h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Thing is mate, I was only born in 1985!

The old scouts had well dodgy weaponary! Shuriken catapults!!!

Yeah. I was about three meself when that video came out, and, honest to God, there are only two reasons I remember it at all:

1) It won awards and that, and:

2) The guys in it looked like a complete band of tossers, and so did the old Scouts, and from thence the mental association arose. Not that I am pleased about remembering that video, you understand. I'm not proud of it, or something.

You're right about the old Scouts having odd weaponry. I think they were released pretty early on, when Citadel made Marines with wacky guns - stuff like web guns, Shuriken catapults, two power fists, needler sniper rifles, etc. Very strange.
Question: What is the single most amusing thing to happen while you were playing Wh40k?

Oh lorks, what a question...

Could it be the swarms of Tyranids that simply would never diminish, no matter how many times we shot them?
Could it be the skirmish battle between my Imperial Guard and some Dark Eldar? No, not that one...

Crumbs, if you asked me that about Warhammer I'd be ok!

Ah! JimmyRiddles, what has happened to your name?!

I changed it! Went to www.wuname.com and got a completely random Wu Tang Clan name for a laugh. Dunno why. Might change it back...
The funniest thing that happened to me in Warhammer 40,000 was during a really, really early game when me and a mate were trying to work out the rules - i.e. we had absolutely no idea what we were doing. Planned the next turn's move for my Predator before I realised that it would take the tank right into the centre of a massive crowd of gretchin. Deciding to go with it, I moved the Pred to try and ram some of the little criminals, BUT... this was before we'd read the rulebook restriction limiting the number of pedestrians a vehicle can ram. So the Predator plows into the gretchin, and - without a hint of respect for logic, the rulebook or the right of gretchin to breathe in and out - rolls on and on over them, smashing about 18 little gits into a green, stinking pulp, before blasting another seven of them out of existance in the shooting phase. Cue hysterical laughter. Pointless, outrageous carnage that could never happen again.
Maybe you had to be there, or be a psychopath, or something.
What funny things happened to you in Warhammer, then?

So it's Wu-Tang names then! I was nagging Katsy aka Esti to explain but she wouldn't! I'll murder her!

Surely if the Predator hit 18 Gretchin, then there's a possibility that they'll all die?

In my last game of Warhammer, it's a 3-3 draw in VP with a Chaos Warrior army. Their sorcerer casts a spell to get more power cards...and promptly dies. Two VPs to me! .
Thing was, there was only one turn left. He was making very unsubtle hints that if I didn't move my archers out of the way of his knights then he'd kill them and draw. Naturally my archers moved, and I won.

The previous battle he was asking me to kil his sorcerer. So I didn't. So he didn't get to pull off his trick and I won.
Goes without saying: NEVER tell your opponent your battle plans.

The Wu-Tang Clan name's gone now, 'cause it was a bit anonymous, and it just wasn't as cool a name as Ghostface Killa. That's one seriously hard alias that guy's got, and I'd really like a name that cool, but it doesn't seem likely that I'll get one. But that site's still worth checking out for a laugh.

I remember an article in White Dwarf about how you could use psychology to psyche-out your opponents by exaggerating the power of your weak or mundane units and slagging off your best stuff, so the enemy spends all his time going after your less useful gear while you rampage over him with the rest. Sounds like your opponent there did pretty much the opposite, psycheing himself out if anything!

I made a serious mistake once when I charged a crippled Leman Russ with a Marine assault squad and a Librarian. But the Librarian couldn't quite reach the tank. Now, what I should have done is just left him safely where he was. But - big mistake - I moved him up towards the tank to close assault it next turn if the assault troops failed to kill it. But guess what? The assault marines were resoundingly sucessful, wiped out the Russ with an ammo explosion and all escaped to safety. But the Librarian couldn't move away from the blast, not being in base contact with the tank, and so got turned into a bar of soap when the Leman Russ exploded in his face. Major and shocking embarrasment!

I got that copy of White Dwarf. I got loads. I miss it

For some reason, that description reminds me of the games I'd played at my local GW. Guess it's because there were so many explosions...
Once we had an all tank battle, and my Predator fired a four other tanks coming down from the other side of the board, through this gap between things. I wrecked the front two, so that put the back two out of the picture as they spent time manouvering out of the way. Then this Ultramarines tank comes and fires all it's guns at me. Boom.

