My guest on show number 33 is Gav Thorpe, formerly of Games Workshop and, to his fans, a legendary member of the GW team for nearly 14 years.
Gav fulfilled a number of roles during his time at GW, not least his creative and design input in the Inquisitor game, as Loremaster (yes, a real title!) and Lead Background Designer for Warhammer Fantasy Battle 6th Edition and his involvement with White Dwarf magazine, to name just three.
In this long chat (over three hours – I’m afraid some of you who prefer shorter podcasts will have to use the pause button and listen in two chunks), we cover not just Gav’s history with ‘the Nottingham Mafia’, but also his subsequent and ongoing life as a hugely successful novelist and winner of the David Gemmell Legend Award in 2017. This discussion therefore has a double appeal for both wargamers interested in fantasy and sci-fi gaming, and also for those of you who I know are keen to hear pearls of wisdom from masters of the writing craft.
Don’t be fooled into thinking that Gav’s interests are narrow and entirely genre-based, however, because this is a man who collected Airfix soldiers and fought historical games like most of us before he encountered dungeoning and fantasy gaming, and has plenty to say about the appeal of ‘rank and flank’ gaming of the sort familiar to everyone ranging from ancients to horse and musket gamers.
The show would have been rather shorter, but we managed to tag on an extra bit answering questions submitted by fans both here and on Twitter, so some of you may recognise your names!
Finally, poor Gav was suffering from the most terrible cough and cold, so I spent more than a day editing out his involuntary eruptions, but you will probably still be able to detect that the poor man was a bit ‘bunged up’ in the nasal area. Nevertheless, it didn’t prevent him talking at the speed of a racing commentator for three hours, so you may need to brace yourselves for this fast-talking hero of the hobby!
I really enjoyed my chat with this incredibly enthusiastic writer and games designer and I hope that you will too.
Henry
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