0:00

And yeah, they're so intrinsically Dark Angel, aren't they?

0:24

Listen up, Umi! This

0:26

is a podcast with the most ducker! This

0:29

is FUDGE the narrative!

0:51

Ours

0:59

still has an internet connection.

1:01

It's

1:28

time to take a break. It

1:31

is being thick and fast and heavy

1:33

and crazy and amazing out here.

1:36

I know, what a time. So with all the stuff

1:38

coming out with the new edition, of course, the

1:40

current stuff. Okay, it's been a couple of weeks and I know

1:43

we've been out of it for a couple of weeks. Thank you

1:45

everybody for being patient with us. We definitely have

1:47

very much still in the hobby. I don't know if you caught all

1:49

the stuff that's happened, the big pre-youth happened at Adapticon.

1:52

New terminators! I mean, okay, yeah. I

1:59

don't know.

1:59

play space marines okay if

2:04

only i didn't play like if only i didn't have

2:06

nearly two thousand three thousand points of deathwing

2:09

uh i'm still very excited

2:11

and i'll be getting these models but man like i

2:14

painted like 40 terminators

2:16

straight so looking at them i'm like oh i'm

2:18

gonna have to paint like at least 20 more it's

2:22

yeah you know it's like the hungover

2:24

being offered a drink and i'm like oh i

2:26

guess here

2:29

we go again not unhappy though i think

2:31

they look awesome and i gotta

2:33

i gotta give gdub props they

2:36

they were perfect they just needed to be scaled

2:39

up no need to reinvent the wheel and the terminators

2:41

they are eternal perpetually awesome

2:44

sculpts well done for sticking

2:46

with uh the og designs the indomina sami

2:48

armor um funnily enough very

2:51

like uh well named in hindsight with

2:53

the way the indomina crusade and all that stuff has

2:55

come about do you think you all went to plan 100

2:58

no no they just have a big wall of eye words

3:01

and they just came full circle back to it in time

3:03

for the relaunch of the terminators it was

3:05

such a pure coincidence i

3:07

wonder if there's a certain vocabulary of space marines

3:09

that is occasionally wheel them out like someone not a

3:11

long time ago just decided this is the the

3:14

the 20 eye words that yes

3:17

yes that we have to use over the

3:19

course of x amount of years or whatever they

3:21

finally get the wheel of this one out well

3:24

it all it all happened many years ago when as a member

3:26

of the design team watched a very pivotal episode

3:28

of sesame street it just so happened to be the

3:31

the letter i was the the um the letter

3:33

of the episode and they were

3:35

just like man that is a great letter let's

3:38

just this this is it no

3:41

no purer letter is there in the the

3:43

lexicon of humans uh

3:45

it's just like i

3:48

is where we're at i is what we're about

3:50

let's roll so as we mentioned this is the vacation

3:52

blog so this is not the start of season two

3:55

just yet

3:56

was

3:57

back on that tangent though because i will not be derailed

3:59

I've been stewing. You

4:02

gotta get it out. You've been stewing for too long. Was

4:05

anyone else disappointed when the Desolator

4:07

Marines came out and they were named an I-word?

4:10

I was like, missed opportunity, guys. What

4:12

would you, okay, what I-word would

4:14

you have named them? Do we have the Instigator Marines

4:16

yet? No. That was the first choice. So

4:19

are the Incontinence Marines? Yes,

4:22

yeah, that's it.

4:23

Why are they painted brown? Don't

4:27

go that far. It's

4:30

the new successes to the Space Wolves that

4:34

we've never heard about. Well,

4:38

what would be the, it's not the Cleveland Browns. It's

4:40

gotta be like a space word for Cleveland. Clevelandian.

4:45

Browns. Oh

4:48

my goodness, I've taken us on a dark path and I apologize.

4:51

Instead of using wolves, they have mules. They

4:53

ride mules into battle. Oh

4:55

dear. This is what we can get away with.

4:57

Playing in the gap between actual episodes.

4:59

This is a bonus episode and what

5:02

everyone that has reached out in between when

5:04

we took a break and now, thank you very much.

5:07

It absolutely is. The

5:09

people we've encountered at live events, the

5:11

people that have said stuff on Instagram and Twitter

5:13

and Facebook, thank you so much.

5:16

We're gonna be back. This is one of those things

5:18

just kind of refocusing everything

5:20

and it's absolutely amazing. I can't wait to get back

5:23

in going with regular content because there's been so

5:25

much stuff coming out and I said we talk about

5:27

some vacation stuff and this is it. Well,

5:29

I'm recording from a very suspicious place.

5:32

I'm on my travels. I'm traveling

5:35

around the United States at the moment and the last little

5:37

leg of my three month jaunt. Been

5:39

to LVO, been to Cherokee, been

5:42

to the wonderful Adepticon,

5:44

we had a phenomenal time. And now I find

5:46

myself in one of the most famous basements

5:49

in the land. A venerable

5:51

treasure trove of 40K and

5:55

Warhammer memorabilia. I

5:57

don't know, where could I possibly be in the world?

5:59

What do you guys think? Give us a pun. Well,

6:02

we'll try to talk so the silence doesn't get edited

6:05

out during this period of time. But if I

6:07

were to like look around this pillar,

6:09

I would actually see you over there. I'm

6:13

sitting at Paul Murphy's gaming table right

6:15

now. Yeah, we had

6:18

a lovely dinner with his family. It was my very

6:20

great honor to be hanging out with the great man

6:22

in his dwelling. Yep, we're here. Yeah,

6:25

Adam is here just outside of Atlanta. Pleasure

6:27

to have you here with us. Tina,

6:29

have to make it down here eventually as well.

6:32

Oh, I would love to. I

6:34

would love to. Anytime that I see pictures of Georgia,

6:36

I'm like, it looks really nice there.

6:38

It's pretty nice. Legitimate.

6:40

It's quite nice. I spent a couple of days in Savannah before I

6:42

came here. What a cool town.

6:45

But I'm glad you brought up a Dep decon because that

6:47

was where some of this information hit

6:49

where we did a lot of live streaming on the Games Workshop side.

6:51

So if you haven't checked that out, check out some Sigmar,

6:54

some Kill Team coverage, some Dep decon

6:56

Team Tournament coverage, and then the preview

6:58

of everything that actually got launched

7:01

that we're talking about. This big edition

7:03

change coming up, nobody knows exactly what to expect just

7:05

yet, but we've got a lot of interesting little things. Characters

7:08

joining units. Yeah. We

7:12

have- A throwback. Double

7:14

circle.

7:15

Universal special rules of back baby.

7:17

Yeah. Yeah, in addition, we're

7:19

all rejoining our units as we

7:21

were. With some more terms and conditions

7:24

as stated by J-Dub, no longer

7:26

able to have innumerable characters

7:29

join different units. It's very closely curtailed

7:32

and curated what can and can't

7:34

join a unit. So no more clown

7:36

carrying seven or eight characters onto a unit

7:39

of Fenris and wolves. Paul. Stop

7:42

it. I- So-

7:45

Super friends very near and dear

7:47

to my heart, you know, whatever. So- It

7:50

really feels like J-Dub has looked to the

7:52

past and seen what worked in

7:54

addition to gone by. And then trying to

7:57

use what they've learned from the last two as well. So this

7:59

could be an amalgam-

7:59

of some of the best bits

8:02

of like the last every edition and

8:04

I'm really excited to see where it goes Let's

8:06

talk about Dante if we can though

8:08

So Dante is up for pre-order by the time

8:10

you're hearing this this episode. I believe

8:13

and Cross the Rubicon

8:16

as they say and become Primaris I

8:20

mean, it's bound to happen eventually. I wonder how he's

8:22

old bones took it. I hope there's some I hope

8:24

there's some fluff and he like Yeah,

8:28

it's someone tries to offer me while he's back his walking stick

8:30

and he throws it away breaks it over his knee in defiance

8:33

to the whims of time What

8:36

I love about the model and it's it's an amazing

8:39

model So Games Workshop did send a model for

8:41

us to take a look at and you know I got

8:43

to paint got to build it and everything and

8:46

you couldn't tell he doesn't look a day over Is

8:52

that is that the the Glorious 27

8:56

years old 28 years old for a space

8:58

marine We is

9:01

he's the oldest living space marine I

9:03

believe Dante is still in the in the cannon

9:05

is being the oldest living space marine That

9:08

obviously isn't in a isn't in a so caught

9:10

in a dreadnought. Yeah, cuz beyond would be Would

9:13

be on the ish you can't say living ish.

9:15

Yeah, exactly right. He's living adjacent

9:21

But the model looks amazing paint it

9:23

up well goes together pretty easy You

9:26

know retro reader armor goes a long way with this model.

