Jervis Johnson and Rick Priestley on Necromunda
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- Опубликовано: 15 май 2024
- I spent an afternoon hanging out with Jervis Johnson and Rick Priestley who were kind enough to spend a bit of time chatting about the history and development of Necromunda.
There's some really interesting talk about the "shrinking the 40k sandbox" mindset, and how the game's continued support through Fanatic Magazine came to an end (in an official capacity).
Rick also discovers Warhammer: The Old World aha.
As always, a big thanks to both Jervis and Rick for taking the time to sit down and film this with me.
These videos were made in my spare time, and if you wish to pop a donation my way to help support me it'd be greatly appreciated:
Paypal: PayPal.Me/Filmdeg
Necromunda bulkheads are the greatest terrain pieces in any wargame, ever.
They're fantastic tools for sparking creativity. You can build almost anything you can imagine with them.
Agreed
Listening to them talk about that 40k was supposed to be Ancient Rome in space, with long travel times and isolated chapters and planets, was really interesting.
Also a shame to hear outside execs coming in, not knowing anything about the games, and demanding products being take out of circulation.
They are the same execs that 'fail upward' all over retail and sucking the biggest salary out of a business for the privilege 😔
It certainly explains, what was to me, heart breaking cessations of products that had totally captured my fascination and awe, with no real equivalent successors. It was definitely a steady decay of a GW golden age.
@@wmandthings
Top heavy , disconnected and unaccountable leadership has been the downfall of many institutions
People like those shouldn't be allowed anywhere near ... well anything really, but most especially creative "industries".
The thing with slashing generals from the model line is the perfect illustration of what happens when everything is reduced to a number in a spreadsheet.
Thanks for doing these and thanks to the guests for giving up their time as well
Necromunda was one of the greatest games Games Workshop ever produced
Hearing that there could have been a craftworld necromunda-alike makes my Eldar soul weep in frustrated sorrow.
That sounds cool, like the squabbles after the fall in a type of skirmish game?
That's one of my slow burn projects. WarInHeaven28
Necromunda sums up 40k for me...true grim dark...life in the Hives whilst the 40k battles rage elsewhere! Great interview.
Youve taken the feedback to heart and given them microphones. not too shabby :)
Ironically I actually ended up using the camera audio for this rather than the lapel mics aha
@@Filmdegminiatures I guess you turned off the fountain in Mr Priestly's basement then :)
These two gentlemen should have a giant statue carved in stone . Absolute legends. So many hours of great gaming Ive had due to their designs.
I think greenstuff would be more appropriate😂
@@nickjones2470I was going to say lead!
Anything but resin..
Finecast Jervis' ankle snapped again!
...sigh... Get the super glue again. The big one.
“If you make something that’s cool, it’ll be popular.” We’ve lost a lot of that in all segments of our entertainment media.
Had to laugh at the Boots suits being thrown under the bus :)! Great interview, thank you to all.
Please talk about Warmaster next. It is the most influential of these games in the wider wargaming world!
There’s an interview on Jordan sorcery’s channel with one of these Boots guys. He seems to be the exact person they’re talking about 😂
@@royalstonmusic That is the exact guy I think they were talking about ;)
I could listen to this all day. What a great look at super creative folks looking back at key moments in their career.
The thing I've found over the years that works incredibly well with Necromunda to avoid that runaway train aspect is to go in making it clear to your players: when you start to push your head above the muck in the underhive, what it sees is an exposed throat. As gangs gain Reputation from wins, what that translates to is bounty hunters, vengeful former victims and marks, and eventually the attentions of Helmawr turning up to knock them down, and as a gang suffers they reach a point of desperation where they might sell out to the Guilds, Nobles, or the powers of Chaos or Genestealers. Which of course will damn them to everlasting destruction etc - but, AFTER the campaign.
Would love a deep dive with Rick into the creation of Warmaster and how design choices about scale, basing, rules, armies etc. were made.
It’s on my to do list aha, Rick and I have chatted about a Warmaster video. I’m doing some more filming roughly this time next month so I’m going to reach out to Rick and see if he’s available for this.
@@Filmdegminiatures Legendary 🙏 love to know what he thinks about the fan army lists and ongoing rules projects
Great interview, wonderful to see the gangs made by the games creators. Jervis is such a nice guy too, this is the first interview I've seen with him.
Jordan Sorcery did one recently with him that’s well worth checking out!
Brilliant! Love seeing Rick and Jarvis in action.
