Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hey, someone has posted a great comparison of the games that you might be interested in viewing. Its goal is informational from a player that plays both games; it just points out the differences w/o being preachy:


http://at-43.understairs.nl/rest/at-43for40kplayers.html

Biggest failing of AT-43....complete lack of decent fluff. Lets face it, fluff can make or break a gmae, and AT-43 has nothing in fluff terms......sad really.

It has monkeys in power armor. That has to account for something.

Gorillas, sir. Monkeys have tails.

It's also got Commies. Space Commies. Could only be better if they were mutants.

Any game with space gorillaz (hurr!) AND space commies has a lot going for it.

Delephont wrote:Biggest failing of AT-43....complete lack of decent fluff. Lets face it, fluff can make or break a gmae, and AT-43 has nothing in fluff terms......sad really.

I hear folks say this, and I don't quite understand. I like the background material for the game. I think the Therian stuff is really neat, very alien. (Which is kind of odd, since they are, well...US). I love the Soviet propoganda styled art and background for the Red Blok, etc. Waay cool in my book. It is all very different from 40k, but I think that is better for the game to have it's own themes.

Your mileage varies, obviously.

Yeah, I don't get it either. Each army book has just as much, if not more fluff than a GW Codex, and it's generally more specific on things than the "We don't know everything! Ooooo, mysterious!" GW forces into its background at every given point. We get it, there are holes in Imperial history that are forgotten or forcibly covered up.

Plus, they advance their story.

When I read posts on gaming forums I tend to hear them read in the shrill voice of a pre-pubescent, overly excitable boy. Some posts immediately bash that initial impulse of mine with reasoned responses and good points..... Guess what crowd the "Ohhh monkeys in Space Armor!" falls into?



Personally I find 40K and AT-43 to be over marketed games with uninspired mechanics. When you end up throwing more dice than you have miniatures on the board, you have to ask yourself if you are playing a miniatures game or a dice game.

Another interesting and humorous part about these games are the players who seem to argue and whinge more than they play. Life is short, play something you enjoy not something "all the cool kids are playing."

HorrorFan wrote:
Personally I find 40K and AT-43 to be over marketed games with uninspired mechanics. When you end up throwing more dice than you have miniatures on the board, you have to ask yourself if you are playing a miniatures game or a dice game.

It's because humans are a visual creature. While the average person may have a good imagination, they would still rather see what is going on than to just visualize it. I feel this is the same reason most groups playing some form of RPG will use miniatures.

HorrorFan wrote:
Another interesting and humorous part about these games are the players who seem to argue and whinge more than they play. Life is short, play something you enjoy not something "all the cool kids are playing."

Just because people whine doesn't mean they don't enjoy the game. Some people have legitimate excuses, while some have an expectation that can not be met by companies trying to reach a vast, differing audience. Then again, some people have some sense of entitlement or are just plain whiny.

I like the Karman background, but I haven't read much else beyond them.

Ava is a world where humans arose and rapidly gained spaceflight with the help of knowledge stored on the walls of a pyramid at the south pole.. Aliens called the Therians visited their world and refused all contact. THey traveled to the south pole, went inside the pyramid, and activated an ancient thruster that moved Ava nto an earthlike orbit around their sun killing millions. The Avans launched a war against the Therians and developed new weapons from the technology they captured and made contact with the Karmans.

Years later a huge (world sized) factory ship is spotted heading towards Ava and a space fleet composed of both UNA and Red Blok resources is assembled to interdict it. They invade the ship and gain control of it in a campaign called Operation Damocles.

UNA Sort of a rish UN style alliance that became a world government on AVA and spread out colonize other planets and generally grew too powerful leading to the rebellion that formed the Red Blok. The UNA gets thrown into a clash with a much older and highly advanced civilization that probably cannot end well.

Red Blok A new government based on Old style Russian Revolutionary Communism but developed independently of Russia (Avans have never even HEARD of Russia). Mainly they hate the UNA corporatist system and are ruthless in pressing forth their collectivist. They seem to be slightly behind the UNA technologically but are a formindable enemy. They allied with the UNA to take on the Therians however.

