Chapter 3 Loose Canon: What GW and Black Library Thinks of Their Readers (Part 1)

"Quick Admiral Dembski-Bowden. The Rebels are using FORBIDDEN LOGIC!"

Note: This started off life as one article, but I had so much to say this is now a two-parter.

Part 1: Loose Canon

We need to get serious for a moment. Well, you don't, I do. This one may be a little esoteric, a bit specialist, a bit... picky. But I do feel it important, probably more important than any other part of this series (not that this takes much, but still). So, this chapter here is something from my more earnest interests, because it cuts to the core of where I am now, not where I have been. You could legitimately criticise me for being caught up in something I have chose to abandon. I am in effect pissing into a wheelhouse I used to be in. But this time, I'm sitting in my own, and GW, and Black Library in particular are pissing into mine. This actually cuts to the nub of something I'm actually still prepared to fight over: what is an author, and to whom do they owe their work, if anyone? This could be worryingly close to a serious conversation. Fortunately for me, GW and BL have made this topic a complete joke. So we're back to present form. This will be pretty long, so I will break it into sub-headings in case people want to read it in bits, or skip bits they're not interested in.

“The Mercenary Writer” (Some General Background and Statement of Intent)

Writing is a funny old endeavour. It has many layers to it, many outlets. The core principle of Writing is always the same: to appease an audience of largely strangers using concepts and devices as old as that of society itself, in order to teach, impress and/or entertain. Whilst the origins, and ultimate agreed forms of writing (especially stories) are simple and limited in type, in the modern age they aren't quite so straightforward. Ignoring the various forms writing can take since we moved beyond merely the printing press, there are also differing levels of agenda, and also different levels of story. We live in an increasingly savvy and interconnected world; a world built upon stories we love written by writers we adore, to the extent that some of us (including people who don't share such adorations) write stories that are directly connected to those stories. Stories can transcend being mere stories. They become IP, and IP is, apparently, negotiable.

I, like most card carrying geeks, feel deep love for, interest in and obsession with a multitude of IPs (Intellectual Properties, worlds or universes owned by a company or estate). Thus I'm familiar with those worlds, and always hungry for more. But the reality of such properties is that much of the material I could read is likely to come from another hand to that of its creator, for both good and ill. This particular rant-post (and it is little else) such as it is, is not to bemoan the work of what I am choosing to call “The Mercenary Writer” and their ilk. But I think it is worth dwelling on where these people are in this industry, what particular excuses they make for themselves, and what perspective they need to accept. Because as a writer of my own IP, I am about to be deeply bitter and scathing. I'm saying that upfront just so we're clear. We all have agendas, and mine is that many of these Mercenary Writers are lacking in perspective. Cool? Cool.

As I said, I'm a writer. I've been working on two principle IPs of my own in one form or another for over a decade. I'm a perfectionist, so sue me. I'm also an avid reader, and consumer of most geeky kinds of media. I find that we as an amorphous, massively divided community are on the receiving end of a lot of shenanigans from particular (usually corporate) interests; who are happy to exploit a noticeably devoted audience to make easy money with often pathetically low standards. I can already anticipate the Business Apologetics I am likely to receive for this opening. But save that for a moment. Let's just assume for a second that such business interests are legitimate enough to pass without comment. Whether or not companies are right to pursue what is from at least a dozen or so legitimate perspectives frequently dodgy, is it really right for such representatives to exploit those situations but also moan about the consequences of those actions?

My argument here is, categorically, no.

To my mind, the Mercenary writer is in a position of privilege. They benefit from a number of distinct advantages over other writers and too many of them espouse regret of having to deal with the consequences that come from gaining those advantages. Most Writers after all are not instantly granted access to a pre-existing audience, receptive to the core tone, genre and styling of that writer's work (even if it detracts somewhat from the usual fare for that IP). Nor are they free from the need to do so much world-building: even authors that base their work in our world either now or in history can often end up producing more constructs necessary of their inventiveness than some of the Mercenary Writers writing for IP. As a writer I cannot emphasise how difficult it is to build a world of your own, so having a pre-built one is a tempting thought. So too is already having an audience, skipping months to years of angst and fear about ones own output. Why still persist then, with your own stuff? Simply, freedom. The freedom to tell my own tales, to have the world I want, no compromises, no limits. Because, surely, there must be some limits right? It seems some Mercenary Writers actually disagree. They're victims, the poor things. Victims of petty, hateful sweaty, angry geeks who sit in their mothers basement spotting mistakes. Spotting inconsistencies. Noticing complete fabrications that make no sense in the pre-existing world. Oh woe is them! Shall we help? Well, not exactly...

You see, I don't actually think Mercenary Writers should be bitching like children about the consequences of the privilege they manipulate and directly benefit from to pursue the same craft as everyone else. Nobody is stopping them from writing. No one is stopping them from using someone else's IP. But here's the thing. Criticism is part of the business. So it is rather tiresome when big corporations use mouthpieces to put forward apologetics just to avoid some criticism. As a writer myself, I can't actually imagine a practice within the world of writing itself, beyond moral depravity, that is more odious, sinister or indeed damaging than denying your own responsibilities.

So, let's have an example. For that, I have Grade A Gold. “Loose Canon”.

We're All Right and None of You Are

I didn't really want to single out any individual writers or companies when I initially wrote this for my Non-GW Blog. Not that I have the clout to send a shit-storm in any person's direction, but I like to avoid making things personal. However, Games Workshop (and principally its literary satellite, Black Library) have represented what I feel is one of the most ridiculous attitudes to canon and continuity that I have ever encountered, and a particular writer decided to be a mouthpiece for that attitude: Black Library's Aaron Dembski-Bowden wrote a blog-post a while ago detailing it, called “GrimDark II: Loose Canon”. This article, such as it is, has since disappeared off the net, but it can easily be recovered and read. I've provided a URL to the article below, pop it into an Archive Website (such as Wayback Engine) and you'll be able to read it in full. I invite you to do so, as Dembski-Bowden tried to deal with a number of the issues I'm going to raise to the bits I quoted, so I would rather you read those so that I'm not straw-manning. I just found most of his excuses pretty feeble, and the few I have time for I will deal with either here or in Part 2. Anyway, here's the offending bit that bothers me, and this is common both of GW's overall attitude to their material, and similar to many other big companies that hire a multitude of writers to make cheap sales fodder for them:

“It’s all real, and none of it’s real.”                                                                                                  One of the great mistakes made by almost every fan of Warhammer 40,000 is to take the canonical rules of another license, and crowbar them into 40K. Usually, it’s an unconscious assumption based on a mix between common sense and Star Wars, which is a combination you don’t expect to see everyday. It also works about as well as you’d think.
...
I got it wrong myself, right up until I was in a meeting with the company’s Intellectual Property Manager – a situation I find myself in several times a year, as part of the Horus Heresy novel series team. When I was specifically asking about canon, he replied with something I’ve tried to take to heart: “It’s all real, and one of it’s real.”

First, I'd like to take this moment to congratulate Mr Dembski-Bowden for trying to tackle the issue of contradictions found in the IP he contributes to by providing two contradictory versions of the maxim he has chosen as his apologetics, and doing so within 4 paragraphs (two of which I've omitted for reasons of focus). With that exception I will try not to throw much shade his way. But if you read the article you can probably guess why I might be right not to pull many punches. Now, to regain the impersonal approach as best as I can, I am going to concentrate on the two maxims (as who knows which is right) and take issue with those, because they are utterly ridiculous in virtually every possible way. The obvious way being that essentially, this hand-waves the need to write well with consistency in the setting and to research it well, which for Mercenary Writing is basically the point. I will note that Dembski-Bowden tries to argue that this maxim does not excuse that (reading a lot of Black Library makes me question the idea that Black Library shares Dembski-Bowden's convictions, especially with the likes of C.S. Goto still a name on Black Library bookshelves), but if you need to take an aside to say “this maxim doesn't cover these two obvious corollaries, but trust me, doesn't undermine them” then your maxim is weak.

So why use such a maxim? Well, because geeks are devoted. If you sit in a position of authority, any maxim from that position of authority will get enough Internet Warriors parroting it as an absolute edict, whether it was intended as one or not. The originator of the maxim can always say that wasn't the intention (which is as easy to say as the maxim, and as easy as the things you say the maxim doesn't undermine and as likely to be completely untrue), but if you're in a position of power over geekdom, especially when professing to be “one of us” to that geekdom (as Dembski-Bowden does in his article) you should be savvy enough to know the responsibility involving edicts. Edicts are dangerous in fan communities. Because they often start as suggestions, and they end up often being empowered as holy writ and used regardless of their logical or academic worth.

I've seen GW Edicts used to effectively undermine linguistics or even more simply the act of human interpretative reading in favour of overtly literal interpretation because of the clumsy use of three words (Rules As Written). Stripped often of context and meaning, they are easy to misuse. That is not entirely the fault of the author, but that doesn't mean that they shouldn't know better. It also means if you're going to use a Maxim, make sure that if you check anything in your article that you write (especially one which takes shots at parts of the fandom, regardless of whether you see those shots as playful or with actual venom behind them), it's probably the wording of that maxim you wish to espouse and any times you repeat it, lest you write multiple distinctly different things.

So, let's deconstruct those maxims and poke fun at them.

“All of it's true and none of it's true”

This is the most pernicious. It entirely undermines the idea of truth by rendering it moot. That isn't entirely an issue in universes with unreliable narrators, but take note that this (and the other maxim) ultimately undermines the role of the reader. You are not trusted to discern, to argue or to be confident in any truth you are presented with. You are merely told to distrust and embrace all, which is a self-defeating fallacy that tries to have it both ways. Let me put it another way: any lore interpretation, any take-away you have counts, except when it counts. You are invited to believe as you like, but your perspective is as worthless as your time, and any effort you spend trying to discuss or debate any aspect of it can be easily and entirely undermined by any one individual pointing to this maxim. It's essentially boasting that as a material to help you understand that universe (and note it is a fictional universe designed for a hobby of which part of that hobby is adding to it) it is entirely worthless. This is the equivalent of getting your car crushed at a scrapyard just so nobody scratches the paintwork.

“All of it's true and one of it's true”

This is probably the “correct” edict, given that of the two it is less stupid. It is still, however, as an edict, useless to the reader and renders them incapable of discernment and as a passive agent in the act of being talked to with all of the conviction of a snake oil salesman selling a homeopathic pill. Like the homeopathic pill, it is largely empty of meaning or usefulness, so watered down and pointless that it renders nothing useful or empowering to the user, whilst endeavouring to reassure the user of its worth. Whilst containing, at best, trace amounts of it. Some Black Library books are also probably banged by a leather drum too. It has a better affect than reading them. Now, this at least admits the truth is out there. How generous. But it offers no solution to figuring it out, and one could argue it exists purely to tell you that you have no right to decide which it is. I happen to feel that this is the intention, and regardless, it dangles the promise of a commitment to consistency it has every intention of not honouring.

