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Where some of the BEST lore actually comes from
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Feb 27, 2025
Our chat with RPG master dr_ether! Chris writes for many a publication including cubicle 7 for their warhammer RPGs (40k, Sigmar, and old world!), Warmachine Iron Kingdoms, and a load more. We have a great chat with Chris about lore, dice, and much much more. Chris Links: http://podcast.darker-days.org/ https://www.christopher-handley.com/ https://www.instagram.com/doc_ether/ Join our Patreon: https://patreon.com/thepaintingphase Help Support the channel with our affiliate links: UK: https://elementgames.co.uk/?d=10835 US: https://www.gamescapesf.store/ CODE: thepaintingphase EUROPE: https://taschengelddieb.de/?affiliate=tpp UK & EU: https://affiliates.waylandgames.co.uk/idevaffiliate.php?id=1214 Painting Phase Brushes: https://store.artis-opus.com/products/the-painting-phase-mixed-brush-set-5-brush-deluxe?_pos=1&_psq=painting+phase&_ss=e&_v=1.0 US: use code paintingphase to get 10% off at https://www.goblinshut.com/ H&S Airbrush: https://harder-airbrush.net/?sca_ref=553000:00 introductions
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0:00
hello I'm Jeff and I'm Patrick and today we're joined by a man who have must have
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an extraordinarily large fire at home cuz from reading his CV of such seems to
0:11
be a lot of irons in it yeah we are joined by Chris Handley see I like that
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that was good thank you very much I was on the way here if I if my journey had been a lot shorter I wouldn't have come
0:23
up with that with it be 35 minutes I can get it in yeah time so Chris um I could Bumble
0:32
my way through and explain all of the things that you're into but I think it'd
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be much better if you did it yeah okay um so uh tell us what you do and what has brought you to this show
0:43
so uh I freelance right for cubicle 7 for the Warhammer RPGs I also freelance
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right for steam Forge games previously would have been prived press for iron kingdoms I've written for a few other
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RPGs notably like vampire the Mas um uh I've done some work that's
1:02
recently for cult which has got a Kickstarter going right on right now which is kind of like horror kind of
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Gnostic kind of it's hell raise of the RPG oh wow that that sounds good good
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fun and I forget to dress up though and then uh and then so basic mainly I work
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in RPGs but I have dabbled with wargaming as well so back in the day I did um I wrote a co-designer wrote the
1:26
Third Edition of noble Armada which is a space combat game which is based on the fading Suns RPG right so again that's
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some some of the writers that used to work on vampire and those typ of games went off and created their own company and made a setting which was rather Dune
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like and then you've got spaceships and that and giant space Gates so there a space combat game for that uh and then
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yes and then you know as well payon Toy Soldiers along the way most all this stuff is more recent with the writing
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I've been doing that for maybe the last oh God like five 10 no five seven years
2:01
right is with a freelance writing and of course I'm well into the war games CU of course if you're into
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Warhammer you paint Toy Soldiers because you go I want to have nice Miniatures to represent both the characters and play
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those armies and iron kingdoms is also the same because there a whole war game
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which is rather popular right now yes so um yeah I've been writing a few of these and so I've got a few books here which
2:24
are published for iron kingdoms I've worked on then there's wrath and Glory I've also worked on Warhammer fantasy
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roleplay I've also worked on uh the old world and I've also worked on age of
2:36
Sigma so I've not worked on uh Imperial maledictum which is the other 40K RPG yes yeah so yeah that's
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kind of what I do and that's not my day jobob day job as a software engineer um
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via previously being so you have that special machine that puts you have a 35h
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hour day that the rest of us can't manage cuz I'm not sure when you're getting all of this done yeah I putting extra hours where I have a laptop stuck
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on my on my lap in front of the TV while doing watching whatever and writing
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about Space Marines or uh War Jacks and stuff I I tried to to do that yesterday
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evening whilst watching inside number nine and uh and writing uh some plans and content and failed miserably and
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ended up watching the Telly instead um so I had to turn it off and uh oh I'm
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massive I'm so massively easily distracted by by anathan I'm awful yeah
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the one great thing I I have is that when I do most of my painting I paint in my barers shop yeah and I'll have the
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Telly on and I realize that although I'm glancing down and painting my Miniatures I realize that whatever I'm watching I'm
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watching better because I can't be on my phone cuz I'm watching it on my phone so you know but um yeah so hats off to you
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because I'm just can't concentrate like the idea of watching the tand hammering
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away it's I think it helps that a lot of TV these days is being designed for double screening second screen yeah so
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um I think it's telling there there are certainly films and TV series that I will watch where it's clearly designed
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for that and then there's those that I will watch where it's not designed for that because the characters aren't
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saying exactly what they're bloody doing all the time they'll be like Oh I'm off to do this and you're like right I don't
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need to watch the screen for that they're off to do that oh oh I'm talking to you and I've said your name oh right
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that's who they're talking to whereas we've been rewatching recently Mad Men that does not happen cuz it's pre yeah
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pre that dual screening it's funny one there's no dual screening and the fact that the fact that they make television to accommodate it you go well that's
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quite clever but at the same point in time we go it's a sad world we live in that that we have to do that you know to
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a podcast or something at that point yeah you know it's it's um you know and like I say I'm terrible for it when I'm painting if I'm watching something I'll
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look up and go right they're all in the room I now know what they all sound like and now I can you know and then I go and
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then it just turns into the archers for 5 minutes as like I'm listening to a radio play and then I go all right he's now left the room and he's enter the
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room you know they're driving to here I I had a moment um the other day like
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quite often if I'm if I'm doing sort of like boring bits of editing like culling clips and bits and Bobs I might stick
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something on just to fill the void and uh some sort of uh there was a I can't
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remember I can't even remember the name of the show or any of the characters names um and this lady was a crash
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investigator um or something along those lines a plane went missing and then in the second season it's like under siege
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it was a train and um and and then it's there was I don't know some episode some plot
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point where it was like oh no we need to go and meet with this person again and I was like who is that person and I looked
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at the screen and then very luckily it turned to Black and White and showed a slow-mo sort of shot of the character
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that they give you time to go back and do oh he was that guy um I'm part of the problem it doesn't work well for anime
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though cuz I've been watching watching a lot of um I've been catching up on like the older gunam series oh yeah yeah and
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so I'm crunchy roll like some of those are not dubbed and it's Hardo
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but the plot let's just be honest like early gunam ah you know there isn't that
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much going on with the plot it's just like young person in a gunam committing
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war crimes being upset about family are dead or something else and they're being
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attacked by the bad guys yet again is pretty much it and um it shows like I
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had I've I've been watching so I've watched original the original gam okay fine it is what it is it's a thing of
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its of its time period I watched Zeta Gundam which was by comparison even
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sadder as a series oh dear as in like it was just like the main character was going through a lot of crap and then
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I've had whiplash watching double Zer which is which is a direct continuation of that one because it's all Universal
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century and it's gone from being like a really serious kind of like gunam to
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this bunch of freaking kids are so annoying done with and it's just like it
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tonally it's such a shift whereas like you know I've watched all of like Gundam Wing which you're just like Hui just
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hates his gunam and he wants it to blow up all the time is pretty much the plot of that one on blooded orphans is is
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peak gunam for me cuz it's it's it's it's actually got proper politics going on in it very so I highly recommend that
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but yeah watching old gunam is they love their sty the Japanese they love it yeah
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but you know if it was made in the UK and everybody in everybody who drove a gun down was about a 45y old male
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alcoholic yes just getting into it again go oh right then let's go if they were made
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to the quality of like Morris miners back in the day and you'd be like oh it's it's a Friday afternoon I'll just put three screws in instead of four or
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something along those lines um I feel like we've gone off Mecca anyway started so you're obviously
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involved in in so many RPGs I see you on on the Discord propping up the um other
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gaming uh Channel where did your RPG Journey begin well that happens way back
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in deepest darkest Herer as always most good stories do wonderful wonderful um so essentially it's kind of like that
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thing of like where your friend gets for Christmas waram 40,000 second edition back in like what
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94 is yeah yeah probably about that um and then off the back you get playing
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with that you don't buy your own minutes at that point then necromunda comes out and then you're hardcore into that and
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then one day my mom comes back from from Harford with a box with it which is the
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D and D Classic D and D black box with a red dragon on the front and it has like
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a little map and really crappy Miniatures in it and that's where my
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roleplay game kind of like like uh enjoyment Spawn from and then as you get into that there was um we played that to
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destruction and you drawing maps and grids and classic dungeons yeah and then
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there was Arcane magazine do you remember that yeah I remember Arcane magazine that ran for about what maybe 15 issues and suddenly the world is like
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explodes even further and you're like oh my god there are so many roleplay games out there so many other war games out
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there yeah cuz then you get exposed to things like battle Tech through that all the card games Magic the Gathering and
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so I got into that and from that then it's like it's pretty much you know downhill you're like okay Star Wars
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second edition revised by West End games brilliant roleplay game for the time and also did a lot of heavy lifting so all
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the stuff that we know from Star Wars these days and the expanded universe that was all done through the roleplay game oh fantastic that's where they I
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think that's how they even came up with the name that Twix are called Twix all those all of was done through the RPG oh
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wow and then went into the novels and then obviously Disney's done what it's done these days it's the same as well
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with I was at um Star Wars um I played Star Wars ccg yeah and they did the same
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thing as well where there was things in that way you went that wasn't a thing but then they made it a thing because
