08 Feb Interview with Rick Priestly (2014 )

Another one of my old interviews, this time with Rick Priestly.

Rick Priestly Interview

 

Continuing with the Questions series of interviews I’ve been lucky enough to land one of the industry’s real heavyweights. If you don’t know who Rick Priestly is or what he’s created, then a warm welcome to this dimension. Prepare to be enlightened.

 

Just in case anyone in the hobby has been living under a stone for the last 30 years, could you tell me a little about yourself please?

 

I was born 1959 and I’m from Lincoln in England – I’ve been wargaming, modelling and painting armies since I was 12 years old and writing my own games almost as long. I studied Archaeology at Lancaster – graduated 1981 – and joined Games Workshop’s miniatures division Citadel in 1982. I went on to found the studio and create the Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 games and backgrounds for Games Workshop. Aside from designing many – many – games and writing countless books and articles, I also managed the GW studio throughout the 90’s, was part of the management buy-out that purchased GW from the original owners, and was later involved in floating the company on the stock exchange. I live near Nottingham together with my wife, several cats, a dog, budgies and chickens.

 

Do you game, paint and /or collect?

 

Yes I game, paint and collect! I’m lucky is that most of my friends and work mates are gamers, so there’s always a game of something going on somewhere. I enjoy painting and – once many years ago – was considered quite good! Sadly, standards have moved on, and I suspect my eyesight isn’t what it once was – but hey – it’s still a good way of relaxing. Collect – well I like to put armies together for gaming rather than accumulating metal and resin for the sake of it – but I do have lots of armies. Lots!

 

How did you start working for Games Workshop?

 

I actually joined Citadel Miniatures when it was based in Newark – Citadel was then run by Bryan Ansell –who was formerly founder of Asgard Miniatures based in Nottingham. I knew Bryan from of old when he helped Richard Halliwell and I publish our first wargames rules – and subsequently I’d painted and then designed a few figures for Asgard. After I finished with college I set-up as a figure designer working for various people including Tabletop Games (based in Nottingham) and Citadel (I didn’t do much for Citadel – spaceships mostly as well as some straight-line work: treasure chests, weapons, machines, stuff like that). Every so often Bryan would ask me if I would come in and help pack mail orders – and I’d do a few day’s work to help out– and in the end the days turned into a week at a time and in the end I quite enjoyed working at Citadel, and the design work wasn’t really paying that well, so I just caved in and took the job!

 

You’re renowned now as a wargames designer, but was that your primary role when you joined the fledgling GW?

 

I joined to sort out the mail order department – in fact I was the entire mail order department – before I turned up I think Bryan had been doing it himself. Which kinda shows how small the whole thing was. After a few months I built up the business and we took on a few other Mail Order Trolls to help out – so I was the primal Troll if you like. Mind you – I didn’t join Citadel/GW until 1982 –GW had already been going for 5 years or so by then and there were about a half dozen shops, so I’m not sure it was entirely ‘fledgling’.

 

 

What was it like working for GW in the early days?

 

Well Citadel was a fairly small affair really – Alan and Michael Perry were still working from home in north London, so the Newark factory really was a factory and not much else – not a studio initially. Tony Ackland and me would type up the mail order sheets and organise the White Dwarf ads in a little back-office. Most of my time was spent on the factory floor – everybody did everything in the early days. When we had a metal delivery or a batch of cartons or something turn up, we’d all help unload the lorries – even the boss!

 

 

How did you manage to create a design studio for Citadel from scratch?

 

It just happened organically – the Mail Order needed monthly release sheets, so part of the job was writing and producing those. Tony Ackland and I did that between us, Tony drawing the models, me writing the text, and both of us doing the production and layout. Then we did catalogues, boxes, and so on. Eventually, I recruited a new team to handle the actual Mail Order, and Tony and I moved to a new office down the road. Voila! The Citadel Studio was born. After that we recruited more people and eventually that became the Games Workshop Studio as we know it today. There was always a studio based in London that produced White Dwarf and the other games – Talisman being the most well known. When the companies merged the London studio closed and some of the staff joined us in Nottingham.

 

Is it right that initially Citadel cast and sold Ral Partha miniatures under licence to bolster their own miniature lines?

 

Yes – when I joined Citadel also manufactured and sold the Ral Partha range under license.

 

Back in the early days who did citadel consider to be their main miniature based competitors?

 

I don’t recall as we considered anyone to be a competitor really. Nick Lund’s Chronicle Miniatures was about the closest to what we were doing, and Bryan Ansell obviously liked the range and Nick enough to buy him out – after which Nick joined us for a while as a designer.

