Author: Felix

The Light of Other Days

My book choice this week is The Light of Other Days by Arthur C Clarke and Stephen Baxter.

With the death of Arthur C Clarke last week I thought I would post my choice of his books.

The Light of Other Days

This is one of my favourite books and I have read it quite a few times now.

‘Space is what keeps everything from being in the same place. Right?’ With these words Hiram Patterson, head of the giant media corporation OurWorld, launches the greatest communications revolution in history. With OurWorld’s development of wormhole technology, any point in space can be connected to any other, faster than the speed of light. Realtime television coverage is here: earthquakes and wars, murders and disasters can be watched, exactly as they occur, anywhere on the planet. Then WormCams are made to work across time as well as space. Humanity encounters itself in the light of other days. We witness the life of Jesus, go to the premiere of Hamlet, solve the enigmas that have baffled generations. Blood spilled centuries ago flows vividly once more – and no personal treachery or shame can be concealed. But when the world and everything in it becomes as transparent as glass and there are no more secrets, people find new ways to gain vengeance and commit crime, and Hiram Patterson finds new ways to keep his Machiavellian schemes secret.

The idea of the wormcams is really scary and the impact they have on the world is immense and explored in this novel.

You can get the book from Amazon.co.uk.

Epic Vindicator

A Space Marine Vindicator rolls through the rubble on the streets of a ruined Imperial city.

Epic Vindicator
Epic Vindicator

This is the Epic 40,000 model which was released ten years ago, has it really been that long since that game was released – yes I realise Epic as a system is even older, but Epic 40,000 was the game I enjoyed most. I never played Space Marine, I just used the models and used the Dirtside system.
More pictures of Epic models.

White Dwarf Early

So there I was about to pop into the supermarket and I thought should I pop into the newsagents and get a magazine, nah I’ll wait until next week as White Dwarf will be out then…

Well unknown to me, I could have got my copy of White Dwarf, as it is out a week earlier than usual, something about a 25th anniversary of Warhammer or some such thing…

Slightly annoyed as tomorrow is Easter Sunday which means that virtually every shop in the UK is closed and I won’t be able to get it, well I don’t think I will be able to.

Well I can wait.

Fire up the Hellhound

Had a very good game last weekend and took some very nice pictures which I will endeavour to get online soon.

A typical game for me with my Orks versus Simon’s Imperial Guard, though different in another way as my force was very mechanised and his was very much infantry based with a Hellhound and a Medusa. Okay to call a Squiggoth mechanised is probably going a little too far, but I did have Wartrakks, Trukks, Killa Kanz, Dethkoptaz, a Gunwagon and a flying Ork Fighter-Bomma as well as the Squiggoth.

As per usual for our games we do take a bit of liberty with the rules changing things to make them more fun usually. One example pictured (below) is the use of the Apocalypse (large) flamer template for vehicle flame based weapons such as the Hellhound and Skorcha and use the smaller flamer template for handheld flamers.

It always struck myself and Simon bizarre that the Hellhound or the Ork Skorcha would use the same template as a hand flamer! Though they have different strengths, the amount of flame that a larger more powerful flamer can propel must (and should) be bigger than the amount of fire that a small hand flamer can. With a bigger flamer it will be hotter, taken into account with the higher strength, but more fire is also needed.
So in this game we did use the bigger template and we think the game worked better for it. Alas I didn’t get to have a go, as my Skorch was taken out quite early on.

More pictures and observations later…

Forge World Newsletter #192

Latest Forge World Newsletter with news on the Open Day and more Chaos.

Hello There,

Spring is here and at Forge World we`re still incredibly busy catching up and fulfilling all your orders. But with the events season in full swing and a raft of exciting new releases waiting in the wings, we thought we`d wet your appetite with a sneak peak of some of our future products, and some further information of what we have in store for you at our forthcoming Forge World Open Day!

Alan Bligh

World Eaters Previews

As I hinted in the last newsletter, Nurgle is not the only Chaos Power whose servants we will be seeing in our forthcoming book, Imperial Armour Volume 6: The Siege of Vraks Part 2. The blood-drenched warriors of Khorne will also feature prominently, and you can see the first preview pictures of our new World Eaters Chaos Marine Berserkers and Terminators here. These homicidal worshipers of The Blood God should be available for pre-order in near future, and as with our new Death Guard conversion sets (currently available for pre-order), they represent some of the fantastic new releases representing the dark forces gathering to war on Vraks, -so keep an eye out on future newsletters for more previews.