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they obviously want to keep printing cards because he print a card for everything we know and then they need to keep going so they um they started print
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other cards and then the next thing you know you see that become a main like you know snow Speeders aren't snow Speeders
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they they can speed anywhere not just snow right they the snow Speeders because they've been adapted for the cold and then it was like here you go
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here's a slightly yellowy one there's a sand speeder and it was like you know and then next thing you know you get to
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um you get to the Kenobi TV series and there's Speeders and they're not in the
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snow it's just you know they just become a general vehicle and I think they the some of these things help out a little
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bit it's a good example of how I think in the industry and like gaming and I mean we're in that age of trans media
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where like oh it's got a game and a film and a yeah blah blah blah um yeah
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roleplay games I guess for a company it's a it's a it's a fairly inexpensive
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way to further develop the IP and filling some gaps because it allows you to start answering questions I mean this
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obviously happened with Warhammer fantasy roleplay in its first edition you Davis and and the team haven't
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answer a lot of questions about the pantheon of the Gods who are they and and and all of that and same with age
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Sigma soulbound uh I I didn't work on the core book for that but again they're like answering questions like where are
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the Farms we haven't seen that yet in Asia where are the bloody Farms where
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where do they get water from what are they what what are the trade rots how do they live their lives what is the
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regular what is regular Joe's life in the magical post-apocalyptic setting of
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age of sigar because that's what it basically is yeah yeah so roleplay games are really are really good for that and
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you know when you get to write for a roleplay game you do get to start answering those questions and you you
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have to ask a de you you develop your line Dev you ask how does this work and
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then we don't know make it up like figure it out and then you're like it gets a bit more tricky depending upon who you're working with so if it's a
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Games Workshop product obviously it's going to go back up the line
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with kdom my has been we've done a lot of cting because you know we're now
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years into Iron King you over 20 years into iron Kingdom so there's a lot of stuff from first edition that that our line Dev said nah that's sexist crap
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we're getting rid of that in the game we're going to rewrite that and and so forth so it's Al it's very interesting
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working on licensed products and the same with like vampire the Masquerade that's got to yeah that's been going since 1990s I want to say 96 that first
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first edition came out so again that's gone through various iterations and you've got approval to be done and
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obviously that gets even tighter when they're trying to make TV series based on it or they've got video game coming
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out but ultimately RPGs are quite a yeah
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let's admit they're a cheap way for companies to develop ID and it was a friend of mine going right back when
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they brought out the when they brought out Inquisitor yeah yeah amazing and a friend of M bought that and I said oh
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are you going to play the game you no absolutely no interest in playing the game but I know RPG is a good place to find out more that we don't know
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especially because obviously before Inquisitor and I I think I'm right when I say this before Inquisitor there was
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no Death Watch Marines they started there they yeah they miniature yeah they
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suddenly became a thing when they went what's his name brother emus I think yeah yeah and they just went Bang there
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you go that is also a special for assassins didn't exist I don't think
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existed before them so loads of things that just you know and and my friend said I'm just buying the book because he
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says I know it will fill in the gaps I have no interest in playing the game and the DNA of Inquisitor is important because all of the all of those um
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inquisitorial factions we're not talking about the ordos we're talking about all the [ __ ] in there you know the
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parisians the I can't remember all the names there so many of them but they've all got different philosophies on how
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the Imperium should operate or the very nature of the god emperor of mankind that's all now in Imperial maledictum
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and there's even more of these factions in there you're like oh wow you're just they all just want to screw around in
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different ways and you can play those so Imperial maled was a really great game for really getting into the nuts and
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bolts of how the Imperium operates yeah yeah so and and of course not being at
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the front lines all the time and that's why it's a very different game to this one yes yeah yeah I can imagine yeah
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absolutely like I my int ruction to sort of tabletop gaming was was through role
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play like DND D um so wrath and Glory really really interests me because
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I I I think like I really really want to do it I was like or if I want to do it I'll probably have to sort of like DM a
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game I'm going to listen to some black Library novels and then now I think on like you know 20th novel or something
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like that that just started down a rabbit hole um yeah it it really really
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interested me because I think my sort of favorite thing I want to know more about is is like life in the
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Imperium that's I think that's what yeah interests me the most because the war games really give a very limited view of
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these words you're right at the very edges of the of the G of of the societies that where societies are
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butting up against each other and so a lot of the things that you consider the
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norm of Warhammer 4000 the average Imperial citizen has never seen or or heard of a necron yeah
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yeah elariia maybe this rumored untrustworthy
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brace out there Orcs more than likely are accepted as being out and about but
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again most people don't come into contact with yeah which means those
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threats which kind of you go well if you know these threats are there that kind of reinforces the faith of why you should adhere to the Imperial Creed and
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the emperor and so forth but when you're not exposed those or you don't even care Space Marines like you you've read Eisen
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horn yeah they see in the first book they see one k space Marine they sh themselves yes yes that one it's that
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one guy and and that I I love that scene because big fan of that they just see
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the one yeah and looking at it makes them all feel sick all the symbols they're just like and and that really
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for me changed the way I thought about you realize chaos is just like it just
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8es in and it's like he in um whichever one it might be the guns of
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tan when they um they're trying to take this world that is full of like refineries and they they're sneaking
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amongst the the workforce the workforce they sneaking amongst the tan are sne
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sneaking through them but they're constantly just being battered with chaotic um stuff coming through over a
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megaphone and they yeah and it's like whenever they had corn beans set it's
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R you I think I think well I think the problem being as well as when you look
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at 40K through 40K is that planets are about that big aren't they they don't
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really discuss the idea of countries and things which is again I always think is the problem with Star Wars in in Star
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Wars they talk about planets but they are the planets are almost basically just cities aren't they they don't they don't talk about what's on the other
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side of there or you know and it's like and and 40K is very very and I
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understand that you can't play a game of 40K and you know you have to put in rules for Blum whether a Motorway was
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busy I get it but you know what I mean you know I I understand it but you do
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sometimes come away a bit wanting don't go and I don't feel like those Road works on on the space would that be
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hilarious if the land Raider was going somewhere and then found out that they was a massive big oh single Lane oh 5:00
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what was I thinking that's why nec's really good war game it represents such a a narrow slice of the 40K universe and
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it gives you a sense that you what the regul imperial system is up against yeah
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and how even chaos can't be it can't be so overt
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because the moment you see it everyone's going to try and eliminate it so it has to be very you know under the radar it
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might be spoken about as like if you'll say on a different world I think actually it happens in one of the is it
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in the magos Omnibus for for horn there's a chaos cult that is a it's a
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chaos cult but on the outside it looks like it's a hunting lodge or I think it's maybe a uh venerating like pigs
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like a pig God oh you've got these Backwater religions that actually are fronts for which chaos
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is able to work through yeah I sometimes think these are in back you get the impression sometimes in the Backwater religions they don't even know they're
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in a chaotic religion they just go you know whereas some of them are Backwater and actually are venerating the emperor
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in their own weird we way because they've been cut off for maybe a good 100 200 300 years so those
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little things are really interesting because even even the idea that an imperial you know an
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imperial a religion a local religion has has gone off on a tangent even that is
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open to going I think your Heretics like no they're actually most probably more
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more more faithful than you are anymore because because again we sometimes you get tangents where you're still within
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the society and it evolves whereas they're kind of like this little pocket version that doesn't progress anymore because it's been kept localized I think
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I do think um the the idea of being able to look into the backgrounds of these
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things and push how they go you know and it's and like I said they saying about necrons and things like that the average citizen doesn't know about it I get the
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impression with a lot of these planets like that by the time the average citizen becomes aware of tyranids or
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necrons or dark elar it's too late oh yeah by the time you know about what they are your head's on a spike isn't it
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you know and then if you do survive it the Inquisition will come along and kill you anyway prob yeah because you don't
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see much absolutely right you a PE behind the but you know and I think I think um I think being able to expand it
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but also um not throw too much at it I think
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is is a real difficult balance cuz I was thinking about this um Dan abnes 16 GA ghost novels I think there
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is my God and I'm I'm on about number eight at the moment I think I might be on uh I'm on traiter General and I think
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I've only heard about the you've seen one dark
