Chojin Patriarch
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It doesn't help that surviving copies are often well-used, so that their bindings are struggling somewhat to hold together. The joy of modern gaming printing, where books aren't expected to be kept around for twenty-plus years. Indeed, some struggle for the less-than-five years of an average edition.16th October 2010
10:02 GMT -5
Artemis frowns her phone, currently showing a compendium of 2nd Edition rules and errata. I've been making an effort to get copies of old White Dwarf and Citadel Journal as well as the actual 2nd Edition rulebook, but given that they predate modern computer-controlled printing it's surprisingly difficult to find a lot of them. I suppose I could just offer to pay Games Workshop to run them off for me, but it's…
"I don't think that's legal."
And there's always the option of scouring the internet for scans and photos and building your own copy. Another thing I'd be tempted to do with a power ring.
Never mind things like the Virus Grenade, and it's bigger brother, The Virus Outbreak strategy card which even the designers admitted might have been a bit much, and 'jokingly' encouraged people to tear their copy of the latter card up!"This says that Vortex Grenades are 'Rare-Two'." She looks up, turning the phone around so that I can see the entry. "You can only take two in your army. So, the warp jump thing doesn't work."
"I know." I nod. "The wargear rarity restriction was added…" When was it? "Hm, I don't actually remember. White Dwarf two hundred and something. The same one where they clarified what the restriction on multiple force fields meant." I shrug. "Less than half of the life of the edition. I built the army assuming that it didn't apply, because otherwise you only get-" I nod. "-two techmarines."
(Edit: Corrected by Mr Zoat on the matter...)
The joy of pre-computer tabletop games development. When if someone made a change, it could go unnoticed until the book was printed."And warp jumps don't scatter if you roll 'hit' anyway, so the teleport homer doesn't do anything."
I nod. "I went through to find mistakes in the Battle Bible, and there's a lot. Just in the wargear section they miss the fact that bionic arms increase strength for throwing grenades and not just hand to hand combat, that the Talon of Horus has a stormbolter attached to it and it gets the to-hit penalty rule for jump packs backwards."
I think someone got the logic of the sentence turned around in their head.She turns the phone back towards her, scrolling though the pages until she gets to the jump pack entry.
"Ah, 'models using Jump Packs do not receive the minus one to hit penalty for firing at a fast-moving target'."
To be fair, a lot of rules the 'games design team' create aren't always play-tested well. Never mind that it's rare for them to play the way hardcore competitive players do with their optimisation processes... That's how you end up with some of the latest edition's oopsies. Like the Eldar's Phantasm stratagem, which the designers had to pulverise with the NerfhammerI pick up a copy of the Wargear book and turn to page 71 before passing it to her. "It should be 'Troops using jump packs leap in nice slow, predictable curves so models firing at them do not count the minus one to hit penalty for firing at a target moving ten inches or faster.'. Which makes more sense: why would making a jump movement make you better at shooting fast moving targets? And it's not clear what happens when they move twenty inches or more, which should give a minus two penalty, and all of the 'common' wargear items should just be regular equipment, and they made some pieces of wargear limited to a particular character when originally anyone of the right species could use them."
Before, it could allow any Eldar unit to move 7" in the opponent's movement phase. One of the most abused targets of this was often a Fire-Prism grav tank who had advanced to take a potshot at an enemy, only to retreat into cover before it could be fired upon in reply or assaulted. Never mind things like Wraithknights doing a Phantasm Can-Can. And that's a gross over-simplification of the issue.
Competitive players would use these tactics, the 'Devastating Wounds' weapon ability and tricks like 'free' stratagems from character abilities, to lead them to an obnoxiously high win rate in tournaments. The September 2023 Balance Datasheet nerf involved restricting it to Infantry models only, making it still useful, but less so than before.
(Devastating Wounds was also changed to be less powerful too. Before and after, It triggers on a 6 to wound. But it went from dealing Mortal Wounds that could hop models - avoiding the usual limitation of high-damage weaponry which could only splatter one model at a time - to simply dealing unsavable wounds.)
Competitive players would use these tactics, the 'Devastating Wounds' weapon ability and tricks like 'free' stratagems from character abilities, to lead them to an obnoxiously high win rate in tournaments. The September 2023 Balance Datasheet nerf involved restricting it to Infantry models only, making it still useful, but less so than before.
(Devastating Wounds was also changed to be less powerful too. Before and after, It triggers on a 6 to wound. But it went from dealing Mortal Wounds that could hop models - avoiding the usual limitation of high-damage weaponry which could only splatter one model at a time - to simply dealing unsavable wounds.)
The joy of using 'House Rules'. Especially if you're planning to teach someone how to play the game, and have to decide if you want to use the rules as written, or your own 'adjustments'."Huh. So why haven't you just fixed it?"
"Because I'd be the only person who knew my version of the rules. If I was actually having a game with someone we'd have to discuss which version we were using, and 'the original rulebook' or 'the battle bible' is a lot quicker than me having to explain my personal fixes. The whole point for me was just to have this army."
The 90's were a hell of a time. Limited or no options for many armies' models, and an easy-going attitude from Games Workshop about creating your own models to fit things they haven't released. How far things have come... Now if it isn't in the current boxes they sell, you can't do it."But you could."
I hold out my right hand and lift up my copy of Codex: Eldar. "The eldar have plenty of tanks in the larger scale game, and a third party company called Armorcast did larger versions for Warhammer Forty Thousand, but I never saw the rules for them. Games Workshop didn't add eldar tanks into the game until the end of Second Edition, and they didn't make a model for their troop transport until Third Edition. The model in the company army had a turret made from a plastic spoon."