I love finding out all these years later that all the things that drove me crazy about GW (and ultimately drove me AWAY from GW) were also making Rick crazy (and ultimately drove him away from GW).
I'm so glad this is being captured. What a great conversation.
Absolutely loved Necromunda back in the day. My mates and I would pool our sets together to build these massive hives that made for some awesome 3D games. It's one big flaw, which they touch on a bit around 32:00, was the need to convert your minis so that their weaoins and equipment were accurately represented, which of course some people love doing, but is actually quite hard to do with metal models. So what we all ended up doing was proxying in various models based on what weapon they carried, and so your gang members just turned into their weapons. So you'd say, "my lasgun guy [which was an Imperial guardsman] is going to shoot at your bolter guy [which was a space marine]." Having said all that, I never had as much fun with a game system as I did with Necromunda. Thanks Rick and Jervis!
we used to stick the weapons they actually had on the bases with blu-tac or name each mini and provide a list to the opponent (none of this was for a tourney though - just mates games)
I wrote a letter and Jervis answered back about my WYSIWYG question and he said (paraphrasing here) that it was fine with a proxy if you saw something in a WD but as a matter of course you should have models depicted as equipped.
Gorkamorka deserves an honourable mention! My brother brought at least two sets, maybe three even for the vehicles and crews. He was more of a figure collector and never really played much table top. I liked the look of the game, the combat rules were very easy to follow, it made sense that missiles weapons were rare and that melee combat was going to be a thing. Vehicular movement though stopped me playing, it looked horribly complicated and I just gave up. There'll be people still playing it, we'll see other games that were inspired by it, my brother still loves the miniatures and I do too. Big thank you to anyone who worked on the Gorkamorka project.
Our group played quite a bit of Necromunda so when Gorkamorka came out, we started playing that and while it didn't get out of hand, some of our guys would take AMT model car kits and use those...course they' could hold a bunch of orks but they were really easy to ram and hard to maneuver; talk about a 'happy accident' moment. Also orks getting shot at point blank range with a kannon and just shrugging it off (because they didn't get pinned) was funny (nothing like someone failing an initiative test to board and get caught under the vehicle and getting scattered around, taking more damage but ultimately getting spit out of and the ork just stands up and dusts himself off).
It’s kinda funny to see how often the “Oil Rig” terrain concept has come up since Rick left, Shadow War Armageddon seems very much based around that style of scenery, and a lot of the catwalk systems GW has since made are designed in such a way to easily make that style of structure.
There is even a decent oilrig diorama at Games Workshop.
The latest season of Kill Team is basically just set on an oil rig. Also we recently got sump sea rules for Necromunda itself so plenty of scratch built oil rigs showing up there
@@kwest9747 Yeah, I think that's the Shadow War one!
7:45 I love this bit about Andy taking the reins and making it WWII in space. So Rick clearly had a different vision in mind, medieval/feudal Europe, with some Ancient Rome and a focus on the long lengths of time to get anywhere (but in space).
Absolutely brilliant interview! Could easily have listened to another 40 minutes.
Many thanks for publishing these great videos! Such a treat!
Thank you so much for doing these videos
Such a fantastic series, keep 'em coming.
Another great interview - thanks
Nice TSR-2.
Corgi die cast - it's a bit heavy!
This is great, thanks
Great interview. Thanks!
That was actually absolutely fascinating. Thank you for that.
Love this interview
One of the best videos yet.
Fantastic series! ❤
This was super interesting!
Thank you both for all the happiness and everything! 30 years into the hobby and thank to you and few other great artists writers and game devs! Cheers from Brazil!
I left the hobby in the late 90s so when I came back around the start of 9th edition I was super pleased to find out Necromunda was still a thing. Even better when we got a squat gang!
Great video and having them mic'ed up makes a massive difference!
Despite them being mic’d up I actually just used the camera audio for this.
@@Filmdegminiatures Kudos for recording both so you could use the best audio :)
I had the pleasure of meeting Richard Halliwell at a home in Nottingham back in 2013. Mad, bad and dangerous is a great description of him. He was a diamond geezer. We spent about 4 hours chatting, and he told me all about his travels and the scrapes he had gotten into. Some of his tales had me in stitches. When I was leaving, a nurse on reception called a doctor over to say… “this gentleman has spent all day talking to Richard… and survived!” such was his reputation. Anyway, great videos, love the channel!
What a wonderful interview. Thanks a million.