The Forge World Open Day

Forge World will be holding its second Open Day event at Warhammer World in Nottingham on Sunday the 6th of April. This event is free to enter and proved a great success last year. We have all sorts of great things planned for this year, including previews of many fantastic new models, the ever-popular sales stand, the return of our charity raffle (for Children in Need) to win a Warhound Titan, a massive Apocalypse display battle and various other games, as well as all of the Forge World studio staff on hand to answer your questions and show off what we have in store for you in the future.

You can find more information our Open Day web page which you can find here.

If you`d like to place a reservation order to collect at the Open Day, (which may of course include our special Event Only Models) you can do so by phone or at our reservations email address at fwreservations@games-workshop.co.uk. We`ll do our best to have your order waiting for you to pick up and pay for at the event. If you want to place a reservation, it must be with us no later than Friday the 28th of March.

Games Day France and Salute

Forge World will also be attending both Games Day France 08 at le Stade de France in Paris on Sunday the 20th April and the Salute show at the Excel Exhibition Centre in London on Saturday the 19th of April. We may only be able to take a limited selection of our stock to these events, so if you would like to place a reservation order, please get the details to us as soon as possible. The final deadline for reservations for these events is the 7th of April.

Forge World
Games Workshop
Willow Road, Lenton Lane
Nottingham, NG7 2WS
Phone: 0115 916 8177
Fax: 0115 916 8044
Web site: http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/

 

Forge World Newsletter #191

Another Forge World Newsletter this time with some new Chaos stuff…

Hello There,
It’s been some time since our last newsletter, and we have been incredibly busy here at Forge World in the interim, both in keeping up with the unprecedented amount of orders we’ve been getting and in preparing for the future release Imperial Armour Volume 6. If you are still waiting on an order, don`t worry, we will get your models out to you as soon as we can, and for those of you we have left craving new releases, we have some fantastic ones to announce in this newsletter in the shape of our Death Guard Terminator and Marine Conversion Kits, and our new Death Korps of Krieg Equipment & Upgrade sets.
Thanks
Alan Bligh

The Battle for Vraks Continues…
Imperial Armour Volume 6: The Siege of Vraks Part 2 will see a massive escalation in the brutal war between the loyalist Imperial forces and the renegades led by the treacherous Cardinal Xaphan. Of course, this means we will be producing an expanding range of new Chaos and Imperial releases to help you fight your own battles for Vraks or simply add some cool new models to your own collection.

The Lords of Decay

The first new re-enforcements for the traitors of Vraks are from the dreaded Death Guard Chaos Space Marine Legion. We have two new beautifully vile and suppurating conversion sets for these Plague Marines, both designed by Mark Bedford. Firstly we have our Death Guard Marines Conversion set which requires the use of the plastic Chaos Space Marine boxed set, and builds ten Death Guard Marines. Although intended to represent the Plague Marines of the Death Guard, you could also use them to help create your own legions of decay, Nurgle-marked Chaos Marine Havocs, or even Nurgle-marked Raptors and the like. The Death Guard Terminator Conversion set in conjunction with the Chaos Terminator boxed set, goes to make up five Death Guard Terminators, and of course can also be used to furnish your Nurgle-marked Chaos Space Marine characters and Nurgle-marked Terminators for other renegade forces.

As you can see from the pictures these are wonderfully detailed models that really bring the decaying ruin of the Death Guard to unholy life, and you`ll see more Chaos models and further re-enforcements for the Renegades in the coming months.

Death Korps of Krieg Upgrade Sets

We also have some new and much-requested additions for our Death Korps of Krieg range in the shape of three Equipment upgrade sets, designed by Will Hayes and Simon Egan. These sets feature extra weapons and equipment in the patterns and styles used by the Death Korps. The first, the Death Korps of Krieg Weapons set contains five lasguns and two each of the grenade launcher, melta gun and flamer (one of each set with arms, and one unattached). The Death Korps of Krieg Equipment set features vox casters, ammunition, bayonets, demo charges and grenades, while the Death Korps of Krieg Command Upgrade set is made up of extra plasma and las pistols and chain and power swords, and weapon arms, as well as a set of five extra command shoulder plates to expand your command units.

As with the Renegades and followers of Chaos, the Imperium will also see an expansion in the forces fighting on Vraks, so you can look forward to more models for the Death Korps as well as some new forces becoming involved in the spiralling war we have yet to reveal!

Imperial Armour Volume 5 Q & A

Also up on the Forge World website is a new Q & A document compiled by Warwick Kinrade for Imperial Armour Volume 5, which you can find Here.

Games Workshop
Willow Road, Lenton Lane
Nottingham, NG7 2WS
Phone: 0115 916 8177
Fax: 0115 916 8044
Web site: http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/