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Only the Ratkin one really.

 adamsouza wrote:
Didn't most of the WHF to KoW army lists start out as fan made ?

Well I meant it in reference to the Asterian Archers now offered on the Warpath Kickstarter as part of their battle group.

 NTRabbit wrote:
Warpath won't be a 40k challenger.





Until Age of the Emperor happens, that is Then 40k doesn't exist anymore except in fan versions, and a lot of sullen and angry people are left sitting around thinking "I guess I could maybe give Warpath or Gates of Antares a go, even though they'll suck because they aren't 40k", or "Maybe I should just change things up completely, and try a 10mm scale game like Dropzone Commander, Halo ground battles or Firestorm Planetfall, they have giant robits in them way cheaper right?", or "I'm just gonna buy 10 soldiers and play Infinity/Malifaux/Afterlife/ any number of new sci fi skirmish games rolling out at the moment, feth everything and everyone with giant army games, never again", or "I'm 40 years old, time to trade the Space Marines and metal t shirt and trenchcoat in for a nice button up shirt and Wellington's allied army at the siege of Badajoz"

Aye, that. I think KoW didn't so much 'wrest the crown' from WHFB, as pick at WHFB's corpse after GW took it behind the barn and shot it. Warpath has a ways to go, especially when they're still clumsily throwing unpopular mechanics at the wall to see what sticks, and we have no idea what Firefight is going to be like.

Also, 10mm is a bloated, oversized scale with minis that look like action figure toys. You guys want 6mm.

I've been very impressed with the balance of KoW, but I think that's due to the mysterious Rules Committee.. not Mantic directly.

Any idea how they plan to balance Warpath? How well balanced was the first edition?

 Red Viper wrote:
I've been very impressed with the balance of KoW, but I think that's due to the mysterious Rules Committee.. not Mantic directly.

Well Mantic had no input on points and on rules for the most part left us to it, so yeah

 Red Viper wrote:
Any idea how they plan to balance Warpath? How well balanced was the first edition?

No idea and no idea........fair distance from worrying about points yet.

 Baragash wrote:


Well Mantic had no input on points and on rules for the most part left us to it, so yeah

Great job

 Baragash wrote:

 Red Viper wrote:
Any idea how they plan to balance Warpath? How well balanced was the first edition?

No idea and no idea........fair distance from worrying about points yet.

Okay, just wondering. I hope they do something similar. KoW has really impressed me.

 MadMaverick76 wrote:

 argonak wrote:
Mantic should release a whole lot of free rules for folks to use their 40k armies in warpath, similar to what they're doing with KoW.

Right now they're the dog, and they're using their nimbless to steal food from the old fat dog. They need to keep leveraging that if they ever want to really beat GW.

+1
They make army lists for existing 40k armies and they will be golden. I am sad to see Warlord Games not really do this too well with their Gates of Antares. No Matter how I spin it, GW still makes some of the best looking miniatures. All these new plastic Sci-fi minis look more and more ridiculous as they add new games.

Does GW make the best looking miniatures, or are we just so used to the GW aesthetic, that any other proportions on a miniature look "off" to us?

if I look at some of my IG (I painted up a squad for fun a while back), they look good. But if I set them next to my Tamiya scale model infantry, my brain gets confused. The Tamiya models are actually proportionally correct. They look like REAL people. But at first when you put them by the IG they look wrong, because I'm so used to the GW aesthetic. But then after a moment my brain kicks in and its the IG who look stupid and wrong.

Yeah, GW models look excellent alongside themselves or other heroic-scaled models that are copying the imagery. Against true-scaled models though you are right, they suddenly look weird.

Actually the thing that WP seems to be lacking is a strong fantasy word to give it's armies/ background believable depth. I mean even to the most ardent, thick headed WAAC 40k gamer has a soft spot for fluff. And it's fluff which makes a role playing game, it's something that both players and designers can tap into when sculpting an army or converting a model.

Part of forming the fluff is using words and names to give summary describtions of things ( eg the Eye of terror)

So when I see names like The Corporation or The Enforcers it screams lazy, half arsed bs. Its like watching a film or reading a novel and the main protagonist is some called Dave Smith

 iddy00711 wrote:
So when I see names like The Corporation or The Enforcers it screams lazy, half arsed bs. Its like watching a film or reading a novel and the main protagonist is some called Dave Smith

Lazier than Imperial Guard or Space Marines? The Corporation is just the common man's blanket term for the armies belonging to the individual corporations of the galactic co-prosperity sphere (which is a bit of a mouthful). Any particular army would most likely be known by the name of its owning corporation e.g. the Magani Corporation army. The Enforcers name is just bluntly descriptive of what they do - they enforce the will of the Council of Seven who, as the ruling body of a human empire built entirely on rampant capitalism, have a pretty good grasp of the value of advertising (in this case advertising to an uppity corporation trying its luck that it is going to get visited by an army of tech-enhanced supersoldiers with much better equipment than they have to bitch-slap the share price out of 'em).

