Ultramarines!

September 30, 2009 12:32 PM

In the Grim Darkness of the Far Future, There is Only Skulls War... the movie!
posted by fearfulsymmetry (112 comments total)

What an informative splash page!

Not to be confused with Damnatus, which is both unofficial and complete. Both share woefully designed sites.
posted by lumensimus at 12:37 PM on September 30

IN THE GRIM FUTURE OF HELLO KITTY THERE IS ONLY WAR.
posted by explosion at 12:39 PM on September 30 [4 favorites has favorites]

Really the site should just say "ONLY WAR" in big huge letters.

Must register "whatsinthegrimdarkfuture.com"...
posted by Artw at 12:40 PM on September 30

5 Reasons Why You Should Read a Warhammer 40,000 Book

It's a bit Dan Abnett heavy. Dan Abnett has always seemed suspiciously ungrim to me.
posted by Artw at 12:41 PM on September 30

Still waiting on Checkers: Smoke Before Fire and Connect Four: A Love Story.
posted by jquinby at 12:42 PM on September 30 [1 favorite has favorites]

Checker do not have skulls on them. Connect four does not have spikes or chains. Neither of them take place in a grimdark future where there is ONLY WAR. They are weak, inferior games sent to polute our minds by the forces of chaos.

/burns the heretical games, WITH FIRE.

/puts jquinby to the sword.

For the Emperor!
posted by Artw at 12:46 PM on September 30 [13 favorites has favorites]

That SA article is the first thing I've ever read that went into any depth at all into Warhammer 40k. I thought chainsaw bayonets and really ugly naturally muscled/armored warriors were original to Gears of War. Is it really the other way around? Or are chainsaw bayonets actually a common weapon and I've somehow just managed to miss that fact?
posted by lyam at 12:48 PM on September 30

and by naturally, I meant unnaturally.
posted by lyam at 12:49 PM on September 30

naturally.
posted by lyam at 12:49 PM on September 30

There is literally nothing in the WH40k universe that someone hasn't attached a chainsaw to. This is because it is a universe of ONLY WAR and so soup ladles, step ladders and even other chainsaws must all be modified to better fight the forces of chaos/xenos/anyone who looks at you a bit funny.

The WH40k univer, by the way, was assembled in the 80s from bits of whatever was lying around (Nemesis the Warlock, Starship Troopers, Dune, Mad Max, Michael Moorcock, Spikes, Skulls, Chainsaws) and so is this incredible mad mashup of other peoples ideas that has it's own mad originality. Early versions of the ruklebooks were very honest about all the stuff they'd nicked from, though these days everything is nailed down by the iron hand of GW Ip lawyers.

Yer Gears of War is very much a latecomer to the whole guns with chainsaws on scene.
posted by Artw at 12:56 PM on September 30 [9 favorites has favorites]

About the only thing I enjoy lately about 40k is puns on phrases from the 40k universe which emphasize the cost of the hobby:

"Even in debt, I still spend."
"It is better to buy for the Emporer than save for yourself."
posted by ODiV at 12:58 PM on September 30 [2 favorites has favorites]

I think I might have played WH40K once. It's hard to be sure because there were other, more experienced players there as well, and they kept shouting rules at me and telling me no, you can't do that, why don't you move there instead, and generally sighing a lot and rolling their eyes.

But I loved reading the rule book. There's probably five pages of exposition, backstory or illustration for every single page of rules, and all that made for an incredibly deep* universe.

*Yeah I know most of it was stolen, whole-cloth from other sources. That doesn't mean it's not fertile grounds.
posted by lekvar at 1:07 PM on September 30 [1 favorite has favorites]

I just recently recommended Dan Abnett's books, which reptile picked up after joining a Dark Heresy game. They were actually really good, although yes, the grimdark is hilarious. There's damned decent world-building, ambiguous morality, ridiculous weaponry, floaty mechanical skullz, and the occasional awful joke.

1d4chan has plenty to say about the hilarious grimdark, and is recommended after a proper introduction via gaming, or, for those of us who don't have work-sponsored RPG groups, reading some novels.
posted by cobaltnine at 1:10 PM on September 30 [1 favorite has favorites]

lekvar - The rules are actually kind of shit and boring, and much like this, and really I never got through an entire game without everyone deciding to play D&D or Space Hulk (previously) or to watch Conan the Barbarian or Aliens Directors Cut instead. But the setting is awesome. And ONLY WAR!
posted by Artw at 1:13 PM on September 30

Someone needs to ANSI up some skulls!
posted by Artw at 1:13 PM on September 30

It would be awesome if this movie was a romantic comedy.

"In the Grim Darkness of the Future There is Only the War...At Home!"

