2014 has been a huge year for Warlord Games… our range has grown massively over the last twelve months, with major releases for all of our systems…. new books, new starter sets, great swathes of reinforcements on all sides – and even a whole new game now released into the hands of the eagerly awaiting public!
So – with 2014 drawing to a close, we’d like to take the opportunity to say a huge, huge ‘Thank you!’ to each and every one of you – the support that we’ve seen over the past year has been absolutely amazing. Our customer-base has swollen hugely this year, and it always amazes us just how friendly, knowledgeable, creative, talented, and eager to help you all are… without you fine folks, we wouldn’t be able to do what we love!
Speaking of which…. your ranks are swelling, and we’re receiving messages from every corner of the globe, with more and more stores, clubs, and individuals popping-up on every continent – we’re honoured to call each and every one of you a Warlord Games customer and enthusiast.
When you’re ‘in the thick of it’ – it can sometimes be difficult to see the bigger picture – so we thought we’d take a moment to gain some perspective, and reflect upon some of the key developments and highlights of 2014.
John Stallard
Owner of Warlord Games, big cheese – our valiant leader!
What a year its been for Warlord! New designers joining us, new staff in all departments, and more model soldiers coming out every week! Bolt Action is shaping up to be a monster hit, with lots more campaign books to follow. The awesome La Haye Sainte set has gone down very well – it makes a great Christmas present… hint hint!
We have partnered up with Italeri, the Italian plastic model manufacturers, to help us get more wonderful plastic tanks out there… And talking about tanks, it’s almost time for us to unleash the mighty Tiger next month!
Antares is now shaping up to be the game we hoped it would be – its innovative rules system and elegant models show great promise, and I can see Bolt Action fans dipping their toes into sci-fi in their droves.
Can’t wait for the New Year – we have all manner of cool stuff in the pipeline, including a couple of products that will knock your socks off!
Thanks to you Warlord customers for buying our products, I hope you have as much fun assembling. painting and gaming with your models as we have in designing and making them!
Best Wishes
John
Paul Sawyer
Head of the Design Studio, Bacon enthusiast
Every year at Warlord has been a journey – a 100 mile per hour journey – and as with most fast rides it’s exhilarating and sometimes a bit scary! From those early days when myself and John worked out of our spare rooms to where we are at now it seems a different world and I look back with immense pride at what we, and all the boys and girls at Warlord, have achieved to date. I firmly believe this is just the beginning though!
The last twelve months have, without doubt, been Bolt Action-tastic. The popularity of the game has been unsurprising but most definitely heartening – thanks to everyone who has played the game and enthused about it on forums, blogs, etc – you are the guys who make it the game it is.
My personal highlights of the last year have been the behind-the-scenes development of the Beyond the Gates of Antares miniatures ranges. Whilst much if it hasn’t been shown off yet you are certainly in for a treat! On a personal level we published Steve Jones’ Black Powder supplement for the American War of Independence, Rebellion – a book that is both superb but also covers one of my favourite periods of history.
What of 2015 though? Next year we have LOADS of new stuff and a few surprises but I can say that we are hitting Bolt Action plastics hard – both in terms of vehicles and infantry. We already have several infantry sets underway in varying stages of completion – more on that in the Warlord newsletter soon. It’s not all Bolt Action though – Hail Caesar, Pike & Shotte, Black Powder and Judge Dredd are all going to be reinforced with books and figures. Beyond the Gates of Antares will be released towards the end of 2015 and you won’t be disappointed with what we have in store for that! Sometimes opportunities come along that aren’t planned for (such as our recently buying Pro Gloria Miniatures) and if we have the chance to pick up other ranges of miniatures, terrain, etc we’ll certainly look hard at them!
All that remains is for me to thank you all for your support during last year and invite you to join us for another thrill-filled journey for the next twelve months…
Paul
Alessio Cavatore
Writer of Bolt Action, lover of Flamethrowers and Cameramen…
This year I’ve really enjoyed going to several BA tournaments and events around the world. And it’s been amazing (and not a little flattering), to see the amount of people that are taking up Bolt Action and enjoying the game – brilliant!
I loved interacting with the community on the Facebook Bolt Action page – but my personal highlight has to be the heart-warming moments when veteran hobbyists have shaken my hand and thanked me for getting them back into a hobby they loved and that they were losing interest in…
And those very same words have been used by people in the UK, in the US, in Italy, and even in Japan! For a designer, professionally speaking, that’s the best feeling in the world – thank you all so much for that!
Alessio
Rick Priestley
Games designer, tea connoisseur, and Antarean Overlord.
Well it’s certainly been quite a busy year for me at Warlord what with one thing or another! The Bolt Action supplements have been coming thick and fast and I’m pleased to see they have been well received by the legions of Bolt Action gamers – or should that be Divisions?
Mostly though – I have been working behind the scenes on the forthcoming Beyond The Gate of Antares game – now available as a free Beta download for those who want to have a go with our pre-production version.
The models for Antares have come on tremendously over the last year since Russ joined the sculpting team, and have taken another massive leap since Steve joined us. As a result of their efforts – and that of the stalwart Vojtek – we now have all of our core ranges sculpted and I hope we’ll be revealing more of those over the holiday period!
Either way – may I take the opportunity to wish you all a Merry Christmas and to thank everyone who has contributed and helped out with my projects whether in person or via our forums. 2015 is going to be monumental!
Out and About in the Community
Andrew Chesney is our ‘Man in the field’ – in charge of our presence at wargaming shows around the globe
2014 has been a fantastic year for wargames shows – We’ve attended nearly 50 events around the world and next year we plan to go to even more!
I would like to say a big thank you to Dave “Boycie” Lawrence for his tireless efforts in keeping the machine turning. He’s into his 6th year doing the Warlord shows! And of course to all the countless numbers of staff and volunteers that makes it all happen.
And where would we be without the clubs and volunteers that run our games. Whether they be huge participation games right down to small intro games they have all been excellent. Thank you one and all.
Merry Christmas and have a great New Year!
Headline Releases
2014 has seen some huge releases across every Warlord Games range – from our partnership with Cutting Edge miniatures which has massively bolstered our Ancients range for Hail Caesar, the release of our huge La Haye Sainte battle set for Black Powder, a truly vast amount of releases for Bolt Action – the first of our Theatre Books has now hit the shelves, we’ve had more plastic vehicles come through thanks to our partnership with Italeri, and a whole host of reinforcements for our Pike and Shotte ranks in preparation for next year’s English Civil War and 30 Years War supplements!
2015 promises to be bigger and better still! We have some very exciting plans for all of our systems – some of which you’ll be expecting, and some you might not! – There are always a few surprises along the way, and the release schedule is always liable to change depending upon all manner of exciting opportunities – so charge your glasses to toast a fond farewell to a record-breaking 2014 – and keep your eyes peeled and ears pricked – here’s to a glorious year ahead!
