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notprop wrote:I would be interested in seeing that article Howard, missed that completely back in the day. I do have the JD Bloodbowl team rules though!

I can't find it... I moved house recently and some stuff has just been packed in places I can't find. I'll put it up when I find it, but not sure when that will be...

Great review! I started playing in 4th... but what got me into the hobby was the old codexs/white dwarfs that were passed on to me. I remeber looking at the 2nd/3rd ed rulebook in wonder at all the corny/goofy orks and rules. Fun read

Howard A Treesong wrote:

notprop wrote:I would be interested in seeing that article Howard, missed that completely back in the day. I do have the JD Bloodbowl team rules though!

I can't find it... I moved house recently and some stuff has just been packed in places I can't find. I'll put it up when I find it, but not sure when that will be...

Damn, you tease!

Nice review. This book is one of my favorite RPG books of all time. It's very immersive, with tons of little details on each and every page, and the artwork is some pretty crazy stuff. It clearly set the pacing for future warhammer 40k art direction and world setting. I still love to look at this book, worth it for the artwork alone.

Part 2
And we're back with part 2 of the award-seeking retro review series.
With the rules (such as they are) covered we can now jump into the action with the first-EVER! 40k scenario – Battle for the Farm!

Some of you may not recall it since Battle for the Farm was later renamed Battle for the BLOOD Farm of SKULLS!

It starts innocently enough, the Crimson Fists (yes, once upon a time not EVERYTHING was about the Ultramarines) are chilling in their Fortress Monestary when all of the sudden! Out of nowhere! A whole Ork fleet attacks!

So the quickly launch an ICBM at it.

But they roll a 'hit' and a 'misfire' and the ICBM explodes over the Fortress Monestary killing most of the Fists and leveling the joint. Now Pedro Kantor (yes the same one around today and the same on the cover using an Ork head as an improvised weapon) must march to New Rynn City to meet up with the few Fists who were not caught in explosion. They bed down in an abandoned farm not knowing that a group of Orks led by Thrugg Bullneck have stashed some jewels there and are headed back to claim them. A fight ensues.



This is an incredible amount of background for what boils down to Marines meet Orks, they fight. But it's the first real taste of 40k fluff (other than the grimdark opening) and it works. It's got some black humor (marines blowing up their own fortress), despair (marine chapter reduced to a handful of men) and cruelty (the Orks had already slaughtered the humans in the farm and burned it to the ground). And surprisingly GW has kept all of this the official 40k fluff even after many RT elements like Squats, the Ultramarines being a 3rd founding chapter and Custodus being normal humans were dropped.



The book even came with counters so you could play this scenario right away.



Last year GW scaled it up to a 500 page novel which, to be frank, was pants. It didn't even include the Battle for the Farm (though it did have a battle for a farm)! It kept the basic backdrop but the marine were just as wooden and cookie cutter as in other novels, their tactics made no sense and the book ends with Pedro and the Ork Warboss (Snagrod the Arch-Arsonist) in a fist fight. Because that's how all interstellar wars should be settled, with a fist fight.


But hey, it's still a 500 page novel, not bad for a 4 page into scenario huh?



Now there's always one part of an RPG book that I find will make or break it, that will determine whether or not the game will last and whether or not it's worth playing. I refer of course to the weapons and equipment.

Cause let's face it, unless I'm doing something illegal, immoral and impossible, why am I bothering to play this game?

And here Rogue Trader delivers the goods!

We get 28 pages of the finest deathware the 41st millennium has – from flintlocks to plasma cannons - all lavishly illustrated with fluff for each one.



Each picture has a little 'thought for the day' on the bottom like 'Death is its own reward', 'No reward, no remorse, just kill' and of course 'Fear is the mind killer'. Heh, 'fear is the mind killer', that's awesome, where do they get their ideas?



And those are just snuck in! Other quotes get more of a spot light.



Exist for the Emperor! Highest Kil ratio: Warzonz 6 & 12! Defile the Mutant! Death!
Why can't modern armory pages look like this?



Oh did I mention how half the art in the book is Space Marines dying painfully? Well it is! Even then the real measure of any weapon was how well it killed Marines.



Here's a marine being gutshot by an ork!



But here is a marine making all of his 4+ (yes 4+) saves against 3 orks.



Despite the 'mere' 4+ save (which you could raise to 3+ by wearing flak armor over it) power armor was still the best in the game since it not only offered the best save (terminator armor wouldn't appear for a while longer) it also included life support for all the nasty gas and virus weapons in the game. There's toxic, radiation, virus and vortex grenades, all of which can be scaled up to off-board artillery.


