New Project: 1000 Chapters
Dazzo over on Bolter and Chainsword has been busy pulling together hundreds of images of know chapters, both official Games Workshop chapters and fan made chapters. I had a chat with him, and I put together an visual index of the 600 he has completed so far (and my chapters are in there too!). We are trying to get the word out so others can chip in their ideas and hopefully submit their chapters too (you need a colour scheme image created with the Bolter and Chainsword Space Marine painter, and a link to an IA). If this is of interest to you, check out the 1000 chapters index on my site, and the thread on Bolter and Chainsword.
1000 Chapters Index
Bolter and Chainsword Thread
Hive Trygon's second lot
Hive Trygon over at Troll Forged Miniatures is selling off yet more stuff, this time a massive lots of Confrontation miniature ranges. The new spin casting gear turns up Friday, and this is all in aid of buying supplies. Hive Trygon has put a lot of effort into building TFM, and the spin caster is going to improve output and make metal available too. This will benefit the TFM community tremendously, and get more sculpts into the store. So if you fancy getting some of your greens in TFM, now may be the best time to get cracking on that masterpiece!
If you are interested pop over to eBay and take a look: Hive Trygon on eBay
If you wish to find out more about Hive Trygon's plans you can read more on the forum thread: New metal set up
Philip
New TFM website
Troll Forged Miniatures (TFM) is a wonderful project and company started by Ed Fortae. It is one of those flash of inspiration ideas, combined with his hard work and strong vision, he has grown the project and attracted a great and very supportive community. TFM is simple at it's core: Sculptors send their greens to Ed, Ed cast them up and sell them in the TFM store and the sculptor receives a royalty for each sale. This gives the sculptor and ongoing revenue stream from their work rather than a one off payment. It also seems that the sculptors are investing in TFM and want it to succeed just as much as Ed!
I have been spending a lot of time there of late, originally for WarSpike discussion, but in my spare time I have be busying myself with updating the TFM website, and working on the infrastructure of this unique project. One of my aims was to keep cost down to a minimum, as this is a start-up, and so I wanted to leverage new technology - i.e. make use of free online tools like blogs hosted on wordpress.com. The idea was to take those free tools and style them into a brand, but wordpress.com has some serious limitations, so the idea was to use the blog for what it does well; an interactive front end/ news page, and the hosted website as a static html website to handle orders (along with the PayPal cart system Ed set up). The two would then be blended together so it is hard to tell were one starts and the other ends.
All that was then needed was a way to tie them all together, so I used the theme for the blog and ported it over to the store too (with a bit of hacking!). Thinking ahead, and the need for access and easy to understand code layout - I put it into 'blocks' for easy cut and past to update. All in all it seems to work well, and keeps costs down. It also allows Ed to update his website much faster.
There results: The TFM Store | The TFM Blog | The TFM Forum*
* the forum looks nothing like the other two, but in a few years this may be updated and styled up too!
Anyway, I shall now go back to pondering the nature of WarSpike, and reading medical accounts of wounds!
Philip
Hive Trygon's eBay auction
Hive Trygon over at Troll Forged Miniatures is gearing up to buy a spin caster, and to raise funds for this awesome piece of kit he is putting all his Games Workshop collection up for sale. For those of you who do not know TFM (Troll Forged Miniatures) is a cast of demand service and seller (muck like Lulu but for miniatures!) supporting new sculptors and getting their miniatures out to the public.
If you are interested pop over to eBay and take a look: Hive Trygon on eBay
If you wish to find out more about Hive Trygon's plans you can read more on the forum thread: New metal set up
Philip
WarSpike
My new 'WarSpike' game system is coming on. I knew it was going to be a bit of a challenge considering the scope of the project. It consists of four games covering strategic, tactical, technical and political spheres, each can be played in it's own right, or combined into the complete WarSpike 'Spheres of War' system. It allows you to run games at a club level using Strategic sphere and zoom into the action with Tactical where the clubs members can resolve battles, and even focus into the Technical Sphere to fight duels between champions.
The four spheres allow a multitude of combinations and the Political-Technical combination allows players to run a WarSpike Role-Play Game, yet the other Spheres can be bolted onto this combination to allow a Player character to lead a unit of henchmen using Tactical to resolve their group actions, yet jump to Technical when focused in on the action surrounding the Player Character. The Player Character can even take charge of an army, and run a Strategic Sphere game 'in game', and send off orders that other players who can use Tactical to resolve the battles and report back as to their outcomes.
