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INTERVIEW·WHITE DWARF 518

The Games

November 2025·pp. 16–19

THE SHORT VERSION

Phil describes the relationship between miniatures, fictional worlds and game rules as a collaborative act of storytelling. The article recalls an earlier, more generalist studio, explains why models became the starting point for new projects, and shows how rules turn a collection into characters whose actions generate memorable stories at the table.

White Dwarf’s early role as the first home for faction backgrounds and rules leads into the creation of codexes and army books. The final retrospective concerns Age of Sigmar’s birth: reducing its core rules to four pages while imagining the Mortal Realms, then developing that initial framework with new places, artwork and a wider cast.

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InterviewWD 518 · pp. 2–11

50 Years of Games Workshop

This oral history follows Games Workshop from the handmade games and mail-order work of its London beginnings through Citadel Miniatures, Warhammer’s arrival and the move to Nottingham. Staff recollections explain how miniature production became the centre of the business, how the two companies united, and how Rogue Trader emerged from a studio where people routinely wrote, drew and sculpted across job boundaries.

November 2025Read summary
InterviewWD 518 · pp. 12–15

The Miniatures

Designers trace the technical and creative changes from lead figures with integral bases to slotta-bases, multipart plastic kits and digital sculpting. Their memories show how mould constraints shaped familiar designs, why plastic demanded new skills, and how the transition to computers opened up finer detail, larger models and closer collaboration.

November 2025Read summary
InterviewWD 518 · pp. 20–25

The Art of Illumination

Artists Alex and Paul explore the visual character of Warhammer, combining classical artistic influences with the dirt, rebellion and unease of late twentieth-century British punk. The accompanying gallery supports their argument that a convincing image needs an emotional connection to its inhabitants: technical polish, grotesque details and skulls alone cannot make an imagined world feel dangerous. They also explain why digital tools should preserve the scratchy, tangible quality associated with the company’s older art.

November 2025Read summary