Therians The descendants of humans from Earth become nanotechnology demigods wwho spend all their time on an internet like network who are planning to reconfigure the universe into a form that they feel with NOT lead to heat death. Unfortunately they have to blow up worlds to do it. Oh yeah, they started civilization on Ava and created the Karmans. Luckily for AVA and everybody ealse they are kind of idiots who nto operate at their true potential. Also the Therians have birthed an AI that arose in their network. This AI helped the Red Blok and UNA to capture Damocles and is now aligned with the Red Blok. The Therians live in Dyson spheres, may have "remodeled" the entire Milky Way, are VERY VERY old, and are heading towards AVA in a ship the size of a planet with a small white Dwarf at it's center that the Avan's have code named "Damocles". Therians don't care about life less advanced than their own. They can create it as easily as they destroy it. They see the Avans as a means of fascilitating the destruction of the planet AVA so it can be used to make more Dyson Speheres.

Karmans are a civlization seeded by the Therians from modified gorilla DNA saved from before they turned Earth and the rest of the solar system into Thera. The Karmans work both for and against the Therians because they see the Therians as creators but also as a threat and a shameful species. The Karmans have their own plans for the Universe and sentient life in it and presumably it is a much nicer future than that planned by the Therians. The Karmans regret their destiny of violent conflict and awoke to the unwholesome nature of their masters when they thought that they wiped out a warlike species call the Kryg. Now they seek to somehow forge a new peaceful order for all life and nothing can threaten that. The Karmans have secretly constructed a battleship the size of a planet and have a stealth technology that apparently the Therians cannot defeat. The Karmans are very secretly and very loosely allied with the Avans. They think they can predict the outcome of the conflict and control it for the maximum benefit to evertybody. By doing this they hope to somehow assuage their species guilt in almost wiping out the Kryg.

Cogs Four related species of aliens thought to be at a "near Therian" level of tehcnology who oppose the Therian design of remodeling the universe. They are currently loosely allied with the UNA and trading technology with them for resources. They once fought the Therians back until the Karmans came in and defeated them strategicaly. I don't think much is known about them yet.

The Kryg are a relatively primitive warlike species who survived the Karman efforts to exterminate them on Therian orders. They are currently forging an alliance with the Red Blok.

Do you think, one day, the US will produce a TTG *without* a Communist type Badguy?

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:Do you think, one day, the US will produce a TTG *without* a Communist type Badguy?

Just be happy they don't have a Religious Zealot army as of now.

AT-43 isn't from the US Mad Doc.

Rackham is a French company.

Ok, I'm going to attempt to qualify my above statement. However, please bear in mind this is only my opinion.

GW is a game that gyrates between stupidly obvious story lines and plot settings to more intricate scenarios....but the one thing it does have in all of its fluff, is a level of "plausibility".....you know, if A = B it could possibly, possibly happen.

Now, with AT-43, I find the whole Avan being humans, and the Therians being human rather hard to justify in a "plausible" way. Yes, I understand the concepts of parallel evolution, and perhaps even, at a push, the premise of parallel anthropological development between two "related" species from a joint gene-pool.....but Red Bloc (?)....come on, this is cheap! To imagine that a completely seperate "species" comes to a similar political ideal is one thing, but to then develop the same iconography and social traits...right down to the facial hair, is down right insulting to the intelligence.

I won't mention the apes.....no, please don't make me talk about the apes!

So I imagine the Therians to be a bit taken aback....here they are traversing the outer reaches, and then....just as a small hiccup in their plans, they encounter....not only a similie of themselves, and their ancient politcal systems, but also creatures from a long forgotten movie plot...Planet of the Apes!.....I bet the Therians had some soul searching to go through.....kind of like, "could there be a more obvious sign of a master plan"......

When I compare a truely well thought out game like Infinity, and compare it to the obvious issues with WH40K, I feel myself easily forgiving Warhammer its failings and simply moving on.....with AT-43, all I see is an uninspired and worn out theme, a smattering of roughly pre painted (obvious) miniatures, and a money grabbing Rackham doing what-ever it can to maintain some presence in the Wargaming industry.....

