Baggage Trains in Warhammer Fantasy Battle

Baggage trains are one of richest elements in 3rd edition Warhammer. In my view, no fantasy army is complete without a colourful array of camp followers. And yet, it is an oft-neglected element of the hobby: I could find only a few references to baggage trains on other Oldhammer sites (the best of which was Mouse's Flo's Field Kitchen). 

In an effort to fill in the gap, here are some pictures of the baggage for my 1000 point Wood Elf Army.

Baggage trains add three things to any game of Warhammer game: realism, conflict and creative modelling. 

The realism is simple. Most ancient armies couldn't exist without baggage trains: food stores, armourers and cooks, not to mention the sick and wounded. In the Late Middle Ages (the period corresponding to Warhammer's Old World), camp followers were not merely servants, but the wives and children of the soldiers. A chronicler of the Thirty Years War described the baggage train like this:

A regiment of three thousand men usually had not less than 300 vehicles, and each wagon was filled to overflowing with women, boys, children, prostitutes and  plunder.

This massive impedimenta (as the Romans aptly called it) didn't just vanish the moment the fighting started. Unfortunately for everyone, it was part of the battlefield.

Thus, the second thing that baggage trains add to the gaming table is conflict. A baggage train gives even the most aggressive army something to defend. But even for a victorious army driving the enemy back to its camp, the baggage train can be a peril. 

As written in the 3rd ed. Warhammer Rulebook (pages 102-103), a unit close to the enemy's baggage train will be compelled (by a failed Leadership test) to charge into the wagons and start looting, even if self-preservation would dictate a wiser course of action. What a great rule! This sort of ill-timed plundering was common in the ancient world -- perhaps the most famous case being the first Battle of Philippi, when Brutus' victorious troops dallied after capturing Octavian's camp, giving Octavian and Antony time to rally their troops. No biggie, Brutus. It's just the end of the Roman Republic.

Other interesting (and perhaps overlooked) rules about baggage include the fact that halflings go apeshit when defending baggage (+2 to hit and strength - page 103); armies get extra victory points for keeping their baggage intact (page 142); civilians in the baggage are the only units in the game to use improvised weapons (page 84); and mercenaries are more liable to bugger off when they get too close to either side's baggage train (page 125 of Warhammer Armies).

And lastly, baggage trains are grand because they're an opportunity for creative modelling. This is because Citadel never released any official miniatures for the baggage train (although there are some tantalizing unreleased models). The lack of anything official means that we have to take matters into our own hands, selecting from Citadel's beer-carts, townsfolk and villagers -- or going outside of Citadel. My favourite source for extra-Citadel miniatures is Wargames Foundry. As the Ansells' reincarnation of Citadel, Foundry models will replicate the scale and sculpting style of any Oldhammer force.

For my army, I decided that baggage wagons were inconsistent with elvish mobility. Instead, I used pack horses, combined with Jes Goodwin's elves (slightly converted to transform them into messengers and grooms). To add flavour, I threw in a piping faun (the Talisman Satyr) and a pudgy halfling chef (Samwise from Citadel's original Lord of the Rings series). 

As brilliant as they are, baggage trains were only with us for a short time. They didn't exist in 2nd edition Warhammer, and were dropped from 4th edition. And yet, baggage can be so much fun. As a Welsh soldier cries at the Battle of Agincourt in Shakespeare's Henry V, after the French despoiled the English baggage: "Kill the poys and the luggage! ... 'tis as arrant a piece of knavery, mark you now, as can be offer't." For my own part, I love to commit arrant knavery whenever possible.

***UPDATE: If you have any pictures or posts about your Warhammer baggage train, please let me know and I'll gladly link to this page.

The Lightsaber's Riddle

Behold the heroes of the Rebel Alliance from the new Star Wars miniature game, Imperial Assault. To celebrate finishing all these, I just watched the original Star Wars trilogy. And not just any version, but the recently released guerrilla edition called "Harmy's Star Wars Despecialized" - a painstaking reconstruction of the movies (in HD) as they first appeared in the cinemas. 

Watching A New Hope for the first time in years, I discovered a riddle that I had never noticed before. The riddle is: why did Obi-Wan Kenobi wait?

