Ever since learning that Marc Gascoigne was appointed Head of Special Ops this past April, I’ve been excited to see what he’d do. Gascoigne, after all, was one of the three founders of the Black Library for Warhammer, which is the raison d’être for the Wordforge in the first place.
After leaving Games Workshop in 2008, he launched Angry Robot for Harper Collins, winning the World Fantasy Special Award (Professional) in 2011. Five years later, Gascoigne again was recognized for his work with Angry Robot, taking home a British Fantasy Award for Best Independent Press.
Departing Angry Robot in 2018, he then hopped over to Asmodee to launch Aconyte Books, which publishes tie-in fiction for properties like Legend of the Five Rings and Arkham Horror1. Given his track record of success, it was only a matter of time before we’d start to see it begin to fruit. As Head of Special Ops he’s at the helm of “building a range of in-house and licensed products to accompany the core Trench Crusade game,” and this week something very intriguing arrived.
Rolling the Dice
Gaming company Rowan, Rook and Decard was founded in 2017, with a laudable set of core principles:
No dead levels: we build exciting games with no tedious admin phases.
Make stories happen: we help people create stories that everyone wants to talk about.
Built to last: we make bulletproof books and systems that can live forever.
Get stuff made: everything we promise, we deliver.
Everyone gets paid: we pay and credit everyone who works on our products, and we expect to be paid and credited for our work.
Games for justice: we use our influence and power to promote justice and inclusivity, in our art and in the way we do business.
With releases including Spire: The City Must Fall and Heart: The City Beneath, it is also behind the Hollows RPG. Hollows sheds a bit of the narrative focus on the other games in favor of a tactical experience which borrows elements from both pure role-playing games (it has a dedicated GM, for instance) and boss-battle tabletop games like Kingdom Death Monster. “Designed to echo video games like Dark Souls,” it notes, “death is expected and intended.”
This past week Factory Fortress announced a partnership with Rowan, Rook and Decard to bring Trench Crusade to the tabletop with a Trench Crusade standalone adventure, Hell and High Water.
The scenario sees players take the role of the Faithful, hunting War-Priest Charon amidst the war-torn Carcass Front. While this single scenario with a predestined enemy puts the experience into board game territory rather than providing the fuel for an extended campaign, there’s a few reasons why this is a canny move.
First, it tests the waters for interest in a Carcass Front RPG experience. Those of us with a foot in each might look at this like the union of chocolate and peanut butter, but despite Warhammer’s massive IP footprint its Warhammer license for RPG’s grossly underperforms its market position in the wargame space. Factory Fortress has every reason for playing a conservative hand here, particularly given the relative youth of the Trench Crusade property.
Second, by partnering with an established RPG maker with their own well-received properties, piggybacking from another game system allows them to direct some of the resultant interest onto Trench Crusade itself. While the core Hollows game is still in preorder, you can be sure that folks eagerly awaiting its arrival will be taking a look at Hell and High Water- even if they’ve never heard of Trench Crusade before2.
And finally, by making this a one-shot3 it keeps the door open for a more dedicated RPG experience down the road, when Trench Crusade has a better feel for the legs beneath it. We may or may never get a fully-original Trench Crusade RPG- there are a number of factors that Gascoigne and others will be evaluating as the property grows- but this ‘scratches the itch’ for those wanting another way to engage with the world, explores a new product vector and licensing relationship, and doesn’t restrict Factory Fortress’s long-term prospects.
In short, this is a canny move in the licensing sector. I’ve already preordered mine, and while the physical release won’t be arriving until February 2027, the PDF is already available.
Now, go show that Charon who’s boss.
Getting By with a Little Help from His Friends (Redux)
A few weeks ago, I talked about an upcoming fundraiser to help legendary artist Karl Kopinski as he battles through a series of very challenging health struggles, including myeloma, strokes, and even a heart attack. A partnership between Factory Fortress, MyMiniFactory, and two dozen notable members of the creator community, the FronTier campaign opened this week and has already raised nearly USD $40,000. As the goal is set at $100,000, this is a terrific start4.
The campaign runs until Monday, 14 December, and has several different pledge tiers. One of the available rewards is STL’s for a pair of Winged Hussar units for Trench Crusade, which are availavle exclusively through the campaign (but will be made available in the future at a higher price).
Why Winged Hussars? I’m glad you asked.
Kopinski’s contributions to our hobby are immense, and while with the state of the world right now I know money is certainly tight. But many hands make for light work, and every little bit can quickly add up if enough people are moved to give. Over a thousand souls have put their hand up already, and the rewards are terrific. I would encourage everyone to at least check it out, and they’ve even added a custom bundle tier to help make helping even more affordable.
Lest Ye Be Judged
While we’re at it, spare a thought for Tuomas Pirinen.
Having already enjoyed a legendary career, he and Mike Franchina seem to have captured lightning in a bottle with Trench Crusade. There’s almost certainly a million things commanding their attention, and the pressure to ‘get it right’ and not squander the opportunity in front of them is certainly not insignificant. There are few do-overs in life, folks.
And yet his attention to the small things continues to impress. He’s highly engaged with the community, makes himself frequently available for interviews, and when I shared the link to last week’s Trench Crusade Weekly about the Crimson Chalice on Bluesky he even took the opportunity to reply with a shout out to the judges.
