Interview with James M Hewitt, Part 1: Age of Sigmar and 40k

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**reds8n**

Great interview :

https://www.goonhammer.com/the-goonhammer-interview-with-james-hewitt-part-1-age-of-sigmar-and-40k/?fbclid=IwAR06oBgU3K6GXTMcTicgS08Fe7ycI7uUxkkvba42CJGI16bbzObcyE-cslE

Some very interesting stories about the development of AOS -- which TBH sounds somewhat nightmarish.

The Skitarii and Cult Mechanicus [back in 7th] which should have one combined set of rules, they got two sets of special rules, because otherwise you don’t sell two books of special rules, you sell one.

Lupe: And interestingly they got combined back together in 8th.

James: And they should have been, they always should have been. The reason they were split was because of a logistics thing. It was when White Dwarf was weekly and they could only show one week’s releases at a time, and if you put out an army book in week one then you’ll show off the releases for the next one, and “secrecy is paramount” , you can’t show off the future releases. If you put it out in week two, it looks like the releases in week one were coming out without an army book, and that doesn’t make sense. And it was this whole ridiculous… the tail has often wagged the dog in Games Workshop in different ways, and this was a fantastic example of that.

Lupe: OK, sorry, can I just clarify: the reason that in 7th edition they were two separate armies was publishing requirements of White Dwarf?

James: There you go. It was like the Skitarii didn’t have any characters. I had to write that codex. There were no HQ choices, so how do we do it? We had to make up a new detachment for them. Similarly things like the Skitarii didn’t have any transport options.

related interview :

https://breaddoll.wordpress.com/2020/02/02/coaches-corner-james-hewitt/

**H.B.M.C.**

Removed - Rule #1

**MrMoustaffa**

I friggin knew it!

**Voss**

Woo. The part 2 bit about 'Warhammer whatever it is called' bodes poorly.

James: There’s been a lot of reshuffling since. As I understand it, FW as it was doesn’t really exist anymore. Because all the 40k and Age of Sigmar stuff has gone upstairs to the citadel team, so FW just does Heresy, Specialist Games and Middle Earth. And of course… Warhammer whatever it is called.

Lupe: The Old World?

James: I’m not going to make a comment on that, but feel free to record my facial expression [James looked exasperated and amused at this point].

**H.B.M.C.**

I think it's more that he hates it when they go back on things that were previously established.

He started working when they were blowing up the Old World, and likely sees the new Warhammer Fantasy as a step backwards.

He said as much with the Skitarii as well, how they went to great lengths to explain why they had no transports, and then later gave them transports.

**auticus**

I have a feeling warhammer the old world will utilize a lot of what that 9th edition whfb was supposed to be before the quick start rules became AOS official.

**Kirasu**

Just confirms how AoS was one of the absolute worst designed games in history. Tom Kirby's GW was such a trainwreck of a studio and it makes the turn around that much more impressive (even if theyre falling back down the same hole due to having to produce so much content)

**Lord Damocles**

Who would have thought that the GW design studio was a hot mess..?

**Seriqolm**

Kirasu wrote:
Just confirms how AoS was one of the absolute worst designed games in history. Tom Kirby's GW was such a trainwreck of a studio and it makes the turn around that much more impressive (even if theyre falling back down the same hole due to having to produce so much content)

Where does its confirm anything of the sort? James doesn't reveal anything thats wasn't either rumoured before release or worked out afterwards and the game now is essentially the same game as at release with points and is more successful. I'd rather have a company try new things and fail than just rehash the same old stuff over and over again.

**Voss**

auticus wrote:
I have a feeling warhammer the old world will utilize a lot of what that 9th edition whfb was supposed to be before the quick start rules became AOS official.

I'm not sure what you mean here. There doesn't seem to have ever been a '9th edition.' He talks about the 'restricted AoS Room' existing before the End Times books were even started, which means rules development post 8th was always AoS, with the ET books as a marketing bridge to get to that point.

The only real kerfuffle is last minute changes to AoS (with the quickstart becoming the only rules) and a need to deal with rules issues cropping up from their weird aversion to fundamental things like bases, ranged combat and points.

**Seriqolm**

Voss wrote:
auticus wrote:
I have a feeling warhammer the old world will utilize a lot of what that 9th edition whfb was supposed to be before the quick start rules became AOS official.

I'm not sure what you mean here. There doesn't seem to have ever been a '9th edition.' He talks about the 'restricted AoS Room' existing before the End Times books were even started, which means rules development post 8th was always AoS, with the ET books as a marketing bridge to get to that point.

The only real kerfuffle is last minute changes to AoS (with the quickstart becoming the only rules) and a need to deal with rules issues cropping up from their weird aversion to fundamental things like bases, ranged combat and points.