To complicate matters I want it to be 'realistic' yet 'streamlined', and it's the way combat is handled that the real innovations turn up, more of The ARMA school of thinking than the classic Hollywood nonsense. Along with the interoperable nature of all the Spheres (they all interact seamlessly. Once inside another, like Russian Nested Dolls, only these Spheres are arranged as a strange loop) it makes for an interesting system. A lot to learn, but I hope worth it to those who invest the time, and I try to make it easier as your can start with one Sphere, an while learning that you do not have to even look at the others. Yet if you do look at the other Spheres, you'll find it all very familiar, as they share so much.
Such a complex project took a bit of sorting out, and now I think the WarSpike sites work well together to show each step in the development process. I wanted to include fans in the development cycle, and so all the rules are posted on the WarSpike Development Blog to get some feedback. Once the concepts are sorted they are re-written and posted as Prototyping Pages to gain more feedback on the specific details. When the rules are working they move to the Static Site for all to see.
PDF: Once all of the content slots on the static site are filled the rules will be compiled into a PDF and released for download over P2P networks for free. I will be using magnet links to ensure the correct file is downloaded and hoping fans who like the rules leave a copy in their share folder to contribute to the downloads by other fans. The PDF will be licensed under a Creative Commons licence.
This is not the end on fan participation as WarSpike can be expanded with 'Augments' and source books. Fans can write up their own background (they can use Sciror but that's another story) and reference the rules etc. The only proviso is they can not duplicate the rules - they have to link back to the WarSpike site so players can download the rules. The rules will always be available for free.
I also plan to release a couple of Print on Demand editions, a cheap black and white spiral bound edition with no mark-up, and a premium edition rendered up as an old fight codex, full illuminated manuscript, containing all four Spheres in one massive hard copy. That I will charge for, and it will not be cheap! (If LuLu allowed me to embellish it with gold leaf I would!). This last one is about the only source of 'income' from the project based on product, though I think I'll add in a donation button just in case some one feels generous.
Well, that's what I've been up too in my spare time, and anyone is welcome to pop over and comment of the concepts and rules of WarSpike.
Draklodyte
I've added a gallery for images for Galerie Daniel Maghen. The first image is my Draklodyte commissioned by Oliver. It's based on the troll/ troglodyte I posted up in the WHF section of my site. I was asked to stick some wings on it, which I did, and the Draklodyte was born!
This is a pretty powerful beastie, on thick arms it bounds along like a Gorilla, and able to scale mountainous terrain with ease. The wings are a bit small for the sheer mass which affects it's modus operadi.
I imagine that the Draklodyte climbs up onto cliff tops and 'dive bombs' its victims. Swooping down at great speed: straight into the back of the party! Bowling them over like skittles - Strike! It then turns on them, butts them down, sits on their chests and devours their flailing hands. It has a very tough hide and regenerative powers and is a real pig to kill, but you are unlikely to get the chance as it employs the 'hit and run' tactic. As soon as it's eaten our arms it's out of there! It will not stand and fight - ever.
It's much the same as the troglodyte this concept is based on. As such I think they are smart and cunning, they tend to be a bit shy, and only attack when they have surprise.
Perhaps the drakes have wings, and the troglodyte is the female? She nests in the depths of dwarf strongholds?
The published image can be found in the L'univers des Dragons book published by Galerie Daniel Maghen.
Dan Browned
I was looking at my sites logs to see where all the traffic is coming from, I do this from time to time out of curiosity, and I noticed that was a bit of traffic from 'TV Tropes'. The link in my log files lead me to the 'Dan Browned' entry. Tentatively I followed, and after reading the Trope my fears were confirmed and I must confess I was a little concerned. I scanned through the entry, and I finally found the link to my site under Tabletop Games;
Source: TV Tropes: Dan Browned This troper has yet to meet a 40k fan who even tried taking the science seriously as to how it actually worked. Ironically enou... C the tactics employed by the various races in fluff have met a degree of grudging acknowledgement of having been researched and at least being plausible by the jarheads who played it most of the time.