9:28

Oh, I was gonna say did you

9:29

paint it all non metallic metal? I

9:32

Did not okay. I Just

9:36

thought that would be like in the centerpiece that you

9:38

might try it on You know said

9:41

ain't got time for that name Yeah, no, I don't have time

9:43

for that either. I have painted gold with

9:45

just washes in the past before

9:47

though You

9:50

can paint Gold

9:52

with washes and I will say I don't

9:54

remember a long time ago that I painted a Custodase

9:58

with just contrast yellow

9:59

silver.

10:00

Like you can do that. There's different ways. There's

10:02

a ton of different ways to paint gold. But

10:05

when, as someone who may or may not own, I

10:07

don't know, 50 or 60 centimeter guard, it all done.

10:09

Retributor armor. Dante's

10:12

going to be the coverage, the coverage

10:14

of Retributor armor. That

10:15

is an amazing paint. It's

10:17

a miracle. As far as like blocking, blocking in metallics,

10:19

I think is one of the biggest chores to me. I don't

10:22

feel that way when I'm using Retributor armor.

10:25

Yeah. It really doesn't feel like it acts like

10:27

a metallic paint like many others. But

10:29

I remember the days was the iron breaker

10:32

back in the old pots, the really old pots,

10:35

the ones with the black screw on. Screw

10:37

tops. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I just

10:39

remember trying to get coverage over black and

10:42

it always just came out spotty and with

10:45

lines and streaks in it, and you can see where

10:47

the brush strokes were. It wasn't a great time. We

10:49

have come a long way. In this

10:51

episode, I may, when we take a break

10:53

here in a minute, I may

10:55

inject an interview. If I can make it work,

10:57

I recorded the interview over video. I'm going

10:59

to try to reduce it to audio. There

11:02

may be a cool interview after the break, just saying.

11:04

So hang out for the whole episode. It's going to be a cool

11:07

episode. And I know I talked a lot about Dante,

11:09

but I think we do need to give the lioness due. Thank

11:12

you. Thank you very much. Right

11:15

after this break. So

11:18

we're going to take a break. In the words

11:20

of the glorious red pal. Dang. Dang.

11:25

We're going to take a quick break.

11:28

Then we're going to come back. It may be, if

11:30

I can't figure it out, it's going

11:32

to be us after the break. If I do figure

11:35

it out, you're going to have a cool treat. It's

11:37

going to be slightly unaware. We're related to Warhammer adjacent.

11:40

And then we'll come back. It'll be us again.

11:42

Hold on for a minute.

11:45

FTN is brought to you by discount

11:48

games, Inc. Please visit them at www.discountgamesinc.com.

11:53

And don't forget to ask Jay about ways

11:55

to save even more on your hobby projects.

11:59

I'm joined by Dan Abnett.

12:02

I can't even believe I get to say it. Mr. Dan

12:04

Abnett. Welcome to the show Thank

12:07

you very much indeed I know we talked

12:09

in the past we've run over some things but I want to kind

12:11

of if we can't go back to some Ground we talked about

12:14

you know things like the Guardians of the galaxy Like

12:17

we are you're responsible if people are

12:20

aware for the collection

12:22

of Characters that are like

12:24

the cinematic universe of Guardians of the galaxy.

12:27

Yes, that is my fault. Yes

12:29

Yeah, but the Guardians

12:32

of the galaxy has a concept I suppose existed 1969 different

12:37

group of characters completely

12:39

different But

12:44

they were the ones that I as a kid grew up reading Whenever

12:47

there was a cosmic story in the Marvel Universe,

12:49

they had a cosmic heroes loved them and

12:52

yeah in the Was

12:54

about 2007 2008 worked

12:56

on the sort of cosmic

12:58

events like annihilation and annihilation conquest

13:00

at Marvel which was sort of an attempt

13:02

really to to to Rejuvenate

13:07

the cosmic side of things and Ended

13:09

up being asked to do a team book I was

13:11

writing Nova as a solo book and I write

13:14

a team book that That's

13:17

that was a cosmic team and

13:19

I cherry picked the characters who made that team

13:22

up from ones that were available some that have just

13:24

been you know redeveloped at the time some that have

13:26

been long forgotten and Just as

13:28

a president of I don't know what decided to

13:30

call them the gun is the galaxy even though they were nothing to

13:32

do With the original team. They were such a renegade

13:34

team. It was like let's steal the name We

13:37

it almost seemed like it was the the ego

13:39

of the character of all Star Lord. I guess you

13:41

know No

13:45

one's using it well somebody was and again that led

13:47

to stories as well You know sort of

13:49

which is the guy's thing But yes, that was that and it was

13:51

it was a pretty simple book people really enjoyed

13:53

it got some

13:54

critical acclaim I loved writing it never

13:56

in a million years would occur to me that that would become

13:59

a movie or

13:59

or indeed a little franchise within

14:02

the franchise. And so I was very surprised when

14:04

they said, do you know what the next film's gonna be? It's

14:06

gonna be Guardians, and it's gonna be, to

14:08

whatever we're putting it, your Guardians,

14:10

the version that you came up with, which

14:13

is still strange all these years later, when

14:15

everything we know,

14:16

Guardians Christmas special comes out on Disney,

14:18

and I go, really? Look at that. It's

14:21

weird. It's

14:24

pretty impressive. I don't know

14:26

if we've talked in the past about your relationship with

14:28

comics, like are you a fan of

14:30

the genre? What

14:33

got you into that process at all? Because

14:35

I would have to imagine that it's a lot different

14:37

than novels. It very much, and

14:40

it takes precedent, I think, really. Yes,

14:43

I am a huge fan of comics, I mean, in

14:46

the broadest

14:46

sense, all sorts

14:48

of different comics. So as

14:50

a kid, I loved drawing. I

14:54

was quite artistic. My parents were artists.

14:56

I loved drawing, I loved writing stories, I loved reading stories.

15:00

I played a lot, blah, blah, blah, blah, typical. I

15:04

discovered Marvel Comics

15:06

through a friend at school when I was about eight or nine

15:08

years old. And he also loved drawing,

15:10

but he was so inspired by Marvel Comics, he used to draw his own

15:12

comics. And they struck me as being incredibly

15:14

dynamic. I'd never seen anything like it. I was aware of comics,

15:17

but not in that kind of American superhero

15:19

sense. And at that

15:22

point, I started doing the same thing. I realized that the two things

15:24

I love doing most, which is writing stories and

15:26

drawing pictures, I could do at the same time I did

15:28

my own comics. So for years,

15:30

my hobby was writing and drawing my own comics

15:33

of all sorts. And my love

15:35

of comics and my interest in comics, so both

15:38

Marvel and DC, but also sort of

15:40

the traditions of British comics,

15:43

the war comics like Battle and stuff like that, and also Britain's 2008,

15:46

Home of Joe's Trade and everything like that, a superhero,

15:49

a science fiction comics, all sorts of things.

15:51

I just couldn't get enough of it. And

15:55

I think there came a point, I guess, where I realized

15:57

that I couldn't draw.

16:00

well enough or fast enough to keep up with the stories

16:02

I wanted to tell. In the meantime

16:04

I you know I'm teenage years I

16:06

went to university I did all sorts of things I've no idea

16:08

what I'm gonna do with my life thought you know probably

16:12

going to be doing more to be writing or English

16:14

or something. Anyway to cut a long

16:16

story short I was somebody

16:18

suggested when I left university they said you should get a job

16:21

in comics because they knew I liked comics so

16:23

I basically ended up getting

16:25

a job as an assistant editor,

16:28

a trainee assistant editor, Marvel's

16:31

London offices where I

16:33

worked for several years and everything

16:36

we worked on there was essentially the sort of junior

16:38

licensed stuff so it's things like Ghostbusters and Transformers

16:40

and Thundercats and all that kind of stuff and I loved

16:42

it it was exactly what I you know

16:45

this is so I started in comics when I as

16:47

a professional my first jobs were

16:49

in comics learning it from the inside

16:52

as an editor working on all these characters learning

16:54

how to work on a license you

16:56

know understand a license and do it justice

16:58

and put it into a comic no matter what and

16:59

it could be the misty men or care

17:02

bears or

17:05

Sylvanian Fab. To translate it I mean to

17:07

speak about that for a second it's like the the

17:09

stories for like Transformers is

17:12

an example you know it's like it's kind of weird the Transformers

17:14

is like only a season and then the movie

17:16

and then two more seasons but yet it's hundreds

17:19

of you know we well

17:20

pretty close to by that anyway but then we got

17:22

the comics that tell different stories and

17:25

that's where actually a lot of like

17:27

some of the meat of these characters came from. Oh

17:30

yes yeah yeah that's absolutely true

17:32

of a lot of big franchises I mean I mean I think GI

17:34

Joe which is another great one I

17:36

worked on the British action force version but Larry

17:38

Hammer's work on GI Joe in America is

17:41

on the comic was absolutely fundamental

17:43

and ended up

17:44

informing the biographies

17:46

they put on the backs of the cards for the characters I mean that's how

17:49

that's how fundamental yeah so so that's

17:51

what I started out doing and I'm

17:53

we so I was an editor working on the inside

17:56

working on essentially kids junior comics

17:58

nursery comics

17:59

the tank engine, whatever it was, it was just all comics.

