It may not be quite up there with the Kennedy assassination as a ' you will never forget where you were when you heard...' moment, but a shockwave rippled through wargaming in November when Rick Priestley left Games Workshop after nearly three decades with the company. The man behind all of GW's top three selling systems - Warhammer, 40K and LOtR Strategy Battle Game - says he felt that "Games Workshop and me drifted apart" after he was given a job with Forge World (GW's resin model division) on a new product that introduces fantasy to their range. "This was not a comfortable fit, having previously worked at executive level," says Rick, "but I fully expected to continue working at Forge World - and had got stuck into and just completed the first book - so it did come as a little bit of a disappointment not to get to continue. I had what I thought was a very good idea that would make for an entertaining back-story and model range, revisiting some classic GW themes and giving them a new twist. We had also just taken on two very promising young sculptors so I do regret not being given the change to finish at least one book".

Rick reflects somewhat ruefully on the changes he has seen at Games Workshop over the years. "GW used to be about creating new ideas and games with no limit to the horizon," he says. "We once had all kinds of little projects and off-shoot companies dabbling in whatever took our fancy. It was just a question of applying imagination to what it was you wanted to do: music (Warhammer Records), comics, fiction publishing, board games, card games, role-playing games and so on. We even had a go at live action role-play with paint guns and costumes based on our Dark Future game and films were talked about. It was a very open agenda. Then, over time, GW became increasingly Warhammer and 40K - which was nice in a way, because those were my creations - although we still continued to produce other games such as Blood Bowl, Epic, Mordheim for some years".Rick suggests his passion and enthusiasm became crampt, saying: "working in what became a successful but - from a designers point of view - predictable company was not satisfactory." The gang based skirmish games Necromunda and Gorkamorka show "what 40K can do - expanding and adding detail to the universe", Rick adds, and "at the other end of the scale thhere's Battlefleet Gothic and Space Hulk taking players into the depths of space but the potential for developing the Warhammer and especially the Warhammer 40K, mythos has never been fully exploited - not even close!".

(The article goes on to say about Rick's background and his future game systems/plans.)

I had heard that Rick was dissatisfied with the direction the company was heading in and was frustrated that as Games Designer he hadn't actually be able create anything new for many years.

He was never allowed to radically change either Warhammer of 40K despite being their original creator, and he was never given the opportunity to create anything new as the company wanted to only concentrate on their 3 core systems.

Eventually he was given the new Warhammer Forge as a project, I think in many ways to keep him quiet as it would have been a way for him to revisit a lot of original Warhammer themes, but also to introduce lots of new rules and ideas without changing the mainstream game, in the way that Imperial Armour books do now for 40K.

The plan was to produce 3 IA style books for Warhammer which linked together to form a campaign (think along the lines of Siege of Vraks), I am assuming introducing new rules etc on along the way.

The clever thing was that the Warhammer Forge range would be set in an "alternate" version of the Warhammer World, where famous moments in the timeline were slightly different etc.

This meant that Rick could effectively do what he wanted without affecting the mainstream Warhammer World, like reintroducing new races like the Chaos Dwarves etc.

However GW then put the mockers on this first of all by saying that Warhammer Forge would be limited in what they could produce in case it affected their core Warhammer sales.

For example the plan was to do a range of Chaos Dwarves, which they actually started. Then GW said that they couldn't produce any actual infantry, so the best they could do was make crew for the war machines they had created, but not an actual army!

Then apparently GW found out that at the end of the Warhammer Forge campaign Rick actually wanted to "end" the World in some sort of apocolyptic cataclysm. Of course this would be fine, as it wasn't the "real" Warhammer world but an alternate one.

However GW flatly refused to let him do this, despite having written the first of the 3 books, and so I think he had just had enough.

Being a creative person who loved to invent new things and create new ideas it must be very hard to stay with a company who won't let you do that.

The impression I get is that he had just had enough.

I wouldn't at all be surprised if he joined John Stallard and Alessio Cavatore and supported Mantic in their efforts.

Guess we will see, I for one think it's a shame that he left but I wish him all the best for the future.