Entrevista con Jervis Johson

Rather than hijacking someone else’s thread, I figured it best to start a new one.

This was my third year at Adepticon. Still the best tourney in the land. The job that Jeff Chua (in particular) and associates do every year still amazes me.

Took another class from Chris Borer (this year, it was sculpting, last year it was army conversion). I highly recommend any of the seminars, but especially Chris’s, to anyone.

Played in the LotR and 40k TT. I know most people put down LotR, but I think with the Legions book out, it’s one of the best games on the market now and certainly better than 40k or WFB. I will admit that part of the reason is they got to start new with it and learn from their lessons on the other two games. It’s relatively inexpensive (around $100) to get an army, plays fast and furious, and relies on in-game tactics not the uber-army list to win games.

The 40k TT reinforced why I don’t play 40k much (in fact, only a handful of games since last Adepticon, which may explain some of our mistakes). I was on the drop-podding Space Wolf team (and I was the guilty party for not getting my vehicles highlighted). In the second round, got wiped off the board by the 40k Wrecking Crew 3 and their Emperor’s Children list. They out-shot us and made up for it by being better in hand-to-hand as well. In the third round, Russ’s heirs took out their frustrations on an over-matched IG/Sisters army that was razed to the ground. I can’t characterize either game as ‘fun’ because I felt they both owed more to army vs. army match-up and the scenarios (and I think the adepticon scenarios are better than anything GW had done) rather than game-level tactics.

I sat in on Jervis Johnson’s round-table on Sunday morning. Here’s some highlights of what I can remember:

· Jervis says his job is to get more people playing with toy soldiers and have fun doing it.

· LotR sales have dropped off, but leveled out around 10-15% of total sales. Sales of Legions and Arnor where higher than they expected. A friend in Saturday’s session reports Jervis said it was between 1/4 and 1/6 of sales which is 25-16%.

· Overall, it sounds like they have adopted a more professional and business-like attitude towards their games development team. He said that in the past, they relied too much on inspiration. And the results are multiple 40k Chaos codices between 40k Ork codices. They need to regularly revisit and support armies. He said this doesn’t mean they may follow the same release order each time they’re revisited, but that they won’t go 10 years without revisiting an army either.

· GW has decided that they have 10-15 armies in both WFB and 40k that need to be regularly supported. There will be no more variant lists. They’re going to incorporate them into the parent army list as much as possible. This is partly to avoid the Storm of Chaos fiasco (army lists disallowed for tourneys) and partly to address balance.

· The extreme ends of armies need to be addressed, including min/maxing of lists.

· They need to avoid not just raising the ceiling of an army, but also, they need to not raise the floor. He said they often reduce the weakness of an army in future incarnations, and that’s the same as raising the power level.

· People need to be able to buy what they want, and make an effective army out of it, if they can figure out the tactics. (I take this to mean, no more junk units like ork stikkbombaz).

· Jervis pretty much admitted 40k isn’t balanced and they’re working to address that.

· It’s undecided if the next marine codex will be Codex: Space Marines of Codex: Ultramarines (aka Codex: Codex Marines). Not all marines are codex chapters, and they need to decide if the codex will cover all marine chapters, or just codex ones. If its codex chapters, expect the DA build (1 termie hvy weapon, combat squads, etc.).

· The studio needs to reduce the number of special rules or “half rules” as Jervis called them. For example, he took Stubborn out of DA and replaced it with Fearless. He said that Stubborn was meant to be real similar to Fearless, so why have a special rule to cover it, when there is an existing rule that is nearly the same thing.

· There are the core game mechanics, and the army books can’t change them. And, yes, he’s aware that transports aren’t working well.

· He commented that 40k is on V4, and it’s really only two versions into a radical rules change. WFB is on its seventh edition, so it’s had more time to work out the bugs.

· He commented that the game is a contract between two players to have fun. He is pushing to include a section similar to the first D&D rules. ‘This is not a game like any other. Leave your preconceived notions at the door. This is about having fun.’

· Cities of Death was very popular. They want to do similar books because it’s a chance to alter the play of the game, without it working back into the core game mechanics and breaking things. These may not necessarily be ‘environmental’ settings but just a chance to play the game a little different (with strategems, etc.).

· He’s learned they need to stop tinkering with things and get the points cost correct. As an example, people complained a shooty army wasn’t shooty enough because they were BS 3. He said the temptation is to make the army BS4, but then that’s broken too. He said that he’s learned the answer is to leave them BS3 and get the points cost right.

· There was a discussion on ork choppas (40k). He said that was an example of a “half rule”. It was meant to only help orks vs. marines, and yes, it doesn’t make sense that IG don’t care if they have choppas. However, since there is a rule for heavy close combat weapons, I don’t see this going away either.

· FAQ are there to address ‘grey’ areas in the game with different interpretations possible. Example, DA cannot assault out of drop-pods. Yes, nowhere does it say the troops inside the pod count as arriving by Deep Strike, but they do. Errata are there to fix mistakes. He said there is a magic item in the Ogre Kingdoms book that gives a bonus to casting spells. As printed, it makes it harder to cast because it’s a +1 not a -1 (or the other way around, I don’t play WFB). That’s a mistake in the book and they’ll fix it in later printings and by errata.

· FAQ and Errata are not a chance to fix ‘mistakes’ the game developers made (like Wolf Guard in termie armor with Wolf Scouts).

· The game needs to appeal to both the veteran gamer and someone who just bought Battle for Macragge.

· They assume too much knowledge of the gamer. His son put together a tactical squad. He said about every five minutes there was a question. “Is this a power weapon?” “No, it’s a combat knife.” “Is this a jump pack?” “No, it’s a backpack.” Etc.

· Special Characters are going right into the list entry because some tourneys didn’t allow them. He said these are the arch-types of their army, and great figs, and he wants people to play them.

· 40k is meant to be balanced for pick-up games of 1500-2000 points and that is their goal with future releases.

· Someone brought up Ghazkull, and how the problem is if he charges with a squad, everyone in his kill zone is gone before he attacks with his power claws. Jervis said that is not a problem with the model, it’s a game mechanic problem. He didn’t say it’ll be fixed anytime soon.

· GW publishs in six languages, and there are sometimes translation problems. It also means that when they do a FAQ, it needs to be up on multiple websites (in six languages) at the same time.

· Jervis wrote the DA codex as an example to the team of what he wants their work to be. Also, there will be less variation from book to book based on the writer.

· GW did not let go their external playtesters as was rumored. Previously, they were putting the work in progress of a book on their website for their “techpriests and geeks” to download and review. These people tended to offer lots of feedback on the army list and play. They didn’t see the final page layout, just a word document. Now, they get ‘as near to final as we can manage’ layouts and are just told to comment on errors and problems, and they are not to comment on the army list.

· He took bionics and purity seals out of the DA codex because people weren’t taking the wargear (or using some models) because they didn’t want to pay the points for the item. He sees them as modeling aesthetics and so took them out of the wargear.