Both are problematic for similar reasons. Principle among which is how intensely self-serving they are. They both exist to give the writer an alibi from their own responsibilities, and no matter how earnestly Dembski-Bowden claims he takes those responsibilities seriously, he has to explain those in his own words, and I just frankly don't believe that a writer who sees fit to provide an alibi from an obvious issue is that interested in those responsibilities beyond face value. It doesn't help that Dembski-Bowden goes to great lengths to point to obvious interpretive differences as the reason behind the need for the maxim. Why is this an issue? Well, there are a few reasons. Firstly, that demonstrates that no one is actually that interested in going “Right, we should probably agree on a logic behind how all these things work” but even beyond that (as for some reasons that's not always possible anyway) but these obvious examples are used as easy shoe-ins, straightforward “No arguments there” reasoning. But is a maxim really needed to explain authorial interpretative differences?

No. Here's why.

That is already an easy enough argument to make. The problem is not that authors have different views about how some things work leading to contradictions in rare or even moderately common cases nor is that somehow unreasonable. It's perfectly understandable. But using such reasoning for something much wider in scope forms the linchpin of something insidious. By using these issues as justification, it saves Dembski-Bowden from going “Yeah, all those writers who don't bother to research and don't care? We aren't firing or denouncing them. We just have this maxim so that you can use it to pretend they don't count any more...” whilst essentially being there precisely because of issues like bad or lazy writing so much more than the minor issues he lists. And whilst these small details may seem petty, it also doesn't change the fact that the contradictions are there and still happened. One has to ask the obvious corollary: does the existence of minor contradictions in storytelling justify a wholesale denouncement of the concept of canon?

Once again, the answer is no, and once again, the denouncement is entirely self-serving. The people who make the contradictions give themselves an alibi, merely at the cost of the value of the whole endeavour and everything it stands for. It provides grounds for undermining debate of the entire process and ultimately its only point of consistency is that it consistently alleviates the one source of responsibility, authority and blame, of blame and responsibility, retaining only the authority bit, naturally. Its self-serving nature betrays it from any iota of being well-meaning. They know you're going to find problems in the fluff. Here is an edict detailing how they'd rather make a dismissive excuse than accept those contradictions as an issue to one day deal with, or simply to accept. They'd rather pull the whole thing down around them than admit they are wrong sometimes.

They are basically throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Just to make sure they can't be accused of not giving a baby a proper bath. Whether you take my perspective or Dembski-Bowden's is for you to decide. If you take mine, I urge you not to buy Black Library. Their attitude undermines the value of their own fiction.

A Few Quick Rebuttals

This is basically it for Part 1, but I want to deal with a few of the potential issues brought on from my focus on this edict:

Am I Straw-Manning?

Maybe. I wont deny that I gloss over Dembski-Bowden's attempts to discuss nuance around the topic. But the fact is that he argues that fluff is so open to interpretation that it needs a maxim that he himself seems to have taken a not entirely obvious interpretation from to regulate whether people are right to be ignored about differing authorial interpretation (which also conveniently acts as an alibi for awful and canon-dismissive writers like C.S. Goto). Ultimately, the position appears to have less to do with genuine issues and how they are addressed and more the fact that GW's writers don't like criticism and rather than taking the bridge between producer and consumer for granted and exploring the nuance intelligently, they decided to just pull the bridge down to avoid the need for it. I'd describe the apologetics that GW use for in-universe facts as a shitshow, and I find that shitshow only further exacerbated both by Dembski-Bowden's efforts to explain it away and by the gullible fanboys who bought it.

Why Now? This Article Is Offline!

Writers can hold very long grudges. Particularly when it comes to things about writing that other writers do or say that rankles you, especially when those bastards are more successful than you. But I have more pressing reasons than authorial jealousy. I happened to notice within the recent Ork Codex discussion of their fluff in a style that clearly suggests that this edict is still the way GW views presentation of its own lore. So actually, this is very relevant, and their reluctance to enter the public arena to have it challenged since is as telling as most of their other actions.

But... But... Unreliable Narrator... Etc

Naturally this edict also suits the setting that 40k inhabits. On the face of it, this kind of attitude makes sense, until you look at it closely. Because it is pretty damn obvious that they aren't remotely consistent with it. For one, just look at the style they adopt. If they really embraced the idea of this kind of artificial mystery, there would be more scenes we weren't privy to. To use but one example, we are told, clearly, what happened to Ghaz when he retreated from Armageddon. How he is saved by intervention from Mork (and perhaps Gork). Why the detail? This also belies a major problem with this edict. If all of it could be lies, why worry about presentation? And indeed, that's part of the problem. Do they really believe it's all propaganda or do they just hide behind that excuse? It seems to be a much more commonly adopted position when talking about the origins of Orks, or the nature of Xenos, but when it comes to Space Marines, we have full details, biographies, dates and dialogue. If GW always played by their own rules, and used it thoughtfully, this would be relevant. It's pretty obvious however that it's just pulled out when people ask questions.

This is it for Part 1. In Part 2 we're going to talk more about Canon, and how Black Library's edicts on the matter are not only irrelevant, but erroneous. We'll conclude why Loose Canon is so damaging and why they need to readjust their attitude. Not that they will, of course, but they should.

******************

P.S. Here's a link to the Dembski-Bowden article used in this rant:

http://www.bscreview.com/2011/03/grimdark-ii-loose-canon/ (you will need to use an archive service like Wayback Engine to look at it though)

P.P.S. Aaron, if you ever read this, I used your surname 15 times. Typed them out individually, went through the document 3 times to make sure I'd spelled it right each time. You didn't even bother to check the two times you used one edict. So maybe next time leave the sass about your own fucking audience out of your corporate shill pieces, and maybe they wont think you're a douche. Peace.

Chapter 2: Concluding the Review

Honestly, at this point, the Sonic Film looks like a better prospect.

As time goes on, I actually think this could be the worst edition this game has ever had. Not because it's a cynical, hateful mess like 7^th Edition was, but actually because 8^th Edition had so much potential to actually be a really good game, and instead became a conservative, underwhelming child's game with all of the depth of a mildly damp spoon. Sadly, most of the outsourcing of opinion of what this game needs to be is coming not only from GW's writers (whose attitudes are unlikely to have shifted in private, no matter how much they pretend to give a shit at this point) but from the active GW Fan community, and that is largely made up of gamers who have principally played from 5^th Edition onwards, and have basically experienced 40k as a Power Gamer's game where list potency was the order of the day, and the game was a necessary ordeal to test the voracity of their list. So asking this lot to help GW improve their games is a bit like asking a bunch of chimpanzees to design a skyscraper. And honestly, I'd have more money on the chimps succeeding. 8^th Edition is purest tedium. In a medium that has included “writing” from the likes of Mat Ward, to have decided to call it a day with this... fucking thing... is incredibly telling. I didn't think it could get any worse, and then I read the Ork Codex. I probably wont be touching that one in this series. If you think these two opening chapters are bitter, the bitterness I have for that Codex isn't fit for any human to read.

But I think what is astonishing about 8^th Edition is its contrast to 7^th, as if they spent more effort trying not to be that than they did thinking if the game as a whole actually worked in comparison to what it replaced. Because I think that's what bothers me the most. By GW focusing solely on top level list vs list match-ups, trying to get competitive play to be balanced, on the top end (it's not even balanced there, nor anywhere else) the game succeeds at a relatively fairer power difference than in 7th Edition (big whoop there, if they'd failed at that they really hate you guys). But to get that "success", we had to lose a lot of features: the potential to hurt your own models and the dilemma that represents; directionality, having to make actual decisions with your model placement and facing that mattered; mechanics that rely on judgement or gamecraft (such as templates) just because tournament players are a bunch of whiny little bitches; WYSIWYG functionality, so understanding the difference between a turret and a sponson, and the restrictions of what it could physically do; unit placement, which was not a sure fire I can place them where I like and count on them being there, adding a bit of jeopardy and drama to the game; the most unprecedented unit cull 40k has ever had, as tonnes of units go out with the Indexes they are in and will most likely not be coming back; having a crucial roll to clinch the game, knowing success or failure is like a coin toss you can't take again being undermined by easy access to re-rolls via list munchkinning; and to top this short list off: the game having a very defined miniature/points bracket within which it can conceivably function, which is an absolute first. Never has an Edition of 40k failed to be adaptable to the handful of miniatures, skirmish scale and the above 3000 points large battle scale without providing a deeply unsatisfactory experience that has to be solved by A NEW GAME ENTIRELY rather than a page or two of extra rules and some exclusive units. That's not even an exhaustive list, just the main examples I could think of.

If 7^th Edition's principal sin was expecting too much agency and discernment from its players, 8^th's principal sin is in removing all of it from them. You aren't trusted to discern what is or is not cover, how a weapon has affected your unit, what rules should apply and when, and what direction your models are even fucking facing is too much to expect from you. Open Play is a shrug. Narrative Play is a shrug full of half-baked scenarios that leaves its potential on the cutting room floor alongside the decaying corpse of 8^th's Proof-Reader. You are a vector for your own soulless corporate experience. You are there to put models down, maybe move them, roll some dice, take them off, and post contentedly about it on the heavily moderated facebook pages. The only complexity they give you is in list-building which is evidently where they think your concentration should be, and they make absolutely sure that it's a complete ball-ache for you. Any problem you have, you are expected to fix by emailing in to tell them. Your only agency in this entire game is as free interns for a company that couldn't give one less of a fuck about you and demonstrates that with half-baked core rules that assume your stupidity. They cash in the claim of “balance”, by putting out the overpowered bullshit in Codices anyway, getting the worst of the power gamers to flock to the book (spending big as they go) before “fixing” the issue later with errata, after the point at which their making money from said book no longer matters because pre-order culture and fanboyism drives their sales model anyway. You do have to praise the brass balls of a company that still decided to put out blatant overpowered bullshit in their books and then “responds to feedback” down the line to reassure people they want the game to be good, whilst demonstrating no personal determination on the part of their writers to even attempt competent fixes and savvy up front. You, the unpaid masses are the only balancing factor, and as most of you have been around powergaming to the extent that you think that shit is just the normal thing you do, you should now know full well why Knight Soup hasn't been nerfed yet.

8^th Edition is an exemplar of how wrong this hobby has gone, how determined gamers are to follow a perverse series of denouncements of any kind of nuance, innovation or design in favour of a simple metric that merely does one thing, i.e. pandering to the standard competitive dick-comparing contest that represents all competitive gaming. Warhammer Community's principle efforts are at rebutting any criticism with the standard smoke and mirrors corporate bullshit that always rallies thousands of Apologist Shills and cashing in coincidentally requested ideas that they were doing anyway as “We're listening, honest, Guv”. It would be tempting to denounce such things entirely, but in reality my principal objection is that even during 7^th Edition, 40k could actually satisfy more than one inclination. As it stands, 8^th Edition represents perfection for a very limited selection of outlooks, and shows very telling signs of clamping down on other parts of it (such as the Narrative and Conversion communities who are still very poorly catered for, if not even legislated against).

8^th Edition is a physical embodiment of the consequences of letting talentless mediocrity like that of Ward's writing represent the genuine article of GW's Brand. This is that consequence: an audience that has become addicted to the pursuit of an unequal meta, of a emphasis upon list culture and an instinctive hatred of casual play. With the “Casuals” exiled to the two modes GW do hardly anything to develop (Open and Narrative), they send a message that such modes are inferior (as they exile unsupported models to those modes to hammer that thought home), they divide the kingdom into the casuals and the true gamers, with the gamers receiving the attention. Said gamers thought Ward was fine. Thus 8^th Edition is everything they deserve. And what GW's Fans deserve is ultimately thus: basically nothing, and that is an apt summation of the game itself.

