News culture Warhammer fans mourn… The co-creator of this legendary franchise has passed away
Sad news for fans of the Warhammer license: Bryan Ansell, its co-creator, died a few days ago. While his wife just announced the news, fans have already shared some tributes.
The co-creator of Warhammer has died
When we think of tabletop role-playing games, we inevitably think of Dungeons & Dragons, but Warhammer is never really far away. This license is a true spearhead of the culture of paint-your-own figures and today occupies a large part of the imagination around the hero fantasy and even beyond, thanks to variations such as Warhammer 40,000
The news was announced on Instagram from his wife, who clarified that he “left home peacefully“, surrounded by his family. Ansell was involved in the publication of the first edition of Warhammer, which was then called “Warhammer Fantasy Battle”. He was one of the company’s managers at the time Games workshopwhose name is now inextricably linked with Warhammer.
It’s next to it Richard Halliwell and from Rick Priestley that he created this legendary license in 1983 to boost sales of miniature figures. Since then, Games Workshop stores quickly evolved from resellers of board games and other role-playing games to a veritable institution for miniature figure-based war games. In this way, Ansell has managed to pass on its passion to many people around the world and turn it into a thriving company.
Fans pay tribute to him
Although he sold all of his shares in Games Workshop in 1991, Bryan Ansell continued to be a very active member of the wargaming community.
The news of his death obviously caused a huge uproar among fans of Warhammer and all variations of the license. Tributes quickly poured in on social media in support of Bryan Ansell’s family.
Bryan Ansell, the man behind the growth of Games Workshop and the patron of Warhammer and #40K as we know it today is extinct. Not many #Warhammer
Fans know it today, but without him there would almost certainly be no Warhammer hobby at all today. Hard, man, but I’ll drink to you.– Tuomas Pirinen (@SonataNocturne) December 30, 2023
Bryan Ansell, the man behind the rise of Games Workshop and the creator of Warhammer and 40K as we know it today, has died. Few Warhammer fans know it these days, but without it there would certainly be no Warhammer hobby at all. It’s hard, but I drink to your memory.
Among those mourning the death of Bryan Ansell, we find it natural Ian Livingston who had worked with him during the Games Workshop days. In his opinion, without Bryan Ansell: “Warhammer would never have existed“. It also highlights the license’s co-creator’s craftsmanship and expertise that made Games Workshop the institution it is today.