- This guy gives it his best shot to try and justify the 40K universe. It's not perfect, but he tries. http://www.philhammer.com/WH40KRP/40K_1_Concepts_index.shtml
That's not bad, in fact it's quite good! Hence this post 😀 It seems I've come up as the lone voice of trying to make sense of 40K 'as is' (I think that is some kind of definition of madness...). Anyway, it made me smile, and a took a certain twisted pride in it.
New 40K game: Space Marine
I have been reading fan's views posted on various forums of the new development trailer for the game: 'Warhammer 40.000: Space Marine'. It seems the developers what the bolter as a destraction and have made it very weak (almost like a H&K UMP). While fans want a super Bolter, a weapon worthy of a MARINE.
I think that with a little imagination both camps could have their cake and eat it, or at least be able to co-exist without killing each other.
Expanding on what I said earlier about Bolters on the Anargo forums (what follows is a bit of a ramble);
Ideas for reconciling the two camps
VS Marines (loyal vs chaos)
- Assuming bolter have a small kicker charge to get them going (the case is more to protect the bolt, the kicker to clear it) then they would lack impact up close. (gyrogets can be stopped with a hand place over the muzzle)
- To get around this they could use a shaped charge (HEAT) to make up for the lack of kinetic impact. However, marines may employ a form of 'electric armour' that will defeat the penetrating effects of a shaped charge warhead.
- However the explosion would still pull the marine back suddenly and cause impact damage, but marine are tough and can take it - though they may be stunned.
- Further, if a marine can survive a direct hit from a bolt, then it would logically follow that any explosion near a marine would have far less effect (such or the firer being close) though if too close they may be stunned too. Hence close combat weapons when the close (or both may end up on the floor with little start wizzing around their heads!)
- At range the gyrojet/ rocket of the bolt gets it up to speed and it will hit with far more kinetic energy. At long range the major damage is kinetic not explosive. The HEAT charge is all but redundant and instead a rod or core is what causes the penetration.
- At range this impact are going to be very fast, many times the speed of sound (hypersonic) and such impact even marine will have trouble shrugging off. So would some armoured vehicles. (The bolt may even come in as some form of scramjet variant for special ops?)
VS others (cultists)
- Humans would be seriously damaged by the HEAT explosion even if not a direct hit (perhaps a bit of fragmentation to anti-personnel? The proximity fuse could be used to do an 'air-burst'?). Humans (cultist) would be knocked down and seriously stunned, with those nearest to the blast killed outright.
- This means humans and cultist can be mown down in their droves with air-bursts. The problem would be ammo supply. As this type of Bolt is getting very large, the ammo-supply would be quite limited. However, a air-burst would be great for killing several cultist at range.
Using these concepts a marine would use a Bolter at short range to stun chaos marines so they could close and finish.
They would kill chaos marines at range with careful single sniper shots. Though chaos marine would not like to be in the open, and if their were they would like to by running (and hence loyalist marine may decide to close)
Against humans is would be a gore-fest at any range. But a marine may run out of ammo, and wading through heavy fire may take it's toll on his armour. The marine may air-burst over the humans to stun more of them, then close.
All the time the marine is looking for one hit take downs.
The Bolter could be set for a three or four round burst fire, and it would be frighteningly effective. However the play would run out of ammo if they used it like a light machine gun to suppress.
Finally, suppressive fire: Marines would not bother with it because they can fire a single air-burst over the cover which explodes over the heads of those in cover. This means a marine can quickly close and would not have to stop if confronted with enemies in cover (which is good encase someone is tracking them with a heavy weapon and bolter at range, and as soon as they get pinned the are vulnerable).
Marine may have in the back of their mind that running around in bright armour and being a bullet magnet means they can never stop and never pause. They push on all the time. This could be added into the game as 'sniper fire' where chaos marine who see the player at range take shots. So being stealth only works with lots of cover.
++++++
Imagine the game play visuals with a a good swarm system and physics.
Cultist
Standing atop ferro-create stairway in front of mighty cathedral the marine faces down hundreds of charging cultists but only has a single clip!
As the cultists surge forward the marine takes out the leading ranks with 5 'air-burst' bolt salvo. These could be set in the game option at 'within 3m of living target' with a toggle between modes while in the action. As each bolt hits they explode and create 'crop circles' in the masses. Each salvo therafter piles up the dead and as the cultist slow and stubble on the dead they become more dense and the air busts affect far more (the funnelling of the stairs would also help).
