Warhammer 40k – Page 5

Housekeeping

Mint for pillow?

Before I go offline for the weekend, some housekeeping…

The trains to Midland were screwed up yesterday afternoon, so I ended up walking along the rail line from the city to the liquor store on Guildford road from where I got a bus the rest of the way home. Annoying, but good exercise I suppose.

It’s state election day tomorrow! I have a horrible feeling Colin is going to get back in. After all, he – apparently – stands up to Canberra (this is about the only campaign slogan the Liberal Party seems to have). Vote early and often people!

I’m going to Oz Comic-Con this weekend to see William Shatner and Richard Dean Anderson. As observed by my colleague Daniel, if we could get them to fight it would solve all kinds of nerd arguments…

With my net access down I’ve actually been painting some of my 40k models. Much to my surprise they’re looking OK (latest pics at the end of the set).

Some more personnel have joined the Lego Tanith First and Only. Chiria, Costin, Dalin Criid and Lucky Bonin are all now fit and ready for duty.

Ummm, that’s about it I guess. See you next week…

Bronchial Adventures

Well, this is fun. I’ve had a dry, itchy cough since before Christmas. This week it decided it would be better accommodated by my lungs, moved downwards and turned into bronchitis. On the plus side I’ve got a few days off work. On the downside my body seems to have decided that the best method to get rid of the infection is to get rid of my lungs entirely, and is attempting to cough them up on a regular basis.

I’ve been to the docs (happily I had booked an appointment to get the dry, itchy cough looked at before it went feral on me) and have been prescribed rest and a five day series of antibiotic pills the size of twenty-sided dice, so I should come up smiling on Tuesday morning.

In the meantime I’ve been working on painting my Cyclops Demolition Vehicle and watching a rather good documentary on H.P.Lovecraft up on ABC iView, so all’s well that ends well (assuming I do end up well – if not, I’ve got a repeat script on the giant pills).

Oh yeah, this is new. I bought a copy of the Game of Thrones board game. Hopefully I can introduce the guys to it soon, so Fabian can wipe the floor with us all. I’ve got a half a mind to try playing as the Starks, as it looks like an interesting challenge… I’ve also read my way through the first three books, and am now onto part II of Storm of Swords. I found Part I hard going at a few points, but it picked up at the end and I can’t wait to see just how awful the Martells turn out to be (just about everyone in Westeros is awful, it’s merely a matter of degree ;))

That’s it for now. Got some coughing to do…

Internet Famous! (For a certain value of ‘famous’)

Well, that’s a turn up for the books.

I posted my Gaunt’s Ghost Lego project to Reddit. Next thing I know Dan Abnett himself is calling me ‘a very, very fine human being indeed’.

Brutal! 😀

Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness

TV Tropes is not only an awesome site for general browsing, but (for some reason) it also has this great page on Asperger’s Syndrome. Read it if you want to know why I’m such a freakin’ weirdo 😀

Somewhat related, my order from Forgeworld came in W00t! (as the young people used to say…).

(Oh, and also some Lego for my Gaunt’s Ghosts project.)

Maths-Hammer 40k

There’s been a lot of trash talk recently about the impossibility of every Crux Terminatus containing a fragment of the Emperor’s armour. Well I’m here to set the record straight!

The first thing we need to consider is how many Crux Terminatii are there? Let’s assume that only the ones on suits of Tactical Dreadnought Armour count – no doubt many marines that have been awarded the Crux carry small replicas with them to show off when not suited up, but the real ones are on the armour. Each suit bears only one Crux, so the question boils down to how many suits are there?

Codex Chapters are usually divided into ten Companies of roughly equal size. As a full strength Codex Chapter consists of 1,000 Marines, this means each company will have 100 members. Only the first Company are usually provided with Terminator Armour, so at full strength each Codex Chapter could be considered to have 100 suits.

Of course, not all Space Marine Chapters are Codex compliant, and very few Chapters of any type are ever at full strength or full equipment. However, there are said to be around 1,000 Chapters in total, so it’s not unreasonable to assume that over such a large sample size things will even out. Roughly speaking therefore we can assume that at any time the Imperium has 100,000 suits of Tactical Dreadnought Armour at its disposal.

Now, how big would the Emperor’s armour have to be to provide material for 100,000 suits? This depends on how big the piece on each suit is. For the sake of argument, let’s say each Crux Terminatus contains a one centimetre cube. This works out to 100,000 cubic centimetres. The cube root of 100,000 is 46.416, so therefore the fragment of the Emperor’s armour for every Crux Terminatus in the Imperium could be provided by a cube 47cm (18.5 inches) on each side.

That’s pretty damn small, especially considering the Emperor was a frickin’ giant!