18:02

And because Marvel

18:05

UK didn't do superhero comics like its

18:07

American parent

18:09

did, we were encouraged

18:12

to write, editors were encouraged

18:14

to write stories in order to understand

18:17

better how our story works. So that's what I did. And

18:19

there came a point where I realized I liked doing

18:21

that. I enjoyed being an editor, but I liked

18:24

the writing of the stories more. So

18:26

after several years, I ended up going freelance as a writer,

18:28

working for Marvel, working for 2000 AD, which I'd grown

18:30

up reading. So, and

18:35

shortly after that, beginning to work for Marvel US and

18:37

then DC and people like that.

18:39

So I was a comic

18:41

book writer for the first few years of

18:43

my professional career as a writer. That's what I did.

18:46

And it was

18:48

really, I'd always wanted to write long form and prose,

18:51

novels, when I was

18:53

hired by Games Workshop when they were setting up the Black Library

18:56

as a comic book writer, somebody who could write comic books,

18:58

because somebody had seen me writing Conan, I think for Marvel

19:01

and so on. Really? Okay. They didn't

19:03

know that in a completely separate

19:05

to that I had a huge enthusiasm for role playing

19:07

games, because I'd grown up

19:08

playing D&D and Traveler and RuneQuest

19:11

and, and not so much Warhammer, because that comes

19:13

slightly too late for me, because I was in college

19:15

by then, but I had been an avid reader of White

19:17

Dwarf in the early days. So I knew the kind

19:19

of Games Workshop, our style, and I love Games Workshop.

19:22

And it was like, can you get the atmosphere of this stuff? Right.

19:24

And it turns out that I could, because I knew what a John Blanche

19:27

illustration looked like. So I, that's

19:29

how I wrote for them. It's hard not to just like,

19:31

look at that and like, that is, that is, that is, that

19:33

is, you write that. So

19:35

they hired me on, I wrote comics for them and they said, you want to write

19:38

some short stories, some short

19:38

fiction? I went, sure, great. And

19:41

then they said, do you want to write novels? Because we

19:43

want to do novels too. And I said, yeah, I'd love to,

19:45

because I'd wanted to write novels. I think I'd actually at that

19:47

point written one, if not two novels

19:50

of my own, as it were in my spare time to

19:52

see if I could do it, that I never got published, but

19:55

they were, they were kind of exercising, you know, can

19:57

you, can you do this? Can you sustain a

19:59

narrative in prose?

19:59

film. So I jumped at it and

20:02

started writing novels for them and it was

20:04

like well now someone is paying

20:06

me to write the novels rather than me writing

20:09

a novel and then spending years trying to get it trying

20:11

to sell it to somebody. So at that point my

20:13

career sort of divided into two where I was a

20:15

novelist but also a comic book writer

20:18

and a lot of people at that point might go well I'll stop

20:20

writing the comics then because novels I loved writing

20:23

the novels I really enjoyed it and obviously pretty

20:25

rapidly we discovered we had huge success in terms

20:27

of what Black Library was capable of doing that led me to

20:29

write things for other other publishers as well you

20:32

know ridiculous number of novels to be perfectly

20:34

honest but you know a huge number of stuff I've things I've

20:37

done over the years but I

20:39

love comics so much that

20:41

I didn't want to stop writing them just in terms

20:43

of the craft and the form of writing

20:45

a comic script as opposed to writing a

20:47

novel and also the fact that with you

20:50

know horror, heresy and siege of terror notwithstanding

20:53

novels not writing a novel is a very individual

20:56

experience but a comics routine sport

20:58

because you're right you're working with a an

21:01

artist and an inker and a lecturer

21:03

and an editor so that's that's

21:06

a great thing to be in so I just kept doing both

21:08

and in fact I think I've been doing the

21:11

two things parallel you know almost the point where I'd write

21:13

comics in the morning and then stop and then I'd

21:15

write a chapter of a novel in the afternoon that was my daily

21:17

you know so I could just keep doing both of those things and

21:20

there came a point I've been doing that

21:22

for about I think a decade when

21:24

I was contacted by a games company

21:27

and they said would you like to work on computer

21:30

games and I said well first of all

21:32

thank you second of all I don't

21:35

really know anything about it because I don't play computer

21:37

games because if I did I'd never get any

21:39

work done and and you

21:42

sure you've come to the right person they said no because you're

21:44

really good at story that's what we're interested in your ability to write story

21:46

not games so at that point I divided

21:50

the third time so I became a game writer

21:53

alongside a novelist and a comic book writer and

21:55

that's been the case ever since so I spend an awful lot of

21:57

my time writing games also

22:00

sorts of different computer games. And

22:02

sometimes, but the very fact that I am I've got that

22:05

slight remove of what I'm interested in is the story

22:07

is another thing. So I think

22:09

people call me and I presume it's

22:12

meant to be a compliment, although it's happened so much, I begin

22:14

to wonder, they call me prolific. I'm

22:16

referring to prolific because I write so much. Are

22:19

they using that word in the right way? Yeah,

22:21

they always say I'm a prolific Dan Abner. I'm going really?

22:25

But it's true. And my defense

22:27

is prolific. It's like, well, he writes a lot.

22:29

You know, so it almost sounds like a sort of backhanded

22:31

compliment. I think, well, I'm right. I write a lot, because

22:33

people ask me to, and they would ask me to if I wasn't

22:36

fairly good at it. So okay, I'll take it.

22:39

But I think one of the reasons I do is because I love writing.

22:42

But if in

22:44

the course of a week, I'm spending a few hours working

22:46

on a comic, and then I'm writing a bit more of the novel,

22:48

and then I'm going over to a game, and then I'm going back to a comic,

22:51

all this kind of stuff, it I never

22:53

get stuck on something. So whereas somebody

22:55

who was doing one thing, say they were a novelist, they

22:57

hit a sticky patch in the novel, they

22:59

get blocked slightly, they wouldn't know what to do next, they

23:01

need to take a couple of days off to go and do something else. What

23:03

I do is go right, okay, that's not moving. What's the other

23:05

thing on my list? Oh, I've got to write

23:08

Guardians of the Galaxy right, right Guardians of the Galaxy. Oh,

23:10

that's fantastic. In the course of that, the problem

23:12

that you were dealing with on the novel fixes itself somewhere

23:14

in your subconscious. You go back to it, you go,

23:17

Oh, yeah, what was I worried about? That's

23:19

you see what I mean? So that's one of the reasons I consider

23:22

it. Make economic use of my

23:24

time by just moving around and never staying

23:26

in one place for too long and keeping everything fresh

23:29

and, and so on. So yes, yes,

23:31

my love of comics is huge. I

23:33

don't know if you can reveal this or if you even remember,

23:36

but were there any like maybe big name comic

23:38

Marvel characters that were on the bubble?

23:41

Or that maybe you were being encouraged to use

23:43

as part of the Guardians? No, not

23:45

at all. In fact, the reverse is true, I have to

23:47

say because they were they were these

23:49

were characters that I had read in their in their various

23:52

solo incarnations.

23:56

They'd all been tried out on Rocket Rocket Raccoon

23:58

Groot, Star Lord. They had all been

24:00

characters that had sort of been tried and sort of

24:03

failed back in the 70s and

24:05

late 60s and stuff like that. And I had read them in

24:08

the

24:09

British Marvel Black and White Weekly reprint

24:12

of the Star Wars comic of all things. When

24:14

Star Wars came out, obviously it was a thing. As a kid

24:16

I wanted to read the Star Wars comic at Marvel.

24:18

They did this weekly reprint and the backup

24:21

was whatever Marvel SF

24:23

stuff they could find lying around that was vaguely

24:25

appropriate because it wasn't superheroes. So

24:28

we got Rocket Raccoon, we got the

24:31

original

24:32

Chris Claremont, John Byrne, Star

24:34

Wars story which I adore. These sorts of things. Ran

24:36

on backup in black and white as cheaply as possible.

