No discussion of Warhammer fiction is complete without a shout out to the greatest Commissar of our time; the inestimable Ciaphas Cain.
They may not be the most original or edifying novels out there, but the Ciaphas Caine books are a cracking good time. Kudos to Sandy Mitchell (Alex Stewart).
Been getting back on the reading bus again lately. I spent my school years reading 80% crap, so there are many authors which I've never had any exposure to.
Started off reading my first William Gibson novel. Of course, instead of going for her best work, I started with Mona Lisa Overdrive b/c I picked it up for free from the NerdNYC Recess swap table. It was good, but definitely gets off to a very slow start. It jumps POV chapter to chapter, and those early chapters don't give you much character to work with, so it can be a challenge to remember what the hell is going on until the action picks up.
Now I'm reading my first Vonnegut, starting with The Sirens of Titan which has been awesome since page 1. Halfway in and loving this book.
Why did you start with the last book of the Sprawl Trilogy? Like, I know you just had it around or whatever, but seriously? Would you start reading the Lord of the Rings with Return of the King?
Read it and own all three, picking up Salvations Reach soon.
Gaunts Ghosts! Get the omnibus editions.
SHARPE! IN! SPAAAAAAACE! (that is a good thing)
Its not Sharp in space, no French man has been kicked hard enough in the groin to die nor has any unsuspecting woman been wooed by Gaunt.
No discussion of Warhammer fiction is complete without a shout out to the greatest Commissar of our time; the inestimable Ciaphas Cain.
They may not be the most original or edifying novels out there, but the Ciaphas Caine books are a cracking good time. Kudos to Sandy Mitchell (Alex Stewart).
They are ok but I've read a load of the the Flashman books and find them better. I do want to know more about Vale and her lot. Cain gets a bit Mary Sue for my liking, though he is likeable.
I just recently broke the old space redcoats out to play around in 6th edition and one of my first opponents was a Grey Knights list, AKA Matt Ward's worst handiwork. I got my ass handed to me up and down the fucking table like it was open season on anyone carrying a lasgun. I pulled over a hundred guardsmen off the table on turn three!
They have an item of wargear that shuts down my plasma guns, AKA the only infantry guns I have that actually go through power armour! What the christ?!?
Matt Ward should not be allowed to touch keyboards, pens, or anything else that could be used to write. Whoever is responsible for teaching him the English Language should be tried for war crimes. Jesus dick.
I just recently broke the old space redcoats out to play around in 6th edition and one of my first opponents was a Grey Knights list, AKA Matt Ward's worst handiwork. I got my ass handed to me up and down the fucking table like it was open season on anyone carrying a lasgun. I pulled over a hundred guardsmen off the table on turn three!
They have an item of wargear that shuts down my plasma guns, AKA the only infantry guns I have that actually go through power armour! What the christ?!?
Matt Ward should not be allowed to touch keyboards, pens, or anything else that could be used to write. Whoever is responsible for teaching him the English Language should be tried for war crimes. Jesus dick.
And let's not talk about his slightly creepy habit of having at least half the women he writes into any book will be brutally murdered by the end. Including brutally wiping out and defiling enormous monastary of sisters of battle, to paint chaos proofing runes on a bunch of Grey Knights with their blood. Grey Knights, who were already immune to the taint as their primary defining trait.
I know the guys who write for 40k have to be nuts, but could they at least do a quick check to make sure they are the right kind of nuts, instead of the "Hey, teleporting dreadnoughts covered in the blood of battle nuns sounds both awesome and not at all a balance issue!" kind of nuts?
They can Deep Strike their fucking Land Raiders. Land Raiders with heavy flamers on them! WHY???
1. their business model revolves around you buying new things
2. they don't give 2 shits about balance.
That is not speculation. I've have been told personally by high-ups at GW that they don't care about balance. They don't even really care about competitive play and actively dimiss the people who do.
Long story short - Matt Ward turns everything to shit.
That is not speculation. I've have been told personally by high-ups at GW that they don't care about balance. They don't even really care about competitive play and actively dimiss the people who do.
I'm inclined to think they're yanking the fuck out of your chain, at least on the latter, considering that they pour hundreds of thousands into sponsoring tournaments and putting up prizes, putting on tournaments, and they publish a monthly magazine that is more than half taken up by official battle reports from tournaments and other competitive matches, which they frequently send people to cover.
they care deeply about people playing and enjoying their games, as long as you enjoy buying cool models, painting them and bashing them together with your friends over beer and pretzels. They care nothing about ruining the balance by introducing new stuff. Their argument against optimal army comps (ie, spamming things that make no fluff sense but are super strong) is basically "that is boring, why would you do that" and if your answer is "because you made that the best thing to do" they look at you like you're crazy.
Long story short - Matt Ward turns everything to shit.
That is not speculation. I've have been told personally by high-ups at GW that they don't care about balance. They don't even really care about competitive play and actively dimiss the people who do.