When the dust settles the marine has killed hundreds with a 25 round clip!
Chaos marine
Similar situation to the above, except the marine faces a brother who has fallen to Khorne.
The player ties an air-burst and the chaos marine barely breaks stride!
The player flips the toggle to enable direct fire and the fire bolt slams right into the cheat of the marine knocking them down.
Then the chaos marine gets back up! The player pumps in another round but the chaos marine leans into the blasts (nutter!) and now only stumbles when hi (Khorne!)
The player pumps in round after round and the Chaos marine closes chain sword buzzing!
Another chaos marine, say of Nurgle charges into range and take the hit. Gets up an fires back! Player is stunned and the chaos marine is closing.
A Slaanesh marine may play guitar when hit, and only has to get close enough to affect the player' marine with it chaos sounds Would be fun to have a illusion effect where random friendlies turn in the visage of chaos scum, and some chaos marine look like pure loyalists. When the laze clears...)
Tzeentch marine may sniper from afar or a sorcerer may create multiple images (to waste out ammo and improve chances of closing).
The Bolter would be lethal, but the marine hard as nails!
Well that's my thoughts. I think it would give an interesting game play, what do you think?
Philip
Phoenix Rising
Seems the Dark Heresy is rising from the ashes via Fantasy Flight Games, which is great news. It's still not POD (which I will continue to jump up and down about), but it's great to hear it will continue to be available.
It will be interesting to see how things develop game and background wise, and what the lads and lasses at FFG come up with. The BI team created Dark Heresy in the bosom of GW, 40K vets with access to the studio, and I wonder how development will be handled in the future.
FFG have a forum, and I wonder if all the RPG fans will jump over? The fans often like both the novels and the games, and I see them as tightly linked, so splinting the fan base across two official forums could prove difficult in a 'business sense' - in that BL banned wargame discussion on the BL forum as they do not deal with the wargame rules (different department), so will they ban RPG discussion? I wonder if there will there be a similar policy on the FFG forums about BL fiction (seeing as BL fiction is not their company)?
Anyway, it's good to see it will not die out, and I wish FFG the best of luck 😉
Philip
Edit [6 Mar 08]: yep, the BL has shut the boards. All jump to the new FFG 40K Forum.
The death of Black Industries (RIP)
BI (Black Industries) is being killed of for the good of GW and to divert more resources into the novel lines: Black Industries Announcement.
In case you didn't know, BI was part of the Publishing Division of Games Workshop known as the Black Library (thankfully BL is continuing) which was responsible for producing RPGs based on the worlds of Warhammer and they did a fantastic job.
This really was a huge shock as they had just released the drop dead gorgeous 40K RPG 'Dark Heresy' to whoops of delight from just about everyone; fans and press alike. It seems to have surprised everyone in the RPG community, though many of the old cynics seem to take it on the chin and pointed out 'what did you expect from GW' as they flounced off.
First of, I have to say I was pissed. Not so much for GW binning the RPG and me being upset to see the RPG droped, but can you imagine all the blood, tears and sweat it must have taken the BI team to crack out this product to such a high standard that rabid fans have been waiting for over 20 years for it fell in love instantly, only to have that successes and rare glory (trust me it's really rare among Warhammer fans) and have that all ripped away within a few weeks of release?
The special edition sold out in 6 minutes, a copy sold on ebay for just over £500. Now the regular book is getting on to be rare than hen's teeth. It's been a huge hit.
Dave, everyone, I feel for you. This sucks lemons.
My creative fight back side kicked in, and I tried to put out some ideas to get the RPG back in play, a vain attempt to rally the troops;
= Novels and RPG link? = [dead link, no wayback machine archive either]
= Would you buy 40K RPG as a POD? = [dead link, no wayback machine archive either]
But obviously it was futile (I knew it was futile deep down) but I felt I had to do something as it felt so wrong. I suppose anyone who's been through this type of thing is going to feel it when they see another go through it. I just think it was a really nasty thing to happen, and I hope GW has a very good reason for doing it (though as I say it, I suspect the suits are doing their usual business hack and slash in times of trouble, thinking selling RPGs is like flogging washing machines. Over the years I sometimes wonder is any of the top brass actually play the games or even like the fans)
Rest in peace BI, I liked the buzz and the crowd over there, a decent community full of creativity, I hope all that passion finds a new home - long live Warhammer!