From Space fleet to Battlefleet gothic ? Part 2

OK, after talking about the previews of "Battle fleet Gothic" in WD119 (1989) in the previous post,  I'd like to develop a bit further on the game itself and how it evolved. The previous post and discussions around it (either on this blog or on the GW specialist Facebook group) have enabled to gather a bit more information on the whole story thanks to  Evo Von Himmel who playtested it at the studio back then and Andy Chambers who supervised the release of battlefleet gothic in its later incarnation.

Evo Von Himmel :

"There's actually a further layer to the game's history. I playtested the 'original' BFG in about 1990, prior to SpaceFleet being released, when I was working at GW.

The rules were incredibly complex, and involved lateral thrust, and protractors(!), from memory. I helped run a demo game of it at the Nottingham store. The version released in 1999 bore little to no relation to the original. 

(...)

From what I remember, the released version of BFG was a total rules re-write. I playtested both it and Confrontation at about the same time. Strange that it took nearly ten years for the new version and Necromunda to be released, and both were changed utterly from what I tested!"

Andy Chambers : "Just to round out the tale a little: When I started at the GW studio in 1990, Richard Halliwell was working on a spaceship game entitled battlefleet gothic. There was all the concept material you've seen, a plastic Imperial ship and a plastic Eldar ship already made for it, I loved the concepts from first sight, but the game was honestly not great and it never got anywhere. Andy Jones and Jervis did spacefleet a few years later to get some use out of the unreleased plastics. I tinkered around with doing a tabletop battle game for spaceships in 40K for a number of years (it started out being card driven), developed it in my own time and eventually managed to persuade studio manager Robin Dews to put it on the schedule. Because I'd always liked the name and I wanted to honour all the preceding work for it I asked that it be called Battlefleet Gothic - an easy sell since there had already been vague disappointment around the studio that the original never happened. I believe the tri-tail Eldar ship was a conversion, I might even still have it somewhere."

We now have a clear view of where the game was heading then and the similarities with confrontation and its rather complex ruleset (released at the same period) is even more surprising.

So how did the game evolve then ? The gamebox contained all gaming material for a quick and easy games playable by a younger audience as a sort of introductory game :

"The times they are a-changin' " or terminators, finecast and Emporium for a change

Always looking to populate my Rogue trader setting with intriguing new inhabitants, I recently fell upon a cheap model on a french trading site...

Yup, that's what it it, a Dark Eldar S-Slyth... in finecast.

Some of the early followers here my remember I have a particular fondness for Snakemen... and my southern brother Captain Crooks recently did a very excellent post to unveil the origins of these creatures (follow his blog, really).

SOOOoooo, having a blister is one thing but having a built model is another. With everything I had heard about the finecast, I was a little nervous about the time I might have to spend on filling voids and all...

Evil space dorfs - punkish squats for Rogue Trader

Xic, Cyke and ... Billy

They're as small as they're mean, their stench is as foul as the colours they wear hurt the eyes... Who are they ? The evil dorfs.

After painting some of Diego's models, I felt like keeping on the community sculpts with these little guys. They are a sub-range of Oakbound miniatures and are designed with the supervision of Chico "not without my bacon" Danks from Oldhammer on a budget.

Together these 2 fellows have designed a growing range of space dwarves (or dorfs) which are evil but not in a chaotic way. This is a very intersting path to explore as chaotic dwarves, however cool they can ben are a known subject whereas mean and bad ones are far more exotic. These Evil dorfs are the kind to cross streets outside zebras, to add beer in their wine and to shoot in the privates.