Obviously this is very subjective, but few people want to collect an army whose name has no character. The problem is its the name which makes the first impression, not that it takes much effort to make a good one. For example The Black Corporation has much more of a sinister sound to it than The Corporation. Also we could take the enforces and turn them into the Galatic Enforcers etc.

At least GW tries, albeit in a half arsed way to Latinise the names, to incorporate vague European and Eastern mythology/culture into its World. The symbols are well thought out, the languages well considered. If any game system is going to compete with 40k it's going to have to put 90% of its effort into creating a believable fantasy world.

There's tons of warpath fluff, loads of named corporations and planets and there's a map of the entire galaxy.

The corporation is not just one entity. There's lots of them and the most powerful for the Council of Seven and the Enforcers are answerable to them only.

 iddy00711 wrote:
If any game system is going to compete with 40k it's going to have to put 90% of its effort into creating a believable fantasy world.

So very wrong on the percentage.

It is on the list of things you want certainly, because your over-arching point that people want context for their conflicts is true. However, it's so far down on the priority list I'm not sure it even rises to 10% of the effort. Granted, that's because building a world is comparatively easy when you look at plastics engineering or global distribution or marketing in the Internet era or customer service.

Yes that 90% figure is nonsense.

Any wargame like this needs three things.

1. A good set of rules
2. A background or theme people buy into
3. A supporting range of models

To claim that any one of those would take 90% of the effort shows a complete misunderstanding of what it takes to make a successful game.

 iddy00711 wrote:
Obviously this is very subjective, but few people want to collect an army whose name has no character. The problem is its the name which makes the first impression, not that it takes much effort to make a good one. For example The Black Corporation has much more of a sinister sound to it than The Corporation. Also we could take the enforces and turn them into the Galatic Enforcers etc.

At least GW tries, albeit in a half arsed way to Latinise the names, to incorporate vague European and Eastern mythology/culture into its World. The symbols are well thought out, the languages well considered. If any game system is going to compete with 40k it's going to have to put 90% of its effort into creating a believable fantasy world.

I... pretty much have to disagree with this.

To me changing the name to make it sound more dramatic simply makes it sound more childish.

But then, I am an American, seeing nameless corporations grabbing everything not nailed down is pretty much the norm.

The Auld Grump - a wholly owned subsidiary of Evil Unlimited, an Evil Incorporated Corporation, and a part of Beatrice Foods.

And the 1500 backers at army deal level pledges so far (including those who pledged out the tyrant mega-army level in a day) suggest that actually quite a few people want to collect an army whose name has from one point of view no character but from another point of view is descriptive of who they are. Much as I would like them to be the Scarlet Reavers of Her Majesty, the British Army is just called the British Army. Doesn't really need a name with added melodrama.

One of the things that used to amuse me about Babylon 5 was recounting the increasingly silly names of all the alien governments and mentally picturing the script writers frantically thumbing through a thesaurus for something new: "We've already used alliance, republic, empire, federation, regime, matriarchate, sindicracy and league. What the hell are we going to call the crab people?"

I quite like that the Warpath universe is somewhere I can imagine the Weyland-Yutani corporation still existing and not somewhere I can picture Galactus turning up.

Oh man Weyland-Yutani is such a great name.

 Mymearan wrote:
Oh man Weyland-Yutani is such a great name.

Of course it is And they would be exactly the type of Corporation to go nosing around for Plague artifacts and creatures to "weaponize" them...

 larva_uk wrote:
And the 1500 backers at army deal level pledges so far (including those who pledged out the tyrant mega-army level in a day) suggest that actually quite a few people want to collect an army whose name has from one point of view no character but from another point of view is descriptive of who they are. Much as I would like them to be the Scarlet Reavers of Her Majesty, the British Army is just called the British Army. Doesn't really need a name with added melodrama.

One of the things that used to amuse me about Babylon 5 was recounting the increasingly silly names of all the alien governments and mentally picturing the script writers frantically thumbing through a thesaurus for something new: "We've already used alliance, republic, empire, federation, regime, matriarchate, sindicracy and league. What the hell are we going to call the crab people?"

I quite like that the Warpath universe is somewhere I can imagine the Weyland-Yutani corporation still existing and not somewhere I can picture Galactus turning up.

And it is entirely possible to add cool names to elements of the army-with-a-boring-name.

E.G. The Coldstream Guard.

So, a company of Corporation Enforcers specializing in Plague removal might be called The Terminex Bug Hunters.

The Auld Grump - hey, why is that unit called Haliburton, and why is it supposed to be scary?...

Warpath has great fluff, but it's not particularly accessible. Most of the good stuff is in Deadzone supplements which are going to be invalidated soon.

I particularly enjoy the fact that every single faction is highly competent. Very refreshing when most settings base their existence on certain factions being bumbling idiots. The aforementioned Wayland-Yutani being a great example.

Would it be possible to make a community-based wiki for Warpath background?

