Sweet Zombie Robot Hitler!

So, if you’ve read this post, what I am about to tell you will make about as much sense as – oh, I dunno, some kind of crazy political alliance, something fundamentally inconceivable, like the Lib Dems suckling at the Tory teat:  I am writing my own miniatures ruleset.

Long time readers of this blog will remember Throne Agent!, a 40k-based skirmish game with campaign elements – imagine Necromunda is a hot chick in a casino and James Bond totally digs on her and knocks her up with his own little Kill Team – the baby would be something like Throne Agent!  And, yes, I know how visually unappealing that metaphor is, but it’s better than the one where Necromunda ties up James Bond and injects Kill Team directly into his scrotal sack before shaking his martini.  Ahem.  Throne Agent! is still a work in progress (is that the fate of 99% of homebrew rule sets? Discuss, but do it out of my hearing, plz), and my own ruleset has nothing to do with 40k.

According to the poll on the sidebar, I just lost 20% of my readers.  See you next post, guys!

Anyway,  I am a big fan of Sirlin.net, and although I have been keeping up with the articles on that site, I never considered actually applying some of the key concepts he discusses.  I am in the middle of doing so, and the basic game mechanic I have come up with looks like it will be not only fun and simple to grasp, but should inject (there I go with that word again) some depth and brain-fodder to what is ordinarily a fairly mechanical part of any miniatures game.  No, I am not going to tell you what it is, because I am still working on it, and that’s not why I am writing this.

I just wanted to say what a great bunch of people it is I game with.  About a day or two after I mentioned what I was doing and what the backstory to this game was, they had sought out suitable miniatures and placed their orders.  I now have the very entertaining and challenging prospect of coming up with a ruleset that lets Odysseus take on a Harlem pimp and a bionic Chairman Mao.  And also possibly Captain Kirk.

Another thing I learned in my previous trawls through game design blogs (a passing interest of mine for a while now) is that you need to focus, at the very outset, on who you are writing your game for.  Who is your audience?  Trying to write a game that appeals to everyone usually ends up with a game that appeals to no-one, so this one is solely for my gaming buddies.  I will write the game they want to play, and then – with a fair wind and some amusing models – we might even get to play it.

And if it’s not half bad, I will share it with you all.

If it’s brilliant, of course, then I’ll see you at Gencon

I lied: Midweek Miscellany was not a one-off.

1. Podcasts. I listen to three gaming-related podcasts, and the links are all in the right-hand column of this page – scroll down. Listening to them makes the interminable train journeys every day go that little bit faster (as does watching Youtube videos on my Android phone). The D6 Generation is my favourite. It covers GW games but also covers all manner of other games, from wargames to boardgames and from card games to the occasional console games. The three guys who present it are affable, witty and full of a genuine enthusiasm for all things (well, most things) gaming that makes listening such a pleasure. The production values and the effort that appears to have gone into prepping each episode really show – highly recommended.  World’s End Radio is an Oz-based podcast with a laid-back, contemplative style that focuses more on GW games. Their codex reviews are fun, frequently ripping below-par units in an amusing fashion. Dice Like Thunder is, to my ears, what a 40k forum would sound like on the radio. Not that it is an incoherent mess of ill-considered opinions blasted into the internet with no regard for the consequences – it’s not like a forum in that sense. Rather, DLT is a take-no-prisoners kind of podcast that one might expect from a bunch of exuberant Americans. That they have a segment entitled “Douche Bag Of The Week” tells you all you need to know…
2. Other games I would like to play. Firestorm Armada. Descent (again). Need to get my Malifaux fix out of the way first, though.
3. Scratchbuilt mycetic spores. Or, you could go to Hobbycraft or any arts store and buy a large styrene egg for £2 and get some expanding insulation foam in a can from B&Q for about £6. Good idea, though.
4. The Orks FAQ. Everyone is talking about it, since it allows Deffrollas to do D6 S10 hits to other vehicles. This is pretty big for orks, but does it affect the Tau? A little, but not much. If the ork player is taking deffrollas on his trukks, kill the trukks. If he is taking deffrollas on his battlewagons (which is much more likely) you may need to maneuver to get a shot at side armour, meaning that you won’t be able to kill the battlewagon right away. The usual response is to park a piranha or two in front of it to block its movement, and previously all the battlewagon could do was ram or go around. If it rammed, the piranha got a 3+ dodge and even if that failed the hit would be S5, meaning it would only glance on a 6. Not any more – fail that 3+ dodge and the piranha is going down. Several penetrating hits, all with a +1 on the damage table due to open topped, and it is highly likely the piranha will explode, allowing the battlewagon to roll on with impunity. One solution is to park two or more piranhas in front of the battlewagon, meaning that the battlewagon has to get past more than one 3+ dodge. If the piranhas are in a squadron, then even if one makes its dodge save, it may still take a roll on the damage table due to the squadron damage rules (pg. 64, although there is no RAW to cover Ramming a squadron, since the damage rules on pg.64 cover only shooting and close combat). If the piranhas are separate units, then the battlewagon must hit and explode both of them to keep moving – which is fairly unlikely. All this means that if you don’t have a couple of piranhas to block movement, or don’t want to risk them both in this way, you will need to ensure you get side shots on the battlewagon on Turn 1, which is down to deployment. In summary, not a big annoyance – bring tools to deal with mech and you are sorted.
5. Malifaux terrain. Perhaps I will get a better idea once I get a look at the rulebook, but for the moment it looks like some wild west terrain is in order. I have found a couple of guides to making wild west terrain with foamcore, and they look worth a try. Resin WW buildings are available, but at a price. Cardstock terrain is also available, but I have tried cardstock as a concept and found it wanting – the least flimsy terrain material I am willing to use is 5mm foamcore. This outfit lists wild west terrain as “coming soon”. Given the quality of their arab buildings, I am eagerly awaiting seeing what they come up with. Then there is this from TM Terrain:- Steampunk terrain is not something I can find a great deal of around the internet, but perhaps it is simply a case of mixing cobbles and cogs (hey – there’s a good name for a steampunk product right there!). Maybe some HirstArts fieldstone towers and buildings, but with added pipes and brass panels and steam vents? Might work. Any thoughts?
6. Base inserts - these are just super cool. Deus Ex Machina 30mm resin inserts for round-edged bases (Warmachine style). Must buy:-

