LARP

Wednesday 26th August 2009

No strip this weekend I'm afriad people; I'm heading off on thursday to the Gathering, the largest LARP event in the UK, and will be running around in a field dressed as a Lizardman until monday!

I've been LARPing, both at the Lorien Trust events (i.e. the Gathering) and other systems since about 1997, and it's a brilliant and (somewhat) relaxing passtime, as long as you don't mind the odd looks you get when you try to explain to someone normal what you spend your weekends doing.

I might post some pictures, and if any of you lot reading this are also going to the Gathering, go look for me in the Jackals!

Necromunda

Sunday 23rd August 2009

As well as playing 40k, I am a big fan of GW's other games, having had over the years several Fantasy Skaven armies, a Skaven Blood Bowl team, a small Battlefleet Gothic Chaos fleet and both an Escher and an Orlock gang in Necromunda.

I know a few people who don't like Necromunda, but I am a big fan of it. A number of my friends have gangs, and for a while we had a small campaign running in which we each tried to capture the most sectors from a pre-set pool of territories, to see who could hold the most for longest.

One thing I always liked about Necromunda were the Juves; pint-sized gangers who were the teens of the hive world. And these guys weren't pushovers; they were every bit as vicious as the fully-grown adult gangers!
ASBOs all round in the 41st millenium it seems!

Laziness!

Sunday 16th August 2009

Sorry people, no strip this week!
I'm feeling the pleasant bite of summer laziness; it's warm and sunny outside, there's ale in the cuboard and my laptop is calling to me, asking me to finish the rpg system I've been working on recently.

In other news, I'm considering adding a forum to the website, as I think it might be a nice addition and people can sign up to wiffle on about SOTI, Warhammer, Roleplay and all things besides.

Also, how cool does this look?

Waaagh!

Monday 10th August 2009

I'm a big fan of roleplay games, from Dungeons and Dragons to World of Darkness (although I haven't really played that in years) to Cyberpunk.
I'm also a great fan of home-brewed systems - game systems and settings I and my friends have designed ourselves.

A few years ago I adapted the rules for the old Games Workshop specialist game GorkaMorka into an RPG and ran it for my friends; charting the course of a gang of Orks as they rampaged across Da Skid in an unceasing quest for scrap, fungus ale and fightin'.
It was a hell of a success, made all the better by the fact that everyone in the party (and myself) decended into Dawn of War space-cockney style Ork accents the entire time.
It's a rare thing to listen to a room full of grown men bellowing such lines as "More dakka yose zoggin grotz!" and "Where's me squig gone? Who ate me squig?!".

Recently I've been running the game again, and it's started me on a side-project of rewriting the system to be more streamlined and more Orky.

Hopefully once it's finished I might put the rules online for people to download and run their own games.

Waaagh!

Ka-bye

Sunday 2nd August 2009

I'm quite pleased that SOTI gets an average of 1,500 hits per day, and I owe an awful lot of those hits to the link from Turn Signals on a Land Raider that Steve Campbell was very kind to add early in my comic's existance.

I've always been a fan of TSOALR and it forms part of my weekly webcomic reading, and has done for a number of years, and it certainly helped inspire me to write my own 40k comic.

Sadly this week Steve has finally announced that TSOALR is coming to an end, with the last strip to be posted this monday.
As many dedicated Turn Signals fans know, Steve has been indicating the end of the strip for some time now, Games Workshop's IP laws having prevented him (and every other 40k fancomic out there) from making any money from his work, which in today's financial environment is not a good thing for a struggling comic artist.
I am in a similar boat to Steve, always erring on the side of caution when it comes to making money from this website. I could (and possibly should) put advertisements on the site, to earn back some of the money I pay for the server, but I am always cautious about stepping on the hallowed toes of mother GW.

I will be sad to see the end of TSOALR, and Kren and Frep will be sorely missed. I might (with Steve's blessing) add a few tributes to the strip in SOTI from time to time, and whenever I write a 'KA-sound effect' I'll think fondly of those red-and-purple clad space marines.

Rock on guys.