I'm inclined to think they're yanking the fuck out of your chain, at least on the latter, considering that they pour hundreds of thousands into sponsoring tournaments and putting up prizes, putting on tournaments, and they publish a monthly magazine that is more than half taken up by official battle reports from tournaments and other competitive matches, which they frequently send people to cover.
Especially given that 4th edition 40k was pretty much designed entirely to solve Fish of Fury and related exploits cropping up at the tail end of 3rd. They definitely build their business around putting out new models, but you can tell they at least try to balance and when it works (New guard, new 'crons, new Dark Eldar really come to mind) it really turns out quite well and is oodles of fun. Though it often doesn't work even when they do, given the newest 'Nid codex, which was supposed to solve the Nidzilla problem (and went way too far.)
The problem, I think, is they let individual writers have too much control over broad balance on a per codex basis, which leads to some pretty spectacularly schizophrenic balance. You have really good codexes from folks like Phil Kelly and anything Jervis Johnson is overseeing personally, the underpowered stuff Robin Cruddace writes when he isn't writing about Guard (I can't stay mad at him, though, he gave me the Russ Punisher!), and Matt Ward's way insane overpowered shit.
They need to get Andy Chambers back. That guy knew how to write a fucking ruleset.
they care deeply about people playing and enjoying their games, as long as you enjoy buying cool models, painting them and bashing them together with your friends over beer and pretzels. They care nothing about ruining the balance by introducing new stuff. Their argument against optimal army comps (ie, spamming things that make no fluff sense but are super strong) is basically "that is boring, why would you do that" and if your answer is "because you made that the best thing to do" they look at you like you're crazy.
In that case, they're saying one thing, and doing another, for the most part. They're not without their problems, but what you say, and what they do don't seem to be connected. Maybe it's a case of right nut not knowing where the left nut's swinging?
Yeah, I mean, look at the 5th ed Marine codex. Biggest change was the fact you couldn't take special or heavy weapons unless you had ten guys in a squad to kill the armies full of six man las-plas squads, AKA what every optimized list (including myself at the time) was running.
Thank god, too. Those were dark days. That was probably worse than the 3rd ed Rhino Rush to be honest.
Yeah, I mean, look at the 5th ed Marine codex. Biggest change was the fact you couldn't take special or heavy weapons unless you had ten guys in a squad to kill the armies full of six man las-plas squads, AKA what every optimized list (including myself at the time) was running.
Thank god, too. Those were dark days. That was probably worse than the 3rd ed Rhino Rush to be honest.
Yeah, but they also made it so that taking an entire army of guys on motorcycles and/or squads of veterans equipped entirely with melta guns was the best idea (and, not coincidentally, EXORBITANTLY EXPENSIVE).
40k as a war game is pretty much bottom feeder territory. At least stick with Warmachine.
40k as a war game is pretty much bottom feeder territory. At least stick with FoW.
Yeah I mostly play it so I can pit lines of guardsmen in red coats and sculpted kilts against alien horrors for the lulz and the social aspect. Also, I've been playing for over a decade at this point. The game itself really only matters to me when something is broken enough in the game that if affects one of those elements, such as playing against some dick with a list built on loopholes who pretty much only plays to make the little kids cry as he sweeps the board of their blue marines.
I just wish that they would sort out the fluff stuff. They really need someone in Black Library who they can turn to with questions so that everyone is singing of the same hymn sheet. Are auto-guns crap or actually quite good? Are Space marines walking tanks or some odd burkes that can eat brains. Its that sort of stuff. That and they really need quality checkers in there. Some of it is just painful author insertion wank sessions, like I said Dan Abnett is one of the few that actually manages to avoid producing cliched shit. And don't get me started on that whole Grey Knights shit, I can't believe no one in the office said anything? Do they not have an editor or did they have really bad heyfeaver? It just makes no sense and makes the brand look like a ham fisted neck beard is in control oh wait.
Edit; I also miss the days when armies were about themes and people tried to actually modle rather than just smash spreadsheets into each other.
Edit; I also miss the days when armies were about themes and people tried to actually modle rather than just smash spreadsheets into each other.
I rebuild all my Russes into turretless WWI style tanks powdered by steam engines and put all my officers on horseback. Some people still play for the joy of the hobby.
Its always crushing when your lovingly converted individual army that you have spent hours on gets the shit kicked out of it by some dunk dip vanilla marines army. I mean its not like the fucking staff told the shit just to get terminators and dreadnoughts whilst mummy sat with an open wallet! Oh my poor drop troopers you never stood a chance.
Also, I've been playing for over a decade at this point. The game itself really only matters to me when something is broken enough in the game that if affects one of those elements, such as playing against some dick with a list built on loopholes who pretty much only plays to make the little kids cry as he sweeps the board of their blue marines.
More-or-less the same point of view here. I think people take the competitive aspect of 40k WAY too seriously. The most fun I've ever had in a 40k game was a 10k+ point Apocalypse battle where we just threw reinforcements into whichever side was doing worse at the end of every turn.
