Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Post
  • Reply
The Deleter
May 22, 2010

NTRabbit posted:

The pledge manager is basically a webstore limited to backers. Any money amount you pledged in the Kickstarter is added to your account as credit, and then you pick exactly what you want, you can pick a level, all add ons, anything. Then when you go to complete your cart, you can use a credit card to add on any extra money you need to add on top of your credit. So, if you pledge $1 now, you get into the pledge manager with $1 credit - which will likely not happen until next year - then you can pick f.ex. the $125 pledge level, and use your credit card or possibly paypal to add in the missing $124 plus shipping.

Thanks! This sounds exactly like what I'd want. I'll go in for that. :)

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

JerryLee
Feb 4, 2005

THE RESERVED LIST! THE RESERVED LIST! I CANNOT SHUT UP ABOUT THE RESERVED LIST!
Definitely in for $1 for the digital poo poo, and I'll see what I see when it comes to the rest.

MasterSlowPoke
Oct 9, 2005

Our courage will pull us through

Drone posted:

So is it just me or do the Forge Fathers minis on the Mantic webstore under Warpath look way better than those they're selling on the kickstarter? That beard armor is pretty sweet.

These guys?



They're older, restic models that are a little on the small side. The new hard plastic kit replaces them and used them for their design, but the armor beards were probably a casualty for posability.

Rulebook Heavily
Sep 18, 2010

by FactsAreUseless
I really wish I could scare up some players for Warpath. I guess I'll pass this time!

NTRabbit
Aug 15, 2012

i wear this armour to protect myself from the histrionics of hysterical women

bitches




They basically took those, the hard plastic steel warriors which were a sci fi top mated to a fantasy bottom to save money, a hybrid restic and metal squad, and a metal squad, all except the steel warriors being a little small, and replaced them with a brand new, slightly upsized single hard plastic sprue that contains all the parts to make Stormrage Veterans, Godhammer Veterans, Steel Warriors, Thorgarim and Drakkarim... though some of those names have disappeared and been folded into weapon swaps in the current alpha document.

xutech
Mar 4, 2011

EIIST

Rulebook Heavily posted:

I really wish I could scare up some players for Warpath. I guess I'll pass this time!

If you have 40k players in the area, you have warpath players.

NTRabbit
Aug 15, 2012

i wear this armour to protect myself from the histrionics of hysterical women

bitches




xutech posted:

If you have 40k players in the area, you have warpath players.

A 40k player is just a Warpath player you haven't met yet :buddy:

drgnvale
Apr 30, 2004

A sword is not cutlery!
Has anyone put together undead skeleton archers recently? I am having trouble mating the metal tops to the plastic bottoms... They just don't line up at all and on some of the tops it seems like I need to cut a huge chunk (maybe a gate?) out to have the rip cages come even close to touching.

Any tips on building these guys would be appreciated!

MadWOPR
Jan 26, 2014
Is anyone aware of a place people play warpath or kings of war in dfw? I was considering kicking in on the warpath kick starter but if I end up playing myself it will be sad. Also I'm debating getting the two player or just one of the armies, but that also relies on other people playing

Esser-Z
Jun 3, 2012

Drone posted:

So is it just me or do the Forge Fathers minis on the Mantic webstore under Warpath look way better than those they're selling on the kickstarter? That beard armor is pretty sweet.

I much prefer the new ones, myself.

Atlas Hugged
Mar 12, 2007


Put your arms around me,
fiddly digits, itchy britches
I love you all
I guess my biggest issue with the Kickstarter campaign is that outside of that initial rush to get in on the early bird special, the whole thing has felt rather underwhelming. Everything is very bare bones and adequate to a fault. When your goal is to sell a new game and universe to go with it, I kind of want something I can sink my teeth into. I suppose that information might be floating out there on the forums or Mantic blog, but it should be centralized on the Kickstarter page for people just following the campaign. I really have no idea how Warpath plays, what kind of mechanics I can expect, how things have evolved from previous editions, why a new edition is even necessary, and the setting has only been painted in broad and somewhat inconsistent notes.