Having featured some of the award-winning artists last week, let’s take a beat to acknowledge the three who gave their time and critical eye to make the first Chalice event such a success.
Louise Sugden
Founder of Rogue Hobbies and former presenter for WarhammerTV, Sugden worked for Games Workshop for seven years. In a terrific interview with Timothy Linward of Wargamer, she described her career trajectory as being responsible for “book layout, photography, miniature painter, photographer, packaging designer, illustrator, then presenter.”
A prolific and award-winning painter, she walked away with Commended and Notable medals at the most recent Golden Demon competition. Last year she was a judge at the Squidmar Open, and her bio highlighted the following:
As a judge, Louise brings a strong sense of creativity, community awareness, and an inclusive, welcoming attitude, valuing expression, uniqueness and bold presentation over strict conformity. Her background in both corporate and independent miniature work allows her to appreciate a wide range of styles, while her enthusiasm for fun and originality helps encourage diverse artistic voices in the competition.
Naturally, this same spirit was certainly present in the Crimson Chalice.
Erkka Martio
Holding a Master’s degree in Education, Martio is a highly skilled workshop instructor and award-winning painter in his own right. His Unraveling Cancer, part I: Diagnosis / Pain is one of the most powerful artistic statements I have ever seen in the display painting world, and he is a founder of the Cold Tones Society which elevates and promotes the Nordic painting community.
Also a judge for the 2025 Squidmar Open, here’s what they had to say about him:
Erkka Marttio is an award-winning miniature artist and educator known for his strong storytelling, atmospheric composition, and refined technical skill. With top honors at major international competitions, he has demonstrated mastery across figures, busts, and dioramas. As a trained teacher, Erkka brings a clear, insightful approach to judging, balancing craftsmanship, narrative, and creativity to fairly assess entries of all styles and scales.
For more on Marttio and what he looks for in the creative space, he sat down for an interview with GitGud Painting late last year here.
Liam Hearne
Liam Hearne, who paints professionally under the name Phoenix Miniature Art, struck a very welcoming tone for aspiring painters considering the Crimson Chalice. “My advice to anyone thinking about entering is not to be intimidated by the standard of some of the entries that may appear,” he said. “The Crimson Chalice is about celebrating our hobby at every level.”
Hearne assisted in developing the Crimson Chalice competition format, and has frequently placed highly in painting competitions including the Golden Demon- such as this year’s competition where he won Bronze in the Horus Heresy category.
As Pirinen noted, it certainly was a tough job selecting the winners from nearly 150 entries, but clearly the competition was in very capable hands.
ICYMI
Here’s what’s been going on this week for Trench Crusade content!
Trench Crusade Official
The Observer Report series helps profile those folks who are helping to evangelize the game across the globe. This week profiled Jakub Polkowski of Poland, who helped organize the Wyłom 2026 two-day tournament near Warsaw. It’s a terrific read, and the second day’s narrative tournament structure sounds so extraordinary I wish I’d been there to participate5.
The Hobby category had a two-fer this week thanks to Dave Taylor. First up was an interview with Factory Fortress concept artist and painter Loïc Muzy, discussing the art of kitbashing minis.
Then he penned the final installment on his series covering the creation of some truly superb demo tables in Creating Slices of Trench Crusade (Part 5).
Wargame Content Sites
While at Spiel Essen, Wargamer’s editor Mollie Russell took the opportunity to interview Factory Fortress Chief Operating Officer Jamie Parsons. “The biggest problem with Trench Crusade is people buy it faster than we can make it and ship it out,” he noted. “It's a project where we only had good problems.”
Community Content
The Trenchfoot Society interviewed HexBrick, who brings a background in architecture to bear in designing terrain pieces for Trench Crusade tabletops.
HeresyBrush announced a collaboration this week with Factory Fortress, IONIC Smart Colors, and Westfalia Miniatures for a limited-edition Solution Box themed around the Red Brigade. It includes a number of paints and textures, an STL of the Red Brigade Mechanized Gunslinger, and a complete painting guide with step-by-step tutorials.
Josh Imobersteg in the Trench Crusade Facebook group shared a very helpful flowchart for the Carcass Front Post Game he’d created. “This is excellent work,” replied Tuomas Pirinen.
It Always Rains in Nuln is a terrific gaming site I frequently feature in Warhammer RPG Weekly. This week he interviewed- you know it- Tuomas Pirinen! “Fair warning,” he notes, “I’m kinda fanboying here.”
Coming Attractions
Here’s a list of the known upcoming physical releases from Trench Crusade based on the available preorder information we have.
This section will be updated weekly in this column, with new or updated info presented in boldface.
Trench Crusade Rulebook (hardcover, 11/30)
That’s it for this week, see you again in seven days’ time!
I’ve reviewed a number of these for Tabletop Books under the feature Beyond the Black Library.
Shocking I know, but such people do exist.
I’m operating on the assumption that this is a one-off deal based on the context around the release. This could be the first book of a multi-book deal, or there could be an option built into the license that either party might seek to exercise depending on how well this one sells. From the outside looking in, all we can do is speculate.
Any additional funds generated over the course of the campaign will be pledged to charity.
It doesn’t hurt that Poland is one of the coolest places I’ve ever visited, either.