8^th Edition is mediocrity for the lowest common denominator. Whilst there's no shame in that, it's not worthy of a Boutique price tag. It achieves the bare basics, and offers nothing else of noteworthy inclusion. That is not to say people are stupid if they like this, but I think it's fair to say they're not particularly discerning. Nothing needs to be perfect, or even close to it, but GW gets a lot of free passes from their fans and charges a huge amount of money for nothing any other part of the industry can't reliably do better: apart from conversions and customisability, the principle things that GW's Core Rules are taking pains to cut from their product. To me at least, 8^th Ed is a dud. An indication of a true descent into a bygone age. I'll be looking elsewhere for the gaming experience I grew up with. It's clear GW is either unable or unwilling to deliver it (or both).

Chapter 1: 8th Edition Warhammer 40,00: The Edition With Big Promises and No Substance

Harsh? Sure, but I'd say its the real secret behind 8th's success.

Ah yes, New 40k™. It's been an interesting experience, I'll give it that. Although, I never thought I'd be concluding at long last “Right, this is where I get off” regarding the rollercoaster ride that is 40k when it is actually a herald of (trivially minor) improvement. Sadly the words “obvious improvement” are not quite the same as “competently written ruleset”, and 8th Edition definitely demonstrates this discrepancy. In fact that's probably the only thing it does in a manner that is above average. But loads of people say this game is great right, so why don't I agree? Well my core argument here is pretty simple: GW can easily big up 8th Edition as an improvement over 7th Edition because, fundamentally, that wasn't a challenge. It doesn't really take much effort to improve on a game written by halfwits with a hostile attitude to their own audience. So when the actual fear GW has of said audience rises from the realisation that this attitude so obviously affected sales to such a noticeable extent that it has single-handedly driven a reactionary counter-narrative all centred around appeasing that beast, is it any wonder that this fear overshadows any potential the game could have had by pandering to an idea of safeness and an off-handing of responsibility to succeed onto the audience itself; because fundamentally, that appears to be easier for them than actually doing their fucking job. And they still likely think that's all your fault for expecting the game to be something other than their low effort meal-ticket. 8th Edition's biggest sin is not the lack of trying: it's the astounding lack of improvement. 

Now sure, “improvement” is to some extent a subjective term, but when the very idea of rules being “simplified” becomes an accepted agenda all to itself, there is already a very selective metric of goalpost shifting in play. The idea of simplicity itself gets a free pass, because of course it's an improvement, it always is (I hope your sarcasm detector is switched on, because if you didn't hear a ding there, you need one. Or the clown hiding under your bed just came). But this is precisely the driving force behind the 8th Edition narrative. It's simpler. This itself seems to be a point of celebration, as is often the case on the internet. Sadly, this rather ignores the more pressing issues, such as the fact that this “simpler” ruleset is, deep down, essentially the same beast as its predecessor (i.e. a jerky FAQ-reliant cyclejerk). The rules themselves fall flat. They remove pretty much all depth, and throw 40k into the quick beer and pretzel style game type, sharing the stage with games such as Fast and Dirty, FUBAR, and 1-Page. This simplicity is poorly constructed (as evidenced by the huge amount of FAQ and Errata) and not actually that simple when you add in the complicating factors of the faction rules, with their clunky interactions and inconsistent wording.

8th Edition is an attempt at an Abstract ruleset, but only half-committed to, with FAQs frequently undermining it, showing that they just hadn't even thought it through. I mean sure, we all make mistakes, but you can't afford to make them at this level, especially when your public interaction wing is being so arrogant about how good your new game is, and the prices on your rulebooks; rules supplements; campaign books; supplement faction books and related rules accessories collectively cost nearly 5 times more than even the competing “Geek Trap” (i.e. Fantasy, Steampunk and Sci-Fi Synergy Wargames) in rules alone. This is not even counting the huge investment of money and time the rest of the package requires. 8th Edition is trying to grab all of your attention, to be your sole hobby, and needs hours of investment learning synergies and stratagems. Yet the ruleset itself brings no depth with it, nothing to stimulate any mind expected to devote itself to it. 8th Edition is the edition that put the Boutique fancifulness GW has had of itself for over a decade into absolute overdrive, and systematically demonstrates that you can indeed polish a turd if your audience doesn't need to think.

Since 8th Edition launched, the biggest promise, and, indeed, the keyword has been balance. GW, and specifically Warhammer Community have been throwing that word around with wanton abandon. GW has led the charge with countless articles about balance with self-congratulatory tones of “best yet” and such. But, as I alluded to in the introduction, is it any effort to make something appear balanced to an audience that didn't mind 7th Edition? Although ironically, if they'd been as silent to the masses as they were in their bad old days, perhaps less critics would have noticed the astounding failure of this bold claim. Of course, there's still time for this fabled “balance” to occur, but so far, the results are far from conclusive. Just into the new edition, I took part in an apocalypse game. It was the most one-sided game I have ever been involved in: the xenos side were annihilated by the Imperials, who mostly didn't move at all, and shot us off the board, after going second. In a mere turn, we'd lost all our super heavies and they'd lost none. They took the flyers off out of “generosity” and let us put our super-heavies back on. A turn later they'd took all our super-heavies out again. 16 points to nothing. It highlighted to me obvious inequalities in the basic factions, especially on the top end, just showing the destructive powers that imperials have, with easy hit rolls (and easy access to re-rolls). Whereas Xenos, mostly Ork, albeit, with some Pansee to help, were shrugged off the board without any effort at all. My own kill tally was a Landspeeder and a Culexus Assassin. With about 4k worth of points. Easily the worst game I have ever played. (Dim From The Future: As an aside, I'm still right. We've had basically a year of Knight/Guard/Custode soup being dominant and NOTHING has changed there, missing SEVERAL opportunities to address it. The balance claim, is bullshit. End of. Also, Apocalypse needing to now be a gimmicky movement tray spin-off also enhances my point. We are looking at a set of core rules so utterly fragile and inflexible that something that has merely needed a small patch for years has had to become a separate game entirely. Still so sure 8th Ed is better?)

In regular games of 40k, my experience has been dominated by two words: Alpha Strike. There are loads of almost brainlessly easy lists. 40K isn't a game that's balanced to suit a variety of playstyles: it's balanced around people who know how to abuse power lists. This is literally the problem 40k has had for the past decade or so, and 8th Edition hasn't only done nothing to address this problem, they're reinforced it as the principle defining aspect of the game! The only thing they've done to change matters is remove most of the obvious inequality-driven faction-selling bullshit, and that's not really an achievement (given that this stuff should never have existed in the first place if their staff even had half an idea of how a wargame works). This ability for list shenanigans is summed up best via “Command Points”, where players can min-max to the point where they can easily grant themselves a re-roll for virtually every crucial roll in the game, or take spam lists and hardly notice a downside. The scenario rules still favour the better destructive force, meaning that once you've realised which army list is the strongest, it's probably pointless continuing to play, because thanks to this stripped down, moronic system, there is nowhere for you to hide, outmanoeuvre or otherwise outplay a superior force. You're there, largely, to roll dice and remove models. Movement merely gives you the illusion that you're trying to achieve something, and against a lot of Imperial lists, they'll not be doing much moving, given that they'll eliminate you far more easily by just sitting there and leaf-blowering you off the board. When you get down to it, this all there is to the game: it's an algorithm of your list's damage output and literally nothing else. You're being lulled by a promise of “balance” that mostly centres around points tweaking and FAQ nerfs that will be driven primarily from GW's contact with the UK and US tournament scenes, as if things couldn't be more disgusting already.

This game feels very “by committee” and that's not surprising. GW is still the same dumbass corporate company that forced itself into the position of needing to pretend to give a fuck about you just so you'll go back to buying a few things every now and then. Of course, you don't realise that this is all your fault. You guys have standards, so GW now needs you to tell them how to do everything, and this is why they've served up two wargames with no actual features, so you can tell them how to make them not suck, seeing as they don't seem to have anyone with half a clue how to fix them without you. Much like Forging the Narrative, GW continues with the onus on player responsibility. Now not only do you have to make the best of a situation and suck it up if you want to actually enjoy a game, you now also have to help them run a beta that they're selling as a completed product and essentially do most of the design work. Unpaid. Once again, GW hides behind the easy positives. Opening up to feedback is one thing, but when the people giving the feedback are doing pretty much all of the work to make this game function, be balanced, and even to stop exploits printed into Codices that they charge £30-50 for, it's evident that the improvement is threadbare and not substantive. 8th Edition is effectively a blank canvas for us to fill in: a blank canvas that costs £40 plus supplements.

So what's so wrong with it? Why is simpler bad? Simpler isn't always bad. It's simply a matter of execution. 8th Edition's core has much less to it, meaning it has to do more with less, or needs to turn its back on a lot of features but offer a better experience: 8th Edition fails at both of these outcomes. Let's do a rundown of a few of the problems. Movement values are varied again for the first time since 2nd Edition, but the game as a whole makes movement largely pointless (heavy weapon types outright discourage movement, many armies wont need to move at all and your opponent will likely alpha strike with most things that they would move anyway) so the nuance of variable movement types merely creates inequalities for no real point. Shooting is overly dominant, to the point of brainless saturation: leaf-blower builds are astoundingly easy, overwatch is automatic in every sense (particularly when it doesn't make any), and the oversimplification (i.e. neutering) of cover has rendered shooting as the easy solution to most problems apart from alpha strike, and sometimes even also that. The removal of initiative was entirely unnecessary and has mostly just created a game that makes large scale games of any size a headache when it comes to the assault phase, removing a useful stat that offered multiple in-game features in favour of a gimmick with a definite tolerance ceiling (and a tendency for creating rules clunk, inequalities and daft rules fixes later down the line). Morale may speed the game up, but it essentially just rewards outright offence and list power (like everything else in this game) and removes a lot of nuance from the game. Scenarios, whilst better than they have been in about 3 editions, still basically favour list power and killing ability. Any 40k game is still basically playing slayer mode with a few options to move that you simply don't opt to do and eliminate your opponent from the board via targeted alpha strike or static leaf-blower fire. And that's not even an exhaustive list of core failings.

