Interview with Titanicus rules writer James Hewitt

[Captain Taelos]

I don't normally listen to the Age of Darkness podcast, but the last episode (81) features an excellent interview with James Hewitt, rules writer for Titanicus. It starts around 2:09 and is well worth a listen for anyone interested in the thinking behind the game. (Apologies if it's already linked elsewhere, but I had a look and couldn't see it referenced anywhere here) 

http://age-of-darkness-podcast.blogspot.com/2018/08/episode-81-white-scars-dreads-call-in.html?m=1

[Captain Idaho]

What's the jist of it? Any decent reveals?

[Achinadav]

Some talk about having "done enough" with infantry, fliers and tanks to know that they'll fit into the system. And also trying to avoid wonkiness like bolters stripping void shields. Also a bit about Forgeworld having a more interlinked structure and the timelines of the AT design; the decision to go to plastic models being made an hour AFTER the relevant White Dwarf issue had gone to print!

 

James Hewitt clearly loves playing & designing games. He's done his best to deliver AT so it feels like your a princeps without letting intricate rules bog down gameplay or get in the way of fun.

[Reyner]

His AMA on Reddit was good, I'll listen to this tomorrow. 

[Sandlemad]

Good interview! I like Jamie's attitude of 'push the reactor or you're a coward'. Got a few notes here:

 

Inspiration

Jamie drew some ideas from older versions of battletech and heavy gear, as well as giant robot films (Robot Jox!), but largely based on different versions of AT/Epic, as well as any other GW game which titans have been used in. Some functions based on moments in BL books, Jamie went through them going 'that'd be a cool rule'. Case in point, the first test game of a warlord vs two warhounds was specifically to see how a scene in Abnett's Titanicus would feel, if a warlord would really feel threatened in dense terrain like that. Repair dice mechanic inspired by his work on AoS Silver Tower, orders from battlefleet gothic, general heatsink stuff inspired by other mech games.

 

The change from resin to plastic:

Jamie wasn't party to it, decided a month and a half after rules were handed in. Delay was unexpected, notes that due to how compartmentalised GW was, ended up with a sizeable chunk of a WD issue mentioning AT in the contents and a bunch of mention of BL titan books, etc. but the decision to shift was made an hour after it went to print...

 

The original brief was to be targeted as 'veteran players' in same fashion as the FW's heresy. So in the rules it's deliberately retro, complex, has a conversational tone. Hence resin, hence no starter kit, hence everything coming separate with plastic terrain. This began to seem unrealistic as when GW proper were looking at the (big, hardback) rulebook idea, the forecasts were that if they sold X thousand books and titans to go with them, they were already six months behind schedule for making that many resin warlords to be ready for launch. Also Blood Bowl was a massive success, making way more than expected and 'proving' the existence of a demand for specialist games (which in fairness to him Jamie said that his team could already have told them).

 

Jamie noted that this caused further delays. It took Chris three months to translate the non-digital reaver to a workable resin model, then another three to make that into a plastic sprue.

 

Rules

Built up and torn down three or four times until it worked, let alone being good. Six months of playtesting, more than most GW games. Granularity was always a focus but tracking damage, reactors, voids, etc took a lot of tries. One idea was tracking with dry wipe markers or special dice before they got to the command consoles thing. Tricky one for GW sourcing (cardboard, etc) to figure out. Jamie still has many old versions of command consoles, might blog on it at needycatgames.com.

 

Says his method was to watch for playtesters making a face, then scaled back the complexity. Mentioned how folks have spotted that knights can hit a warlord in the head as a weird feature. Originally each location had a separate scale, could only be targeted by weapons from a level two scale points above or below them. Ended up being forgotten or mixed up in playtesting, decided that it was easier treating it as an abstraction despite the weirdness, could theoretically be some sort of chain reaction or short range fire or however you want to justify it.

 

Some wackier 80s/90s elements - assault ram heads, caestus terminator boarding-fists, landing pads - got personal pushback from senior GW folks (a hard line was drawn against titan jump jets) but Jamie reckons that if folks make a noise about it, maaaybe things would change. He loved the Warmonger's landing pad in particular with fighters appearing mid-game and was; definitely not saying that rules were written and tested for them early on and may appear online for a legally distinct game called Dadeptus Didanicus (). He said that player communication with FW is noticed.

 

Different legions

Can't remember why they chose Tempestus and Gryphonicus for the rulebook, thinks he was just told to go with them. Weird but there you go. Other legions being worked on for other books. As with personal traits, different maniples and varied wargear, the aim is to stop games feeling 'samey' despite using the same units being in most forces.

 

The future

Notes that he has been out of GW for a year and so has minimal info. Big desire was that any future infantry expansion wouldn't ruin the existing game, precedent of Space Marine 'breaking' old AT with stuff like marines stripping void shields. They didn't go deep but they made enough of an attempt that if vehicles or orks or infantry were introduced, they're have a good idea of what to do.

