Warm Acre

Warm Acre are a small games company co-owned by Wolfrik Galland and Gav Tyler. Both started working in the wargames industry at Games Workshop and have since collaborated in such projects as The World of Warhammer and Warhammer: English Civil War. They have now self-published their own games Spy or Die Trying, Jane Austen's Matchmaker, Hour of Glor... y, Bunkerstorm and No-Go-Zone as well as producing their own range of 28mm metal miniatures. When, why and how was Warm Acre set up? Gav: We met working on a magazine for Games Workshop. After leaving the company, we decided to collaborate on our own games projects. It started out with Wolfrik doing the words and me the graphics, then I got into sculpting and we were able to broaden our scope and become a miniature games company. Wolfrik: I'd had this idea for a covert ops board game, one day Gav came round for a beer and we ended up prototyping what became Hour of Glory. That was over ten years ago and we've been peddling our wares ever since, even though Gav now lives in Cornwall and I'm in London. It's a part-time business for both of us - but Gav does all the hard work and I just ponce around having random brainwaves. When did you become a fan of games? What was the appeal? Wolfrik: I was roleplaying gamer at the age of 9 and joined a local club, where I used to 'games master' for players in their twenties and thirties. I never wanted to be a player - that felt too passive - for me it was about story-telling or possibly I'm just a control freak. I started designing my own systems around the same time, which ultimately led to me working as a designer at Hasbro for 6 years, an awesome gig that taught me a lot about my craft. Gav: I played with Lego a lot as a kid (to be honest, I've never stopped) and created my first Lego wargame when I was 11. I loved Star Wars, particularly the Stormtroopers, which led me to Space Marines and Warhammer 40K. I also played a lot of roleplaying games, mostly D&D, CyberPunk 2020 and a fantasy system that my group designed. I like ...Read More