Bryan Ansell, one of the creators ofWarhammer Fantasy Battleand miniature wargaming as we know it,died peacefully at homeon June 28, 2025, according to a statement posted on his and his wife’s Instagram account.
If I was creating a Mount Rushmore of tabletop miniatures VIPs, Bryan Ansell would be the first name up there, alongside legendary artistJohn Blanche, the Perry twins, Rick Priestly, Richard Halliwell, Tom Kirby, and countless others who are too numerous to name. But ahead of all those was Ansell, the owner of one of the finest mullets wargaming has ever seen, and the man responsible for the Warhammer we know today.
Games Workshopwas founded by John Peake, Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson in 1975, primarily as a manufacturer of board games like backgammon. The company’s big break came with a deal that awarded it the exclusive license to sellDungeons & Dragonsin Europe, and the first brick and mortar shop followed soon after, in April 1978.
Bryan Ansell entered the fold later that year. An experienced sculptor, Games Workshop funded his founding of Citadel Miniatures, which made models exclusively for Workshop and is still synonymous with the company to this day – even newcomers to the hobby will have heard of Citadel paints, for example.
At first, these miniatures were intended for use with Dungeons & Dragons and the other games that Games Workshop sold, but this quickly changed when Ansell ascended to managing director of Games Workshop. Ansell moved operations from London to Newark and Nottingham, a controversial decision which caused many people to lose their jobs and employees to lose faith in the company so much that the contents page of White Dwarf #77 spelled out “SOD OFF BRYAN ANSELL”.
However, his genius showed when he figured out that more people would buy Games Workshop miniatures if the company produced a game to go with them. Ansell, Priestly, and Halliwell created Warhammer Fantasy Battle, a tabletop war simulator that changed remarkably little over the decades, and turned Games Workshop from a humble distributor and manufacturer to the behemoth it is today.
Ansell’s business acumen and nose for what his customers wanted pivoted Games Workshop’s direction to focus solely on its own IP. WFB was first, andWarhammer 40,000followed later, itself based in large parts on Laserburn, a science fiction tabletop game written by Ansell in 1980. Iconic Space Marine imagery such as Power Armour, Boltguns, and Dreadnoughts were all borrowed from Laserburn.
Ansell’s impact on Warhammer and the wider wargaming industry is unparalleled. He sculpted iconic figures, wrote genre-defining rulebooks, and set Games Workshop on a path that has led to it becoming more important to the UK economy than the entire fishing industry. The move to Nottingham eventually resulted in the area of the east midlands being referred to as the Lead Belt of the UK, thanks to the fact it’s the central hub of miniature manufacturing in the country.
After selling his shares in Games Workshop and leaving the company in the 1990s, Ansell moved to Guernsey to start a family, and set up Wargames Foundry, a company which produced historical and fantasy miniatures (many sculpted by himself and the Perry twins), as well as some out of production or never-released Games Workshop models that he retained the rights to. Ansell remained active in ‘Oldhammer’ communities for the rest of his life, including hosting the annual Bring Out Your Lead convention at Wargames Foundry.
It’s no exaggeration to suggest that Warhammer would not be the same giant business it is today without Bryan Ansell, if it would even exist at all. Without him, Games Workshop could well still be a Forbidden Planet-type shop selling other companies’ products, or producing miniatures for use with other games. It certainly wouldn’t have rebranded its 400+ stores to align with its Warhammer brand, and it’s likely the eponymous tabletop game would never have been created at all. Bryan Ansell is a true legend of the miniatures world, and he will be sorely missed by the community and those who knew him.
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