 

In 1985 Citadel launched the ‘slotta base’ for their miniatures. Its now fairly common place but then it was quite a radical thing to do. What prompted its development and the expansion into plastic shields, arms and weapons later on?

 

As I remember it was the cost of metal – with the lighter slotta models being cheaper to cast. However, this seems a bit incidental to me, I think it was also a very neat and attractive way of presenting the models – and that had a lot to do with it. There was also the opportunity to use the base design as a gaming feature; we had hex bases originally as well as square and round. With larger models it also helps with mould making and posing, because the width of a large integral base can cause problems in some cases.

 

 

What was the thinking behind the creation of the first edition of Warhammer?

 

I’d already written a number of games in my teens with my friend Richard Halliwell, including Reaper – a fantasy wargame, and Combat 3000, an SF game. And Bryan had this ambition to publish a fantasy wargame to encourage customers to play battle games with their collections. Most of our customers were actually playing D&D – this was the age when role-playing games were all the rage – so loads of people had these collections of models for D&D but no real conception of what a wargame was. We figured that if people started playing proper battles we could sell them whole regiments of troops rather than just one or two models – and that was what started us off with what would become Warhammer.

 

How did the name Warhammer get chosen for the games’ title?

 

Actually it started out as Rune Hammer – vaguely inspired by Michael Moorcocks’s Runestaff series – but because there was an existing role-playing game called Rune Quest (which we sold) we had to come up with something different. So Rune Hammer just became Warhammer.

 

How well did the Warhammer rules sell in the early years?

I think we sold out the first run very quickly and maybe printed a second run before we did the second edition shortly afterwards. It sold very well for the time – it was certainly a success from the get-go. It was also a Citadel imprint – and I think the head office guys at GW in London did resent the fact that we’d produced this game that was outselling all their much slicker and professionally produced gamesJ

 

Rogue trader was around from the early days of GW. What prompted its reboot into Warhammer 40K?

 

Actually RT wasn’t produced until 1987 – so I don’t think of it as the early days at all if you see what I mean – GW had been going over a decade by then! Rogue Trader was just the working title we’d been using for the game since I joined games workshop (I brought the first version of the game with me). When we actually came to publish Rogue Trader we’d taken out a license for games based on the 2000AD comic, and we already had a board game based on the Rogue Trooper character – so – once again we had to come up with a different name. Hence, the first version was called Warhammer 40,000 – Rogue Trader. We had to use the RT strap line just so all the customers who were waiting for a game called RT would know that this was it!

 

Who came up with the concept of turning established fantasy races into futuristic versions?

 

Well I suppose that would be me – but it was a pragmatic decision forced upon us by the fact that no-one thought RT/40K would sell. When I started designing the game the prevalent view was that ‘science fiction doesn’t sell’ (yes I know it sounds unlikely… but there you are!) Because no-one thought the game would sell we didn’t want to make many miniatures for it, so the plan was to make weapons packs so that people could convert Orcs, Elves and what-not into science-fiction versions. Hence, a lot of the creatures, races and monsters in the RT book are all based upon fantasy models that we sold at the time. Of course, before RT was actually printed it was obvious it would sell – so we started to make models for it – but by then I’d written the game!

 

 

Did you expect Warhammer 40K to be as successful as it has been?

 

Yes I did! It was the game I wanted to publish when I joined Citadel. In fact, when I joined it was on the understanding that Citadel would publish the game I’d already designed called Rogue Trader – which was really a SF ship combat game to go with the ships I’d made. Over time the concept just morphed into an SF version of Warhammer – but I could tell it would do well – it wasn’t just me – it was all the people that helped play the game into existence, including the artists and figure designers – practically everyone started to get involved. That’s always a good sign.

 

You’ve done rules for many different genres, what is your favourite?

 

I don’t know if I have a favourite really – I always enjoyed SF but ironically WH40K became so big that I never got a chance to do more with the genre whilst I was at GW.

 

If things had been different, what would you have done with genre?

 

I’d have liked to have done an SF spaceship combat game – in the end Andy Chambers did that – well you can’t do everything can you! I also had a whole series planned that would explore the 40K universe by picking specific places and producing a super-detailed game. The first of these was Necromunda – the second Gorka Morka. I had planned a game based on an Eldar Craftworld as well – and we had all kinds of ideas for similar skirmish wargames based on specific Space Marine Chapters or worlds within the Imperium. If you considered some of the original backgrounds to the Imperial Guard (first IG book) you’ll see a few of those ideas manifested themselves in the various IG homeworld – in particular Catachan. We were going to do a Catachan ‘Deathworld’ style game. To me – the games were there to explore the variety and depth of the universe – new frontiers – boldly going and all thatJ

 

Are you happy with the way the Imperium of Man in the 40K universe has come to be realised?