Fascinating. Just fascinating! Really filled more of my knowledge of GWs history, a history I actually lived through! And also the strategy of game publishing too.
Thanks for this interview. Jervis and Rick are 2 person I've never met but somewhere I know because their works went along my life since early 90s. Thanks to them for this, thanks to them for accepting this interview. :D
This has been great! I hope to see the two of them talking together in a future video. No preferences about the sbject, I'd listen to them talk about anything hobby-related for hours!
If necromunda was planned to be a Christmas present, then it is my favorite one ❤ Thanks for all your efforts!
Thanks!
Two icons, great interview
Just brilliant…
Brilliant! Thanks for doing tese, they're great. .
It's always great to hear their insight, I am glad the old GW crew are doing so many interviews. I wish they had have taken the plunge with alternating activations in the 90s, like current Necromunda! It's so hard to go back to I-go-U-go after playing Newcromunda!
And Kill Team, don't forget 😊
Give me 20h of these lads m8 🍻💪
We put our 40K stuff away for a good long while when Necro came out! Also the Goblin Green Flocked bases or you cant play with them in the store caused a big issue when I worked retail. Some gent had an amazing gang with flooring and hazard stripes that was told he could not play in the store unless he rebased. He never came back in and rightly so!
Loved it 🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻👌🏻
Jervis was always my favourite designer at GW in that era. A true gentleman hobbyist.
Very interesting indeed. I had all the Confrontation rules in WD. It was indeed quite complex! But it had some wonderful minis👍
Necromunda is the best game GW ever produced in my opinion.
Don't get me wrong, I love Blood Bowl, W40k (4th and 5th mostly) and Warhammer Fantasy, but man, Necromunda is just the perfection of their rules.
Without knowing it I used to almost exclusively play Jervis Johnson games. Space Marine, BB, Necromunda. The absolute GOAT of playable enjoyable games design
Agreed.
Iv always maintained that the pull of gw is in part because it is so cool. And the fact that these guys (who i love) nailed that cool vibe is just magnificent 😆
Necromunda is my favorite GW product, it's so damn cool and grim dark. I'm obsessed nowadays, thanks gentleman
My GW Mount Rushmore is probably these two plus Pirinen and Chambers, although Stillman deserves at least an honorable mention.
I find the lore that was written up in WD for Space Fleet is great at explaining just how vast the imperium is. You really get the isolated province vibe from it.
Maybe it's just my nostalgia but this was really the golden age of GW. A real flurry of amazing games; Necromunda, Warhammer Quest, Mordheim, even Man O War.
Legends❤
Already legends in miniature gaming but the insight into game design makes this fantastic
"If you make stuff that's cool, it's popular basically, and you can achieve both of those things together." - lost wisdom from the ages!
Love Necromunda - collected minis from before the first box set with Confrontation - still play Necromunda now (Scavvies my old gang, Helots my new one)
Hearing them describe the 40k universe as rome in soace was great - i always got the feeling that the 40k universe was like the foundation universe - massove decaying empire, so vast that its jard to even know whats happening on the other side.
I'd love one of these on epic.
3rd edition epic is the best 40k universe game! An incredible rule set #GetBackTo3rdEdEpic 💪🍻
any chance of seeing these two gentlemen face off in a Necromunda or 40k 2nd edition battle report??
3:49 It's a really interesting business strategy - they call it the '80/20' rule.
What it means is that even if you are doing well and selling well, you still jhettison the bottom 20% of the business to concentrate on the better selling 80%.
Of course if you did that with 40k you would lose EVERYTHING except for Space Marines, and then without the Xenos, Chaos etc the Space Marines themselves become less attractive. You need the poorer selling things to add colour and dynamism to the world.
Remember a Necromunda over in one shooting attack. My Heavy (van Saar) targeted the objective, a water still, with his heavy stubber, hit and I managed to wound it and take it out. Then my gang exfiltrated after mission accomplished. Was a bit anticlimactic....
I've done the same thing. 10xp for everyone for achieving the mission. Can't complain to much
He's a Shogun fan!! Of course!
I don't know if it was a 'happy accident' or brilliant game design with the experience point chart and the scenario tables; usually the lower gang rating chose the scenario (and if you were smart you chose ones involving loot or the raid where the larger gang didn't start with all models on the table.