24:40

So I read all these characters and really liked them. I really

24:42

loved cosmic stuff. So

24:44

when I got to the point of working on Annihilation

24:47

and stuff like that, they were obviously, they were the big characters that

24:49

were popular like Silver Surfer and stuff like that. Oh,

24:51

these are the characters we're going to use. But when you think of cosmic you've

24:53

got to have Silver Surfer. But

24:57

I was sitting there going, what about all the other ones? And

24:59

they were sort of the broken toys at the bottom of the

25:01

toy box

25:02

that nobody cared, literally nobody

25:05

cared about. They didn't care what happened to them. I

25:08

get on very well with Joe Quesada who was in charge of Marvel

25:11

at the time. And he didn't understand,

25:14

he said repeatedly he didn't get cosmic

25:16

comics. He didn't understand what the appeal was. He

25:18

didn't like that mix of superheroes and SF. So

25:23

he just didn't get it. He didn't get what the thing

25:26

was. But he could see that I

25:28

was somehow bringing it. So he just kind

25:30

of like, get on with it. Just do it. I

25:32

don't get it. Just get on with it. So I did.

25:36

And there are all these Marvel characters. You've

25:38

got to respect the toys. Every single Marvel character

25:41

is being created and has a legacy and

25:43

you don't want to break the toys. But if you're working

25:45

on say Spider-Man or the Hulk or Thor or Iron

25:48

Man, you're not allowed to come even

25:50

close to breaking the toys because

25:52

it's a very big deal. These

25:54

are franchises that are playing, you know,

25:56

you've got to put them back the way you found them essentially.

26:00

in order to maintain the legacy of the Marvel Universe.

26:02

With these characters, these cosmic characters

26:05

that nobody cared about, and

26:07

most people have forgotten about, they didn't

26:09

have the same kind of prestige at all. So they'd be like,

26:11

yeah, whatever you like, you can do whatever you like with those.

26:14

So I think the Guardians comic that I wrote had

26:16

a certain degree of the unexpected about it,

26:18

because anything that happened and often did, because

26:20

I wasn't constrained as I would be by marquee characters

26:23

like Spider-Man, that I had this responsibility,

26:25

great power of this kind of great responsibility, not to break

26:27

this character. And I was doing all this, and

26:29

I think that's really what it was.

26:32

It was, I think the

26:34

only thing I was sort of encouraged to do was

26:37

see what other things you can find that you can make something

26:39

of that we're not using, and we're never gonna use

26:41

it, we're never gonna use it, so do what you like

26:44

with it. So it wasn't like bring this character indefinitely,

26:46

it was more a case of what could you play with? And

26:49

weirdly, that's sort of become my, in

26:52

the comics, and certainly in American superhero comics,

26:54

has become my sort of reputation

26:58

for the I'm the guy you call, or

27:00

certainly for a long time I was the guy you called, if you've got a

27:02

character that for some reason isn't as popular as it used to

27:04

be, or needs a damn good reboot, or

27:07

whatever. So the number of things that I've

27:09

worked with over the years where I've really enjoyed it, are characters

27:11

that have been perceived to have been not

27:14

functioning their best. Is there a better version of this

27:16

that we can do? Okay. Which

27:19

is a nice thing, as a result, I suppose, I

27:22

missed out on the opportunities where somebody's gone, he's

27:24

a good writer, let's give him a prestige character, and let him just

27:26

write it. So there are loads of characters that are going, oh, I'd love

27:28

to spend more time with some of these

27:29

famous characters, because they are great

27:32

characters. But yes, you can go back through my

27:34

back catalog, and go, yeah, he was put on that to kind of

27:37

revamp that, and he was put on that to revamp that, and

27:40

it's a fun thing to do. It's a fun thing to do. And

27:42

never more, never have I revamped

27:44

so successfully, I suppose, as I did on Guardians,

27:46

by bringing these characters into, remembering

27:49

them from my childhood, putting them together, it was

27:51

the putting them together, really, rather than reinventing

27:53

their characters. It was like, now put Rocket with

27:56

Groot, that's an interesting dynamic. You

27:58

know, they sort of love them together, and they're,

27:59

and then you get a multi-billion dollar

28:02

franchise out of it and I

28:04

just sit back and go, okay, something worked there.

28:06

No, something clicked and it's a life of its

28:09

own. Yeah, and that is absolutely, of course, not

28:11

to in any way diminish the considerable

28:14

input of the actors playing those roles,

28:17

the special effects team and James Gunn for

28:19

putting together such brilliantly entertaining movies. I'm

28:22

not saying, oh yeah, it was all me and they just wrote it on my coattails,

28:24

but they definitely came from talking

28:26

to James about it. I'll say it. He

28:28

was very, very, very, very

28:29

specific to me about how much he

28:32

liked that, not just that

28:34

combination of characters, but just the tonal

28:37

thing, the sort of slightly

28:40

disrespectful iconoclastic

28:42

feel. This

28:44

wasn't, these weren't, the typical clean

28:46

cut good guys, they were sort of rejects

28:49

and they thought they were more important than they

28:51

actually were, all that sort of stuff. I think

28:53

that's really almost what the series

28:56

of movies needed at the time that they were originally

28:58

introduced. And I don't think as

28:59

just as a consumer, many of us knew

29:02

what to make of that when

29:05

everything else was our main Captain America, that

29:07

kind of stuff, Thor. And then we get this, it's

29:11

not misfits, but it definitely

29:13

has its own tone and

29:15

then for them to be worked

29:18

away into actual the mainstay. Yeah,

29:20

I mean, I think there were all sorts of reasons that it was chosen. I

29:23

think Marvel wanted to see having had several

29:25

really great successful movies out with Iron

29:28

Man and things like that and the cat films.

29:29

I think they were going, what happens if we

29:32

take, what happens if we make a movie that is not

29:35

a famous thing? Will

29:37

it work as well? Will enough people be interested

29:39

in it if we don't choose Spider-Man or whatever? I

29:41

think they also wanted to see what they could do without our science

29:44

fiction. They sort of wanted to like, let's go and do sort of

29:46

Star Wars-y in the scale stuff rather than Earth-based

29:49

superheroes. So that's another thing. I think

29:51

it was also James Gunn's desire

29:53

to do something where he had

29:56

a great deal more creative control, but he wasn't

29:59

stuck to a particular.

29:59

version of things which is exactly what I enjoyed

30:02

on the comic. It sounds very familiar. I

30:04

see the elbow room there and I also think

30:06

that they

30:08

weirdly

30:09

at that point weren't able necessarily to draw

30:11

upon the very famous cosmic

30:13

characters that you might have expected,

30:16

Silver Surfer and stuff like that, and because they were tied up with Fox

30:18

it's like well what else have we got? Do you know what I mean?

30:21

And so Guardians of the Galaxy by default, well we've got this,

30:23

what can we do with that? And the

30:25

answer is almost anything you want to. Now

30:29

this is a Warhammer show so I have

30:32

to talk about Warhammer a bit.

30:35

So the end and the death, you know,

30:37

I guess part one is in

30:39

folks hands right now and

30:41

I'm sure people are feeling

30:44

certain ways. Have you maybe

30:46

been contacted by any enthusiastic

30:48

readers out there that are you either working

30:50

their way through it or are I finished

30:52

it with the? I have,

30:55

yes. I tend not to go

30:58

looking for feedback or reviews.

31:00

I like and I also like to get it in person. I love to do

31:02

it at a convention and get you know rather than looking. I

31:05

just think you can when you're working on a global

31:08

franchise

31:09

like Warhammer you

31:12

can't please everybody. Let me put it

31:14

that way. You cannot please everybody because

31:17

everybody's got their own

31:18

version of what's the right version of this

31:21

universe in the same way they've all got their own version of what

31:23

the hobby is when they create their army. You know,

31:26

no two, I

31:26

don't know, space wolf armies are the same because

31:29

everybody's brought their own, that's the, you

31:31

know. That's a great example, that's true. Yeah. It

31:33

really encourages you to sort

31:36

of personalize what your contribution, what your part,

31:38

your take on the universe is. Therefore

31:41

it's, you can't, you're not going to be able to please anyone

31:43

and I knew that that's, you know,

31:46

I have been very nicely reviewed and received

31:48

over the years with my books but there's always

31:50

somebody who goes, oh I don't like that. So I, because

31:52

it doesn't fit with their way of looking at

31:54

it and that's absolutely fair because it, you can't,

31:56

if I try to write something with

31:59

the attempt to please

31:59

everybody. Two things would happen.

32:02

One is it wouldn't anyway. And

32:06

so you'd end up with something that was planned. So what I try

32:08

and write is with

32:10

is the version

32:12

that I think is the most effective sort of the version that would

32:14

please me that fits in with the IP.

32:16

Do you know I mean, because I think if you've got one happy customer,

32:19

the person who's imagining it, then maybe you're going to get

32:21

some others that way. Yeah. And I

32:23

think that's true of all the things I write. And

32:26

it matters less when it's one of my own

32:28

series, when it's something that is core

32:30

to the universe, then there's an awful lot more input goes into

32:32

it in terms of getting it in inverted commas, right.