 

I’m not really all that familiar with it to be honest! I’m very proud to have created and nurtured 40K. As the company grew 40K became an increasingly important part of it, other people began to contribute – people with fresh ideas and considerable enthusiasm and talent. I changed from a position of sole writer and creator to someone whose job was to encourage creativity in others and prepare them to accept responsibility for steering the company’s games and models in the future. The needs of a business change hugely as it grows – it grows up and changes – and the later (and I imagine current) realisation of 40K reflects the needs of the business and player community of today. As it shouldJ

 

 

Do you think historical wargaming is seen as less appealing than fantasy of science-fiction ?

 

I suppose it’s just down to what folks grow up with – and for years now SF has been such a huge thing in the movies and TV. That wasn’t the case when I was growing up – well not so much! Westerns and WW2 movies were our versions of fantasy – so I guess it depends.

 

How do you go about starting a new gaming system?

 

Can be any number of things. Sometimes it’s the background that does it, sometimes it’s the models, and often it’s a mechanical idea – an idea for developing a turn sequence or player interaction. Often the development of the models or artwork will steer the design process – so it’s as much about the team as it is about the games designer.

 

How long does it take to get the rules from initial concept through to working prototype?

 

That does vary too – but at GW in the 90’s we usually had a big release in September (Necromunda, WH, 40K etc). I used to try and rough out the game concepts and mechanics over the Christmas holiday, then we’d start to develop the game and background in January when everyone got back. So, say two weeks to get the basics done. I’d put 10 weeks aside to get the first draught finished, then another 10 weeks to get everything ready for print, but by then you could pull the whole team to do bits if necessary.

 

Are gaming systems produced to suit the miniatures that have been designed, or the other way around?

 

You can do it either way but the best way is to design the two together – so the writer and sculptor can bounce ideas about. It’s relatively easy to change text compared to models though, so often you end up working round the models. But you do need to set out the basics – like the models fitting certain base sizes, fitting in blisters, and so on. To be fair those things are as much to do with the economics of manufacture and practicalities of supply as anything else.

 

After being at GW for so long was it a shock to leave?

 

No it was quite a relief really – GW had long since ceased to be a creative environment – the company I joined was an exciting creative company led by design and a passion for games – that wasn’t the case when I left, and quite frankly it was heart-breaking to see how the games and world’s I’d created were being treated. At least now I don’t have to lookJ

 

Having known GW from the early 80’s myself I know just how creative they used to be. Almost every month White Dwarf would showcase a new range of miniatures or a new game. Do you think the business concerns of a listed company hurt the creative side?

 

Well that’s just an inevitable factor in growing a small, entrepreneurial business into a larger established business. To begin with you can do almost anything – you can make decisions very quickly, change your tack quickly, and just keep trying out stuff until something ‘sticks’. In the early day GW tried all sorts of ideas – Warhammer Records, T-shirts, LARP (never quite got off the ground that one), RPGs, Computer Games (before my time), Fiction, Comics, Jigsaw Puzzles – anything! Over time it became apparent that the majority of the business – and all the profitable part of it – was Citadel models and Warhammer games. After that we worked out an effective business model based around Warhammer and spent our energies rolling that out. As time went on it became a question of establishing new processes, ensuring predictability of supply and cost, and striving for effectiveness within the supply chain. If you get that right – and because we were all amateurs and gamers we often got those things wrong first time round – then you have to start to manage efficiency to keep the profit coming as you grow. So, to start with it’s all about ideas and product and energy – and as you grow it becomes increasingly about management of people and processes. That means you have to change the focus of the people at the top, instead of being driven by the creatives the company becomes driven by other factors – could be the manufacturing processes, the sales model, and so on – but change is inevitable.

 

Was there a big change when Bryan Ansell left the company?

 

Yes – that was when we organised the buy-out – that changed everything. Up to that point GW was substantially owned by Bryan who was happy to keep the company small and take the profit out of the business rather than invest in expansion. To buy GW Tom Kirby had to borrow money from venture capitalists (VCs), so he had a massive personal debt to pay off – about equivalent to the company’s turnover I believe – as well as interest payments on that debt. So, to pay off that huge personal debt and generate enough spare money to invest as well, GW had to expand very fast – which we did! Part of that massive expansion was down to reorganising the product-line and getting the studio working effectively, so it was a time of great change and energy!

