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Is it that time again?

Well kids are asleep, it's a half hour till my bedtime and I don't feel like futzing with paint or glue so I guess it is.

Time for another award-seeking Retro Review! This one has been in the works for a while, one of the Oldhammer blogs challenged us to name our favorite issue of White Dwarf.

Now I picked up my first WD around 1993 and while I've sometimes gone years without buying it I certainly have more than a few favorites. There was the one that relaunched the Inquisition and brought the Death Watch into 40k back around 2001. There was the big 300th issue with the movie marines. Heck even my first issue with the Epic Squats on the cover is a contender.

But one really rose above the rest. WD139, with the launch of Space Fleet, the game of fleets, IN SPACE!

For the last few months I've been collecting and painting up these RT era space ships, trolling the Internet for suitable additions and basically spending much too much time, energy and money on a flopped game from 25 years ago.

And I blame it all on this magazine.



YOUR FAULT! YOUR FAULT!

Ahem.

I picked up WD139 as a back issue in the mid 90s, I think on the same shopping trip where I got Sgt Centurius at the one and only GW shop in the US at the time. (Though it could have been another trip now that I think about it).

What caught my eye was the idea of a starship game in the 40k universe, and especially the way they introduced it. Sure you've got the flying Vatican ships shooting at Giger-esque sail boats IN SPACE! But they're not the focus. The focus of the picture is a cyber monk pointing out something to his midget in a Space Bible while some navy guys stare at their controls and a gargoyle leers. There's been a lot of talk about what makes for good and bad 40k art and, for me, this is everything good about it. Not only do you have some wildly inventive starships, but by framing them in a window and throwing in some typical 40k nut jobs this game already has a lot more appeal than Leviathans or Star Fleet Battles.

Even compared to this


It's a stronger image because it offers some human context, not just a way cool space Cathedral with guns.

So that's my focus.

Of course before I can start on actual issue I have to speak a bit about Space Fleet, the Game of Fleets in Space.

Oh boy.



I've been reading quite a bit about it and apparently in the mid-80s GW planned to release a new space RPG/combat game which they were going to call... Rogue Trader.



Someone had the bright idea of making it a sci-fi version of their fantasy game and as we all know the game game soon vanished into obscurity and was never heard from again.



Anyway later GW once agian worked on a space combat game for their new gothic science-fantasy universe which would be called... Battlefleet Gothic.



http://leadplague.blogspot.in/2015/04/from-space-fleet-to-battlefleet-gothic.html

Which they previewed in 1989.

For whatever reason BFG didn't happen, but they got as far as making up a plastic sprue for it with an Eldar and Imperial ship.

Not wanting the plastic to go to waste GW threw together a starter game called Space Fleet: A Whole Mess of Space Boats in Space. And it was... um... let's go with basic shall we? Yeah. Basic.

How basic?

Despite pages and pages of fluff explaining how Gothic Battleships and Eldar Wraithships worked, plasma reactors vs solar wind, steel vs wraithbone, brute force vs subtlety. They had the same exact stats.

But I guess they had to. Since the rules were only 4 pages long.

It used the 'clever' mechanic that you'd roll dice to hit, but what you rolled didn't matter. You'd throw them into the box lid to see.



That way little Timmy didn't have to remember all those numbers and stuff.

Lucky thing dice never, ever land on more than one result at once huh?

(OK I'm being snide, they could, a hit and a 6 was a critical, so the dice mattered a little).

Movement was interesting, both players would secretly declare how the ships would move and reveal them at the same time. So you might find your careful maneuvering has actually left you with no target and a Space Elf up your butt.



Now you might be asking who in their right mind would pick up a game like this. Especially if it's been OOP for 25 years.

Yeah.

He'd have to be nuts.



Especially if he also spent $XXX on 25 year old lead space ships for this game.





But that's the thing.

White Dwarf 139 (this is a review of WD139 you may recall) takes those 4 pages of rules, expands them wtih rules and fluff and additional ships until Space Fleet: The Game of Vast Numbers of Space Canoes In the Void, became a genuinely interesting setting and game.

So that's what I'll be talking about.

Tomorrow.

And we're back!

Not that anyone seems to have noticed we were here in the first place

Where were we?

Ah yes, it was the summer of 1991, the war was over the Middle East at peace, Bush was president and Clinton meant Bill who was an obscure southern governor who talked too much. And Marla Maples was quoted saying Donald Trump was the best sex she ever had.

Good times, good times.

And White Dwarf 139 was on the stands.



As always, anyone reading this who was not born should chime in and say so. It'll make the rest of us feel old.



Like most White Dwarfs this one starts with some internal ads and puff pieces. Nothing too interesting except maybe for this.



A list of ALL SEVEN GW stores in the US and Canada.