32:35

But even then, you know, that's just

32:37

because of the scale of it as an as

32:39

a thing from

32:40

everyone's point of view, the scale of the reactions

32:42

is going to be extreme as well. So so

32:44

I thought when I don't usually go looking for

32:46

reviews, when it comes out, I'm not going to look for reviews because

32:49

because you can guarantee the first one or five will

32:51

be something going, I don't know why they let this guy do

32:53

it. He doesn't know what he's talking about. He's completely Who

32:56

is this guy anyway? Anyway, you know, I never

32:58

liked to work. He should have, you know,

33:00

I don't need I don't need that. I spent two years doing

33:03

this, and I'm exhausted. And I've done the best possible

33:05

version I can do. If you don't like

33:07

it, you don't like it. I can't fix that

33:09

now.

33:10

It's it's truly amazing. But

33:12

we know where and I mean that sincerely, I'm about

33:14

halfway through and I'm getting turned into every page

33:16

here, any opportunity I get. But

33:19

there's these characters that we have developed a really

33:22

emotional connection to the big and the small

33:24

characters. And you know, I mean, I mean, let me clarify

33:27

that the human and

33:29

the the not so human characters

33:31

we have developed these relationships with

33:34

and so you know, we are we've

33:36

had a lot of time to kind of develop what we're where

33:38

we think they're going.

33:40

Yeah, yes, there is always that and everybody's

33:42

got their idea about what it's going to be. And even

33:44

when you're dealing with something like this, the

33:46

siege of terror, the horse heresy, because

33:49

that story is already

33:51

known and has been known since the late 80s.

33:55

Everybody thinks they know where it's all going

33:57

to go and some and definitely bits of

33:59

it have got to go

33:59

to certain places. There are certain beats

34:02

of the story that if I miss, I got it

34:04

wrong. Completely familiar with like the

34:06

specific the last beat or what we know to be

34:08

the last beat. There are more of those big beats in

34:10

the final part of the story than anywhere else

34:12

in the whole thing. So it's like they were they were like

34:15

slamming together like cannoning

34:17

pool ball, you know, it's like,

34:19

oh my God, I've got to do this. And then and

34:22

also with a lot of them over the years, there have been contradictory

34:24

versions of what that law is so that you can take

34:26

any particular one of those events and go, why

34:29

is like five or six different versions of exactly how

34:31

it played out, who was present, what it was all about.

34:33

So you've got to balance those things out too. So so

34:36

the just the possibility of

34:38

someone coming to the book and going, Oh, this

34:41

isn't what I was expecting. Well, this isn't the version I wanted them

34:43

to do. Why have you done that? You know, a huge

34:46

I have been and I'm, you know, I'm

34:48

good with that. I'm good with that. Because it's

34:50

like, this is the, like I said, this is the best version

34:52

I can do. I have not gone looking for reviews

34:54

to go back to what you were saying earlier, I have seen plenty

34:57

of lovely ones that people have sent them

34:59

to me or they've made comments that clearly, there

35:01

is a an enormously positive

35:04

response to this, which is delightful. And some

35:06

of them have actually picked out as the things

35:09

they really love, things that I'm hoping people

35:11

would like and maybe thought they wouldn't notice. So

35:14

that's also gratifying. And

35:16

and and I think if you write a book, or

35:19

make a film or whatever else it is you're doing,

35:21

if you do it, that is universally so beloved

35:23

that there is you can't find a single person saying there's

35:25

a thing wrong with it, then you have by default

35:27

done something wrong. Because that's

35:30

not how being creative works. I

35:33

just I just think that's it. And I always thought as well.

35:35

The closest I've come weirdly was the previous siege of

35:37

terror book Saturnine. I'm sure that's a

35:39

great one. I'm sure I'm telling you it's great.

35:42

Well, I'm sure if I went looking I could find

35:44

some negative reviews for Saturnine telling me exactly

35:46

how badly I'd handled dawn and all the other characters like

35:48

that. But I don't think I've ever written a

35:50

book that was so universally beloved. The

35:53

feedback I got eventually was sent on

35:55

that was huge. And I'm going, Ah, so

35:57

great. When I when they said we

36:00

want you to write book eight now and I'm going great I get to deal

36:02

with the big stuff but also at the same time oh my god performance

36:04

pressure that's gonna be terrifying I

36:07

thought to myself this it doesn't matter how it

36:09

doesn't matter who writes the last part of the siege of

36:11

terror and doesn't matter how well

36:14

they write it okay people

36:17

are going to be less prepared

36:19

to like it than they were the earlier

36:21

parts because every single earlier part Saturnites

36:24

a really good example if you read Saturn only you loved

36:26

it but you thought he didn't mention X

36:28

Y or Z

36:29

you go yeah there's another book coming though it'll

36:32

be in that you know what I mean so it postpones

36:34

the ultimate feeling of whether the series

36:36

as a whole has done justice to your

36:39

expectations as a player or a reader when

36:41

you get to the last book you're reading it

36:43

going well

36:44

it's either gonna be in here or they got it wrong you

36:47

know what I mean and so I just I know

36:51

that plagued me a bit when I started writing

36:53

I was going oh my god I'm gonna there's something

36:55

I would have thought of and somebody go you never went

36:58

back and whatever and I thought well I can't

37:00

I can't I've been as thorough as

37:02

I possibly can be what

37:04

I'm gonna do is enjoy writing the best version

37:06

of this what what I've got now

37:09

and and hope it suffices and so the response this

37:11

I have to say the response which I'm

37:13

sure I'm gonna see more of over the coming

37:14

months is is has been really

37:17

positive and and that is great and if

37:19

you don't like it I'm you know I'm sorry but

37:23

no no no no kabhiats are hedging

37:25

here you know to the audience

37:27

out there to anybody who reads it and go well that's not what I was expecting

37:29

you know that's not what I thought it should be well then

37:32

then you stick to your headcanon you know your

37:34

your version of it because I'm sure it's great and

37:37

I'd love to read it myself I

37:39

do have like a vision of what

37:42

those final moments on the vin the vin full

37:44

spirit command room are and I'm

37:47

not gonna mention it by the way I'm not gonna

37:49

know no but again if I writing

37:51

these books I have done my due diligence

37:54

to the best mobility so I have I have played

37:56

around where there is room to play around to make you

37:58

go oh wow

37:59

didn't see that coming or else unexpected, but I've also

38:02

gone to the absolute definitive sources. The

38:04

number of times I've read that Bill King short story

38:06

account that was in what is it, um, um,

38:09

Slazer Darkness or one of

38:11

the, the two paragraphs that this has all

38:13

been, you know, expanded from. Yeah,

38:16

absolutely. Look to that over and over again, look to

38:18

analyze it going, Oh, is there, is there something, is there

38:21

something there, you know, here's the main piece. Is the

38:23

things there I can draw out there so that there

38:25

is a couple of things that, again, I can't mention because there's

38:27

a couple of things I've done with the book, which deliberately

38:30

addressed the sort of law

38:32

conflicts between is it, did this happen

38:34

or did it happen this way? And I'm going, do you know what,

38:37

let me show you this. There's actually, there's a third way.

38:39

Um, and then you go to

38:41

things like the, uh, the visions of heresy

38:43

card game, the brilliant book that they produced that,

38:46

which again, as far as I'm concerned, is something of a definitive

38:48

text is that, um, is

38:50

that although you know, it's got all

38:52

the basics there in sometimes in, in, in, in almost

38:55

detail. So you open that

38:58

book, for instance, on that amazing

38:59

double page spread of the, I think it's

39:02

Adrian Smith painting of, of Sanguini

39:04

is lying at Horace's feet

39:06

facing many people's desktops. Yeah.

39:09

One of the

39:10

greatest bad pictures in the history of

39:12

Willhammer, uh, illustration.

39:15

And that's saying a lot cause it's not John Blanche. Do you know what

39:17

I mean? It's, it's like, this is, this is one of those

39:19

moments. I remember the first time I saw that and went, Oh

39:21

my God. So for the, for, since I first

39:23

saw that picture in terms of the Horace heresy, I know

39:26

that's what I've been heading to. And when I

39:28

get there, whatever else those sequences

39:30

are at the end of the climate, they are that, you

39:32

know what I mean? It's like, how do I put that in words

39:35

and then do all the other things I wanted to do? I'm not,

39:37

I'm not going to go, Oh, and it turns out that the interior

39:39

of the vegetable spirit was a

39:40

very, very tasteful, um, um,

39:43

shade of green with, uh,

39:46

It's like some wall to wall carpet, wall to ceiling carpets.

