Wed, 28 June 2017
We talk news, hobby, games played, Heresy telethon and more. Then Graham McNeill comes on to discuss Magnus in his new Heresy novel Crimson King, plus his primarchs novel and other stories connected to the book.
interview @ 45 minutes in @GrahamMcNeill A Thousand Sons Thief of Revelations Lucius: The Eternal Blade Primarchs - Magnus: Master of Prospero The Crimson King www.rogalporn.com to donate to MD & win a fully painted Knight Household or Warlord Titan! Ahriman episode http://traffic.libsyn.com/combatphase/Ep_152_CSM-_All_About_Ahriman_wJohn_French.mp3 |
Thu, 22 June 2017
We talk news. Coalescence and pre-Gen Con news, hobby and games played. Tonight we celebrate 200 episodes (WOW!) by walking down 30 years of wargaming and what we mean when we say this is the golden age of wargaming.
Enjoy and thanks for your support for 201 weeks! (ep zero) |
Sun, 11 June 2017
We talk news, many games as we delayed again unfortunately as we switched recording programs (again...boo!) so here's our Blood Angels special with James Swallow, Andy Smillie, Guy Haley, Darius Hinks (text interview), and Paul Murphy from FtN podcast. Check out all BL books at www.blacklibrary.com ! Darius Hinks interview to be posted on www.combatphase.com soon.
I’ve always loved those duality/repression kind of themes you get in gothic literature and I think that’s what makes the Blood Angels so interesting. They’re like Dracula crossed with Dr Jekyll – remote, cerebral, aesthetes, bottling up a wild, terrifying, id that they can’t (maybe don’t want?) to escape.They’re pretty messed up, basically.
I think it’s that dichotomy that makes them so appealing. They have such a long, complicated history. The Blood Angels revere Sanguinius, of course, but they also know that he’s the source of their great flaw. So how can they best be like him? The Blood Angels are tormented but determined at the same time and I think that’s a great springboard for fiction.
To my mind, Hades Hive didn’t free Mephiston of all his dangerous Blood Angels duality, it threw fuel onto the fire. I think of him having a dual consciousness – a cool, scholarly side that barely recalls/understands his wild, warp-fuelled excesses in battle (the Mr Hyde part of him). The scholarly side of him needs to understand and harness the wild side, or he'll become a force for destruction rather than good. He’s hoping to be a good guy, and working hard to achieve that goal, but it could go either way.
I had a lot of fun exploring Mephiston’s corner of the Blood Angels’ fortress monastery on Baal. A lot of this stuff hasn’t been written about in much detail before and I was lucky enough to work with the (much cleverer than me) Guy Haley. We bounced a few ideas around and, while he thought about Baal and the Arx Angelicum in a wider sense, I delved into the darkest recesses of the Librarium. It’s not all crypts and sacred vaults though – Mephiston and a strike force of Blood Angels get drawn into an internecine bloodbath on a daemon-infested Shrine World and fun times are had by all.
If Hades Hive threw fire on Mephiston’s split personality, the Cicatrix Maledictum has added even more fuel to the flames. Mephiston’s got half a foot in the Warp anyway, so a bloody great tear in reality is going magnify things to an insane level. I’m writing more about Mephiston and it’s exciting ramping his problems up to even more extreme levels. Blood of Sanguinius is set before the events of the Gathering Storm, but the next book is set after. If Mephiston can harness this influx of new warp energy he could turn the tide of the war and prove to the rest of his Chapter that they are worthy, that they can defeat their ancient curse and make their long dead daddy proud, but if Mephiston is consumed by the Warp, or if he’s wrong about source of his powers, he could be the final nail in their (admittedly quite fancy) coffin.
It’s always daunting writing Warhammer fiction because you know how much love there is for these characters and what strong opinions people have about how they should be portrayed, but... My favourite part of 40K is the weird stuff that spews from John Blanche’s head: the strange, surreal, twisted, pseudo religious, mythical, gothic, claustrophobic, bloody creepiness of 40K and, writing about a Librarian, specifically Mephiston, was a great excuse to delve into that stuff. It was loads of fun. I’d like to push the horror even further in the next one though. If there was ever a bit of 40K that should be scary to read about, it’s this. I’d like to write something that keeps me awake at night.
I always enjoy writing messed-up Chaos daemon scenes, and I managed to squeeze some of that in here. There is a daemon-birth scene that properly freaked me out as a wrote it, so I was particularly pleased with that. Does that sound weird? Am I weird? Why are those people pointing at me and whispering?
I’m really freaked out by those electron microscope images of dust mites. They’re so bloody horrific and alien. I suppose I was thinking of them. Now I’m thinking about them again. Do they live in eyebrows? I’m getting itchy.
Sigvald was such a gift – a thrill-seeking hedonist in such a bonkers a setting. I kind of feel like I should have paid BL for the fun of writing that book. (Don’t tell them though.) My AoS novel was great fun too. At the time of writing, nothing was really pinned down about the Stormcast Eternals or the new Warhammer setting, so I had a lot of leeway to invent stuff. I’d like to do more stuff in the Mortal Realms at some point.
I’m working on more Mephiston and I think he’ll keep me busy for a while. If the first book does well and BL like the idea, I’d like to do quite a few books about him. Other than that, I’ll just be busy trying to get all these microscopic insects of my skin. I wonder if you can buy a cream for that?  time stamp 00:00 - 00:32 - Intro 00:32 - 01:20 - James Swallow 01:20 - 01:36 - Andy Smillie 01:36 - 01:55 - Guy Haley 01:55 - 02:20 - Paul Murphy Ep 152 Women in Wargaming James Swallow jamesswallow.blogspot.co.uk @jamesswallow Andy Smillie @andysmillie Guy Haley @guyhaley Paul Murphy @warmaster_tpm www.forgethenarrative.net Combat Phase aims to bring excellent resources to our listeners around the world. Here are some excellent sources, retailers and more to be sure to check out.
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