If you remember the days when White Dwarf doubled as a training school for the next generation of Games Workshop designers, Trench Crusade publisher Factory Fortress is bringing that model back. Lead designer Tuomas Pirinen, the man behind 1999's cult skirmish classic Mordheim, has assembled a team of ex-GW heavyweights to mentor two junior designers in real time, with the work published twice a week on the game's online journal The Trench Wire. Trench Crusade itself is a 28mm grimdark skirmish wargame set in a hellscape alternate WW1, all crusader knights, war saints and unholy machinery.
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Start organising for freeThe mentor list reads like a who's-who of British wargaming. Jervis Johnson, who originally hired Pirinen at GW back in the late 1990s, now handles structure, rules tightening and feedback. Andy Chambers (Warhammer 40K, StarCraft 2) brings what Pirinen calls "creative chaos." Horus Heresy novelist Graham McNeill is on the lore side, and lead artist Mike Franchina (Diablo IV, Path of Exile 2) and sculptor James Sherriff round out the senior team. "We've got 100 years combined experience now," Pirinen told Wargamer.
The two junior designers, community-organiser-turned-designer Sammy Dae and freelancer Brook Close, are learning the whole pipeline: playtesting, rules writing, lore writing, and even painting techniques tuned for design rather than display. Their experimental work goes straight into The Trench Wire, which publishes new pieces twice a week, including community rules, tactical guides and the ongoing Carcass Front expansion content.
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Find events near youTrench Crusade exploded onto Kickstarter in October 2024, smashing its $66,666 goal in 20 minutes and closing at $3.3 million from over 20,000 backers. With a starter set, expansions and the Carcass Front waves now shipping to retail, the team needs new designers fast, and they'd rather grow them in-house than poach. It's a charming bit of industry continuity at a moment when most publishers are quietly cutting budgets, and it could mean a steady stream of fresh, well-mentored talent for the wargaming hobby.
Sources: Wargamer | Trench Crusade | Bell of Lost Souls