The 40k battle ground is a nasty, nasty place with many, many ways to die.



And it's a place of dark despair and madness!



The whole book has full page illustrations scattered throughout just showing off the style and look of 40k. Even at this early date they have a lot of the retro future elements we still see, note all the hoses, the dial on the chair, even the spacesuit is torn at the left arm, if he loses pressure this guy is in real trouble even with his oversized collar and helmet.



Get ahead with the Imperial Guard! Ahead… a head… well darn it it's funny to me!



And right here the Space Marines won my heart! Gawd I love this picture!



So cool! I hope the make like, A MILLION books just about Space Marines!



And here we meet the legendary Scotti the Enginseer which, besides setting the tone for how technology works in the 41st Millennium, also manages to include two of the worst puns in GW history.

Enginseer! How did that get past the editors? I bet they won't be using that pun 25 years later!



Weapons are followed by vehicles and as you can see from well what the heck that is, the 40k look was already being established. WWI, WWII designs, rivets and comically oversized guns.



It would be a little while before the first vehicle kits appeared (Rhino, Land Raider and Ork Battlewagon) so there are a few scratch builds thrown in like this SM ornithopter.





There's also an early Land Raider scratch build.



And an early Imperial Guard Land Speeder. I've heard the Land Speeder is actually from GW's old Judge Dredd RPG, can anyone confirm?

That about wraps up this section, again the rules look gastlly but the art and design is a cut above anything that was out at the time and even holds up today.

Next time we'll finally hit the fluff sections beginning with the Age of the Imperium. Be there! Whenever I get around to it...

I don't think the land speeder was ever released under Judge Dredd, not in any catalogue I've seen. But the time it was first released Rogue Trader was established, it first came out with either Marine or IG crews.

I much prefer the depiction of Marines dying in the older material. They are too superhuman now, I prefer them being a bit more human, they are too devolved of that now.

Oh the fluff is good. They had a different approach to naming characters in the fluff then, there's a certain ludicrously named Inquisitor... well I won't spoil the review for others or your reading it. You'll surely know it when you see it.

I must admit, I burst out laughing at the Land Raider. I mean...wow...I'm sorry, but it just looks...silly.

Still, as a player who came in 5th edition, it's nice to get this look back at the old days I hear all the veterans talking about. Thanks for this!

More awesome stuff. Some of those quotes are still so iconic and evocative of the 40k feel.

The one about the sane and insane I remembered.

The ones about man being a spark in the darkness, and "Do not waste your tears..." are just awesome. Those are the attitude of the 41st millenium, and of a Space Marine.

Rogue Trader wrote:Do not waste your tears. I was not born to watch the world grow dim. Life is not measured in years, but by the deeds of men.

Wow! I remember this; it was so poetic.

Is it a literary reference, or was this an indication of the quality of writing they had then compared to now?

Yeah its a pretty awesome - going back ten years or so it was one of the most common of sigged quotes on many forums, although you don't see so much of it now.

Thanks again for the review, it's great to see some of the little bits picked out in detail!

RE: The landraider pics.

I also remember the how-to's to make those buildings. Bucket of sand and some balls of varying sizes. Mix plaster and pour in.

@ChrisWWII: You call the venerable Land Raider "silly" and yet your avatar is some chibi heresy? Perhaps your definition of "silly" needs better codifying.

Hey, I never said silly = bad! I can quite like silly on occasion. Doesn't mean I won't laugh at it. Besides, Caramelldance Marine makes no claims that she isn't silly, or heretical

The old Land Raider really is a goofy looking design... It's like someone tried to combine a list of mistakes in armored vehicle design!

Balance wrote:The old Land Raider really is a goofy looking design... It's like someone tried to combine a list of mistakes in armored vehicle design!

It was a converted WW1 tank.

Looks entirely scratchbuilt to me.

True that.

I seem to remember a guide to making one of these appearing in WD - though I could be mis-remembering (or making it up as we used to say in the olden days).

Ah, the SM Ornithopter. Strangely that's the pic I always remember when I think of Rogue Trader.

Courtesy of Stuff of Legends, from the 1991 catalogs:





So the scratch builds aren't bad compared to the mass production versions that came out later.

Daba wrote:

Balance wrote:The old Land Raider really is a goofy looking design... It's like someone tried to combine a list of mistakes in armored vehicle design!

It was a converted WW1 tank.

It's inspired by a WWI tank but I don't think it's converted from one. All the real MkI tanks I've seen had treads that went back much farther.



