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Though he left GW quite some time ago, what do you think of the man?

Since people routinely say blanket statements 'we love X' and 'we hate X' trying to speak for the whole community, I thought I'd run some polls on the bigger figures in GW to see what people really think of them...

Keep personal attacks out of this forum and out of this website. It goes without saying that very few people here will have actually met him so this is based entirely on his contributions to GW. If you have met him then anecdotes are welcome so long as they are not rude or against the rules of this website.

He's been gone a long time but he did seem to enjoy 'rock star' status in GW.

The rumour was he left over clashes with other staff.

Difficult for me to judge since unlike JJ, he wasn't providing a constant 2 page article on his opinions of the game.

So I'm posting positive.

Didn't screw anything up in the hobby, and had simply AWESOME muttonchop sideburns to boot!

Very positive!

Andy seems like a standup guy. From what I've read in White Dwarf:

Answered a lot of questions via FAQ
Came up with some great conversions and alternate army lists
Seemed like a fun player to have on the other side of the table

Didn't he leave over "creative differences" over the direction of 4th Edition (also a positive in my book: speaks to integrity...)?

Has nothing against him

If I'm not mistaken he also originated the phrase 'ivory tower' in reference to the design studio. The best GW studio celeb ever.

Andy Chambers, he's the man. I understand that he launched the Daemonhunter and Witch Hunters books in an attempt to keep the Sisters of Battle from being squatted by the powers that be.

The Man with the fantastic raised eyebrow

I am indeed a fan of the good Mr Chambers ^^ certainly alot more than the dread Gav or JJ

Very positive. I always loved Andy Chambers. Unless I heard wrong, he left because the studio was going the way of "MaXiMiZe PrOfItS!!! HURR DEE DURR! Space Marine Spam!!!" And Andy didn't like the favoritism. He wanted the company to be about the hobby. He thought it should exist for the players and not be about the money. Had he stuck around, we might not be tolerating the millionth iteration of a tactical marine. He is missed.

I only remember him from a few battle reps back in the day. I was a young kid when I remembered him. So again Ill pick neutral, simply because most of these guys I know the names of, but I dont follow the cast and crew of GW so dont really know what they do or dont do

From what I've been told by someone who met him he esxpects rock star status, and thats from people who don't know what a GW is
Also I'll need to dig out the 3rd ed rulebook, but didmnt he contribute to that systems creation?

Def my fav from the old dayz.

Are we going to get polls for all of these guys. Ian Pickstock? Robin Dews? Space McQuirk?

Voted for "Who?" Seems he was gone long before I got into the hobby. Hearing what's been said so far, though, I wish he was still around. Be nice to have a "players first, profit later" voice on the inside, plus I'm partial to facial hair, having a decent bit of it, myself.

Umm . . . Who? Jervis Johnson (or, as I first heard of him, ervis ohnson) I know of, albeit indirectly. Andy Chambers . . . One reference. Maybe. I don't even remember where. Anybody else . . .

Andy Chambers for all those posting "Who?", was one of the core group of games designers from the period that many of us older Dakka members refer to as the good old days. He had a great sense of humour and anything he wrote (WD or army books) was always worth reading.

Not sure if he invented Skaven, but he certainly refined them and came up with all the cool ideas like the Screaming Bell (for which he scratch built the first ever model).

Big, big, big loss on the part of GW. You can trace the downward spiral from the point that he left

If I'm not mistaken, Mr. Chambers now works as a games designer at Blizzard, on Starcraft 2 IIRC. If that's true, he's definately making the cash he's deserved all these years.

I remember talking to him at a Games Day a long time ago...wonderful guy, and really funny. I like that the company didn't shy away from representing all of the different forces with variant army lists during his tenure as 40k Overfiend.

He went to work on the Starship Troopers game after leaving GW then, as skullking said, found his way to Blizzard. Seems like once you go Marine you never go back.