I agree, you would not have greenlit the The End Times without either having a plan to replace the game or scrap the whole thing and the end times being the last hurrah! And as we know the decision was to replace the whole thing with something new and that decision was made probably as soon as they saw that 8th edition WFB was not improving the bottom line over the previous edition, I'm guessing early 2011 so ther being any rules written for a 9th edition WFB is very verry slim.

**Kirasu**

Seriqolm wrote:
Kirasu wrote:
Just confirms how AoS was one of the absolute worst designed games in history. Tom Kirby's GW was such a trainwreck of a studio and it makes the turn around that much more impressive (even if theyre falling back down the same hole due to having to produce so much content)

Where does its confirm anything of the sort? James doesn't reveal anything thats wasn't either rumoured before release or worked out afterwards and the game now is essentially the same game as at release with points and is more successful. I'd rather have a company try new things and fail than just rehash the same old stuff over and over again.

and it failed on every level until Kirby left and the game got redesigned as per the interview. You must be reading a different article. Base rules AoS was virtually unplayable and a huge fan backlash.

**auticus**

Voss wrote:
auticus wrote:
I have a feeling warhammer the old world will utilize a lot of what that 9th edition whfb was supposed to be before the quick start rules became AOS official.

I'm not sure what you mean here. There doesn't seem to have ever been a '9th edition.' He talks about the 'restricted AoS Room' existing before the End Times books were even started, which means rules development post 8th was always AoS, with the ET books as a marketing bridge to get to that point.

The only real kerfuffle is last minute changes to AoS (with the quickstart becoming the only rules) and a need to deal with rules issues cropping up from their weird aversion to fundamental things like bases, ranged combat and points.

In the interview, he talks of a new edition (call it aos or whatever you want to call it, it was a set of rules that was a lot more than 4 pages) that was then removed and the quick start rules became the rules.

At that point, there’s a lot of stuff which you’re going to have to skip. I wasn’t designing the core rules, Jervis was, but we’d all been involved in testing and feeding back and working out the rules for the other armies and things, we kept reassuring ourselves by saying “it’s alright because we’re doing a big hardback rulebook and that is going to have a commentary section”.

This was the thing that was intended, was a book that would have the rules in more detail with commentary. It’s the equivalent of when you get a Fantasy Flight Games board game with the quick start rules and then a detailed rules manual.

Lupe: So to be clear, that four page rulebook – was intended to be the quick start?

James: Basically yeah? The idea was – it was a downloadable thing so that anyone could play it. One of the big aims of AoS was to remove barriers to entry.

**Seriqolm**

Kirasu wrote:
Seriqolm wrote:
Kirasu wrote:
Just confirms how AoS was one of the absolute worst designed games in history. Tom Kirby's GW was such a trainwreck of a studio and it makes the turn around that much more impressive (even if theyre falling back down the same hole due to having to produce so much content)

Where does its confirm anything of the sort? James doesn't reveal anything thats wasn't either rumoured before release or worked out afterwards and the game now is essentially the same game as at release with points and is more successful. I'd rather have a company try new things and fail than just rehash the same old stuff over and over again.

and it failed on every level until Kirby left and the game got redesigned as per the interview. You must be reading a different article. Base rules AoS was virtually unplayable and a huge fan backlash.

"So General’s Handbook was written after a change of management. I always see it attributed to Tom Kirby leaving, but I always think it was more about the other people who left around the same time as Tom. Tom was so high up that he didn’t have much of an impact."

"So what happened was that the General’s Handbook was the first big thing that Pete’s studio worked on. And yes, it put bases back in, it added points values – all the stuff that probably should have been there from the start."

I'm not sure what aticle you are reading the game had a few things adding back in through the GHB and expanded on the rules with the 3 ways to play basically adding in Matched and Narrative, that is not a "redesign" of the game. And moving on they just started to add rules to the individual armies, but the core rules are essentailly the same as they were at release so the game "failing on all levels" really is massively hyperbolic.

**totalfailure**

And must have missed the part where Hewitt said he feels AoS is a better game today than 40K 8th edition, too.

I like how it destroys the narrative that Kirby was the root of all GW evils. Maybe Kirby made bad business decisions in general, but the actual meddling in the games and the circus in the design studio was not coming directly from him.

**lagoon83**

auticus wrote:
In the interview, he talks of a new edition (call it aos or whatever you want to call it, it was a set of rules that was a lot more than 4 pages) that was then removed and the quick start rules became the rules.

To be supermegaclear:

Designing a game and writing its rules are two very different things. The game never changed, just the way the rules were written. There were plans to have a whole load of commentary, expanded wordings, etc, which would accompany the four-page rules (by the way, "quickstart" was never a term that was used at the time, that just came out of the interview). That was scrapped and the four-page document ended up being the complete rules.

But once again, the gameplay didn't change at all as a result of that decision.