As for it being a bad design, like I said a lot of that was on purpose, GW went for (and still goes for) a WWI, erly WWII look which at the time was a sharp contrast with other high tech games.

Anyway I hope to have the next section done this week, I'm glad people like it.

KK,

One more vote for awesome. I spent so much time reading through this thing and day dreaming about the games we would actually never play because the game was so damn complicated.

Ridiculous weapons like cluster missiles scattering vortex mines were discussed, but never actually put into play...

Thanks for this review,

RZ

I can't wait for the next part!

Kid_Kyoto wrote:It's inspired by a WWI tank but I don't think it's converted from one. All the real MkI tanks I've seen had treads that went back much farther.

And there were few WW1 tanks as plastic kits back then. The 1/35th models of various British tanks were released by Emhar well into the 90s.

There is an old issue of White Dwarf where someone with a Dark Angel army converted a Mk1 tank for use as a Land Raider but that would likely be because the RT kit was no longer available by then.

What was the reason for the Land Raider kit being out of production for so long? Like the Ork Battlewagon it ceased manufacture in the early 90s and hardly appeared in games throughout the bulk of 2nd edition and didn't get a new kit until the last few years. Did they break the mould or did it just wear out quickly? Either way you couldn't get a Land Raider or Ork Battlewagon or the better part of a decade leaving a huge hole in the codex. People complain that all the codex options don't have models for them, well the only vehicles Orks could have for years and years were Bikes.

Howard A Treesong wrote:

Kid_Kyoto wrote:It's inspired by a WWI tank but I don't think it's converted from one. All the real MkI tanks I've seen had treads that went back much farther.

And there were few WW1 tanks as plastic kits back then. The 1/35th models of various British tanks were released by Emhar well into the 90s.

There is an old issue of White Dwarf where someone with a Dark Angel army converted a Mk1 tank for use as a Land Raider but that would likely be because the RT kit was no longer available by then.

What was the reason for the Land Raider kit being out of production for so long? Like the Ork Battlewagon it ceased manufacture in the early 90s and hardly appeared in games throughout the bulk of 2nd edition and didn't get a new kit until the last few years. Did they break the mould or did it just wear out quickly? Either way you couldn't get a Land Raider or Ork Battlewagon or the better part of a decade leaving a huge hole in the codex. People complain that all the codex options don't have models for them, well the only vehicles Orks could have for years and years were Bikes.

That's a good question.
I was able to snag a plastic Battlewagon and an Armorcast one back in 2nd ed.
But I have not seen many others with them, and the Land Raider is a rare beast as well.

Dos anyone know GW's reasons? Were they produced out of house?

This thread gives me the warm fuzzies, it was RT that got me into 40k,

"A Space RPG/TTG for people with a random assortment of figures!"

as apposed too:

"OUR rules to use with OUR figures, and OUR glue's and OUR paints!"

Oh Workshop, how you've changed

skrulnik wrote:
Dos anyone know GW's reasons? Were they produced out of house?

They were.

The company that produced the plastic inserts for Lesney's "Matchbox" (tm) cars did the initial plastics work for them (RTB001 and Rhino/land raiders) - they might also have done the imperial guard and space ork plastics.
GW didn't have its own plastics manufacturing capability back then and went to a nearby local who could.

AFAIK, the dies for the land raider were destroyed, same for the battlewagon. I don't know the reasons why.
It's quite hard to 'break' a steel-trap injection die. You pretty much have to scrap them.

Fantastic read! Thanks for posting this, KK

chromedog wrote:

skrulnik wrote:
Dos anyone know GW's reasons? Were they produced out of house?

They were.

The company that produced the plastic inserts for Lesney's "Matchbox" (tm) cars did the initial plastics work for them (RTB001 and Rhino/land raiders) - they might also have done the imperial guard and space ork plastics.
GW didn't have its own plastics manufacturing capability back then and went to a nearby local who could.

AFAIK, the dies for the land raider were destroyed, same for the battlewagon. I don't know the reasons why.
It's quite hard to 'break' a steel-trap injection die. You pretty much have to scrap them.

The RT rhinos came out the same time and stayed in production which is another oddity to the puzzle. And of course during 2nd edition GW produced tons of new IG and Eldar plastic vehicles so they certainly could have made new land raiders and battlewagons if they wanted to.

Maybe they wanted to support non-marine armies?

Nah, never happen.

Enjoying this!

I am impressed. Its come a long way.

Is this an ornithopter thingy Flashman mentioned of please?
It is a cool design imho but possibly awkward on the table
But the best Imperium flyer I have seen to date.

many thanks KK
Is mostly all news to me