The scene is the Death Star, as Ben Kenobi and Darth Vader meet for the trilogy's first lightsaber battle. I have always remembered Ben's last words before his death: "You can't win, Darth. If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine." He raises his lightsaber as if in salute and allows Vader to strike him... but of course, he has disappeared and his empty robe falls to the ground. For me, it's the best moment in the whole series.

As viewers, we get the feeling that this was Ben's plan all along. And indeed, Darth Vader himself foreshadowed the event when he first goes to fight Ben. Grand Moff Tarkin told Vader that Ben "must not be allowed to escape," to which Vader replied, "Escape is not his plan. I must face him alone." Perhaps Vader thought Ben had come to kill him, a blinkered view consistent with his enslavement to the Dark Side. Ben, on the other hand, seems to understand that it is only by confronting Vader that he can attain the next stage in his being, just as Luke must confront Vader (in Return of the Jedi) before finally becoming a Jedi Knight.

But the riddle is this: Ben could have allowed himself to be "taken" by Vader at any time. But he waited. He waited until he knew Luke was watching. Only then does he lower his guard. Why?

There doesn't seem to be any practical explanation. Darth Vader wasn't barring Luke's escape. I was so curious about this part of the movie that I looked up the script. It doesn't throw any light on the question, but merely reads:

Ben sees the troops charging toward him and realizes that he is trapped. Vader takes advantage of Ben's momentary distraction and brings his mighty lightsaber down on the old man. Ben manages to deflect the blow and swiftly turns around. The old Jedi Knight looks over his shoulder at Luke, lifts his sword from Vader's then watches his opponent with a serene look on his face.

The script makes it sound like Ben's surrender comes from his being trapped and distracted. But in the movie, there are no charging troops. Nor is Vader beating him. Instead, Ben takes a long look at Luke, and then turns to Darth and smiles. The enigmatic expression on Alec Guiness' face suggests that Ben has waited years for this moment to arrive.

In order to come to an answer, I think it is important to understand what lightsaber battles mean in the original trilogy. There are only three of them (not counting Luke's short duel with the phantom on Dagobah) and one important fact stands out in all of them: no one ever truly dies in a lightsaber duel. This is because these duels are not about who is the better swordsman or even who is stronger in the Force. Death is beside point. Darth Vader is never trying to kill Luke; he is trying to corrupt him. 

Thus every lightsaber battle is nothing more than an inner struggle, a spiritual temptation for Luke. (These battles remind me of the Temptation of St. Anthony. Artists like Hieronymus Bosch or Salvador Dali externalized St. Anthony's invisible internal ordeal by painting outlandish demons in the desert. Lucas did the same thing for Luke by filming laser swords on Bespin.)

What gives these battles dramatic tension is that we feel that Luke can't win. Either he fights back against Vader, releasing his anger and succumbing to the Dark Side. Or he extinguishes his lightsaber and lets Vader (or the Emperor) triumph unopposed. The genius of Lucas is to put Luke and the audience in the same place, asking the same question: what is the solution?

I think this is where Ben comes back into the picture. I believe Ben waited for Luke because he wanted to show him how to win a lightsaber duel. A Jedi wins by letting go. 

In The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, we see how this lesson plays out. In Empire, at the conclusion of his battle with Vader, Luke literally lets go, allowing himself to plunge off of the gantry on Bespin and free-falling into space. It's a desperate act without self-assurance or self-knowledge. Although this can't exactly be described as a victory, it does prevent Luke from joining his father on the Dark Side.

In Return of the Jedi, Luke achieves enough understanding to let go of his anger once and for all (symbolized by him discarding his lightsaber as he stands over Vader). At first this seems like a kind of capitulation to the Emperor, who is free to attack Luke without opposition. But like Ben's self-sacrifice on the first Death Star, Luke's act of self-liberation on the second Death Star has a spectator; Darth Vader learns from Luke that letting go is possible, just as Luke learned it from Ben. 

In sum, there are three things you can say about lightsaber battles in the original trilogy: First, they are an inner struggle not a battle to the death. Second, the path to victory is a mystery, for both the Jedi and the audience. Third, a true Jedi is always teaching. Sadly, such fascinating ideas were entirely lost in prequels, where Jedi duels are reduced to nothing more than acrobatics. As Count Dooku says to Yoda in Attack of the Clones, "It is obvious that this contest cannot be decided by our knowledge of the Force, but by our skills with the lightsaber."