39:48

Yeah. You know, all that kind of stuff. I'm

39:50

not going to deliberately steer us away from an image

39:53

that is so defined what

39:55

that moment is that that sort of,

39:58

that is essentially there.

39:59

there. Hopefully when you get to that part

40:02

you're gonna go, oh I know what this

40:04

looks like, you know, I know what this looks like, you

40:07

know, and that shouldn't be a disappointment. There should be like one of

40:09

these touchstone moments. When

40:11

the throne room and things like that get described

40:14

in the Siege of Terror books, I think

40:16

you should flash to those, your mind should flash

40:18

to those definitive images of John Blanch and

40:20

people like that of what the throne looks like and the eternity

40:23

gate and those sorts of things. Because that's what

40:25

we've been striving to get the prose

40:27

and the storylines and the narrative to meet

40:29

that expectation

40:32

of vision that was so brilliantly created,

40:35

often quite a long time ago. So there

40:37

isn't a sense that they, you know, they're not meeting where

40:39

they should meet and there's no sense of, I hope,

40:42

but it's a letdown. We finally get there. It's like,

40:45

oh, I thought it could be bigger than that. Or you know what

40:47

I mean? I do not think that's going to

40:49

happen at all, especially with how this is

40:52

building up. But Dan, it is an amazing

40:55

pleasure to speak with you. Thanks for coming and sharing

40:57

your insights with us. And

40:59

I mean,

40:59

I know this is just something that people cannot

41:02

get enough of. So hopefully we can, we can come back and

41:04

talk about some of the stuff in the future, especially after everyone's

41:06

had time to have it have it land with them. And, and

41:09

this is what I'm thinking. I'd love to come

41:11

back on and talk to you where we've got the sort of the

41:13

freedom of being slightly less spoiler, spoiler

41:16

careful. So we can actually sort of dismantle

41:18

a couple of bits of the book for you and say, actually, do you

41:20

know what the reason I did this is, and

41:23

you can actually see that's going to process in work. So there

41:25

you go. I can't wait. Thank you for your time.

41:27

Thanks for coming on. I know everyone's going to love

41:29

it. And I will definitely be back in touch as

41:32

soon as possible. Fantastic. Thank you.

41:38

You're listening to Forge the Narrative.

41:45

We are back. I hope you enjoyed the cool

41:47

thing or didn't hear the cool thing. And it'll

41:49

come out later. We'll figure it out. We're

41:53

trying new things. This is the in between

41:56

times. It's the

41:58

lion.

41:59

Yeah, boy. All right.

42:02

All right. We

42:07

have Dark Angel players on the show and it would certainly

42:09

going to give them the open for, you know, open

42:11

forum here to discuss. If you

42:13

are unaware, there may be one or two possibly

42:16

Dark Angel heartthrobs present right now. But

42:20

man, they nailed,

42:22

nailed this man, this model, this

42:24

model, this miniature.

42:25

I have one problem with it. I don't

42:28

know which head looks the best quality

42:30

fruit is the hardest thing. Like

42:33

normally, normally you get one of

42:35

these kits with multiple heads. You're like, Oh, that's the

42:37

one that speaks to me. Right? But

42:40

literally all of them do. And I'm looking at

42:42

them like, like I don't magnetize anything,

42:44

but I might because I want to paint all

42:46

of these different.

42:47

I know how. When

42:49

could you ever be like the thing I'm going to magnetize

42:52

is the head, not the

42:54

arms. Yeah, not the backpack.

42:57

I feel like it's the helmet head. Can

43:01

we talk about that for a second, though? I mean, look, I'm

43:03

I'm not a Dark Angel player. I mean,

43:06

I've played Dark Angels in the past as being a

43:08

filthy meta chaser every now and then.

43:11

But to me, the head speak

43:13

to the different personalities of

43:16

the chapter slash Legion.

43:17

And depending on what version

43:20

you are running, what the codex

43:22

allows or

43:23

the codexes, we know it that the the

43:26

options within the you know, with how the chapter

43:28

plays seem to kind of speak

43:30

to the different head of

43:32

the aspects of the personality. Am

43:35

I am I thinking too much into that? Not

43:37

I think you are like you get like the the

43:40

the austere regal, you know,

43:43

bear head the time when Lana

43:45

said you get the

43:48

beautiful like cowed version of the

43:50

same, the mysterious kind of inner circle,

43:52

you know, closed walls

43:53

version of the Dark

43:55

Angels. You get that

43:56

you get the the nightly.

43:59

I broke wings helmet which I'm

44:02

waiting to see in the flesh because on the

44:04

pictures it looks like it's too much. It

44:07

looks like it's so big. It's

44:10

just got a please shoot me sign written on it. More

44:13

hammer sized, excuse me. He

44:16

doesn't care if you shoot him, he's got the Emperor's shield

44:19

man, come on. It's right baby. But

44:21

my favorite, and I'll let it for last, is the cowl

44:24

with the helmet. That does everything

44:26

for me. That is my favorite and that's the one

44:28

I'll be building.

44:29

But unusual for me, I still

44:32

want to have the bear head because I think the bear head

44:34

has so much lion in it.

44:36

So much of that, like I said, austere. I

44:39

am in command. Do not test me.

44:42

Do not believe you can step to me. Kind

44:45

of look to it. I didn't feel that until you just

44:47

said it. Like the lion, true king of the jungle.

44:49

Like I am here and in charge

44:52

and hear me roar with my own

44:54

voice. Yeah, I'm here. You're screwed.

44:57

See you later. Yeah, but now the helmet with

44:59

the hood is my favorite. That

45:04

is chef's kiss so

45:06

perfectly done. He looks

45:09

terrifying with that. That is actually,

45:11

that's the word I was going to use terrifying. That's the most terrifying.

45:14

If you encounter that aspect,

45:18

you have to question every choice in your life that

45:20

is led you to this encounter. Yeah,

45:23

yeah, yeah. Oh no, oh

45:25

no, oh no. Yeah,

45:28

I am. I'm waiting to read

45:30

the fluff because I'm so keen to

45:32

hear how he's working up, why he's working

45:34

up, what he's doing, what he's playing. I want to know everything. I

45:37

want to know so much about this story. I'm

45:39

so intrigued to hear everything, but

45:43

he's equipped in a very unique manner. He

45:45

doesn't have the lion sword. We you know,

45:47

if you. Yeah, because somebody's running around

45:49

playing hide and seek with it. Yeah, well, it's also

45:51

it's also kind of broken. It's gone to the shards

45:53

of Narsal level of its life. It's

45:56

yeah, it's a story there

45:58

too. I want to know.

45:59

how we got the Emperor's shield. I want to know what

46:02

his sword is, how it got made, where he got it,

46:04

what it stands for. I'm intrigued

46:06

at every level of this model. I think they've done a phenomenal

46:08

job. The pose is great.

46:11

The cloak

46:13

is phenomenal. The backpack is really

46:16

uniquely designed. It's amazing.

46:18

It's almost like a jump pack. I was like, is he going to...

46:20

Yeah, it does. It looks like a jump pack. I

46:23

assume it's not, but it

46:25

does have that kind of shape to it, doesn't it? Yeah,

46:27

there is some... It has me like,

46:30

oh, who are you pretending to be right now? Well,

46:34

I do like there's some homage page to the original.

46:36

Sorry, the horror series, the 30k one as well.

46:39

He's got the same symbols on his knee

46:41

pads. Well, on the knee pad that

46:43

is facing front is exactly the same design.

46:46

If I'll be at a newer mark

46:49

of armor, I suppose. Yeah, I just think

46:51

they're done. I couldn't have asked them all.

46:54

From a painter's perspective, Tim, what do you think?

46:57

It's a beautiful model. For me,

47:00

somebody who takes

47:02

the time to paint the details, I

47:05

am really intimidated to paint

47:07

a lot of... I'm

47:11

really intimidated by the thought

47:13

of painting one of the Forge World

47:15

Primarchs or even Giliman just because

47:17

there's so much going on. But I

47:19

feel like the detail that they've included in the

47:21

lion is just enough

47:24

to make him feel regal

47:27

and powerful and all of those different things

47:30

without it being... It doesn't

47:32

look like it would be a slog in the slightest

47:34

to paint that miniature. It just looks

47:36

like it would be an absolute joy

47:39

from start to finish, but

47:41

that's just my take on it. I'm not a big

47:44

fan of a ton of trim,

47:45

if you know what I mean. All

47:47

the baroque-ness or whatever, even the

47:49

thousand suns are slightly intimidating to

47:51

the effort to get on the table. The

47:55

one that intimidates me is the cloak. It's

47:58

got such a unique design.

