Steel Warriors

18 posts ยท Apr 28 2002 to Apr 30 2002

From: Tony Wilkinson <twilko@o...>

Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2002 21:23:16 +0100

Subject: Steel Warriors

Now that I've recovered from the post-Salute headache, I can gloat over
the bargain I picked up at the Bring and Buy. (Gloat gloat) It was a box of
plastic figures with the title "Steel Warriors", 30 in all with
interchangeable weapons still on the sprues. When I saw them first, I thought,
great Mecha for my DS2 (The box art
showed a Battle-Mech type scene, giant figures towering over troopers in
the foreground). Then I considered, 30 figures, that's at least 5 squads in
SG2, and when I looked at the actual models (perhaps it was the shiny silvery
plastic they were moulded in) my reaction was ROBOTS. Which is when a scenario
started to unfold in my mind, hordes of nearly unstoppable 'bots against a
small unit of PBI. This is where I now ask the list for help. Has anyone ideas
for running robots in SG2?

Bots, Mr Ricco! Bots!!!

From: Beth Fulton <beth.fulton@m...>

Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2002 09:57:32 +1000

Subject: RE: Steel Warriors

G'day

> Has anyone ideas for running robots in SG2?

There's potentially many different ways you could run machine intelligence.
They all have access to any info that is presented to any of them. They could
be harder to scare off as initially not frightened so only back off when the
odds really are against them. You could have a node system of control. It
kinda depends on what you mean by robots;)

So what are you after and I'll see what my warped mind can provide!

From: Ray Forsythe <erf2@g...>

Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2002 21:04:14 -0400

Subject: Re: Steel Warriors

> Anthony Leibrick wrote:

> Now that I've recovered from the post-Salute headache, I can gloat

> all with interchangeable weapons still on the sprues.

Old, old, old WH40K (White Dwarf #104) had a really cool system whereby you
built flowcharts of the robot's control program out of little blocks. You paid
points for the control program based on how many steps it had, so a more

flexible program cost more. Neatest bit was when a robot took severe damage to
its 'brain,' you'd remove random program segments, causing the robot to behave
erratically or worse.

From: Brian Bilderback <bbilderback@h...>

Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2002 19:22:45 -0700

Subject: Re: Steel Warriors

I used to have that set, very nice, but too big for use with MY DS2 stuff.
I gave them away when I got out of B-Tech.

3B^2

"The Irish are the only race of people on Earth for which psychoanalysis is of
no use."

                                 - S. Freud

> From: "Anthony Leibrick" <A.Leibrick@btopenworld.com>

> unstoppable 'bots against a small unit of PBI.

From: Katie Lauren Lucas <katie@f...>

Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2002 08:45:54 +0100 (BST)

Subject: Re: Steel Warriors

Quoting Anthony Leibrick <A.Leibrick@btopenworld.com>:

> Now that I've recovered from the post-Salute headache, I can gloat

The same company also used to do some "not-at-all-Space-Marines" as
well. They came moulded in this AMAZING purple plastic that has to be the
worst painting surface I've ever come across. Even car primer doesn't like
it...

From: Katie Lauren Lucas <katie@f...>

Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2002 08:48:57 +0100 (BST)

Subject: RE: Steel Warriors

Quoting Beth.Fulton@csiro.au:

> G'day

I kind of liked the system produced in early-40K days - a tiled
programming language. It's in the red 40K supplement (the one with the Space
Marine army
lists) and was published in a couple of White Dwarves - you might be
able to find it about somewhere.

{However, caution: the example programs in the book have bugs in them. They
can, under some circumstances, fire on friendly troops..}

From: Richard Kirke <richardkirke@h...>

Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2002 10:04:42 +0000

Subject: Re: Steel Warriors

Now that is soooo cool

I guess you just have to make the Robot's mission complicated enough that
"Find nearest enemy and kill it" isn't a sufficient program. But that's a
cool idea. You don't have the details in a non-copyright your A** into
next week shape do you?

Though for a less complex feel just make the robots a wlaking "Cybertank"
(DSII page 19)

Richard

> Old, old, old WH40K (White Dwarf #104) had a really cool system whereby
You
> paid

> behave

From: Tony Francis <tony.francis@k...>

Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2002 11:35:49 +0100

Subject: RE: Steel Warriors

I just happen to have the book in question (the WH40K Compendium) on my desk
right now(don't ask why I need the book at work, it's a long story
...).

Anyway, I'm trying to dream up an easy way of making the six A4 pages easily
accessible via the web, other than just scanning them in and posting the
resultant (huge) jpegs.