Besides, it's not just what features the game has, but also what it lacks (which is pretty much everything). The removal of Unit Types is already demonstratively a problem: removing much nuance, consistency and adaptability from the core, meaning that you have a deluge of slightly varied similar rules that add nothing to the game aside from more to read in army books, usually during games. Whilst not a necessity, it's more of a sideways movement for the game. As stated above, the lack of cover as an interesting or nuanced feature has helped render movement and positioning as largely pointless. Movement and positioning are supposed to be a key feature of any good wargame, but in 40k's case they are merely an issue of weapon or charge range, and barely anything else. The game also lacks a lot of consistency, such as failing to remain consistently an abstract style game: having no ceiling for wounding but perplexingly having one for hitting and so on (this is before multiple FAQ entries break the abstract style with exceptions no one could logically conclude from what the rules provide). The removal of templates takes away a tactile element of the game that helped break up all the dice rolling and they replaced them with... more dice rolling. But the main thing they removed from the game was the application of skill. Most of that is gone. Positioning doesn't matter (except for basic things any wargame, or tabletop strategy game such a Draughts or Go provides, making such a feature not even worth mentioning), very basic tactics are basically all you need to succeed if your list is basically better than the opponents' which will often be the case if you're vaguely a powergamer. There's essentially nothing you can do wrong, unless you're really going out of your way to lose (or you're unlucky with dice rolls), and the average 40k tactics seen in-game plays out like some of Mat Ward's battle fluff: your army attacks directly and superior might equates victory. As wargaming goes, it can't get any more basic or less satisfying than this.

40k's design is ultimately conservative. It's a product of borrowing from Age of Sigmar's also stripped down style (note that a simpler ruleset is first and foremost quicker to write, which is likely the only reason they opted for that style), but in spite of this conservatism, mostly fuelled by “mathshammer” and hollow promises, the game is heavily flawed. This is why I am so frequently critical of simplified rulesets. The fact is, that if you let less rules dominate the majority of your game, you absolutely have to make sure that those functions work flawlessly and that the minimalist words used do as much work as possible. It is absolutely fundamentally crucial that your approach remains consistent, and that game functions support each other. Writing a simplified ruleset well requires more skill than writing a comprehensive larger ruleset, and it is an entirely different skill-set. GW have demonstrated with both games that use this new style, that GW are incapable of even anticipating the most obvious of flaws and the problems that will stem from merely core rules alone. All the while GW enter (much like with Finecast) into a completely new aspect of the industry (quickplay simplified rulesets) and demonstrate out of the door that they fundamentally lack even the most basic capacity to do it well, all whilst charging boutique prices, as if they've fucking mastered it. Neither AoS, nor 40k 8th Edition as Core Rules alone are remotely as refined as other rulesets, such as Fast and Dirty and FUBAR, rulesets that are either significantly cheaper or just free entirely. If you actually want to play a game of 40k as GW intends you to, that means paying a minimum of £105 to play one game (Rulebook, Open War Cards, 1 Codex, Chapter Approved [Future Dim: Ignoring that you've had to buy yet another one even shittier than the first and Campaign Supplements so sparse of content related to campaigns that it needed to ransom new units, relics and formations just to get people to buy it) on top of the very expensive prices they are charging for their models, with a new aesthetic that out of the door isn't too far divorced from the shit you'll find in Toys R Us (Future Dim: whatever that is). Do remember that you're paying boutique prices for this game that is basically a beta (and plays like an alpha].

The sad thing is that Warhammer 40,000 is, at least in terms of balance, better than it has been in a long time but given the absolutely pathetic ante-upping dross it followed (an edition of the game that GW could have struggled to make worse than it was), that's really not difficult at all. Once you get over the fact that 8th Edition (most likely briefly) called time on the worst of the sales stimulus nonsense that the last 3 Editions had blatantly served up (with the editions merely reducing the amount of effort they could be bothered to summon up to hide that fact), it doesn't take much effort to see that there is basically nothing else to this game other than an effort to create at least the pretence of a slightly more stable meta whilst removing as much work from their writing duties as possible. But that wasn't achieved without a cost, and that cost was draining virtually all of the game's character and style to achieve it. Moreover, it fails to solve any of the issues that has plagued the game for over a decade, aside of trying to insist to fans that the days of sales-based inequality are over (which is very unlikely). There are only two major features to this game: it's simpler to play and it's not as bad as 7th. And frankly, anyone, even an outright amateur with no experience in this industry could have managed that, and a great many people would have easily done it better and not charged £40 for the core plus supplements. Frankly, this game is mediocre at best, and serves to highlight that even now, GW are clueless in their own industry but act like they're the best. If this is the best they have to offer, I'm utterly bewildered that they think this pretty underwhelming bare bones game is worth the decade or more of open indifference and/or hostility its own fanbase experienced during the Kirby Era. If this is supposed to be the Revolution, I for one do not feel emancipated. I feel indifference.

Something Wicked This Way Comes

Dim's Exodus Series

(Wherein Dim attaches his name like faecal matter to a noun and the word “Series” part the 100^th)

40k was saved, but not for me. Now fuck off, Sam.

Opening Note: If by some kind of magic you find your way to this series without following the link I posted from my forum, welcome. I don't mind anyone reading this, but if some references refer to an audience I obviously don't have on this thing, or material (look at the sparse amount of entries) or references to names, events etc that make no sense, it's because this is aimed at my forum friends. This material is only here because technical issues prevent it being posted there. You are still welcome to read it, it will mostly simply be ranting about GW. If you're into that sort of thing.

An Introduction

This is a strange situation. I've mostly made my peace with GW at this stage, and having spent years criticising GW's stupid attitude to its own customers, a "romancing drive" seemed an apt time to end my tenure. On the face of it, it seems as if GW's turnaround has merely just been too little, too late for me. And largely I feel that is mostly true. However... It's not as if GW aren't actually up to the same sorts of shenanigans, nor are their games actual improvements in the ways that a lot of gamers had hoped. Nobody has bothered with the pushback yet, and I don't think the reason is a lack of things to push back against. After all at least with 7th Edition you had a game you could actually talk about... I mean, at least 7^th pissed people off. Critics of 8^th, like myself, are mostly bored above anything else.

I'm not convinced that New GW^TM is an actual thing, and I don't believe their games are better. I find it fucking hilarious that the apologists have picked up GW's banner with no sense of irony, shame or humiliation and resumed where they left off, in spite of GW vindicating pretty much every rational criticism sent at both at GW and the Apologists themselves. For a while I wondered why, but now I know. GW notices them. GW pretends to care about them, and after all if you've been consistently sucking corporate cock for 15 years it is about time the recipient at least condescended to provide some eye contact. Maybe even a brief ejaculation: "We're Listening^TM" they whisper like that woman from those Marks & Spenser ads. You can just feel their mouths swell with satisfaction can't you. And naturally, they swallowed it.

And there's a first for Dim. A decent analogy.

It's not easy biting your tongue, really. I actually tried taking some Apologist advice. Decided to quit. It wasn't easy, but I did it. I haven't played 40k or read a book about it in about 8 months. And it has been surprisingly liberating. But not effective. Whilst I am a fair bit happier I'm still pretty bitter, and irritated. I mean, I have no real interest in fighting for gamers as consumers. That ship has sailed. I'm not sure I believe in karma, but GW making their two principle games into stripped down army list simulators, with the vast majority of its variation and nuance stripped out of it and sold hilariously at boutique is precisely what this community of power gaming dicetards deserves. Any more effort than that is basically a waste. I do feel for everyone else, who at least expected some variable amount of “more” than 8^th is, but ultimately 8th is for everyone who feels they kinda liked 7^th anyway. Like I said, they deserve this.

So this isn't advocacy. This is more personal, really. I want to clear the air, say what I feel I need to say, because there's no actual reason for me to retain or bury these thoughts any more. I'm going to air them here and then be done with it, and move on. I do it here principally because it's a sizeable part of my 40k experience, and it seems apt to close it here. Besides, I know there's at least half a dozen to a dozen of you that will be entertained by this regardless of whether you guys agree with any of it or not. A few definitely won't, but a few of those people have discredited themselves to my mind, so at this point I don't care. I tried pulling punches last year. This time, I won't bother. To everyone else who likes 8^th but doesn't feel the need to treat every detractor like they're some sort of defective moron who needs only to see things that they already know are there, well, you guys can make up your own mind about my words or just not bother with the series at all. I'm not judging you either way.

So for the first, last and only time I'm issuing a content warning (given the analogy above it's probably a bit late but hey at least I'm doing the eye contact thing within a decade). I am going to be brutally honest and I'm going to say quite a few pretty harsh (but, as always, reasoned) criticisms of GW, some individuals within it and quite a sizeable portion of GW's fanbase. If that sort of thing bothers you, by reading beyond the intro you have at least been warned as to its content. As recompense for this series, I am going to try and finish Wurrgitz and I have something special planned for Christmas. A more proper send off to the "writey" parts of the forum. I will be returning to the Mek's at some point, given my new project (a friend is willing to play any edition with me so I'm looking at 3rd and 4th atm) but in terms of 8th, or likely anything in the future, 40k is dead to me. In every way that matters.

Just to cover a few more things, yes I filled in this year's community survey. I was constructive but quite scathing. Whilst I haven't played in a long while, I am still in a community that mostly plays 40k, so let's not try the ignorance card. I've watched enough games to know I'm not really missing anything of value. Much of this series will contain jokes, although considering my deranged sense of humour I make no assurances you'll find it funny. And yes, this really is it, this is my final series of “Dim tries to persuade everyone he's right in a verbose, rhetorical fashion through a series of articles with clickbait titles”. This is largely a release for me, and entertainment for you. That is its only principle function. I would be lying if I said I wasn't judging people... it would be unfair to dodge that accusation. But I wholeheartedly do not judge anyone for liking this game, for enjoying this game and for hoping it will only improve. I just cannot share your viewpoint in any three instances (and people patronisingly telling me to look at the positives are just fucking irritating at this stage), principally because most of GW's feedback is coming from the morons who defended 7^th Ed. But that's now your problem, not mine. Just putting that out there.

This isn't a message to GW by the way. Whether they would listen or not these days might get covered in a rant, but either way at this point I don't really care. Is this a message to you? Well, maybe, but I'm not obliging anyone to care or even read it. I'm going to do my best to make these rants fun and interesting, but I'm not as invested in the issues raised as I was when I wrote some of them. Some of them are being written now, but principally the motivation is to get this off my chest. I'm tired of hanging onto it. Ultimately, if even one person reads it and goes “Those sure are some opinions”, that'll do.

Finally some of you may be wondering, why here? Why now? Thought you were leaving and stuff? Well that might still happen. If I do stay, it wont be as a gamer supporting the current edition at the very least. Why post this on the forum? Well partly, I just find the obvious death of discourse in most of the sections of the forum to be incredibly depressing, almost as if all those blowhards who said it was better than ever were talking shit or something. I don't know. I just wanted to get people talking, hang out with some of my old friends on here, have a laugh, and talk about the good old days.

Oh and yes, each rant “article” will have a picture. Because at least one of you seems to need them.

So, to make this intro a Shakespeare sandwich: once more unto the breach dear friends. Once more.

Astra Militarum: A Review (Part 2)

It's A Wyvern, So What Would Be The Point?

Let's continue with the run-down on the Codex sections.

Elites
Storm Troopers Militarum Tempestus (i.e. Bad Latin Meaning Troopers of Stormy Things: i.e. Storm Troopers) are, aside of hilariously seeing GW on the receiving end of legal threats (from a bigger fish, oh look, they’re reasonable all of a sudden), is the first of the elite choices with new models. So now you can take them in platoons, they are the only types of unit that can take Taurus Primes, they have their own command squad type, and new, snazzy weapons. They can no longer scout or infiltrate, but they do still have deep strike. They can spam a lot of ap 3 lasgun shots (plus a salvo strength 4 special weapon version), and the hellguns can be boosted by the Guard Orders, making them serious trouble for stuff with good armour. Throw in a Biomancy Wielding Primaris, and you have the potential to pick off some seriously weakened Space Marines. They’ve also got some serious discounts from last time, in spite of being better. Yeah. Buy new plastic models!