According to the AT-43 fluff there is no coincidence. The Therians MADE the Avans (from scratch or through genetic manipulation of some native Avan species) to weaken Ava and prepare it for use as material in a new Dyson Sphere. They turned them loose and came back anticipating Ava being a world ruined and strip mined to support the Avan's spaceflight.

The United Nations vs. Red Blok thing is not so crazy when you consider that the game is intended to parody our world to some degree if only to give us something familiar to grasp and to support the retro WW2-esque design sensibility of the Avan vehicles.

The Therians also created the Karmans from gorilla DNA as an experiment. It's why the Karmans at least pretend to work for the Therians.

Does Corax of the Raven Guard existing primarily to utter an Edgar Allen Poe joke bother you?

Does the primarch of the Night Lords being a ham fisted parody of Colonel Kurtz from Heart of Darkness/Apacalypse Now (choose your version, Congo or Vietnam) bother you?

And I think an argument could be made that Moorcock Chaos, bloody nose psychics, the Spanish Inquisition, guys in power armor fighting alien swarms, elves, goblins, killer skeleton robots are all feeling a bit worn out and unispired at this point.

(If that's how we choose to separate the "good" fluff from the "bad" fluff.)

I'm not sure that GW is all that secure againt accusations of money grabbing.

Infinity itself is pretty much an attempt to make a game based on Black Macig-66/Appleseed/Ghost in the Shell. It's anime cyberpunk except for the strange alien alliance conquerors who work for the AI.

You both have good points.

Robots, Skeletons, Goblins and all that have been done to death. However I think the way they are done actually brings a bit of spark back to them. It's kinda like Firefly, some may say "Awwww geez, another space show" but its the Western-Space mix that makes it so interesting.

I like the 40K fluff to a point, but when they made Orks into plants I had to take pause. 40K basically just took the Bible and retold it with a few twists. Pretty good idea if you ask me. They should use such creativity in their game mechanics.

AT-43 to me seemed to go to the "Therians planned it and they are us!" thing a little too much. If they are that advanced, how could they be stopped by the UNA? If they are that advanced and linked to their computers, why don't they just invade via the computers? Why create a life form to let evolve to stripmine away a planet? Isn't their easier ways to attain that goal like.....Machines!?!
I like the Karaman being so spiritual, a pretty cool idea, but Gorillas no matter how cool they look in space suits are not practical to the story line. They have fur and heads that cannot turn to the extent a humans can, their entire physiology is evolved to make them best at what real gorillas do. If they developed intelligence and technology, evoloution would have taken their forms in different directions to where they wouldn't be gorillas in space suits. So in that instance its best to just admit that fluff wise the ball is dropped and the Karamans were made for an asthetic appeal (sales) over anything else (art/whatever.) I can live with that, its not a bad thing. Just please lets not pretend its anything but what it is.

To the Therians the Avans WERE machines. The kind you could leave behind and come back when you hear space probe signals.

The biggest science problem is that instead of moving Ava to one AU from the star it orbits they could have done a flyby in Damocles and rip the planet to bits with tidal forces because Damocles has a white dwarf in it about 3/4 the mass of Sol! Also assuming that Ava has a liquid mantle and outer core it ought to be pretty easy to pull apart and go mine the asteroids left over when the molten "drops" cool into rock.

And I agree that ruining an ecosystem through over industrialization wouldn't do much to structurally "weaken" a world. It sound like barely disguised green preaching.

Avans are BASED on gorillas. They are not gorillas. Their being highly intelligent and capable of human-like vocalizatiosn would be at least two major examples of anatomical variation from being mere gorillas. Having fur doesn't seem like a real issue.

As to how UNA and the Red Blok triumphed, 1. a rogue AI called Babel disabled the EMI network and 2. the Therians have apprently only been in three significant fights since becoming Therians. One was the Kryg, one was the Cog and now Ava. In two of those cases they had the Karmans come in and change the odds. Basically despite their highly advanced technology the Therians are kind of stupid and myopic. They are slow to understand changem they underestimate lesser life forms. They are a bit like Ra in the Stargate movies. Sure he had a sarcophagus that brings people back to life and ray guns. But he wasn't known for his tactical brilliance. He was a sort of button pusher who was used to fighting bronze age guys. His troops had fancy helmets but they could be shot in the gut easily. All that fancy tech might as well have been ordered from a catalog. The Therians suffer from a similar handicap.
3. The guys doing the planet resource gathering aren't exactly the best and the brightest Therians. Nor are they a force representing a large military effort by the Therians. WIth the exception of tiamat. They are the Therian equivalent of blue collar contractor schubs on a factory ship who lost a lot of face when they got kicked off the planet during the shifting of Ava's orbit. Even the Therian warriors factuion are mainly recreational fighters who view the war with Thera as a sort of fun hobby.

