Recently, I was invited to answer some selected questions from the German language WAB forum community. The forum posters chose their 10 most popular questions and these were sent to me. The organizer (Tom Weiss), being optimistic, decided to send me all 26, and being a nice chap (well I think I am!) I decided to answer all of them.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the players who speak English on a number of non English language forums and help their communities with their questions. This is much appreciated by me.

As I felt the questions were representative of a wider audience and the answers would be appreciated by all, Tom agreed we could also post them here on the WHW web site.

So, here are my answers to those questions. I have endeavoured to answer them as honestly as possible, so when I say “I don’t know or have not decided yet” it really does mean that. There were some good questions to answer and I hope my answers are as interesting for you as some of the questions were for me.

Kind regards

Rob Broom
Warhammer Historical Manager June 2008

1) Hamburger Tactica is a growing wargames event in Germany. Would it be an option for Warhammer Historical to pay a visit somewhere in the future? See some pics here http://www.hamburger-tactica.de/tactica/pages/fotos2008.html

The pictures look great, it would be fantastic to ship some of the games over to the UK for photographs. I would love to attend the event at some point in the future (as I would like to visit Hamburg), but attending events costs money, and I have to look after a small budget. There are several WAB events in France I would also like to attend at some point.

2) Will the books be translated and published into other languages?

This was attempted once in Italian, and did not do well. We are unsure how much demand there would be if we printed complete books in other languages. We are currently looking at the possibility of producing play sheets and basic rules in other languages to help sell the English language books and hopefully something will happen before the end of the year.

3) Which set of rules will be used for the American Civil War system and which army size will be represented, e.g. Skirmish, Company, Divisional etc.?

I decided to ask the author but bear in mind this might change during play testing! Here is his answer - The core units of the game will be infantry regiments, cavalry regiments and artillery batteries. Players will be brigade commanders in charge of these core units. If there are two players then you could see 2-5 regiments (with perhaps some artillery) on each side. In larger games with more players a division sized battle can take place.

Regiments/companies can be broken into skirmishers for scenarios or if players do not have enough miniatures to play a brigade sized game. The game will still work for 30 miniatures per side if need be.

4) Will the American Civil War book be divided in chapters for Confederates and Union or is it some kind of mix?

Once again, I asked the author and here is his answer - No not really. It will be more or less similar to the layout of the Great War. You'll have the rules, history, painting guides for equipment and uniforms, tactics section, great pictures and 'army' lists. I have not decided on the best solution yet for all of these elements yet but you get the general idea.

5) Do you plan to expand Legends of the High Seas into other eras, e.g. the Napoleonic Wars or the Buccaneer era?

Probably not but they will make great web articles so if anyone wants to write some, please go ahead. We do hope to release a small scale Napoleonic naval game later this year, its in production at the moment.

6) Will there be a "Legends of..." rule set for the Crime fighting era in 1925 USA?

It’s a nice idea but probably not, as this takes us away from the core of what Warhammer Historical do. Again, a web article would be fantastic.

7) Any plans to expand the forthcoming WAB 2.0 ruleset for games beyond the renaissance?

I really don’t know if that would work but no doubt someone will send me a proposal!

8) Will future WAB supplements still be written sporadically by enthusiastic players with a personal interest in an era/campaign/person under your guidance or by a kind of an internal Next-Supplement-Squad?

Just about all our books are written by enthusiastic players with a personal interest and I don’t see that changing any time soon. I do think WAB supplements should have more standardization in terms of the type of content, but it is sometimes hard to “shoehorn” history into a fixed page count so I try and keep an open mind and assume I need to be flexible with the supplements.

9) Is there any plan for an official supplement on the Thirty Years War based on the ECW rules?

Yes, and it is commissioned and being worked on as we speak. We plan to take the opportunity to revamp the ECW rule book at the same time.

10) Are there plans to do a supplement for the American War of Independance or Seven Years War in the future?

Not at the moment, but that does not mean we will not do it. Several people here at GW are very interested in the Seven Years War and I had in a good proposal about the American War of Independance which I hope to follow up.

11) Will there be a World War II "Modern" type WAB rulebook in the near future?

Near future, no. We will however do World War Two in some detail and I already have some ambitious ideas which I need to plan and discuss in detail before even starting.

Follow Up Questions

12) Over the years, with every supplement and WAB 1.5, the Warhammer Historical Rules evolved further and further away from Warhammer Fantasy.

With this we got a rule set which enables the more "historical” behavior of Armies than WHFB. Is WAB 2.0 going back to WHFB or are the developers free to choose a direction which leads further away from WHFB.

Within certain constraints, (as in remembering what makes WAB a great game) we can do what we like regarding rules. However we are not planning on reinventing the wheel so the game will look broadly the same.

13) Will the books in the voting on the WAB-Forum be published or do we have to wait again for years?

Most should be published eventually. Anyone with well painted armies who are prepared to mail them to us (at our expense) should get in touch with a sample photo or two, as this is often the section that causes the most delay in taking a supplement from some words through to a finished book. But I do only have a limited amount of time to work on production so we will never release lots of books in any one year unless we add staff, and that is unlikely at the time of writing.

14) Rob, when you think of the ideal wargaming ruleset, how would it look like? Or, the other way around, what are the existing key rule mechanisms, you are not totally happy with (in WAB or in general)?

