Ish

I would seriously play this game... Okay, not seriously-seriously. But there’s room for comic and parody games in the world too and they can be just as fun as “real” RPGs. This looks like it would fit in well with Paranoia, Gamma World, and/or Toon.

Which is just silly, since the whole point of WH40k fluff is that all of WH40k fluff is a <s>lie</s> corrected version of events being fed to you by a <s>corrupt and incompetent</s> benevolent and compassionate government bureaucracy.

I think I’ve spotted the problem. Your knowledge of these characters is largely based on the Marvel Cinematic Universe, isn’t it?

To be fair, it’s not like WH40k’s characters and factions are immune to “As Powerful As Plot Requires” syndrome either. One short-story will see a single tactical squad of Space Marines completely annihilate an entire Space Ork Waaagh! without breaking a sweat. The next story will see an entire Battle Company decimated by a few hundred Orks...

Which Iron Man armor is Tony wearing? Because you seem to be describing one of his suits from the 1970’s. (Although those didn’t have an onboard A.I....)

The Daily Service is a short fifteen-minute religious broadcast on BBC radio, which airs every weekday at 9:45 AM GMT. It first broadcast on January 2, 1928 and has never failed to make its daily broadcast, including the entirety of WWII. As of yesterday, that’s 23,940 broadcasts... and counting.

Not since Rogue Trader, but even then, those minis didn’t have anything really distinctly different in their sculpts from every other Marine.

Well... Directly above that table is a chart of bonuses players can get for eating the appropriate Wendy’s products. This game is an advertisement for a burger joint after all.

I’m not sure which Avengers line-up you are thinking of. The “Cap’s Kooky Quartet” era when the team was just Captain America, Hawkeye, Quicksilver, and Scarlet Witch (long before her reality-warper days when she was still limited to causing bad luck). That’s probably the weakest the Avengers have ever been, but they still routinely trounced armies of faceless goons with laser guns on the regular. Groups like AIM, HYDRA, Unnamed Generic Soviet-Backed Terrorist Group #75... But then you’ve got line-ups that had Thor, Hyperion, and the Sentry on the team simultaneously. Plus a half-dozen other heroes... But, frankly, any one of those three is probably enough to see off a regiment of Imperial Guard, let alone a mere squad.

Those crossovers didn’t take place in the main Earth-6161 continuity... Although having someone call out for “Dr. McCoy!” in an emergency only to have Bones and Beast respond with a simultaneous “Yes?” is pure gold.

Yeah, any Spess Marine model, if you paint the stripes on his helmet.

$120.00 USD is the retail price...

GW will “update” when and if they feel like it. We didn’t have Space Marine Lieutenants for second through seventh editions... Then someone in the studio got an idea for a new sculpt and presto they’re back.

If I owned a cidery, I’d want to also own a small B&B on the orchard to name it the “[Whatever] Inn.” Then I could call my product “Inn Cider.” Slogan? “Get Inn Cider.” Only works on one level...

Of course, all of this isn’t an issue if you don’t give a rip about tournament organizers and competitive play.

Nah, Marvel learned the hard way about not mixing their mainline superhero comics with the books they produced under license for third-parties. From a strictly canon, ongoing continuity standpoint G.I. Joe, Star Wars, Rom: Spaceknight, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Conan, Indiana Jones, and TransFormers all existed as part of the Earth-616 universe (the “main” Marvel Universe until very recently). They had crossovers and cameoes with Spider-Man, the Avengers, and others... Heck many heroes and villains who are STILL being used by Marvel come from these licensed books: X-51 / Machine Man is from 2001; the Dire Wraith aliens and heroes like Starshine and Daystar come from Rom; and so forth... Unfortunately, Marvel doesn’t have the rights to the main characters and concepts from many of these, only to anything original that they added to the IP. Which is why X-51 can kick it with the Avengers, but you’ll never see David Bowman or HAL 9000... The IP situation is a fluster cuck to put it mildly. Given the late unpleasantness between Marvel Studios and Sony Pictures over the film-rights license for Spidey, I suspect their going to be extra cautious about these sort of entanglements going forward.

You’ve apparently never read anything from their MAX, Epic Comics, or Icon Comics imprints... or you just didn’t realize they were Marvel. Epic Comics had titles like Jim Starlin’s Dreadstar; Marshal Law; Sachs and Violence; Christy Marx and Mike Vosburg’s Sisterhood of Steel; and the controversial Void Indigo. MAX gave us Alias, which was later the basis for the very grim Jessica Jones series on Netflix; Black Widow: Pale Little Spider; Supreme Power; and U.S. War Machine — which features a sequence where a Klansman forces a black hostage to eat his own lips. I still feel ill when I recall that scene. Icon Comics has Kick-Ass; Powers; Painkiller Jane; The Book of Lost Souls; and more... The entire imprint was basically a giant playpen for Brian Michael Bendis, Mark Millar, and J. Michael Straczynski. They aren’t going to be sticking WH40k into the same continuity as Captain America and Spider-Man (even though that’d be @&#%ing awesome). They’re going to be off in their own little separate product line.

“Do you like American Psycho?”

Honestly, having now read the character creation rules and skimmed through the rest of the “book,” this doesn’t look like a half-bad game system. Okay, so everything heroic being intrinsically tied to Wendy’s food and everything villainous being based on a wink-and-a-nod towards Wendy’s competition would get a bit stale (pun very much intended) over time. But, if you were to replace the Spork weapons and Fresh-Baked Buns armor with normal items and reflavor the Menu Item class names... Yeah, it’d be a decent lite RPG. All I know is I am now seriously craving a Spicy Chicken Sandwich.

You have my spork.

If the production run wasn’t so limited (and therefore the MSRP likely to be quite high) I would totally buy a Bandai-produced Space Marine action figure. I’ve paid $50-100 for S.H.Figuarts, Bandai, and Figma action figures in the past. Having a Space Marine to plop on the shelf next to Sailormoon and Tyranno Ranger would be neat.

That’s actually a pretty good map for some old school dungeon-crawling gaming.

I got a mind flayer-y vibe from it.

I love superhero comics and role playing games, I love miniatures wargames... But I’ve hated every attempt I’ve seen to make a superhero miniatures game. The supers genre just never seems to translate well to the wargame format. (Having said that, if anyone is interested in a Mutants and Masterminds campaign, hit me up.)

Goin' down to Gaslands, gonna have myself a race...