*** UPDATE - I've changed the title of this post from "Heroes of the Rebel Alliance" to "The Lightsaber's Riddle". I woke up this morning and it just seemed like a more descriptive name.

Oldhammer Battle Report: Orcs vs. Skaven or "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Man-Mangler"

In my first battle against 24_Cigarettes and his horde of Skaven, my army of Oldhammer orcs decided that they would fight "without da sissy stuff"... no war machines, no magic and no goblin fanatics. Brave, brave, stupid orcs. After getting beaten like a bowl of eggs, the survivors reconsidered their position. Maybe sissies aren't so bad after all. There's a lot to be said for killing your enemies from a safe distance.

Da Sissy Stuff

Our second battle took place last Sunday, using 3rd edition Warhammer and army lists from Warhammer Armies. 24_Cigarettes suggested that we increase our forces from 1000 to 1500 points. I readily agreed, and immediately started dusting off my Man-Mangler, an over-sized catapult of hideous violence...

Krapfang's Backwood Bandits

Krapfang's Tin Kan Kommandoes
14 Orc Bigguns (+1 elites) with light armour, shields, spears + standard bearer and musician
(168 pts)

Lead by Krapfang Toothshyte, Lvl. 15 Orc hero with light armour and shield
(91 pts)

Gritstool's Nasty Gits
9 Orc Boyz with light armour, shields, spears + standard bearer and musician
(104.5 pts)

Lead by Captain Gritstool the Uncongenial, Lvl. 5 Orc hero with light armour and shield
(36 pts)

Harboth's Black Mountain Boyz
10 Orc Arrer Boyz with bows, shields + standard bearer and musician
(102 pts)

Vape Softbladder's Gobbo Greatmob
19 Gobbos with javelins, shields + standard bearer and musician
(73.5 pts)

Da Spear Chukka

Lead by Prince Vape Softbladder, Lvl. 15 Goblin with shield
(41 pts)

Smarmy's Swift Backtrakkers
10 Goblin Stikkas with short bows
(35 pts.)

Warspoor's Wulfboyz
8 Gobbo Wulfboyz with short bows + standard bearer and musician
(100 pts)

Grogeye's Butt Uglies
3 Trolls
(195 pts)

Lead by Grogeye the Incontinent, Lvl. 15 Orc wizard
(163 pts)

Grogeye the Incontinent

Da Man-Mangler 

6-man stone thrower with Orc crew.
(93 pts)

Da Spear Chukka
3-man bolt thrower with Orc crew
(46.5 pts)

Rotwang Bawbag the Giant (mercenary)
(250 pts)

Total = 1498.5 points

As 24_Cigarettes unpacked his war host, I prepared the board. I wanted to give these armies something to fight over, so I set up a little human settlement ("Cold Crumpet Farm") for the victor to pillage and burn. The Church of Sigmar in the middle of the plain created a scenic obstacle, while various hills gave each army a chance to seize strategic highlands.

The Skaven chose to take the north side of the battlefield --  a decision whose main motivation (I suspect) was to prevent the orcs from setting up their Man-Mangler on the safety of the hill on the far side of the river. At first, the Orc general Krapfang cursed the Skaven position, but over time he realized that it might all be to the best. The open South side of the battlefield allowed him to stretch out his line, giving them room to maneuver and hopefully preventing the orcs from fighting amongst themselves.

The Skaven general Xerxes adopted an interesting deployment. He concentrated his massive units of infantry in a dense line in the centre, leaving his flanks guarded only by Jezzailachis snipers positioned on hills at opposite  ends of the battlefield. By weight of numbers, the solid wall of Skaven would be able to push back anything but a well-coordinated orc attack... and orcs generally can't coordinate themselves out of a ditch.

Krapfang's strategy was not complex: he would try not to get himself killed. Thus, the bulk of the Orcs and Goblins would hold back ("mindin' da fort") while the Giant and the Trolls moved forward to do the actual fighting against the waves of Skaven infantry. Meanwhile, the goblin archers (on the left) and the wolf-riders (on the right) would drive up the flanks to neutralize the Skaven jezzail teams ("Git going, yer gits! Iz easy! No probs! Wish eyez going wit yurz!"). Krapfang likes to avoid the words "suicide mission"... it seems to be bad for morale.

