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Bit annoying that we haven't seen the plastic enforcers yet, apart from that scenery pic.

Did I hear right that the wp 3.0 beta rules will be out soon to backers, or just imaging it? I'm hoping there will at least be some revised army lists before I start to put my plastic enforcers together.

Must say im glad I went in for some striders now, kinda think they should have been a plastic sprue considering they fit in four factions for dz and wp tho.

Ronnie mentioned that the rules should be sent out with Survey 2, and as far as I know, they are working towards that goal.

Interesting pic from the ks comments:

Defender shield on the peacekeepers is just sexy. The aesterian looks particularly not-eldar to me, but it's kind of hard to tell from the picture. The drones look fancy, bigger than I expected.

Ahh, long reload means shoot and spend next turn reloading, so you won't be popping goons left and right with the enforcer strider, but he'll have plenty of time to take out major threats.

25% off manticware? Crap, there goes some of my money.

I think I need everything in that picture... twice!

I'd like everything in that picture too - as it is either 'hard' (not premium) plastic and/or 'real' (not PVC) resin, most likely!

Nevermind, mantic's pay processing whatsit said it charged me too much but the number was right on my credit card charge.

Plus there probably isn't anyone 'there' right now either!

 Alpharius wrote:
I'd like everything in that picture too - as it is either 'hard' (not premium) plastic and/or 'real' (not PVC) resin, most likely!

All the Asterian stuff is restic, it's hard to say which (if any) of those Enforcers are the older restic stuff.

I fixed it, the charge was correct, their payment whatsit just got the wrong total somehow. The number appearing on my transaction list was totally correct.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Of course, the email confirmation was wrong too, so i'll just keep an eye on my cc account. By the time this order and the second dz shipment comes in, i'll have a boat load of space dwarfs!

I wasn't too bothered about the Asterians by the concept art, but the minis are making me change my mind.

 .Mikes. wrote:
I wasn't too bothered about the Asterians by the concept art, but the minis are making me change my mind.

Did that mean you didn't like them originally and changed your mind to like them
OR
Did that mean you liked them originally and changed your mind toward not liking them.

Sorry for my confusion.

 GrimDork wrote:
Defender shield on the peacekeepers is just sexy. The aesterian looks particularly not-eldar to me, but it's kind of hard to tell from the picture. The drones look fancy, bigger than I expected.

Whilst loving the whole "dying race of high elves in space" concept, I've never liked GWs implementation of it. Putting your civilians with short range weapons in bad armour on the front lines... what the feth? Commanders controlling drones is a much more fitting "high tech but dying elder race" ... thing. I also much prefer the aesthetic for the most part - especially the armour. I've never liked any Eldar armour (the helmets... ; /). Or WHFB High Elf armour for that matter. Farseers look nice though ; p

privateer4hire wrote:

 .Mikes. wrote:
I wasn't too bothered about the Asterians by the concept art, but the minis are making me change my mind.

Did that mean you didn't like them originally and changed your mind to like them
OR
Did that mean you liked them originally and changed your mind toward not liking them.

Sorry for my confusion.

Nope, I should have been clearer.

I meant I wasn't too impressed by the concept drawings or the 3D renders, but when I saw the minis I realised I had to get some. It's one of those times where the concept didn't do the end result justice.

I agree, the 3d printed masters look great. Here's hoping they come out well in production copies ; p

They get a solid thumbs up from me for now.

Also, i think they have the high tech part, but not necessarily dying. Maybe they just don't procreate as often so as to not flood the galaxy with n00b space elfs. At least, nothing i've read so far points towards doomed/dying. The dbx team seems pretty... fit... and uhh... certainly don't look like a dying race imo. And the story about cyphers in the containment protocols book has them work more like the avatar blue monkey suits. Elves hop into a stasis bed/vat/chamber and jack in, for total sensory control of their cypher rig, in the story one of them who couldn't disconnect from their rig as they got killed also died in person.. and one or two others took enough nervous system damage to potentially render them unable to pilot again. I only bring it up since it argues the point better than my speculation, and I believe we're to take the short story compilation as canon... maybe?

So, if they die in the Matrix...


Man, that's stupid.

Well I think its more like your brain going on overload from pain slash the sensory input system dividing by zero... but to each his own. Goofy as the movie was (Pocahontas in space, sheesh) avatar monkey suit things fit it closest to me.

Most toasters these days have auto-shut-off circuits these days. So if you drop them in the bathtub, they cut out instead of killing you.

Toasters.

Just sayin' - bad sci-fi is still bad.

Ehh, you guys can naysay, totally valid and such. Still, it makes sense for how the cyphers are going to develop more skills over the course of a campaign, and as far as i'm concerned the toaster thing works and it doesn't. The toaster is blowing a fuse or something, the cypher seems to be wired into someone's nervous system, I'm totally fine with buying the shock from that going awry may mess someone up. Its not like they all died, one of them just got it bad.

 Yonan wrote:

 GrimDork wrote:
Defender shield on the peacekeepers is just sexy. The aesterian looks particularly not-eldar to me, but it's kind of hard to tell from the picture. The drones look fancy, bigger than I expected.