But the real good stuff is this



Almost 30 pages of additional rules, art and fluff for Space Fleet.



As I mentioned I actually picked up Space Fleet: The Games of Armadas in the Void and was surprised that none of this was in there! I can only assume these pieces were created for the scrapped version of BFG. I should also note the artwork in WD139 was a bit small but Tony Hough, the original artist for most of the pictures has them up on Facebook.

https://www.facebook.com/169096993118434/photos/?tab=album&album_id=571774852850644

Anyway, where was I, ah yes.

So with these 30 pages GW took a dead simple 4 page game for 8 year olds and built a whole galaxy of war with absurdly large ships battle with city-smashing guns.



As before most of the art shows ships through a window with their all-too-human crews running around.



IMHO this makes them far more powerful than a lot of the later artwork.



There's also a lot of generic scenes of ships in operation. This one really brings home the size of these ships. Imperial battleships have Titans crawling on them, the way a dog has fleas.



Look at the size of the crewmen walking around those gothic spire missiles!



This is one of my favorite bits of 40k art. "Someday son this will be all yours". A very human scene in an inhuman, insane world.



There's even a nice scene of the Eldar, just chilling.

OK, OK pretty art, you've got it. Now do yourself a favor and click on Tony's Gallery, I know you'll like it.

https://www.facebook.com/169096993118434/photos/?tab=album&album_id=571774852850644

Much like the original Rogue Trader rules Space Fleet provides much more detail than needed. Things like the time displacement between what warp travelers experience and time in real space.



Or a list of the 5 major fleet bases in the Imperium.



There's a sense of world building, like they were writing a RPG or the script guide for a TV show, rather than a shooty spaceship game for 8 year olds. And it's awesome.

Come back tomorrow we'll start looking at the rules.

You seem to have a repeat of an image in there, Kid.

Just looking at that movement mechanic - if you had that on a dial, it would be X-Wing (etc), or on cards you'd have Wings of War/Glory. Did GW come up with it first and abandon it?

 Dysartes wrote:
You seem to have a repeat of an image in there, Kid.

Ah thanks.

Just looking at that movement mechanic - if you had that on a dial, it would be X-Wing (etc), or on cards you'd have Wings of War/Glory. Did GW come up with it first and abandon it?

Can't say if they had it first or not but yeah, good point. The movement is one of the things I do like about the game.

When Mage Knight/Hero Clicks first came out a few people pointed out that GW did the stats on a base first when they put Titan void shields on a dial on the base.

We may gripe a lot about GW rules, and they are often dire, but they have had some great mechanics over the years.

They also released a Blood Bowl 'lite' game around the same era called Kerrunch. It shared the same 'throw dice in box lid' mechanic.

Ultra-Marines did the same box lid bull crud also.

Great article...I remember when Toronto and Vancouver where the only GW stores in Canada...I live in Vancouver and it wasn't in the the 'best part of town'

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Or a list of the 5 major fleet bases in the Imperium.

This still gets the occasional mention in the current fluff.

But not the pretty ships.

Now it's all about flying cathedrals, no room for gothic Super Star Destroyers.

This was my first ever White Dwarf.

I never owned any Space Fleet stuff, but did play a few games with bits of cut out paper.

But DAMN the background was good. And it continued in the next few issues, to the point of absolute madness - explanations of battle fleets, merchant fleets, the various merchant contracts, Hereditary Free Charters being the most sought after. Details of the battles between the Heirs Apparent to take over the position of Paternova of the Navigator houses.

Absolutely amazing stuff. This is how you build a world - not with lists of battles and heroes, but details of how the place actually WORKS.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
( The Eldar art did give me the slight disadvantage that I didn't realise that they were Space Elves until months later, as they all wore those funky leather/organic helmets in the picture you have above. )

And we're back, this time we'll look at some of the actual crunch that went with the fluff.

This article basically takes the 4 pages of Space Fleet: The Game of Navies in the Galaxy and completely expands and rewrites them.

First off the two starter ships get different profiles



The Eldar Wraithship becomes faster, more maneuverable and now has weapons that fire across its front arc. It has weaker side and back shields and fewer damage points but can hit you as long as you're within 180 degrees of it.



In contrast the Gothic Battleship has better shields and more damage but is slower and most of its firepower comes from broadsides. This makes a lot more challenging to play because it has to maneuver just right to pound the Eldar, but the Eldar is faster and more maneuverable.

The Imperium also picks up several more ships.



The ironclad is clearly from the same family as the Gothic (the Cobra Destroyer and Firestorm cruiser also appear as scaled down Gothics) but has some amazing fluff.



It has no shields. It's from a time before the Imperium when shield technology was too primative. It's even less maneuverable than the Gothic so it makes due with meters of armor and takes the hits.



