 |
| Dominic
Murray |
|
 hat's
your name, and what do you do?
My name is Dominic Murray, and I pretty
much live in Games Workshop's Design
Studio in Nottingham (Dom works
on the Studio Hobby Team, which produces
all the terrain and modeling projects
shown in GW publications — ed.).
 ow
long have you been a GW hobbyist,
and what got you started?
I've been into wargaming as
a hobby since I was 10 years old,
minus the odd year here or there
when I was off at university and
under the thrall of beer and dangerous
women, and with no discernable income.
All in all, I'd count my time as
roughly 20 years of losing games
and generally failing to paint the
rather large collection of models
that sit in boxes in my spare room.
Like many gamers, my first army
was made of Space Marines — in
my case, Blood Angels. There's something
appealing about 8' tall, genetically
engineered, superhuman, religious
psychopaths who defend mankind from
the evils of the galaxy. Between
my friends and I we had decent sized
armies of Dark Angels, Blood Angels,
Space Wolves and Ultramarines — not
to mention a dangerous Chaos Space
Marine force and an Ork Waaagh! the
size of Sheffield. Tim's Tyranid
army also threatened to destroy many
a force until we decided it should
at the very least be painted. At
this point, his invasion fleet mysteriously
disappeared.
Alongside this I started collecting
various Empire models with the long
term intention of painting a mammoth
army of Altdorf led by Emperor Karl
Franz. As my group played more Warhammer
40,000 than Warhammer Fantasy, my
Empire force was only ever a collection
of models rather than an army for
quite a few years.
Fast forward to today, and I'm
now lucky enough to be employed in
the Design Studio after working in
various Games Workshop hobby stores
in the UK. Working in retail allowed
me to see more armies and gaming
styles than I maybe would have otherwise.
This experience is something that
has helped both my army choices and
my approach to gaming. I've never
been much of a power gamer, and I
always prefer to have a fun, characterful
game.
hat
army do you have? What's its name,
and who leads it?
The army I have is from the Empire.
Specifically, it's from the town
of Kriegshoff in Middenland (it's
not on a map, so don't bother looking).
The army is called (quite simply) "The
Army of Kriegshoff" and is lead
by the young Baron Otto Von Stroheim.
I love this army because it's been
continually developed over the years
(both in terms of background and
collecting) and has a very dramatic
history. I won't get into all of
it here, but the young Baron has
returned to Kreigshof after wreaking
glorious vengeance upon Chaos during
the great battle for Middenheim.
Now, with Karl Franz's blessing and
a regiment of loyal Reiksguard
behind him, Von Stroheim has set
about rebuilding
his dead father's ruined town. Despite
his valour at the gates of Middenheim,
Otto is learning the true nature
of politics in the Empire as he struggles
to restore Kreigshof to its former
glory.
|
he
Games Workshop Hobby is comprised of several
important elements. The part that most people
think of first is playing exciting games with
an army of your choosing. The other part is
the planning, collecting, and building of that
army. We decided to talk with Dominic Murray
of the Games Workshop Design Studio to get
some tips on how he collected his Empire army.