40K doesn't exactly go out of it's way to make sense or be consistent. It's constantly revising its own backstory! And it seems to have little respect for anythign resembling science. Necron ships eat stars! (At least they do in Dawn of War novels) Demons can pull planets into the warp! Chaos Spawn don't die. A disease causes undeath and another causes people to fuse with machines. Orks used to be smart and somehow make machines work by just believing that they do. Also it's practical to make a sword out of a chainsaw.

You can also rip apart a tank with a power-fist. You can feed someone growth hormones and then stick extra artificial organs in the torso and head, skin them to add a layer of sensor material, put the shin back, hypnocondition them, and make them a super strong, fast healing acid spitting, anything eating, suspended animation entereing, monastic super-soldier with advanced senses.

I'm not sure that the Tyrranids, Kroot, Eldar, or Tau make much sense in terms of physiology either. Or chaotic mutation, or even genetic/toxic mutation for that matter. Why harp on AT-43 for laxck of realism and then give 40K a pass? It's just "effects" man. It's fiction.

My biggest problem with AT-43 is that I often feel like I am expected to buy a cheap plastic "made in china" toy for $35. The splat books have been really nice though. They are essentially color magazines with a book cover for around $16-$20.

I agree with what you are saying palaeomerus, I just think AT-43 gets harder critisism for 2 reasons. #1 they haven't been around as long. Bad excuse, but it is what it is. #2 The Space Monkies are pretty hard to take seriously under any circumstances.


I will say that I thought GW had a very interesting concept in 2nd edition about Ork technology in that the knowledge was somehow stored in their DNA and passed that way. It explained alot about their Barbaric culture and tech levels in a unique way. Then they made the shed skin cells begin to asexually reproduce and Orks grow from the ground under Mushrooms.


Each has it's interesting points and each has its horrid embarasments. Neither in my opinion is great in fluff or game. I sometimes felt like throwing all the dice was a distraction built to keep players from noticing the wonky rules.

Space Monkeys are harder to take seriously than, say, Space Elfs? Or
Space undead based on Terminator? Or Space Fungus? Or Killer Space
Clowns? Or Space Nuns?

palaeomerus wrote:Ava is a world where humans arose and rapidly gained spaceflight with the help of knowledge stored on the walls of a pyramid at the south pole.. Aliens called the Therians visited their world and refused all contact. THey traveled to the south pole, went inside the pyramid, and activated an ancient thruster that moved Ava nto an earthlike orbit around their sun killing millions. The Avans launched a war against the Therians and developed new weapons from the technology they captured and made contact with the Karmans.

Is better to say that Avans ("humans" based on the genetic code of Therians) were Seeded by the Therians (humans from earth) in Ava, the technology is from several pyramids and other structures all over Ava and specially in BOTH poles.

Therians ame and Activated BOTH poles, the machines NOT only moved the planet from orbit, it completely change rotation speed, gravity and the like to make a carbon copy of Thera (Earth) for the Therians to use the 3 R´s REduce, Reuse and Recycle.... (i.e. Destroy Ava to use the resources to build more factory-orlds)

Both the Red Blok and UNA launched a war against the Therians and Karmans in the Pole BUT the war mainly ended when a new "algorothmic conciusness" was born and the machines stopped... thus the Therians got scared and ran back home... thus:

It was a Trauma for the Therians that all went wrong and it was a trauma for the Avans as all things changed in Ava... not in day time and year time for example was exactly the same as the Earth

palaeomerus wrote:Years later a huge (world sized) factory ship is spotted heading towards Ava and a space fleet composed of both UNA and Red Blok resources is assembled to interdict it. They invade the ship and gain control of it in a campaign called Operation Damocles.

