WHAT MAKES IT SPECIAL? – WARHAMMER COMMUNITY
Check it out – we’re starting a weekly Specialist Games blog! Well, specifically, the Specialist Games studio will be, but that’s just semantics. Anyway, our opening episode features none other than Specialist Games manager and long-time Games Workshop luminary Andy Hoare, so over to the man himself:
Andy: Welcome, one and all, to the inaugural Specialist Games blog! Each week, we’ll be diving into the world of Specialist Games in all their glory. We’ll be using this platform to talk about parts of the hobby that we might not get to explore elsewhere, showing you cool stuff we’ve come across and giving some insights into the design process. We’ll even be showing you some of our own hobby projects and talking about our own games – after all, we’re lucky enough to do this for a living, but it’s very much our hobby too!
Before we get stuck into the series, however, I wanted to take this opportunity to address something that’s come up a lot since we set up the Specialist Games team in January 2016, and if you’ll indulge me as I get a bit nerdy, I’ll do so through the medium of a Venn diagram.* This most pressing of subjects is a simple issue, but one that’s vexed the greatest of minds since time immemorial, namely, when is a game a Specialist Game – and by extension, when is it a main range game?
Over the last few years, we’ve had lots of conversations with lots of people about which of the many classic games of yore we could bring back, as we have with
Blood Bowl,
Necromunda and
Adeptus Titanicus, as well as entirely new games we could invent in the future. In exploring all the myriad possibilities, I’ve come to the conclusion that there are three things that we look for when considering if a new (or renewed) game will be a Specialist Game and therefore made by the Specialist Games team, or if it’s a main range game and made by the talented minds of the Citadel Miniatures and Citadel Publications studios. Each of these things translates well into a circle in a Venn diagram, so on with the presentation (pay attention at the back…)!
Does the game have bespoke miniatures that couldn’t exist elsewhere? Blood Bowl certainly does,** because where else could those players exist but on a Blood Bowl pitch? Necromunda does too,*** and, of course, the fact that the
Knights and
Titans of Adeptus Titanicus are one quarter the size of their Warhammer 40,000 counterparts makes them unique to that game. If the miniatures could be used in Warhammer 40,000 or Warhammer Age of Sigmar, that would make them the preserve of the Citadel Miniatures Studio.
Warhammer Quest: Silver Tower is a great example – those wonderful miniatures have a place not just in that one game, but on the battlefields of the Mortal Realms, too.
Many games are set in a particular time and place, although the “setting” could also be a specific aspect of life (and/or death) in one of the worlds we’re exploring in our games, such as the factional wars between rival
Inquisitors explored in the Inquisitor game of the early 2000s. The setting for Blood Bowl is the Blood Bowl**** pitch, and for Necromunda, it’s the perilous underhive. For Adeptus Titanicus it’s the engine-wars of the
Horus Heresy. Whatever the case, it’s the setting that gives us the unique miniatures, and also that leads us on to the final circle…
We think it’s really important that our games offer a wide range of gaming experiences, so we tailor the rules to the experience we want to create. Blood Bowl is a game combining sports and (generally comedic) fantasy violence, and it has a rules set that reflects both things. Necromunda is all about the experience of the close-up, desperate struggle for survival in the nightmare underhives of the 41st Millennium. Adeptus Titanicus puts the player in the command throne of the lead Titan in a maniple of mighty god-engines, and as such focuses on grand strategy and city-razing firepower.
If all three circles intersect, it’s a Specialist Game – simple, eh?
Well, there you have it, folks – the answers to many of the questions you’ve been asking for years! That’s the way to start a new series, right? Tune in next week for more Specialist Games insights from Andy and his team. The Specialist Games team have had a busy year, and their most recent release is the Reaver Battle Titan, which has just hit the shelves. Why not add one to your Titan Legion?
* I prefer the medium of balloon sculpture, but while that works in presentations to my boss, balloon sausage dogs don’t translate well to the internet.
** We do occasionally get asked for Warhammer Age of Sigmar warscrolls for Blood Bowl teams, but we don’t think the world’s quite ready for that!
*** We’ve seen some amazing Astra Militarum armies made exclusively of Necromunda gang miniatures, though.
**** Blood Bowl takes place in a “made-up” version of Warhammer’s world-that-was.
