Wednesday, March 28, 2018

Mixing Fantasy and Sci-fi

While at Bulldog Lopez's for Violence in the Valley I had time to browse through his White Dwarf collection.  I had a look through while eating a delicious bacon sandwich, made lovingly by my host and watching He-man, the single greatest cartoon ever created.

When suddenly I came upon this amazing image!  Instantly I dropped my sandwich, ketchup exploding across the floor. My mouth agape with tiny crumbs and bits of bacon hanging from my lips.


My word look at that!  Is that cigar smoke? Why are Eldar bursting through a castle wall?  Are those fantasy orcs not orks?  How can this be?  Well read on to know moawr.


I know I forgot all about my bacon sandwich as the dog ate what was left.  My mind raced as Prince Adam droned on in the background. 


By the Power of Gropez I transformed into a inspired madman as my mind filled with ways to do this on my own.  

Blasters, Swords, Jet Fliers, Riding beasts, Magic....Oh ya that's right I WAS watching He-man when I saw this.  LOL

Almost sounds like the start of Rogue Trader as well. ;)




I would suspect the driving force to play this type of game now is most of us barely get a chance to play proper 80's rules outside Oldhammer Weekend/BOYL.  So why not get everything we want to play with onto one table.  Make sense right?

Though this would require double the paper work and a rules checking right?

Maybe not Mec...maybe we just need to play, and forget checking the book for bog downing minutiae.  We need to get back to playing with our army men like we used to in our sandboxes

I bet they smell like cigars to this day.
All you need to do is find a scenario snippet you like from good ol' Warhammer Siege 1988. Then play and write a battle report.  It's easy look.




Okay back on track...Trying to boost the sales of the Mighty Fortress, much like He-man did with their toy line.  Citadel/GW had to evoke scenes of using the Mighty Fortress in all aspects of their miniature lines.  

Meaning they had to show people that Rogue Trader could be played in a Fantasy setting.  Simple but game changing at the same time, as can be seen from the scenario briefs above.  


Reading through the text and scenarios gives you unlimited possibilities to play, depending on your interests.

Here Count Metal Mane and co. face off against some Space Ork Raiders in an OK Corral shootout


These Primitives have to get sick and tired of all these Conventional's showing up and destroying everything. 

Or they just capture Dreadnoughts and force them to fight.  Seems like a job Luke Skywalker would have if he hadn't joined the rebellion.

Dreadnought Jousting in a Fantasy setting? Is that gambling I see...tsk tsk!
Myself I really enjoying pushing the envelope.  But if you are a more conservative gamer there are more "official" guidelines you are welcome to follow.

So how can we get these relatively standardized for games?  Well if your like me you could just throw the minis on the table and not worry about if or...


I mean that makes sense to someone like me who doesn't really dither around with points.  However that would be there should be 2 giants in the pic below....Yikes!!!!     

Some Space Marine Tiger Claw Terminators take on a Maruader Giant

 These fluff bits tho in the images.  Dwarves aided by the Legion of the Damned after and Ork Waaagh descends on their world. Get me some dice stat! Well you can do that too...it's official!


See it's okay...Bryan Ansell says so.


So there you have it, mix and match the forces you want, or have on hand.  Worry about points or don't.  Just have fun with the gaming time you have.  Also I know most of the presented material was for sieges, dont let that hold you up either.  Play normal battles, rearguards, ambushes whatever.  But you didn't need me telling you that if you've read this far. Tell next time M8's!

40 comments:

  1. Great Article,
    It's almost like you've been thinking about this in preparation for some sort of huge upcoming event. :)

    On that note, finding examples to get the "right" blend of tech and fantasy for a game can be found in lots of places. Dune comes to mind, but also Star Wars Ep 1. I didn't like Episode 1 overall, but the battle between the natives and their shield tech vs. the Trade Federation Robots looked pretty awesome.

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    1. It is isn't it. ;) Oh ya it can be found in a lot of places. It's something we should def see more of.

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  2. First of all I have to say: "ketchup on bacon sandwich!?!?!" You sire, are a MONSTER!! The only thing that belongs on a bacon sandwich is hot sauce...and maybe a little mayo.

    ...oh yeah...the rest of your post was good too I guess...I didn't really read past the Ketchup part...

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    1. Oh ya ketchup and mayo on a bacon sandwich.....mmmm there ya go. Thanks for kind of reading Bloo, we do know your mind tends to wonder. LOL

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  3. The only thing that belongs on a Bacon sandwich is more Bacon! Although Bacon and Marmelade is quite tasty. Capitol ideas there Airborne. I have found that the true Oldhammer spirit is that we have a gentleman's agreement about a few things find some kind of stat block and to hit/ to wound tables and then allow the magic to happen. What could be better?