43 years later... thats why its called "After Trauma 43 years" (AT-43)

And Actually the UNA sent the fleet ALONE, the Revolutionary scum only follow like the vultures they are

palaeomerus wrote:UNA Sort of a rish UN style alliance that became a world government on AVA and spread out colonize other planets and generally grew too powerful leading to the rebellion that formed the Red Blok. The UNA gets thrown into a clash with a much older and highly advanced civilization that probably cannot end well.

Red Blok A new government based on Old style Russian Revolutionary Communism but developed independently of Russia (Avans have never even HEARD of Russia). Mainly they hate the UNA corporatist system and are ruthless in pressing forth their collectivist. They seem to be slightly behind the UNA technologically but are a formindable enemy. They allied with the UNA to take on the Therians however.

Mostly right, but if you ask me the UNA is more a mirror of the USA nowadays... red Blok is a mirror of the Soviets also... but simplifying it this way is taking off merits from Rackham, since IMO when you read the fluff you can see what they represent withouth being predictable...

And second point: Red Blok and UNA are NOT ALLIED AT ALL.... thats a No No.... thats one of the most important points... they hate each other and will not join together for nothing short of ANOTHER invasion to AVA.

palaeomerus wrote: Therians The descendants of humans from Earth become nanotechnology demigods wwho spend all their time on an internet like network who are planning to reconfigure the universe into a form that they feel with NOT lead to heat death. Unfortunately they have to blow up worlds to do it. Oh yeah, they started civilization on Ava and created the Karmans. Luckily for AVA and everybody ealse they are kind of idiots who nto operate at their true potential. Also the Therians have birthed an AI that arose in their network. This AI helped the Red Blok and UNA to capture Damocles and is now aligned with the Red Blok. The Therians live in Dyson spheres, may have "remodeled" the entire Milky Way, are VERY VERY old, and are heading towards AVA in a ship the size of a planet with a small white Dwarf at it's center that the Avan's have code named "Damocles". Therians don't care about life less advanced than their own. They can create it as easily as they destroy it. They see the Avans as a means of fascilitating the destruction of the planet AVA so it can be used to make more Dyson Speheres.

Ttherias ARE NOT descendants of Humans, They ARE humans.... The actual humanity that is reading this post, we are the future Therians, they achieved a extreme development of Technology and thus became Therians which are "virtually" immortal.

Yes they want to stop the EXPANSION of the Universe by enclosing stars in Dyson Speheres..... Yes! thst Hyperlife.

Yes, They seeded Avans on ava and Karmans too (Presumably plenty others.... including more "humans" on other planets)

No, The therians did NOT gave bith to anyone.... actually the majority of Therians consider the idea of something achieving conciousness from the EMI grid (the AI) something between the following: A) stupid and funny b) stupind and dangerous or C) Dangerous and worth killing it. So NO Therians did not gave birth to anything... it was born Alone then, this coonciousnes met Nina Höi a UNA reporter and link his mind with it.... thus Nina/Babylon Zero is born.

To make it perfectly CLEAR: Nina/Babylon Zero is NOT ALLIED with anyone but him/herself not even the Therians, There are, of course, stupid revolutionary scum who follow her but should be killed in the firing squad for treason and dealing with something that want to destry/consume you, but the Red Blok as entity/political power is not allied with him/her

palaeomerus wrote: Karmans are a civlization seeded by the Therians from modified gorilla DNA saved from before they turned Earth and the rest of the solar system into Thera. The Karmans work both for and against the Therians because they see the Therians as creators but also as a threat and a shameful species. The Karmans have their own plans for the Universe and sentient life in it and presumably it is a much nicer future than that planned by the Therians.