I thought I would put up a post with links to my batreps in it. Lots of them have photos:-

Tau vs IG 930 pts “Engine Trouble”

Tau v Space Marines (1000 pts)

Cities of Death – FW Tau vs IG

Cities of Death, Tau vs IG, 1000 pts

Cities of Death – Tau vs Space Marines (1500)

Tau vs Forces of The Imperium (3500pts) (with Youtube!)

Drop Pod Iron Hands vs Tau (1500)

Orks vs Men of Iron (5th ed vs 2nd ed!)

“Engine Trouble” – playing with tanks (IG v Chaos)

Mini-Report – Witchhunters vs Imperial Navy (Combat Patrol)

1000 pts Chaos vs IG

2000 points – SM v Tau – first 5th Ed game

Tau vs IG – 1000pts

Hang around on any of the 40k forums and before too long you will see someone asking, “Is such-and-such allowed in 5th edition?” One example would be Tau Human Auxiliaries, which were included in a Chapter Approved article by Andy Hoare.

What is and isn’t “allowed” is not really the issue here. The issue is that players have mistaken the rules adopted by various tournaments, both official and unofficial ones, for rules limiting how they can play 40k in the comfort of their own club/ garage/ post-apocalyptic settlement.

Frequently, 40k tournaments will limit players’ armies to the contents of official codexes only, excluding Chapter Approved material and other GW sources, as well as, for example, units from Imperial Armour or any of the other Forgeworld books. That is fine and, in a competitive environment, understandable to some degree – competition needs a level playing field, and not all players have access to all the official-but-non-codex sources of units. Furthermore, some of them are clearly not balanced (ask a Tau player if he would ever take a Piranha when he could have a TX-42 instead). But just because that is how some players on the other side of the world/ country/ moral divide have chosen how to play the game means exactly this much to you and me: nothing. Nada. Zip.

What is and is not allowed depends entirely on two things, who you are playing and where. The where is simple – if you are playing in any kind of formal structure (ladder, tournament, campaign) then stick to the rules that have been decided in advance. Being rigorous, however, the rules decided in advance have been decided that way because of one factor alone – who is going to be playing. It all comes down to the person on the other side of the table. If the ladder comprises people at your local club, then it might be that none of those people mind Forgeworld or Chapter Approved units being used, or at least carefully selected ones. The club leaders and players might even be enthusiastic at the idea – one of the great features of any system like 40k is the diversity possible within the rules. Don’t feel bound by the restraints of the tournament systems. Explore the design space.

And if you are just playing an informal, fun or pick-up game then there are no such limits and there are no rules (barring the Most Important Rule – see pg. 2). Tell your opponent what you’d like to use and see if he agrees.

Of course, all this tracks back into how various players approach the game itself. At the one extreme you have competitive players who will build an army solely to win games and at the other you have hobby-focused players who build armies to explore the fluff, painting and modelling side of the hobby. Knowing which type you are (or which type you are for this game) and which type your opponent is will make questions like, “is this allowed?” a whole lot easier to answer, but that is a subject for another post.