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Italian-British game designer. Co-created Bolt Action with Rick Priestley and wrote its Third Edition. Earlier work includes Mordheim, The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game and Kings of War.
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Alessio Cavatore

Designer Writer

Italian-British game designer. Co-created Bolt Action with Rick Priestley and wrote its Third Edition. Earlier work includes Mordheim, The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game and Kings of War.

Alessio Cavatore was born in Turin and moved to Nottingham in 1995 to work for Games Workshop. There he wrote supplements for Warhammer Fantasy Battle, headed up The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game, and co-designed Mordheim with Tuomas Pirinen and Rick Priestley. In 2004 he took charge of the rules for Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000 and The Lord of the Rings, and in 2006 he wrote the rules for a new edition of Warhammer.

He developed Bolt Action with Rick Priestley for Warlord Games, and is the credited author of its Third Edition rulebook (2024). He also designed Kings of War for Mantic Games. He came back to it for the Fourth Edition, released in December 2025. He is also the lead game designer on Para Bellum’s Conquest. The rules of Conquest: The Last Argument of Kings are based on the game system he designed with River Horse.

Games

Painted Warlord Games miniatures: British infantry move inland from a beach past Sherman tanks, one with its canvas flotation screen raised, while ships sit offshore

Bolt Action

Warlord Games' 28mm World War II game, now in its Third Edition. Command a company of infantry, heavy weapons, artillery and tanks, and fight it out one Order Die at a time.

Army · 2+ players · Mini-agnostic · $149
A painted Conquest battle on a rocky table: a huge tiger-headed warrior in silver armour with a crown of flames strides forward, surrounded by regiments of fiery spirits and ranked infantry on square stands, with blue-cloaked cavalry in the foreground

Conquest: The Last Argument of Kings

Para Bellum's dark fantasy rank-and-flank mass battle game. Regiments of multi-model stands, a hidden command stack that sets who acts when, and reserves that arrive in waves. The core rules are free, and the miniatures also play the skirmish game First Blood.

Army · 2 players · Own minis line · Free rules
Painted Kings of War armies on a battlefield: a teal and pink winged dragon beside a gnarled tree, purple dark elf infantry, and sail-winged chariots with riders on pale beasts in the foreground

Kings of War

Mantic Games' fantasy mass-battle game, designed by Alessio Cavatore. Blocks of troops clash across the world of Pannithor, and units fight on until their Nerve breaks. The Fourth Edition came out in December 2025.

Army · 2+ players · Own minis line · Free rules
Painted Mordheim miniatures among the ruined card buildings from the 1999 boxed game
Out of Print

Mordheim

Games Workshop's 1999 warband skirmish game, set in the ruins of a city destroyed by a comet. Long out of print, still played everywhere, and free to learn.

Skirmish · 2+ players · Own minis line · Free rules