40k has the lexicanum which is the main source for background (new players and veterans)

To get poeple into the WP fluff something similar would be very usefull


And no, WP can never be a challenge for 40k.
Because the 40k players a still very happy with their game and it is even impossible to add minor changes to the rules (we have tried a lot of times the get the game more balanced, but no one is interested in).
Also the 40k background is very special and not just generic fantasy like warhammer was.

I'd like to have some more background material to read about the Warpath universe. It sounds sort of interesting, but it's light on detail right now. Like, how does the Plague transmit, what is the transformation process like, how much of their original memories or personality do the infected retain etc etc.

I gotta say I am also not too convinced by the whole "Generation" concept with the plague. It doesn't really jive with how I think diseases should work.

In all fairness, the Plague are a combination of xenobiology and game abstraction.

The further away from the original source of infection, the less dramatic the transformation is. Game wise it's a simple way to create classifications for stats and miniatures.

Similar to 40Ks Genestealer cults, with their Primarchs, pure bloods, Magus, hybrids, and blood brothers.

I guess it would just make more sense to me if it was something like, 3rd Gens are newly infected, 2nd Gens have survived the mutation to reach the second level, and 1st Gens are the rare ones that have survived the mutations to reach massive size.

I do like the zombies being sort of "failed" 3rd gens rather than actual living dead though.

But the "xeno" in your post is probably important - I am sort of working from a paradigm of mutation/disease based somewhat in biology. Since the plague apparently originates from some sort of weird alien artefact, perhaps the "exposure" theory can also make sense, even if I find it a bit weird.

They have reasoning: it's in the Deadzone fluff. Stage 1s are the guys who actually touch the artifact. They infect others, causing Stage 2. The S2s infect more, causing either S3 or Zombies. Basically, as it spreads from the source, the level of the mutation is decreased, and more of the humanity remains. Although twisted and evil.

 kodos wrote:
Would it be possible to make a community-based wiki for Warpath background?

40k has the lexicanum which is the main source for background (new players and veterans)

To get people into the WP fluff something similar would be very useful.


And no, WP can never be a challenge for 40k.
Because the 40k players a still very happy with their game and it is even impossible to add minor changes to the rules (we have tried a lot of times the get the game more balanced, but no one is interested in).
Also the 40k background is very special and not just generic fantasy like warhammer was.

This assumes a uniformity of opinion that is purely fictional.

A more accurate statement would be 'many 40K players are still happy.

By no means all 40K players are happy with the rules, and, after the most recent edition, it is fair to say that fewer 40K players are happy.

I do not know if it can be said that most 40K players are happy - but I do suspect that they can be described as 'happy enough'; or at least 'We'll make do'.

*EDIT* The fluff is decent, but has been less consistent as time has passed.

The Auld Grump, at least it's better than 'some 40K players are happy'....

ok, lets change it to "all 40k players that are still playing the game are happy"

those that are not already skipped with 7th edi or the upcoming SM Decurion codex.
(most of those I know that are not happy changed from 40k to 30k and the rest does not play GW games any more)

 timetowaste85 wrote:
They have reasoning: it's in the Deadzone fluff. Stage 1s are the guys who actually touch the artifact. They infect others, causing Stage 2. The S2s infect more, causing either S3 or Zombies. Basically, as it spreads from the source, the level of the mutation is decreased, and more of the humanity remains. Although twisted and evil.

Stage 1s are the toughest because they need to be - because there are always so few of them, they need to be big and bad enough to survive the initial response in order for the plague to actually spread. 2nd Gens are still tough, but trade some of that in for speed, as they are the primary way of causing widespread infection. 3rd gens don't need to be tough, because when they're around the infection of a world is terminal - instead they retain knowledge and abilities necessary to operate whatever technology that world uses to move the infectious 1st and 2nd gens on to the next world, where the process is repeated, minus the artifact.

 NTRabbit wrote:

 timetowaste85 wrote:
They have reasoning: it's in the Deadzone fluff. Stage 1s are the guys who actually touch the artifact. They infect others, causing Stage 2. The S2s infect more, causing either S3 or Zombies. Basically, as it spreads from the source, the level of the mutation is decreased, and more of the humanity remains. Although twisted and evil.

Stage 1s are the toughest because they need to be - because there are always so few of them, they need to be big and bad enough to survive the initial response in order for the plague to actually spread. 2nd Gens are still tough, but trade some of that in for speed, as they are the primary way of causing widespread infection. 3rd gens don't need to be tough, because when they're around the infection of a world is terminal - instead they retain knowledge and abilities necessary to operate whatever technology that world uses to move the infectious 1st and 2nd gens on to the next world, where the process is repeated, minus the artifact.

Which wouldn't make much sense if it were a natural disease, but as a bioweapon, it's very clever. Best way to think about it is the black oil from Prometheus, except not designed by retards.

Unless GW does a AoS-size f*ck up in the near future, I don't think we'll see any exodus.

And even if that giant f*ck up does take place, GW brand loyalty can be quite fanatical.