40k @ MindSay

40K confusion/humor
From Geoff of Wellington Warlords:

"My Lord, I bring news."

Typhus Marburg paused in his study of the situation map of the dreary little planet his forces were engaged in ravaging.

"Yes?"

"Lord. Starships have appeared in the outer system and are on course for a landing. They have been identified as elements of the Flesh Tearers."

"Yeah? Tell them to sod off and find their own world. Tell 'em we got here first."

"Sire, you misunderstand. They are here to defend this world!"


"What! Why? It's a sorry state of affairs when the followers of Chaos start to defend the weakling Imperium from each other!"

"Um, Lord... the Flesh Tearers are a loyalist chapter."

"They are? With a name like that! Are you sure they're not one of ours?"

"Positive, My Lord."

"Have you been able to call for any assistance?"

"The Astropaths have contacted other forces nearby. Unfortunately this has also alerted other loyalist forces in the sector and they are also headed our way."

"Bugger. So who gets here first then?"

"The Alpha Legion, sire."

"It never rains, it only pours, hey?"

"Umm..."

"What!"

"The Alpha Legion is one of ours."

"It is?!"

"Yes."

"I'm confused. You're telling me that a mob called the 'Flesh Tearers' isn't one of ours but a mob called the - what was it again..."

"The Alpha Legion, sire."

"Right... a mob called the Alpha Legion is one of ours."

"That is correct, sire."

"So who else is showing up to this barney then?"

"The Blood Drinkers."

"One of ours?"

"One of theirs."

"OK."

"The Iron Warriors."

"One of theirs?"

"No. One of ours."

"Go figure."

"The Dark Angels."

"Now I've heard of them. Followers of Slaanesh aren't they?"

"No, I think you're thinking of The Fallen, sire. The Dark Angels are Loyalists too."

"Bugger. So who else then?"

"The Emperor's Children."

"Oh, that one's too easy. They're obviously loyalists with a name like that."

"Um, not exactly my Lord."

"Really?"

"Yes, Lord. They're one of ours too."

"This is silly. All the really evil sounding names are being used by weakling loyalists while it seems as though the forces of chaos have got the naff monikers. Are there any more of these I should know about?"

"A few, Lord."

"OK then, spell it out for me, starting with Loyalists that sound like traitors and then moving onto traitors that sound like Loyalists."

"I will attempt to do so, Lord. OK - the Loyalists that sound like traitors... the Marauders, Rampagers, Destroyers and Storm Lords (all White Scar second foundings in point of fact)."

"I like the sound of the Storm Lords. You sure they aren't one of ours?"

"Quite sure. Then there's the Blood Drinkers and the Flesh Tearers - both of which are Loyalist second founding of the Blood Angels."

"With names like that I'd always assumed they were more bone headed followers of the blood god."

"Not so far, My Lord. Then there's the Red Talons..."

"I thought they were renegade pirates."

"No Lord, that's the Red Corsairs."

"Oh. OK. Continue."

"The Brazen Claws are loyalists too."

"Good name for a Khornate force though isn't it?"

"Yes Lord. Then there's the Black Guard (not to be confused with the Black Legion which IS one of ours), the Revilers, and the Raptors."

"Hold on a minute! The Raptors? They're definitely ours. Hell we've got a small unit of them attached to our forces haven't we?"

"My Lord, those are the troops known as Raptors but there is also a loyalist legion with the same name."

"Must get a bit confusing for the loyalists then?"

"I imagine so, My Lord. There are also the Doom Eagles, the Silver Skulls, and the Iron Hands (not to be mistaken for the Iron Warriors, who are ours)."

"Bloody hell. Is that it?"

"There are also some lesser known chapters that also seem to cause occasional confusion."

"Such as..."

"The Doomfarers are one that our forces have occasionally encountered."

"Oh yeah. Those yoyos. So what about the Chaos forces that sound like loyalists then..."

"Well as mentioned earlier there are The Emperor's Children, The Iron Warriors, the Thousand Sons, the Lunar Wolves (who changed their name to the Sons of Horus and then to the Black Legion)..."

"Well at least they're easily IDed as one of ours now. The Black Legion eh? Now that's a proper name. Just positively oozes evil from every pore."

"Yes, Lord. To continue, there are also the Word Bearers, and the Alpha Legion."

"The Word Bearers? What kind of silly name is that for a Chaos Legion?"

"They used to be missionarys sire"

"We you'd think that once they switched to our side they'd change their name to something a little more in keeping with being evil mad men. I mean come on 'The Word Bearers'? It's a silly name."