I'm looking at the latest update about the Plague and how it destroys worlds and there are some cool ideas in there. But the writing leaves a lot to be desired. It both says that the Plague destroys identities and souls, a very grimdark approach to storytelling, but then closes with a comment about how being a corporate drone may not be that much better of an alternative. Well which is it? What am I supposed to feel for the average denizen of the corporate sphere? Are these brave men and women with personalities that matter or are they just flesh-sacks that are being used by one entity or another. There's actually good "Dawn of the Dead" era satire in there about drones being turned into zombies, but the language is both flat and trying really hard to be space opera when it shouldn't be.

Reading the longer blog about the setting of the starter box, everything just comes across so sterile. I know they can't crib directly from 40k's approach of battles against good and evil and serving the decayed corpse of the god emperor, but surely they can do better than, "Well there was like this story about a space dragon that is clearly just a metaphor and now some space dwarves are angry at us, but we signed a lease and bought the mining rights goddammit, to battle!" And if they are going to go that route, it needs to be a black comedy and not played completely straight the way it is here.

I guess what I really want to know is from whom's perspective is this story being told? Are we at the eye level of the average corporate citizen caught between a rock and a hard place? The not-so-subtle jabs at the corporations kind of put us above it all, as if we're getting narration from a bitter old insider who has a bone to pick. Are we supposed to see the world through the eyes of the generals leading the battles? I don't need a hero-faction or a dedicated protagonist, but having some grounding that the rest of the world is built around would go a long way to making it all more tangible. The whole thing could be from the perspective of corporate propaganda telling people how important their roles are and how great the enforcers are with a sprinkling in of just enough hints that things aren't as they seem to keep it interesting.

boom boom boom
Jun 28, 2012

by Shine
The Warpath setting doesn't seem to have any history. It's a simple trick to do, just add a line about Veer-Myn showing up recently and nobody knowing from where, or like, "the Forge Fathers were among the first aliens humanity encountered, and their first ally, but relations between the two races have become strained since The Hububu of Whatever" And then you're like, oh, there's mysteries and stories here, I am interested in this as more than a purely mechanical game system.

Without stuff like that it's just, here's some dudes. The Enforcers fight without fear, the Forge Fathers fight without remorse, and the Veer-Myn are gross. It's slightly more diffentiation that there is between Gork and Mork

Atlas Hugged
Mar 12, 2007


Put your arms around me,
fiddly digits, itchy britches
I love you all

boom boom boom posted:

Without stuff like that it's just, here's some dudes. The Enforcers fight without fear, the Forge Fathers fight without remorse, and the Veer-Myn are gross. It's slightly more diffentiation that there is between Gork and Mork

I disagree. You see, Gork is brutal but cunning and Mork is cunning but brutal. Or maybe it's the other way around.

That right there tells you everything you need to know about Ork psychology and society and what interactions with them will be like. There's more characterization in it than in anything I've seen from Mantic on Warpath's world and factions. I know their emphasis is on getting the game and factions ready to play and it's the same problem I've heard Kings of War currently has. There's a reason why going back and reading Rogue Trader, dated though it is, is still fun. I don't know that in 25 years people will be nostalgic to look back at the old Warpath fluff.

Right now, Mantic is trusting that the players will fill in the gaps in their own heads and is hoping that the players trust that Mantic will fill in the official fluff down the road. But what I've seen hasn't been all that inspiring. This thread and the Death Thread have done a better job getting me excited about the Warpath fluff than the Kickstarter has. It's simple stuff like someone here posting the picture of the Enforcer flyer and a caption about dealing with peaceful protests and then stuff about the Marauders being just too drat good at their jobs leading to the creation of the Enforcers in the first place. Maybe all of that will be in the Sourcebook, but the style of writing in the fluff text on the Kickstarter doesn't give me much confidence that it will be gripping even if there is a good story there.

On the other hand, 10 jetbikes for $40. gently caress. Yeah.