So Andy Chambers is the good guy, and Jervis Johnson is the bad guy?

skullking wrote:If I'm not mistaken, Mr. Chambers now works as a games designer at Blizzard, on Starcraft 2 IIRC. If that's true, he's definately making the cash he's deserved all these years.

Which is wonderful that his talent and energy has been put somewhere I can enjoy it as well...

Andy Chambers is a GOD! He and Adrian Woods are the two who sold me on Warhammer 40,000 in the first place. I was even enthusiastic about Starship Troopers. It was after he left that GW went to the dark side.

I was but a youngin when he still ran things. But i seem to remember a happier GW, a more about fun GW. I miss chapter approved, I miss Andy

warpcrafter wrote:Andy Chambers is a GOD! He and Adrian Woods are the two who sold me on Warhammer 40,000 in the first place. I was even enthusiastic about Starship Troopers. It was after he left that GW went to the dark side.

Whatever happened to Adrian Woods? I know his articles were great to read in the WD and he always had a sweet ork army.

He was an ideas man, with a passion for the hobby and expanding it beyond what was written just in the books. That along garners him a very positive opinion.

But!

Like many at GW, he couldn't write rules to save himself, and is responsible for the mess 3rd Ed became as time went on. Eventually the wonderful "Chapter Approved" articles in WD became less about new ideas, and more about fixing whatever they missed when writing the latest Codex - a safety net, if you will.

So that reduces my opinions of him to simply positive.

I answered who, but regret it now.

I answered before I remember who he is...

I don't really buy into this concept of a single game developer dictating GW policy at any given time. But if that were the case, I think Andy's era was worse than Jervis's era.

Sure, he was a cool guy and he had that nice personal touch. But the sins of his era include:

SM Chapter of the Month: making players believe that each chapter is deserving of special rules and there should be something new for Marines ALL THE TIME. Something the company, and the player base, has yet to recover from.
Codex Orks: already underpowered when it came out and much worse than JJ's much maligned 3.0 Chaos codex.
Codex Sprint: the stronger, faster brother of Codex Creep. I'm talking 3.0 Eldar, Nids, 3.5 Chaos here. Often a result of overcomplicated Codices with too many choices.
Pete Haines: This man, brought into the studio by Andy, did all he could to ruin the game through sheer incompetence and ignorance. Ultimately, any army with 2 wounds has a lot going for it, indeed.

There would be no BFG without Andy...
Gets 'two thumbs up' from me!
Mick

It's not possible indeed, to hold AC accountable for the "Good Old Times" alone. However, he left GW just at the point that GW's attitude shifted to a less liberal approach. I am not informed as to his reasons to leave, but it is funny how it coincides with the new policies of GW (money! get the kids! army of the month PWNZR!).

The older Codices and Army books did have balance issues, sure, but at the time, I believe GW expected it's customers themselves to be reasonable people with these liberties. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you have to. So, now they made things much more simplistic, which takes away character and variety and still features similar loop-holes and skewed balance (Demons).

The idea that there was a "good old days" seems ridiculous in light of all the improvements we're seeing. I think the "good old days" mentality in general comes from the horrors of 4th edition-- but those bad times are over, and we're in the best period yet.

As for Andy, he seemed like a cool enough guy, though he was responsible for a lot of the late 3rd Chapter Approved stupidity. The rumors that Starship Troopers was supposed to be 40k 4th have always kind of appealed to me.

No way, the good old days were when everyone could customize their army based on the flavor they wanted. The chapter approved lists were great, from the minotaurs space marines to the ogryn guard list and abhumans IG. The clan based orks to the special tyranid weapons. I loved the crater rules and the cool scenarios with monstrous beasts running around the table with man eating plants.

The game was less serious then. No one accepts using cool old rules for scenarios and such because it's not currently printed. Yeah, I miss those old days. I think the only thing I don't miss about the old days were Pete Haines' stupid Iron Warriors, but that wasn't really Andy.

Very Positive

The Chapter Approved lists were a good way for GW to rip everybody off on issues of White Dwarf. I'm glad that they've gone away. Making a fluffy army isn't exactly difficult.