Oldhammer Guest of Honor: Phil Gallagher Interview

As I announced earlier, we are going to be having Guests of Honor at the Oldhammer Weekend event. Our Second Guest of Honor is Phil Gallagher, Studio Design, Editor and WFRP guiding hand...along with the creator of the Emperor himself. Once again, Phil did a previous interview on Realm Of Chaos 80s, so check out Orylgg's interview here.

We are actually pretty lucky to have some special Warhammer/Oldhammer Celebrities here in North America, and I am really excited that they are going to be able to stop by. So bring your copies of WFRP, your questions, and any presents! Phil and Graeme also let me know that they will be there on Sunday, during the Golden Gobbo competition! So make sure you can be there on Sunday to meet them!

Phil was kind enough to answer a few questions that I sent him, I tried to not repeat questions from other sources, but remember you can get your questions answered on Sunday!

OITNW: In the realmsofchaos80s interview (see link above), you were confronted with a huge stack of already created material, and had to wrestle the beast to the ground. I’m sure it was a monumental task at that time, even deciding what to keep and cut. How many months did you work on this? You said it was mainly structure that you gave it, did that include the layout or just edited text?

Phil: It seems now, in hindsight, that Realm of Chaos took year and years to complete! In reality it was probably about a year, but the truth is, I can no longer remember. The lay-out was the team’s attempt to fulfill Bryan Ansell’s vision! We were lucky to have Ian Miller do all those fantastic illustrations, while Tony Ackland never seemed to tire of drawing weird, warped beasts of all types!

OITNW: But the end result is a beloved and treasured roleplaying game, one that many believe is there favorite of all time. Was the tension between your own ideas and that already created what made it excellent?

Phil: Hmm. It’s difficult to say. I think what’s made it a favorite with so many people is the sheer amount of creativity that went into it. Of course, I STILL think the mechanics were/are unnecessarily clunky – but, hey, that’s just my opinion, and the opinion of those that still play it is much more important.

OITNW: Was there a “battle” that you won, i.e. not including something or adding something in? Was there something that you would rather have been rid of, but were made to keep?

Phil: There were no battles. There was neither time nor opportunity to re-do the combat system, for example. Jim Bambra and I simply shoved in as much role-playing guidance as we could, and “cunningly” persuaded everyone (ourselves included) that we’d “fix” the magic system in “Realms of Sorcery”…

OITNW: I know it is the periphery for you now, but I was wondering on your general thoughts on the Oldhammer movement. Are you surprised by the passions that these things you helped create years ago are generating in otherwise respectable people?

Phil: I think it’s fantastic. I am surprised and humbled to discover that the thing lives on. Long may it continue. Perhaps I should have “Here Lies the father of Sigmar Heldenhammer” on my gravestone!

OITNW: One thing that most of us in Oldhammer love is the general humor and sheer explosion of creativity that the Design Studio created during those golden years. This tends to be lacking from current games and products. Was this a freedom that was allowed, or was it encouraged in the studio? Was it just something in the water….or beer? How much as editor for a lot of the materials decide how to cut it down, or did you go for a certain type of humor?

Phil: I think we had a certain youthful cynicism. Rick Priestley had set the ball rolling with the very first edition of WFB, and the rest of us just carried it on. Graeme “Undead” Davis has a fantastic dry, deadpan sense of humour, and I have terribly sad fondness for puns. Sometimes, slipping in a joke or two made me feel like I was being a little rebellious, in a quiet, understated kind of way. Other times, I just though it was funny. There were also times, of course, when we all experience that cliche of “you have to laugh… because if you don’t, you’ll cry.”

OITNW: I know that you currently act, and some of your photos have been amazing! The best roleplay group I ever had in college was a bunch of actors who also role-played. I was able to ask this question of James Earl Jones once after a presentation he did. So I will ask it of you as well: What is more important, truly incredible acting or wonderfully written lines?

Phil: Oh, good question! Wonderfully written lines make the acting easy, of course. Interpreting character, potraying genuine emotion, making the audience forget that they are in a theatre watching actors, moving them, making them laugh, these are all part of the reason I do what I do. Wonderful scripts can make the most wooden of performers look good. But the best acting I ever saw was watching Derek Jacobi walk across the stage, without saying a word, he aged 40 years as he moved from one scene to the next – absolutely amazing.

OITNW: Thanks so much for your time, I know some of these may get involved, but anything you feel comfortable answering would be great!

Phil: Glad to be of service. I hope my answers prove worth reading! As Benjamin Franklin is often quoted as saying, my aim is to “either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.”