One of my Goliath gangs (I ran quite a few as well as Ratskins and a Genestealer cult) got decimated in an Ambush and lost six of my gang, including my leader and a heavy. The GM running the campaign asked me if I wanted to restart with new gang but I said "Nah, we're Goliaths, we're too stupid to quit" and over the course of the next several games, I racked up a ton of experience and credits (giant killer bonuses and missions revolving around loot counters were key) and each of those 'OGs' became absolute terrors with over 200 xps...favorite tactics included Vent or Tunnel deployed flamer heavy (while heavy weapons were great for range, I preferred "special' weapons that were more mobile) and close combat gangers that were really good at throwing folks off of towers (Hurl Opponent was such a fun and generally dismissed skill).
Ah, fun times!
Is it Rolex Daytona Jervis is sporting on his wrist? Super cool
The "Boots execs" anecdote is funny, but I think you can actually see how some of that management of SKUs has translated into the modern equivalent of Warmaster / Epic which is really Legions Imperialis.
All the kits are pretty much in and around the same price point - there's no "general" unit at a small price point which everyone needs only one of. If I want an HQ unit for my astartes list it comes on the sprue in the Infantry box which costs a flat £30 RRP. So from a sales exec point of view I'd imagine it results in a much more even looking distribution for what people are buying, because most people are going to want a box of infantry and it comes with the HQ already, wanting more of other things like missile launchers or plasma is bad for the consumer, but good for GW because it incentivises repeat purchases of the box. All of which is to say you can see how that sales focus has bled into the design of the products over the years.
Having mentioned 2000 AD: that's an old Rogue Trooper model at the head of Jervis' gang! 29:45
Heaven.
i always thought that the older space marine/titan legions epic could have been better iterated by turning the card system into codexes like the other main games had.
the detachment system from the post 'dark millenium' 40k era (i forget which edition it was, but the 3rd armageddon war happened during it) could have worked well as an analogue for the way the card-detachment rules worked.
Are you sure Rick's gang is Cawdor? Look more like tropical Orlocks
They are - it wasn’t covered in the video sadly, but I made a point of asking him afterwards
34:21 A Rogues Gallery if ever there was one
Great chat.
What are both men working on now?
I love the way these GW legends consider Space Marines much the same way the band Radiohead see their song ‘Creep’ or Nirvana with ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’.
12:08
Kill Team is the new Necromunda, with Space Marines.
Goliaths are a cross between Dwarves and Orks? So... Dorks?
What was the night world that’s referred to after the Eldar craft world?
I think they said 'Knight World'. As in Imperial Knights, which debuted in the Epic system they mentioned. So they were probably thinking of doing a Knight vs Knight secondary game in the epic scale system.
Good to (not) see House Delaque sneak below the radar there 🫣
Jervis sounds like Christopher Lee 😳
It was funny when they tried going the 2D boards, and all the fans went mental and just went back to playing the 3D version
please talk blood bowl next
GW should never have put resources into the 'new' Horus Heresy game and just focused on 40k and Supplementary Games like Necromunda...
Stargrave is fantastic and very much 'ahem' influenced by Necromunda.
There is powerful passion in both gentlemen. Such people would not close discord serwer because too much people enter and would ban others because of vibe.
modern necromunda if pretty F*ing good too, just sayin.
Thanks for the interview!!!!! I love the old Necromunda models.
Listening to this, it sound like the corporates ruined Games Workshop. I got into Warhammer 40K with Epic, then they gave up on the game, now I understand why. I love and hate Games Workshop, their game systems and models. I hate the way they keep changing the rules.
They should be the statues out side GW and the company values should be rewritten by them....and the share holders should be disloved and GW should go private again....pray for the future of our hobby with GW playing the corporate America/UK leadership wars!
These interviews are excellent, but I really think could do with an editor to cut out the bits where they ramble a bit or go off topic. Still, really enjoyable.
Mic is probably in the wrong place for the guy on Mr. Priestley. Mic should probably on the side he is facing to talk. He's just a little harder to understand.
Jesus, imagine watching this and that being the one thing you comment on :/
these guys do not make audio easy. Also Jervis sounds nothing like I thought he would.
Jervis sounds nothing like you thought? Have you heard John blanche? How dare that bad ass looking biker from the 90s white dwarf be so softly spoken!
"Warriors of the Emperor..."
Jervis's dad - the actor Richard Johnson - used to do voice-overs on TV adds - amongst other things - and I think Jervis has inherited the cultured, sonorious tones. Hard to compete with to be honest!
@@rickpriestley4569 ahhh that'd explain it :D
The Shill and the Boss