47:59

design to oh it's hard to say it's got

48:02

unique design but usually you'll see a lot of

48:04

flat portions of a cloak as

48:07

if they've given you ways to not

48:09

screw it up when you paint it. This one

48:11

has just folds upon folds upon folds

48:13

upon folds and you know there's a lot of ways

48:15

you can just not pay attention and oh well that's full

48:17

of null now I guess it's it's time

48:20

to paint that again but there is I mean

48:22

there's kind of everything you want here like you said

48:24

there is the baroque there is a lot of trim there's a lot of flat

48:27

there's a lot of curve there is a lot of lot of everything

48:29

um

48:29

yeah I think it's really well executed.

48:31

The Watchers even don't seem to like I get

48:34

yeah I get a little like like oh

48:36

I don't want I don't want to paint models on top of models. When

48:40

there's multiple models on a model I'm like

48:42

is that really necessary but I feel like

48:45

the Watchers add to it. Yeah I agree

48:47

I think that the Watchers do add quite a bit um

48:50

they have to be there right they have to be there so

48:52

were the Watchers a part of the

48:55

the lore in the heresy? Yes absolutely

48:57

were they were they were ever present on Caliban

49:00

and they did travel with

49:01

the lion when he left when he

49:04

went when we went on crusade they were present

49:06

there and yeah they're so intrinsically dark angel

49:08

aren't they the little little ewok good

49:12

jawa sorry the jawas I said he walked

49:14

no no i know uh

49:18

I've just lost like 20 nerd points I have

49:21

to get him back I did say shards

49:23

I did say shards of nasa no you're even you're

49:25

even you're zeroed you're evened out yeah I'm

49:27

back yeah I'm back to to cost neutral

49:31

uh

49:34

yeah uh but no I love it I even

49:36

like the base as well uh I think there's been a lot

49:38

of I've well

49:41

known on the show for my dislike of the of

49:43

the tactical rock for no reason this

49:46

one ties into the the model quite well this one looks

49:48

like it's part of the story yeah

49:50

it does it does this whole thing tells a story and I like how

49:53

you can kind of tell your own story with the various heads

49:56

uh and then of course I'm sure once this model gets in people's

49:58

hands though you know

49:59

just have some creativity or that kind

50:02

of stuff. Well, further to that, I

50:04

adore the way that whoever

50:06

painted this, I adore them. They've left

50:09

it enough black to show

50:11

the heritage of the Dark Angels whilst,

50:14

and I am at times critical of the 40K

50:17

scheme because it looks a little too new, neon,

50:19

it looks a little too like the highlight, a little too bright, it looks Tron

50:22

like, you know, a little too bright for my liking.

50:24

One is understated, undeniably

50:27

green tinged, but with that heart of that

50:29

core

50:29

of dark black, that darkness

50:32

that the Dark Angels come from. I legitimately

50:34

did not think that we were going to see more

50:37

loyalist Primarchs. I thought it was like

50:39

wherever 40K was going to be

50:41

basically Gilliman versus

50:44

all the chaos that you would ever see. Well,

50:47

I, so I did kind of,

50:50

for a while I have pontificated

50:52

upon the fact that there's kind of two halves of the Imperium

50:54

now after the Sika-Trix Maledictum

50:57

happened at the end of seventh edition and kind of cut

50:59

things in half. And so there's kind of scope

51:01

for there to be a Primarch on each side of the rift. And

51:04

I think it's been alluded to in the fluff on the

51:06

community sites that the lion may

51:08

be on the other side of to Gilliman.

51:11

And so

51:11

there is scope for a lot of storytelling

51:14

to take place before they become

51:16

reunited. Should they become reunited?

51:18

Hell, we don't know that yet. Yeah, they might. You're

51:20

right. They might be even able to contact each

51:22

other. Yeah, really. That's

51:25

going to be, I would love to be a fly on the wall

51:28

for that reunion. Lion's

51:31

like, oh, they brought you back. Hey,

51:35

not only they, but how did you, I

51:37

mean, they, you're talking about like the Aldari.

51:40

He knows. And

51:43

Lion for sure will look around and be like, not

51:46

doing a good job, mate. Even if Gilliman

51:48

was doing a phenomenal job, he'd

51:50

be like, pathetic. Yeah,

51:55

I can't wait to see how this story progresses. Now he's

51:58

back in. And not only that. Dude,

52:00

we saw two Primarchs in six months.

52:02

We had Angron as well rejoin the fold. This

52:05

is really exciting times. It really

52:07

is. And it's hard to say with

52:09

an addition change what

52:11

that's going to bring as far as the landscape of what

52:13

people are going to play. But

52:17

you've got to think that these Primarchs are

52:19

going to still be just epic figures on

52:21

the tabletop. Well, we've seen these rules

52:23

now as well,

52:25

which have come with a lot

52:27

of people loving and a lot of people criticizing.

52:30

I will say I do. And so

52:32

this is with zero, zero

52:35

knowledge, zero foresight. But it could

52:37

be assumed that this is heralding more for what we

52:39

can expect from something at this level

52:42

in the future. Do you mean as far as his lethality

52:45

or what his impact on any

52:47

particular spot on the table might be? Yeah,

52:49

impact upon the game. So you look at what

52:51

his level character has done

52:54

in 9th

52:55

edition or the characters like him that have been released in 9th

52:57

edition, or the rules of

52:59

similar like-minded miniatures

53:02

around the same level. Primarchs,

53:04

Bellacor, Greater Demon, things like that. Something

53:06

around the same points cost. And they

53:09

do exponentially more

53:11

buffing for your army. He

53:13

is exponentially more killy. He's

53:15

on a par with, say, Angron

53:18

for killiness in certain realms,

53:20

in certain combats and stuff. But he does

53:23

far less for your army, I

53:25

mean, even Asriel, who is near enough

53:27

to be half the points, kind

53:30

of does more for your army because his data sheet

53:32

was just updated to be Primaris

53:34

rather than being completely rewritten. So

53:37

I would not be surprised because what we've heard about

53:39

10th edition is that there'll be a lot less

53:41

re-roll auras because I think they've found

53:43

out that it's just too easy to stack

53:46

those or stack those and stack those and then just get to

53:48

a point where the dice rarely

53:50

matter. Like if you can see it and you've got enough

53:52

buffs, it just goes away. There's also

53:54

been a big reason why we've had to have so much more terrain added

53:56

to tables in this edition. I suppose you take

53:58

away a lot of those. the table. Exactly

54:00

right. Yeah, exactly right. And which have had a phenomenal,

54:03

you know, resurgence in the amount of rules and keywords we've

54:05

given to terrain, but that has been necessary because

54:07

there's been so many interactions where, you know, I can

54:10

see you. Well, here's this unit that has

54:12

four auras on it and you just, you

54:15

just delete it. I think it's

54:17

a really good choice by Jitav to pair that back and

54:19

then attach real auras to only

54:21

the most powerful, only the most grandoise

54:23

of characters. And if this should herald, you know, what

54:25

we can expect from these characters in say 10th edition

54:28

or not. I think it'd be a great move.

54:29

Yeah, we'll see. I don't think you'd

54:32

be disappointed if you're a Dark Angel player and you want to grab

54:34

this model though. I think it's a must

54:36

have. I don't know. My husband,

54:37

my husband wants to get this model and he doesn't

54:39

even have a Dark Angels army. So

54:41

I think it's probably just

54:44

a really good model just to have this.

54:48

Couldn't agree more. The gold. So,

54:50

you know, as again, we're talking about Retriever and Armandante

54:53

and that kind of stuff and how to paint gold and the

54:55

various different ways you can paint gold. I will

54:57

say I love the fact that the gold

55:00

they've chosen how to paint on the

55:02

lion is shaded with

55:04

the red washes. You know, the brownish

55:06

red washes instead of just the browns. Yeah,

55:09

I totally agree.

55:11

I do have

55:13

some funny people because actually when this came

55:15

out, a lot of people have memed on me and saying finally,

55:20

finally another Chaos Primarch has been

55:22

released. I've got

55:24

a mate who's talking about, because he's

55:26

always wanted to run an army of the fallen and

55:28

he's talking about playing the lion with the baton's rules

55:31

leading an army of fallen. And

55:33

I'm like, I don't hate that idea,

55:36

but how dare you?

55:41

That's funny.