Thanks, Phil! James Earl Jones's answer to my last questions was very cool. he leaned back, in that amazing voice of his said "Ohhhhh! That's a good question!" Then he said that of course as an actor, he believed that an incredible performance can improve and create something out of anything, and that incredible words or material, just make it easier to capture. Very similar to Phil's answer. He also said, that sometimes, brilliant material could "lock" certain choices an actor could make. Making it difficult to bring something new to the material. In some ways, to me that is the same with most things and one amazing bit I wonder at every day....my children and their imaginations. I'm always thrilled when I find them making up stories and places, rather than saying, but Bilbo has to look like this....

Ok, so that is three great guests, all appearing on Sunday, October 26th at Dropzone Games! Hopefully you can all make it!

USA Oldhammer Golden Gobbo Competition! Guest Judge - Dave Taylor!

Well, if you have followed the forum then this is not a surprise, but we are lucky enough to have Dave Taylor join us as our judge for the Golden Gobbo competition at the USA Oldhammer Weekend at Dropzone Games. Andrew Dyer, our friendly patent official is running the event, and it looks like it is going to be awesome!

Dave is pretty familiar to a lot of people in wargaming, and has won awards (multiple Golden Demon, including staff awards), edited Wargames Illustrated, and been with many different companies, including his own. This is his bio from his blog.....

I've been modeling, painting, and playing with toy soldiers since 1991. Over the years I've painted thousands of miniatures, primarily for Games Workshop's games, but I've also tackled some great historical miniatures. You can keep up with my current projects here on this blog - Dave Taylor Miniatures. A quick browse through that will show you the kind of projects that Dave takes on!

Luckily Dave also allowed us to ask him a few questions, and I thought I would put those here:


OITNW: Do you remember the first miniature that you painted, and do you still have it?

Dave Taylor: The first miniatures I painted were for my early D&D days, some Dwarven adventurers, probably around 1983-4. I painted quite a few models for my roleplaying group over the years (including a handful of what I am sure were old Citadel Miniatures - some Orcs and Wolfriders). It wasn't until 1991 that I started painting GW/Citadel minis for wargaming. As a Uni student, I opted for the cheapest options, like the RTB01 boxed set, and painted up a dark blue Space Marine army. I no longer have any of those models, they were lost in some move at some stage, but I do remember a lecturer of mine (I studied Graphic Design) saying to me about some of my first models, "You know, Dave. I thought you'd be able to do better than this."

OITNW: Have you noticed the Oldhammer painting movement/styles in the more "current scene" and what are your impressions of it?

Dave Taylor: I have certainly noticed the Oldhammer approach to gaming, collecting, and painting. I think it's a great thing. Fortunately it's not just a nostalgia thing, but it seems to be a movement that appreciates many of the core ideas behind the fun times that were being had at GW/Citadel in the late '80s. While there are now some absolutely fantastic miniatures coming out of the GW Design Studio, they are very refined, distilled down to a core design aesthetic. The miniatures (and painting styles) of the Oldhammer era weren't afraid to experiment, to test new grounds.

OITNW: You have done some incredible armies, and some greatly detailed Golden Demon winners.  Are details or overall miniature effect more important?

Dave Taylor:  I'm a big fan of the overall impression of a miniature, regiment, or army. It's the big picture that will grab me first. But (and it's a pretty big but) it is the detail work that will always hold interest and keep me looking at the model(s) longer.


OITNW: I know you have painted a lot of 40k and Marines, but what are the iconic "Bad Guys" that you like to paint. Is there a Chaos God you really like to paint? (Do you have a special way of painting Nurgle or Tzeentch stuff?)

Dave Taylor:  I do typically paint "human" armies. They've always held the most interest for me. Humanity against the vast, spawning pantheon of foul creatures and supernatural powers. Be it a guy with a shiny breastplate and halberd, or an ill-fitting helmet and up-powered flashlight, I've loved the idea that it's their faith in the strength of Humanity (and the ranks of millions to take their place) that keeps these soldiers fighting. In those times I have strayed from the human armies, I've been drawn to the undead and Nurgle Chaos, both rotting and decayed reflections of previously human armies. I must admit I have no real "methods" to impart for my rot or decay.

Dave also is involved in the Project Alchemy bit that Jon Boyce, Tony Mansfield, Steve Casey, James Craig and others are doing (you have probably seen it pinned to the top of the Oldhammer Community page!) and you can read more about that here: Dave Taylor - Oldhammer

Dave is also one of the guys who has taken photos for Wargames Illustrated, who have some great photos of just models. He was working on that when we got the chance to talk at Adepticon:

Dave had this up at Adepticon, he was taking some photos while I was running a Deadzone event (from Mantic Games) next door! It was really impressive, and looked great!