TURN 1: The opening of the battle was a mixed bag for Krapfang. His sissy artillery missed horribly ("sissies"), while the Skaven jezzailachis shot nice clean holes all over the wolf-riders.To make matters worse, the Gobboe Great mob took exception to the Orcs' views on continental epistemology, leading to a brawl in the heart of Krapfang's army. 

On the upside, the mercenary giant, Rotwang Bawbag, showed up for work sober - a fact which, on its own, might determine the course of the battle. With resignation, he lurched forward to meet the Skaven phalanx, which was advancing at half speed from the North.

TURN 2: Helmuth von Moltke the Elder famously observed that no plan survives contact with the enemy. Well, if you're an Orc general, no plan survives casual contact between your own units. On the second turn, Krapfang watched in agony as his whole line dissolved into a bickering riot. The ballista crew abandoned their post to hurl insults at the Orc infantry, who themselves were taunting Krapfantg's elite shock troops. The Goblin Archers sheered off from their crucial advance up the left flank and instead hurled homemade dungballs at the ballista crew, while the Gobbo Great Mob escalated matters by throwing actual javelins into the backs of Gritstool's Orcs. 

The only Orc leader who managed to keep his troops under control was Harboth. Hoping to hide them from both friend and enemy alike, he moved his veteran archers forward under the shadow of the Church of Sigmar.

Harboth's Archers cower behind the Church of Sigmar

Distracted by the lively philosophical debate among their fellows, the Man-Mangler again missed its shot. But, on the upside, the Giant continued to trudge forward -- and amazingly, he was followed by Grogeye's Trolls. Despite severe cognitive and digestive impairments, these Trolls overcame their Stupidity Checks and mastered the art of marching forward. Could they keep it up? Could they really? And even if they did, would it be enough? They were marching right into the teeth of 100 Skaven, two warpfire throwers, a wizard and a warlord with a Parasitic Blade.

TURN 3: As the armies began to clash, the Orc fortunes brightened. The Wolf-Riders, advancing like the Light Brigade into the face of relentless cannon-fire, routed the Skaven Jezzails on the right flank. From behind the Church, Harboth peppered the Clanrats with arrows, followed by Grogeye the wizard, who struck them with a fireball from his unit of Trolls.

Most importantly, the crew of the Man Mangler finally mastered the subtleties of trigonometry and landed a rock on top of the same poor Skaven sods. In a moment, nine perfectly nice Clanrats were transformed into tapenade. "Urk," bethought Krapfang to himself, "Dats purdy."

The Skaven hold back and form into a crescent.

In one of the most important decisions of the battle, the wall of Skaven opted not to close with the Giant and his Troll buddies. Instead, they held their position and readied the dreaded Skaven Warp-Fire Throwers. Green flame belched towards the Giant from two units of Clanrats... but one shot fell short... and the other sprayed wide. This was a godsend for the orcs -- not just because the Giant was still alive, but also because the stationary line of Skaven gave the Man-Mangler more time to do its thing.

But the Skaven still had some tricks up their sleeve. Festerlice, the wizard leading the Plague Monks cast Flight on himself and swooped down on the Wolf-Riders, tossing them like a salad with his enchanted Hammerhand. And the pack of Rat Ogres loped forward, preparing to charge into the Trolls. Crucially, the proximity of the Skaven triggered a loyalty role in the Giant, who was after all just a hired mercenary. Would he stay faithful to Krapfang? Or could the Skaven bribe him out, causing him to turn around and start bashing orc? It seemed the whole battle turned on that roll... but Rotwang stayed true. What a dupe.

TURNS 4-5: The next two turns were a blur of mud, blood and beer. Against all odds, the tiny unit of Goblin archers got within range of the final Jezzail team and riddled them with arrows. On the opposite flank, however, the wolf riders fled from the Skaven wizard, although not before tying him up for a couple turns. His leadership would soon be missed in the middle of the battlefield.

The Skaven attempt to surround Rotwang the Giant

There in the centre, the action was heavy. The Rat Ogres rushed the Trolls, nearly scalping their leader, the unhygenic shaman Grogeye. In response, the three Trolls prepared to unleash their most devastating attack on the Skaven monsters: synchronized vomiting. On perfect cue they retched up a toxic brew of stomach juices all over the Rat Ogres... but the Rats were unfazed. Krapfant stood in horror... if they could stand up to that sort of abuse, they were unstoppable.