Spiderdrake
May 12, 2001



It does have history in broad strokes - There seems to be sort of four phases? Arilou Asterians fight the plague, Asterians leave, early Corps meet the Forge Fathers, and Now - but it does seem to lack critical events. I've always hated how the Horus Heresy is incredibly specific and incredibly stupid, but 40k does have these flavorful critical events that shape the world building in a way you can spin stories off.

but I haven't really read enough. I like the core, basic ideas. But like, do the corps have names? Do they specialize in certain things? Are there "bands" of enforcers and some with slightly less grey monologue morality? Do the Asterians have some sort of organization? Does the plague ... Anything, because the lore makes me fall asleep in my chair? Are the Veer-Myn just spaven even though space doesn't have an underground? I don't know.

edit; and yeah, loving those jetbikes. I'm pretty sure I'm going to back for enforcers and asterians, I hope there's jetbikes and also other even sleeker jetbikes.

Gravy Train Robber
Sep 15, 2007

by zen death robot
I do like the Mass Effect-ish aesthetic of the Corporation and some of the Rebs, and its clearly a universe that isn't ~Only War~, as seen through Dreadball and the fact a lot of human civilization seems to have it pretty good compared to 40k, despite that the Corporation are basically bad guys running a cyberpunk dystopia.

Adding the Plague as a fourth faction is making me reconsider getting in on this. Not a fan of the Space Skaven or Dwarves, sadly. I like the idea of Space Skaven, living as infestations onboard ships, etc. but the models just aren't doing it for me. Plague zombies are a bit trite but they look pretty nice as an alien menace.

I'm more interested in smaller scale stuff though, but I'm thinking Advanced Warfare with the Enforcer Bundle, Add on Plague Bundle, and get a free enforcer flyer. And then pick up Deadzone/some Deadzone terrain like the landing pad to park the flyer on.

I'd also like to see Marauders or Asterians show up at some point in the kickstarter too.

Atlas Hugged
Mar 12, 2007


Put your arms around me,
fiddly digits, itchy britches
I love you all
This is what I mean. There are some really cool ideas kicking about and there's room to grow and fill it in. But given its dystopian cyber-punk roots, it needs to be steeped in satire propaganda and it isn't.

Spiderdrake
May 12, 2001



Why does it "need" to?

boom boom boom
Jun 28, 2012

by Shine
I know they can't use actual brand names, but they should mention something like, border skirmishes between the planets that are WcDonalds franchise and ones that are Burger Regent franchises.

xutech
Mar 4, 2011

EIIST

Filling in the setting can be quite expensive, and you can either pay for a good writer and take a gamble on the setting, or you can avoid the whole situation altogether until your players develop something organically.

Games workshop had to go through the same process, except they simply sat down with a pile of 2000ADs, a DUNE paperback, Lord of the rings, Starwars and some Michael Moorcock books to fill in the blanks.

That's why they started with a generic player driven narrative setting, build your own vehicles out of shampoo bottles, a few plastic boxed sets and a lot of multipurpose lead models.

Atlas Hugged
Mar 12, 2007


Put your arms around me,
fiddly digits, itchy britches
I love you all

Spiderdrake posted:

Why does it "need" to?

Cyperpunk just lends itself really well to satire, same with the comparison between being an actual zombie versus being a corporate drone. But, no, it doesn't "need" to be satire, but it should have consistency of tone at the very least. As I said before, they're caught somewhere between high space opera (OH NO THE POOR CORPORATE DRONE'S SOUL!) and a sterile scifi setting (there are corporations, and uh, people live and die under them).

Drone
Aug 22, 2003

Incredible machine
:smug:



xutech posted:

Filling in the setting can be quite expensive, and you can either pay for a good writer and take a gamble on the setting, or you can avoid the whole situation altogether until your players develop something organically.

Games workshop had to go through the same process, except they simply sat down with a pile of 2000ADs, a DUNE paperback, Lord of the rings, Starwars and some Michael Moorcock books to fill in the blanks.

That's why they started with a generic player driven narrative setting, build your own vehicles out of shampoo bottles, a few plastic boxed sets and a lot of multipurpose lead models.