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Elder who's teed up as a group of Assassins one Dark Eldar and then gaun
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mentions well recollects to haven't come into contact with them before and that's
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it yeah and there's no no one's talking about necrons or Orcs or anything else and you know there is that short story
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in in the eisenh horn where an orc accidentally comes through a portal and it's just they don't describe him as an
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Orc they just describe it as this enormous things are just mashing humans to be green that's it yeah they don't
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really talk about it being an orc and I think you know and I think that's brilliant that they keep it quite vague yeah but but you think you know to be
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able to write that much and go it's the same with it's actually also the same with uh writing for uh Warhammer fantasy
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again because we again we get cuz the war game was like oh all these Mass battles going on all the time actually
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most of the time it's quite peaceful in the Empire and the old world it you you're looking at these flash points
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when stuff goes down M and and having
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written for for the oldwood RPG as well um Again part of that setting is that
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it's between it's before the great invasion of chaos which is what's his name something cavar so I can't remember
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what the name the guy is but he's the one that comes along screws up Prague uh
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invades and Magnus of the P has to defeat but in you're in this lull point
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where the vampire Wars have all been been and been and gone so vampires are not everywhere trying to take over the
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Empire scaven are pretty much it's been a while since the scaven wars so scaven are pretty much a myth again yeah and
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you're in a setting which doesn't have good technology all of that all those books
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all that knowledge disappears and if you do know that knowledge you're mostly going to be killed by someone for being a heretic so and even in that setting
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it's quite interesting because Sigmar is not even the isn't the the main faith of
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the Empire yet it's still um what's his name can't remember what's the other
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Pantheon in uh the wolf God in Warhammer fantasy oh you you I was going to say
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you're asking the wrong man there so that's why writing for the old one was been really interesting cuz you're it's
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so different it's you good 200 years in the past yeah it's so different to Warhammer fantasy like you don't have
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the schools of magic all the things you accept about Warhammer fantasy are just not established yet because of the
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timeline and does that make it does that does that give you Freedom or does it become more difficult because you
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haven't got something that you can refer back to there's a degree of freedom because uh in a recent interview uh Dom
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who owns cubicle 7 and Podrick who's the line developer for old world and Main
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developer for all the Warhammer games um they said like there's a freedom because though we're using um a a specific town
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or Township called [ __ ] which is in talheim or tal land yeah that's one the
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these places get burnt down so often through history so you go well there's that shop down the road there it's like
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no wrong time mate wrong time it's been burnt five times it's not there so
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that's where you've got some narrative freedom to engage with that um and again
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like there's always the thing of like you can you can make the game your own because there's so many unreliable narrators in these settings yeah it's
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built in that there that not there there's the cannon to the settings and
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then there's Cannon to the settings there isn't it's like 40K what's Canon well depends if you ask on which day
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yeah and the problem you got with 40K is the fact you go what's Canon what isn't you go well let's for first to
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established what time what time of the day is it and what year is it cuz no one can make their mind up with that so you
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know what I mean so it's going you know you can take a lot of it with you know and and with age of Sigma you get um
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again there's there's a lot of scope with that because again gamees orop is really only in in in exploring that
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setting and it's purposely designed for that they've only looked at like a few place this this subsection of the ramif
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fire yeah a little bit of the realm of death like Oran KH and and so forth then
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maybe bit of the r with beasts and so forth so you can look at these large
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planes going actually we're going to set the game there which which is which is good because I think sometimes if you
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take 40K as its main in its tabletop variant um they do play it safe a lot of
25:45
the time are we going back we're going back to Armageddon again you know and you're going you know for somewhere
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that's explains the fact there's human beings over thousands upon thousands of planets they seem to keep getting upset
25:57
about these particular Planet K K's gone know and I was really impressed when
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they did when they got rid of K because I thought that you know for for for a um
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for a a game that keeps liking going back to these established places to actually go no we're getting rid of
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there especially when we're going no we're getting rid of there and they are the main they are really the main
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plastic for playing Imperial guards to then go gone I think it's quite I
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thought that was quite brave for them and then with like iron kingdoms is a different one because we get to with the RPGs they're set in the time periods
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between the war game editions so those are those are meant to be the periods of Peace
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time so we get a lot of scope to explore the cities the the the world there so
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like for nightmare Empire along with designing character types for it um I
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basically wrote a whole section on like what is it like to live as these people that live on The Shard so it's very much
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like kind of Whalers fishermen like in the in the fs and explore what their
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society is like and build that out so and and that's maybe because between the
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two between the settings ining is maybe not as developed but it is still rather
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fleshed out and we do get to play with some of the characters in that and uh
27:18
iron kingdoms is an interesting war game setting or War Machine in general because characters die in this game
27:25
setting like there are many of the characters we know from first second and third edition are dead as a doornail
27:32
they are gone like yeah you can still get the Miniatures for well there are Miniatures for them if you play the previous Edition you can play Legacy
27:38
armies but no they are they are dead in the cannon just gone like uh what's his name uh Striker was the original
27:45
warcaster for sigar in the first edition right he's dead dead dead cuz there was like this huge infernal Invasion no it
27:53
was a nice way of just like cleaning house and just being like right okay let's reestablish what's going on by
27:58
doing a massive kind of apocalyptic event which contrasts quite differently to the GW way of doing like storm of
28:06
chaos or the equivalent where it's like oh it's happened but it's like well really Chang more of a yeah more of a
28:13
whimper than a band I was going to ask with um CU for my for my sins I I feel
28:18
like uh you know I'm I'm still in my sort of like introductory did a little bit of DnD d uh got into Warhammer and
28:26
then now I'm at the precipice of like what is war machine um yeah going out
28:31
and and looking at going oh yeah other plastic Miniatures and resin Miniatures exist these look fun um how how was that
28:39
received by the community in comparison to say like blowing up the Old World
28:44
um I think in the RPG and the game I think it's again it's a mixed bag I
28:49
think people are getting the the game the core game of war machine like so this is the first edition rule book from
28:55
like 2003 yeah and if if you compare like how the stats look and how they're
29:01
presented compared to like what is in the app now it's pretty much one for one
29:06
they've shaved off all the kind of niggles that were in that game where you were like oh you had to give orders to
29:12
the units to charge you had to give there were psychology and fear and all that stuff that's all they've trimmed
29:18
the game down to its core thing so it's more fun to play cuz you know when half your army
29:23
legs yeah and we've seen that with old world as a war game yeah yeah absolutely theyve aled how fleeing from combats
29:29
changed so war machine at heart is has remained the same that's why I find coming back to it again for a fourth
29:37
time uh with this Edition it's been really fun to get reacquainted with it
29:42
and see how fast it plays as for how the community it's the same with anything like I know it's
29:48
there's complexities with businesses of why you changed their their Miniatures ranges but you know if you're going to
29:54
sell to people you need to sell something right and if they've already got all the miniatures and a welldeveloped secondhand Market because
30:00
of what tournament Players are like you're going to have to like go well we're going to make new Miniatures and you can't support all the old Miniatures
30:06
to make the game balanced something's going to have to give yeah yeah um I and
30:12
I think people are getting happier with it now that there are more things coming out um the Legacy armies are still
30:19
supported in the app more or less some things aren't in there and you got characters returning like Magnus who has
30:26
uh been in since first Edition this big guy here that's is Invictus warjack oh God I mean how much did I can't remember
30:33
how much you chatted to Matt about uh what the war machine sets like we
30:38
horrendous am we talk we talked about war machine as a whole un less about the the individual elements of it yeah so my
30:46
way of describing war machine is it's a kind of like post Napoleonic era so
30:52
you've still got trench warfare going on you've still got like uh bolt action rifles developed and and so forth for
30:58
muskets yeah um but you've also got some fancy elements that we think of like
31:04
kind of a bit tlen esque like elves and and goblins with a Twist obviously uh
31:10
and then the main thing is these War Machine these War Jacks which are a
31:17
magically a fusion of magic with steam power or in the case of sign now they're going galvanic so they're going with El
31:24
electricity oh the cities are getting electri getting lights electric lights as well so it's kind of got that jwes
31:30
ver element to it of how Paris developed uh and then into that you've
31:36
got the Warfare between these kingdoms you know the kador are very kind of like Slavic uh styled sigar is our kind of
31:44
maybe a bit North American like pre- Civil War kind of element to it plus
31:49
with you you got gun Mages they they feel very um 18th century yeah 1800s
31:56
yeah kind of feel to it um um and again electrification so their warjacks
32:03
feeling more and more uh high tech compared to other factions ccs are a
32:11
Undead faction which fuse um war machine technology you warjack technology with
32:18
uh necromancy to create necrot um they use a wonderful fuel that's not coal
32:23
it's called Mass graves are so it's it's this death
32:30
energy is coalesced into a form of coal it's very polluting when you burn it it burns hotter faster but it's very
32:36
polluting um and there's a whole like timeline of things there's about there's a good if you go into the books there's
32:42
like a good like 10,000 years of history of where the gods are what they've done where magic came from the fact that the
32:48
Elven gods are dead cuz they got sold off to the uh de to the infernals to give humans the gift of magic that's why
32:55
you have warcasters so warcasters are are a magic users but
33:01
they can bind themselves to the war Jacks and so they they extension of their will oh right they see through
33:07
their eyes and make them do stuff and then they they can instill more magical energy into them to get them to do more
33:12
stuff whereas the flip side is so the this um scorn set is from the third
33:18
edition starter and Scorn are kind of they're a bit dark Elfie in that way a
33:24
bit vampiric in their magic um but you get blocks and War beasts so they're kind of like the the the the other the
33:32
the the Wilderness reflection of War Jacks and so they control they put their
33:37
minds into war beasts they slave them or control them and from that they also unlock the innate magic within the the
33:44
war Beast and the game revolves around that so you know the the core of your
33:49
game is about picking your warcaster or your warlock picking the war Jacks that
33:54
they're going to synergize well with yeah and then picking the unit and solos
34:00
and it means you can have a range of Miniatures like I've got I've got two whole AR no three whole Army sorry more
34:07
if I finally get around to stripping and repainting all my scorn um and depending
34:12
upon what warcast or warlock use it totally changes the tactics so say for example Kane here is a um very shooty
34:21
kind of very fast moving teleportation a bit of an assassin essentially yeah and