The Emperor Capital ship is the biggest of the Space Fleet ships and just devestaingly powerful. You can clearly see that it became the template for BFG and the games that followed. It's a nice chunk of metal too.



Another interesting ship is the Castellan. While the other ships are basically historic navy ships IN SPACE, this was a proper science fiction concept. It could throw up a massive force field and protect your ships, but risked overload if you didn't shut it down from time to time. You'll also notice it doesn't look anything like the rest of the fleet. That's because the Castellan, along with several other support ships and the entire Tyranid fleet were reused from an earlier line called Star Cruisers.

http://www.collecting-citadel-miniatures.com/wiki/index.php/Spaceships

Yeah, Star Cruisers, Space Fleet, no one was really working too hard on these names.

The rules also got a bit more complex.



There's the new 'Helm Computer' with higher speeds and special maneuvers only available to certain ships.

Shooting got more involved as well. Where before you'd use the box top to see how many hits you got, now the die roll was important too. A 6 was still a crit, but a Vortex Torpedo would do 1-6 points of damage (assuming you got a hit) while an Ironclad would ignore any hits that came up 1,2 or 3 owing to the thick armor. It's an interesting use of the clumsy mechanic.

I'd like to try out SF sometimes but I think I'll just go with a 4+ on a d6 to hit, then a second roll for crits etc.



The Space Fleet section rounds out with a painting guide for the fleets.

Join us next time when we take a peek into the insanity of the 41st Millennium through the eyes of a man named Blanche.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:




A list of ALL SEVEN GW stores in the US and Canada.

Ah, the good old days. 8th grade me would often fantasize about undertaking the long pilgrimage to a REAL GW store in Vancouver. Never materialized though.

Thanks for the shot of nostalgia, looking forwards to the next installment

 feeder wrote:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:




A list of ALL SEVEN GW stores in the US and Canada.

Ah, the good old days. 8th grade me would often fantasize about undertaking the long pilgrimage to a REAL GW store in Vancouver. Never materialized though.

Thanks for the shot of nostalgia, looking forwards to the next installment

It was awesome, 8th grade me just loved it. This odd place in Gastown ( ie just off of skidrow), where the staff had mowhawks, skinny puppy, Janes Addiction and Ministry where pumping in the background, the staff where actually friendly and the Manager could pretty much run the store any way he saw fit..... yes 8th grade me just loved it. I could afford stuff off of my weekly allowance... t'was a different time.

Good times. My first WD was 147, and when I took it into school (I was 10 or 11) to read it my teacher saw it and next day gave me a stack of back issues her son was getting rid of, including this one, all the way back to around issue 100. Got hold of the excellent issue 144, which had a ton of Epic content, which I really got into at the time.

I thought I still had them somewhere, but my parents' loft has been cleared out and they weren't there, so I think my mum probably did the same as my teacher when I wasn't looking!

Issues 100-200 are pretty much the best for White Dwarf. Much before that and it's the Stone Age, all systems and stuff you would barely recognise today. After 200 and it's pretty much spiralling into trash. I find stuff after #250 unreadable.

 FabricatorGeneralMike wrote:

 feeder wrote:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:




A list of ALL SEVEN GW stores in the US and Canada.

Ah, the good old days. 8th grade me would often fantasize about undertaking the long pilgrimage to a REAL GW store in Vancouver. Never materialized though.

Thanks for the shot of nostalgia, looking forwards to the next installment

It was awesome, 8th grade me just loved it. This odd place in Gastown ( ie just off of skidrow), where the staff had mowhawks, skinny puppy, Janes Addiction and Ministry where pumping in the background, the staff where actually friendly and the Manager could pretty much run the store any way he saw fit..... yes 8th grade me just loved it. I could afford stuff off of my weekly allowance... t'was a different time.

Oh, man. That sounds awesome. Whelp, another reason to invent that time machine.

Kyoto, will you be doing 138 any time soon? That was the one that got me hooked.. particularly the back cover image. Loving this trip down memory lane!

Very nice review, really brought back some memories!

Thanks

No plans for 138 per se, I don't even think I have it.

But there's 2 more queued up for when I have time

These reviews are as glorious as ever, KK. Thank you for continuing to put them out!

You should go further back, when they reviewed other systems and had reviews on SF/fantasy novels, RPG's

Got the ships from spacefleet (not in Japan though :( )

Great review, may favorite is WD 127 or 129 the first one about the space marine power armour marks and had also rick priestly's stuff on eldar.

154 was my first proper WD, it had the Battle for Golgotha battle report for Epic between the Squats (and Yarrick in a Baneblade for some reason) and Ghazghkull's Orks. It was glorious.

144 was my first actual Wd but I can't remember much about it aside from the Noise marine 'codex' entry.