I agree and disagree with "GW did it this way, so Mantic should too." Yes, hiring a Dan Abnett to come in and write some good Warpath-universe fiction is expensive and time-consuming, but there are plenty of other ways to get some fairly okay worldbuilding done for an infant IP. For one thing, Mantic has done themselves no favors in making the stories difficult to find -- there should, 100%, be a Fluff tab on the main Mantic webpage to explain the basics of the backgrounds for both the KoW universe and Warpath/Deadzone/Dreadball. The fluff that does exist is difficult to get to if you don't dig for it. There's no specific area on the forums for fluff, there's no real fluff on the store pages for each of the armies (the KS page has more unit fluff than the entire Mantic webstore). If you want to actually read the fluff that Mantic HAS put out, you either have to 1.) buy the games or 2.) know about the existence of their PDF-only White Dwarf analogue, which they are doing a poor job of promoting.

I was thinking in the shower earlier how well Mantic could do with something like the EVE Chronicles that EVE Online's website used to have. Sure, a lot of them were fairly poorly written, but they -pumped that poo poo out- in the early days of EVE when the world was still new and people weren't yet sold on the lore. Now, the universe is really well filled out, the lore is actually interesting and makes people feel more connected to the game.

I guess what I'm saying is that Mantic desperately needs some kind of steward for the background of their IP, a full-time person who curates their lore, sets the desperately-needed tone (is Warpath trying to be grimdark? is it trying to be 80s/90s campy action sci-fi? is it trying to be satire?), sees to its creation, and above all else makes it easily and readily accessible to people who may be interested in their products. I shouldn't have to dig for fifteen minutes to find one piece of fiction or even an in-depth explanation of the world's history (as I did last night), that only turns someone off as a potential customer.

Edit: also they really need to think about hiring an additional copywriter or replacing the one they have. Count the number of run-on sentences and instances of outright incorrect word usage in that Operation Heracles fluff background post. That, combined with the complaints people had about the KoW rulebook being poorly-written, should really give them some cause for concern. These things are small in comparison to "starting a company to challenge a giant like GW", but these things matter a great deal and when your product contains a lot of careless grammatical errors, it gives the distinct impression of sloppiness. This just contributes to the feeling that your product is crap because you obviously don't care about it enough to make sure you write your sentences correctly.

Drone fucked around with this message at 06:04 on Sep 24, 2015

xutech
Mar 4, 2011

EIIST

I agree totally.

Drone
Aug 22, 2003

Incredible machine
:smug:



So I kinda wanted to take that topic of conversation to the Mantic forums because I'd be really interested hearing what Mantic's take on it is, but apparently there's... no post button? Do new accounts need to be manually approved or something?

Phoon
Apr 23, 2010

Most of the fluff for warpath actually exists in the dreadball books at the moment

e: the difference between it and old 40k isnt a lack of satire - there's plenty of satire, albeit sometimes a little hamfisted - its a lack of farce.

Phoon fucked around with this message at 08:55 on Sep 24, 2015

NTRabbit
Aug 15, 2012

i wear this armour to protect myself from the histrionics of hysterical women

bitches




Dreadball and Deadzone, so the fluff is only a few years old. Takes time to build that up.

Drone
Aug 22, 2003

Incredible machine
:smug:



NTRabbit posted:

Dreadball and Deadzone, so the fluff is only a few years old. Takes time to build that up.

I'm not expecting Mantic to have a vast library of material.

I'm just expecting them to make the material that does exist easily available, and to make sure that it's at least edited in such a way that it doesn't convey sloppiness (things are spelled correctly, words are used in ways that they're supposed to be used, things are generally grammatically-correct). And also to commit to fleshing things out even more.

Atlas Hugged
Mar 12, 2007


Put your arms around me,
fiddly digits, itchy britches
I love you all
I agree with Drone, but I also agree with NTRabbit. The game and company are both young and I don't expect it to be a fully fleshed out world right this minute, but it should be a major priority for them long term. They aren't being handed a player base for their mass scifi battle game like they were with Kings of War. Besides, if 40k proves anything it's that the fans don't really care about the rules all that much and the setting is a significant motivator in continuing with the hobby. The scifi scene in general is way more competitive than fantasy what with X-Wing, Warmahordes, and Infinity all fighting for the same relative space as the alternative to 40k. (Yes, all these games are dramatically different with different appeals and multiple people have forces in all of them, but casual players are probably going to pick only a single scifi miniatures game to focus on.)