Wyrdvane Psykers. The Wardian (i.e. Brainlessly Awful) style rename for the Psyker Battle Squad that everybody expected to disappear, but remarkably it remains! However it is a bit rubbish, effectively being a single Lv.1 psyker that has access to the same disciplines as the primaries, and having ablative wounds from enemy shooting and perils of the warp. For 60 points. Plus, the unit’s old abilities (super pie plate and reducing leadership) are gone. They expect you to buy multiple packs of the Sanctioned Psykers set just to get one likely under-whelming psychic power from a 5-10 man squad. The only plus is having transport options. Once again, you suck for buying metal and finecast models.

Next we have Ratlings, who, like Wyrdvanes, didn’t get new models. They’re pretty much what they were in the previous book. Their new rule, shoot sharp and scarper adds a bit of flavour, being able to shoot and then run (like the order). But that’s it. Guess what. Finecast.

Now we have the big fellas. The Ogryns and Bullgryns. New models all, and thus, lots of new juicy things. Both types are Stubborn, Very Bulky, and have Hammer of Wrath. Bullgryns come with two distinct flavours. The close range grenade shooting, moving cover type, and the melee nutters. The moving cover comes from the slab shield, large shields that boost their armour save when in base to base with each other, and cover saves to friend and foe when shooting through them. The melee type have an invulnerable save and a power maul, plus can re-roll hammer of wrath wounds. The Ogryns are seriously tough, and like combined infantry, can use similar sources to ridiculously boost their offensive abilities. If you’re taking the Melee Bullgryns, you would be mad not to stick a Priest in with them.

Fast Attack
Now we’re on to Fast Attack, and once again, the lack of new models is disturbingly telling. There are a lot of nerfs in this section. Some of them necessary, a lot of it is lack of new model syndrome. This brings me on to Rough Riders. They’re still here, contrary to what some expected, but as I sort of anticipated, it’s a larger fuck you to Guard players than if they’d removed them. How bad are they? Well, they cost the same as they did, and most of the options have increased (including an extra point for more squad members). Mogul Kamir, the only real buffer, is completely gone. The hunting lance still boosts initiative, and is still a power weapon, but they remain a one trick pony that is very easy to eliminate. They didn’t even jump up in toughness like they should have done. Once again, you suck for buying finecast and metal.

Sentinels and Armoured Sentinels are next, and again, a similar story. Nothing remarkable, and they’re more or less the same. Armoured Sentinels have dropped in points (but the eagle eyed vets will see this is largely because they’ve lost the previously inclusive extra armour upgrade, which covers 10 of the 15 point reduction). Mercifully, there are again some cost decreases, especially given the fact these guys are basically moving, armoured heavy weapon teams (and teams are cheaper and easier to buff). Nothing appalling like the Rough Riders, but you know the models aren’t new, but at least they’re plastic.

It’s a similar story with the Hellhound Squadron. If anything, it’s a bit worse. Points have been juggled around, so you may end up with your unit being more or less costly than it was in the previous book. For instance there are no Squadron upgrades, so Camo Netting is 15 points for each tank, rather than 20 for the lot. The Hellhound is 5 points cheaper, but the Devil Dog has jumped up 15. Whilst these are tougher than the average Chimera Class tank, it is still pretty scary to consider that the standard, unmodified Hellhound is nearly double the cost of the Wyvern, which can do its job much more effectively, if being a bit more fragile. Still, being Fast Tanks does mean that it can move at cruising speed and fire two weapons at BS, so at least there’s that. But again, they’re not new models.

Finally for Fast Attack, is the Valkyries and Vendettas. Similarly, we have points increases for both (although to be fair, they’re now fully fledged flyers rather than skimmers), and largely point increases for options. Plus, their Grav Chute Insertion rule has been seriously nerfed. It allows deep strike deployment for their embarked unit anywhere along the line of their movement, but the whole unit takes dangerous terrain if it scatters. A reasonable nerf, but Necrons can still do it without. Once again, the models aren’t new. [Although worth noting that you can stick an Augur Array for 25 points onto a vehicle, and any unit Deep Striking within 6” of this doesn’t scatter, so there is a sneaky way around this nerf]

Heavy Support
Okay, now we move on to Heavy Support. It is a mix of good and bad again. The bad, well a few things are gone, although not a lot that would be seriously missed, but the main news is that it’s business as usual. A few nice discounts on the obvious stuff, new things are, largely, obviously better, and everything else is as it was or a little worse. Russes are more or less as they are, but they’ve got a few discounts. Most of the fancy variants are a bit cheaper, and the Lumbering Behemoth rule gives way to the heavy vehicle rule, so Russes can only move 6” but none of their guns ever notice, which is arguably far better than previously. The main news is that these have a boost via the aforementioned Tank Commander (and Pask), but otherwise, options are a bit cheaper (but again, no Squadron discount on camo nets) and the other thing to report is that the Executioner Plasma Cannon (that okay, was a bit OP) has now got Gets Hot, meaning it can easily kill itself even more than if you stuck the Plasma Cannon sponsons on it as well (but at least they’re 10 points cheaper). In general, Russes are as solid as was expected. Expect lots of Pask Punishers.

The Hydra is more or less what was expected, and surprisingly for a new kit, a little disappointing, if anything. It’s a tiny bit cheaper, it’s lost the Jink Denial rule it had, it still doesn’t have interceptor (but the Hydra Autocannons still have Skyfire). In spite of firing at BS, it probably wouldn’t drop a flyer as effectively as Pask in an Executioner or Punisher (albeit for the price of getting that you do get 3 Hydras). If you are going to make use of Hydras, it’s bad news if your opponent doesn’t take any flyers. That will probably also explain why the Wyvern is so sodding good.

The Basilisk is exactly the same as it was, although the alternatives are gone. The Manticore is a tad more expensive, and the Deathstrike costs exactly the same. Although hilariously, the Deathstrike has had the real boosts: it shoots on a 4+ (always on a 6 even if it was –3[it’d be a dead tank, incidentally]), is harder to knock back from shooting and it uses the apocalyptic template, fixed at a 5” radius, rather than random. Mind you, the Manticore is better by nature of Barrage (hence the extra 10 points), but that’s it. These entries are no worse than before, which I suppose is good. What worries me is if they get new models next time…

Finally, we have the Wyvern, which I’ve mentioned earlier, which is why I am mentioning it last. I’m a veteran of GW. I’ve been around for 20 years, and whilst I know GW love to make new models better than old ones, I have never before been so surprised by how ludicrously good a new model is. It’s only major weakness, let’s say, compared to the Hellhound that it is hilariously cheaper than, is that it is open topped. For a mere 15 points, you can buy an enclosed compartment upgrade for it, rendering this weakness away, and it’ll still be 45 points cheaper than the Hellhound, which isn’t twin-linked (so it doesn’t re-roll wounds).  Sure, it has better strength, but it’s much less likely to inflict as many hits. The Hellhound also doesn’t roll to hit, but then, it only fires one of those templates, and the Wyvern fires 4 barrage shots that re-roll to hit, and to wound, so the bonus strength counts for less too. A single Wyvern can potentially annihilate any troop unit on a standard 4 by 4 board by the end of turn one. You have to get a Hellhound into position. The Hellhound costs 60 points more. Add 5 points to that, and that’s another Wyvern.

The only other things worth mentioning are new wargear items. There are, as usual, 6 unique items. A pretty good master crafted power sword, a mask that gives a 4+ inv, it will not die and causes fear, and 3 order/morale boosting items. One in particular that allows Inspired Tactics on any double but 1. Some new vehicle upgrades, one that gives Adamantium Will, and one that explodes when enemies charge the vehicle. These are pretty much the only things that don’t have models for them that are worth note, really. Enjoy the one Codex you have them for.

In Closing
Overall, the Codex is reasonably solid. But it is in many ways a seriously over-powered Codex, and there will be a lot, and I mean a lot, of new Guard players. Whilst largely a lot of veteran Guard Players wont be disappointed, seeing as most of the staples of the army are, surprisingly for GW, more or less as they were. But anyone who built an army around Al’Rahem (Tallarn) or Chenkov (Valhallan) have pretty much nothing to show for it. Space Marines have ways to distinguish their Chapters, but Guard has no such luck on that front (although that’s an older criticism: you suck for not buying Spess Mahreens!).

Guard (or Astra Militarum) were in dire need of a bit of nerfing. Whilst this has become a reality in places, the places where the nerf-hammer fell most heavily were on things guard players didn’t much bother with that also didn’t get new models (like Rough Riders and certain characters such as Harker). What was staple has been made more obvious, or at least discounted, which in the pattern of 6th Ed Codices was already anticipated. Russes are slow, but in most ways better, the orders system is more refined, but as a result significantly boosted. Guard are still a leaf-blower force, and given a turn to unleash ungodly amounts of fire, can, almost without effort, shoot most forces off the table.

If one looks over it, there are some interesting touches, and GW could have certainly gone more overboard on this book. But regardless, if it does anything at all, it asserts the typical GW hegemony of their miniatures, out of the box, and if you buy any, start with the new ones. GW doesn’t make very much effort to encourage conversions, or customisation with this book. Sure there are some options, even some really cool ones that players could use, but it’s tempered with the fact that rules have disappeared just because they couldn’t be bothered to put models for them out there, and are evidently more concerned that some other company could be, than whether their fans will buy GW’s kits to convert their own.

It’s a disturbing possibility for 7th Edition, and even worse for armies that thrive on conversions, such as Orks, but I’m expecting the newer rulesets to give increasingly less opportunities for companies that make add-on bits to GW’s miniatures. So rather than manning up and filling the void themselves, they’ll merely remove the options to compensate. I am genuinely astonished that veterans can still take shotguns, because I was betting against that (and dreading the possibility). It does at least show me that on occasion, I am wrong about the evil empire. Time will tell to what extent I am wrong about them. This latest instalment does have me absolutely DREADING the next Ork Codex release, but the signs aren’t awful, merely disturbing.

A passable effort. 3 stars.

Astra Militarum: A Review (Part 1)

If In The Case of Potential Law Suits, Replace Name With Bad Latin...

Introduction
No doubt there will be many of these already, but it’s worth delving a bit more.  It is a pretty basic review, in which I will be looking at the changes from the previous book, and largely looking at the rules/army list changes. I couldn’t bring myself to read the fluff. I’m sure it’s somewhere between meh and dogshit, I just can’t be bothered to find out which. After all, it is impossible to check which of GW’s Rogues Gallery wrote it, so I would have to actually read the fluff, and that’s a bit like opening a kinder egg in the hope of finding a live, primed grenade in it.

This will be fairly in-depth, so if you want a one sentence summary of the new book, here it is: buy the new stuff, that’s where most of the effort went.

