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Platork

“Consider,” the elderly ork said, holding up a shoota to the assembly, “Dakka.” The other orks murmured in agreement. He reached behind him and picked up a double-barrelled kustom shoota, holding it up for all to see. “Now consider; moar Dakka.” The crowd this time were more enthusiastic in their assent, some clapping, some calling out. “Now,” he said, fixing them with a wink and a wry smile, “da MOST Dakka!”  With a dramatic flourish, he gestured grandly to a huge pile of guns a pair of grots had just pulled a canvas cover off of. The room exploded, orks bellowing their wild endorsement. Some flexed, others mimed firing guns into the air. Fistfights broke out, orks pummelling each other in rapturous accord. Eventually, it all became too much and they all went for the pile of guns, grabbing what they could and spilling out into the streets. Roving bands of nascent philorksophers boiled through the scrap-city, shooting everything in sight and writing the teachings of Platork in bullet h
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Revisting Khorne

It seems a bit strange to be doing a revisiting article for Khorne. Of all the chaos gods, Khorne comes across as the most realised and fleshed out in terms of how he’s depicted in the lore and on the tabletop. “Blood for the Blood God, Skulls for the Skull Throne” is one of the most well known and widely used phrases among the community, and Age of Sigmar was launched with his faction as the primary antagonists. He has his own gang in Necromunda and was, for quite a while, the only god in 40k to get a dedicated plastic Chaos Space Marine kit for one of his units. Admittedly the Berserkers are very long in the tooth at this point and have been eclipsed by Tzeentch and Nurgle, but they were the first. If Khorne has a problem on the table, it’s that his stuff *does* come out first, and then gets superseded by more interesting models and rules when the other gods get their due. Khorne seems so obvious, that giving a bunch of guys axes and a surfeit of skulls and plonking them in the mode
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Revisiting Slaanesh

The chaos gods have been a constant throughout the life of Warhammer, in all its various incarnations. We’re used to them now, how they look, who they are, what they represent. In most cases, their tabletop incarnation basically works. Khorne, all red and brass, fire and anger. Nurgle, chortling warmth amidst utter foulness. Tzeentch, a riot of shapes and colours, knowledge and madness. But Slaanesh is still not yet there. This isn’t to say the Prince of Pleasure doesn’t have a distinct aesthetic on the table, it’s just that the aesthetic has such a narrow focus when you consider what Slaanesh is supposed to represent. Slaanesh is the god of excess. Not sex, or debauchery, but excess. An excess of sensation, or vanity. At a low level of worship, one can rationalise Slaanesh as appearing as a Dionysus-like figure, when it’s party time, we pray to Slaanesh to make sure it’s a banger. And when it isn’t time to party, when we have to work, or fight, or think or if we just get sick, god dam
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SAC_2045 Part 1 Review

Ghost in the Shell is one of those franchises that just keeps on going. From the original manga way back in 1989 to now, there have been three full manga volumes, three animated movies, one live action movie, four seasons of tv and a tv movie, not to mention video games and hundreds of other instances of licensed merchandise. Hell, at one point you could get Ghost in the Shell airsoft guns. It’s not surprise that a movie as seminal as Ghost in the Shell (1995) would spawn a plethora of sequels, prequels and moneyspinners. Look at literally anything that is both well regarded and commercially successful, especially for something that did as well on the home video market as GitS ’95 did. What’s surprising is how consistent, barring a couple of notable exceptions, the quality of Ghost in the Shell as a franchise has been. What’s really surprising is how, for a cyberpunk property originally released in the late 1980s, it has tried to remain prescient and relevant. Without going too
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Imperium of Man

+++ Taken From Essays On Humanity: Vol. CCXI Speaker: Brother Lieutenant Abrahim Sahn, Ultramarines Third Company. Transcription begins +++ It has a lot to do with memory, I think, how we remember… being. I remember, years ago, during a moment of personal doubt, Chaplain Durin asking me what my humanity meant to me. I told him that it gave me something to fight for, gave me purpose. He made an odd sound, I recall. I realise now that I wasn’t talking about my humanity, but humanity in general. The species. I hadn’t actually answered his question, you see. But, in a way, I had. I would have liked to talk to him about it more, but he fell in battle thirteen years ago. Such is the way of things. If I could speak to him now, how would I answer the question? What does my humanity mean to me. Hmm. Well, I think now, I would ask him back, what is it to be human? I am older. I have fought alongside humans of all stripes for decades. And every single time, regardless of who they are, I h
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Genevieve and the Miracle

In the empty dark of the cockpit, Genevieve screamed. At first, she had screamed because of the pain, the broken bones and psychostigmatic injuries that matched the damage to her knight armour. Then, she screamed because of fear, at not being able to open the escape hatch, at not being able to goad her knight into action. Now, after hours, maybe days locked in the pitch black of what she had accepted as her coffin, she screamed with rage. She hammered at the inert slab of the hatchway panel with her fists, roaring curses and damning her own inadequacies. She cried out the names of her sister and her uncle so they could come to her aid, even though they must surely share her fate, or worse. In the empty dark of the cockpit, she finally fell silent, and began to sob. What an ignoble way for a Knight to die. Brought low by rabble armed with crude elctromagnetic pikes, they swarmed her, shorted her systems and left her there. They would be back, with las-cutters and melta torches, and the
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Warmaster: The Old World

The announcement of Warhammer: The Old World has got spirits up among the folks who still pine for blocks of infantry, fantasy Frenchmen and a time when ‘Orruk’ was only three letters. I can understand why. AoS represented the first time I could find myself engaging with Games Workshop’s fantasy line, but there’s a lot to like about the classic, Tolkienesque tones of the original Warhammer Fantasy Battle. AoS removed entire armies to fit the new setting, and while I love the soft reboot of Bretonnians as Flesh Eater Courts, some, like I say, still want those lance formations and grubby peasantry armed with billhooks. What’s more, so many of the video games based on Warhammer Fantasy still take place in the Old World, not least the wildly popular Total War games. The reality is, if someone were coming to Warhammer from the outside, because of games like Total War: Warhammer and Vermintide, Age of Sigmar would seem very unusual. Who are these big gold folks with hammers? Why are those e
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