Dave also was involved in this event at Adepticon, at least with some great photos! Really looked like a 28mm Space Marine Games, and was one of the BIG impressive events at Adepticon! Titanicus

You can also use the links on the right of Dave's Blog (the Labels bit) make sure to visit Adepticus Mechanicus, Legio Custodes and this type of thing under Golden Demon. The prolific nature of Dave's projects and his gorgeous models keep me coming back for more and more!


Hopefully we'll impress him so much he'll take some shots of our figs! Thanks Dave, and can't wait to see you there!

Oldhammer Interview: Graeme Davis, Designer and Guest at Oldhammer USA!

With great pleasure, I'm announcing that we have a Guest of Honor for our Oldhammer Event at Dropzone Games on October 25th and 26th! Design Studio member, Game Designer, and writer Graeme Davis will be attending the event. Graeme is checking his schedule to see how much of the event he can attend, but he will at least be there to celebrate the passion of the Oldhammer movement. I'll have a better idea of when he may be available, but you might want to bring along some of your WFRP books! And help me applaud one of the guys who helped bring out all of these things that crawl around in our minds eye!

Graeme helped write a lot of the WFRP books, and talks a little of that process in the interview. Interesting he has some really cool things to say about Something Rotten In Kislev!

You can find one interview that Graeme did on Orlygg's Realm Of Chaos 80s! Some great insight there for us. I tried not to repeat too many questions.

Just to let you all know as well, Graeme is currently working on Colonial Gothic, a great role-playing game that adds history to the mix. As Line Developer he has some great stuff, and also adds lots of great historical events to the group on facebook. Rogue Games can be found here. May be I am biased, but the revolutionary war is my favorite period of history. But the line just keeps getting better, with the revised rulebook! You can also pick up the line on amazon and as pdfs! Though the non-book of 18th century ruinous powers peaked my interest! Oldhammer connection, huh?

Anyway, first let me say thanks to Graeme for answering my questions and also for being our first announced GOH for Oldahmmer USA!

Here is the interview!

