WORLD OF TANKS

We talk to Chris Townley about bringing World of Tanks to our tabletops

Tell us about the team?

I’m Chris Townley, the lead designer for the World of Tanks: Miniatures Game. I’ve been working for Battlefront/Gale Force Nine for the past 12 years as the Design Studio Manager based in New Zealand. Working alongside me in this project we had had Andrew Haught, designer of both the Doctor Who: Time of the Daleks and Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps boardgames, Phil Yates, responsible in a large part for the creation of Flames Of War and WWIII: Team Yankee historical rules, as well as Victor Pesch and Casey Davies who did all the graphic design and were an invaluable source of inspiration and guidance with rules and especially the crew, upgrades and modules.

How do you pitch World of Tanks?

In short I would say it is the online experience, but on your dining room table with your opponent close enough that you can see the sweat on their brow when you put them under pressure with a cunning plan or good throw of the dice.

How faithful is the tabletop game to the video game version?

As fans of the online game (I’ve been playing since the original release 10 years ago) I wanted a game where I felt like the tanks played as faithfully as possible to the online game. We’ve been especially fortunate that the digital developers put so much flavour in to the game that we have been able to use as inspiration during the development. Additionally we’ve based all of our tank stats straight off Wargaming’s digital counterparts.

What strategies do you think players will be employing?

This is what really excites me the most as I think there are many viable strategies in the game. Online, I prefer camping a bush with my tank destroyer and waiting for the enemy to come to me, hopefully striking without being seen. On the tabletop I find the opposite strategy to be fun, rushing around with

For those who haven’t played a war game in a while, what would you say to entice them back in with WOT?

I think that World of Tanks really brings a lot of the aspects of miniature gaming that we love; great models, rules that are easy to learn and fun to master, the challenge of playing against a real world opponent and plenty of re-playability thanks to the variety of options in the crew and upgrade cards, whilst still being very accessible; pre-built models that help you to start playing quickly, low cost of entry, and the ease at which you can to expand the game with new models of tanks. Throw in the fact that this is based on a legendary game that is loved by millions of people worldwide and it has to be worth a look!

Favourite tank?

This is possibly the hardest of all the questions but purely on games played I would have to call it a tie between the good old Panzer II (Pz.Kpfw. II) and Löwe with 452 and 469 battles respectively. The Panzer II is just fun, zipping around the battlefield with a fast firing 2cm gun. The Löwe on the other hand is slow, heavily armoured, and packs a serious gun. Sadly I often succumb to the temptation to get in a brawl with enemy tanks and unfortunately for me this often results in an early exit from the game.