34:26
so the gameplay for him is to take out the enemy warlock or warcaster cuz then it shuts the game is basically over at
34:33
that point when you kill the opponent's leader yeah but if you change that out for one of the other warcasters in this
34:39
in the uh game he he wants to use all his all his magical resource the re the tokens that
34:45
he used in the game to power his spells a different warcast might be go I'm going to put it on these warjacks to get
34:50
them to do stuff or another one might go I'm actually quite good with units of troops like people and giving them
34:56
orders and empowering them so you can have the same you've got your same collection pick a different warcast your
35:02
gameplay tactics totally different and that I think makes the
35:07
game still Stand Out compared to yeah other stuff on the market so I now
35:13
described it and people who might not be something they haven't cast an eye over before going what's the average sort of
35:19
model count for right for for an army so the starter set there I think Matt
35:25
brought in some painted Miniatures and that's now that's my second copy that I'm going to do paint up in a in a fast
35:31
in a for a painting guide at some point um that has two factions in there which
35:38
call starter CAD Rays command CAD Rays so that's a each one is like 30 points
35:44
and a game of war machine can be anywhere between 30 points or we can play 50 points you can play 75 or you
35:50
can play 100 so that's within the app you can pick these Point values and you build your army to that and the game
35:57
doesn't actually change in how it operates as you scale up you've just got more maybe more war Jacks maybe more
36:04
units that was yeah going to be my next question cuz I know um 40K is balanced
36:10
at like 2,000 points yeah and you can play less but doesn't no if if you play
36:15
if you play with what's in there and you play a bigger game the only difference is you've just got more more units to move the actual you know how I said like
36:22
your walk has to have this resource to to these these Focus points you get maybe six onk and maybe another one
36:29
might be seven you have to distribute those to power up your War Jacks at the start of a turn so when you play in a bigger game
36:36
you're generally not going to have too many more war Jacks you're just going to have more units your units aren't
36:42
increasing your resource allocation game so that core element of how the game operates is the same no matter what
36:48
scale of game you're playing yeah unless say you play a really big game you go we're going to have two War casters
36:53
aside just so you can have more war Jacks and War beasts because who does doesn't want to have Bly Bly things
37:00
fighting and then on top of that the way like so I've written for my on my own personal blog like how the game
37:07
mechanics kind of a quick overview of the game mechanics the only difference between
37:12
Kane and say one of the black 13th is that he has Focus manipulation to
37:18
control warjacks otherwise the rule systems for him are the same yeah they're the same for the warjacks as
37:25
well the only difference for them is like a war forecaster they can spend Focus points to boost their attacks to
37:31
get an extra die on attack roll get an extra die on a damage roll or to buy more attacks or do some special thing so
37:39
the game is quite homogeneous in in how the Mechanics Work and there there's the few little nuances that just point out
37:46
that's how a war cast works that's how a war Beast Works Etc um and I find it
37:53
quite accessible because it's a dice pool system it's 2d6 you're not wrong buckets of dice you just roll td6 you
37:58
might go that that that shot with my wara I need it to hit I'll spend a focus
38:04
point and get an extra die so you're shifting bell curves and bell curves are nice if you if you like maths you like
38:11
bell curves bell curves are great and if you know anything about me why I like you why do I like wrath and Glory it's a
38:17
dice ball system bell curves why do I like the new old world old world system which you know having written for that
38:24
because as was announced elsewhere it's a B system it's rolling buckets of d10
38:29
for your character and for me personally and you know my my part my wife you know
38:38
happily plays RPGs she likes vampire the masade why you tell her oh it's one it's
38:44
it's a bit more difficult remove a DI she's like it's it's obvious whereas I think sometimes with d and d and some other things it can get a bit more like
38:51
what's the difference between rolling 2d6 versus a d 2D 4 or three yeah you
38:56
need to know it more I think dice PS are really easy to eyeball so yeah that's a very brief view
39:04
of what war machines mechanics are like but why I've coming back to it feels like a very nice little blanket
39:12
of it hasn't really changed since the first edition which is which is crazy but where when you compare how much like
39:18
40K changed recently vastly different it's a it changes a very very touchy
39:24
thing isn't it I think within within wargaming and and role playing games cuz I I you know and I think it's um and I'm
39:31
as guilty of it as anybody else we want thing we want new things that are cool and exciting but we don't want anything
39:36
to change and it's you know it's a real it's a real terrible balance in act isn't it you know and and changes
39:43
because people I've seen this in RPGs where like like with vampire the Masquerade there's there's a whole oh
39:50
there's such a timeline of changes like you had vampire the Mas grade they killed off that world and then created
39:55
Chronicles of darkness which had vampire the requim same flavors different remix
40:01
new world people hated that because suddenly all that that built-in I know
40:06
vampire the master so well and now I don't have that be able to Lord it over that I know the setting Inside Out is
40:12
gone and you get that with war games because that that you felt like you've put in all that work to know it inside out and now you've been told nah means
40:19
nothing mate you're going to have to relearn it yeah but that some people do that and they hate it other people like
40:25
me like oh I got something need to learn the challenge of it yeah yeah yeah it's a funny one I think when when you you
40:31
look at it is that we we do well we sometimes you only have to change the
40:37
slightest thing in everyone's up in arms and and then you know i' got be up in arms about different versions of Warhammer like the announcement of Old
40:42
World means people go oh is that replacing Warhammer fantasy roleplay you're like no but it's a different system because people people do find
40:49
different systems easier to learn and it's also the same like 40K you know this is a I say D6 diol system but
40:55
you've got Imperial maledictum which is is percentile like Warhammer fancy but they serve different purposes because
41:01
again I'm kind of a system matters type of person so am I going to play 40K with
41:08
the D and Rule set no because D and D rule set is designed for a particular type of experience I feel whereas this
41:15
is like do you want to play action horror RPG where you can play a space
41:21
ring with a really hardass Imperial Guardsman and a sister of battle and someone or do you want to play Imperial
41:26
maled you're like you're all members of uh inquisitional card R are you going to
41:32
survive well maybe not because you're disposable and its rather call of cthulu like and you know The Madness of chaos
41:38
is going to cause your brain to leak out um love that so yeah very much system
41:44
matters and like iron kingdoms is a D and D system but that's because it started off as a D20 RPG so that was
41:51
like that would be Third Edition D and D essentially and then it went through a
41:56
fourth Edition which used the same system as the war game and now it's back to being a d andd system because it's
42:02
kind of back to its roots but also everyone under the N has the D and D rule set somewhere I've got to be honest
42:08
when you say D20 and I'm I'm a guy who very very much doesn't sit there and go
42:14
oh do you know 40K would be better if they tweaked I have like two or three things where I go wish they do this with
42:19
40K um and generally whenever I say to people going you just want to make the game more complicated and I go yeah
42:26
which is quite funny for somebody who barely clings on to rules at the best of time but I've got to be honest I would
42:32
D20 get I would d a D20 40K really because I just don't think there is
42:37
enough variant in numbers between skills and so on yeah it's it's an interesting
42:44
thing because I mean there's discussions like when you're rolling buckets at d6s it kind of gives you that you look at it and go well I know about on average yeah
42:51
four or hit and then I've got a roll to wound maybe two or wound that's how you make your decisions whereas I feel like
42:57
by comparison with iron kingdoms you kind every every Ro is a 2d6 ro adal minus plus two minus two Bas a stat line
43:05
or a buff a spell in play and then you go do I spend this Focus point on my War
43:11
cast and make that shot hit and then you're like going with like Kane's got an ability where you go and if it hits
43:16
with this shot type my next spell hits automatically and so you're chaining these things up
43:23
and that's why I don't know how much you know about the S the turn sequences of this you know how everything's like generally 40K move everything shoot
43:30
everything yeah combat everything yeah this is where you activate unit you go it moves it does all its combat actions
43:37
move on to the next thing it moves does all so you you also have kind of a even
43:42
though your opponent is waiting you for you to finish your turn you've got to you've got to reassess when something
43:48
messes up or or something may go you might be go like I did not expect me to blow apart that warjack in one go but I
43:54
have and it's now giving me this whole [Music] um and there are abilities in the game
44:02
which allow your opponent to respond so like they might be like oh if your opponent misses shooting you you get to actually have a shot back at them or you
44:08
might be able to you get hit like Kane's got something where he gets hit and you can move him into cover so he gets a
44:13
move three Ines so so you've got some responsive actions where you can go like I'll take a risk I'll leave Kane out in
44:19
the middle there because he's bloody hard to hit anyway cuz he's basically
44:24
Neo let's be honest he's Neo but if you do hit he's going to pop back into cover so you're kind of hedging your bets a
44:30
bit more which you got to be honest is one of the um is one of the mechanics that I really enjoy about kill team I'm
44:36
start to get into join getting into kill team a lot more and I really enjoy the idea the fact that obviously what goes
44:41
on from the the your opponent's one guy has a bearing on what you then get to do
44:47
with when it comes back to you it's not it's not like a pre-ordained well I have to do this you can yeah you know and
44:53
then because you're playing with such a small number of Miniatures it allows for qu as well like you know for example the
44:59
rattlings being able to move move and you know move shoot and then immediately
45:04
do a little Dash back into cover because they're extraordinarily fleshy I've not played the new I've I've played Kil team
45:10
before they got rid of shapes and quite enjoyed it because the Adept side bites were really fun um what I was going to
45:16
say about so so obviously they've got the plastic set they've just opened mind I don't think you got to see these
45:23
when they were out and they've just announced the new St set which has got warlocks and War be so it's got the
45:28
trolin southern creel and Chimera Shadow
45:34
flame something was this the um was this the one that went up on pre-order recently went up on pre-order Friday was
45:40
it the uh the guys like the pirate Red Coats yeah troling are really hilarious
45:47
um and then uh so you know you've got various flavors of them like you've had
45:52
some in the past which are like being fire breathing they would just drink alcohol and breathe fire or be on like they'd be on like giant bison and just
45:59
charge people down which is a fun character type that I had to write for I Kingdom's RPG was like how do I get this
46:05
miniature into the roleplay game and make it feel fun and that is I mean
46:10
that's that's a whole conversation in itself like was it um when Space spr 2
46:16
came out I think like we'd said like all the bolters feel very similar yeah and
46:22
then there's little nuances and then um you'd said oh like imagine what it was like writing for the the Wrath and Glory
46:30
book yeah that is it's a it's a challenge and sometimes that's where you but up against the inherent limitations
46:36
with a system where you're like well we could add an extra D6 to it but it's like oh that kind of makes it like that
46:42
gun it's like it's it's a it's It's Tricky and sometimes you just kind of
46:47
have to accept that you hit the edge of where you can explore a system and it might just have to be a bit of flavor
46:53
text that goes with it cuz ultimately a shotgun is a shotgun maybe when when it comes to Space Marines with wrath and
46:59
Glory I'm I find the idea quite interesting that you have they are
47:04
probably the most written about piece of 40K history law and history is is Space
47:11
Marines and so they are very in a lot of areas you're very boxed in how much
47:17
leeway does using a new a new or well like say new but a chapter that isn't
47:24
really so with the absolvers um I think we had some scope to try and
47:30
like to try and make them different like we didn't want them to be just a codex chapter in some respects they do follow
47:36
the Codex of startis but they're actually blood angels yeah um we also do I think in the book we do say well if
47:42
you want you can have them as a different origin cuz you know they're a whichever founding chapter um but we did
47:50
get some leeway cuz obviously with with wrath and Glory we've got kind of like a little sandbox of the Galaxy
47:57
the Gilead system so the Gilead system is literally stuck in the Great Rift
48:04
it's this bit of normal space that there was a corridor through uh the vonius Rogue Trader fleet was like oh we can
48:10
get through now a bloody stuck and because everyone's stuck there
48:16
all these different groups are stuck together it's just and it's a bit of real space in that Madness people just
48:21
go oh we just come out oh we're stuck here we can't actually get out so you've got a group of there's some space runs
48:27
are clearly in the asteroid belt and with the Pirates do their own thing
48:32
there are the local Corsair who are there cuz there's a again there's a webway gate nearby they're having some
48:39
fun there's a planet which The olari Craft World crashed into due to the
48:45
Great Rift so there's also Craftwood Elder that are kind of like going damn our homes destroyed on an ice World
48:53
we're going to have to make some friends who's nearby oh there's this Fleet of Road Traders will we make some friends
48:58
with them because otherwise we are screwed so it's one of those things I think you get sometimes in 40K novels
49:04
where you get these weird alliances of convenience and that's why when this
49:09
came out people like oh isn't it just playing 40K Super Friends it's like you do realize that in the 40K novel space
49:15
Rings team up with some of the weirdest people at times yeah and like is's just like yeah okay I'm going to team up with
49:21
I'll make friends with those ravenor is quite happy to yeah run around with some craft world Elder every so often so
49:28
those things happen and you can orchestrate it and I do joke that in writing the stuff for the alari um