So, simple maths makes it abundantly clear that the Emperor’s armour is more than capable of providing a sample of material for every suit of Terminator Armour in the galaxy. Hell, a one metre cube could provide enough material for every Space Marine in the galaxy (1,000 Chapters of 1,000 Marines) to carry a one centimetre cube around his neck!

Ain’t numbers wonderful? 😀

It’s finally happened, Bart – You’ve lost your mind!

For those not in the know, this weekend was Perth Open House 2012, which is part of an international movement that lets people in to buildings and facilities that are usually off limits to the general public. Ryan and I headed out on Saturday and took in the Perth Concert Hall, Council House, the heritage buildings on the Terrace and the Church of Jesus Christ Scientist.

Of the four, the Concert Hall had the best tour – with access to just about every nook and cranny including backstage and the roof space above the auditorium! – Council House had the best views, the Church had the best architecture, and the heritage buildings…. well that tour was pretty short and didn’t actually let us inside many of them – but as they’re now occupied by a dozen different businesses that’s probably understandable. And it was all free, so no complaints!

Pictures are slowly going up on my photostream.

But that’s not what I came to tell you about – I came to talk about the draft.

No! Wait! I came to talk about how I’ve gone completely mad.

Those who keep up with such things will know that I nominally run a Valhallan army in the Warhammer 40,000 tabletop miniatures game. I say “nominally” because I haven’t played a game in ages – my only semi-regular opponent was Fabes and he’s now got a partner and another kid on the way, both things that make playing with toy soldiers seem rather insignificant 😉 One of these days I’ll get myself together enough to pack my force up, take it down to Games Workshop and play a game there – in the meantime I fool around with converting models and building terrain whenever the mood takes me.

And oh boy, has the mood taken me.

One of the elements of the 40k universe I’ve always liked are the Adeptus Mechanicus – the Machine Cult of Mars. There’s a lot of background for them, but no official tabletop army, which is a shame because if there was I’d probably be collecting that rather than the Imperial Guard (which is not to say there’s anything wrong with the Valhallans). One of the coolest things about the AdMech of course are the Titans – ridiculously oversized and impractical battle robots that constitute the Imperium’s ne plus ultra in regularly available battlefield forces – ranging in size from the merely impressive Warhound Scout Titan to the mind-bogglingly insane Emperor Titan, which could quite happily knock down the Statue of Liberty just for the hell of it.

Fielding a Warhound – or even the next size up Reaver – is quite possible with an Imperial Guard force, thanks to the amazing models available through Forgeworld. However, their sheer power (and points cost) limits them to oversized Apocalypse games, and their investment in terms of cash is not be sneezed at – particularly for a more-or-less casual player such as myself. So adding a Titan to my army is not something that’s really possible. That is unless…

…we consider the Knight.

Knight Titans are somewhat obscure nowdays – you hardly ever hear them mentioned in official sources. However they are part of the 40k universe and provide a much more reasonable option for Titanic tabletop goodness. There are no official models for them, so if you want to field one, you need to hack it together yourself out of existing models and whatever else you can find around the house – it’s quite a project to get on with.

Now what did I say earlier about fooling around with converting models? 😀

Yesterday I dropped a frankly stupid amount of money on eBay to purchase a Nemesis Dreadknight and assorted bits from the Storm Raven and Defiler models, all with the intent of knocking together my very own, homebrew Knight. Unlike most of my conversion projects I have a very clear idea on what I’m going to do with it, which should make matters rather more efficient – but it’s still no excuse for wasting so much money on toy soldiers. But hey, what can you do? 🙂

(At least I can recoup some costs by selling the various bits I won’t use…)

I intend to field the model as an armoured Sentinel. It won’t be anywhere near as powerful as a Knight should be, but I’m more interested in just having a Titan model on the table than I am actually winning with it – which given my general performance with then models I already have is probably a good thing 🙂

So that’s my insane plan. Stay tuned for progress updates when the parts actually arrive…

On the Death of Slaydo

Thinking about things way too much

I’ve been wondering for a while about the conflicting accounts of the death of Warmaster Slaydo in Dan Abnett’s Gaunt’s Ghosts series…

First and Only states that Slaydo announced Maccaroth as his successor and promoted Gaunt to Colonel Commissar on his deathbed. The Sabbat Worlds Crusade features a painting of “The Death of Slaydo”, showing the Warmaster passing away surrounded by a bunch of concerned Generals and other officers. But Gaunt, in Blood Pact, states that Slaydo was struck down on the battlefield, and his body dragged away and mutilated by the enemy. So, what gives?

To solve this mystery, remember rule number one – the Imperium lies.

Gaunt’s recollections of Slaydo’s end are entirely accurate. But the Imperium would never admit to cocking up so badly as to let the body of the Warmaster fall into enemy hands. So, they concocted the story of his being rescued and having the time to issue a bunch of orders before peacefully slipping away surrounded by his loyal staff. They even commissioned an artist to depict the scene, and had Tactician Biota recount it in his his historical account of the Crusade. His “deathbed” orders were prepared by him prior to the battle in case of his death, and carried out by his subordinates.

