A bit of a long post, written on warseer and copied/pasted (when I say 'here' I mean on warseer)
I thought you may all appreciate this summary. I went to the Scale Model World event today and spoke to Mark Bedford and Ead (the
IT/newsletter guy). As they will undoubtedly read this at some point (see later for how I know), I’d like to thank you guys for taking the time to answer my many questions.
As nothing was said that I feel should be kept private, I’ll just note it all down.
I asked him first about the Steam Train, what the idea was behind it all. As many people know their idea is that the CD will be travelling to war in armoured convoys. So that’s the idea behind it. From a rules point of view the idea is that the front part of the steam train is the CD equivalent of an empire steam tank (presumably with ‘open top’ rules) and is supposed to be detached from the back part before the battle. The wagon that we’ve seen, the siege bombard, and any others they make will have their own steam engine on them, so they are capable of some locomotion.
The second hero type CD model is an engineer, over on CDO there has been some discussion if it is a combat hero or an engineer (as it didn’t have a label right next to it).
As it is relevant to most of what follows I’ll put this bit here. I asked him about future plans for the Chaos Dwarfs and it seems that they are in discussions right now (well, a meeting next week) about how best to go forwards with them.
From what I gather they have lots and lots of plans for things they can do, but any future support will be directly determined by how popular the other CD models are. The people higher up want to make a decision based on sales data. So the more people buy the higher the chances of them making a stand alone list. Mark basically said that. If the sales figures of the things we’ve seen are good they will green light the whole project so that the Chaos Dwarfs become the Warhammer Forge equivalent of the Death Korps of Krieg.
I asked him about the bull concept art, and it seems there is an intention to rework the idea to make it more metal than burning flesh with lava. Mark was saying it looked too much like a Balrog, which I don’t think is a bad thing at all!
They would want to make it ridden. I wasn’t too sure if there was a definite plan to actually make this into a model or not, presumably it’s to do with the CD project being given the ok.
Same with hobgoblins, something Mark Bedford is very keen to do.
Bull Centaurs from what I gather are going to happen anyway, they are going to be ogre sized models.
I asked him about them doing basic troops, he said that their remit does not currently allow them to make stand alone infantry, like chaos dwarf warriors. He did however (with a cheeky grin and a twinkle in his eye) say that *IF* they were to have the warriors mounted on a war machine, and people could buy the warriors separately in order to go on it, that it would be a possible way forwards. He mentioned again the Blunderbussers wagon, so
imo that one is going to happen.
Something we chatted about for a little bit was the daemonic stuff. How the last thing we’ve seen from
GW for them is the Hellcannon, which is obviously nothing to do with steam power. It seems they have thought about this as well, infact he may bring it up at the meeting next week…
The way Mark described this I think they are definitely moving towards a combined range of models that has both steam and daemon powered models (i.e. some steam, some daemonic). We discussed how this would be done in the fluff, and he said they may look at a daemonic energy cult (not his exact words) as a way of working it in. I am fairly certain we will see some exclusively daemon powered models at some point.
I asked him about when the WF book was to be set, whether it is before or after what we consider to be the present (i.e. after
SoC or not). What I took from his answer is that it is set
in the present, as in the nurgle hordes are right now marching in at the start of the book. He said that the fans would always pick apart where certain characters are in the timeline, whether it’s before or after
SoC etc. So from what I gather they have gone with the easier option of starting it *today*, as in a direct follow on after the 8th ed rulebook. The interesting thing is that from their point of view this is the official continuation of the timeline, it is
not an alternate future. Mark was very clear about that. Presumably they are leaving it up to the fans to take it or leave it, which is exactly how it should be I think.
He said that where they go after the first book (or 2 books, he wasn’t clear) is up to them, it may change now that Rick has gone. So I wouldn’t consider anything written in stone yet.
I asked him about their plans for Dwarfs (as someone on warseer asked me to) and it seems they have no immediate plans, other than that they are planning to provide the most support to the highest selling warhammer armies, of which Dwarfs are 5th apparently. I guess that says a lot about their plans, he did say that Skaven are seeing a bit of a blip in sales at the moment, but I take it from what he said that they are not a high seller possibly(?)
I asked about how they are looking to do the nurgle models, what they are currently looking at is keeping the back half of the warrior cloaks and replacing the rest with an upgrade set. A tentacle arm was mentioned. For the knights I think it could be everything but the shield arm gets replaced. I didn’t actually ask about the horse for some reason. Maybe the horse head?
The empire upgrade sets are being improved, as has previously been said.
I asked Mark about when they plan to start rolling this stuff out. They are
hoping to get stuff out in January, with the Tamurkhan book out in April. Some models before, some with book, some after, same format as
IA. I asked him this directly after the steam train questions and I believe that is the one he said had been sent for production.
Lastly, I asked him about the interview from the newsletter. He said I should talk to Ead, who said (and I quote) “someone started a thread on Warseer asking about us doing interviews and we thought it was a good idea…” To which I replied “that was me!”
Lol. So folks, clearly the Forgeworld people (well, ead at least) DO read threads here about
FW, hence why I’m sure they will read this.
I didn’t realise, but it seems the Black Library people have done video interviews at some point, Ead was saying that they’ve got the same person doing them. They will hopefully include some picture stills of models and artwork through it, something I said there should have been more of in the Dark Eldar vids. The interview(s) will be put up in December, just before Christmas. Ead was saying that the questions people send in will all be reviewed and they will pick the best to ask.
I asked Mark if they can do this for Warhammer Forge and he said they will! Yay.