Nicer future? --I will teach you to be good with the enviroment and respect the gorillas even if I kill you in the process-- thats what Karmans teach.... besides that more or less is correct but it is worth mentioning that Karmans are a failure experiment from the Therians, they wanted the Karmans to destroy their own planet as the Therians did with Earth so the Therians will just finish it off and use its resources, however the Karmans became SO green peace that Therians decided to use better their own genetic code.... i.e. Humans in Ava

palaeomerus wrote: The Karmans regret their destiny of violent conflict and awoke to the unwholesome nature of their masters when they thought that they wiped out a warlike species call the Kryg. Now they seek to somehow forge a new peaceful order for all life and nothing can threaten that. The Karmans have secretly constructed a battleship the size of a planet and have a stealth technology that apparently the Therians cannot defeat. The Karmans are very secretly and very loosely allied with the Avans. They think they can predict the outcome of the conflict and control it for the maximum benefit to evertybody. By doing this they hope to somehow assuage their species guilt in almost wiping out the Kryg.

Krygs are NOT 100% dead, they are the 6th species and plann to have a comeback and start kicking ass

"have a stealth technology that apparently the Therians cannot defeat." False they are afraid the Therians discover it because then the therians may feel threateneed and want to whip out the KArmans instead of "others"

Karmans are paying for "destroying another species" they became 3 different factions in their society each having its own agenda and so on... they just want now to ensure its survival and teaching other species the way of "Karma"

palaeomerus wrote: Cogs Four related species of aliens thought to be at a "near Therian" level of tehcnology who oppose the Therian design of remodeling the universe. They are currently loosely allied with the UNA and trading technology with them for resources. They once fought the Therians back until the Karmans came in and defeated them strategicaly. I don't think much is known about them yet.

They do not oppose the Therias just because "remodeling is bad" The Therians attacked them to kill them all, but with the level of Technology of the Cogs they started to conquest the Therians, so the Therians became scared and asked the Karmans to fight the Cogs, they did not defeat the Cogs per se, they just stopped the inavasion of Therians worls by the cogs they "stabilized the front" The Cogs have been arming themselves to payback time....

palaeomerus wrote: The Kryg are a relatively primitive warlike species who survived the Karman efforts to exterminate them on Therian orders. They are currently forging an alliance with the Red Blok.

they are NOT ALLIED with the cogs, as per the FLUFF they only SHARE a world due to reources but they have not shown interested (as with COGS) in any other type of bussiness like cultural and political, as a mater of fact it seems that both Cogs and Krygs refused to fight on the UNA or REd Blok side before the Trauma... that is stated in the fluff from the books.... NO ALIEN SPECIES wanated to get into ideologiacl conflicts...


In my opinion AT-43 has an extremely well develope FLUFF, something fresh and new, and the fact thats it is not FAntasy in Space make it even better since I do not expect to have Elves and Dwarf and such...

I has a bit of irony, comedy and black humor also in the books that it is worth reading them, and finally I like the minis and the possibility of not fighting with un-painted minis wich is quite depressing...

The rules are good (some of them need tweaking, but Rackham is not alone in that) and really gaves you a deep tactical game with several options and not just stand and shot as 40k... even with the 5th Ed.

malfred wrote:Space Monkeys are harder to take seriously than, say, Space Elfs? Or
Space undead based on Terminator? Or Space Fungus? Or Killer Space
Clowns? Or Space Nuns?

Space Elves are basically what we dub anything with pointed ears. Terminator is classic SciFi, robots (our creations) taking over. Space Fungus, possibly one of the first extraterrestrial life forms we will really find, I see no humor there so we move on. Killer Space clowns, who's trying to pawn them off as serious in the minis gaming world? This seems like a manufactured piece of info. If you are referring to the movie Killer Clowns from outer space then I'll point out that that movie was a comedy (in case you missed that.) So no in that instance they were not made to be taken seriously. For space nuns, if man takes to the stars is it not plausable that we will bring our religion with us? If we do that, will there not be nuns and priests in space?

So I guess to answer your question, yes Rackhams Space monkies are hard to take seriously. Like I said they were probably created for cool factor which is fine. Whats odd is people defending them as if they were anything but.

@ palaeomerus

You know, I like your points, and on the part about WH40K, I'm gonna step back and say "You're right!"....GW and its space opera is no better than Rackhams attempt. I also agree and take back my statement about "money grabbing companies"...because, lets face it, if there was ever a games company that had $£$ at the top of its agenda....GW wins the crown there. Yes, I know its a business, and the workers have got to eat.....but I think we can all agree that GW has (at least from a WH40K perspective) forgotten its roots.