I've also been looking for good alternative tabletop rulesets to try for the past few years. My current favorite is Force on Force, which is interesting in that the turn structure is very different from the 40k i-go-you-go model.
Anyone else have an interesting, possibly less-well-known tabletop wargame that they enjoy?
I'll be honest - I never gave a shit about the rules with warhammer, I just wanted to paint little space people. And ex-people. And insectoid things. And Fungus. You get the picture.
The only problem was that Warhammer gear was shitfully expensive, so I gave it away after a while, and I moved on to other things. I keep up with the fluff, but the rest of it isn't so important to me anymore.
Why did you start with the last book of the Sprawl Trilogy? Like, I know you just had it around or whatever, but seriously? Would you start reading the Lord of the Rings with Return of the King?
I didn't know they were connected. Would have read them in that order if I knew.
If you cant have fun while getting your ass kicked then 40k is not for you. The best games I ever had were ones where I got stomped flat. If you cant play without getting too invested in your army then play orks. Orks are supposed to lose.
Losing due to bad luck or a player who is smarter or more clever than you? Great fun! Losing to a player who downloaded his list off the internet, whose marines have been painted to meet bare minimum standards, the kind of guy who takes his own army as allies to shove another squad of completely broken space assholes into his force org chart? Not so much fun.
It's not hard to make really cheesy lists. Once, just once, I went into a standard game rocking nine artillery pieces and several armoured fist squads, and I cleared a Blood Angels army from the table by turn four. It was absolutely no fun for either of us and I immediately went back to lines of guardsmen with banners and redcoat.
Like, yeah, kitted HQ choices are ususally sub-optimal, but it's so much more fun to see your commander make a proper last stand against his (especially with the new challenge rules). Sly Marbo is kind of garbage, but there is endless hilarity to be had popping him behind a unit and chucking a pie plate. Yes, Punishers with heavy bolters aren't worth the cost, but when you scoop 32 dice from your tin and point at his command squad, it's magical!
Comments
They may not be the most original or edifying novels out there, but the Ciaphas Caine books are a cracking good time. Kudos to Sandy Mitchell (Alex Stewart).
And never, ever, ever bother with ANYTHING by Matt Ward.
I just recently broke the old space redcoats out to play around in 6th edition and one of my first opponents was a Grey Knights list, AKA Matt Ward's worst handiwork. I got my ass handed to me up and down the fucking table like it was open season on anyone carrying a lasgun. I pulled over a hundred guardsmen off the table on turn three!
They have an item of wargear that shuts down my plasma guns, AKA the only infantry guns I have that actually go through power armour! What the christ?!?
Matt Ward should not be allowed to touch keyboards, pens, or anything else that could be used to write. Whoever is responsible for teaching him the English Language should be tried for war crimes. Jesus dick.
They can Deep Strike their fucking Land Raiders. Land Raiders with heavy flamers on them! WHY???
1. their business model revolves around you buying new things
2. they don't give 2 shits about balance.
That is not speculation. I've have been told personally by high-ups at GW that they don't care about balance. They don't even really care about competitive play and actively dimiss the people who do.
The problem, I think, is they let individual writers have too much control over broad balance on a per codex basis, which leads to some pretty spectacularly schizophrenic balance. You have really good codexes from folks like Phil Kelly and anything Jervis Johnson is overseeing personally, the underpowered stuff Robin Cruddace writes when he isn't writing about Guard (I can't stay mad at him, though, he gave me the Russ Punisher!), and Matt Ward's way insane overpowered shit.
They need to get Andy Chambers back. That guy knew how to write a fucking ruleset.
Thank god, too. Those were dark days. That was probably worse than the 3rd ed Rhino Rush to be honest.
Edit; I also miss the days when armies were about themes and people tried to actually modle rather than just smash spreadsheets into each other.
I've also been looking for good alternative tabletop rulesets to try for the past few years. My current favorite is Force on Force, which is interesting in that the turn structure is very different from the 40k i-go-you-go model.
Anyone else have an interesting, possibly less-well-known tabletop wargame that they enjoy?
2) Heavy Gear Blitz
3) DUST: Tactics
4) Flames of War
5) Battletech
Go forth and conquer.
The only problem was that Warhammer gear was shitfully expensive, so I gave it away after a while, and I moved on to other things. I keep up with the fluff, but the rest of it isn't so important to me anymore.
It's not hard to make really cheesy lists. Once, just once, I went into a standard game rocking nine artillery pieces and several armoured fist squads, and I cleared a Blood Angels army from the table by turn four. It was absolutely no fun for either of us and I immediately went back to lines of guardsmen with banners and redcoat.
Like, yeah, kitted HQ choices are ususally sub-optimal, but it's so much more fun to see your commander make a proper last stand against his (especially with the new challenge rules). Sly Marbo is kind of garbage, but there is endless hilarity to be had popping him behind a unit and chucking a pie plate. Yes, Punishers with heavy bolters aren't worth the cost, but when you scoop 32 dice from your tin and point at his command squad, it's magical!
My name is Herm Edwards, and I play to win.