 

GW is often seen as the ‘bad guy’ with little regard for its customers long term. Is that a justified point of view in your opinion?

 

That’s certainly not a picture I recognise from my time at GW – we were always very much focussed on customers and recognised that we had mature as well as novices amongst our customer base. We developed whole product lines for more hard-core and experienced customers, as well as starter sets for those wanting to get into a game. So, in my experience – 28 years of it – no I wouldn’t say that was a fair picture – but one can never address everyone’s expectations no matter how hard you try!

 

The internet has changed the way we live, especially the advent of ecommerce. Did GW anticipate the change of has it always considered having a real world presence more important.

 

Our US business was actually well ahead of the curve – and to start with all the commercial engines were hand-built bespoke affairs by our US IT staff. The UK didn’t really embrace the internet until a little later. The basic business model is predicated on running stores and I’m not sure to what extent you can replicate that on-line.

 

I interviewed Jean Bey of Rackham miniatures in issue 8. I asked him if he ever considered GW to be their main competitor back when Rackham were still running. He said no as the two companies were fairly different. However do you know what the GW view of Rackham was?

 

We didn’t concern ourselves with what other wargames companies were doing – not as a business. We didn’t think of Rackham or any similar company as a competitor. As Jean says – different companies.

 

Just recently GW has announced a dip in profits and is currently contracting its operation. Do you think this is going to cause the management to focus more on the creative side once again?

 

No I don’t – nor should it – it should and will cause the management to concentrate on their operational efficiencies. I’m sure they’ll be very creative in addressing that – but in terms of generating new IP or suddenly starting making different kinds of products – that kind of thing wouldn’t solve any of their problems and would just look like ‘panic’ to investors.

 

You’ve continued designing as a partner in Warlord Games. Do you find it less restrictive creatively designing as ‘the boss’ rather that as an employee?

 

Well it’s certainly a lot more fun!

 

Beyond the Gates of Antares was a bold new take on science-fiction wargaming. Why do you think its kickstarter campaign fell short of its target?

 

Easy – because we didn’t have anything lined up beyond my ambition to make a new SF gameJ Miniature kickstarters are not really good for start-ups – you need to have design ready to go and ideally most of your ranges worked out and finished. In contrast to that, I think you have to develop a game organically – bit at a time – you can’t prep the whole thing and then spew it out. It needs to be played into existence!

 

Are there plans to bring the idea back, or has it been shelved for the time being?

 

Antares – yes we are developing the game and range at a more realistic pace and the first models will be available this year (2014). We won’t be doing another kickstarter for it though I don’t think. I’ve had to shelve the interactive elements because they would be just too expensive to realise – but maybe one day.

 

Are there any future projects you can tell us about?

 

I’m continuing to develop the Hail Caesar, Black Powder and Bolt Action lines for Warlord, and I’m plugging away with Antares – and that’s plenty for now. I’m also writing a book about writing wargames rules for Pen and Sword – must get on with that!

 

Are there any projects you wished you’d had a chance to work on, and who do you admire in the industry?

 

I can’t think of any projects I’d like to have worked on – assuming you mean non-GW games – I pretty much did everything I wanted to at GW over the years! Who do I most admire – tricky one as there are so many – by I’ve always been a big fan of the Perry’s work – it’s just so naturalistic and well observed – they have inspired many other figure designers but no-one can touch them in terms of sheer volume and quality of work.

 

Are you still in touch with anyone from the early citadel days?

 

Yes – I’m actually going to Brunel Uni to give a talk to some of Steve Jackson’s students later this year. I also keep in touch with Tony Ackland – who is retired now and lives in Cornwall. Many others are still friends who I see regularly – or work with – so yes – quite a few of ‘em. Can’t get rid of me quite that easily!

 

Apart from war gaming, and the industry in general, what else do you like to do?

 

Just the usual sort of stuff – I read a lot of history – especially ancient history – walk the dog, potter in the garden, go to the pub, shout at clouds… usual everyday crap really.

 

How do you see the industry changing in the next 10 to 20 years?

 

I think I’m the wrong person to ask really – when I look at the new 3D CAD design tools and 3D printers it’s all beyond science-fiction to me. That sort of thing can only become more important as part of the design process – and potentially as a manufacturing process too, though from what I’ve seen that might take a good few years yet. The future of print is something you read about all the time – and again you do have to wonder whether traditional wargames rules are going to have much of a role amongst a population that is increasingly blind to reading books. Meantime, I await the arrival of our Martian overlords with great interest.

 

I’d just like to thank Rick for taking the time and trouble to provide such an interesting interview.