Rogue trader fishman - Zhar d'uin, piscean prince

After painting a brutal demon of violence and malevolence for last post, I decided to go with something a little more elegant and refined. I've had this piscean warrior model for quite sometime, (actually got it with my Space minotaur) and had yet to make something of him. The model is a fishman based on the original piscean warrior from the first Rogue trader release and sculpted by Diego Superstar Serrate.

picture from Solegend

Now, Diego's version, though inspired by the original, is a lot different in the details. The sculpt is taller, thinner and it has a very noble pose with his hand on the hilt of the sword (instead of holding a boltgun) and its elongated limbs. I'd even go as far as to say I prefer this one to the original (good thing for me since getting my hands on one of the originals would make my wallet bleed).

Khorne Bloodthirster...the Rogue Trader way

Blood thirsters get a lot of attention these days and though the release of mine coincides with those of the latest edition by GW, there is absolutely no link between the 2...

Some time ago, I was having a friendly chat with Diego Serrate on the Oldhammer facebook page and he proposed me to trade some Bloodthister body from the realm of chaos era. The body was missing a left arm and right hand...

Kiss my shiny reddish ass...

After discussing with Diego the potential donors for new arms and hands, Diego kindly proposed me to sculpt a new arm to my liking !
You read that right, a professional sculptor, (and talented with that) offering to sculpt me a custom arm for a model of mine !

Speed painting a cyber samourai

Tuise Crom, the last samourai (of his village)

As ever weak, I've decided to dive in the popular practice of speed painting... You can see many examples from the Oldhammer community HERE and I have to say that it really terrified me to think I could only have one hour to paint a model even without basing it...  (the fact my friend Crooks did it the very same day motivated me to have a go myself though).

Hearing most people had learnt something in the process, I decided I wasn't worse than anyone and could try it myself. Trying to think out of the box and painting out of the comfort zone is always a good way to progress.

The plan I set during the minutes before the attempt were those :

- I took out all the paints I would be using and placed them in groups for each part
- I plugged the hairdryer in the bathroom in case I'd need to speed drying times for washes or anything
- I went to the toilets before (you do not want to urinate yourself just because you're almost done with your last details

and then at 19:59 I took the photo of the primed model and started when the 20:00 signal appeared...

That's the point where you know the beginning but not the end...

From Space fleet to Battlefleet gothic ? Part 1

Over the years, GW has released a vast array of games developping other aspects of their major settings (namely warhammer Battle and Warhammer 40k). For Warhammer Fantasy Battlle you could think of Warhammer Fantasy Role Play,  Mighty Empires, Man o'war, Mordheim, Heroquest, Warhammer Quest, Blood bowl, etc...

Warhammer 40k which was already strongly Roleplay oriented at the start was developped with Space Hulk, Confrontation, the Epic system, Necromunda, Inquisitor,...

One of the games I'd like to talk about today is Space Fleet :

Space Fleet was published in July 1991 by Games Workshop and designed by Jervis Johnson and Andy Jones. It was released as a board game for about 2 to 4 young players. I insist on young players because the rulebook given with the game is actually printed on just 2 A4 sheets (we'll develop on that a bit later.)  Space fleet was not the first step into space ship combat for Citadel who had previously released models for Star Cruisers.

While released in July 1991, the game was advertised in November 1989 in WD119 (that's 20 months before) so let's have a look at that :

Ars Moriendi - A life in progress post

(Some appropriate music first)

It's common knowledge that life's a funny thing. You'll hear the "life's worth nothing but nothing's worth life" motto and all kinds of ready made predigested thoughts when getting on the topic but rest assured I won't bore you with any of it...

It's just that life's funny, you get a slap from one hand and a caress from the other... but memento mori I suppose (OK I did continue).

Why all the weird (and let's face it, slightly gloomy) tone ? Well because among a massive dose of real life that hit me in a face like a trout, some good things have immerged. One of those is that Brian Roe AKA the Roebeast from the Magical house of sunshine blog, has kindly organised a giveaway to celebrate his 200th follower and I've somehow managed to be the winner of it thanks to a fluke !

I think giving away a present in which Brian put some time and effort makes it even more valuable and the excellent thing about it apart from its quality, is that it blends just nicely with my bases and their sort of purplish tone.