threw those into a White Dwarf article as an off-the-cuff suggestion.

stratigo wrote:
Spoken like someone who hasn't seen the light of middle earth sbg

Yep, great game! Another Rick Priestley job, too. I'm not sure what the current state of the game is like, but the 2000s version was very much an exemplar of streamlined yet satisfying design.

with points you can have balance, as well as you can have balance without them

difference being scenario based games VS games with fixed lists

the problem here is that the "balance" is always the game system as a whole and not just parts of it

if a game system with points, army roosters that are fixed before you get to know which scenario and opponent you play against, it is part of the balance
if you leave random scenarios out and/or play different ones, you change the balance

there are those games without points were you still have something to determine the size of the game, but what units you chose, how large they are and so on, is not fixed and happens after you know the scenario and whom you play against
same way as some games have a sideboard of units you can exchange, or asymetrical victory conditions for both forces are not the same size


yet points give the illusion of better balance and that it also works if you are only using parts of the rules instead of all

Lets not let this thread get side tracked into a balance and game building thread. That's really a whole topic unto itself.

 Overread wrote:
Lets not let this thread get side tracked into a balance and game building thread. That's really a whole topic unto itself.

it's one if not two subforums, even!

Back on topic, I have no direct experience with JJ, and it's great to see so many people had warm feeling about him. I have watched some of the interviews with him, and I have to wonder if perhaps his leaving is going to open up how the games are developed.

Not that I think he was bad (or good, for that matter) - but I do think that there's innovation to make the games more fun that might be able to happen now. Or I can hope, at least

Good to see him comment in detail on why squats got squatted, but honestly it sounds like the creative team of the day just needed a holiday, or some fresh members.

When the F28: War Always Changes designers did their version of the 40K factions, they added squats back in and had no difficulty making them one of the most characterful factions -- they still have bikers, and airships, but are otherwise focused on entrenching, tunnelling, fortifications, and artillery. Gives them a bit of a WWI vibe but makes them play very differently to anything else -- not much mobility so your strategy has to be very good, but potentially extremely powerful.

Kharadron are better squats than squats ever could be, so nothing of value was lost.

Cronch wrote:
Kharadron are better squats than squats ever could be, so nothing of value was lost.

That is an.... thesis certainly.