49:37
players book so you can play Corsair you can play dra you can play trari which is a whole experience like do you want to play a
49:44
vampire game in space where everyone's just like yes please flame me if you play have you played the road Trader
49:49
computer game no oh play that you get a real takari experience I've heard very
49:55
good things about no do I say that you can robot that person you can and it's
50:01
interesting um but I do I did jokeer like I do kind of
50:07
I think got think got cut but I do still suggest like in the okari scenar the shs ofari scenario that's coming out that I
50:13
wrote which is basically you play a full team of elari for um going to their crashed
50:21
craft world I do put in there like oh you don't have to all be all all Elder you could have a human with you because
50:27
you might be their their pet yeah he's quite useful in certain situations where're like right we're going to this
50:33
pirate asteroid base uh he's going to talk to the to the to the people the
50:38
locals there send the human we can't deal with this stuff and we hate the smell cuz you have to think eldari sense
50:45
is so heightened they just like we not going there why it stinks stinks so I do J you could have
50:52
also like a an orc freeb boter Trucking around with some corset oh amazing wearing a big fluffy you know big hat
51:00
got some trinkets just wielding a there's no reason orc wouldn't go like I really like this uh shuriken catapult
51:07
why not yeah so that you can get 40K is not serious business all the time no it
51:13
really is not I I know like from reading the the Kane novels like they are sort
51:19
of introduced with the tow quite a lot and sometimes they're fighting them sometimes they have alliances and it's all just it is of convenience
51:27
in one of the books as well you can play I haven't introduced to yet um what's
51:33
and like Imperial malediction is quite fun so when I've run uh we ran a one shot for the podcast for dark days radio
51:38
to show how the game operates rather than just doing a an act doing a doing
51:44
the kind of like the critical R starle play we actually play but also go point out that rule why that enhances the
51:50
gameplay experience one of the things I did was like the party lands the first I had was like right you got all this
51:57
paperwork designed before you can get past the Imperial officials I'm giving you full-blown red tape horror because
52:03
that is part of p is that Brazil type feel and one of the players Mike uh
52:09
who's been my long-term co-host for dark day is like actually cuz he's playing like a the cardr like scribe he's got an
52:16
auto Quil and goes this is my battle just like start signing quadruple
52:24
form so you can get into that kind of Madness is um and again it's like and it
52:30
represents the difference between the 2 40K RPGs like Imperial maledictum allows you to get into that the imperial
52:35
bureaucracy and how that's its own Horror Story of of stuff and maybe like the auto is it auto Chronos is it I
52:43
think it is something like that so there's a whole AO that deals with the fact there's time discrepancies between things yes because you imagine if you
52:49
got time discrepancies in reports you can hide things really well so yeah 40p is is is really fun for
52:57
that and like I said the two things um like another thing so valve Absolution I said is the is basically kind of like a
53:04
codex for the the absolvers they don't have they do some things that means
53:10
they're not quite blood angels so that's why they team up with humans it's the way of like conditioning themselves
53:16
early on so they don't go full red thirst which I think is really kind of cool so they're kind of a bit like do
53:22
black Templars do kind of like a vows and yeah they are vow it's kind of a bit
53:27
like that but with a blood Angel's flavor so you don't just slake your thirst on everyone around you um and so
53:34
there's also going to be a scenario out for that where you play full kill team of of uh of
53:40
absolvers and absolutely Sensational I'd love to see up I'd love to be able to I'd love there to be an indepth 40K you
53:49
know for people who really love punishing themselves but you know like so 40K but then you know like like you
53:54
know imagine like um cuz we cuz obviously it's you Marines don't carry
54:01
vast amounts of ammunition and they rely on servitors and imagine like having a saor or um a saor role that was as
54:09
you're about to you know you make your shots your seror has been nailed on the way back to the front line with more
54:16
ammunition you Haven got you haven't got you see end up with resource issues of like in was it in the third Matrix where
54:24
they're having the the mech fight against all the and then the guys with wheelbarrows with the ammunition like
54:29
nope it got stuck you're dead that's quite funny you say that cuz like um there's a series of scenarios for wrath
54:35
and Glory where you play through the same you basically it all takes place at the same event that's going on this
54:40
invasion of a hive but each scenario you play with a different group of characters at a different power level so the one you just play You're Just
54:47
Imperial Guardsman yes there's another where you're playing like uh Tempest Sil
54:52
so you're doing a full like aerial assault to get in there and then the next one is like you're playing there's one where you're actually playing alari
54:57
who's snuck in so they've got their own mission they're utilizing the chaos of the ensuing battle to do their mission
55:04
and then there's another where you're playing you're playing top tier Space Marines and so that's why the game's got
55:09
built in different tiers cuz I from my my limited reading of it and sort of um
55:15
oh my camera's died never mind um there might be just some cut to blacks of me because that's over he it um I'll just
55:21
be a voice from now on um is yeah it talks about your power levels
55:26
um can you can you mix it up and have some Space Marines with some humans yes so the game supports that if you're
55:32
going to play a space Mar which is generally let's say tactical space Mar is going to be like tier three character so if you play Like An Imperial
55:38
Guardsman that's generally going to start off is a tier what we call a tier one character you will get a whole
55:44
bucket load of XP to bring them up to that tier to make it fairish yeah I mean
55:50
fair is fair is always a difficult thing because like Space Marines in this are not going to die as easy is a space r is
55:57
going to die in the game of 40K because you got to make the game fun and if you
56:02
and so it's that whole thing like back in like I guess it would be about 2004 whitewolf had cinematic Space Marines
56:08
where your army was literally just like five Marines yeah you can play that so that's kind of like the feel of it and
56:15
then related to the tier system is that if you're tier one or boy is a threat
56:22
yes like you're going to Brick yourself you're going to fire a little flashlight and Hope you kill him yeah yeah tier
56:28
three as a Space Marine you re the the system then is more like that used to
56:34
have multiple wounds now you just count as having one wound because your Marine is just going to go like full auto and take out 10 walks so the game is the
56:41
game builds in the idea that depending on the what you're playing you're going to adjust it to get the right cinematic
56:47
experience of the action they should and threat they should be up against yeah cuz come on do you really want to roll
56:53
and go through every single wound on those or boys no no Marines in the novels blow people apart happily well
57:00
there there's talk in certain novels in I think it's is it in um Spears the
57:06
emperor where they talk about the have like a the the Imperial Guard talk about
57:11
when they're discussing tactics with these Space Marines they're talking about how long it's going to take to regain a city yeah and it's months and
57:18
months and months and they go if we send like a company of Marines down which is about hundred we think we can probably
57:24
get that down to about a month or a oh no down to a few days you know and you think but 40K doesn't represent guys who
57:32
can shave months off a war of absolution we introduced tier
57:37
five which is where you can start Play Marines and like Terminator armor and really high powerered primaris which is
57:43
just like mad so the stuff I wrote for that was like what is that going to be like that play experience because
57:49
there's the whole thing of like we you they have to interact if you're that if you're that important a marine you're going to interact with very important
57:56
humans cuz you're a transhuman humans so you've got that fisher out water element where you're like at some ball some
58:04
dinner and you're just a marine there like you're watching humans engaging in the most Petty squabbles going you've
58:09
got that to deal with I I I do absolutely love the the sort of Marines
58:15
are just like what on Earth are these humans doing and then the humans are like what on Earth are these marines doing like they I they are almost like
58:21
different completely different going to have you can also then play a more uh troop play experience so where you have
58:27
an Entourage of lower level characters who are who are humans and and Tech priest that serve the Marines so you can
58:34
play your games going like first we're going to do that with those ones and maybe a scout and then you go right then
58:39
we'll see what happens with this kill team who will work for these High powerered characters and then you go to the High powerered characters that you
58:46
that you will play as and you might be dealing with both the repercussions of that the fact that you've been called to
58:52
go take out some I know blood thirst maybe you're the type of characters that could do that and also the internal Petty squabbles
58:59
that occur within an imperial chapter because there will be secrets and there are secrets that have to be dealt with
59:05
and some people have not been indoctrinated to them and have aspirations for you know commanding the
59:10
chapter and may also have want to do that cuz they have Vengeance on their
59:15
mind you know and they want to take a company off to obliterate some chaos Marine somewhere it's what I like it's
59:21
one of the things I like that H abet very much deals with it when it I not
59:27
just within within um Eisen Hol but within as I'm currently reading within Tracy General as well is I like the
59:33
whole thing with regards to chaos marines that they get sent off on things on their own yeah and they go there and
59:41
get all them culs together and get them to go and do this so go over there and just control that sector for a while and
59:48
just send a single chaos Marine off to do that I think it's great you know and I know there is a little reflection of
59:54
that because the the the main character to go back to the book again but SP the emperor the um the the guy the the
1:00:01
marine and that that that whole chapter is job is to meet emiss to be emissaries
1:00:06
and to train Imperial Guardsman up and and do all of these different jobs and I do like that when Marines get sent off
1:00:13
on their own I think it makes them more interesting because oh massively Marines become far more interesting the minute you surround with people who aren't
1:00:19
Marines I think yes and then likeit kingdoms I'll say it's like kind of like
1:00:24
gives you that experience as well of like you can cuz it's D and D you can play characters at different levels you can be you can play a warcaster and have
1:00:31
a warjack under your control and awesome because of the way that game is
1:00:37
developed you can you've got adventuring companies you can be part of a mercenary company or a uh Pirates uh So like um
1:00:45
you know all the Miniatures in this you can there something you can play as um in the game uh they're really nice as
1:00:52
well they're really good Plastics you know I'm not I've only written the RPG so I've got
1:00:57
nothing to do with the Plastics and I'm like I like these Plastics a lot I like the fact that they are all near each
1:01:03
other yes not your commando sprew oh yes
1:01:08
everything everything B's and A's and so you you know where So like um so
1:01:13
nightmare Empire is everything about the CCS faction so it's essentially um
1:01:19
character types so you can play Undead so there is playable Undead in this book you can play a ghost you can play a
1:01:25
zombie that actually has control of its mind you can play a necr who like starts
1:01:30
going like oh you've lost your arm cuz you got a fellow character in the group who's who's also Undead and lost her arm
1:01:36
we can fix that here's a bit of a warjack made you a new arm Sensational so there's that kind of fun and also
1:01:42
rules for playing Pirates of The Shard Isles the reim call book I didn't work on that but that's basically everything
1:01:48
that you you get that and it bolts onto Iron King onto d and d and has uh the rules for warcasters you players gun
1:01:55
mage who fire their shots a ring shot you fire it has a has a spell attached
1:02:00
to it oh wow that's clever they're badasses um the and like the other
1:02:08
technology like War casses they have um their power they they have power suits essentially so they've got like these um
1:02:14
steam powered Arcane generators on their backpacks that creates an energy field
1:02:19
for them but also channels Arcane ngery into the weapons and armor that they have so how they enhance themselves and
1:02:25
so forth uh so yeah nightmare Empire is that one Borderlands Beyond is the character book for everything you know how I said about
1:02:31
these um warlocks and War beasts yes that's basically that so you can start playing um I can't remember the the
1:02:38
stuff in here there's so much uh bogin which is a type of goblin Pharaoh are
1:02:43
pig people sensation they're M and they're you know how Orcs do really weird technology Pharaoh are like that
1:02:50
and a very mutagenic like they start they get uh there's a character called um there's a IST character who who you
1:02:58
can play in the game in the war game but he like happily like goes ah we need some new Fighters we should inject you
1:03:04
with mutogenic chemicals and you'll grow bigger stronger and that's why they have giant pig people War beasts with Buzz SS
1:03:11
for arms and so forth and I think there's something about if you've watched Willow pick people uh something
1:03:17
about that just feels off um and then you can play like variants of um of
1:03:22
Alchemist you got Alchemist but then you got the Wilderness version called bone GR they use like you know they get stuff off animals organs grind up to make
1:03:30
puses and magic stuff uh and again more subclasses for things and then that one
1:03:38
I worked on which is for deep wild which I think in that the book that went with
1:03:43
that character book introduces playing Gator men which are so there are yeah Gator people and like frog people and so
1:03:50
forth um so in that one I wrote a full scenario so you go from the city of Lao
1:03:56
L are kind of consider like France Italy kind of Renaissance Era just after kador
1:04:02
have left cuz they invaded for a while so it starts off as a murder mystery and then you're off into the Wilderness and
1:04:08
things get weird so there's an element of like Eco Horror in there as so uh
1:04:15
I've yeah touched pretty much every part of the iron kingdoms other than scorn who I love um and then also the other
1:04:21
thing important thing you know that big warjack there I that's printed that's one of their recent resin prints that I
1:04:28
I was looking at that up close earlier I can't even see any lay barely see lay
1:04:34
