Making bones about Nagash

The 'leak' is here for the new official miniature for Nagash, the necromancer in the Warhammer setting. It looks like a sleek, comfortably variable plastic kit, nipped and tucked neatly using CAD.

The previous one gets a lot of stick and seems widely regarded, online at least, as one of the worst ever Citadel miniatures. There's mention in this thread of the idea the skull was badly sculpted on purpose. If true, not badly enough for me. I've always been quite fond of the model, and I'd argue the skull's the key feature.

So this is an alternative perspective, a reappraisal for posterity, or possibly Midhammer.

The Unbearable Lightness of Grimdark?

This particular thread is one of the more useful discussions on the aesthetic trends in 40K that I've seen in a while, going beyond level of detail, phwoar factor and producer ranking. It's at BoLS believe it or not, on a more or less ephemeral post.

One of the arguments corresponds to that idea that D&D is now its own set of reference points, which came up again with the nods to past fiction in fifth edition. A couple more:

 

Towards a new model army?

Many of us feel that certain areas of wargaming can be pricey, some areas increasingly and unreasonably so. A handful of posts from the past few days suggest ways forward.

• James S at Warp Signal proposed the not-so-alien notion of army sharing...

• Matt Plonski at Apocalypse 40K described wargaming online with Vassal.

• The guys at Dark Future are reorganising their blog to highlight work in the wider community like tutorials, reviews of alternative bits and conversions.

• Loquacious at House of Paincakes followed up the OGL post and wondered about extending community licensing to other game systems and settings.

• For 40K especially, Tales of the Maelstrom posted a lead-in for tomorrow's festive meet-up, blending Rogue Trader's use of a GM with wide group play.

Interestingly, BoLS this week posted some homebrew, which I think is the first time in a good while. It's a full mission, like those Creative Twilight produce, possibly a step into a new golden age, and Loken reminded us of the first and its magical Lords of Battle pdf.

Dunroamins & Decline - GW, the OGL and its OSR

First, Itras By has finally been published in English. There's a fine review of the original at Harald's and the sample pdf is here. Thanks to Nørwegian Style for posting the news.

Second, in a discussion at BoLS on GW licensing its IP Vossl claimed "the OGL died a horrible fiery death 4 years ago". The OGL is the Open Game License. Part of my reply:

The OGL is alive and kicking. Pathfinder, which was built through the OGL, has at least for some time outperformed the official fourth edition and an Old School Renaissance is thriving because of it too, via what may well be hundreds of smaller publishers. The fact we know about fifth so early, not to mention the general direction it's headed in, may be in part down to the power the OGL has given the player base.

Vossl is clued up and a crisp thinker, so how many other people have never heard of the OGL, a licence that lets gamers create materials compatible with a much-loved system or IP and sell them. It's essentially D&D, but other companies, like GW, might catch on.

One of the beneficiaries and drivers of the development is this Old School Renaissance, or whatever we choose to call it, specifically the D&D OSR. But where are the pioneers vanishing to? How will we stumble across their worlds, or talk to and learn from them?

A few bits and pieces

First, BoLS has a major update on the ongoing GW vs. Chapterhouse case - there's a little more here - and HoP flags up a clever thunderhawk.

Second, if you've been having trouble seeing The M42 Project's vision of an improved alternative to 40K, SandWyrm posted a force organisation chart and revised game introduction. 

Third, there's a discussion going on at Trey's last Warlord review, on change in people and genre, and Roger the GM sees the old school in ITV's classic show Knightmare.

Fourth, one or two of us were commenting a while back with Lovecraft's favourite words, and to expand a shrunk vocabulary I've decided to build on that. I started here and here.

Lastly, it seems no one got that movie reference from the last post, so I've put a slightly more open reference into the next entry for the Maelstrom table. This is entry no. 6 of eight unless someone else jumps in before Saturday. If you have a suggestion, go for it.

     The descent into the Maelstrom... (heading for 1D8)

     6. ... wakes the traveller - who is afloat and wired up in a sensory deprivation tank.
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Warhammer xK and wargaming almost before war

There was a post at Kings Miniatures last week suggesting GW cuts prices by 50% and that we list what we'd buy if they did to encourage them.

I've been wondering what I'd put on a list at 50% off, but I haven't come up with anything yet. The Lord of the Rings line is there, but why drop into 25mm from 28mm and not go to 15mm, or better yet 6mm? For sci-fi and 40K at 6mm, check out the new not-titans from Steel Crown Productions.