55:43

Even in the article, you know,

55:45

when asked about Fielty, the Primarch's massive new

55:47

sword, Seb explained, we know Cypher

55:50

and there's rumors that he carries the lion's sword. We like

55:52

it better when there's more mystery about it and

55:54

it suits the lion more that way. So we came up

55:56

with a new sword to keep that intact. The mystery

55:58

of what? What happened to it? That's

56:01

good times. I love the fact that there's you know, we're

56:03

getting this massive evolution of story

56:06

but yet still ties back to

56:08

the main

56:09

things that people appreciate about

56:11

the Legion faction the Sorry,

56:13

the chapter and games. We're actually be doing this

56:16

kind of more and more over the last we guessed the

56:18

last year I mean Azrael and Dante

56:20

are both are just Like

56:23

upgraded versions of like ancient

56:25

miniatures miniatures that are 20 25 It's

56:28

Dante 30 years old. Is that more 30s? No,

56:31

it couldn't be 30 years old. Please don't tell me

56:33

so he's not it may even be more But

56:37

you know They paid absolute tribute

56:39

to the legacy of that model and they just took

56:42

the talk What was awesome about it because and

56:44

just brought it into the new the new sphere

56:46

brought it into the modern era of the game And

56:48

I think it's a great design choice by them. You don't need

56:50

to reinvent the wheel for some of these bespoke

56:53

Legendary figures in the game. You

56:56

just you just bring it like the

56:58

same with the terminators Don't know need to reinvent the wheel

57:00

these things are awesome. Just give them a new spin you

57:02

mentioned Don't I do remember and people first

57:04

talked about this on the show before but I Painted

57:07

Dante the avatar of Cain

57:09

and Jane's are in the same weekend. Some of the best models

57:11

have ever painted Like it it was a long time

57:13

ago What

57:17

did like all of the different Like

57:20

streams sort of collide

57:22

in one spot at your painting desk to

57:24

make that like the ultimate in hobby experience

57:27

for you just inspired they really stay

57:29

up the whole weekend watching I Could

57:32

tell what I'm watching but it may look wrestling,

57:34

you know They

57:38

would play like three or four hours at a time or whatever

57:41

and just to be able to jam some painting sessions

57:43

It was amazing, but I Used

57:46

to also be a big wrestling nerd

57:48

so I can't judge you Again,

57:50

it's bringing back all this this nostalgia,

57:52

you know And then so I've got the nostalgia

57:55

from

57:55

having Dante But then having this the model

57:57

of the lion represent nostalgia from all

57:59

all the stuff that you've thought about in your

58:02

own mind. And I love it that you brought up the

58:04

fact of the chaos, problem, or whatever. I

58:06

know we've discussed this before, but

58:08

anyone who's just discovering the show, we typically

58:10

do a show a couple

58:12

times a month, at least. We're gonna

58:14

start that up again. This is, if you're just discovering this

58:16

right now, this is our vacation blogs. But

58:19

everything that you have thought about

58:22

the line over the course of the years, it's made

58:24

its way on this model, but there's also this,

58:26

there's very two modern elements

58:29

that you might not

58:29

know our modernization, and

58:32

that's the sword and the shield.

58:34

Like, what is that opening up? Yeah, yeah,

58:36

and new story threads at a minimum. Yeah.

58:41

So, have you guys

58:43

been paying attention to the memes? Like,

58:46

you know,

58:46

because Gilman has the emperor's

58:49

sword, and now we've got the line with

58:51

the emperor's shield. Maybe we'll get, Jageh

58:55

Thai will come back with the emperor's toaster.

58:57

Yeah. There's a ironing board.

58:59

He's baseball cap. I

59:03

mean, if anybody's gonna have the emperor's

59:06

toaster, it's gonna be Belisarius call,

59:08

right? He is the emperor's

59:10

toaster. You

59:14

don't know what's happening on that carapace he's

59:16

got. That's true, he could have anything

59:18

under that cap. Toaster's delicious. Anything under that

59:20

right. It's absolutely,

59:21

a bit of vegemite, you

59:23

know? But we haven't seen the story evolve

59:26

this quickly in the whole history

59:29

of Warhammer. So, I actually do

59:31

love that, the fact that we have, I don't know

59:33

how far we've advanced the story. If

59:35

you look at the whole clock of Warhammer,

59:40

how the story has not moved this

59:42

dramatically, even though it's just one or two ticks

59:44

forward in forever. It's exciting. Well,

59:47

Jada built up a lot of story

59:49

threads through, I think it was from

59:51

fourth edition to seventh edition, with

59:54

like all, you know, the doomsday

59:56

clock is at 11.59.

59:59

and you know, Necrons

1:00:02

waking up, high fleets, biggest

1:00:04

Ork-Wars, all these things. And now

1:00:06

they're at this beautiful point where they can

1:00:08

just decide which thread they wanna pull and

1:00:11

generate a whole edition worth

1:00:14

of story to back it. I mean, this

1:00:16

one, I mean, we had the return to

1:00:18

the Silent King for eighth edition. Now

1:00:21

we're getting the thread being

1:00:23

pulled of the biggest high fleet the

1:00:26

galaxy has seen thus far as in the actual

1:00:29

high fleet of Leviathan,

1:00:29

not just the tendrils is looming

1:00:32

as the big bad for this edition. And

1:00:35

I'm all aboard this train. I can't wait to see

1:00:37

what happens in the next, well, got away

1:00:39

in a couple of years, but I'm keen to see

1:00:41

which threads they decide to pull in the future. Because like

1:00:43

I said, they set themselves up so beautifully

1:00:46

in previous editions to capitalize in

1:00:48

the future. And yeah,

1:00:50

I think that they're going from strength to strength. That

1:00:53

promo where they did it with the Terminator seeing

1:00:55

the Tyran and it's the Tyran and

1:00:57

seeing the Terminator inside or whatever, like

1:00:59

there's a whole versus versus versus very

1:01:02

exciting. Absolutely. And then

1:01:04

we saw new, so we

1:01:06

know we get new termigants and

1:01:08

then these are new lictors,

1:01:11

not lictors, the leapers. Yeah,

1:01:14

what's his name? Some, somebody. Paul and

1:01:16

Ryan. Yeah, and you gotta think of that's

1:01:18

pretty cool is like, well, we don't know who that is

1:01:20

yet. Maybe we get a story about that, but these

1:01:22

are we're encountering the Tyranids

1:01:26

from our point of view. So it's like us naming dinosaurs

1:01:28

and stuff. It's like when we

1:01:30

discover them kind of thing. Yeah,

1:01:34

exactly right. Cause I mean, they called Tyranids because

1:01:36

that's the world they ate first was Tyran,

1:01:38

right? Yeah, that's true. Yeah, that's it. That's

1:01:41

all it was. So, you know, Van

1:01:43

Horse, Van, whatever his name was, Van

1:01:45

Ryan might've been the first guy to be

1:01:47

eaten by a leaper. He devoured. So,

1:01:51

yeah, we get some calling at Tyran.

1:01:55

You know what else? They previewed

1:01:57

a new kill team box. Oh, they did. I

1:02:00

gotta tell you, my husband

1:02:03

started a Votan army and

1:02:06

now that I've seen the models in person

1:02:08

I absolutely adore them. But

1:02:10

that one Votan with the

1:02:12

power knuckles,

1:02:13

I love

1:02:16

that guy so much. And

1:02:18

the jump pack? There's a jump pack one? Yeah.

1:02:20

It's just so great. I don't mean

1:02:22

it's in a box with Beastmen. That's pretty

1:02:25

cool. I mean, I haven't been around

1:02:27

since the beginning, but I heard that they used to be

1:02:29

playable in 40k.

1:02:31

So you could have Beastmen

1:02:33

in Fantasy Battle and then the Beastmen

1:02:36

could also join into 40k to play 40k with

1:02:38

Beastmen. That's pretty cool. Have they

1:02:40

told us what the name of that guy is? Is

1:02:43

he... I want it to be like a

1:02:45

pugilist. I don't know what

1:02:47

his particular name is or like what

1:02:49

his battlefield role is,

1:02:52

but he is so cool. Yeah,

1:02:56

I would love to paint that guy.

1:02:57

I'm gonna call him Biff. I've

1:03:01

decided. He does kind of look like

1:03:03

a Biff. Punch your spig knuckles. Oh

1:03:06

my goodness.

1:03:07

Look, that

1:03:10

is our show this week. Short

1:03:12

and sweet, we're getting ready, gonna launch eventually

1:03:14

season two coming up soon. A

1:03:17

few things on the horizon.

1:03:19

I have launched a Patreon. It's

1:03:21

the first time ever there will be a Patreon.

1:03:23

I'll put the link in the show notes for this. That's

1:03:26

one of those things in order to keep the show moving and evolving.

1:03:29

For the first time ever, gonna see if anybody would like

1:03:31

to kick in Patreon. I'm not

1:03:33

even sure how to direct people to it because it's so alien,

1:03:37

but it's gonna be there. That is one of

1:03:39

the things we're gonna get editors for the show. Gonna

1:03:42

hopefully keep the production value moving

1:03:44

and then keep on producing content when we eventually

1:03:47

launch season two coming up pretty soon.

1:03:49

But I hope you all have enjoyed this. It's great

1:03:51

to be back

1:03:51

and talking.