really really impressed with the quality that was about five pieces it's legs body and both it arms and the sculpt is
1:04:39
fantastic as well yeah it's really really nice see seeing them all on the table and and everything I'm I'm really
1:04:44
really impressed I guess Matt didn't show you last time like so these in the game you can swap the heads and the arms so the heads and the arms or on the war
1:04:51
Beast you get kind of things thing they're all built to be magnetized change the uh you know me in in game
1:04:58
terms changes like how it you know will work you you know I like about this is that if I just you know look at the
1:05:05
model for a moment is the fact that it's got plenty going on but I'm looking at it and I'm also thinking nowhere looks
1:05:11
like nowhere on it or I think I'd struggle to get my brush in there it's it's laid out very well you can do a lot
1:05:17
of texture you can put you can give the sense of texture and wear and toar on it without going like oh I've just hit a
1:05:22
whole L more chain mail or skulls yeah it's it's really it's a really really nicely laid out miniature I really like
1:05:29
it and like you say you've got plenty of space to do things with it as well nice the what I really enjoy about painting
1:05:36
Terminators or Space Marines to a certain extent you've got that space to go oh I put this blend in yeah um rather
1:05:43
than going oh I haven't put a blend in cuz I need to paint that book that's strapped to the shoulder it's such a it
1:05:50
it yeah I like painting things and it's like like um larger things like so these
1:05:55
are just so you got those are from like Kingdom Death that's a that's one of the models from I've done cuz I did used to
1:06:02
do I did the with Beast of w back in the the Let's Play video so I'm very much
1:06:07
into Kingdom Death and I still got loads to still paint there so much um so that's like a big monster for it whereas
1:06:14
that one is a 52 mm pinup model which I might enter into chil con's painting
1:06:22
competition cuz uh that one's not being entered into anything yeah um my other
1:06:28
love of the life love of life and it's it's a lifestyle Choice that's for certain it's that many Miniatures oh I I
1:06:34
think um that's lovely I saw the Kingdom Death booth at um Gen Con yeah last year
1:06:42
is like it's phenomenal all of the stuff that they they have like some Au nightmare fuel yes oh yeah yeah
1:06:49
something just huge like the white dragon they're bringing out is like
1:06:54
that's going to be imp plastic crazy oh wow and yeah so you I've got like there's more of the Kor War jaacks as
1:07:00
well there I think they've got plans that some of these factions that traditionally where like warjack and War cter only they're introducing warlocks
1:07:06
into the faction so that changes the play style um I just highly recommend playing it and if you I don't know if
1:07:13
people are aware like you know how the all the rules are free on the app the app the app exists on you can get on
1:07:19
desktop as well sensation so you can print out your Army list so if you're the type of person goes like okay I
1:07:25
don't like using phones and stuff at the game you can still print out and have all the rules for your units all the
1:07:30
health boxes and all of that so that's why I've what I've done for demos um
1:07:36
which I'll be doing at gen at chilon as well yeah so yeah going on um so much
1:07:43
going on the other things to say that are coming up uh strange like Workshop is coming out for iron kingdoms sometime
1:07:49
soon that's basically a new core book for iron kingdoms that makes it makes the game
1:07:56
for ghost hunting and Spectre hunting and that type of thing um wrath and
1:08:02
Glory trying to think like say valve Absolution is coming out uh at some point there's some other stuff in the
1:08:08
works I I've worked on Old World can't say much more about that cuz it's so early on um and then the other things
1:08:17
coming up is going to ask you about that trash humanism so this is a graphic
1:08:22
novel by um by the musician destroy so she did some music for cunk 2077 right
1:08:30
so off the back of this graphic novel that's basically the primer for the world that we're making RPG uh for so
1:08:37
that's in conjunction with uh will be announced today as we're recording um with uh gehna gaming are going to be
1:08:44
publishing so gehna gaming uh put out the RPG Aldrich autometer which is like
1:08:49
a e you know Neon Genesis Evangelion meets kind of cthulu elements RP
1:08:56
yeah um that I also worked on so we're doing a it's kind of C but it's really
1:09:02
more biopunk RPG okay a more focus on the ownership of your genetics the
1:09:08
autonomy of the human body as Mega Corps are trying to like literally sell everything which is kind of a bit Blade
1:09:15
Runner esque in that sense cuz you know when they talk about the skin jobs and that they're not actually robots that
1:09:22
artificially made Organics so that's the plan with that um and then there's
1:09:27
mostly something else I've totally forgotten at some point that's coming up but mostly I'm under an NDA so rather I
1:09:33
not saying I think at this point and then also I've got cuz that came out as a hard copy recently I thought I lost
1:09:40
mine and so I had to buy a new one cuz I want to show that's the um that one gold at the enies at Gen Con this previous
1:09:48
year so that's the antagonist book for wrath and Glory uh I think I did like the threat assessments you know all the
1:09:55
Corsair and I did the I worked mainly on the Jean stealer cult chapter so there's
1:10:02
a whole chapter of antagonist gen of Cults all the way up to uh a patriarch
1:10:07
so judging by the cover is it anything that a Space Marine can shoot at it's something you can shoot out and more uh
1:10:13
it's even got I think to and crout in there great in here there's some obviously some art is obviously you
1:10:20
games has wonderful back uh well a lot of stuff I've never seen before but there are lots of new stuff which is not
1:10:27
something I can often say with the codecs yes where I look at the codec and they go oh from 12 years ago so yeah I
1:10:34
thought I lost my copy and then I ordered that so I could bring it and then I was like I found my copy so that one you can give away to someone
1:10:39
fantastic as a prize than very much very kind of you very kind of you indeed yeah amazing I I just can't
1:10:47
believe how much you've been involved with how would you do it ramps up and
1:10:52
it's just getting a bit crazy at times and um it's you know when you have a day
1:10:57
job I think the nice thing is being I'm aware that it would have to something bloody spectacular would have
1:11:03
to happen for me to go I'm not working in software engineering anymore because I'm just going to do gaming but also at
1:11:10
the same time having the security of that and being able to be a freelancer and go I don't have to work like to the
1:11:18
bone on on gaming just because sometimes that can kill your passion for I was about to say it it really yeah it's nice
1:11:26
to pick and choose project someone to come along go oh do you want to work on this actually I'm a bit busy I'm going to work on this instead right now yeah
1:11:31
yeah yeah yeah that's fantastic um I put the word out on the Discord that you're
1:11:36
coming and questions Yeah Yeah well yeah Sundancer has asked um asked a few
1:11:42
questions is Basis square or round square or round uh oh I'm going to say round if they did
1:11:49
a new version of more time I put it on round cuz it just make measuring easier yeah very good and also I love
1:11:55
I like the war machine Li bases when they first came out I was like oh they look kind of hot on those bases don't
1:12:01
they it's interesting looking at those bases cuz I I again I've always like
1:12:06
I've always had a bit of a soft spot for the war machine base the fact that it's got a slight recess to it they got
1:12:12
picked up by malif didn't they malif that base type and then obviously you know uh gild ball which obviously is by
1:12:18
steam Forge use that base type I just kind of like it yeah I do have all of a soft spot for it so there's
1:12:26
Noob question it go what LO and then goes down just so it makes it just a bit
1:12:32
easier for very good
1:12:37
um mini material resin plastic or metal oh god well that's really hard right now
1:12:43
cuz obviously like I say the invictor a really good R zone yeah
1:12:49
um I'm going to have to go with plastic cuz you know I I've been there since day one with lead Miniatures I still have
1:12:56
plenty of Confrontation models that are LED which are easy to clean up some have
1:13:04
Spears uh white metal when it came in was a pain do you remember did know just
1:13:09
talking about confrontation and this is going to be so many people go oh what is he talking about but do you ever remember the um do you remember the Fe
1:13:16
they were female um Duelists for the Griffin they all had like little half cloaks on and they all had hair in buns
1:13:23
I've got yeah they literally unique needed what you had to do when you put them together is you would go to your um
1:13:29
you go to your local hospital and you'd find you know surgeon who deal with like brain brains things and just go there's
1:13:36
the glue can you put them hands can you put them in the end they were meant to be like this and in the end you just go
1:13:42
I'm gluing them to their thighs cuz there is just the connection points were just like minuscule yeah and you go with
1:13:48
plastic you would have a lot more play to be able to I've got some which you know at the at the um ankles yeah just
1:13:55
snapped just I loved I loved the the peeness of Miniatures for confrontation
1:14:02
but also you you just go oh this this could go so horribly wrong it'll be good
1:14:07
to see what happens with it in future because obviously the IP is being picked up by I want to say monolith mostly
1:14:13
wrong it's monolith or the other one I spoke to sorry I don't remember his name in case he's watching I spoke to A really lovely french guy at um at Spiel
1:14:21
at Essen and he was massively involved in in in come on back and it's I think it's 2026 I think we'll see the of
1:14:28
Confrontation return is great it would be low hanging for if they brought back out hybrid cuz that box game so it's a
1:14:34
Dungeon Crawler game but it's 1 V one so you've got temp it's very it's very space it's like when that came out which
1:14:41
was the same year as War Machine yeah makes Mo even modern kickstarters pale
1:14:46
in comparison the am Tech flavor Texs on cards and the art design is unreal such
1:14:51
a good game yeah get the ration of the rules that is it's a bit the really lovely thing about
1:14:58
confrontation with with um with uh hybrids was that uh it brought out a
1:15:03
magazine four times a year called Cry Havoc I've got you it's such a beautiful
1:15:08
thing and it's about was about1 pound an issue but four times a year yeah but because um you don't have any codecs all
1:15:15
the Miniatures just have a card with their stat on so what they would do is they would do variance of sometimes new
1:15:21
characters and sometimes variance of them they go here's what happen happened if they went into them dungeons okay so
1:15:28
you could you gave other characters a bit more life inside inside another game like some of the pages in The in
1:15:34
confront in the Cry Havoc as well like they a higher grade stock for the as art
1:15:39
prints yeah not seen a magazine like you could easily with with conf with with Cry Havoc you could get a scalpel the
1:15:46
edge of a page and frame it yeah oh wow yeah it was a really you know I really
1:15:51
lament it it its departure but it was great that it was always allowing you
1:15:56
chance to do something a little bit different with MES you already had which was quite cool again you could play a
1:16:02
small i' also got I never played it but the rules again it's one of those things we go this was definitely ruined by
1:16:07
someone in French and then translated to English because wow uh Ragnarok yeah
1:16:12
Ragnarok the mass battle version of Confrontation and it came with the rule book but there's also a setting book
1:16:19
which also had like the alphabets for each of the factions and stuff really oh wow yeah it worked on so many levels cuz
1:16:25
then they had CAD Wallen yeah the RP CAD Wallen was an RPG where it was called the city of Thieves yeah and there was
1:16:31
all different guilds like the Guilds of the Assassin the Guilds of this the Guilds of that so it was all these different little guilds and then you had
1:16:37
the militia who were trying to keep everybody in which was brilliant they had really amazing things like they had
1:16:43
a they had a um they had a dwarf who was a crossbowman but had the most amazingly
1:16:50
large glasses cuz his eyesight was so awful and he just like pupils off and different directions and they and like
1:16:57
the they had like a guy who was like the cook but was still like had a swords and
1:17:02
a shield but with like a pig strapped on his back and C sausages and it was very very flavorsome but the idea with that
1:17:08
was that you played these you could pick these guys and play them in an RPG but then you could actually also play CAD
1:17:14
Wallen as a as a faction as a faction be it at skish level or it's like Mass
1:17:20
battle level those things everything polluted popul everything else especially cities of sigtigma you can
1:17:26
definitely see where some of the DNA of Confrontation exists in a sigma yeah
1:17:31
definitely because CU clearly they picked up they it's I think it's 9 there's definitely some sculpts that
1:17:37
used to work for rackam that work for Games Workshop these days oh wow you can see that I mean you only have to look at that ogre in in um cities of Sigma it's
1:17:45
def you put it next to the ogre that's literally doing the who also has a person in a in a um a CR Nest on his
1:17:52
it's the same it's the same flavor obviously with the Warhammer look to it but it's definitely there and yeah to
1:18:01
have confrontation come back because wolfen are like kickass I've got some wolfen Miniatures yeah the wolfen are great but I I it's funny you say that
1:18:08
you know I was really really instantly drawn to cities of Sigma or as somebody who doesn't play ages doesn't play ages
1:18:14
of Sigma and I never knew why I was so instantly now and I know why is because
1:18:19
you're right it really does same with the undead stuff recently they look more like the there's elements of the AR uh
1:18:26
what was it Legions of something something of Arron abys of Arron something like that yeah and that as an
1:18:33
undead faction looks nothing like what was out at the time and again it's one of those
1:18:39
it's one of those things where you look at the again I know I guess we lamented that confrontation was like badass at
1:18:44
the time yeah we've got other games to talk about but it's one of those things where you see they did their artwork their designs they then made the
1:18:51
Miniatures based on the design they would then paint the miniature I think the the cycles would paint the miniature and then the paint Scheme use of the
1:18:56
miniature would go back onto the art design so you've got this synchronicity you ended up with Miniatures you ended
1:19:02
up with that I've said this before if you bought an issue of cry havoc and there was a there was an piece of assart
1:19:09
of a miniature that hadn't come out yet it would look it would look it would look like that when it arrived as
1:19:14
opposed to going you know I remember seeing the early ideas of what the black Templars were going to look like when
1:19:19
they came out in Third Edition and then didn't look at they went here you go there's a chain on a gun you know and
1:19:25
you go and that was it and now by the time we got to primaris they look like
1:19:30
what we were promised in Third Edition or maybe fourth Ed yes but Cry Havoc when they went we're going to this guy