**Voss**

auticus wrote:
Voss wrote:
auticus wrote:
I have a feeling warhammer the old world will utilize a lot of what that 9th edition whfb was supposed to be before the quick start rules became AOS official.

I'm not sure what you mean here. There doesn't seem to have ever been a '9th edition.' He talks about the 'restricted AoS Room' existing before the End Times books were even started, which means rules development post 8th was always AoS, with the ET books as a marketing bridge to get to that point.

The only real kerfuffle is last minute changes to AoS (with the quickstart becoming the only rules) and a need to deal with rules issues cropping up from their weird aversion to fundamental things like bases, ranged combat and points.

In the interview, he talks of a new edition (call it aos or whatever you want to call it, it was a set of rules that was a lot more than 4 pages) that was then removed and the quick start rules became the rules.

At that point, there’s a lot of stuff which you’re going to have to skip. I wasn’t designing the core rules, Jervis was, but we’d all been involved in testing and feeding back and working out the rules for the other armies and things, we kept reassuring ourselves by saying “it’s alright because we’re doing a big hardback rulebook and that is going to have a commentary section”.

This was the thing that was intended, was a book that would have the rules in more detail with commentary. It’s the equivalent of when you get a Fantasy Flight Games board game with the quick start rules and then a detailed rules manual.

Lupe: So to be clear, that four page rulebook – was intended to be the quick start?

James: Basically yeah? The idea was – it was a downloadable thing so that anyone could play it. One of the big aims of AoS was to remove barriers to entry.

Yes, he does talk of a new edition: that's clearly AoS- that's why they're talking about the 4 pager as the quick start rules.
Its the core rules for AoS and their expectation was a big hardback rulebook (for AoS) to follow. Everything in there is referring to AoS, there is no 'whatever you want to call it'

There is nothing but AoS in there, and while they (or just he) expected a big rulebook to follow, it never happened.

**auticus**

lagoon83 wrote:
auticus wrote:
In the interview, he talks of a new edition (call it aos or whatever you want to call it, it was a set of rules that was a lot more than 4 pages) that was then removed and the quick start rules became the rules.

To be supermegaclear:

Designing a game and writing its rules are two very different things. The game never changed, just the way the rules were written. There were plans to have a whole load of commentary, expanded wordings, etc, which would accompany the four-page rules (by the way, "quickstart" was never a term that was used at the time, that just came out of the interview). That was scrapped and the four-page document ended up being the complete rules.

But once again, the gameplay didn't change at all as a result of that decision.

Is that inside information or just your own take of it?

I get that designing a game and writing rules are two different things. I've been involved in game dev for many many years as well, so I totally get that meaning. However I can also pull out a bunch of games I have played that have quick start rules and know that the quick start rules are still a paired down version of the game meant to get people up and running fast and they can incorporate other elements of the game in later as they get more comfortable with the basics.

**lagoon83**

auticus wrote:
Is that inside information or just your own take of it?

I suppose it counts as the former! I'm just clarifying what I said in the interview.

(Sorry, I should probably have made that more clear.)

**Azreal13**

totalfailure wrote:
And must have missed the part where Hewitt said he feels AoS is a better game today than 40K 8th edition, too.

I like how it destroys the narrative that Kirby was the root of all GW evils. Maybe Kirby made bad business decisions in general, but the actual meddling in the games and the circus in the design studio was not coming directly from him.

I'm fairly certain the narrative developed to include Merret some time ago, although I'm not sure that name is mentioned at all? Only read part one so far.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

lagoon83 wrote:
auticus wrote:
Is that inside information or just your own take of it?

I suppose it counts as the former! I'm just clarifying what I said in the interview.

(Sorry, I should probably have made that more clear.)

It's ok, we expect wooly writing from GW writers.

**Mangod**

I remember the Nemesis Crown campaign, where some of the factions were looking for the Nemesis Crown, a relic of great power and then everyone else had these increasingly tenuous reasons for being there. My favourite one was Settra the Imperishable, who was sailing down the Reik in a fleet of barges, reclaiming all the bits that had been nicked by archaeologists over the years. I just love the idea of him rocking up to a wizard’s tower and saying “excuse me, that’s my great grandmother, can I have her back please?” Mummy up against the wall, you know?

And so this whole idea, the idea behind it of shaking things up and making it easier to tell cool stories where all the factions are involved, behind it, I was like “oh that makes total sense”. Also, the narrative hadn’t moved on massively in quite a long time and so it made a lot of sense to make some changes.

Can I just point out that, while I certainly understand the logic behind this, it makes no more sense that EVERY faction needs to be involved in EVERY conflict. The Japanese didn't fight on the European Western Front; why do the Ogre Kingdoms need to be involved in a war in Lustria (besides the occasional mercenary)?

