Total Party Kill: Greetings. It’s Warhammer Day.
Steven is an experienced writer in the fields of comic books and tabletop gaming, and he is probably the nerdiest person on The Weekly Geek staff. That is a compliment. Please welcome Steven to The Weekly Geek! --Chris
Hey, folks! Great to be here. I’ll be updating you at least a couple times a week with things I find of interest from the wild, untamed weird lands of comic books and tabletop games (war, board, roleplay). If you know of anything you think I should check out or yap about, please drop me a line.
There are a couple announcements today which are Warhammer related; and since I’m a huge Warhammer fanboy, I figured mentioning these would make for a good first post.
Recently, the gaming world found out that Black Library (a division of Games Workshop) was dropping Black Industries, their boardgaming and roleplaying publishing arm. People freaked out, naturally, wailing about the horror of a world without Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2nd Edition, the Warhammer 40,000: Dark Heresy RPG, and the excellent Talisman 4th Edition boardgame. I should know-- I was one of them! Anyway, good news fellow nerdlings: Fantasy Flight Games picked up the licence to produce Warhammer RPGs, boardgames, and collectible card games. Read what they have to say here. Though welcome news, it comes as no surprise to me. I suspected before that FFG would be in the running for this simply because they seem to be trying to take over the world (I'm kidding FFG! No need to send Da Boyz to put me in line... 'kay?). I’ve always been satisfied with their products, so I’m thinking these properties are safe in their hands. We’ll just have to wait and see.
Another biggish WH-related announcement being made today, at WonderCon in San Francisco, is BOOM! Studios and EA revealing their nifty new joint-marketing gimmick. It would seem the follow-up to Warhammer: Forge of War, called Condemned by Fire, will give readers a 1 in 5 chance to scratch off a beta code for the upcoming EA Mythic MMO, Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (aka WAR). Well, to explain it better, here are some snippets from the press release:
Each copy of WARHAMMER: CONDEMNED BY FIRE #1 contains a scratch-off which reveals a code giving readers a 1-in-5 chance of entry into the WARHAMMER ONLINE beta test...EA Mythic's WARHAMMER ONLINE: AGE OF RECKONING, also known as WAR, is the upcoming massively multiplayer online role-playing game based on Games Workshop's Warhammer Fantasy world. Slated for release in 2008, the game features innovative Realm vs. Realm™ combat that immerses players in a world of perpetual conflict...
WARHAMMER: CONDEMNED BY FIRE is a five issue mini-series that directly follows BOOM!'s successful WARHAMMER: FORGE OF WAR mini-series, both of which are set in the Warhammer Fantasy world. Reuniting the WARHAMMER: FORGE OF WAR team of fan-favorite writers Dan Abnett and Ian Edginton with phenomenal art by Rahsan Ekadal, WARHAMMER: CONDEMNED BY FIRE concentrates on the exploits of Witch Hunter Magnus Gault. This tireless foe of Chaos roams the Empire seeking to stop the spread of dark magic and witchery of all kinds...
That pretty much sums it up. I'll try to get back and link to the official press release when it's available. Now, I'm a fairly cynical sort, but I am happy to see some sort of cross-promotion. Of course, I'm not going to go buy multiple issues or anything, but if you do-- more Sigmarite power to you! One thing I'm happy as a delirious snotling to see is the same creative team of Abnett, Edginton and Ekedal. These guys are one killer combination.
Here's a page showing off Rahsan's art skills:
All in all, I'll give this news 5 party members slain out of 6.
As a non-Warhammery side-note, are you reading Dark Horse's B.P.R.D. 1946? #2 just came out. So, so, so good. I'll try to touch some more on comics I read next time. Take care!