But just before Krapfang began his strategic withdrawal, he saw the Man-Manger arc another rock over his head. This time, it landed smack in the middle of the Plague Monks, killing 15 of them in an instant. The surviving Monks wasted no time in hiking up their robes and sprinting for safety. In that moment, as the other rats began to waiver, Rotwang the Giant charged into the battered remnant of the Clanrats. This was too much for even the great Skaven warlord Xerxes. He broke, and by breaking he took a massive and untouched unit of Skaven Slaves with him. The other Clanrats would follow. The Skaven centre had collapsed. The battle for Cold Crumpet Farm was over.

Cold Crumpet Farm: there's something nasty in the woodshed (hint: it's Grogeye)

REFLECTIONS: One of the many things l like about 24_Cigarettes is that he was as gentlemanly in this defeat as he had been in his previous victory. Despite falling victim to some atrocious luck (i.e. his whole line collapsing in a chain of failed panic and rout rolls), my opponent was a complete sportsman. If you doubt me, check out his excellent battle report.

I felt a little embarrassed, insofar that my victory rested on two over-powered units: Rotwang the Giant and the Man-Mangler. But perhaps worrying about "game balance" is not what Oldhammer is all about. In any case, a great deal of this battle did hinge on dice rolls; in 3rd edition Warhammer, a stone thrower has only a 40% chance of landing on target; I got lucky in landing two direct hits in a row.

Leaving luck aside, I think the thing which characterized this battle was the hesitancy of both the armies' centres to advance. I know why Krapfang's Orcs didn't engage -- they were cowards and they wanted the Man-Mangler to do all the work. 

24_Cigarettes's reasons for holding back are more interesting. He told me he was waiting for my Giant or my Trolls to put themselves out of position by making an over-extended charge. By shaping his units into a crescent, 24-Cigs was were getting ready to engulf my most powerful units, like Hannibal crushing the Roman legions with his curved line of Carthaginians at the Battle of Cannae. But (unlike the Romans) my sober giant refused to take the bait and plunge into the trap. Instead, Rotwang held back until the Skaven had been bombed beyond repair. Thank you, Man-Mangler.

MVP

Lethal Gravity: Painted Star Wars Miniatures

Since I started painting the Star Wars Miniatures from Imperial Assault, I've tried to adjust my painting style. My normal approach involves lots of rust effects, stains, and acne... something that fits in well with the earthy and run-down atmosphere of Warhammer. But my image of Star Wars is not like that at all. There is nothing run-down about Star Wars.

The armour of the Storm Troopers gleams like a mirror. Uniforms are crisp. Interiors are bright and clinical. Although there are exceptions (Tatooine, Degobah), the Star Wars universe is generally neat and well vacuumed. (More modern Star Wars art, including the illustrations in Imperial Assault itself, often go for a grittier and more distressed feeling. I think this grimdark aesthetic is overplayed. My Storm Troopers spit-polish their armour in case the Emperor comes for a visit.)

So I've tried to make my paint jobs clean and crisp: simple colours, bleached whites, no dirt. In order to capture the highly polished surfaces, I've largely abandoned metallic paints (which have a limited dynamic range). Instead I'm using whites and light greys to mimic light effects. (This approach is probably best seen in the figure of Darth Vader below.) A superb example of this  simplistic style of miniature painting is a Jedi diorama painted by Florian Tuffskull - his work nails the monochromatic (but dramatic) feel of Star Wars.

I thought long and hard about how to base these miniatures. Like most hobbyists, my natural inclination is for a lush base. But the action in Imperial Assault mainly occurs inside spacecraft, military bases and bunkers. I decided to hold fast to the clinical aesthetic of Star Wars and use a simple, polished metal floor (in fact, the bases are the only metallic paints in these miniatures). In order to add a little interest and to help distinguish between different squads of miniatures, I painted simple traffic stripes on the bases in blue and red.

Another unique characteristic of Star Wars are the uniformly black mat guns. I find them quite menacing in the movies, and they create a great contrast with the white Storm Trooper armour. But they pose a challenge for the painter, since flat black can be quite boring. My approach has been to carefully highlight the weapons with gray - just enough so that the eye can pick up detail without losing the feeling of lethal gravity.