Then there was Abbadon the Despoiler getting killed by a krak grenade...and the Orky Mek special chracter, the one with a battle-cannon attatched to his bike. He fired all his guns at an Avater, and caused one wound!
in that same battle, actually, there was a massive fight between a Chaos Dreadnought, a Great Unclean One and that Avatar. I killed the Greate Demon with my Basilisk

All this talk of mass horrific carnage reminds me of Epic... when it was good. Never in the field of human consciousness has there been so much opportunity for pointless explosions. Super-heavy tanks, heavy artillery, titans - great!. The Leviathan mobile command centre in particular was just awesome. Had 6 lascannons down each side, a battlecannon and a truly massive gun which fired up to six big barrage templates in a line. Beautiful. But it was so slow that it never got the chance to shoot at anything, bar blowing the hell out of foolish jets that had the teremity to attack it. Then there was the Squat Colossus, which had its own gyrocopter to provide long-range targeting information for its missiles and guns. But it always got shot down in the second turn. Always. Sadly, the Squat Goliath was crap quite frankly. Had a cool gun, but it fired in a fixed dead straight line, like a flashlight. Not difficult for anything on the board to avoid, but you could always have fun blowing up buildings with the thing. Happy days .
But once I experienced the horror of having a full company of Imperial Guard Predators get smegged. Drove them up to a load of Sentinels, expecting a cheerful, joyous slaughter. But I missed with every shot, and then they charged me and destroyed every last one of my lovely tanks, which was unspeakably demoralising.

One of the earliest appeals of 40K to me, when I first saw the stuff, was the guns. You'd get these f**k-off massive things! Like everthing you've cited...I remember seeing my friend's Imporator Titan. He had a good deal of (old) Epic stuff, and the scale of that thing was like "f**king hell!"
Actually, I remember seeing the cover of the Epic game for the first time. A Titan and a Gragant trying to blow each other up, and missing at point blank range! I was gobsmacked.

Yeah, that rocked! Remember the second edition Space Marine box, with approx. 1000 Ultramarines storming forwards, while in the background an entire Titan battlegroup lets rip at some unspecified, unfortunate target with their vast gatling blasters? Man, I loved that picture. Sadly the game in the box, while very cool, was never quite /that/ cool. But then it couldn't be - such coolness is beyond the ability of plastic to capture. Although some Golden Demon entries have come dammed close.
On the subject of big guns... I seem to remember a friend saying that he had 40K rules for one of those giant Adeptus Mechanicus mobile weapon platform things from Epic, and that he was going to build one. That would be pretty extreme, given that the secondary armament on the thing's a planetary defence laser...
Have you seen the new Land Raider kit? Very nice, very big, but £30...? Hyper expensive! Still, maybe they'll do a plastic Baneblade kit now, 'cos they're about the same size...

This brings me back to some Games Day stuff.
On saturday I went into GW with a friend. The latest White Dwarf had the Golden Demon winners in it, six months after we'd seen them!
One of the winners was one with two greater demons fighting each other. Thing was, the Bloodthirster was sort of suspended in mid-air. The only thing attatching it to anything else was a Keeper of screts (Slaanesh one if I've got the name wrong) holding onto it's whip. And these dudes are standing on a small slab of stone. And I'm wondering how the hell they're keping in balance!

At the last Games Day they had these Forge World leaflets things...you could get all sorts of 40K tanks, AA guns, scenerey etc. And they were all bloody expensive. And this bloke on the coach with us ordered £300 worth of stuff.

Wow. That sounds pretty impressive. I'm gonna buy White Dwarf sometime, out of curiousity's sake. I remember the Forge World stuff when it came out. "It's gonna be cool!" enthused the local manager, banging on about what I think was called a King Russ - Leman Russ with a new turret(?) and a big f**k-off gun barrel. And I was excited. But, of course, what nobody said at the time was that that set cost 85 quid. And I think you had to buy a Russ to glue the stuff onto, so that was a single tank that cost £105. Hmmm. Out of my price range, then. Actually, how much stuff did that guy get for his £300?
Sorry about the past two weeks, by the way. Damn computer!

This bloke actually got quite a bit for his £300. I'd say about half a dozen tanks. Which works out at about £50 at tank, so maybe he got a bit more.
Recently I've been wondering how much all my GW stuff is going to be worth in a few years time...I've got some pretty old stuff now. Give it a decade or two and it'll be antique, and highly valuable .
Years back I was horrified at the notion of selling off my Warhammer. And y'know what? I still am

Wait until June mate, if this thread's still going by then you'll have a five week wait for a reply while I'm on holiday

Five weeks?!!?! Bloody hell! Where are you going?
Talking about old Warhammer minatures... Maybe that's why they insist on changing the models every couple of years - to limit the number available to collectors, like they do with lots of things that folks collect. Or something like that. Wish they still did the really old Marine Librarians. They rocked! And the old metal Terminator Librarian was cool as well, though the plastic ones were crap. Tch.

Going to Australia. Again. This time I think I should collect some material and write a few guide entries about the place. Only just thought of that! *^_^*

Cool old metal models...well personally I think some of the ancient (think 10 years old) Epic models had a lovely touch to them. They don't exist in the game any more, but they have that lovely nostalgic feel to them.
I got a few of those small catalogues from Mail Order (when I got a few issues of Troll), and they had pictures and names of what must be -ancient- stuff.

Hey, do they still do Troll? That rocked!

I'm about to have two articles on Necromunda and Gorkamorka put into the official guide, and now I'm thinking of submitting this and my Warhammer article. Whaddya think?
Obviously I think I'll have to give this a bit of a re-write.