Building on a discussion with Snord at BoLS, I don't much dig GW's heroic 28mm style any more. I think it looks odd. The bits can be useful though, and we might only now be learning how useful. Ork hands, say, can look simian on naturally proportioned humans.

I know I'm not alone in this, so here's another hypothetical. If GW's style is falling out of fashion, what else could the rulesets be used for? What if the settings got old?

To mention another discussion at BoLS, I recently joked some of the Dystopian Legions miniatures could inspire a Warhammer 20K, set 10,000 years further back from the 30K of the currently fashionable Horus Heresy. What about playing a Warhammer 2K in our near past or future, or c. 0K with ancients? Would the ruleset be up to the job?

That got me thinking about earlier periods. How about -40K? Or -400K? Have you ever seen a ruleset for wargaming or roleplaying encounters between early humans? This kind of thing. Various posts at The Subversive Archeologist - like this one - suggest plenty is still up in the air. Early human miniatures are relatively thin on the ground too.

If you have anything like that up your sleeve, you might want to read Lo's current series at HoP on getting new ideas out there, which is now up to the subject of self-publishing.

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Apocalypse come (1) - Your actual eaters of worlds

In sixth edition 40K some factions can only ally come an apocalypse. Trouble is, a 41st millennium apocalypse might just end up being moar of everything available, rather than something suitably eschatological and worthy of the game that gave us Realm of Chaos.

But then a lot of apocalypses can seem fairly samey. In an effort to help I thought I'd run a series with a few slightly lesser-spotted ideas, but not for any one system or setting.

The first theme I've had in mind a few weeks, but a comment at BoLS recently prompted me to post. The context was the idea that the new Horus Heresy releases mean people start playing what is effectively a new game - Warhammer 30,000 - just space marine on space marine. The commenter joked there could be a Warhammer 50K of Tyranids only.

In case this is all new to you, and don't feel bad about that, the Tyranids are a biological, self-evolving, nomadic civilisation from the intergalactic gulfs or beyond, directed by their psychic hive mind. They consume pretty much everything and evolve around problems.

That was a pretty freaky idea once, but today, for me - and without the infiltration of the genestealer cults especially - they're just a more colourful, general purpose armed force.

So how to get the horror back, but without the cult body horror? It could be by homing in on the broader existential aspects, and going for a more save-or-die cosmological tone.

Gdub, the beeb and us

You've quite likely now heard about, read or watched the recent BBC report on 40K.

We've had comparisons to the Greek article and plenty from a gamer's point of view, but with a former national newspaper editor arrested in the UK yesterday and the Leveson Inquiry on, that seems too shallow. At BoLS eeore said of the BBC look: "It is a hatchet job, it's just more subtle"; I disagree, but I'd say that level of thinking is far more useful.

There's a lot to ponder, but I'll keep it simple. The first thing that stands out for me is the interviewee's claim that: "people fall back into [40K] as as an adult when they realise 'I don't care any more'." But that isn't a reason for return as much as an openness about having done so. So what could those reasons be then? In a recent commment I wrote:

Remember, 40K could now be so deeply a part of the way each of us experiences the world, and the emotional bond so strong after years of reading, modelling, painting and gaming with friends, that few of us can make a clean break.

Hold that thought. The next most outstanding element for me is the response from GW CEO Mark Wells to the claim of price exploitation: "It's just not in our nature," he says.

This from the CEO of a public limited company whose executives, so the journalist tells us, "say they don't do media interviewees". Why not? The two statements feel more like the jumping off point for some fuller investigative journalism than the closure of a thing.

What's the connection? Watching the lawyers at the Leveson Inquiry do what I'd call a rather poor job of questioning Paul Dacre, another UK newspaper editor, I couldn't help but wonder: how do we scrutinise a media that shapes language and mental landscape if we have to use that language itself, appealing to an audience shaped the same way?

How do we keep powerful institutions in check when they form the media which informs us, when we work within them nine to five and spend our free time with their products?

How far can we freely grow into new spaces if pruned any given way at an early age?

Are we trapped today in an imaginative and perceptual loop? Are we doomed to return to the old because we can't make a new, and because we can't articulate why we might?

_

40K OSR? (12)

Here goes with another full 40K OSR? update.

First things first - if you're wondering what a 40K OSR might be, potential definitions are here.

If you identify with the concept, and especially if you're coming up with new ideas, Colonel Kane's logo, which is here on the right, is ready to use.

If you do use it, consider giving him credit and adding Tales from the Maelstrom to your roll. The last post had a converted Rogue Trader crew member, and before that a set of four Zoats.