> -----Original Message-----

From: Richard Kirke <richardkirke@h...>

Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2002 11:04:11 +0000

Subject: RE: Steel Warriors

> I just happen to have the book in question (the WH40K Compendium) on my

> desk right now(don't ask why I need the book at work, it's a long story

> ...).

Hmm sure... I wish I had a job where I needed wargames rules books (I am at
home btw, when people point out that I just posted a reference from DSII)

> Anyway, I'm trying to dream up an easy way of making the six A4 pages

Scan em and use an Optical Character Recognition program, then post it as
text.

Get someone with Acrobat to publish them like More thrust is.

Photocopy them and send a copy to everyone (grin)

From: Katie Lauren Lucas <katie@f...>

Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2002 12:18:13 +0100 (BST)

Subject: RE: Steel Warriors

Quoting Richard Kirke <richardkirke@hotmail.com>:

> >

I'd settle for ones that wouldn't get upset if I had them there...

From: Laserlight <laserlight@q...>

Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2002 09:18:18 -0400

Subject: RE: RE: Steel Warriors

Tony said:
> >I just happen to have the book in question (the WH40K Compendium) on

C'mon Tony, if it's an excu^h^h^h reason that might be generally applicable,
it's your duty to tell us.

(eg "that's the exact shade of green I want but my color memory is awful, I
have to bring the book in so I can compare with the screen")

From: Tony Francis <tony.francis@k...>

Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2002 14:35:33 +0100

Subject: RE: RE: Steel Warriors

It's an as-yet-unannounced project that's still covered by NDA
(Non-Disclosure Agreement) so I'm really not allowed to say just yet. My
delicate parts would be threatened with a rusty scalpel were I to say
too much :-/. However, an announcement is due within the next few weeks
(apparently), at which point the gag will be removed.

If you know what I do for a living (as opposed to Brigade, which is
pocket money) then you might be able to put two-and-two together and
make a result somewhere between three and five...

Tony

> -----Original Message-----

From: Roger Burton West <roger@f...>

Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2002 14:47:16 +0100

Subject: Re: RE: Steel Warriors

> On Mon, Apr 29, 2002 at 02:35:33PM +0100, Tony Francis wrote:

Well, it's _obvious_, isn't it? Microsoft Train Simulator enters the Old
World. From the dwarven land-ironclads to the elven wind-trains, from
the orcish armoured handcarts to the Rolling Juggernaut itself: now you
can recreate the cross-Reik run!

[disclaimer: if this is what you're actually up to, I apologise.]

From: Tony Francis <tony.francis@k...>

Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2002 15:00:48 +0100

Subject: RE: RE: Steel Warriors

> -----Original Message-----

From: Katie Lauren Lucas <katie@f...>

Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2002 15:13:30 +0100 (BST)

Subject: RE: RE: Steel Warriors

Quoting Tony Francis <tony.francis@kuju.com>:

> It's an as-yet-unannounced project that's still covered by NDA
My
> delicate parts would be threatened with a rusty scalpel were I to say

<ponders>

That doesn't explain why you're using non-canon books, if you're doing
what I think you're doing based on what else your company does, surely you
should be using the latest codex? Unless you're doing something a bit norty,
in which case, hurrah, because the recent 40K stuff... erm, ah, eeh, erm...

{You interested in hiring a really, really good C++ developer with
wargaming/RTS interests?}

From: Beth Fulton <beth.fulton@m...>

Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2002 10:05:07 +1000

Subject: RE: Steel Warriors

G'day,

> Anyway, I'm trying to dream up an easy way of making the six

Well even if you don't I'd love if you could find a way to send them to me
;)

(No worries if you can't though)

Cheers

From: Tony Francis <tony.francis@k...>

Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2002 08:49:23 +0100

Subject: RE: Steel Warriors

I took the book home last night with the best intentions of scanning, OCRing
etc, but ran out of time (my wife has a list of DIY jobs that she wants me to
do which is the size of a small dictionary, so I figured it would be
politically correct to tackle one or two of those instead, for the sake of
marital harmony...). Hopefully I might be able to have a crack at it tonight.
Now all I need to do is dig the scanner out from under the pile of books and
CDs that have hidden it...

Tony

> -----Original Message-----

From: Katie Lauren Lucas <katie@f...>

Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2002 08:53:15 +0100 (BST)

Subject: RE: Steel Warriors

Quoting Tony Francis <tony.francis@kuju.com>:

> I took the book home last night with the best intentions of scanning ,

What you want here is to introduce the other half to wargaming.... It
simplifies these things SO MUCH. You hire people to do DIY while you
game...

{Admittedly mine started off as a roleplayer, so it was more "saving him from
himself" and it didn't take a lot of work :-}