OITNW:  For those that do not know, current projects of yours include Colonial Gothic, which I love as it melds history and roleplaying. What are future plans for Colonial Gothic or are you working on anything else that you can reveal?
Graeme: Richard Iorio and I are just putting the finishing touches on the Colonial Gothic Players’ book, which should be out before the end of the year. As the name suggests, it includes a lot of new player options, including skills, weapons, spells, and combat. There are also completely new systems for character advantages and disadvantages, social level (very important in those times), plus an updated version of the character templates from the old ebook release to make character creation quicker and easier.
   Further in the future, Richard is working on the third installment of the Flames of Freedom campaign, and we have plans for a GM’s book as well as a super-secret project that has a significant Oldhammer connection. That’s all I can say about it for now, except that it’s not an 18th-century Realm of Chaos adding the Ruinous Powers to the game! Though wouldn’t that be nice, if we could only get GW’s blessing....
OITNW:  We all know that you have joined us on the Oldhammer Facebook group, but what is your general impression of the passion that we have for all of the earlier stuff, whether minis or story?
Graeme: Ever since Flame closed down in the early 90s, I have been amazed and impressed (and, I have to say, a little humbled) by the passion that kept WFRP alive through its wilderness period, and I had the same feeling when I discovered the Oldhammer movement a year or two back. I remember one day in about 1987 we were talking about Thunderbirds and other childhood favorites, and Jervis said that what we were doing at GW would one day be someone else’s Thunderbirds. It seemed like an outrageous assertion at the time, but I’ve never forgotten it and – lo and behold – the man wasn’t wrong!
   There really was something about those days: the particular mix of ridiculously talented people (and me!) and the circumstances that allowed us to get away with sneaking jokes into the games, mixing humor and horror, and doing all the other things that people still like. Although they certainly weren’t free of frustrations, looking back they were pretty good times. Maybe that carries through into the games themselves.
OITNW: While you are a writer, and roleplaying game designer, are there any miniatures that you collect, or did you have any? Were these for roleplaying, or did you have an army?
Graeme: I started out buying a few of the old Minifigs D&D miniatures for roleplaying around 1977, and picked up a few of the early Citadels when they began doing the Fiend Factory line. But my roleplaying at college didn’t make extensive use of miniatures – one of my college friends still teases me about a red plastic chicken from a farmyard toy set that I used to represent any critter for which I didn’t have the correct mini!
   When I started at GW I began to collect undead, which have been a passion of mine ever since I saw the Harryhausen - Jason and the Argonauts movie on TV in the 60s. I was a slow learner when it came to painting, and I never got them organized into a regulation army: I was more interested in having one of everything. I even had an unreleased Aly Morrison green of a skeleton wielding a crank-operated chainsaw! Tragically, I was prevailed upon to “put away childish things” and disposed of them before a transatlantic move during my first marriage. I’d do anything to have them back.
OITNW: The beginnings of the Chaos gods are a little in the past, but do you know of any interesting stories or their creation, or do you know any of the influences that created them (or was that just before your time at the studio?)
Graeme: The four Ruinous Powers were established by the time I discovered Warhammer, and I never heard any particular tales of their creation. My impression was always that they sprang fully formed from the minds of Bryan Ansell and John Blanche. The tale of Malal is pretty well known, and I don’t have anything to add to what’s already been said.
   Acting on a line in an early RoC draft which said that there was an infinite number of Chaos Gods of varying power, I created a couple of new ones for the WFRP adventure Something Rotten in Kislev. Ken Rolston’s original draft called for Malal as the patron of a cult, and it had just become clear that we couldn’t use Malal. So I created Zuvassin the Undoer, who might be described as the patron deity of Murphy’s Law (his symbol was based on a wrench) and Necoho the Doubter, who (in a joke I considered sheer brilliance at the time) was essentially a Chaos God of atheists, opposed to religion in all its forms. So far as I’m aware, neither one appeared anywhere outside that one book.
OITNW: I recently heard that some of the releases for the WFRP game were re-imaginings of existing adventures or modules, was this true, and where and how was the original material chosen or selected?
Graeme: In 2012, Fantasy Flight Games commissioned me to write half of a new campaign titled The Enemy Within, but it was not an update of the 80s adventures. Instead, it was an all-new campaign that explored the same themes. The announcement certainly caused a stir in the WFRP fan community, which is doubtless what FFG intended by choosing that title. I’m not aware of any 3rd edition adaptations of earlier adventures, although the WFRP2 book Plundered Vaults did consist of 2nd edition versions of various earlier adventures. I think there have been some fan adaptations converting various published adventures between the three editions of the game, but I haven’t looked at any of them.
OITNW: In the interview on RealmofChaos80s, you commented that you tried to include Malal in the Realm of Chaos books. Any insights on how you were to include this?
Graeme: My thinking at the time (which turned out to be completely erroneous) was that the book (and it was only intended to be one book at that time) would benefit from having something new and surprising in it. I already mentioned the line in an early draft that raised the possibility of a great many Chaos Gods existing, and as a roleplayer first and foremost I leaped on it. I went through a huge pile of miscellaneous artwork with a view to grouping images together and creating new Chaos Gods as patrons for the sets I’d created. Of course, it was soon pointed out to me that minis didn’t exist for any of these images, and probably never would, and that creating a new Ruinous Power would
commit the company to launching a whole new army with miniatures and a book and everything else – so would I please stop writing about new Chaos Gods!
   Specifically about Malal, I thought this was a no-brainer because he had featured in the Kaleb Daark comic and I had not yet heard about the copyright issues. I found a few likely-looking images for a greater and lesser daemon, and started to write Malal up in the same format as the descriptions of the other Chaos Gods. It should be noted that this was before Mike Brunton took over and I was using a much more modest format!
OITNW: One thing that most of us in the Oldhammer Community agree upon is just the incredible amount of creativity and organic explosion of ideas and imagery that coincided with a certain era at Games Workshop. This has been compacted into specific marketed “looks” and single styles for most of the armies and backgrounds. Most of us lament this as one of the reasons we enjoy Oldhammer so much. As one of those involved in the creation period, how do you view the current flavors of Games Workshop.
Graeme: Honestly, I can’t comment on the current state of Warhammer because I’ve been out of touch with the developments of the last couple of years. I used to get the Empire and Undead books when they came out, but there came a point when it was clear to me that Warhammer and WFRP were never again going to be the major part of my life that they were in the 80s. I had a lot of other projects going on, I had an argument with Green Ronin which ensured that I didn’t write anything for WFRP2 after Ashes of Middenheim, and FFG only asked me to do a couple of things for WFRP3, both of which were already plotted out in considerable detail before I got to have any input.
   So if I were to say anything at all, it would be informed purely by the comments I’ve seen from the Oldhammer and WFRP communities and not by any observations of my own. And I don’t think that would be particularly helpful.


I know we all want to thank you, and can’t wait to see you at our Oldhammer USA event! Thanks so much!

We have another Guest of Honor as well, and I'll be announcing that soon!

Also - some incredible news! The Boyldrick models have arrived. Thanks to Kev, Bryan and Martin Ansell for the incredible miniature. I can not wait to give out at our event! Thanks. Also, thank you to Orlygg, for being kind enough to help us get these guys for our event as well! The only way to thank you will be a bunch of painted pictures of our incredible models!