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I'm looking for a new website project and was thinking of making an army database. The plan would be that you can enter your army in to the database and edit it over time. The standard ones would be in there too.

What do you think? Would you use it? What should it include?

Foster

?

Like, enter your painted models and then use that list of models to draw up army lists?

No, the idea is that you put the name of the regiment, commander, platoon structure, history, people of note etc. You can then add to this with each battle you fight.

I also have a regiment generator for people that are just starting a guard army. And if I can work out how best to do it I'll look at the possibility of it being used to draw up army lists.

ok so like a online history of dakkas imperial guard?

Sounds cool. The 142nd might just upload their history as well as year book photos

So like a Lexicanum, but just for IG fluff?

That actually sounds like a very cool idea. I've always thought that guard lent themselves to unique characters, regiments and background stories more than any other army. Not to say that you can't have personalized SM chapters or Craftworlds, just that IG have the fewest fluff restrictions imposed on them. I'd love to read about other people's creations, and getting to add to something like that might give me a kick in the pants to develop the guard army ideas I've been toying with.

Not just a history of Dakka's Guard armies, hopefully every Guard army everywhere. My hope is to one day expand it to every race in the 40K universe.

so is it like giveing you commanders names and personalities or like official fluff?

I like the idea, like a collection of datta for Imperial Guard regiments by the Estate Imperium.

 nonowho wrote:
so is it like giveing you commanders names and personalities or like official fluff?

Sounds like both.

So for example, GW official armies would have lots of entries in it. Armageddon Steel Legion, Catachans, Cadians, Mordians, etc. would have lengthy histories. They would also probably have a "lesser known regiments" entry, where people could put their personal armies that belong to those planets. So for example if I had a cadian army called "the 601st Facestompers", they would be a "lesser known regiment" where I can put down my own unique history for my regiment.

However, it would be far more useful for people like Ailaros, who have lengthy histories of their armies with their own planet and organizational structures. Heck, Ailaros could probably just copy paste his whole blog entry in and have one of the most complete pages on day one. It would make a good example for how to make a page, although you'd probably want to put a brief synopsis of your history, with more in depth history on major events and battles linked to your army's main entry.

So, in an extremely abstract example way, this is how I would see a regiment page being.

Regiment: The 601st Cadian Face Stompers
Home planet: Cadia
Organizational Layout: Assault Infantry
Strength: 4,000 men at time of writing
Currently whereabouts: en route to the Daizos system after a successful conquest of Klendathu in the Vagabond system
Regimental Colors: (Paint scheme)

Brief history: The 601st facestompers are a fairly new regiment founded in (generic date that 40k uses here), well known for being among the first of the Imperial Guard task force to attack an ork held Forgeworld and successfully reclaim it intact. They are the tip of the spear in major assaults, their experience in urban combat and ability to rapidly redeploy making them invaluable in offensive operations. etc. etc.

Known battles and campaigns the 601st have participated in:
* The Klendathu campaign
etc.

Significant events in the 601st's history:
* Were the only regiment to survive the Klendathu campaign at fighting strength.
* After extreme losses during the siege of Klendathu, the 601st absorbed the 5611st Catachan Headhunters (250 survivors) and the 71st Cadian Couch Potatoes (6 survivors) to replenish lost numbers sustained during the campaign.
* Among the first of the Imperial Guard to adopt the "Facemelter" Lasgun design.

Notable Heroes of the 601st:
* Arnold Delathos, Hero of Kebab pass: *Generic history here*
* Commissar Jimmy Bob Thorton, Slayer of Warboss 'ead Stompa
etc.

Extended history:
*links to various battle reports and videos

Known pictoral logs of the 601st:
* Pictures of models you own

Obviously a lot of those names I've mentioned are made up, and are used purely because I don't feel like pulling up lexicanum or something, but hopefully that gets you the idea of a rough layout of what a Regiment's page would look like.

I think it could be really neat, especially once people see a few good pages and get an idea of how to use it. Once it starts to build a name for itself, you could add sister pages for famous Ork WAAAAGH's, Space Marine chapters, Tyranid splinter fleets, etc.

At first I was like "What?" but the more I think about it the more I like the idea of it. If you can browse other peoples armies and things (which im guessing you can) it would be cool to like "adopt" a planet and raise a regiment from that planet as well. There is a guy at my FLGS who allows us to "enlist" with his planets regiments if we want to, as long as we follow some basic fluff rules and take a basic color scheme. It's fun to have a tournament when you have 3 regiments from the same planet fighting in the same tournament (representing like a planet sending more forces to the battle. It gets cool, trust me haha).

