GAME OVER

With all the hubub (and possible malarkey) centered around the Dark Angels lately, that long-ignored Codex has popped once more into prominence, which brings all the snarling and scorn that hangs off of it like little else in 40Kdom. Unlike the traditional Codex arc, in which a book has its time in the spotlight, ages, and falls to the bottom of the pole, the DA Codex has been openly loathed since precisely three seconds after emerging from the Nottingham chrysalis. It’s incredibly weak when compared to modern books, bereft of special rules, and hasn’t the faintest whiff of spectacle. Despite an emerging consensus that said Codex revamp is at least a year off, it can’t possibly be too long before this thing’s grudgingly scrubbed off of history’s windshield, and that strikes me as a damn shame.

Read the rest of this entry »

First off, well, apologies – from both the illustrious Bearded One and myself – for the lack of posts. We’ve both had one of those outbreaks of Real Life over the past weekend, which led to a fairly egregious shortage of free time. We hope that your rage is softened, somewhat, in knowing that the beatings doled out upon our fragile human forms have been more than sufficiently brutal.

Anyhow. So. Little mans.

I did hint, back in the previous entry, at a Word Bearers army of mine that is, indeed, in the making. Or, really, re-making, as it’s existed in some form for the past thirteen years or so. Pictures and details forthcoming, but this being the blog it is and all, let’s have have a swing at the “whys” of this particular Lorgarian collective.

I honestly don’t remember any precise instant in which the idea of playing Word Bearers first wandered into my brain and decided to take up long-term residence, but it rather clearly happened. It had to be somewhere in the latter days of 2nd Edition, as I do remember it being motivated by this:

It’s a block of text from those fell paragraphs which first defined the Legion, with emphasis on the idea that’s really stuck with me – that humanity needs a religion, needs a focus of faith and an unquestionable source from which meaning is derived, else we’ll all just be so many nihilistic apes smacking each other with femur bones across the barren ruins of civilization. There’s a cold, patrician lack of faith in humankind there, one that’s at the center of many real-world philosophies. It was a cold, gnawing antithesis to the vaguely humanist ethos I’d constructed in my teen years. It’s still at least a bit disturbing today, even with a heart filled with the dark misanthropy of adulthood.

Anyhow, the original army grew and shrank in spurts, through college and beyond, and even got a fair amount of paint on the boys. Taking inspiration from John Blanche, their color scheme was limited and clashing.

That all seemed well and good until recently. Armies like Raz’ Word Bearers and Dan the Daemon’s legendary Immortal Terrors over the on the Bolter & Chainsword have sparked a creative avalanche. Most of the army went into the dip, was disassembled, and is now being remade bigger and badder than before. Thus far, it’s been almost worryingly pleasant to challenge the modelling skills. Here’s a Terminator that’s come out of the project, compared to a one-armed Aurora Chapter Terminator, who’s been a great sport about things.

‘Till next time!

It all started with idle chatter, as most disasters do.

“You keep using our conversations as post fodder,” I said. “That’s cool. Really. I appreciate that you have so much regard for my particular brand of…”

“‘Regard’ might be a bit much,” Von said, using his preternatural power to interrupt sentences over Facebook chat, and from a full ocean away no less. That magical bastard. “It’s more like…well, you’re familiar with that phrase, the one about throwing things at the wall to see what sticks? You’re like that. Like a wall. You’re just filled with wall-like qualities.”

“Whatever,” I said. “Don’t pretend. I’m the source of your best material! Heck, you don’t even use half of it. God. The Ward stuff alone.”

Read the rest of this entry »

The back end of a year customarily sets one thinking in a state-of-the-system, stock-taking kind of mould. New possessions are acquired, room must be made, consideration of how they’re to fit into collections undergone. Doing so invariably indentifies a certain amount of absolute tat that just has to go, and a certain amount of stuff which might be perfectly valid in its own right but reduces efficiency in that of which it is a part.  Chaff, in other words.

Read the rest of this entry »

+++ IMPERIAL RECORD: SW 016/7 V +++ +++ CROSS FILE: XENO-NC-3.0  TACT-WH-5.0 +++ +++ PLANETARY CO-ORDINATES: JANNERIA PRIME +++ +++ SUB-CO-ORDINATES: BUDSHEAD CARBON FUEL REFINERY +++ +++ SUB-ETHER ORIGIN: AV-VON +++ +++ TIMESTAMP 7012011.M41 +++ +++ TRANSMISSION OPENS +++

They came at us out of the north… ghosts, ghosts in the machines.  Green lights in the dark.  Metal men with faces like death.  They didn’t speak.  No chance to negotiate, no offer of surrender. They’ve cracked every building open – metal shattered like clay.  They kill people, but they leave the machines standing.  I can hear them moving down below.  There can’t be a dozen of us left alive.  They don’t want us.  They want the refinery.  I don’t know why. If you’re hearing this, don’t send help.  There’s no-one here to help.  Don’t avenge us.  No fight in us – nothing worth avenging.  If you’re coming… you’re coming to destroy the fuel.  That’s what they’re here for.  Don’t let them get it. They’re on the stairs.  I don’t have much time.  Domina, salve nos…

+++ TRANSMISSION ENDS +++ +++ RECEIVED ASTROTELEPATHIC DUCT: SW-AWE +++ +++ SPACE WOLVES CHAPTER +++ +++ DIVERTING SQUADRON CLAWS OF RUSS +++ +++ DESTINATION: JANNERIA PRIME +++ +++ OBJECTIVE: ENGAGE AND DESTROY +++

Read the rest of this entry »