 

Jamie did say that focus was likely to be getting titan vs titan combat right. Mentioned Andy said they want to look at titan classes who've been only briefly mentioned, including all the different weird chaotic versions whose names blur together. Sees great potential to twisting the machine spirit rules for daemonic possession.

 

I should also note that Jamie did a recent AMA on reddit about the rules which repeats/precedes a lot of what he said here, as well as confirming the tactical validity of half-dead flaming dual-fist reavers punching warlords' heads off.

[Marshal Rohr]

Good interview! I like Jamie's attitude of 'push the reactor or you're a coward'. Got a few notes here:

 

Inspiration

Jamie drew some ideas from older versions of battletech and heavy gear, as well as giant robot films (Robot Jox!), but largely based on different versions of AT/Epic, as well as any other GW game which titans have been used in. Some functions based on moments in BL books, Jamie went through them going 'that'd be a cool rule'. Case in point, the first test game of a warlord vs two warhounds was specifically to see how a scene in Abnett's Titanicus would feel, if a warlord would really feel threatened in dense terrain like that. Repair dice mechanic inspired by his work on AoS Silver Tower, orders from battlefleet gothic, general heatsink stuff inspired by other mech games.

 

The change from resin to plastic:

Jamie wasn't party to it, decided a month and a half after rules were handed in. Delay was unexpected, notes that due to how compartmentalised GW was, ended up with a sizeable chunk of a WD issue mentioning AT in the contents and a bunch of mention of BL titan books, etc. but the decision to shift was made an hour after it went to print...

 

The original brief was to be targeted as 'veteran players' in same fashion as the FW's heresy. So in the rules it's deliberately retro, complex, has a conversational tone. Hence resin, hence no starter kit, hence everything coming separate with plastic terrain. This began to seem unrealistic as when GW proper were looking at the (big, hardback) rulebook idea, the forecasts were that if they sold X thousand books and titans to go with them, they were already six months behind schedule for making that many resin warlords to be ready for launch. Also Blood Bowl was a massive success, making way more than expected and 'proving' the existence of a demand for specialist games (which in fairness to him Jamie said that his team could already have told them).

 

Jamie noted that this caused further delays. It took Chris three months to translate the non-digital reaver to a workable resin model, then another three to make that into a plastic sprue.

 

Rules

Built up and torn down three or four times until it worked, let alone being good. Six months of playtesting, more than most GW games. Granularity was always a focus but tracking damage, reactors, voids, etc took a lot of tries. One idea was tracking with dry wipe markers or special dice before they got to the command consoles thing. Tricky one for GW sourcing (cardboard, etc) to figure out. Jamie still has many old versions of command consoles, might blog on it at needycatgames.com.

 

Says his method was to watch for playtesters making a face, then scaled back the complexity. Mentioned how folks have spotted that knights can hit a warlord in the head as a weird feature. Originally each location had a separate scale, could only be targeted by weapons from a level two scale points above or below them. Ended up being forgotten or mixed up in playtesting, decided that it was easier treating it as an abstraction despite the weirdness, could theoretically be some sort of chain reaction or short range fire or however you want to justify it.

 

Some wackier 80s/90s elements - assault ram heads, caestus terminator boarding-fists, landing pads - got personal pushback from senior GW folks (a hard line was drawn against titan jump jets) but Jamie reckons that if folks make a noise about it, maaaybe things would change. He loved the Warmonger's landing pad in particular with fighters appearing mid-game and was; definitely not saying that rules were written and tested for them early on and may appear online for a legally distinct game called Dadeptus Didanicus (). He said that player communication with FW is noticed.

 

Different legions

Can't remember why they chose Tempestus and Gryphonicus for the rulebook, thinks he was just told to go with them. Weird but there you go. Other legions being worked on for other books. As with personal traits, different maniples and varied wargear, the aim is to stop games feeling 'samey' despite using the same units being in most forces.

 

The future

Notes that he has been out of GW for a year and so has minimal info. Big desire was that any future infantry expansion wouldn't ruin the existing game, precedent of Space Marine 'breaking' old AT with stuff like marines stripping void shields. They didn't go deep but they made enough of an attempt that if vehicles or orks or infantry were introduced, they're have a good idea of what to do.

 

Jamie did say that focus was likely to be getting titan vs titan combat right. Mentioned Andy said they want to look at titan classes who've been only briefly mentioned, including all the different weird chaotic versions whose names blur together. Sees great potential to twisting the machine spirit rules for daemonic possession.

 

I should also note that Jamie did a recent AMA on reddit about the rules which repeats/precedes a lot of what he said here, as well as confirming the tactical validity of half-dead flaming dual-fist reavers punching warlords' heads off.

 

 

Thank you for the summary, Sandlemad!