Warhammer 40K studio manager Stu Black reflects on the launch of 10th edition

This weekend, Warhammer 40,000: Leviathan goes for pre-order, which begins the process that will lead to the formal launch of the 10th edition of the tabletop wargame in a few weeks or months. There are a number of changes in store for longtime Warhammer 40K fans, including a streamlined ruleset and updates to several classic miniatures.

Against the backdrop of Games Workshop’s major franchise experiencing a huge resurgence in popularity, and with an Amazon streaming series in the works (starring none other than Henry Cavill), Polygon spoke to 40K studio manager Stu Black via email about what the future for the iconic franchise.

[Ed. note: Polygon’s questions have been lightly edited for clarity.]

Polygon: I think the smartest part of the 10th edition announcement – and of the Warhammer 40,000: Leviathan box set — was the unveiling of the new Combat Patrol format. It uses existing products already on store shelves around the world as a sort of pre-programmed playing styleminimizing the effort required to build a new army and keeping pace with the game’s competitive metal layer.

However, it really feels like you’ve been quietly stocking shelves around the world with dozens of Trojans. How did the concept of using this boxed product line as the core of a new format come about? What were your design goals for the Combat Patrol format? And how did you and your team go about balancing all these different factions that had been living in their cardboard boxes for a while?

Stu Black: Combat Patrol builds on the smaller missions of the previous edition and the Combat Patrol boxes were designed with that smaller game in mind, so it was only natural that in the new edition we took it a step further and made it so that players just play one Combat Patrol box against another. One of the design goals for the new edition was to make it as accessible as possible while maintaining the right level of depth and complexity that players enjoy. Combat Patrol is a core part of that approach – making it simple and easy for newer players to jump right into the action on the tabletop. Balancing the various Combat Patrols was an exciting challenge and the team did a great job, with hundreds of test games to ensure a fun, fair experience.

The Leviathan box miniatures feel very, very retro. But the box also very cleverly combines the old with the new – primary standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Terminators dating back almost to the beginning of the 40K line, a huge one Ballistus whose silhouette looks like it’s been ripped from the pages of a 1990s White Dwarf magazine. After the quiet furore that surrounded the encirclement of the mainline Marines before 8th editionwhat is the makeup of this particular Space Marine force that is meant to tell the community where this popular faction is headed, design wise?

I think the core image of a Space Marine has remained pretty consistent for about 40 years now; it has evolved and changed as the design team has been able to create even better miniatures, but the core image remains. Who knows exactly what the future holds for Space Marine fans, but it will always stay true to those core concepts: power armor, shooting weapon, chainsword, large pauldrons and a touch of gothic space knight!

While it feels like we’re getting a new Primaris lieutenant every month or so, I think it’s easy for fans to get the sense that many of the game’s other factions don’t quite get the same amount of attention. How long is the design and production pipeline for something like the new Tyranids coming into Leviathan? What role do other product lines play such as Kill team play in exploring new miniature and faction designs? And what do you say to fans of factions like the Elder, Orcs, and other Xenos who want to see their own Screamer-Killer analogs take on a similar kind of glow?

Image: Games Workshop

Miniature design and production is a multi-year process, often three to five years from concept to launch for something like the Tyranids in Leviathan. Hobbyists will have seen it Kill team bring some amazing miniatures to the 40K arena and it’s a great space to explore things that might be a bit more niche (Beastmen, for example). Everyone has their favorite faction and we all wish ours was next with a major release or feature in a new edition launch box – I was super excited about the Necrons in the last edition as I had been considering a Necron army ever since they were released at the turn of the millennium and Indomite pushed me over the edge. I’m watching the Tyranids from now on Leviathan in a similar way! We have great plans for all factions in the coming years, including some surprises along the way.

Secondment rules — two pages that players switch depending on which army they want to play at the table — feels like a breath of fresh air compared to the 9th edition. People have been lugging around two or three books at a time for years now, and this should free up a lot of brain space, if not pocket space, for players moving towards casual or competitive play. But how does the internal team adapt to these new design constraints? As a writer, I always kill my darlings to make things simpler and leaner on the page. But I imagine it’s a lot harder to do that sort of thing in your industry.

Actually, I think the designers see constraints as a challenge and a lever – they give us a fixed point to lean against as we work towards the design goals. It’s been a fascinating experience as we’ve been constantly cutting things down to the minimum we feel we need to achieve the gaming experience we want to create for players. For each line or mechanic, we carefully evaluated them and asked, “Do we need this? Is there an easier way?” And often it is – perhaps a certain result can be achieved by a change in a statistic rather than an extra line. Of course there’s a balance here – we still want flavor and depth to help the game reflect the stark darkness of the distant future.

Finally, even though 40K seems to be on the rise – visible both by Games Workshop’s publicly released financials, and by the incredible sales rate of your tent sets such as Indomite – there is clearly an even bigger wave on the way. Products like Necromunda: hired rifle, Warhammer 40,000: Dark TideAnd Warhammer 40,000: Bolt gun seem to raise the quality of Games Workshop’s licensed games well into the AAA class. And now here comes Amazon and Henry Cavill to create a 40K cinematic universe. As someone who has been working on the 40K line for over a decade, how have interests changed for you and your team? What will be the biggest key to getting this franchise through the next decade of growth as it is likely suddenly unveiled to mainstream audiences for the first time?

Media and licensing are very exciting, but the focus of the team here in the Studio is on how to make the best version of Warhammer 40,000. It’s become an increasingly exciting and humble task over my 10 or so years in the Studio as more and more hobbyists fall in love with 40K. The responsibility to get it right feels bigger every time, but that’s our focus every day: making it better and more fun for our fellow Warhammer fans. I am sure that whatever the future brings, that mission will be the same in another 10 years.