...And now she isn't sure if he's talking about the game, or himself.Her shoulders slump a little. "I don't mind learning the game, but I'm not that into it. If it's got that many problems how come you like it so much?"
I smile, looking directly at her. "Love is not a rational thing. It is quite possible to love a thing despite its faults while.. still being aware of those faults. Still finding those faults.. irritating, sometimes, but not prioritising that irritation over the love."
Heh. If you released them onto the internet with clear labelling about them being 'one player's refinement', you'd probably revolutionise the 'Oldhammer' community. Not like he'd care about copyright infringement.Ah…
"In the interests of clarity, you want me to assemble the rules as I prefer them in one place and give that to you?"
Huh, that's actually a thing. Looks even more complex."Ah." She seems distracted for a moment. Not sure why. "Or I… Guess you could just learn chess."
"European Chess or Chinese Chess-? No, it doesn't matter."
Like you aren't paying close attention to the conversation. After all, you are emulating Tang before his little evil dosage, grognard side and all.
That depends on how goofy it is.With all this information, you can handle the formatting, right?
Sure? Want me to pick up contemporaneous artwork to fill in the gaps too?
He wasn't trying to hide it, you know. Blanche's artwork, messy and sketchy as it is, may have influenced the game's mood and style, but it does look... Rough, sometimes.Yes. I'm not actually all that keen on John Blanche, a lot of his work just looks messy to me.
You do know I can hear your thoughts, right sport?
Living the dream of many tabletop gamers there...Okay. Hit it.
Orange lines flick out, enveloping Codex: Eldar and all of the material relating to elder. The Citadel Journal with the expanded Harlequins list and psychic powers, the vehicle cards and vehicle upgrades…
Hopefully with far superior binding that can withstand the kind of treatment a teenage girl might give it. And no stack of cards to go with it?And a new and slightly thicker copy of Codex: Eldar lands on the table.
And done.
And of course, it's easy to create models of anything you or she might want to play from scratch. Man... We could have had Eldar Exodites that channelled Dino-Riders...I pick it up and flick through. Weapons? Yes, the ring added the pulse laser, and the support section of the army list now includes grav-tanks. And Mimes and Master Mimes are listed with the Harlequins. Oh, and the art section now has a copy of that rather nice diorama of the knight and the chaplain, a nice cover for the fact that eldar knights literally never got a model. Good work, ring.
You're welcome. It's nice to be appreciated.
And hopefully refine the layout into a more sensible configuration. Some books of the era, like the Cyberpunk 2020 rules... Yow, all over the place."Hey."
I hold it out to her. "It's turned out well. I'll do the main rulebook next-."
For the time. I'll bet it was mostly done by one person who enjoyed the army, but understood game balance..."No, about-. Faults."
"Yes? As far as I remember Codex: Eldar was fairly well written-."
Tang, set the toy soldiers aside a moment... This is serious."No, I mean-. I think.. this is something I should just say to you. It's about Indigo."
"What about it?" She's looking directly at me. "Were you not interested in the eldar?"
Ah, one of those reminders that Tang has a distinct view of the world.
Ah, yes. 'What measure is a man?' Or in this case, a synthetic teenage girl."How come? I mean, it's.. pretty rude."
"Because that's what it is. You wouldn't call a statue of a woman 'she', would you?"
Ah, so it isn't just a matter of personality and mental complexity?She leans back slightly. "Whaw, huh. So, what, you don't think Red Tornado is a person either?"
I blink. "No, Red Tornado is a person. And his-." Ah. "I think I see the problem."
Oh, this will be good.
...It's a very good chatbot? Sister's brain is probably doing a lot of the heavy lifting behaviour-wise."Indigo is a gynoid, a machine built in the likeness of a woman. It isn't a woman. It doesn't have all of the biological impulses that come with being human, adult, or female. Having three fifths of its brain coming from a gynoid programmed to mimic them means that it can fake it reasonably well, like a chatbot. It's… Sapient, not sentient. It has no real internal life. Red Tornado does."
Artemis frowns. "Are you..? Sure? She seemed like a person to me."
I suppose part of it comes from the elemental energies Reddy was built with by Morrow."The ring lets me scan to detect certain emotions. Red Tornado has them. They're pretty weak, but they're there, because he was programmed to observe, mimic and internalise, just like you and I were. Indigo wasn't. It was programmed to obey a list. I'm not trying to insult it. It's making itself useful. But it's not a person."
She thinks about that for a moment, eventually giving me a small nod. "Could she..? Become..? A person?"
At least Tang is keeping an eye on her, I guess? I hope he is, anyway..."I hope not. I wasn't joking about not understanding her Coluan components. If it turns out that they're that flexible, then… I've got no idea what she might be capable of, or why she might decide to do it. As I said, you can't actually predict her actions based on the fact she looks like a human woman when she isn't one."
Heh. If you felt sassy, you could even back-port modern armies to 2nd edition.Artemis looks concerned. Why is-? Ah!
"It's okay if you're not interested in eldar. I was going to update all of the codices anyway. Where would you like to start?"
Ah, vintage Warhammer. In all it's sometimes confusing glory. Good to see Artemis was serious about learning it, though. Wonder if she'd lean into the creative side of the hobby too, painting an entire army? Still, concerning to see that Tang has such a strict view of the complexity of artificial minds. I suppose being able to see their emotions or lack thereof makes it much clearer how 'alive' they are.
First link has an extraneous 'v' in the 'https' part.
... and all of the material relating to eldar.
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