As ever, you can find all the most recent related posts using the 40K OSR? label.

• This time round the first piece of big news is the release of Lantz's updated AdMech FanDex; Michael at Santa Cruz Warhammer has a review and there's a short list here, my entry for this month's Army List Challenge.

• Big too was the contest at Rules Manufactorum for a 40K mini-game; the deadline might have passed, but feel free to follow up any of these ideas.

• Also at Rules Manufactorum was the first Alt40K, on snipers, plus hints for homebrew veterans and Master Bryss on points theory, parts 1, 2 and 3.

• Re new games, Tears of Envy has a website up, with =][=MVNDA fiction.

• At Galaxy in Flames Big Jim pulled the Killzone links ready for the update.

• Brent at Strictly Average has a new main scenario; more here at BoLS.

• At BoLS today Bigred has a theory on Forge World balancing the game.

• There's some Apocalypse homebrew by jabberjabber at Warpstone Flux, namely Nurgle's Dark Contagion, inspired by The Lost and the Damned.

• The_King_Elessar at Mind War, ftw! did more of the Eldar codex rewrite.

• At The Veil's Edge Bix has developed a history for the Blood Drinkers.

• Tallarn at still practicing_ has rules for dangerous flora and blizzards, last pushes and team play in with coverage of a Planetary Empires campaign.

• Staying with campaigns, Unite All Action has a first report at 500 points.

• Rictus at Recalcitrant Daze has two Ork mekboy junkas, here and here.

• Hungry Ghosts has more creative use of classic bits at his Chaos Squats blog, with some decorative elements, three troopers and a biker.

• While we're talking Squats, there are some of those amazing Ulkans from pegaminidesign painted up here, a couple being used as Jokaero.

• At Confessions... dwez has a variant on the WD whirlwind, a scratchbuilt mycetic spore and, linked up last week, some classic art by Gary Harrod.

• There's some newer art over at Spiky Rat Pack - a sketch of an arbites judge here and one of a marine here, some previously unseen John Blanche miniatures here, now up at gothic punk, and two watercolours here.

For the wild card this time there's more on scaling-down from 28mm, with Tabletop Fix looking at using 15mm substitutes for Mantic's Kings of War at BoLS; the discussion covered Epic and 40K too. If you like the idea and you haven't yet, you might want to check out the possible 6mm Necrons, Squats and imperials linked up at this post.

As usual, feel free to suggest anything you think should be here, even your own posts.

Update: I've just found Codicium Aeternum, where The March Rider is converting a good-looking Inquisition force, with one mini even using a Rogue Trader-era plasma gun. Also, Nick at The Dice Abide is looking to build alternative DE grotesques.

_

Diddly Squat?

Most of us with an interest have probably noticed the rumour by now, and Bell of Lost Souls has just put it out for a much wider audience too. The suggestion is the Squats might finally be coming back to Warhammer 40,000. It's been a while.

Read this post at The Veil's Edge - from Tuesday - for an important idea, that bloggers are responsible. In this sense there's been little doubt for a while now the Squats will return in some form. I do disagree with one point though, that this rumour feels right.

For me what makes it seem like a rather crude joke, or an exaggeration on the part of the quoted source, is the idea they might have battle axes and be intoxicated. Yep, you read that right. If the impression given all those years ago was that GW wanted more than dwarves in space, why would they go back to the idea? This is the popular, comic image of the Squats, embellished in the telling over years, not the expected Demiurg.

I think the design studio at least would want to justify the anger and bitterness caused and give us a fuller development, and we ought to expect no less as older and hopefully more mature people. While it may be wonderful to see the Jokaero back, today's idea seems little more than a short step from the original concept. From the point of view of design, it can't have been much work. No one is really challenged by the new Jokaero. We got a surprise; GW earnt some kudos. But surely two decades ought to bring more?

Character building

Another day, another discursive Bell of Lost Souls discussion. This time a good post by Just_Me on creating new characters in 40K runs into roleplaying - not as regular a theme as the past two days would suggest - old sourcebooks, Dune and geopolitics.

On moving on

All things pass, and that feels like a lot today.

Warhammer 39,999 reminds us 2 March is Old Stuff Day, a day of blogging renewal. But what about the balance of new and old elsewhere?

Over at Totally Jinxed is a post reflecting on ageing as a woman, with a twist of humour and horror. Is it ever time to move on? How do we know?