I'm still on board with Mantic and Warpath and am looking forward to seeing what all is in the Sourcebook when it drops next year. My major complaint is that the Kickstarter itself is underwhelming as far as getting me interested in the models, world, and game go and I also would like to see some kind of road map to the future to see how they plan on developing it. The "road map" doesn't even have to be a literal business plan, it would just need to be consistent tone and good copy-editing in what they've released so far and as mentioned a link to a large collection of the existing fluff. They could even just do a loving blog post in what we could expect to see in the Sourcebook itself since at this point I think the most they've said is that it's full of information that Warpath fans will really love. Of course this is all irrelevant anyway since I already pledged.

Phoon
Apr 23, 2010

Drone posted:

I'm not expecting Mantic to have a vast library of material.

I'm just expecting them to make the material that does exist easily available, and to make sure that it's at least edited in such a way that it doesn't convey sloppiness (things are spelled correctly, words are used in ways that they're supposed to be used, things are generally grammatically-correct). And also to commit to fleshing things out even more.

When you say easily available do you mean you want them to put the fluff from the various books online? A lot of the fleshing out of the various races and factions happens in the individual deadzone unit entries or the dreadball team entries.

The dreadball books are all about life under the corporations, so that's where most of the satire is. The deadzone stuff is a bit more straightforward imo

Drone
Aug 22, 2003

Incredible machine
:smug:



Phoon posted:

When you say easily available do you mean you want them to put the fluff from the various books online? A lot of the fleshing out of the various races and factions happens in the individual deadzone unit entries or the dreadball team entries.

I just mean some kind of universe primer, I guess. I obviously don't expect them to make entire books free.

Mantic's answer on their KS comments posted:

This essentially is our second crack at the Warpath game. Lots of the background for Warpath up on our website is kind of generic, you're right.
When we first tackled the system, there wasn't really an overarching idea of the story, we'd always planned to develop that over time like Kings of War. So whilst some of the themes exist, and we will build around, it's not wholly representative of what we're doing with this edition of Warpath - as you can see from the background posted on the Kickstarter, there are much stronger themes and ideas and it's all being more tightly knitted together.
It takes time to fully flesh out a universe as big as Warpath, and we will continue to improve and develop the background, including having a lot up on the website when we head into the retail launch of Warpath next year.
You are 100% right that the development of the IP Is crucial to the stickiness of the game, and we've got plenty more story to show off between now, the end of this campaign, the retail launch and beyond.
I'd recommend Mantic Digital if you're interested in reading up on all of the background there is for Deadzone and DreadBall: https://www.manticdigital.com/
I think "one problem that most people agree" is a bit of an over-generalisation though :)

Again posted:

A universe primer is a great name for it. That is something that will definitely happen. I think it's fair to say that Warpath itself as a wider universe hasn't had much focus in the four years since the initial alpha, instead we've focused on telling individual stories through Deadzone and DreadBall. The ultimate goal is to have a site that functions a lot like the Starcraft Website, where there's an overarching Mantic site, but individual sub-sites for each game that details the story, the gameplay, some of the races and characters. That's my goal for the development of the website.

Drone fucked around with this message at 10:10 on Sep 24, 2015

NTRabbit
Aug 15, 2012

i wear this armour to protect myself from the histrionics of hysterical women

bitches




Dreadball is a propaganda tool, and all fluff is all corporate PR style propaganda presented in a satirical way. It's a depiction of the 2nd and 3rd spheres, where people are relatively wealthy and or comfortable, but still need public opiates to distract and control them from the things that aren't so great.

Dreadball Xtreme fluff is the subtitles to all the Dreadball propaganda, presenting both the truth of corporate "justice", and undermining what the propaganda says about the aliens, ie the "Asterian" Starhawks and the Kalyshi. It's meant to be representative of the 4th sphere, the fledgling colonies where the poor are shunted from world to world in corporate servitude, and managers hope to earn their place in the 2nd sphere by driving profits through brutal cost cutting. Crime and crime lords run rife, as they often suit the needs of management - but not too rife, lest Enforcer justice be attracted to a region grown too lawless.