I also got an old article and Games Workshop, which is very cynical. Could you please give it a looking over and suggest any means of salvaging it, and any (many) facts I've probably missed out. Please...

Go for it! The Warhammer and 40,000 articles are damned good, not only putting across well how the games play, but also what taking part in the hobby was like; that's a part of the whole GW scene the official stuff never seems to cover. Half the fun of any hobby seems to be taking the piss out of people, things and stuff with your friends. Those articles reflect that kind of thing well. Cool. As for the GW article... very good. Actually... if the editors allow it, maybe be even more cynical, cause everybody I know who was ever into GW is deeply cynical about the company and its profit margins. Even as we go into the place to buy Marines and Guardsmen. But that's 40,000 for you - gets under your skin despite the wallet damage.
Yeah, the original Epic minatures were fantastic. Like the original Vindicators and Whirlwinds, and that Hellbore completely massive mole thing, and the Capitol Imperialis. What the hell was that? And Drop Pods! Yeah! No idea how they worked, but they looked cool.
And all the plug-in metal stuff they did for the old plastic Warlord Titans, and the £8 boxed set of six Warlords they used to do. Small boys for goalposts. Severe nostalgia attack...

The Capitol Imperialis! My favourite old Epic midel!
That was some sort of command thing, with wierd laser guns on it. Very old-style-Epic.

The Titans...did you see White Dwatrf #197? I think that was the one with a monster Epic game. Blood Angels won 81VP to 10 against Orks. A few Titans, Thunderhawks, old style whirlwinds amongst others...
The old whirlwind, that had a big box on the top to fire stuff from, didn't it? I remember seeing a 40K version of it.

Hey, the White Dwarf from 1991 I saw with the Capitol Imperialis in, that had an article about how to scratch-build Ork battlewagons! They never do anything like that now do they?

Do they still do Troll?

What I gotta do with these articles is to try and not make them clones of the Necromunda and Gorkamorka ones. Even if I try, the sub-editors might end up editing the article so that it looks like those two. I gotta work around this. Tomorrow, I'll sort them out.
With the GW article, I could/should mention the cynicism of the players...

Yeah! My favourite Epic model was the Reaver Titan. Great shape, great weapons options, just generally great. Especially with one of those cool angular barrage launchers on top. Sweet!
(Puts on his Spod hat.) You can make one of those cool boxy Whirlwinds pretty easily. The top and bottom of the launcher's the roof hatches off the Rhino, the launch tubes are two cavalry bases with the bottoms facing outwards, and the sides... actually, I dunno what the sides were made of. Plasticard, I expect, with the Rhino stowage boxes bunged on the sides. Now I admit I've never actually built one of the things, but I'd like to. In fact, I'm pretty tempted right now...
I remember another Rhino conversion they had in WD ages ago called the Sabre tank destroyer, which was a Rhino with a battle cannon poking out of one of the front doors. Nice. WD did the Vindicator in 40K as well. It used a bog roll for the gun, and yet still looked better than the one they sell for £25 now. They really ought to do this kind of thing now, but I suppose it'd eat into profits or something. Why would you spend twenty five quid on a Vindy when you could knock up something a darn sight better out of a £12 Rhino and a loo roll innard? Now /that's/ cynicism!
Troll... This would be the magazine that they sent out with mail order stuff. Am I right? I dunno if they still do it, because (big admission) I've never used mail order. Never had to. Though I might use it to buy some cav bases for that Whirlwind. Yeah.

People make conversions sound so easy, like the Whirlwind which you cite (look how we've gone back on the conversation *^_^*). But, once you start trying to do it, it's a different story...

I've never really tried a big conversion myself. Trying to think if I've -ever- done a conversion! Let's see...I've bent a High Elf archer champion's sword forward deliberatly...and that's it, I think. I'm sure I've done more!
Conversions were one of the things that made GW hobbies so appealing, in years gone by. They seemed so simple. Now they don't. I must be getting old before my time *^_^*.

That's a spot of cynicism I should mention in this entry.

I only ever used Mail Order to get some copies of Troll. It rocked!

Conversions... The Whirlwind sticks in my mind because it was probably the only one they ever, /ever/ did where I thought, "Oh, yeah! That's how it works!" as opposed to my usual routine; see if this rings any bells. You see the photo at the start of the coversion article and you go "WOW! Man, I don't care, I'm doing this!". But then you turn the page, and see the several sheets of templates that have to be photocopied out or traced and then laboriously transferred onto plasticard and... your... brain... turns... to... mush. And then you give up. Happened to me every time. Thinking about it, probably the only reason that Whirlwind conversion didn't pass right out my skull was that it used Rhino bits for the launcher. If it was all made out of plasticard I'd have fallen asleep midway through the article like the other times. Still, I suppose that conversions were a good thing for the potential they gave you, even if it took real dedication to pull 'em off. Shame they seem to have dried up of late. That's except for the Chaos stuff of course. But even their vehicles come ready converted these days.
What stuff did you buy through mail order then?