Immediate Impressions and Army Rules
In fact, this is a good place to start. This isn’t a new concept; a lot of GW Veterans will be familiar with it. It’s pretty simple: unless it’s core, or it’s had a new miniatures release, it bodes rather ill for that unit. Double nerf points if it’s “finecast”, or worse yet, has no model at all (some things are gone entirely: Bastonne, Chenkov, Al’Rahem, Marbo, Penal Legion, Mogul Kamir, Colossi, Griffons and Medusae –  this is likely because in most cases other companies have models for them). It isn’t the whole story, but the only pluses to take from the whole book are a decent amount of points discounts (although some of them border on cheese) and that most units largely remain unchanged, perhaps with the addition of the odd new interesting rule here and there (but that’s pushing it).

Whereas with the new things, they have a lot of huge benefits. Price drops, oodles of new abilities, and typically benefits that are actually useful. A lot of the old stuff still works (Infantry Platoons, Veteran Mech and Russes are better than ever), but it’s hard to avoid that some of the new things are noticeably better than they probably should be, especially for the price. Nothing says this better than the new Wyvern. 65 points each for a chimera class support tank (that can take up to 3 in a battery) that fire 4 twin-linked, mortar shots (strength 4 barrage) with ignore cover and shred (re-rolling wounds). For 65 point points. Yeah, that’s what I thought.

So, with that in mind lets start from the top. Naturally, Guard have a Warlord Trait Chart, with some pretty scary abilities on it. D3 units outflanking, preferred enemy against one codex for the warlord’s unit, a larger command range, an extra order etc. The Tank Commander is restricted to one of the first 3, but that wont exactly break any Guard players’ hearts, as the first 3 are probably the best.

The Orders system is considerably improved now (although the cynic in me thinks this was largely because they could flog gamers a set of order cards). The main improvement is removing the confusion around which officers can take which orders, as there are 3 of the 9 orders that are exclusive to obvious “senior officers”, and the rest can be used by any commander, aside of Tank Commanders, who have 3 unique ones they can use. You still need to remember things, but its much more straightforward, especially if you bought the cards (fancy that!). Notable orders include split fire (very, very useful with combined Infanty Platoons), having a whole unit with precision shots (this is ridiculous), being able to shoot, and then run, and so on. This isn’t even mentioning the senior officer exclusives yet. Oh, and did I mention Front Rank Second Rank can be used on Tempestus Scions (i.e. Storm Troopers), who are armed with ap 3 lasguns? Well, it can. Yeah. And its an order that can be issued by any commander.

Let’s have a look at the various sections.

HQ
The company command squad is similar to what it was, although it works out a lot cheaper to get the regimental advisors, and the bodyguards are gone completely, save one, the character Nork Deddog, who we will get to later. The Astropath is now a psyker, with unique access to the Telepathy Discipline, and is always Lv.1. The Officer of the Fleet now has to pass a Leadership test each turn to use his ability, but can choose to boost the player’s own reserve rolls, or add a penalty to the opponent’s. Most of their options are considerably cheaper, and this is common for a lot of the options in this Codex.

The Tank Commander is a new HQ, who is ludicrously cheap (30 points, plus whatever Russ you put him in, and must be in a Russ Squadron with at least 1 more Russ, as if you weren’t taking two anyway), and comes with 3 unique orders. One should be called “drive me closer so I can hit them with my sword” because that’s basically what it is (aside of the sword hitting bit), the ability to fire at a different target from the rest of his unit, plus one that allows to shoot and then deploy smoke launchers. He can be upgraded to Pask, who is a rare non-new model that is actually improved with ridiculous new rules (although there is no Tank Commander model, but there is one for Pask. So answers on a postcard there.). Pask’s abilities vary depending on the tank, being twin-linked on most, or have rending with exterminators and punishers, and have a special blind(!) large blast for executioners.

Commissars and Lord Commissars are there, as usual, being reasonably priced, and easy to kit up. Ordinary Commissars aren’t technically HQs, and you can have one for every platoon and company command squad you have in the army, but they are restricted as to what units they can join. Lords are a HQ choice, and both confer stubborn onto their unit, and have a somewhat altered Summary Execution rule (on a D6 roll of a 1 or 2 your opponent picks who he executes) but instead of a re-roll, it grants an auto-pass instead. Commissars are now ridiculously good unit buffers, especially in Ogryn/Bullgryn Squads and combined infantry squads.

Priests, Primaris Psykers and Enginseers are still there, now called Regimental Specialists. They can no longer be a HQ when no others are taken (same for ordinary Commissars), and funnily enough, none of them have new plastic models, and are all finecast or metal. Must be a coincidence. In spite of lack of new models, they have all surprisingly got buffs. Priests are now like they are in the Adepta Soritas Codex, having special combat buffs (he can have Smash, pretty funny if a bit useless) if they pass a leadership test. Primaris Pskyers can be upgraded to level 2, and are reasonably priced, although they have lost nightshroud and chain lightning. They can take Divination too, rather than Telepathy (which the Astropath now has), which can be a bit scary. Enginseers are pretty much an auto-include for mech spam, being able to fix immobilised and weapon destroyed results, as well as giving power of the machine spirit to one tank a turn instead of shooting. Servitors are also cheaper too.

Lastly in HQ, we have Special Characters. I have to say that one area where the Dev Team have been busy doing everything possible to not do anything in particular, it’s this grouping. I’m not entirely heartbroken (I don’t care for SCs myself), but it’s certainly the case that there’s been a ritual slaughter of characters from the previous book. Al’Rahem, Chenkov, Bastonne, Mogul Kamir and Sly Marbo are all gone. The reason is obvious, and you will know it off by heart by the end of this review: you suck for buying metal and finecast models.

Still, there are a few that remain, plus one that they did bother to give a new model. The reason that Yarrick, Creed, Straken and Pask remain are likely mostly to avoid backlash. Removing Yarrick alone would create a storm of hate that even Head Office would actually notice, so, they get rules. Yarrick is still pretty nails. He’s had a points reduction, his power field is now a 4+ invul, Iron Will remains, and the other thing of note is that, like other Commissars, he can only be the Warlord if you have no other HQ choice.

Creed and Kell also remain, although you can’t get Kell now without having Creed First. Kell is pretty much retrofitted to protect Creed from shooting and melee, plus carries a battle standard, and units receiving orders from creed can use his leadership (8, pretty good). Creed is different, rather than better. He costs more, but buying Kell makes them cost the same as they used to. He has two warlord traits (rolled for), and can issue three orders. In all, not bad, but not a new model.

Finally, we have Straken and Deddog. Both are returning, but we have a case in point: Straken doesn’t have a new model, and Deddog does. Straken isn’t awful, actually, he’s pretty good, but Deddog is significantly better than he was. Straken for one thing, costs a lot more. He still has his counter-attack and furious charge bubble ability, but the range is halved. Plus he must issue and accept challenges, but he does now get smash(!), still has an improved statline, and monster hunter as well, for a laugh.

Deddog however, is cheaper by 25 points and twice as good. He loses Furious Charge, but gains Hammer of Wrath, his heroic sacrifice rule has had a bit of a boost (reliable amount of attacks, plus the possibility of a special attack), will automatically stand in the way of any issued challenges, cannot be killed by a Commissar’s summary execution (and even the hilarious rule of Deddog killing a Commissar for killing the officer he’s protecting is gone), and then there’s his thunderous headbutt attack. By sacrificing all his ordinary attacks, he can make one at +3 strength and AP 3 (making this usually the wonderful Instant Death inducing Strength 8). He’s 85 points. Yeah.

Troops and DTs
The Infantry Platoon is as solid as ever, and is more or less unchanged. There are a few discounts here and there, but largely it’s an unchanged formula, save for being able to take one more Special Weapons squad. The combined squad is still there, and is a very valid tactic this edition, considering the buffs you can throw onto it. In addition to front rank second rank, you can bury up to 6 heavy weapon teams (or a lot of specialists) in a mass of infantry, and plop the split fire order onto itself from its own platoon command that subsists in the same morass of men (or hilariously Precision Shots, or Front Rank Second Rank). Throw in a Commissar or Commissar Lord for Stubborn Ld 9 or 10, or add in a Preacher for fearless (and his other boosting powers), a Primaris Psyker with Divination, and you have a blob of death.

Veterans are pretty much the same beast and can, mercifully, still take shotguns. The main story for them is one of ungodly price drops. Their base cost, and most of their doctrines have reduced in cost by quite a bit. At the very least, taking veterans without forward sentries, and/or a Chimera or Taurox is very foolish. They’re a bit of a bargain, and remain the mech spam linchpin they have always been. The somewhat sad story is on the character upgrades front. Bastonne is gone entirely, and Harker has been nerfed to hell and back. Harker no longer makes the unit relentless, he no longer has feel no pain, he no longer gives them infiltrate, stealth and move through cover, oh and he’s exactly the same points cost as he used to be. How dare you buy metal models. Payback is now rending, and he at least does have relentless, but the chance of having placed rending shots isn’t worth all the stuff he’s lost. You can bet if they would have made a new model for him, this guy would have been a bringer of death. As he is, he’s 10 points cheaper than a Wyvern. GW expects you to take the hint.

As far as Dedicated Transports are concerned, there’s a lot of new things. The Chimera is as solid as always, and has actually jumped up in cost (wonder why). Plus there’s the addition of a new transport! The Taurox. Compared to the Chimera, it is at least cheaper, and comes in two flavours: normal Taurox, and Taurox Prime. The Prime is better, but does cost a fair bit more than the Chimera and only services the Militarum Tempestus Squads. Both Tauroxes re-roll dangerous terrain, although only the prime is fast (neither are tanks), and the prime has bigger guns and stuff, which are basically lighter versions of some of the stuff you get in heavy support. The normal Taurox’s one point over the Prime is having 4 fire points over the Prime’s two, but both are weak anyway, and most Guard Veterans will stick to the ubiquitous Chimera, because it still cuts it. Two models (both could be weapon teams) can fire out of its top hatch, it has a fancy lasgun array allowing embarked units to have some lasgun goodness that can split fire at each side. It also allows commanders to issue orders from it, where the Taurox doesn’t. The Taurox is also weaker.

Okay, this is it for Part 1 of the Review. Part 2 will be up shortly.

A Grot's Life...

This is an old story I wrote for a 40k Ork writing competition way back. The Ork Speech is a bit awful, and there's lots of in-Ork references (Beakie means Space Marine BTW), but it's fun if you like 40k, gretchin and puns. Enjoy.

A Grot’s Life

“CLUNK! WAZZIB-GURGLE…  BLAP”. The disconcerting sounds were grimly familiar to the onlookers; well, those that dared to be onlookers.  The grot stared exasperatingly at Mek Garbrek; the hunched Ork scratched its head in puzzlement. “Not agen…” murmured Garbrek.  The strange construct had been making those noises for the past few days, and Garbrek had tried just about everything to figure out what was wrong with it.

‘It’ was a strange buggy, one that had a rather oversized gun on it.  Well, the gun wasn’t particularly the oversized bit; that would be the ‘powa generataee fing’.  The grot hadn’t seen anything like it: countless cogs, wires, turny bitz, readout dialz, stuff-exhausts, uvva wires, pistons, batteries and lotz of uvva gubbinz that had some unknown use to the eyes of a lowly rigga.  It was fairly huge, and intricate; most of these intricacies were far more noticeable when the hatch at the side was open, and it was.  In fact, Garbrek had already motioned to some of the riggas to enter the hatch.  He didn’t need to speak; the riggas knew the drill by now.