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    1. He had some apricot preserve or something to I tried as well. LOL
      You hit the nail on the head right there. Let the Magic happen. ;)

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  4. You're all wrong! Brown sauce is what you should be having on a bacon sandwich. Proper bacon. None of the sweet septic stuff. Great article Grover. It's exactly the sort of game that we need to be playing. Of course, you are still living on the wrong continent so You'll need to sort that out!

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    1. Brown sauce pff....next you'll be wanting me to say bap and biccy. FFS LOL
      Yus we should be doing these sorts, and I think it's your turn to visit. HAHAHA

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  5. I have that old tome and haven't thought of it in years! Thumb a few pages forward and you'll see their take on a Space Marine "Mighty Fortress" up date....always rather liked that.

    So I can forgive the Beacon Blasphemy....one never wastes beacon!

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    1. Well the dog did finish it off, I was mesmerized to hurry up and pick it off the floor. LOL

      Ya there are a lot of good little bits in there to push your game farther. This mixing genres tho is something I really want to develop. :)

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  6. It's been a long time since I tried that. Did it in a roll playing game once. Seemed like a great idea. All then player characters were mages of one sort or another summoned to the king's castle for an audience. Along the way they encountered this little tempter named Slaneesh, I think it was. And at the castle they were hustled into a mysterious wagon that took them to a great cathedral . . . in space. And then everyone quit on me. They were all "This is too dark!" I was telling them "Come on, you don't have to fight FOR the emperor. You can try to KILL him! Wouldn't that be awesome? Start a rebellion! In space! You don't like any stories like that, do you?" But no no, as soon as the players knew it was Rogue Trader they backed out. Dang fluffy pen and paper kids.

    Anyway . . .

    Capitol sir! Fan-service-tastic! Can you see anything? he asks. Yes. Wonderful things.

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    1. Well that sucks they wouldn't finish that campaign. It sound slike people used to do it, then got out of the habit. I'm gonna try and bring it back. ;)

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  7. Now you're just trolling us with the Master of the Universe stuff, right?

    I've done this several times, the most recent of which was my game where a platoon of Waffen SS stumbled upon the fortress of an Evil High Priest, though I used Donnybrook to run the game. It was great fun... for those who missed it...

    http://macekiller.blogspot.com/search/label/Dungeons%20and%20Dragons

    No reason 40k and WFB couldn't be used to play the same scenario...

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    1. Dang it, I knew that and should have linked that battle report. You even comic fied it. And yes if I'm known as the Motu guy I better represent. LOL

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  8. That is the dumbest idea I have ever heard. Ketchup on a bacon sandwich? Ugh.

    The rest of the blog is pretty good though.

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    1. Ketchup on anything is totes Dee-lish! And thanks fam. 😉

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  9. Laying waste to willing, if misguided, yokels with OTP ordinance is where its at.....game wise I mean, like Siege mixed games ;)

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  10. Replies
    1. bullshit...you licked it up! I know you did!

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    2. Sometimes those marks become cherished memories.

      And other times, they're reminders to make your friends eat at the table. Over a dropcloth. With the sippy cup. ;-)

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    3. (Also note: thirty years after the incident I still find soda splatters on some of my models. It was a bit more than a dropped sandwich, mind. Impressive stuff. But still, it's been thirty years.)

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  11. Awesome article! The last time I had a friend over for mini painting we watched He-Man! Great show.

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    1. Thanks! Ya it's always fun having those 80s cartoons going in the background while you paint. ;)

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  12. Good write up--looking forward to seeing your battle report in due course!
    !

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    1. I have lots of ideas. DOnt worry. ;)

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    2. My best friend and I had a running grudge match: his Undead 3rd ed horde against my Rogue Trader Ultramarines. It was a bloodbath every time!

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    3. Huh. Well, undead don't have too much blood anymore, do they? So I take it the boys in blue didn't do so well? ;-)

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    4. Let's just say if I couldn't smear enough of his magic men by Turn 3, the best I could hope for was a draw.

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  13. You got bacon juice on your eldar egg walkers? Sounds like breakfast.

    Oh btw - the 25% WFB / WH40K is bunkum, the points system already scales, don't sweat it.

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    1. Nice...I was hoping you’d get in on the discussion.
      So just go regular lists and don’t sweat the 25%. Got it. 😉

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    2. Yeah. Use 2nd Edition Warhammer Fantasy Battle tho! ;-P

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  14. Eating a bacon sandwich, flipping through vintage White Dwarfs and watching He-Man?
    I hate to break the news to you, ABG, but you must have passed away a short time ago and you now reside in Valhalla.

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    1. HAHAHAHA....Just what I call the weekend around here man. ;)

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  15. Thanks, now I have to go find my copy of Siege and drool over genre bending 80's mini porn.

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