This is a good question. I only have ever really played WAB/WHFB/Epic Scale Warhammer 40,000/Blood Bowl to any great detail. I have looked at other peoples rule sets but I really enjoy the opportunity to paint and create my army, and that’s why I enjoy WAB etc. Other rule sets do not really “personalize” your model soldiers or bring the battlefield to life. When we developed The Great War, I had never played Warhammer 40000 and so that is why there are a number of differences with in the Great War rule set from 40K because we made changes that made sense for a rule set that needed to reflect real humans and real weapons. I am very satisfied with what we did there.

So regarding WAB 2.0 we will look at making change where rules do not really make “common sense” with in the restrictions of the rule system its self. As an example, the unmodified Leadership 10 for Hatred really needs a bit of attention, as for WAB it really can cause some problems but in WFB was always OK I thought.

15) Will you create a general Point-Value-System for WAB 2.0, to make the armies more balanced?

Theres already one in existence, and actually its not that broken although some list writers did steer off course! Most historical armies do match up OK, and that’s always been the most important aspect. Out of period, it’s more important to consider table size and the points value of the army you are using, plus the amount of terrain on the table to give all the armies an opportunity of victory.

16) There are still large gaps to be filled with army lists. Are there any plans to produce books with list collections, like Armies of Antiquity or Armies of Chivalry, to fill this gaps temporarily until more detailed books can be written, e.g. Armies of America, Armies of the Steppes, Armies of South East Asia etc.

We are more likely to put lists onto the web site, (assuming someone submits good ones!) as a stop gap. However, with a small amount of imagination, many of the existing lists can be made to work for other armies and theres no need to add lots of extra special rules (although some people do).

17) Is the future for WH modern warfare, or will there be again publications for the core ancient/medieval range?

Both, and don’t forget Napoleonics and the American Civil War.

18) Will there be a "Legends of the Colosseum" with rules for ancient gladiator-fights? (Maybe with RPG-influences?)

Actually I have mentioned this somewhere, and the answer is Yes. Indeed anyone with either well painted gladiator and or an interest in the gladiator should get in touch now! We have a draft manuscript and ready for a round or two of playtesting. Its something I am personally interested in as well and we might try and squeeze in chariot racing.

19) The great strength of the WAB-supplements has always been the background. Naturally there isn't much sense in publishing books with similar text for WMA. Would it be an option for further supplements to include the background and both WAB and WMA lists.

We have considered this but WAB is so far along a particular path its not really an option.

20) Is there a period, you wound like to make a supplement for, but think there are not enough interested gamers for? Or do you think a good supplement can create interest for everything?

Another good question. There are a number of periods that I think would make great supplements or products, but the amount of interest seems questionable. I would like us to do a Legends type book for the “Last of the Mohicans” period, there are some fantastic (and well painted) miniatures out there already. On the reverse of that, both the Art of War and Vlad the Impaler are, in my opinion, tremendous WAB supplements (Vlad won an Origins award) but neither have sold as well as I might have expected which is disappointing. So as we are a commercial business I do have to be careful when making choices. I have plenty of sales data so while the core of the community might say “this book will be fantastic and we really want it” sales of similar books might tell me otherwise so it becomes less of a priority.

21) Hey, how long will it take till we see the first awe inspiring supplement for The Great War and what will it definitely be (which army lists may we expect)?

Should be late 2008, November would be good. It will contain the Americans, and the principal mid war Western Front armies. It will also give a number of extra rules to expand the games. We plan several more supplements for the Great War, including Africa and the Italian Front.

22) What era or eras is/are of greatest interest to you personally, what do you play the most and why?

I play WAB the most. I really enjoy it but it does cover a vast period of history.

While I have not read it recently, the Iliad and Odyssey are real favourite books, which because of the “heroic” nature of the combat, probably also explains my interest in Samurai.

My favourite armies in no particular order are as follows - Samurai, Trojan Wars, Romans (either EIR or Caesarian) and Ancient British (but I have yet to collect an army for them). I also have a number of other biblical armies including Egyptians, Hittites and Assyrians and then there's Almoravids, Hungarians, Early Byzantines and the list goes on! I still have Greeks, Koreans, Germans and Macedonians as long term painting projects.

I enjoyed the Great War project, this really got my attention and now has superseded World War Two which was the other major period of interest for me. (Based on books purchased!) Through reading in detail about the Great War, I have learnt a lot of how our world today has been shaped. There are a lot more consequences to that conflict than most people realize and the advances in warfare are staggering. I also enjoy collecting and playing The Great War, and expect to continue doing so for some time.

23) Rob, now that the The Great War Rulebook is released, do you think you will venture for the Great War in Africa or probably the Russian Civil War?

Yes to both.

24) The Great War is pretty far away from ancient or medieval wars and its really not glorious, colorful or romantic. The Great War changed everything. Why did you decide for The Great War?

Because it changed everything! No one else really did it, and it just seemed a good idea, especially after we asked some key business partners and they got really excited about it as well.

25) What about wishes of the customers concerning the release dates of announced supplements? Will they be treated seriously in the future?

We endeavour to meet our publishing deadlines, but sometimes circumstances conspire against us and projects have to be delayed. Like everyone else I want my favourite period or supplement now but I still have to wait for Samurai and a detailed Trojan War supplement.

26) Are there any plans for naval warfare rules in the ancient period by WHW?

Yes, but it needs lots of work.