They approached with caution, brooding with the dread that clearly marked their faces.  They slowly plunged into the darkness of the hatch, and started fiddling with wurky bitz that only they could see.  “CLUNK…” the machine began again: “WAZZIB-GURGLE…  WURRRRR-zittttt…” 

It was then that the three grots came running out of the opening in the back, yelling one of the words no grot rigga ever wants to hear:  “WAZZAMAMMA!!!” they shrieked in unison, as if they were being chased by the biggest squig in the universe.

The explosion that followed was deafening. 

The fault, whatever it was, allowed the powa generataee fing to successfully deconstruct the entire machine in a matter of seconds into constituent debris that dispersed wildly in a storm of metal bitz and unpleasant flamey-lightening stuff.  Several scraps flew past the grot, making their own crashing noises behind him.  He sneaked a glance around at Garbrek, who hadn’t even flinched.

This fact supports a common theorem that distinguishes a good Ork Mek from the rest, that when their inventions malfunction and explode, they survive.  That’s pretty much it.  This also determines a good rigga.

The grot looked around to see what remained of the three fleeing grots, and all that presented itself was a scorched grot sticking out of one of the far walls with an unsurprisingly shocked expression on its face.  It was fairly clear that Fikkit wouldn’t be needing his share of the fungus slop tonight.

Garbrek looked around at the Grot: “Yoo!  Wassitnaym…”
“Sputnik.” the grot muttered.
“Yerh, Sputnik…” Garbrek counter-muttered.  “Git yazelf ta da Boss, tell im iz Bike az ‘ad sum…  err… komplicashunz…”

Sputnik nodded, and turned to exit the mekshop.  “BUT!” roared Garbrek, “Dunt tayk all day abowt it, ya uzelezz runt!”  Sputnik didn’t look back, he merely ran off as quickly as possible.

This was of course, an age-old Gretchin ploy.  His run out of the shop, which an experienced Grot would make in the correct direction of their errand, was a mere trick used to fool the Ork.  Gretchin ploys were numerous, and older than the Runtherders who assumed such things did not exist; or at least didn’t mention that they did, for no particularly explored reason.

“Sprokkit savez da day agen!” Sputnik sniggered to himself.  He ran around the nearest corner, and peeked back around it.  Gretchin have excellent eyesight, so they tend to put distance between them and the smarter Orks to avoid being seen (which is of course, another clever ploy).  He looked into the Mekshop and could clearly see Garbrek angrily pointing at his runts to collect the pieces of shrapnel so that he could start again.

Sputnik smiled to himself.  He knew he didn’t need to run his errand.  Unlike Garbrek, he had some sense.  Warboss Gorgrim was not deaf; he would have heard the explosion, and with Orks being Orks, observant to immediacies, he would have known minutes ago, and he would already be on his way.  Garbrek would have enough on his plate to even consider him.  It was time for a well-deserved break, the moment every grot waited for, and any grot with half his wits could create on a constant basis.

Building to a crescendo were the loud multitudes of stomping belonging to Boss Gorgrim and his band of Nobz.  He could see them now, heading down the wide roadway of the Town, heading to the turning he was standing at.  Sputnik already knew that the warboss and his attendants would be turning east of his position into the mekshop.  Gorgrim did not look very happy.  Sputnik smiled, the more outraged he was, the longer Sputnik had to loaf around.  If Gorgrim looked non-too-happy, his Nobz looked patently furious, although they always did.  They were rougher than a cave squig on a forced diet.  They always looked hunched as if about to begin a running headbutt, and they constantly snarled at anyone or anything that dared make eye contact.  The closer they got, the more that Sputnik (wisely) backed off into the shadows.

Sure enough, they turned east, and they had barely done that before Gorgrim roared:  “GAAARRRBREKKK!!” the mere sound of it made Garbrek drop his tools and look on in fear, as pretty much every other Ork nearby was trying not to do, as Gorgrim hated being stared at.  One Ork foolishly failed to look away, but with barely a gesture from Gorgrim, one of his Nobz’ choppas found itself imbedded in its skull, and the Ork dropped like a sack of squigs with no legs; if the Ork was dead, it aught to be relieved.  Well it was, of duty.

As much as Sputnik longed to hear Garbrek’s excuses, and enjoy watching him get pummelled, he had better ideas.  Sputnik trotted off to the Bloated Squig, meeting place of Grots, when the Orks weren’t looking…

********************************

Garbrek coughed and spluttered as he tried to shake off the aches and pains that had presented themselves like a falling Squiggoth.  “Dere, dere, Garbrek…” Boss Gorgrim muttered at him croakily: “Yoo wer lucky!  My Ladz cud ‘ave uz’d da uvva side uv de’r choppaz!”  The warboss appeared amused, this lightened Garbrek’s spirits, but he made a good effort to hide it, which wasn’t difficult; his imagination was pretty fertile with ideas about what would happen to him if the boss was still angry.  Garbrek was however curious as to whether the Boss would be relieved if he knew that Garbrek had turned his bike into a buggy before he blew it up.
“Sorree Boss” Garbrek whimpered “Itz jus’ not easee ta find gud runtz deze dayz!”
Gorgrim glared at him angrily: “Zo, yer runtz ar’ at fawlt eh?  Well yer dunt need em den, duz ya?  Fix it yerself!”  Gorgrim turned and looked at his Nobz: “Ladz, get all ‘iz runtz, an’ bring em ta me.  Growla wont be ‘ungry tunite…”

********************************

Sputnik wandered into the Bloated Squig.  The door was a hinged barrel that was filled with rotten old fungus brew.  The brew was so solid it had fused into the wall.  It had taken several grots weeks to pick axe to the wooden crate’s edge.  The doorkeeper as always wore a peg on its nose, and expected the password, which was Frig, a mild Gretchin curse word, usually used shortly before the grot suffered a lot of pain, death or both.

Sputnik glanced around.  The makeshift bar was a pretty impressive sight considering the Orks knew nothing about it.  The bar counter was made from smuggled bits and bobs; the bit that always stuck out most was the various remaining parts of the armour of Shabskul, which made up most of the front panel.  The Grots had acquired it easily, as no one wanted the flattened armour of the last warboss, especially as Gorgrim’s personal battlewagon’s deffrolla had probably placed it in such a state.  No Ork would want it anyway; it was technically still being used; the grot regulars had already grown used to the stench.

As all gretchin were obliged to do by custom, he stopped by the Sprokkit Idol, and nodded at it, before heading to the bar.  Sputnik was fond of their Idol, it was of course not of Sprokkit (although he’d never seen Sprokkit so he didn’t know if it was a good likeness), but it was a small, snot-sized statue.  It always perplexed him that Sprokkit, a legendarily smart grot, would have such a painfully bad expression on its face.  Of course, no snot ever looked that happy when it was dipped in quick setting mud.

Sputnik however was just like any other Grot in just about any Ork world since the Waaaghs of the Arch Arsonists and Ghazkhull.  In gretchin circles, Sprokkit was a legendary name.  It was the legendary name of a legendary grot, incidentally called Sprokkit.  Sprokkit is credited with the first and only verbal book (well, book of any kind) of the Gretchin.  It is simply entitled ‘Sprokkitz Ployz’, and concerns the various tricks of the trade that Gretchin know inherently.

Most Grots can recite the first 3 chapters; some can even stretch to the last one.  The ‘Ployz’ book does however have its own natural selection issues.  As it is verbally passed on from grot to grot, you can never be sure it’s accurate, or that the grot has told you it very well, meaning that some grots suffer for using the ‘Ploy’ incorrectly.  The most popular ploy in the book concerns the issue of ‘How ta get stuff from da big guyz’.  It is of course, unerringly simple.  Sprokkit suggests: ‘A sympul methud, ta fool da big guyz, iz ta tell ‘em yoo’r on a job fer annuva big guy.’  The application of the ‘Foolz Errand’ is so commonplace that Orks are so completely fooled into thinking that Grots are mostly busy doing important jobs, and not slacking off, which is clearly not true, or Sprokkit would not be such a huge ‘Best Teller’.

Sputnik contemplated Sprokkit’s strange status as object of interest to all Gretchin everywhere.  Every Grot in his town knew him intimately, yet none of them had met him.  He was surprisingly wise for a Grot, most Grots were smart, but not that smart.  Sputnik’s attention switched to the mild concern on the faces of other Grots around him.  Had he been standing there that long?  He quickly turned around, bore a face of mild perplexity and made his way to the bar.
“Fung Brew wid a stikk” muttered Sputnik “In a cleen glazz.”
“Fungus iz off” counter muttered the bargrot.
“What?  It’z Fungus, it can’t go off coz it iz alredee!” Sputnik snapped.
“Yeh, yoo smell it tho,” replied the bargrot “an’ yoo wunt drink it naytha”
“Wat you got, not…”
“Yerh, juz’ Squigade”
“Wateva.”
The bargrot shoved an Ork shoota glass (which is about a pint to a Grot) into a bubbling vat of greeny yellow liquid and dumped it on the bar next to Sputnik.
“Ya shud cut bak Sputz.  Yoo’r not seemin’ yerzelf deze dayz.” The barkeep seemed genuinely concerned.  “Yoo’z pawzin’ at dat Idol too much, Sprokkitz Law sez ya shud cut down!”

Of course, the 4th chapter of Sprokkitz Ployz was the bit every Grot was quick to not bother remembering, and that was because it underlined Sprokkitz Law.  Sprokkitz Law, as Sprokkit explains: “my law meanz dat yoo gitz shud onlee uze dez Ployz wen ya need to.  If ya uze ‘em too oftin, da big guyz mite notiz, an yoo mite even forgetz how ta tell da truff fer wunce.” 

Most loyal followers of Sprokkit were convinced that there was wisdom in what he said, and those Grots were usually the ones with a stronger sense of duty.  Sputnik tended to sniff at them; he felt they weren’t using Sprokkit’s wisdom for what it was for.  One day, he was convinced that it would save his life.

Sputnik stared at himself in the reflection on the top of the thinly slimy Squigade he held in his left hand.  Sputnik’s features were unnaturally sharp for a Grot, his nose in particular was oddly crooked and sharp, and his eyes were small and piercing.  He was however still quite young (even for a Rigga), although the trademark Rigga frown lines (known as ‘Riggin Rutz’ by most Grots), had started to present themselves, as well as the unnaturally pallid skin from working in cramped and dark conditions had begun to break out in small blotches on his skin.  Sputnik in particular disliked his goggle marks, an eternal reminder of how much time he tended to spend welding plates and rivets into place.

Sputnik had quite a stocky build, for a Grot. He retained the ability to flex a bit of muscle, built from heavy lifting and heavy slacking.  Sputnik was the kind of Grot who always managed to avoid total drudgery, thanks to Sprokkit, and as he casually dunked back his second repulsive Squigade, he contemplated on when he could be bothered to go back to work; ‘One more drink Sputnik’ he thought to himself.