157 was the first one I bought. The original Codex: Orks release.

Or was that 147? I can't remember. Jake Thornton's Ultramarines lost to Jervis Johnson's Orks in the Bat Rep, and I learned how awesome Combat Drugs on a Marine Captain could be.

Do they still have combat drugs for marines? I remember giving drugs to your gang in Necromunda was a thing, as you could pick from several types. Does this still exist in a more child friendly modern GW?

Oh man, those are epic KK.

& we're back with a art selection from some fellow named Blanche.

Heh.

Blanch is a girl's name.

Just like Artemis.

Anyway...



Illuminations starts off with John Blanche musing that he doesn't have time to work in color these days (ie 25 years ago) so he's doing more pencil and charcoal. The first piece I think is from Epic, 2 Titans and they're fighting! I do like the half seen Gothic city though along with the shadowy flying cathedrals dueling in the sky.



But most of the illustrations are slices of life and they are brilliant. Here we have some characters from Ian Watson's universally beloved Draco books.



The gateway to the Emperor's Palace, another scene from Draco.



Inquisitor Kryptman, a reoccuring character from the short fluff stories seen around that time. I love the cherubs and archaic bolter.



A random dude with some burning corpses.



And the Imperial Navy on shore leave.



Next up some fellow named Chambers shows off his Blood Angel army.

He's careful to mention that he uses the revised rules, which give the Marines extra toughness and more superpowers at no additional point cost. Because that's how Marines are supposed to play!





In these days before 10^26 Black library books and the Internets articles like this were really useful so you'd know what the heck an army was supposed to look like and include.



You might catch a mention of Captain Tycho



A lot of early special characters grew out of the designers own campaigns. Tycho, whose look would ultimately define the Blood Angels, the Custodeus and the Sigmarines is just one example.



Yep. Buy A so then we'll let you buy B...

There's a reason GW is still in business 25 years later.

The issue rounds out with some articles from GW's other games (even 25 years ago WD was exclusive to GW games).



The only thing of interest I see is how great the names could be.



Sleep of the Ages is so much better than Sleep Spell or Hold Person.

And finally the issue closes with the most important section of the magazine, the Catalogue Pages!

Because as we were once told, under oath, everyone's favorite part of the hobby is buying more stuff!

MOAR STUFF!



I should tape this to my monitor and look at it every time I think of bidding on a Space Fleet model on Ebay.

Then I will cry.

All sarcasm aside this is the other reason this is my favorite issue of White Dwarf. I picked it up in the mid-90s when all Marines wore the same armor and held bolters at stomach level while staring dead ahead.



But this issue had pages and pages of classic Rogue Trader era marines.



Marines aiming!



Marines swinging their weapons!



Marines checking their watches to see if it's time to lay off and get a pint!



Dead marines!



And plastic marines with multiple poses and extra bitz!

This was great! How great?

I rang up the UK and ordered a heap of them!

20 years later, some of them have even been painted!

Even if you discount my Space Fleet spending (which has all been second hand), GW probably made 5x or 10x the cover price of this issue from me. And I don't mind at all.

And finally we have the original Space Fleet line in all their naked metal glory!



Over the next few months Space Fleet would get a few more ships (mostly repurposed from Space Cruisers) and a Tyranid Fleet. There's hints the rules were going to be more elaborate, mention of fighters and torpedoes that never came to pass, but it ultimately peetered out and disappeared. Then 7 years later Battlefleet Gothic would appear and the rest is history.

Glad people enjoyed this. There will probably be another one soon, I'll take a break from White Dwarf and we'll take a ride on the crazy train to one of my favorite RPG books of all time!

Thanks so much for doing this Kyoto, these are always a pleasure to read. I'm a big fan of the "I love my bolter" Marines, as anyone who's seen my retro Ultramairnes can attest

Really enjoyed this. Thanks for taking the time to do it.

That Blood Angels force is big army for those days. A full day game.

A real trip down memory lane! I enjoyed that issue of WD, but I never actually played a game of Space Fleet.

My first WD was the one that featured Space Crusade on the cover, it contained extra rules for both that and Heroquest (issue number 127 maybe? It was a long time ago).

It seemed almost magical at the time, like I had found a hidden world that I could immerse myself in.

Time to catch some flak.


Seeing a highlight on Blanche's artwork makes me realize how far we've come with GW. Look at the 7th Ed. Orcs and Goblins army book, two pieces of artwork are bad out of the entire book: Grom the Paunch, and the Night Goblin swarm at the end of the army list portion. Given that the artist was either Blanche or one of his contemporaries that aped his style, you can see how jarringly bad that art really is. Design wise, Blanche is a valuable resource. As far as interior and exterior art goes? Not so much.