(There is still the problem of tourists being shown Slaydo’s “Death Venue” on the battlefield on Balhaut, but the Balhaut tour guides are shown to be horribly inaccurate anyway. Anyone familiar with the deathbed account who visits Balhaut would probably assume that the marker shows where Slaydo was mortally wounded rather than actually killed, and that their guide doesn’t know what they’re talking about.)

So, there we have it. Problem solved! You can send me my cheque now Mr Abnett 😉

Edit: I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to ask Mr Abnett about this, and he pretty much confirmed my version of events. Good to know!

Behold the Majesty of The Emperor’s Jaws!

Rather than spend my weekend doing anything constructive, I’ve wasted several hours on another bit of stupid 40k related javascripting – this time a random Space Marine Chapter name generator. This was inspired by a mention on 40k Radio of one that used to exist on the Games Workshop site, but was apparently taken down after it spat out the suggestion “Flesh Swords”.

My one can theoretically come up with “Flesh Swords”, but I haven’t seen it yet. It has come up with some quite entertaining ones though, such as the Noise Punishers (the Chapter you call when the Tau next door are having a party at 2:00am), the Reclaimers of Hammers (for when the Necrons down the street won’t give back your tools), the Mantis Exsanguinators (for problems in the garden), the Supplicators of Angron (I don’t think they got very far), the oddly emphatic Tiger Tigers, and my absolute favorite (so far) the Hand Gauntlets. It can also however produce perfectly sane suggestions such as the Lunar Wardens or the Black Purgators, so it may have some value.

I’ve also rigged up a sun projector for my telescope out of a coat hanger, a plastic plate, the cap from a deodorant can, some wire and some duct tape, in anticipation of the Transit of Venus on Wednesday. I’m taking the day off work and the plan is to head up to Kings Park to observe. They’re predicting clouds, but I live in hope.

Oh, and I also made soup. Hooray!

Warblings of a Diseased Brain

Last week I was sitting at the Morley bus station (as you do), and – not having anything to read while waiting for my bus – my brain was wandering (as it does) down highways and byways of the strange, mysterious and downright stupid.

By far the most stupid of these trackways was speculation on what would happen if Games Workshop signed a promotional deal with A Large, Unnamed Fast Food Company™ (ALUFFC™ for short) and started handing out snap together Space Marine models along with burgers.

Think about the possibilities! All the overweight nerd children who could be lured into the hobby by a single model with some cheap chapter stickers and a collectable Primarch information card! All the burgers that would be bought by fanatical GW fans desperate to get their hands on the exclusive burger-deal-only Space Marine model! The money would just roll in on both sides!

But best of all, ALUFFC™ could launch up to 21 new meal deals based on the Emperor and his Primarchs! For instance…

The Emperor: An oversized burger with the lot – guaranteed to keep you immobile on the “Golden Throne” for what seems like millenia.
The Guilliman: ‘Blue’ beef with extra cheese.
The Fulgrim: Wagyu beef, Italian lettuce, brie and artisanal hand cut fries.
The Angron: Three beef patties, spicy pickles and ‘extreme’ chilli sauce.
The Sanguinius: Rare beef with a side of wings.
The Perturabo: A pretty standard burger, but you have to eat your way through a massive breastwork of fries to get to it.
The Mortarion: Extra onions, limberger cheese, garlic sauce and underdone meat (for the thrillseeker not afraid of intestinal parasites).
The Horus: Flame grilled beef on a wholemeal bun with spicy ‘heresy’ sauce.
The Alpharius: You never know what they’ll serve you, but there’s two of it.

The possibilities are endless!

(I’ll shut up now ;))

More of this Rubbish…

There are a lot of mysteries in the 40k universe. Exactly who is the Emperor? How tall is an Imperator Titan? Who would win if Ursakar E. Creed played chess against Eldrad Farseer? Exactly what is a true Hufflepuff anyway? But there is one riddle that out-puzzles all of these combined. How do you pronounce Roboute Guilliman?

This a mystery that has tormented the 40k fandom ever since those long ago days when we first learnt of the Primarchs. But today, I can provide you with an answer. Behold! How to Pronounce Roboute Guilliman.

I trust that answers all of your questions.

If you still can’t get enough hot Primarch action, you might like to check out this infographic that I whipped up over the weekend…

All the basic info on the Emperor’s twenty genetically-engineered supermen in one handy location!

That’s it. Gotta go do the washing up now.

PS: Techno-Viking, shorter than you think but larger than you imagine, Eldrad until he realises his rooks have been replaced with Baneblades, what the hell is a Hufflepuff!?