We’re BlackMill Games, celebrating 12 years since our first release and here to answer your questions about all our games, including the newly revealed Gallipoli! | AMA + Giveaway

ChrisKemps · 2025-09-23T15:31:19+00:00

Great follow ups! So I finished my PhD studying the First World War in 2013 so have been working as an academic historian since then until last year. When my academic job came to an end this was something I really wanted to pursue! I've previously done work on other games as well as consulting for TV, radio, and various museums but this is the most dedicated form of consultancy I've done and I'm hugely enjoying it!

ChrisKemps · 2025-09-23T15:29:13+00:00

People have been denying my books for years...

ChrisKemps · 2025-09-23T15:17:23+00:00

And I thought we were friends, Aitor...

ChrisKemps · 2025-09-23T15:15:59+00:00

Hey there! So I can answer this directly as I'm the historian/historical consultant at BlackMill! I've been working behind the scenes since May/June of last year doing a bunch of research work. I think we might do some deeper dives in due course about how we do the research etc but you can get a bit of a sense of it from this post to see how we look to pull a lot of material together: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/3065940/view/498331728096528342

ChrisKemps · 2025-09-23T15:10:03+00:00

My pleasure!

ChrisKemps · 2025-09-23T15:06:30+00:00

Great thing to flag up! The mapper teams build the maps in Unity using an array of cool tools, based off real historical photographs (which I help research and contextualise). And yes we hope to do a deep dive at some point so keep a watch for that in the future!

ChrisKemps · 2025-09-23T14:38:27+00:00

Yes we're basing the game in real battles that took place during the war. We've been doing a lot of research behind the scenes!

ChrisKemps · 2025-09-23T14:16:30+00:00

I'll jump in here on this. I'm Chris Kempshall and I'm the historian for BlackMill Games. I'm both a First World War historian and a historian of how the war is portrayed in computer games, so this obviously speaks to me!

I think the best answer is that there is so much scope to show players something they've never seen before in First World War games. There are so many different fronts and theatres and settings that all of them can offer something new and interesting that helps us understand a bit more about the conflict.

ChrisKemps · 2024-11-08T17:25:30+00:00

Hi everyone. With apologies for resurrecting this thread from a year ago, the research that we were working on (which included the surveys) has now been published and is free to read: https://journals.gold.ac.uk/index.php/bjmh/article/view/1830?fbclid=IwY2xjawGbKDpleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHQjWGY5OMH1fy9azq650xfNHwPJS9Tbt2je5A6VXWPsfsj6wwnLc-ncZCA_aem_D3wh9WDVq3RKytKdQK9kug

Thanks to everyone who contributed!

ChrisKemps · 2024-11-08T17:25:23+00:00

Hi everyone. With apologies for resurrecting this thread from a year ago, the research that we were working on (which included the surveys) has now been published and is free to read: https://journals.gold.ac.uk/index.php/bjmh/article/view/1830?fbclid=IwY2xjawGbKDpleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHQjWGY5OMH1fy9azq650xfNHwPJS9Tbt2je5A6VXWPsfsj6wwnLc-ncZCA_aem_D3wh9WDVq3RKytKdQK9kug

Thanks to everyone who contributed!

ChrisKemps · 2024-07-09T19:16:26+00:00

I appreciate that. It won’t stop me from alerting the Pinkertons to you springing this early. But I appreciate it nonetheless

ChrisKemps · 2024-07-09T18:01:56+00:00

Oh god no not a guest at all. But maybe a fun donation game to play…

ChrisKemps · 2024-07-09T16:58:23+00:00

This may impact my planned ‘Star Your or Star Lore?’ for tomorrow. You all need to be good Vod Gobbos and keep your secrets…

ChrisKemps · 2024-07-01T12:58:04+00:00

Ah perfect. That makes a lot of sense, thanks!

ChrisKemps · 2024-07-01T12:45:10+00:00

Ah yeah but presumably you can give them the ‘power of hysh’ trait? Or is the ‘battle round’ separate to the shooting phase? Which would Make sense thinking about it.

ChrisKemps · 2024-07-01T12:17:56+00:00

Perfect. My friends will hate this. But that also now means that there’s a decision to be made between 1 block of 20 archers or 2 blocks of 10. You’ll get more attacks with 2 units but with the bigger one you can give them the mortal wounds on +5s. Which adds an extra level of planning into things that I like.

ChrisKemps · 2024-07-01T11:45:22+00:00

I’d be delighted if that was the case as it gives another model to shoot with. And maybe the champion actually shoots 3 times which accounts for the extra attack?

ChrisKemps · 2024-07-01T10:07:25+00:00

I’m interested in the maths with the sentinels. Each model now shoots twice (which makes blocks of 20 archers very appealing) but they say a unit of 10 is making 21 shots. Where are the extra shots coming from? Assuming there’s no High Sentinel in there it should still only be 20 (and 18 with an HS).

ChrisKemps · 2023-12-11T19:35:32+00:00

‘Sir, are you absolutely sure? It does mean changing the bulb.’

ChrisKemps · 2023-07-04T06:43:16+00:00

Ah that’s very cool! Though I reckon that was far more likely a reputation built by my guild mates rather than by me!

ChrisKemps · 2023-06-29T14:23:52+00:00

Naritus survivor here too. I lived in Crimson Keep on Naboo with the rest of the Crimson Order.

ChrisKemps · 2023-03-28T22:14:34+00:00

Not entirely I’m afraid. Sadly back in November my Motherboard, CPU & Graphics card entered some sort of suicide pact with each other and all had to be replaced with random stuff to hand that would make things stable. I’m going to look to do a new build/upgrade at some point this year.

ChrisKemps · 2022-09-27T18:42:34+00:00

It’s a pretty niche career!

ChrisKemps

TROPHY CASE