It seems like GW has this obsession with every conflict being an apocalyptic free-for-all, when it would make more sense to write smaller conflicts with fewer actors involved...

That aside, I'm really digging this interview thus far!

**Vejut**

Because if you're doing a big summer event, which is what most of those big conflicts were written for, it kinda is a bit of a buzzkill to tell a chunk of the guys coming in to play "sorry, your faction isn't involved here, come back in a month or so", and its less people you can sell the campaign book to. The usual unfortunate commercial pressures that start causing issues once a games company gets big enough to go full time.

**Yodhrin**

Vejut wrote:
Because if you're doing a big summer event, which is what most of those big conflicts were written for, it kinda is a bit of a buzzkill to tell a chunk of the guys coming in to play "sorry, your faction isn't involved here, come back in a month or so", and its less people you can sell the campaign book to. The usual unfortunate commercial pressures that start causing issues once a games company gets big enough to go full time.

That would seem to suggest the problem was the big summer events.

**totalfailure**

There really shouldn't be any doubt that the 'events' were largely a way to drive mini sales. As everything is at GW. So leaving factions out of an event is not really an option, stuff will be shoehorned in, regardless of how little sense it makes to the setting. Remember, selling minis is what matters See Vigilus.

**auticus**

lagoon83 wrote:
auticus wrote:
Is that inside information or just your own take of it?

I suppose it counts as the former! I'm just clarifying what I said in the interview.

(Sorry, I should probably have made that more clear.)

Thanks

(sorry I don't know who people are by their handles)

**lagoon83**

auticus wrote:
lagoon83 wrote:
auticus wrote:
Is that inside information or just your own take of it?

I suppose it counts as the former! I'm just clarifying what I said in the interview.

(Sorry, I should probably have made that more clear.)

Thanks (sorry I don't know who people are by their handles)

No worries, it's not like I go out of my way to make it obvious

And I'm all in favour of a healthy level of scepticism towards people claiming to Know Stuff with no proof.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Azreal13 wrote:
It's ok, we expect wooly writing from GW writers.

Cheeky sod

**stonehorse**

Thanks for sharing.

I do like that he mentioned the combat being a bit odd in Titanicus. I was ready to jump on board the game, but after seeing that a Knight can use their melee weapon to hit a Warlord titan's head, I just couldn't get past how bad that was. Reading that the game designer wanted to add a system that would prevent such a thing from happening makes me sad that we didn't get that version. Oh well... I guess we are stuck with Knights drop kicking the weapons on Warlord's carapce, until a new edition fixes that issue.

It was a very insightful interview. I have said it before and I'll say it again. James wrote one of the best games that GW have ever made, a game that sadly no one played...Horus Heresy, Betrayal At Calth. If he were to ever use that system for a miniatures game outside of the 40k universe, I'd be all over it.

**catbarf**

Vejut wrote:
Because if you're doing a big summer event, which is what most of those big conflicts were written for, it kinda is a bit of a buzzkill to tell a chunk of the guys coming in to play "sorry, your faction isn't involved here, come back in a month or so", and its less people you can sell the campaign book to. The usual unfortunate commercial pressures that start causing issues once a games company gets big enough to go full time.

Psychic Awakening is an ongoing thing for 40K that focuses on very small conflicts. I don't see why that couldn't work for Fantasy.

Or maybe have two campaigns going, one for the east and one for the west, so the contrivance is reduced.

Either way, there are approaches beyond smashing every faction in the game into the exact same conflict. Were Tyranids, Dark Eldar, and Tau even present for the Eye of Terror campaign back in '03? I honestly can't remember.

**Vejut**

Dark eldar basically didn't exist at the time, IIRC, like they did, but were unicorns, and I'm not sure Tau did either, though if I'm recalling right they were like Eldar, were involved as a side objective and did fairly well, but I know eldar were in general. Nids I really don't recall, and of course, this is from 17 year old memory, so may be a bit of mixup with the medusa and later summer campaigns

(Edit: side note--Dark Eldar were literally in the starter set at the time. How the heck did they fail so hard I never saw them played until their 5th edition book came out?)

**Wayniac**

Vejut wrote:
Dark eldar basically didn't exist at the time, IIRC, like they did, but were unicorns, and I'm not sure Tau did either, though if I'm recalling right they were like Eldar, were involved as a side objective and did fairly well, but I know eldar were in general. Nids I really don't recall, and of course, this is from 17 year old memory, so may be a bit of mixup with the medusa and later summer campaigns

(Edit: side note--Dark Eldar were literally in the starter set at the time. How the heck did they fail so hard I never saw them played until their 5th edition book came out?)

Because they had barely anything, were a very glass-cannon finesse army even more than regular Eldar and quickly got eclipsed. They had some minor success early on (one of the first 3rd edition US GTs was won by an all mounted Dark Eldar army IIRC) and after that just fell out of favor.