I've received some inquiries here and on Boardgame Geek about other painting techniques I've used, specifically about the Emperor's Guard. For the record, I didn't use any blending techniques or oil paints. The red robes in these minis is simply the product of 6 or 7 graduated layers of Vallejo Game Colours. I primed the miniatures in white, and then slathered on a couple base-coats of Extraopaque Heavy Red mixed with a little black (approx. 4:1). I layered up with pure Heavy Red, and then increasingly bright mixes of Heavy Red and Gory Red, until I'm using pure Gory Red. Whenever painting red, the key is to avoid allowing it to become too orange in the final layers - so I didn't use a bright orange as the last highlight. Rather I applied thin lines of Parasite Brown (a warm brown) on the tips of the creases. I didn't employ any washes, although I did apply a few strokes of pure black in the deepest crevasses of the cloaks, to add a sense of drama.

The helmets follow approximately the same technique, although I used a slightly different palette of red paints (Scarlett Red to Bloody Red) since I wanted to suggest (however subtly) that the helms are made of a different material than the robes. As the final highlight, I applied a few lines of light grey and white to show reflecting light. I hope this is helpful! Next week I'll discuss using oil paints on the Imperial AT-ST Walker.

The Star Wars miniatures of Imperial Assault: a review

When I heard that Fantasy Flight Games was releasing Imperial Assault, a Star Wars miniature combat game, I became so excited that I darkened my trousers with a rich, fragrant urine. It was a dream come true (the game, not the urine). Star Wars has been long neglected in the world of miniature gaming (previous attempts include the underwhelming sculptures in Star Wars Miniatures Battles by West End Games, or the juvenile monstrosities of Star Wars Miniatures by Wizards of the Coast.)

I purchased Imperial Assault as soon as it hit the shelves in December 2014, and have been furiously painting up the miniatures ever since. After 2 months of work, I've painted 33 of the 36 miniatures in the box.

The miniatures in Imperial Assault are well worth the effort. They are sculpted by Benjamin Maillet with Jason Beaudoin, Gordon Robb and Nick Miller. Maillet and his team have gone for a lifelike look with realistically proportioned limbs. In this sense, they remind me of the Lord of the Rings figures sculpted by the Perry Brothers for Games Workshop -- a style of miniature very different from the "heroic" style common to Warhammer.

From foot to eye, the Star Wars minis average about 32 mm, although some figures (Wookies, Darth Vader) are much bigger. This variation in height is satisfying, giving some models a feeling of strength. Maillet's particular talent is capturing the personality of the characters in dynamic poses... so young Luke Skywalker seems almost afraid of his over-sized blaster, while Darth Vader's forward step lends him menace and power.

My only complaint is that the miniatures are made of medium-hard plastic (urethane?), rather than the rigid polystyrene used by Games Workshop. This is a pity: the softer plastic can lose some detail, especially in the faces. It also leaves a serious modeler with some problems: the molding lines on the miniatures can be quite pronounced, and require care to remove, since sanding this material doesn't work (files shred the plastic into a rough fringe rather than a smooth surface).

Also, thinner pieces of the miniature (like lightsabers) are very bendy -- to harden these bits and keep the paint from cracking off them over time, I covered them in layers of white glue and water (50:50 mix). Finally, because the plastic is quite light, I had to improve the figures' stability. So I glued 1/4 x 1" stainless steel washers to the bottom of each plastic base. Happily, these washers are almost a perfect fit with the miniatures' built in round base.

If these figures were just board game pieces, I could forgive the cheap plastic. But Fantasy Flight is contractually obligated to make Imperial Assault a miniature war game since they don't have the rights to Star Wars board games. Indeed, there is a rumour (picked up from my local gaming store) that Hasbro (who does own the board game license) has been jousting with Fantasy Flight over whether Imperial Assault is a war game at all (after all, Imperial Assault bears a striking resemblance to Fantasy Flight's fantasy board game Descent). My view is that if these models are truly war games miniatures, they should be made out of war game grade material: durable urethane, resin or white metal. 

But in the grand scheme of things, this is a just a quibble. Notwithstanding the soft plastic, the miniatures carry a lot of texture and detail (at least in their uniforms and weapons). I love the realistic sculpting style. They models have character and an authentic Star Wars feel. In sum: highly recommended! Stay tuned for my next post, when I talk about painting these miniatures.