Deadzone is mostly set in the 5th sphere and beyond, the current wave of human expansion, and presents the cold reality of the Corporation as a voracious, expansionist entity totally uncaring of anything beyond profit at any price, and of life out behind and beyond the propaganda wall where many of the aliens are far more powerful and dangerous than a turn on the Dreadball pitch suggests.

NTRabbit fucked around with this message at 10:41 on Sep 24, 2015

Phoon
Apr 23, 2010

Tbh I generally don't read the fluff during the kickstarters, I wait until the books come, plus im familiar with the fluff already so I can't pass any judgement on the fluff as presented in this ks.

I don't feel that the fluff is generic though and I strongly prefer the setting to 40k - especially modern 40k. Here are my main reasons:

More effective/relevant satire - 40k is (or was) a satire of fascism which makes sense as it developed during punk and thatcher but isn't as relevant today. Warpath is a satire of neoliberalism, the dominant political and economic ideology of recent years. Instead of faith and honour

Less grimdarkness - Factions are selfish, rather than sadistic.

Lots more aliens - corporation space contains lots of alien races all of which have their own cultures (though these are often commodified or overwritten by the bland consumerist culture of the corporations). This structure means designers can throw in anything they have an idea for at any time and then develop it as much as they want and it will still fit - which makes the universe feel more vibrant - more star wars to 40ks star trek

The corporation is expanding, rather than fighting for survival - again this provides plenty of opportunity for adding new factions, new campaigns in uncharted space etc

E: it also feels like the fluff fits the gameplay better eg in 40k the elder are a dying race who supposedly cherish every life but they constantly get wiped out on the table (not so much since the D) losing hundreds of dudes, every game of 40k they feature in should be a great loss for their society - in warpath the asterians have the same problems as the elder but have come up with a technological solution - drones! Drones everywhere! When asterians lose a battle they lose a handful of dudes and a bunch of replaceable robots

Phoon fucked around with this message at 11:05 on Sep 24, 2015

Panzeh
Nov 27, 2006

"..The high ground"

Phoon posted:

e: the difference between it and old 40k isnt a lack of satire - there's plenty of satire, albeit sometimes a little hamfisted - its a lack of farce.

Yeah it's less actively dumb than 40k IMO. I mean it's hammy, but it's not as outright stupid.

40k's satire wasn't even relevant in the 80s- fascism was long gone and their idea of dystopia was the Catholic Church. No wonder the lore appealed to no-joke fascists.

krushgroove
Oct 23, 2007

Disapproving look
I liked the fluff summary that was posted previously, but beyond that I don't really care what the fluff is. There's totalitarian control freak space humans, pissed off space dwarves, nasty space rats, horrible space zombies and annoyed space elf type things. Cool. Let's fight one against the other. I don't need novels (or even barely a paragraph) of backstory to tell me what the motivation of space rats is and why they want to destroy space dwarves. But I guess some people do...I can see why that would turn off some people but to me it's like turning on a Doom game and going 'Now why do I want to kill these guys? What's my motivation?'

Drone
Aug 22, 2003

Incredible machine
:smug:



krushgroove posted:

I liked the fluff summary that was posted previously, but beyond that I don't really care what the fluff is. There's totalitarian control freak space humans, pissed off space dwarves, nasty space rats, horrible space zombies and annoyed space elf type things. Cool. Let's fight one against the other. I don't need novels (or even barely a paragraph) of backstory to tell me what the motivation of space rats is and why they want to destroy space dwarves. But I guess some people do...I can see why that would turn off some people but to me it's like turning on a Doom game and going 'Now why do I want to kill these guys? What's my motivation?'

It's kinda the same line of thinking that a lot of people have regarding AoS when we found out the details of the godawful new backstory. If none of these races really exist outside their own nebulously-defined and largely-disconnected realms, why exactly are they fighting each other for all eternity again? There's no real stake to fight over, and it just adds to AoS's absolute blandness.