Whilst loving the whole "dying race of high elves in space" concept, I've never liked GWs implementation of it. Putting your civilians with short range weapons in bad armour on the front lines... what the feth? Commanders controlling drones is a much more fitting "high tech but dying elder race" ... thing. I also much prefer the aesthetic for the most part - especially the armour. I've never liked any Eldar armour (the helmets... ; /). Or WHFB High Elf armour for that matter. Farseers look nice though ; p

Agreed. I've have more supported the GW Eldar view if they instead "piloted" Wraithguard/lords remotely.

 GrimDork wrote:
Well I think its more like your brain going on overload from pain slash the sensory input system dividing by zero... but to each his own. Goofy as the movie was (Pocahontas in space, sheesh) avatar monkey suit things fit it closest to me.

Yeah, but in Avatar, they weren't trying to save soldiers' lives by replacing them with drones...that kill those very soldiers when they die. Seriously, they can't just tone down the simulation to non-lethal levels? Make it like a wii or something and have it vibrate when your drone dies, maybe?

At this point, stupid robots that bump into things would make far more sense than literally putting your people at risk of death in order to save them from harm.

I think the idea is that yes, normally, they do save their soldiers from harm.

However, on very rare occasion extremely traumatic events can be passed on to the pilot, killing them. Slightly more often damage can cause issues that mean they can't pilot again.

I imagine that still, the vast majority of the time, the pilot will exit comfortably.

I think it makes more sense if trauma or death was a rare case and that the vast majority of the time dying in the suit didn't necessarily harm the pilot. Otherwise yeah, it wouldn't make too much sense.

I imagine it's probably something you wouldn't want to do often, though. Even in 40k Tau fluff there's something like battlesuit psychosis, I don't remember what it's called, but spending excessive amounts of time in the suit could potentially feth with the pilot's brain and make life outside of it kind of difficult to adjust to. Not really the same thing I guess but still, there's a precedent set in lots of different types of media about wiring your brain into robots and how that could possibly not be good for you.

 Compel wrote:
I think the idea is that yes, normally, they do save their soldiers from harm.

However, on very rare occasion extremely traumatic events can be passed on to the pilot, killing them. Slightly more often damage can cause issues that mean they can't pilot again.

I imagine that still, the vast majority of the time, the pilot will exit comfortably.

Just like with modern drone operators.



Oh wait. That's still silly.

How about, extremely traumatic events affect the pilot like playing Doom 3? Or like crashing an RC car? Or, anything that involves competence on the part of the manufacturer?

Can Mantic really not think of any way to add a stake to the atherian's side of the game without 'lol, killz tha pilot'?

I don't have a problem with it, I guess you'll just have to lump it?

Not necessarily NTRabbit - if it is that way and we don't like it, we could convince Mantic to retcon it. Have to say, it largely defeats the purpose of running drones like that if the user can die so it's quite immersion breaking. I'd prefer the more realistic the robot just blows up and the pilot gets a new one. If you need Asterians to die off somehow, let them get slaughtered once all their robots are dead or if their control stations get overrun.

Where is this plugged in remote controlled stuff coming from anyway? Last I read the Cyphers were halfway between a Dread and a Wraithguard, they had the brain of a dead Asterian inside them that was remotely commanded by the live Asterian commander on the ground.

The containment protocols book was a collection of short stories written by enthusiastic fans, wasn't it'? So I doubt it's supposed to be canon. Just stories to 'inspire your games', according to the blurb.
My opinion has pretty much been said. Dying race uses cypher avatar things to do the dirty work to prevent loss of precious life. Makes sense. SO WHY THE F**K WOULD ANY RACE WITH BRAINS USE A TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPED FOR PREVENTING LOSS OF OPERATOR LIFE IF IT COMES WITH A HIGH CHANCE OF LOSS OF OPERATOR LIFE.

The answer is likely the effective response of Cyphers far exceeds that of a robot or drone. They appeared in their story to move with the fluidity and awareness of a normal soldier, which is the advantage of that technology over drones which are very limited in comparison (an operator has to process their own environment in addition to the battlefield). The disadvantage is that sometimes the destruction of the suit can cause injury, though it's not said if it's the technology doing this or sensory overload causing the body to damage itself.

It's plausible that it's simply a risk inherent in the technology. Cars can burst into flames if hit right. It's uncommon and they design the car to make it as infrequent as possible, but you can't remove the risk of fire from a box carrying gallons of fuel. People still drive daily and outside of very bad situations they rarely explode. Similarly, perhaps the Asterians can minimize the risk, but when the mission demands full combat capability they can't alter the fact that the battlefield is traumatic and not everyone will come back alive.

However, not every suit destruction kills its pilot. On a mission that was an abject failure where the team walked straight into an ambush a great many more Cyphers are coming out of that alive than Enforcers or Rebs, even if a handful are damaged. The knowledge of that situation makes it back to unit intact, allowing great strides in improvement and battlefield intelligence as mistakes teach far more than successes when they don't kill you. This provides a significant benefit to an Asterian force that not even their failures are without merit. An Enforcer patrol that gets wiped out isn't noticed for hours. A Cypher standing sentry that's taken out is noticed immediately.

While imperfect, the technology DOES give them major advantages in battle, and that's why I feel it's fine.