UPDATE++++
If you're interested in Star Wars and the influence of Lucas on Warhammer, there have been a couple great posts by other writers/gamers following up on my musings: check out Tiny Basement's article on Storm Troopers & Space Marines and Private W.'s photography of his amazing collection of Star Wars Miniatures from Wizards of the Coast.  

END TRANSMISSION++++

Star Wars and Warhammer 40K Rogue Trader

The most important invention of Games Workshop's golden age was the world of Warhammer 40K: a science fiction setting combining sword-and-sorcery fantasy with a bitter dystopian future. It was the ultimate sweet-and-sour combination. This fantasy-future has seized the imagination of gamers since Rick Priestly wrote Warhammer 40K Rogue Trader in 1987. But one element that hasn't be fully explored is the huge debt that Rogue Trader owes to Star Wars.

The influence hides in plain sight. The first words in the preface (page 6) of Rogue Trader read,

If you've ever left the cinema or turned from the TV screen wishing that you could invent your own death-stars, storm-troopers, whirring ornithopters and wild-eyed heroes then this is for you! ... Warhammer 40,000 is fantasy game set in the far future,

The most obvious link between Star Wars and Rogue Trader is the similarity between Storm Troopers and Space Marines: an elite force of heavily armoured shock troopers. These faceless warriors became the single most recognizable image for both systems. And for good reason. Both are a triumph of design: the stylized frown and teary eyes of the storm trooper, versus the avian menace of the "beaky" space marine helmet.

But the connections are more than skin deep. George Lucas' genius was to take the elements of fantasy and apply them to a science fiction setting: magic swords, desperate princesses, black knights and wizardly mentors. Rick Priestly pulled the same trick, but he used a different emphasis. Whereas Lucas drew from the chivalric myths of Arthurian romance, Priestly invoked fantasy in Tolkien's epic mold... and thus we have lots of magic (psychic powers), fantasy races (eldar, squats, space orcs, slann and zoats) and a well developed sense of history's sweep (The Age of Strife, the Dark Age of Technology, etc.)

But what interests me most isn't merely the fact that Rogue Trader borrowed from Star Wars... it's that Rogue Trader perverted George Lucas' vision. In both systems, there is a galaxy-wide Imperium. In both systems, a frail emperor sits enthroned in the centre of the galaxy, wielding mighty armies and formidable magic powers. In both systems, his greatest tool is the aforesaid legion of armoured shock troopers. In both systems, humans strive to dominate a universe crawling with alien life. In both systems, rebels cavil about freedom. In both systems, these rebels are led by psychics with strange abilities. But in Star Wars the Emperor is an authoritarian menace, and in Rogue Trader, authoritarianism is the only thing that preserves humanity from total destruction.

Star Wars is a Manichean world with a sharp line between good and evil. Rogue Trader has the same dynamic range (noble self-sacrifice versus soul-destroying evil) but the dividing line between these extremes is smeared with grease. The Imperial Inquisition tortures witches and exterminates whole planets... but is it evil or simply a necessary evil? The Emperor of Mankind consumes thousands of souls every day to keep himself alive... but without his life, wouldn't the Empire would collapse into apocalyptic anarchy?

I'm reading my way through Peter Ackroyd's superb book on the English Civil War, The History of England Volume III (2014). I can't help but view Rick Priestly's take on Star Wars as a product of English history. George Lucas' universe has the moral simplicity of the American Revolution (plucky rebels fight off British tyranny!). But Rogue Trader has all the ambiguity of the English Civil War... who was the "good guy" in that awful struggle?

The round-heads of Parliament fought for responsible government, but they also exhibited a Taliban-like prudery (what kind of an asshole do you have to be to outlaw Christmas?). On the other hand, King Charles believed in the divine right of kings and thought he stood above all laws... but he was also a religious moderate who tried to unite Catholics, Anglicans and puritans, not to mention English, Irish and Scots. Well, it didn't end well for him (see the woodcut above). But after years of war and an experiment with Republicanism, the English were desperate to get a King back... they realized that they needed a authority figure to help stave off anarchy.

And so, in a funny way, Warhammer 40K is like Star Wars minus the fairy tale. As the Rogue Trader books says "There is no time for peace. No respite. No forgiveness." In other words, the Force won't be with you. You're on your own.

Star Wars miniatures in this post are from Fantasy Flight's Imperial Assault. Next week: more pics of my recently painted Star Wars minis...