"Yes my Lord"

"You know, I think the forces of Chaos should have proper Chaos names. There's no room for mistakes when you're called something like 'The World Eaters' or 'The Death Guard'..."

"Actually Lord, both those chapters had those names when they were loyalists."

"You're kidding."

"No, My Lord."

"Yeesh. I would have thought names like that would be a bit scary for the average imperial citizen. I mean "Yay we're being rescued by the World Eaters" just doesn't sound credible while "Aargh! Flee! It's the World Eaters" seems much more likely."

"Yes, My Lord. I believe the latter is more likely these days anyway."

"Makes no bloody sense at all."

"Yes, My Lord."

"Kill 'em all and let the Chaos Gods sort 'em out I say."

"Sounds like a completely reasonable approach to me, My Lord."

=========================

If you don't get it, I don't have time to explain.

Some guys on the THW list are working on "porting" 40k races into the 5150 system.  So far, the Orks are getting the most attention, since they're among the most colorful of the nonhuman races.

While the initial efforts were working on adapting their mob mentality into a sort of "hive mind" rule (like the 5150 Hishen), I counter proposed something that is less complex but still gets the idea across.  After a few rounds of refinement, here is the core Ork Boyz "Waaaagh!" rule:

Waaaagh! - Any group of 10+ Boyz in a group benefit by gaining an extra Leadership dice on any reactions that allow leadership dice.

Simple and to the point, and means that a large group of orks can practically lead itself, and becomes very determined when there is an actual leader "Nob" along for the rumble.

I've also made the Orks "Tuff":

Tuff - Orkz are very hardy and can survive wounds that would destroy other races.  An Ork is never OOF, but always counts an OOF result as Knocked Down.  This includes OOF from recovery tests, so an Ork might spend a few activations trying to get up, but unless he gets OD'ed or auto-killed, he will eventually rise again.

(Game terms: OD = Obviously Dead, OOF = Out Of Fight)

I also made Ork specific reaction tables (which is par for the course for 5150 aliens) that essentially have them be more eager to charge and fight than they are to shoot, unless they've been placed in cover.  And even then, they might still come barging out to krak sum skullz instead of staying put.

I've been staying away from 40k Orkz, but the army profile we're developing seems really cool, so I might need to pick some up anyway.  I've always liked the Ork attitude, which is a pure "fight hard/die young/leave a disintegrated corpse" ethos, but the actual figures don't do much for me with their silly looking cartoony mouths.  Still, the Orks are archetypical fighting machines, and as such are almost the only race in 40k that isn't creepy and evil.  "What?" you say?  "Brutal killing beasts that are as much fungus as animal aren't evil?"  That's right - they're no more evil than lions.  They don't have malevolence in their hearts, just a pure desire to fight.

I started off this blog with the idea of adapting Games Workshop's "Warhammer 40,000" (or "40k" to its friends) to use in the "Ancient Near East" (aka the "Chariot Era" or "Biblical Times").  I had a gut instict that 40k's model of combat would be a better fit with the less organized and more missile heavy combat of the bronze age in the Near East.

I haven't given up on that idea, but with my recent obsession with GW's LoTR game, I'm starting to wonder if that's not a better model even still.  The LoTR system is simpler, yet more subtle than 40k.  40k has the advantage of more detail and "flavor".

I really like the way that LoTR encourages historical-style unit tactics without mandating them.  For example, spearmen get a benefit from deploying deep, but there's no "rank bonus" like WAB has.  A standard bearer can help those near him, etc..  The one thing that slows me down is that LoTR is really best with a few dozen figures per side, due to its focus on individual combats.  Any more than that, and you spend a long time rolling combats up and down the battle line, which takes a long time to play out.

Now, I'm obviously fickle in my gaming, and will try to marry whatever rules I'm currently playing with my current time period interests, but I honestly think there might be something to all of this.  I'm not afraid to do my own rules, and I've seen many, many different game systems, so I'm not really one of those so-called "GW Fanboyz", though I do seem to be getting into their games lately.

Maybe the best approach is to write my own rules, based on a fusion of 40k and LoTR ideas that I like.  I would probably take the approach of grafting LoTR weapons and conventions (like the way spear support and rear-ranked bows are handled) onto the 40k framework.

I think the real thing to do however, is to get some bloody figures for this project painted up, and try a bunch of battles.  Which, of course, I'm not really free enough to tackle properly.  Maybe some year, after I'm caught up with my LoTR projects, my WAB Andalusians, my Chain Reaction squads, etc.  By then, I'm sure I'll have some other ruleset to obsess over.  Sigh.