EDIT: So yes, if you make it I will use it I don't have pictures of my army, and quite frankly I don't think I will take any because im quite ashamed of my painting hahaha, but I have a semi-detailed fluff write up

@MrMoustaffa, It's like you jumped in my brain, gathered all the information and explained it in a way I didn't think of. You also got that I plan to expand to other Races.

There will be a 1st release page up soon.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
http://imperialguardarmydatabase.hostzi.com/Impguard.html

Quick tester version, it will allow you to add a regiment and then view them. I've added the Cadian 8th to test it. There are some layout issues that I need to sort still.

What do you people think?

To be perfectly honest, I don't think it would get far past IG sadly. IG is perfect for this sort of thing, since literally ANYTHING you can come up with is fair game for the Imperial Guard. Other armies like Orks might work, but they'll have a less varied history to draw from, and unless you've got a very creative person, won't amount to much more than "warboss went here, stomped this planet, rinse repeat".

If there were more sisters of battle players though, I bet they could make some cool use of it. Too bad finding a sisters of battle player in some areas is like seeing a unicorn riding a unicycle under a full moon.

I know that once I had some fluff and an army worth posting I'd make a page.

The biggest issue I'm expecting to happen though is "OHMERRGERD MAH ARMEH IS THE BEST" syndrome, a horrible event that happens to all fanfiction esque websites.

For example, let's say I want to make my 601st facestompers "the best regiment evar''. I decide to go onto the main Cadia page and proclaim my greatness, since this is a wiki, and I can edit most pages easily. Long story short, if you're not careful to regulate certain "official" pages (Cadia, Armageddon, Catachan, etc.) the wiki could turn into a circlejerk of fan wankery. Maybe make the main pages admin only edits, where a person's edits must be approved by an admin, and only if they're minimal (aka adding my 601st facestompers to the known regiments list)

Also, what is your idea for dealing with multiples of the same regimental number. For example, I highly doubt there is only one person running the 12th Catachans right now.

It's not actually going to be run like a Wiki page, people will only be able to edit the regiments that they registered.

As for the same regimental number, at the moment it is first come first served but that is something that I can look in to.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
People can now register the same regiment as long as it does not have the same commander.

Are you thinking something similar to cmdctr.net?

No it's not like that site, it's more of a database of peoples armies that a army list software.

The site now has a fully functional login and regiment edit system. What would people like to see next?

Very nice, now we just need to shanghai Ailros and enlist him into this.
Funny that as soon as I saw this I just immediately though man this needs Ailros and his folerans.

I'll see what I can get together. No pictures though I only have a handful of models painted (got a little happy with the new paint stripping method I found online, yeah not smart).

I will be happy to contribute, got some minis coming from dreamforge, and been wanting to work on something new, so I will be in touch .

Great idea!

Hum, might be adding the 5th to this.

Means I have to create some fluff for them beyond the very basic stuff and actually get more of them painted up though!

 Soo'Vah'Cha wrote:
I will be happy to contribute, got some minis coming from dreamforge, and been wanting to work on something new, so I will be in touch .

Id be interested in how those Dreamforge guys work out - was looking at getting some Eisenkern myself as they seem less gawky than the Guard guys.

Looks like I need to add the option to upload photos then, lol.

Well mine are up now, amazing how much fluff you can think up on your lunch break at work!

I'd be very interested in this.

I'd use it.

It's not like Lexicannum, it's more like IG Facebook.

Any chance of sprucing up the layout a bit OP? The black with grey writing is a bit plain and hard to read for me at times.

Yeah it is on the cards, do we have a colour preference? I'm currently working on the ability to upload an avatar.

Foster wrote:
Yeah it is on the cards, do we have a colour preference? I'm currently working on the ability to upload an avatar.

Military styled colors like olive drab and tan would make sense.

Or you could go for more "Imperial" colors and go with red and the like.

Also a search bar probably wouldn't be a bad idea (unless I didn't see it and am blind)

No there is no search bar at the moment.

Ah ok. It's not really needed now, but it will be soon.

Also, we need a banner or something we can stick in our signatures. That way we can advertise it and get more people using it.

That and shanghai Ailaros