The Deleter
May 22, 2010
Maybe going into the different business or corporations of the Corp would be a good idea? This may be because I want to paint my enforcers in the colors of NBN from Android Netrunner.

Honestly, although the fluff can be fun to read and it's often the attention-grabber for most people who check out the game, it probably won't be the reason people stick with it. It IS a reason to get invested, though, so developing the fluff wouldn't hurt.

Phoon
Apr 23, 2010

E: paint your dudes as modern corporations imo. ive been looking for a suitable ronald mcdonald to paint up as a statue for scenery

The cleverest fluff is in the db books imo. the zzor stuff is probably my favourite little bit -

The corporations encounter the zzor an alien race of bug people and they have a problem - their soldiers are terrified of them, moreso than any other alien species encountered so far - something about the way they move is completely alien to human experience.

The corporation solution is to capture (or possibly fabricate) some zzor and get them under their own control (the exact method of this is left unclear, in fact this whole thing is really just heavily implied) - they then put the zzor out on the dreadball pitch.

Everyone is freaked out by them at first but there's only a few and they're in a safe and familiar environment separated from spectators - plus the familiar dreadball players wail on them etc. Eventually everyone gets used to them and now corporation recruits no longer seize up against them in combat.

Phoon fucked around with this message at 11:58 on Sep 24, 2015

krushgroove
Oct 23, 2007

Disapproving look

Drone posted:

It's kinda the same line of thinking that a lot of people have regarding AoS when we found out the details of the godawful new backstory. If none of these races really exist outside their own nebulously-defined and largely-disconnected realms, why exactly are they fighting each other for all eternity again? There's no real stake to fight over, and it just adds to AoS's absolute blandness.
The GW Death Thread and this one are kind of merging at the moment :) but for me I don't care that much about AoS not because of the freshness of the story but I suppose mostly because of the blandness of the Sigmarine models and (in the opposite direction) the over-the-top design of the Khorne dudes. The story has nothing to do with it for me. Even with the Old World setting I'd just see orcs v humans, rats v dwarves, undead v lizards, whatever. Maybe it's just me? I have recent 40K codexes I've had for years that I still haven't read the narrative parts of, just the rules - and I'm not even a rules guy, I'm just a 'roll dice and have a laugh' type player.

Panzeh
Nov 27, 2006

"..The high ground"

Drone posted:

It's kinda the same line of thinking that a lot of people have regarding AoS when we found out the details of the godawful new backstory. If none of these races really exist outside their own nebulously-defined and largely-disconnected realms, why exactly are they fighting each other for all eternity again? There's no real stake to fight over, and it just adds to AoS's absolute blandness.

It's pretty much the exact same thing with 40k though and sci-fi in general. They're just fighting to make the action figures fight. Wars end.

The mantic sci-fi approach of fighting over things in the periphery makes more sense than "EVERYONE IS FIGHTING FOR BLOODSURVIVAL"

NTRabbit
Aug 15, 2012

i wear this armour to protect myself from the histrionics of hysterical women

bitches




^^ I like that Z'Zor team story, there's a similar thing with the Asterians, where they have a team that is probably surgically modified humans, but out in DBX land there are actual Asterians, a sub set of their society called Kalysi, running around, and they're a whole lot different to the DBO ones.

Snorkel's story is still the best one though

The Deleter posted:

Maybe going into the different business or corporations of the Corp would be a good idea?

I think they might go into some detail about the Seven megacorps eventually, but aside from a few being reference points in other fluff ie the corp that first got stomped by the Orks, and the ones that sponsor Dreadball, they've deliberately left it blank so that you can invent any corporation with any colour scheme you want. There's no 18 legions with set colours, it's ever other founding since with no "parent" legion from which you borrow the paint and organisation.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

The Deleter
May 22, 2010

Phoon posted:

E: paint your dudes as modern corporations imo. ive been looking for a suitable ronald mcdonald to paint up as a statue for scenery
I just really want a news corp scheme, because the idea of a news corp starting wars and poo poo just to bump ratings sounds right for the setting. Maybe Fox News?

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply