Re: [Epic] Epic40k Titan

From: Howard Liu <h2liu_at_...>
Date: Fri, 28 Feb 1997 11:00:39 -0800

>It says in the compitition text below the picture in WD 207, that it
>is indeed a Warlord.
>BTW I also quite like the model.

Put me down for a big fat negative. Titans were my favorite part of Space
Marine - they did a fair job of capturing the dreary, gothic feel of the
Warhammer 40K universe, long after the storyline quit. Someone said that
they like the Warlord because it had a nice, dynamic pose. Dynamic is bad
- a big part of the atmosphere (for me) was the backwards, static
stagnation of Imperial thinking. The original Warlord had that, but (in my
opinion) the Reaver did it better.

The Reaver is my favorite model in the Epic line, possibly the entire
Citadel line, and if they mess it up, then I promise that GW will never see
another penny from my wallet.

Once, the Imperium was fighting a losing war over the span of countless
millenia, giving up a dozen worlds every year to implacable foes who gave
no quarter. Its citizens and its bureaucracy offered up their blind
adulation to a Carrion God who stood mutely over a universe of slaughter.
Ignorance was a man's armor, to shield his weak soul against the predations
of Chaos. In the name of the Emperor, hundreds of trillions were oppressed
and repressed and enslaved to His worship.

It's not like that anymore. The Imperium today is no worse off than any
other vaguely bleak futuristic setting. Sure, thousands die every day, but
it's less fatalistic now. Moral ambiguity is a thing of the past. A
benevolent Emperor guards steadfastly over the good guys.

Once, Space Hulk was my favorite GW game, with a foreboding story as the
introduction of every mission, painting the Space Marines up to be
dogmatic, ritualistic warriors of the One True Emperor. Space Hulks were
the heart of the unknown enemy. Genestealers were insiduous enemies, who
rotted away at human society like disease eating through the inside of a
tree - they had three articles in White Dwarf, and charts detailing the
four generations of Hybrids. The atmosphere of the second Space Hulk
computer game, incidentally, is a pale shadow of the first.

Now, Space Hulk looks like nothing so much as an issue of Nintendo Power,
with its glossy, color pages and noble Terminators. The entirety of the
Genestealer Cult is confined to seven pages in the Tyranid Codex, with
little or no background for their mindset or motivations.


Games Workshop has messed up the Imperium, they've messed up Space Hulk,
and they've messed up Genestealer Cults. The rules were always secondary
to the look and feel, for me. If they turn the Reaver into another
Battlemech, then GW will have turned their backs on everything I like about
the Warhammer 40K universe. When that happens, I'll take a good look at
the rules, and then see if I can't find some I like better.


Howard
Received on Fri Feb 28 1997 - 19:00:39 UTC