"Oh, Bloodspire don't leave your chainsaw there, you'll get blood on the carpet. I just vacuumed. Now wash up for dinner."

"After 4 months of non-stop skullcrushing, bone splitting, and gristle spitting, I'm starving!"
...looks under lid of serving dish
"On second thought, I'm not that hungry."
posted by Pastabagel at 1:13 PM on September 30 [2 favorites has favorites]

THERE IS NO ROMANTIC COMEDY! NO DINNER! ONLY WAR! DO YOU NOT LISTEN??????
posted by Artw at 1:15 PM on September 30

::sets 250 point boner to Overwatch::
posted by robocop is bleeding at 1:25 PM on September 30

Back when I was in high school and playing RPGs, all of the kids (including me) in my nerdy neck of the nerdy woods were really into Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (especially the Enemy Within stuff). Warhammer 40,000 and its ilk, on the other hand, were generally considered stuff for guys with even less hope of scoring a girlfriend than we had, and its fans were thought of as best pitied and avoided. Years passed and I lost interest in RPGs, but when a Games Workshop store popped up in my neighbourhood mall I checked it out for old-times' sake and was amazed to see its wares consisted entirely of 40,000 accessories, with nary a WFR module to be seen.
posted by The Card Cheat at 1:47 PM on September 30 [1 favorite has favorites]

The Card Cheat - The Kim Newman novels are still in print though, so there's that.
posted by Artw at 1:48 PM on September 30

Is this the thread where we make fun of Warhammer 40k?
Oh <img> tag, how I miss thee...
posted by PontifexPrimus at 1:49 PM on September 30 [2 favorites has favorites]

TCC -- there's a brand new edition of WHFRP coming out sometime this year.
posted by lumensimus at 1:51 PM on September 30

Glad to hear it, even if those days are well past for me (the day I took all my WHFRP stuff over to the thrift store was one of those "childhood's end" moments for me)...Warhammer was hands-down the best RPG I ever played.
posted by The Card Cheat at 1:53 PM on September 30

Typical marine show-ponies. Should've been about the Guard.
posted by pompomtom at 1:54 PM on September 30

I never bothered to read enough books to find out, but is there some reason Elves and Eldar have such comically lofty hats?
posted by winna at 1:55 PM on September 30

The Card Cheat--Games Workshop stopped publishing Warhammer FRP in the early 90s, on the grounds that roleplay wasn't 'core' to its business and wasn't selling figures--which has been the backbone of the company since it was bought out by Citadel in the 80s. A British company called Hogshead Publishing licensed the rights and kept the game in print (if not in GW's own stores) and supplied with new material, till the end of 2002. Hogshead did some nice stuff, but I would say that as it was my company.

After that GW's internal Black Library division re-acquired the rights to the game and released a second edition (developed by Green Ronin) that was well received. I believe that this edition also wasn't stocked in most GW stores. Rights to it and the Warhammer 40,000 RPG 'Dark Heresy' were sold to Fantasy Flight at the start of 2008: Fantasy Flight has recently announced a third edition, which also won't be found in Games Workshop stores.

40K has been the big moneymaker for several years. It's not quite a 66%-33% split between it and WFB in terms of revenue, but it's getting on for it.
posted by Hogshead at 1:57 PM on September 30 [6 favorites has favorites]

Because they are Xeno scum and need to be wiped out. Curiosity on such matters is unnecessary, and possibly dangerous.
posted by Artw at 1:59 PM on September 30 [2 favorites has favorites]

Hogshead - They hopped on the Lord of the Rings gravy train for a couple of years as well. That probably hurt them when it stopped.
posted by Artw at 2:01 PM on September 30

Little known fact: I wrote a couple of novelettes for the early 40K anthologies published by GW books.

/me dies of teh shame
posted by cstross at 2:02 PM on September 30 [7 favorites has favorites]

Okay, so on a slightly more serious(ly nerdy) note, here's a transcription of some scrawlings I made regarding the Emperor and the creation of the Primarchs. I forgot a book one night while waiting to meet up with folks at a bar, so all I had to entertain me was a pen and a handful of scrap paper. I share it with this thread because this is a 40k thread and I'm always looking for more venues to share my drunken ramblings.

My Theory: The creation of the Primarchs, the first (best?) set of genetically enhanced superwarrior known as Space Marines, was a deliberate act (ritual?) by the Emperor to rid himself of those human traits that stood between himself and Godhood. Each Primarch (and later the marine legion based on his geneseed) represents a human failing that the Emperor needed to purge in order to ascend. Each failing is a human drive, desire, or need and while as a god the Emperor would be free to use them, he shouldn't have them in order to be perfect and thus resist the Chaos Powers.

So, remembering I was drunk when I wrote this down, here we go (some spoilers here if you're reading the Heresy series):

Alpha Legion - Duplicity, Lies, Guile
Ultramarines - Fraternity, Brotherhood
Lunar Wolves - Ambition, Need to Overcome
Imperial Fists - Obedience
Emperor's Children - Quest for Perfection/Self-Improvement
Iron Hands - Need to Create, Build
Death Guard - Need to Endure/Survive, Acceptance
Blood Angels - Family, Love
Iron Warriors - Jealousy
Word Bearers - Faith
World Eaters - Anger, Rage, Need to Destroy
Night Lords - Fear
Thousand Sons - Quest for Knowledge, Need to Understand
Space Wolves - Ferocity, Animal instinct
Dark Angels - Solitude, Self Reliance, Stoicism
White Scars - Need to Explore/Travel/Conquer
Raven Guard - Obsession
Salamanders - Civilization

The remaining two (one?) "mystery chapters" are, of course, up in the air.

By ridding himself of these human traits, the Emperor could then go on to become a God. Due to the humanity hardwired into the Primarchs, though, the Emperor both succeeded and failed, trapped in a state of livinf death within the Golden Throne. It was those human traits that Chaos preyed upon, tempting Horus' ambition and need to succeed, Fulgrim's desire to be perfect, Angron's rage, Magnus' desire to Know, and Mortarion's desire to be the last dude standing. Faith was hardwired into the Word Bearer's very identity, so when the Emperor banished all faiths in favor of Reason, they had to go worship something! The Iron Warriors were easy - "Don't you want nice stuff like those guys?" And I'm sure they offered Night Haunter whatever it took to make him more like Batman, which as we all know, is a common failing.

So where did the Emperor get this idea? Not from Chaos. The Ruinous Powers did not represent the sort of cold, clean future He wanted. Instead, I think he used the C'Tan as his model, particularly the Void Dragon which he trapped beneath Mars for further study. That didn't stop him from using techniques swiped from the Eldar, Chaos, or Old Ones.

Then again, given how most of the Legions were formed by a bunch of blokes who probably sat around the pub and said, "Wouldn't it be awesome to have a bunch of Genghis Khan Space Marines, like, on motorcycles and shit? No, it has to be motorcycles. You can't look cool on a hoverbike!" I'm probably way off, but it's a fun (drunk) thought experiment.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 2:04 PM on September 30 [12 favorites has favorites]

Now Warhammer FRP, that I could get behind. I especially enjoyed mutating progressively as my character fell deeper and deeper into chaos.

Sadly, one publishing company or another has been threatening that a reprint is just around the corner, any day now for years. I'll believe the new edition when I see it.
posted by lekvar at 2:06 PM on September 30

here's a transcription of some scrawlings I made regarding the Emperor and the creation of the Primarchs...

Holy shit. Please loan me your copy of De Vermis Mysteriis once you regain a few SAN points there.
posted by GuyZero at 2:11 PM on September 30 [5 favorites has favorites]

Also: Warhammer FRP YES; 40K NO NO THERE IS ONLY NO
posted by GuyZero at 2:11 PM on September 30 [3 favorites has favorites]

Free chainsaws and copies of The Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer for everyone!!! Men of MeFi, do you want to live forever?
posted by MikeMc at 2:11 PM on September 30 [1 favorite has favorites]

GW also started a non-franchise SF publishing imprint, which actually turned out to be pretty decent quality wise but totally didn't fit in with anything else they do and so was kind of weird. In the end they sold it to Rebellion.
posted by Artw at 2:12 PM on September 30

Little known fact: I wrote a couple of novelettes for the early 40K anthologies published by GW books.

HA! One of the fanboyz on that 40K book thread says that the 40K book are better than your stuff! Oh, irony and embarrassment, such a potent mixture!
posted by GuyZero at 2:13 PM on September 30 [2 favorites has favorites]

Little known fact: I wrote a couple of novelettes for the early 40K anthologies published by GW books.

Oooh. Do you have anything in Deathwing?

/rummages around in old boxes.
posted by Artw at 2:13 PM on September 30

Heh.

"Monastery of Death by Charles Stross"
posted by Artw at 2:14 PM on September 30

It would be awesome if this movie was a romantic comedy.

TRAILER VOICEOVER]

He was a Space Wolf, she was a Thousand Sons blood mage, and this Christmas they have to meet each other's parents. Soon they'll discover that the ONLY WAR you can't win, is the one with your in-laws...
posted by quin at 2:16 PM on September 30 [3 favorites has favorites]

METAFILTER: AN OPEN MIND IS LIKE A FORTRESS WITH ITS GATES UNBARRED AND UNGUARDED.
posted by Pope Guilty at 2:17 PM on September 30 [5 favorites has favorites]

BZZZT THOUSAND SONS HAVE NO GENDER ONLY DUST AND DUTY

My pitch would be a romantic comedy where he is a hard-working apprentice Ordos Xenos interrogator and she is a free-spirited, fun pict girl whose family is just starting to show signs of 'nid genetaint. Can he learn to relax and accept her kooky family for it's uniqueness and individuality? ANSWER: No, he can't. They must burn.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 2:22 PM on September 30 [11 favorites has favorites]

robocop is bleeding has passed the test. All else must face the cleansing fire.
posted by Artw at 2:23 PM on September 30 [5 favorites has favorites]

WH40K movie = woohoo!!
That SA article = wtf!? how can anyone read more than 1 page of that?
WH40k movie = woohooo!!
posted by Vindaloo at 2:29 PM on September 30

Little known fact: I wrote a couple of novelettes for the early 40K anthologies published by GW books.

On the flip side, the name I've heard for these kinds of works is "This pool isn't going to pay for itself." For example. You and The Rock, Charlie. You're in good company.
posted by GuyZero at 2:29 PM on September 30

Monstery of Death is like the bestest 40K title ever... it's just sums up everything.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 2:35 PM on September 30 [1 favorite has favorites]

This Monastery, does it have skulls?
posted by Artw at 2:36 PM on September 30

Well actually Monastery Of Chainsaw Skull Death might be a slight improvement
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 2:38 PM on September 30 [1 favorite has favorites]

Is it a flying space Monastry or is it a Monastry situated upon a brooding mountainside on one of the most inhospitable planets known to the Imperium?
posted by Artw at 2:40 PM on September 30 [2 favorites has favorites]

BTW I've added the chainsaw tag, which appears to be one of the best MeFi tags.
posted by Artw at 2:41 PM on September 30 [1 favorite has favorites]

"Monastery of Death by Charles Stross"

Wow, you're sharing W40k pagespace with Storm Constantine and Ian Watson. That's all kinds of bizarre just there.
posted by Sparx at 2:43 PM on September 30

What a magpie Stanley was, seizing on whatever I might mention. A book I owned about The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of Animals: he must borrow it. Papal Indulgences; and I was faxing him information. I had written a novel entitled Inquisitor set in the wacky far-future world of Games Workshop’s Warhammer 40,000; he wanted a pre-publication printout right away. “Who knows, Ian?” he mused. “Maybe this is my next movie?” I arranged for Games Workshop to send him samples of their games and artwork and obtained for him from fantasy artist Ian Miller a portfolio of drawings of monsters. Anything could be grist to the mill, now or at some future date.

Ian Watson on the time Stanley Kubrick considered doing a Warhammer 40k movie.
posted by Artw at 2:45 PM on September 30 [1 favorite has favorites]

My copy of Inquisitor is probably in a box next to Deathwing, BTW.
posted by Artw at 2:46 PM on September 30

* stumbles unwittingly into subculture *

Oh! Hi! I--uh, yeah, oh. This isn't the Dr. Who Scarf Knitters, is it? Well then.

run run run run run run *door slam *
posted by everichon at 2:47 PM on September 30 [4 favorites has favorites]

Really, the best part of 40K is that it's entirely tongue-in-cheek. Sure it's all grim-dark and dark-grim as far as the eye can see... and then you reach the Orks, at which point you realize the entire thing is a joke.
posted by Caduceus at 2:55 PM on September 30 [2 favorites has favorites]

NO JOKES! ONLY WAR!

I like that in the io9 thread about the movie some idiot is complaining about WH40K being good guys versus bad guys. WTF? There are no good guys. It's space nazis versus hideous cannibal space freaks. There isn't anyone in the thing vaguely resembling a good guy who isn't being horribly oppressed or dead.
posted by Artw at 2:59 PM on September 30 [2 favorites has favorites]

starting to show signs of 'nid genetaint

I dated a chick with 'nid genetaint once, nothing some special shampoo and a tiny comb can't fix...
posted by MikeMc at 3:00 PM on September 30

I don't know if I could ever get into W40K because I've got so much on my plate now RPG-wise: three D&D 3.5 games (one weekly, two monthly) and one monthly Palladium, plus World of Warcraft and City of Heroes online, although I may drop WoW if I get Aion. But I may get the Abnett books, since Dan Abnett is half of the DnA writing team (with Andy Lanning) that is writing the only ongoing Marvel Comics books that I can still stand to read.
posted by Halloween Jack at 3:03 PM on September 30

In the dark universe of ONLY WAR there is no such thing as special shampoo and a tiny comb and all infestations must be treated WITH FIRE.
posted by Artw at 3:05 PM on September 30 [6 favorites has favorites]

"There are no good guys."

The Tau are good. They even gave me this handy translator for me to wear. They treat me well. I am happy serving the greater good.
posted by PenDevil at 3:08 PM on September 30 [3 favorites has favorites]

IN THE GRIM FUTURE OF HELLO KITTY THERE IS ONLY WAR.

Indeed.
posted by lekvar at 3:09 PM on September 30 [2 favorites has favorites]

FUCK THE TAU!
posted by Artw at 3:10 PM on September 30

Not strictly related, but can someone explain to me why computer game companies seem determined to take an incredibly intricate and balanced purely turn-based system that has been refined over many years and never do anything but turn it into a real-time mess? It's like licensing Go and deciding what it really needs to spice things up is more real time combat.

It just doesn't make any sense.
posted by Justinian at 3:38 PM on September 30 [2 favorites has favorites]

OK, so this is the plan:

We pay the minimal number of points for off-map deployment and teleportation. The cheap custom Dreadnought with toughness 10 runs around on the board to distract all their fire. While it's doing this we teleport down a Space Marine Heavy Weapons squad behind whatever bit of scenery we've arrange to have plonked down in the middle of the game area. We've paid for a D-cannon, which nukes the scenery, creating a Hard Cover -2 hit area, into which we teleport every other unit we've got and proceed to shoot everything else to death.

The only time I beat Jamie, that. Sigh.

I had a Space Marine Chapter based strongly on the Terminators from the NEMESIS THE WARLOCK story in 2000AD. At the time, being an insecure teenage geek, the strong masculine archetypes of both universes appealed to me. Now, of course, I look on the overtly and deliberately Fascist messages with repugnance. As a grown-up, I am pure.

I am vigilant.

I behave.
posted by alasdair at 3:41 PM on September 30 [2 favorites has favorites]

Justinian - I think it's because they want people to buy it.
posted by Artw at 3:45 PM on September 30

Well, the board game* is an approximation of realtime combat through a set of rules. The computer game is another approximation. It's all about competitive play between (typically) young male humans, approximating inter-group conflict. So you'd expect different media to allow competitive play.

Unless you're asking "why don't the computer games work more like the board games and less like DOOM?" In which I'd say: the computer screen is too small and you are intended to play the game on your own. Different environment. Games played in real woods are different from board games set in woods too.

* Yes, I know it's not a board game, there's no board. Wargame? What's the nomenclature?
posted by alasdair at 3:50 PM on September 30

Wargame? What's the nomenclature?

War is not a game. ONLY WAR.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 4:00 PM on September 30 [1 favorite has favorites]

Miniature war game, Tabletop war game, tabletop game.
posted by Artw at 4:02 PM on September 30

Metafilter: Minature wa... BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!
posted by doctoryes at 4:22 PM on September 30 [3 favorites has favorites]

artw - use 'literally' correct. Instead of the opposite of what it means.
posted by blackfly at 4:45 PM on September 30

can someone explain to me why computer game companies seem determined to take an incredibly intricate and balanced purely turn-based system that has been refined over many years and never do anything but turn it into a real-time mess?

10 million people subscribe to World of Warcraft; if they're all paying $15/month (don't know what overseas subscription rates are), that means that Blizzard is pulling in a cool $150M every month, from one game. I'm not sure if they've passed the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy total gross (nearly $3 billion worldwide) yet, but if they haven't they're probably not close behind. That's from one game, again. A tiny fraction of that market could make Warhammer's creators or owners very wealthy.
posted by Halloween Jack at 4:51 PM on September 30 [1 favorite has favorites]

use 'literally' correct. Instead of the opposite of what it means.

In this context it means "check out my awesome hyperbolic statement, especially the dim witted pedant at the back with the slim grasp on nuance". Cheers.
posted by Artw at 4:57 PM on September 30

Every time Warhammer Online gets described as a WoW rip-off a tiny bit of a Games Workshop executive's soul must die.
posted by Artw at 4:58 PM on September 30

Every time Warhammer Online gets described as a WoW rip-off a tiny bit of a Games Workshop executive's soul must die.

We really need the image tag back.
posted by Pope Guilty at 5:05 PM on September 30 [4 favorites has favorites]

Yeah, I kind of knew you'd link that.
posted by Artw at 5:06 PM on September 30

Great minds think alike.

Also tiny, geeky minds.
posted by Pope Guilty at 5:08 PM on September 30

I saw the site for this earlier today because I was looking for bitz to kit-bash my Space Hulk terminators from Blood Angels into Dark Angels. Those Blood Angels always had a hint of the namby-pamby heretical we'd rather turn and run rather than sacrificing every last man to the glory of the Emperor about them.

How could this not be great? As long as they keep all of the wonderful cheesiness of 40k intact I can't imagine a better beer and popcorn direct to DVD experience. And maybe we'll get that Horus Heresy MMO strategy game while they're at it.
posted by ecurtz at 6:14 PM on September 30

OK, so this is the plan:

I sucked at warhammer 40k, haven't played for years and didn't buy my own miniatures. I just borrowed them. My one and only convincing victory was when I played a 2000 point game with Space marines and spend like 75% of my points on off the board support and dropped something like 12 vortex grenades on the opposite side of the board on turn 1. Then I cleaned up the survivors with the one unit of assault marines I bought. I'm not entirely sure it was legal, but no body could find anything in the rules that said I COULDN'T do it. That game, and the game where I had an army of Squat suicide bombers that just ran up next to space marines and popped vortex grenades without actually throwing them caused our group to just ban vortex grenades entirely.
posted by empath at 7:15 PM on September 30

How could this not be great? As long as they keep all of the wonderful cheesiness of 40k intact I can't imagine a better beer and popcorn direct to DVD experience.

In fact, the more terrible and po-faced the writing is, the better the movie, IMO. The worst thing they could do is get a real hollywood screenwriter to adapt it with a huge budget.
posted by empath at 7:16 PM on September 30 [2 favorites has favorites]

Empath: 2 words - Uwe Boll.
posted by Horatius at 8:10 PM on September 30

Okay, I'll say it: I think Uwe Boll would be the ideal director for this film.
posted by empath at 8:13 PM on September 30

Warhammer was hands-down the best RPG I ever played.

Christ that's sad.
posted by rodgerd at 8:28 PM on September 30

I like the Tau, they're kinda like Swedes in power armor.
posted by Kattullus at 8:33 PM on September 30 [1 favorite has favorites]

I like the Tau, they're kinda like Swedes in power armor.

So not having played Warhammer in 10 years I had to look up what the Tau are on wikipedia, wow are those wiki articles detailed. I think the Tau article might be longer than the article on Sweden.
posted by empath at 9:02 PM on September 30

The TVtropes entry for WH40K looks like the product of some Markov Chain project run amok:

"Viking/Mongol/Roman/Spartan/perverted Sense Freak bondage-obsessed/Axe Crazy/magic zombie/cyborg/vampire/Daemon-possessed genetically engineered power-armoured super-soldier warrior monks."

"Guns which fire razor-edged molecule-thick ninja stars, guns which fire nets of Razor Floss, guns which fire wooden stakes, flamethrowers which squirt holy napalm, biological guns which use, um, muscle spasms to fire flesh-eating beetles/maggots or exploding tumours, guns which open holes into hell, guns which fire tiny goblins through hell, grenades filled with tears collected from a thousand crying statues of the Emperor."
posted by gamera at 9:08 PM on September 30 [3 favorites has favorites]

Empath: I was kind of thinking the exact opposite of that. Not that I don't mind a good bad movie, but secretly I want this movie to be good.
posted by Horatius at 9:15 PM on September 30

Wow, I totally thought Mutant Chronicles was a 40k spinoff, like Necromunda; but evidently it's not. I bring this up because they made a movie out of that, and it was pretty much exactly what you'd expect, except grimdarker. But on the upside - Ron Perlman!
posted by FatherDagon at 10:18 PM on September 30

"Guns which fire razor-edged molecule-thick ninja stars, guns which fire nets of Razor Floss, guns which fire wooden stakes, flamethrowers which squirt holy napalm, biological guns which use, um, muscle spasms to fire flesh-eating beetles/maggots or exploding tumours, guns which open holes into hell, guns which fire tiny goblins through hell, grenades filled with tears collected from a thousand crying statues of the Emperor."

Well, yeah, that's like the everyday carry-around stuff.
posted by Artw at 10:46 PM on September 30 [3 favorites has favorites]

In the grim dark of that Flash page, there is only audio, which fact I found quite disappointing. I don't know anything about Warhammer 40K, and some info would have been nice.
posted by darth_tedious at 1:29 AM on October 1

spend like 75% of my points on off the board support

I think - and I've just checked, but alas I gave the rulebook to my nephew so this is from memory - you could only spend about 25%, and you had to have a spotter on the board, and the deviation was pretty huge. Or maybe - it's been over fifteen years - we found the same things you did and banned off-board support in our games? Hmmm.
posted by alasdair at 1:30 AM on October 1

I got stooged out of a tournament win once when they disallowed off-board support, only after they'd seen my entirely legal army. It had seemed to me that my plan was really the only way to be sure....
posted by pompomtom at 2:13 AM on October 1 [1 favorite has favorites]

"Guns which fire razor-edged molecule-thick ninja stars, guns which fire nets of Razor Floss, guns which fire wooden stakes, flamethrowers which squirt holy napalm, biological guns which use, um, muscle spasms to fire flesh-eating beetles/maggots or exploding tumours, guns which open holes into hell, guns which fire tiny goblins through hell, grenades filled with tears collected from a thousand crying statues of the Emperor."

Borges made a role-playing game?
posted by rokusan at 2:43 AM on October 1 [2 favorites has favorites]

GRIMDARK FUTURE!
                       ______ 
                    .-"      "-. 
                   /            \ 
       _          |              |          _ 
      ( \         |,  .-.  .-.  ,|         / )
       > "=._     | )(__/  \__)( |     _.=" <> _.="                            "=._ <>

posted by turgid dahlia at 3:25 AM on October 1 [1 favorite has favorites]

oh man whatever
posted by turgid dahlia at 3:27 AM on October 1 [1 favorite has favorites]

I am slowly failing to resist the pull of 40K. It is like all my old sins coming back to haunt me. I also want to run a Dark Heresy campaign, if only to see how quickly my generally-progressive gaming group descends into demented fascism.

Blood for the Blood God!
And Balloons for the Balloon God!
posted by GenjiandProust at 6:12 AM on October 1

Blood For The Blood God!!!!
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 6:43 AM on October 1

The descent into demented fascism is pretty quick. back in pre-Dark Heresy days, we played a bunch of Inquisitors/Commissars/etc using GURPS rules. Our roleplay was pretty brief. A sample encounter:

GM: The Rogue Trader shifts in his seat nervously. You get the sense he's hiding something.
Commissar: I shoot him in the head.
GM: Er, you sure? Maybe someone else wants to do something first before you kill him?
Inquisitor: Yeah, I want to rip his memories out of his head.
Commissar: Then can I shoot him?
Inquisitor: Sure.
Redemptionist: What are we going to do with the body?
Inquisitor: Who cares?
GM: ...
Redemptionist: Okay, then. I burn his house down.
GM: Arn't you going to search for clues?
Commissar: Why? The dude is dead, so he can't be up to anything.
Inquisitor: Dead hands are honest hands.
GM: (bangs head on table, throws away notes)
Eversor: HAY GUYS WHAT DID I MISS GRAHAHAHAHAGH
posted by robocop is bleeding at 7:00 AM on October 1 [3 favorites has favorites]

Meh needs more zombies. Also just skulls? How about a skull with a chainsaw blade coming out it's mouth... I'm actually surprised with my incline to everything nerdy that I didn't discover this until now.
posted by Mastercheddaar at 7:13 AM on October 1

The skulls with chainsaw mouths are the new army but we shouldn't talk about it and ruin it for the other people.
posted by zennoshinjou at 7:20 AM on October 1

You think too small! These skulls have chainsaw mouths and they can shoot little chainsaws from their eyes! Chainsaws where the chains are made of tiny skulls!

And they are on fire!

Holy, anti-Chaos fire!
posted by GenjiandProust at 7:37 AM on October 1 [1 favorite has favorites]

GenjiandProust: I also want to run a Dark Heresy campaign, if only to see how quickly my generally-progressive gaming group descends into demented fascism.

Being in that gaming group I think I know how an encounter like robocop is bleeding's would go down.

GM: The Rogue Trader shifts in his seat nervously. You get the sense he's hiding something.
K: Don't be foolish, we know you're hiding something.
H: I strip him naked and tie him up.
GM: Okay…
B: I go find two corpses and alter them so that they look like the dude's wife and child.
H: No. It would be much better to find someone who's almost dead, alter them to look like the dude's wife and child and tell the dude that unless he talks we'll kill his wife and child. Does anybody mind if I finish the last of the brie?
J: Can I split it with you?
H: Sure.
K: But this will take some time and we're in a hurry. We need to find the wounded Tyrannid and capture it for the Imperial scientists.
J: It's wounded, it won't get too far.
B: How about we find the dude's actual wife and child and infect them with something Tyrannid and shackle all three inside the same cell and put the antidote in the middle of the floor out of reach of all of them.
GM: What will that accomplish?
B: I dunno… I'm just curious what will happen.
H: Yeah! Then we'll find corpses, alter them to look like the dude's wife and child and throw them in there with all three and tell him that the corpses are his real wife and child and the others are Tyrannid imposter clones.
K: Do those even exist?
H: How will he know?
J: And let's tell the guy that we thought he had been harboring xenoscum but now we know that he's been fooled as much as everyone is and we want to help him to make everything better.
B: That's good. And maybe we can mutate the wife and child to look more Tyrannid and then release the guy from his shackles give him a gun and then lock him in there with his mutated wife and child and the fake wife and child corpses and tell him that we can use organs from the imposters to bring his wife and child back to life.
J: Yeah, but make the gun not a real gun but a fake gun with a flag inside that pops out and unfurls when he pulls the trigger that says: Bang! You were gonna shoot your real wife and child!
K: Uh… while you guys do that I'm gonna go get some beer from the kitchen. Who wants Harpoon and who wants London Porter?
posted by Kattullus at 7:43 AM on October 1 [8 favorites has favorites]

ohmanohmanohmanohmanohman this is going to be awesome.

I was very into 40k when it came out, but then I was very into Nemesis, ABC Warriors and anything in power armour around the same time. It doesn't make me want to pick the game up again, but I'll definitely see it.

(I'll never stop loving Nemesis, though.)
posted by littleredspiders at 8:51 AM on October 1

Nice one, Kattullus, you gave away the plot of the whole first adventure! Well, except for the part where you have to explain yourselves to the Inquisitor in a 500 word essay that starts "I am not a Heretic because..."

And the floggings....
posted by GenjiandProust at 10:44 AM on October 1

That game, and the game where I had an army of Squat suicide bombers that just ran up next to space marines and popped vortex grenades without actually throwing them caused our group to just ban vortex grenades entirely.

Yeah, I have a feeling most of the 40k gaming groups banned them outright because of vortex grenade suicide bombers. I know mine did. Man this thread brings back some memories.
posted by chemoboy at 10:46 AM on October 1

Sooo...

Guns which fire razor-edged molecule-thick ninja stars - Shruiken Catapult
Guns which fire nets of Razor Floss - Webber
Guns which fire wooden stakes - somekind of witchhunter weapon?
flamethrowers which squirt holy napalm - Sisters of battle flamethrower?
biological guns which use, um, muscle spasms to fire flesh-eating beetles/maggots or exploding tumours - Tyrannid Bioguns
guns which open holes into hell - hazy on this one
guns which fire tiny goblins through hell - Shok attack gun
grenades filled with tears collected from a thousand crying statues of the Emperor - another sisters of battle thing?
posted by Artw at 11:05 AM on October 1

SOBs get holywater grenades Artw. As well as praying to the divine Emperor for invulnerable saves. "Nah, He-On-The-Throne still needs me, that full round of getting mauled by the Hive Tyrant is ignored." Guns which open holes into hell-Eldar void cannons. Black hole directly to the warp. Gauss weaponry is better though. Beams that flay you a layer at a time.

We've been running some Dark Heresy. It is pretty great. Shooting dudes who you need to question leads to Hive wide problems though. Restraint is the order of the day.* Seriously though, a site with music, no movie, no trailer, no nothing. Probably won't happen. GW is hard to work with. Litigious. So I've heard anyway. All the canonical stuff gets in the way of what is awesome about the setting.

*Chainsaw handcuffs. Torture. Seriously, every PC in Heresy has the option of learning torture as a skill, and you end up needing it because the damn Slanneshi cultists laugh at you otherwise. Sensory deprivation works though.
posted by Peztopiary at 3:04 AM on October 2

It's kind of hard to believe that the same Games Workshop that's now 100% a support mechanism for owning company Citadel Miniatures was the same organization that TSR collaborated with to publish bizarre D&D monster book Fiend Folio. That White Dwarf magazine used to be a roleplaying game publication.

There's a parallel world out there in which Games Workshop wasn't bought by Citidel, in which they're still an awesome multi-system roleplaying game company. That world also has a much greater number of flying cars and unicorns roaming the streets.
posted by JHarris at 9:24 AM on October 2

I kind of miss them doing weird oddities like Chainsaw Warrior. CHainsaw Warrior was like the best FPS everbefore FPSs even existed.
posted by Artw at 3:58 PM on October 2

Or when David Pringle was the books editor and he brought in all his Interzone mates... And thee was the likes of Kim Newman writing a Warhammer novel about someone putting on a play or something.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 2:07 AM on October 3

It's kind of hard to believe that the same Games Workshop that's now 100% a support mechanism for owning company Citadel Miniatures was the same organization that TSR collaborated with to publish bizarre D&D monster book Fiend Folio. That White Dwarf magazine used to be a roleplaying game publication.

Yeah, I was really saddened when I took a break from the culture and discovered White Dwarf had become an advertorial/lead figure porn catalogue.
posted by rodgerd at 3:14 AM on October 3

These days could you imagine Kim Newman coming up with a character for a Warhammer book and then getting to reuse them in a completely different context, as a major character, not a cameo or anything, as he did with Anno Dracula, and getting away with it without being lawyered to death?

The Kim Newman books are all under the name Jack Yeovil, for anyone who is looking.
posted by Artw at 8:23 AM on October 3

Black Library's new print on demand service - also a new Heretic Tomes banner for reprinting old stuff which conflicts with current continuity.
posted by Artw at 9:11 AM on October 5 [1 favorite has favorites]

Awesome.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 10:09 AM on October 5