Many of us know Ron Saikowski at From the Warp has put the blog in stasis. Brent has an interview with him at Bell of Lost Souls. Here's Ron:

For me, it's a matter of perspective... while the hobby (and hobby time) is important, my family and time with them are far more important. For those who have children, they grow up so fast and you can't replace the time you get with them.

Time brings revelations, and change which can be for the better. I say we need to take risks, but well considered and generous, mutually beneficial. When men and women made the "intellectual jump" that brought the wolf through the door, we gained; maybe the wolf too. Science In My Fiction covers this. The enemy at the gate our best friend.

Old understandings change. But will we be forgotten, and the things we care about? Over at Strange Horizons, Alastair Reynolds is quoted on change in sci-fi:

Trad Hard SF withers and dies with appalling swiftness, and doesn’t get re-read very much.

Our world is old and dying, but also young and vital. Who would be immortal? Would life grow bland or is age a virtue? Could we even live in the future? Technically, perhaps we could, as Greg at the Cascade Failure blog suggests with an extract of his new rules, assuming we wanted to. But intellectually, emotionally? We here now may be the best possible friends in all of history. Or will we finally be understood at the end of time?

The Digital Cuttlefish put up a haunting post some time back on voluntary euthanasia, a complement to the post on star stuff, which links to Spinoza again too.

There is also the knowledge of one of our good blogging friends, who suffered the loss of a family member recently, that life can defy the supposed odds.

For now the sun shines even behind the clouds, and spring is on the path around it.

DE QEF

I wanted to write something today about the new creatures for the GW Dark Eldar range, but I really can't. Not because I'm not interested of course - I've usually got a comment on the potential for alien lifeforms - but because the DE just make me sad.

My thoughts on the faction I've put at Bell of Lost Souls and will surprise none of the longer-term readers there. Without getting into all the issues of their suitability for the younger end of the customer base, I feel that while the structural quality of the miniatures is high, and the DE concept might have moved beyond 'Eldar who are Dark', this really ought to have been true over 12 years ago when they were first released.

After all, the structural and conceptual quality of the succubus in the most recent batch doesn't seem to me greatly different than the House Escher miniatures released for 1995's Necromunda. Compare that latest mini with the Escher gang here. If only the original DE - released just under three years after the Escher - had been so well-proportioned and naturally-posed.

Grey Knights are grey

 
The Grey Knights are on the way, White Knight and Black Knight both. For now we have the usual blurred images, and the star of the show is what seems to be a terminator-armoured space marine on or in a large walker.

Already we're struggling for terms. It's a penitent engine, Optimus Prime or a gundam, a robot, the loader from Aliens.

Aliens, that same film again.

Always with the new a need to classify, as if we can capture the essence in existing ideas. By all means we ought to look at etiology, separate the ideas and trace them back to their origin. But this doesn't seem to be what's happening.

We're just labelling, without understanding, and perhaps only to claim for ourselves, to demean, to subordinate to our highness. 'Those designers didn't outdo us!' we seem to shout, as if feeling subjects really.

But of course the model is something new, however derivative that new might be, however much a blend of tired ideas. Yes, even if those ideas do come from Aliens.

And a year from now this model might be used as a reference point for something weirder, something else again. Ten years from now it might be a classic, an inspiration itself. A decade after that we'll quite possibly be exchanging it for vast sums through the future equivalent of eBay.

Or won't, if we all heed these words and buy one now.

Brother Captain Hegel is on many frontlines, even those of clashes unknown, or trivial.

Foliation

Another thoughtful post by Just_Me at Bell of Lost Souls, this time for ponderers of future warfare, high technology and transhumanism, here in the form of space marines.

Compare the Kuto Sebree of Riskail, even the T1000. How else does fiction do this?

Shadowing

If you've been following the recent discussions on quogwinkles, portals and dimensions, and especially if you're a fan of the 40K game world, you might well like Just_Me's most recent post on minor aliens at Bell of Lost Souls, this time the Umbra.

By another coincidence there's currently a follow-up post on alien physiology at the top of Science In My Fiction, written by Juliette Wade of TalktoYoUniverse.

Barking Alien also posted recently on the difference between an alien and a monster. This was a discussion I enjoyed very much, even if we do disagree a little; perhaps more so for it. I'll be pondering the ideas at any rate, and you can make up your own minds.
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Sleigh bells and whistles

I've held off for long enough.

If you have an interest in the physics of Santa Claus - not just that physique - then Science In My Fiction has an article for you.

Wondering how he'd look to an Inquisitor in the 41st millennium? Possibly the definitive answer is set out at Warhammer 39,999 in a humorous text of mysterious origin.