1:19:36
will be out in two months time and you go yeah and he'll probably look just like that and they would fantastic which
1:19:41
yeah it was it was it was a really really sad State of Affairs one I would definitely say in all fairness to to
1:19:47
privac press I think they well privac press at the time and now iron kingdoms I think the same is true with them
1:19:52
because because the Creator ofon King uh Matt Wilson is a graphic artist who
1:19:58
did a lot of work for I think Magic Gathering back in the day and that's why you know you look at you look at oh
1:20:04
let's go all the way back yeah you look at the even the classic warjacks in this um let's take the CCS one for example
1:20:11
because it's almost one for one um there we go no that's not it is that it no way
1:20:17
so this one here the hell Jack Reaper you'd have to do a closeup but that is the first edition version of it now
1:20:24
they're multi part you can mix and match weapons but it still looks the same and the the metal miniature look like that
1:20:31
and I think it just shows that again that synchronicity between the vision and who's doing the art and what they
1:20:37
want as a design whereas I think mostly just because of the the scale of gamees workshop and how their process works to
1:20:43
get something designed go to Art go to game design is very different I think
1:20:50
there's sometimes there's a mismatch at points and also just cuz of how they want to portray things um yeah cuz as as
1:20:59
as we've seen 40K for example looks very very different depending on what you play I mean you've play Blood teeth and
1:21:05
bolters those ORS look really different yeah um yeah another
1:21:10
question went on a massive D that's what we do don't worry about yeah yeah yeah yeah and it's uh it's it's from my
1:21:17
perspective it's really nice to hear such positive chat about like other games just like I'm going to quickly say
1:21:24
well confrontation is a very interesting dice system to play and if you're I've yet to play it but I've obviously own
1:21:31
Miniatures for painted them and I've got the rule book for it Batman miniatur Third Edition I think it's quite similar
1:21:36
in dice system okay do you know that the even even the other kill team uh I had
1:21:43
playing it the other night and I had a real blip for a moment where it felt like cuz you in in confrontation you
1:21:49
would gain a number of dice for combat and then you would make a Gamble and then you gamble against you're going
1:21:55
well you know do I want to put that as a defense put that attack or defense and K
1:22:01
team does the same where you whereas kill team you both roll them together and then decide what you're going to do
1:22:06
you would make the gamble in advance you go I think I can Crush that so I'm going
1:22:11
to put everything into attack and I and it'll probably be dead before it gets chance chance to fight back you oh okay
1:22:18
or if it does fight back it's going to bounce that's why I would compare war cry to war machine to a slight extent
1:22:24
because again you've got a dice pull not quite you're not summing up the numbers to give you a final value or summing up
1:22:29
the successes but again there are those times where you go am I going to
1:22:34
sacrifice am I going to use one of my uh triples or quadruples or whatever or
1:22:40
doubles to to boost what I'm doing or get some other effect so again you're kind of hedging your Bets with it
1:22:46
so that's kind of that is fun and like I say with the do I block or do I go for
1:22:52
the attack on this cuz you just don't you don't know but you kind of do know and you go like but if I pull it off you
1:22:58
might Spike some you get might get spiking damage and that's that's again similar between War Machine and and uh
1:23:07
war cry yeah you know sometimes just like oh my God I just roll tons of six on that and it feels momentous whereas
1:23:14
again go back 4K you roll lots of six you go that's great I got roll to Wi now like it's a momentous minute that just
1:23:21
disappears in the watch I I love I love that end the little mechanic and kill team that I really like his that at um a
1:23:28
a six allows you to um a six allows you to H gain into a second level of of
1:23:35
being able to hit better and then it can trigger other things as well and if you roll all your dice as the attacker but
1:23:42
only you're a you you everything fails but you get a six and then your opponent rolls his three Dice and two of them are
1:23:49
successful two of them can cancel at six and I love that that thing of going you know there is a constant you know I you
1:23:56
can go into a fight in in Kil team and really think I've really got this nailed and then have a really bad dice roll and
1:24:02
then get you to pieces for it it's a it's it doesn't have the level of certainties for it are a little bit
1:24:09
different to that of 40K I think it's quite interesting and the and and similar another thing to point out with
1:24:14
like how warjacks work in the game you know how like tanks and beasties and in um 40K Sigma you you wound them
1:24:21
generally across the board their stats go down M yeah and you feel like okay they're not doing as well but there still a bit of a threat war machine is
1:24:28
quite funny like you can blow you can blast it with a ton of damage but because they the way the hit boxes work on them you have to go all the way
1:24:35
through these empty boxes before you start taking out systems so you may have done like 20 points of damage on a
1:24:41
warjack it could so long as it's got one one hit box with a with it for its left
1:24:46
system one for its right system one for its cortex one for its movement it's still working at full capacity so you
1:24:53
could CH B tearing off its armor and it can still come up to you and go and as is one of the rules in the game do a
1:24:59
one-handed throw where it goes if I roll to hit you that model I throw over there
1:25:05
so there's a lot of movement shenanigans that involve body slams movement headbutts Sensational that's why it's a
1:25:12
bit of a brawl game which is really good so where warjacks grind against each other and it really does feel like that
1:25:18
yeah cool I I didn't I didn't realize how much I'd enjoy learning about
1:25:23
different dice systems and way that cool robots can beat the crap out of each other yeah there's so many I used to
1:25:31
play you may you may well know it do you ever did you ever play Star grunt no star grunt were had this great system
1:25:37
where um you um you drew you drew numbers out of a hat and it told you
1:25:43
like you might have like a really veteran Squad yeah but with a new captain or you could have a really you
1:25:51
know a really poor Squad but with a veteran captain and I did all the things of and so your squads went you you
1:25:57
didn't know what your squads were like beforehand and then depending on how good or bad they were was dependent on
1:26:04
how many size of the sides of the dice they had oh right okay so you know and
1:26:10
so if you um if you were really good obviously if you're like a really cool veteran unit you your dice had less
1:26:15
sides and it because it was just easier to then nail the number you needed and it was just very clever but they had to
1:26:21
like a little mechanic in it that if one of your guys got wounded and your squad um your morale would drop yeah okay even
1:26:29
though he was still on the board he would be wounded and then but what it had in the game it had a number of turns
1:26:35
and then he would be medivaced and when they knew he'd gone to safety the morale went back up again
1:26:41
cuz they were like oh he's gone and he'll be okay you know he might be able to save the leg I know it was and I love
1:26:47
little things like guessing and was it a smaller sort of skirmish sort of game no no no it was a big Mass battle and you
1:26:53
know what we had a whole game because a lot of it was just getting your opponent to get his head down me and and a chap
1:26:58
you may know I used a friend of mine he's moved up north now a guy called Jake Thornton he's been a big game designer in his day and um me and him
1:27:05
played in a battle and it went back and forth and back and forth and at the end of it we looked and we realized no one was
1:27:11
dead NE Commander can be just I've been running campaign for that and you know you're just shooting at each other
1:27:17
everyone's just diving for cover and the game just literally like the game we played the other last week just flipped
1:27:22
where where it was like I took one person of action and the entire that gang was like no we're off yeah we're
1:27:28
off though somehow my opponent stayed on the board long enough to do cuz we were playing intrigues and rackets so the
1:27:34
Intrigue was to set fire to Terrain in my deployment zone so he was like okay I've lost this game that's for certain
1:27:41
but I'm going to play for this little inry to get extra creds which was quite hilarious as the cops I think star grunt
1:27:46
is like that scene I think star grunt when you play a play you used to play could be a bit like that scene in um in Black adza Goes Forth you go there's the
1:27:53
land captured what scale is that one to one I star grun could be like that you
1:27:59
know there's been loads of fire everyone's had their head down unable to move and at the end of it you realize nothing actually that much as has
1:28:06
happened I you know what I haven't thought about Black Adder in so long and I just I just I remember I think that's
1:28:12
probably the one I've watched the most of black goes for um and just how futile it all was yes absolutely right
1:28:20
yeah absolutely brilliant so my question is with all of the are you going to do one of your
1:28:28
own uh oh that is actually one things well I guess trash humanism is kind of one of my own cuz that's that's a weird
1:28:35
way of like I basically kind of just befriended through dis the Discord uh fan server for Le destroy and then
1:28:41
learned that her and her part so Christina and her partner Nathan were also into Kingdom Death so we just
1:28:46
bonded on Kingdom Death sering we like okay they asked me do you want to write a role play game I was like all right do
1:28:52
that yeah okay um so that's how that went and then off eldrich autometer um
1:28:58
one of the stretch goals is WR war game based upon that so that will be I don't
1:29:03
know when we I've not officially done any proper work on it yet cuz you know the RPG is not yet shipped to people so
1:29:09
that's their Focus right now but yeah that will be a a war game of Mecca versus
1:29:15
giant horrific you know monsters and if a franchise be one that pre
1:29:22
exists already is a playing game or doesn't pre-exist as a role playing game came and knocked on your door and said
1:29:29
make us one um would what would you drop everything for to
1:29:35
do I think there's one which is kind of in not had anything published for years
1:29:41
and I love there's a RPG that I would love to do work on a new edition called uh unhollow Metropolis so it's what's
1:29:48
called as a it's described as Victorian Neo neov Victorian gas mask chic
1:29:54
so that's a sentence is so um basically it's an alternative future where zombie
1:30:00
apocalypse has happened across the world uh London is essentially a fortified City it's all gone neov Victorian uh and
1:30:09
due to pollution everything everyone's wearing gas masks and you know everything's kind of like leather and uh
1:30:15
synthetics to cuz there horrible acid rain and stuff um and it's a really cool
1:30:22
there's just some really cool stuff in it and also the fun thing about that is some of the writers for that and the Creator for it worked on War Machine and
1:30:29
you can definitely see kind of like oh brilliant the the approach to the world so that's something I would love to
1:30:35
revive as for an existing IP that's a hard one um that doesn't
1:30:41
have a war game not too certain actually oh can have a war game but doesn't have
1:30:47
it doesn't have an RPG uh I mean I already mentioned off the show like I mean Castlevania would be good for an
1:30:52
RPG uh um because I've mentioned like you know with the alen K book for age of
1:30:58
Sigma which lets you play regular people in age of Sigma against vampires because that's what wenan is I think that'd be
1:31:05
that's a great game you could use for Castlevania but also I think Castlevania as a whole setting would be based upon
1:31:12
the um the Netflix series would be kind of fun yeah yeah fantastic um we have um
1:31:20
sci-fi fantasy someone has asked sci-fi fantasy yeah it's a bit hard with this
1:31:25
lot isn't it you're like both list is really is really tough
1:31:34
um I can't answer that cuz sometimes some sci-fi is fantasy I mean look at Star Wars yeah yeah so I don't think you
1:31:42
can really draw a dividing line between that I think it's more if you're going to go hard maybe it's a question of how hard
1:31:48
do you want your ccih or how hard do you want your fantasy because Lord of the Rings relatively
1:31:54
speaking it's quite hard fantasy setting versus stuff like this yeah I I don't I still um don't I
1:32:02
think I understand the what hard fantasy hard sci-fi and soft and so on and so for hard is basically do you have I
1:32:08
think generally is if it if you've got aliens with psychic powers and stuff like that that's generally because
1:32:14
you've gone we're going to have space elves like look at Star Trek it's got space elves yeah yeah if it's like what
1:32:20
the expanse and and you basically expans is essentially the RPG traveler yeah
1:32:26
where you know you really care about how much fuel just started watching it again um at the moment cuz my wife said oh I
1:32:33
really feel like I really should have watched this and for those who have never watched the expanse and they thinking about it man this might go out
1:32:40
too late they're killing the first three seasons on Amazon but leaving seasons
1:32:46
four five and six they Amazon made those didn't they yes so my me and my wife are
1:32:52
um I seen the first three seasons through um through uh during Co and then
1:33:00
for some reason oh I know what happened I went back to work I didn't keep up with it so it's going in the next 80
1:33:07
days so me and my wife yesterday watched nine out of 10 episodes of the first season sensation yeah but oh the expans is
1:33:14
really hard sci-fi though isn't it I I love the expanse yeah even down to things like you know having to put a gum
1:33:20
shield in and having an injection when you go in a high high just great I love all of that I love
1:33:28
that s of idea like going into how the everything the nitty yeah well the fact you know you literally see people
1:33:34
rewiring things and nuts and bolts and you know and it does momentarily at times the the expans go a little bit 18
1:33:40
when the whole everyone's got a screwdriver out but I also you know love the fact there was a hole in a wall and
1:33:46
they covered it with a manual yeah to keep space out and just put a manual on it you know and I love
1:33:53
that yeah I quite like my hard sci-fi yeah brilliant um some yeah I guess
1:33:58
quick ones best non-big IP so no Star Wars Warhammer Etc best non big IP yes
1:34:05
well I'm not going to say I Kings cuz that's easy then um best non-big IP I
1:34:11
can't even say vampire the masade cuz that's fairly big in um in the world uh
1:34:16
oh that's really difficult one just trying to think big
1:34:22
IP I uh I was struggling to think of uh
1:34:27
it must be some I've watched recently or or game wise or horror um I
1:34:32
mean it's still fairly big I enjoy watching uh Interview with the Vampire TV series right now oh I watch it's
1:34:39
about as close you'll get to a Vampire the mro TV series understandably so because obviously it's basically what
1:34:44
vampire the mro was based upon um it just it's unlike anything else that's
1:34:49
been out in recent years within that genre because you know you look at like
1:34:54
Twilight and the vampire Chronicles and True Blood they all kind of Hit the same boring notes and don't really kind of
1:35:01
get into the being a vampire's crap really
1:35:07
sucks yes it's but it's they're good series yeah really enjoying those
1:35:13
fantastic and then the final question uh from sunnd and of course best cheese ever best cheese ever um oh um come on
1:35:22
you should have come prepped for this you know um I know I like I think good old Brie
1:35:28
Bri is always good oh Bri's a good shout Bri good quite happily goes on crackers
1:35:35
quite happily go most things yeah loves bacon yeah yes Bri does with bacon yes
1:35:41
have a nice relationship yeah I can see I can see the I can see the love for Bri I'm good with that I think I think I go
1:35:47
Brie like it's it's not necessarily a everyday cheese but it expensive for
1:35:53
much yeah like you can't grate it that's the downside I guess that is the problem true like I wouldn't I don't think I'd
1:35:59
have like Breon I've never had Breon toast maybe I need to broaden my horizons a bit yeah something warm it's
1:36:06
good bit cuz I had like you know b b Bon wared um bonded warmed
1:36:13
baguette yeah I I love breing a sandwich even a BRI and grape sandwich they're really good um sorry I've got side
1:36:20
you've got you you've gone down your own cheese rapper my cheese hole um yeah brilliant um I
1:36:29
think the only thing I was thinking of when we were talking about sort of like TV shows and bits and Bs um I started
1:36:34
watching I had no idea it existed I found it on Disney plus uh the Americans
1:36:39
oh what a brilliant TV series uh six seasons of it it's all on Disney plus and it's like Cold War era Russian spies
1:36:46
pretending to be Americans and they have kids that they've had in the US really em massively embedded yeah very good and
1:36:54
they're like struggling with you know some of them like hey I actually really like America and burgers and cars um and
1:37:02
then the conflict of just sort of like you know killing people for information and this that and the other and I've
1:37:08
binge watched think you you think hopefully that money they must be getting money channeled through from the
1:37:14
Kremlin to them because their wig budget oh huge they wig budget I don't know
1:37:19
where they they I wonder whether in the Americans every shows you but they rent a second house that is just full of wigs
1:37:25
and mustaches great show though highly recommend watching that um i' I've
1:37:32
really enjoyed it so far so that'd be a good RPG wouldn't it being uh amazed they haven't done one for Shogun oh
1:37:40
though that would be really get into theity of that time period without being you know appropriative and stereotypical
1:37:47
um oh that was a fun thing I was talking to um David Ms paints cuz he's been to Japan recently he was saying like cuz
1:37:53
it's quite funny what RPGs are popular in different countries so D andd is not the big RPG in in Japan big one is call
1:38:00
of cillo which is really interesting and it explains mostly why Warhammer fancy does well there because Warhammer fany
1:38:06
is basically call of cillo it's essentially the same dice system but the also the main de he said the main
1:38:12
demographic of people playing RPGs over there is 20s something women so it's like can you just imagine it's like 20
1:38:19
something young Japanese women pretending to be 19 202 investigators against Elder chus I was just like just
1:38:27
that's just nice to know that the hobby is that expansive and and the flavor of things out there um you again not
1:38:35
everything is d and d and I'm glad it's not um the not everything is 40k I don't
1:38:40
know if I I think it'd be really difficult watching um a group of a group
1:38:46
of young women who generally are far more organized than men anyway in a very
1:38:52
organized country just think how well their RPGs would run wouldn't it oh yeah it' be amazing yeah like unlike my child
1:39:00
who was at his D and D yesterday and I said how did it go he said oh he said it was good I said he said we had this
1:39:05
Stone P puzzle with little Pebbles I had to go in a certain place we had to crack and I went oh that go he went well it
1:39:11
got really harder than it should have been I went why was that he went I at one of the Pebbles I went why and he went why no
1:39:24
I that wouldn't happen in young Japanese lady RPGs would they no no I guess not I
1:39:30
I I um yeah I I listen I think I mentioned it before on the podcast quite a bit there's like a what started off as
1:39:37
a comedy DND podcast with like some old sort of like well I say old YouTubers
1:39:43
old in YouTube terms yes like Freddy Freddy Wong and everything and they're in season 3 now and they've swapped to
1:39:49
the K cthulu system um and that's that's really fun like from what I understand
1:39:54
with the dice system you roll a D100 and you have to try and get under your skill level yeah um and that's a really
1:40:01
interesting way of doing it and how say if you know your skill's 50 and you roll a 49 but then you might later again you
1:40:09
roll a five or something then you know that's how you succeed more Warhammer fantasy takes it in a in a fun way and
1:40:15
why fourth edition is quite a good evolution of the previous ones because combat is you obviously you're trying to do well against your skill your skill
1:40:22
level and how far below you get is you get a degree of success so it's based on the difference in the 10 but but when it
1:40:29
comes to combat it's it's that compared to how well your opponent's also done theirs so you can fail your combat role
1:40:34
but if you failed less badly than your opponent you still hit them oh cool so
1:40:40
that's I feel it's very Warhammer oh I felt but not as badly as you yes it's a why you hit but you tripped over on the
1:40:46
way in sort of you them just by sheer chance again it's that's why I find
1:40:52
system and RPGs yeah and you know it'd be very different playing uh playing war
1:40:59
machine with a percentile system or it' be very different play it with a it is different with a dice ball system I've
1:41:04
seen that it's been previous Edition or playing 40K using the D andd system again the game play would be quite
1:41:11
different it depends what you're trying to contain within the game yeah what's your favorite
1:41:16
dice oo I'm going to have to say it's the d10 it's quite adaptable you can use it for
1:41:24
dice balls and you can use it for percentiles so very good can I just say about about dice uh my son talked me
1:41:33
into buying him a box uh his own dice for D and D oh yes and he came home with
1:41:38
him and I didn't know this was you know when you just live in a certain type of
1:41:44
environment my wife didn't know that anything other than a D6 existed yeah
1:41:50
literally didn't know I'm not like saying comedy haha no my wife went and he went and there a D20 and my wife went
1:41:56
what's a D20 she said well it's a and then he went a dice with 20 sides and my wife was like
1:42:03
what and then when we went she went and then it was quite funny cuz I really liked understand but you can get a D100
1:42:12
you can get a dice with 100 sides and she laughed like I was making it up and
1:42:17
then did this other thing which I just thought was funny she went and she did she went how big is it
1:42:24
I like the idea that you just I'm just going to go into the garden and roll this to see what results I get instead
1:42:30
of going how would instead of you know where normal people would go how would you read it how small must the numbers
1:42:37
be my wife went the other way of just like the size the size of a medicine ball you know cuz you can do d00 as a
1:42:45
single dice or do two like generally done as two uh yeah cuz then you can use
1:42:51
it as regular d10s it's sucess in that way I think also d10 is quite good if you want to do scatter die cuz you know
1:42:56
it's it points a particular way so doubles for a lot of things um yeah F
1:43:02
favorite yeah TR to the guys from zoog Genesis and they opted for d10s yeah
1:43:08
that game yeah before we wind up you also have a podcast don't you yes um
1:43:13
tell us about it so dark of days radio is coming up on let me think mostly 16
1:43:18
years old wow um you started it when you were four
1:43:24
so I joined I joined the podcast in got it be 200 I want to say 2009 uh Mike was
1:43:31
there a bit longer than me uh it had two hosts before it so it originally a world
1:43:37
of darkness and Chronicle well what was time was New World Darkness those game systems and since then we've kept with
1:43:44
that to a point and then we've expanded out so we do episodes covering the
1:43:50
Warhammer RPGs where we don't review books cuz obviously highly biased um but
1:43:55
we look at how to utilize them for your games talk about like oh this talks about this part of the world well there's all these tools this is the
1:44:01
story ideas we've been doing the same slowly with uh iron kingdoms um we cuz
1:44:08
the the the hosts we've got Pete's based in Australia um Chi Mike and Crystal
1:44:15
they're based in uh in the US I think Dave's going to be moving to France so
1:44:21
we are quite global which means we can get to all manner of events and interview people um great we're on
1:44:29
generally get invited to be on panels to talk about RPGs about horror gaming um
1:44:34
and we've also published a few things uh you know you know drivethru RPG G does like Community content ones so you get a
1:44:41
cut and obviously whoever you the game is for gets their cut so we've put out a number of scenarios and booklets for um
1:44:48
vampire the Masquerade and CRS of darkness and so forth so and that's a I
1:44:54
will say if you want to get into writing that's a really good way of doing it because you build up your own portfolio of work and then people go oh well
1:44:59
that's great do you want to write for us and you're like yeah please that would be great fantastic yeah great way of getting yourself out there I guess yeah
1:45:05
you can also do that for for card games uh and I think you also miniature games you can publish self-publish through
1:45:11
drive through RPG you know if you go miniatur agnostic it's yeah pretty easy I mean it's even easier with stls then
1:45:17
you can team up with a particular person go I like your SCS can I write a game for it they'll be like okay
1:45:23
yeah do it yeah fantastic amazing cool I feel uh I feel um somewhat educated more
1:45:31
on uh dce systems and different games and I very much so as somebody my love
1:45:37
of RPGs as somebody who's not an RPG I I'm going to say um what I always say to my little boy at the end of the day when
1:45:43
he comes over to my shop what you know more about than you did this morning and I think this interview chat I very much
1:45:51
know a lot more now than I did cool um put this out as a prize yes to
1:45:58
our patreons or to everyone um patrons I believe patreons right
1:46:03
um can you give us a hugely difficult question but can you give us a nice sort
1:46:09
of 40K question for somebody to win this oh okay that's put you're on the
1:46:15
spot uh uh let's go with what is
1:46:20
the Which chapter are the which yeah which which Legion are The Observers a
1:46:27
uh chapter derived from and if you listen to the show it was said it was in there it was in there yeah yeah so uh
1:46:35
amazing we'll stick this in the post yes to the first successful answer we
1:46:40
get yeah or we or are we going to in names in a hat yeah we'll do names hat
1:46:46
there should be Nam Mar might get it right yeah yes so probably let's go with
1:46:51
we'll go with the names in the helmouth yes cool so uh
1:46:56
good luck and thank you very much for donating to the show it's very very kind to me very generous thank you thank you
1:47:01
so much for coming it's been an absolutely eye opening pleasure and uh I really hope it encourages more
1:47:09
people to play war machine cuz from what you told come to chil there we go chill
1:47:14
con's banging on the door 22nd of March if I remember right top of my head lead and steel is also on the weekend after
1:47:20
at Sheffield at the Social Club so that it's going to be some old Hammer but I was like I'm can I run some War Machine
1:47:27
like yeah go on then excent Brant and then are you at a Warhammer event uh yes
1:47:34
oh totally totally forgot so I am planning I should be locking in all the details uh I will confirm on Discord if
1:47:40
people want to sign up for that um I'm going to the Warhammer world uh anniversary event coming up so I'll be
1:47:46
running demos of uh a of mar second of March isn't it yes and I know that cuz
1:47:53
it's me wife's birthday and that's why I won't be there another one is in hold on
1:47:58
let me let me find it on my social Medi um CU I can never remember this like I
1:48:04
said too much is going on obviously I'm going to try and be at UK games Expo in some capacity I might be there representing gehenna gaming or I might
1:48:11
be going around with a video camera and taking interviews well I plan to be at Birmingham so I will see you there and I
1:48:17
will mostly annoy the guys at Beast of War CU they always get me on their on their cuz you they live stream their official live stream like they're like
1:48:23
oh you're about you want to fill some dead air for us I'm like what can I plug today absolutely right uh the other
1:48:30
event coming up is um let me find it um yes here we go so there is on the 3rd of
1:48:37
May um there is uh there's a as part of an event that's called Dracula comes to
1:48:43
Derby is so it's an academic event they look at the impact of Dracula on literature and so forth they're doing it
1:48:49
is an anniversary for when they had the first play theater play of Dracula was
1:48:56
there 100 years ago oh cool so uh they're running a games day of vampire
1:49:01
related RPGs on the 3rd of May and so I'm running uh a dayong Vampire the master
1:49:08
demo and obviously there's D and D games and uh eat eat the Reich is another vampire RPG and something called uh
1:49:17
what's every one is is it called no it's not called chill I can't remember what it's called but yeah there's a there's a whole host of uh yeah people running
1:49:23
things and there's even a miniature there's a vampire miniature you can get if you turn up o there we go excellent
1:49:29
excellent amazing have you got these bits and Bobs on your website or yeah and I'll make sure it's all on you get
1:49:35
all the show notes on your website called uh www.ars.org you can find me by just for
1:49:41
Christopher DH handle.com that's for my personal blog uh yeah amazing excellent
1:49:47
put some links in the description and people can find you cool so I'd like to say firstly thank you to all our patrons
1:49:55
thank you for anybody who watched this episode if you haven't come across us before please like subscribe
1:50:00
notification Bells we have um element L we have element links affiliate links
1:50:06
for the different people we in I was going to say embed with but that sounds a bit Saucy that we're involved with
1:50:13
doesn't sound much better involved with we've got a situation chip we've got a situationship and last of all Chris a
1:50:19
massive thank you because the amount of stuff you told us about I'm in absolute in awe with the amount that must be
1:50:25
knocking around inside your schull yeah it's a bit hard on sometimes yeah I you know I've had to lose
1:50:32
information just to get Kil team in I now don't know how to change a wheel on a car anymore I used to but
1:50:39
since I started playing Kil team I don't know anymore oh yeah I know that feeling well thanks so much man it's really
1:50:44
appreciate and thanks to you for all for watching okay byebye byebye
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