Since online miniature painting impresario Duncan ‘Two Thin Coats’ Rhodes left Games Workshop in 2019, Rhodes has founded an online painting academy and launched an entire custom paint range. But, in a live video AMA in Wargamer’s Discord (which you can listen to in full below) he tells us the one thing he really wishes he’d still been at GW for: the rebirth of Warhammer The Old World.
“My favorite wargame has been Warhammer Fantasy,” Rhodes told our live audience in the Wargamer Discord community. “I loved the Bretonnians and I got a bit of a reputation for it in the studio.”
But, with the advent of Games Workshop’s ‘End Times’ storyline, which nixed Warhammer Fantasy Battle to make way for Age of Sigmar in 2015, Rhodes said colleagues were stopping to look at his Bretonnian army, proudly displayed in the office, and saying “why are you doing those, they’re not really Warhammer, are they?”
“The political wind was that you’re not really on board unless you’re fully in with the new thing and you’re not into the old thing,” he says. “That was like a whiplash thing that really caught me out, I wasn’t happy about that.”
Ever the professional, Rhodes merrily continued filming GW painting tutorials for new Age of Sigmar armies like the Stormcast Eternals, but tells us “behind the scenes I’m crying because I want to be painting my Knights of the Realm”. Rhodes was even brought into early development for Bretonnia’s 8th edition army book “as the fanboy role… to give a bit of an influence as to what the audience might think”.
And, even as the End Times were bringing the original Warhammer tabletop wargame to a (somewhat controversial) close, Rhodes says he predicted its return. “I distinctly remember being in Adepticon doing a seminar… and I said, I bet you the Old World’s going to come back in some way, probably done by Forge World, in about ten years,” he says. “As it turns out, it took five.”
When Games Workshop eventually revealed Warhammer: The Old World‘s big shiny launch boxes in 2023, one of the two starring factions for the game’s return was – of course – the Kingdom of Bretonnia. Rhodes was shook.
“When they announced Bretonnians were going to be the flagship faction, along with Tomb Kings, I was like ‘what is this world?’
“I can remember being told ‘you shouldn’t be so enthusiastic about Bretonnians because they’re not really on message any more’… and a few years later Warhammer Community is showing Bretonnians everywhere with brand new artwork!” he tells us. “It’s such a bizarre thing.”
“So I would have loved being behind the scenes to see that again,” he admits. “And I’d also love to talk to some of the people developing it, to understand why their direction for the Bretonnians is the total opposite direction from where the Citadel Studio was going to take it,” Rhodes adds. “It’s not wrong, it’s just different, and I want to know why.”
As an OG lore nut about GW’s fantasy-France, Rhodes has issues with some of the modern re-dos of his beloved Bretonnian models. “I could rant about this for ages,” he laughs.
“If you look at the Bretonnians in the Total War Warhammer game, they have a cavalry unit of hippogriff knights, whereas in The Old World they have Knights of the Realm on foot.
“And I know that the Bretonnian culture is like, no-one fights on foot unless you’re a massive loser. So why did they do that? Why the change?”
Like the rest of us, though, Rhodes has to rely on GW’s in house advertorial website, Warhammer Community, for insights from inside the fortress – be it shiny new models or where exactly the Bretonnian Knights left their horses.
These days, of course, his horizons are broader. He’s teaching mini painting via online courses at the Duncan Rhodes Painting Academy; creating free painting and hobby tutorials for its YouTube channel using models from various miniature wargames; and promoting the ever growing Two Thin Coats paint range (now totalling 180 colors, with 40 more on the way).
For more details and tantalizing hints from Duncan Rhodes about what’s coming next for both those projects, listen to the full AMA in the video at the top of this article!
If you want to be in the room for our next live video event, good news – ex DnD video producer Todd Kenreck is joining us on Thursday, September 4! Join our free Discord community now to get involved, and ask him anything about the wild world of working in Dungeons and Dragons.
And if Duncan’s mellifluous tones have you wanting to learn the ways of the brush, you should also check out Wargamer’s complete beginner’s guide to painting miniatures.