Also for fans of 40K - and anyone with a hand in worldbuilding - the trusty Just_Me at Bell of Lost Souls has an interesting article up, on holidays in the Imperium.

And as if that were not enough, the long-awaited Killzone update has finally arrived at Galaxy in Flames - forget the presents under the tree!

There are also more Christmas gifts waiting for you at various generous blogs.

When lives co-world (1)

These past few days I've been pondering the many imaginary worlds of wargamers and roleplayers, and more specifically how we interact with these spaces.

So what's cooking? Well, that rather depends...

It starts with Games Workshop's unreleased Stormraven, a possible pic of which has emerged. Opinion is divided. Two discussions at Bell of Lost Souls (one and two) show some commenters, such as Snord, Tynskel and our very own Satiran, are able to recognise in their positive critiques that compromises are necessary in sharing a world. In wargaming the world is more fixed and the wargamer accepts it more or less as it is.

In roleplaying the world is more fluid, perhaps frighteningly so. There are advantages. To take the Stormraven example, the DM or GM has only to show a good likeness (from concept ships?) and let the players imagine their own details. This is both more work and less, for everyone involved, but it is liberating. Then again, having a physical model does help with interactions, which is why miniatures and 2D or 3D maps have their place in RPGs too. The extent of the crossover is surprising, and I tried to reflect it here.

Porky ponders...

Something unusual up at Bell of Lost Souls today. Something long. If you struggle to get through it, I'd say make yourself a drink, find a quiet place and give it one more shot.

Still no luck? Here's a summary then. Key points in bold. Let me know how it goes.

'Comp' - or army composition - is a corrective system which aims to bring a tournament back from an extreme and closer to the equilibrium of the hobby. Painting and sportsmanship scoring are others. There are arguments for and against such systems. Brent from Strictly Average recently wrote two good articles, one there and one at BoLS, and stimulated a lot of discussion.

Not everyone plays at tournaments. Not everyone plays competitively. Not everyone even plays to win. Basically, not everyone is in the hobby for the same reasons. This is great and variety is fun. The interests of all are spread by the internet and everyone is happy. Right? Not necessarily.

Most players are probably male and young. Many are adolescent. It seems to me natural that this group will be more competitive than the average for the population, more vulnerable to peer pressure. Hardly anyone likes to lose a game. Makes sense we'd do what we can to avoid it. This instinct is one of the big things that skews the game towards an extreme.

Here's where the 'net list' comes in, an army list designed really only to win, with little or no unpredictability, individuality or reference to the rich game background. If we copy a list like this, less hard work and imagination is needed, which means less personal development and self-expression. And it starts an arms race.

In the sense that net lists are used at tournaments, comp has a balancing role to play in the whole of the hobby. If the net lists need to be less extreme to get a good comp score, the net lists will change. If there is a recognised trend in list building, you can get a good comp score by moving away from this trend. Doesn't matter much which direction you move in. Many army builds can get good comp scores. More imagination, more hard work - with the benefits these bring. The heat gets taken out of the arms race.

Yes, I know that comp is subjective. I cover that at the beginning of the article. It's not good. I don't like it. But a lot of people complain that the rules themselves are too loose and they still get used for tournaments. We need to ponder more and beware of throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

That was the lead in to the article. Here's the main point.

Don't get me wrong. Play the game you love. If you and your buddies want to bash each other up, you must be enjoying it and none of us can complain about that. The game can be all things to all people. I'd say only look at who you are playing with. If they don't want you to bash them with your hardcore list, something is wrong. If they see you as stiff and obsessed with narrative or background, something is wrong.

Who wants to make the other guy unhappy? Perhaps you both need to compromise, or alternate play styles, or introduce handicaps or merge gaming groups. The hobby is big and can accommodate us all. We just have to be accommodating and recognise what we each want from a game. We need to listen to each other.

We're all friends, no matter what our views. We all love the hobby. We understand each other.

I love being part of the community even when I don't see eye to eye on how to do things. We can all speak, listen, think and go forward. I've changed my views a lot recently. More than I thought I could. I'm glad I have - that's progress - and not afraid to admit I was wrong. I'd say I was wrong on 'spamming' units for example. That change happened through talking. I can persuade you and you can persuade me. We just have to have a conversation.

There's a lot of love in that article. Love for the community. I wanted to say why I'm here and get people asking the same question. If one day you stop believing and need a dose of goodwill, go read it again, especially the second half, and answer the questions.

Better still, say what's on your mind and let's discuss it. I'll listen and others will too.