********************************

Nabskul dived behind an old and rusty wheel in the alley of the Bloated Squig.  His little heart was beating heavily, and he was panting like a racing squig after a 10-lap race where it hadn’t stopped to eat one of the other competitors.  He had just ran for his life; he never thought Gorgrim’s Nobz could run that fast.
“Frig!” he cursed breathlessly.  It sounded as if he had swallowed a rippa squig as he said it.

The door in the barrel opened.

It was then that Nabskul came to his senses and remembered why he was there.  He fluttered through the door and it closed behind him.  He fell to his knees and clambered on all fours to the bar.  The bargrot and other Grots rubbed their eyes, as if there was something in the Squigade that was making this day seem too different.
“Sputnik!” Nabskul struggled out a cry.
“Wassup Nabskul,” replied Sputnik coldly, “Yoo nik’d Garbrek’s spottin’ goggulz agen?”
“Nuh!” Nabskul muttered, “Gorgrim’s Nobz arr afta uz!”
“Wat?” Sputnik yelled, dropping his Squigade onto the bar floor.
“We’z getting’ da blaym fer ‘iz bike blowin’ up, we’z all gunna be fed ta Growla!  We gotta get outta ‘ere!”
“Dey’ll not find uz ‘ere, stop panikkin!”
Nabskul looked around the bar.  The faces on the Grots, particular the bargrot, made it clear that Sputnik’s last sentence was not popular opinion.
“Sputnik,” the bargrot uttered coldly, “If ya dun’t leev in a few secundz, we’ll frow ya owt!”
“Huh?” replied Sputnik, “But if dey find uz…”
“If dey find ya ‘ere we all get ta tawk ta Growla!” the bargrot folded his arms.
Sputnik looked around for any sign of support, but he knew it would be selfish to doom the Bloated Squig.  He got up without saying a word, and dragged a hapless Nabskul with him.

“Wat we gunna do Sputnik?” once Nabskul had got his breath back.
“Well, accordin’ ta Sprokkit, da wun playze dey wunt look fer ya, iz da playze dey expekt ya ta be!” Sputnik claimed optimistically.
“But ‘ow we gunna get dere?”
“Dunno…”

********************************

Mek Garbrek had been working furiously, and was almost finished.  It was a masterpiece.  He had spent every second since Gorgrim left working on it; every idea, design, piece of unknown gubbinz fer a rainy day, and ounce of his own photosynthetic sweat had gone into it.  He turned the final nut a few notches tighter for luck.  He nodded to the Nob staring at him, who apparently had been there waiting to see if his runts returned, but he had a feeling that the Nob was simply there to make sure he didn’t do a runner.

He stood back and gaped silently at it.  Had the Orkiod Species known the phrase ‘Decked out with all the Bells ‘n Whistles’ it would have been on the tip of Garbrek’s tongue.  It was a masterpiece, glinting bright red, with Zzap Guns, Rokkit Launchas, Ejecta Seats (whatever those were), Deffkopta conversion capabilities, jet skis, airstrike missiles, bomms, cruise control, powered deff-rays, a Deffrolla, lots of Rivits, and even more stuff, some that even Garbrek hadn’t begun to consider what they were for.

Surely, surely, Gorgrim would be overjoyed and Garbrek would finally be his Big Mek…

********************************

“I can’t beleev we’r doin’ diz…” muttered Nabskul “Shurelee der’z a betta way…”
“Do yoo fink aneewun will ask wat we doin lik diz?” replied Sputnik confidently
“I dunt fink dey’ll cum neer ta ask noffin’!” snapped Nabskul
“Egzactlee.” Sputnik smiled, trying not to wince.
“Lukky yoo found da pegz…” brightened Nabskul, still tearful with the stench.

Sputnik smiled to himself, nobody would be looking for Riggas pushing the Dumpkart.  It was a lucky thing really, the last two Dumpkart pushaz had lost their job, which was common for the post, especially when you didn’t move and smelt worse than the kart.

The pair dragged the Kart towards Garbrek’s hut.  The Orks around surprisingly made themselves scarce.  There’s something about true stench that can even make a Goff break into tears, hence why they make the runts deal with it.  It was of course a hazardous job, as most gretchin jobs were, but an Ork could normally survive being bitten in half by a Squig hanging out in the dump pits.

“…but we iz goin da wrong way Sputz”
“Dunt worree, if anywun askz, jus’ say we’z pickin’ up sum uv Garbrek’z notez!”

The Mekshop was in sight, and good grief.  It appears that Orks CAN do the manual labour when sufficiently motivated.  Sputnik smothered a snigger.  It looked quite amazing, and this time it was still a bike, quite a big bike, but a bike nonetheless.  The two grots looked around cautiously, before leaving the Kart and sprinting for the Mekshop’s side entrance.

Peering through the doorway, Garbrek was all alone, standing around, gleaming with pride, next to the bike.  He was looking eagerly for the arrival of the boss.
“Weur do we hidez?” whispered Nabskul.
“Weur else?  In da Bike!”
 Slowly at first, and then with a desperate rush, they jumped into a small crevice next to a big pedal thing, which Nabskul decided to sit on.

Sure enough, the boss arrived.

“Arh, good, Garbrek.  Diz iz jus’ da fing!” the Boss briefly grinned.
Garbrek nodded.  “If ya’ll purmit me boss, ya’ll zee dere’z a lot uv stuff…”
At the other side of the bike, the two Grots sat uneasily.
“We shud reallee move Sputz,” Nabskul muttered urgently; “Ee’ll be takin’ it un a test drayve or summit!”
Sputnik hesitated.  The nobz were standing around the bike, and getting out now might prove problematic.
“…an diz pedal un diz side letz ya go forwa’d da uvva makez ya go backwa’d.  An yer jus’ press diz button to start da engine, an den…  Waat??”

The Bike shot backwards.

“WAZZAMAMMA!!!”

Crashing straight through the back of the mekshop, the Bike flew at breakneck speeds into the distant desert.

“FRIIIIGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!”

The two grots hung on for grim death, trying not to look at the perplexed Ork faces they had left behind.

The roof of the mekshop buckled and collapsed.  Out of the roof stood a silent, but noticeable angry Warboss Gorgrim.

“GET DEM.”

********************************

Sputnik slowly clambered to the top of the driver’s seat and looked perplexingly at all the many red buttons that lay before him.  There were more than he thought possible for a Bike; there were more than he thought possible for a Battlewagon in all honesty.

“Wat wun did da Mek say wuz da stop buttun?”
“Da red wun!” shouted Nabskul “Hang on, I’ll cum up.”
“No, wait dere ya git!  Umm, oh frig…”

The rumbling in the distance Sputnik saw a fairly unpleasant sight, a moving wall of Red, broken up with the occasional angry speck of green.  It was Gorgrim and as much of his speed freaking hoard that he could muster in a minutes notice, which was quite a lot as it turned out.

Gorgrim didn’t look too pleased.

“Umm, err…” Sputnik stuttered “D-DON’T M-M-MOVE NABZ!!”
“Why, yoo found da stop buttun?”  Nabskul shouted.
“Nut egsaktlee…”
“Huh?”
“Chayng uv plan Nabz,” Sputnik roared, “We gotta keep movin’…”
“Why?”
“If we dunt we’r ded.”
“Oh.”

Gorgrim was closing.  He was driving his kustomized Battlewagon like he was possessed by the angry Gork himself.  His Deffrolla was bigger than about ten of the Trukks that ran alongside his battlewagon.  Each spike was probably bigger than an Ork, and it was quite a surprise that you could see anything else.  It was quite clear that if they stopped or even slowed, Sputnik would find himself in want of a better place to be at the precise moment that the Deffrolla caught up.

It was at this point that Gorgrim yelled out in rage, and his pack of Bikers broke out of the din of vehicles and closed ground with disgusting precision and speed.  The dakka had already started to rumble out and mercilessly rush towards their position.

So Sputnik started pressing buttons.

Out of nowhere it seemed, the Buggy produced two large guns that started spinning and unloaded horrendously loud volleys of large bullets.

DAKKA DAKKA DAKKA BOOOOMMMMMM

The bikes exploded left, right and centre, throwing Orks about like Snots in a Squig barrel; Orks that probably now wished they’d stayed behind and complained about engine trouble.
Gorgrim was no longer noticeable in the distinctly closer red blur of his battlewagon.  His face was red with rage, so that was understandable.  He was however grinning, because he, and every other freak that was nearby had pressed the red button on the strange stick to the left of the wheel that none of them ever bothered with.  They were now moving faster than one of Mork’s jokes that Gork never laughed at.

Sputnik looked up, screeching franticly as blurs became quicker and vastly growing blurs.  He frantically kept on mashing buttons.  Behind him, he was vaguely aware of the subtle whirring and humming that was going behind him.  Nabskul looked up and saw the flashing lights that were coming from the spinning pointing things that stuck out like a Scorpsquig’s nasty and oddly venomous tail.

FOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

A constant and strong ray of intense energy flashed and shot forward, followed by the launching of countless rokkits into the air which arched back to the ground and pulled up, all flowing in the direction of the red wall of vehicles.

Gorgrim had probably seen the flash, but a few seconds later it didn’t matter whether he had or not.  His battlewagon blew apart in a heap of shrapnel, sending his Deffrolla thundering to the right, rolling over all the Trukks and Battlewagons like it was a hot knife through ‘I can’t believe it’s not Beakie’.

The ray continued, disintegrating anything that got in the way, until Orktown became Orktowns.

Then the missiles arrived, blowing the remaining stuff to smithereens.  Sputnik breathed a sigh of relief.  When the smoke rose, all that lay was shrapnel and groaning Orks, and the distant sight of a Deffrolla, running along happily.  The Ork in the Bike ahead of it didn’t look happy, especially as his steering had locked.

“Okay Sputz, can wee stop now?”
“Why?”
“We’z gonna hit wid da Blakk Forest!  An’ not at Walkin speed!”
“Frig…”

Less than a minute later, the Bike disappeared into the trees and then a thunderous explosion roared across the whole valley.

********************************

In the remnants of Orktown, Mek Garbrek stood shocked at the devastation.  The Zzap blast had missed him by less than a Squig’s foot and lit his cigar.  Two Orks ran into what remained of the Mekshop.
“Wat we gunna do Garbrek?” shouted the first Ork
“Da Bozz is gon, we need moar vehculz!” shouted the second.
“Dat’z Big Mek Garbrek!” he smiled.  “Why dunt ya start by payin me sumfink, startin maybee wid da Bozz’s old plaze…”

********************************

When Sputnik came to, he was lying in a bed.  The pain jolted through his system, and hit him like a metal Squig.  He looked to his left and there was Nabskul.
“Yoo’r finallee awayk!”
“Nabz, yoo’r still not ded!”
“Yeh, I wuz flung cleer.  Yoo’r lukkin betta now dat yer not blue…”
“Weur arr we?”
“Allow me ta ansa dat…” uttered a snot’s voice.  “I’m da Mayur uv Sproktown, yoo’r in da Blakk Forest!”
“Huh?” Sputnik and Nabskul replied in unison
“Lissen, arr any uv yoo two Sprokkit?”
“Nuh?” they both replied perplexedly.
“Aw.  He’z been gown a ‘undred yearz an he sed ‘ee wuz onlee poppin to da shopz…”

END.