I don't agree with your thoughts on Infinity though. Infinity, if you're read the rule book, is rich...yes you can easily make the comments you did, and those comments are not wrong, but I think your statements realy only apply to the surface of what Infinity is. Infinity is not aimed at infantile minds, it deals with real world economics, and it deals with real world religion and the human condition. Infinity has such a rich background, that you get drawn in and captivated. Its not necessarily dark or gothic, but it can be if you, the gamer, want it to be. It doesn't have the oppressive feel about it that WH40K has, and it doesn't have the childish theme I associate with AT-43 (lets not mention those pre painted figures huh!)

Anyway, I digress, apologies...this is about AT-43 and WH40K.

Delephont, I am not much of a Masamune Shirow fan but I think you'll find that his works are not especially oriented towards infantile minds and they do address economic, social, and cultural stresses due to rapid technological advancement and questions such as " what makes an artificial human different from a real one? " or "if you can rewrite human memory then how can you, as a rewritable entity, know what is real and what is someone else's programming? ".

In short, Shirow's work has SOME hard sci-fi cred to it and is founded in futurism. Of course it also tends to be extremely absorbed with security and paramilitary themes. Also it tends to sort of either become WAY too self important and stuffy, or devolve into a lot of silly fan service. I am generally not a big fan of Mr. Shirow's sense of humor. I guess I kind of like Dominion: Tank Police though.

When I said that Infinity is based primarily on Shirow's cyber punk manga and anime I was not calling it pure bubblegum but just identifying it's major influences (especially visual) and pointing out that it did not arise in a vacuum.

As a ruleset and baclground I like At-43 a lot. As a product line overall....I'm not that impressed. I do like the looks of the stuff generally. But I can go down to my LGCS and look at lots of boxes of the same vehicles, lots of them apparently broken in the box, and just blanch at the prices. Sure I know that these things are not seeing mass prodcution on the same scale that toys do, but It's damned hard for me to shell out $30-$35 for a fragile freaking plastic Nakolvany when it looks an awful lot like maybe 1/4 of a $20 toy playset I could find at Toys R US.

HorrorFan wrote:

malfred wrote:Space Monkeys are harder to take seriously than, say, Space Elfs? Or
Space undead based on Terminator? Or Space Fungus? Or Killer Space
Clowns? Or Space Nuns?

Space Elves are basically what we dub anything with pointed ears. Terminator is classic SciFi, robots (our creations) taking over. Space Fungus, possibly one of the first extraterrestrial life forms we will really find, I see no humor there so we move on. Killer Space clowns, who's trying to pawn them off as serious in the minis gaming world? This seems like a manufactured piece of info. If you are referring to the movie Killer Clowns from outer space then I'll point out that that movie was a comedy (in case you missed that.) So no in that instance they were not made to be taken seriously. For space nuns, if man takes to the stars is it not plausable that we will bring our religion with us? If we do that, will there not be nuns and priests in space?

So I guess to answer your question, yes Rackhams Space monkies are hard to take seriously. Like I said they were probably created for cool factor which is fine. Whats odd is people defending them as if they were anything but.

I like the idea of philosophical space monkey warriors.

@Wolfen: I didn't realize all those were pointed at 40K. I'm no GW fan so I didn't put some of those together.

When Terminator was mentioned as space undead I thought the movie and not Necrons, but now that you mention it, how are Necrons so different from Therians?

For the space elves, pull your head from thinking 40K for a minute and you pretty much described Vulcans from Star Trek.

I think the problem was too brief a responce from Malfred. I don't instantly compare everything to 40K as I play a wide variety of games that IMHO are a bit more geared for people who may not need monthly releases and place more emphasis on the hobby aspect.

Why are space monkeys or space gorillas stupid and laughable?

Who finds Planet of the Apes laughable?

Humans are descended from gorillas (or at least, from the same kind of ancestral ape-like creature.)

Kilkrazy wrote:Why are space monkeys or space gorillas stupid and laughable?

Who finds Planet of the Apes laughable?

Humans are descended from gorillas (or at least, from the same kind of ancestral ape-like creature.)

Humans are not descended from Gorillas. We share a common basal ancestor 7 or so million year ago.