REC.GAMES.MINIATURES.WARHAMMER

Unofficial FAQ

Last updated: 7th June 1998

An up-to-date HTML version of this FAQ is always available at

http://www.sheppard.demon.co.uk

1. Subject line abbreviations listing *VERY IMPORTANT!*

2. Disclaimers and explanations

3. Charter for rec.games.miniatures.warhammer

4. Splitting the newsgroup *NEWBIES PLEASE READ THIS*

5. The other r.g.m.* newsgroups

6. Alternate newsgroups

7. Common post abbreviations

8. Miniatures glossary

9. Other FAQs at wais.com

10. Addresses for Games Workshop

11. Other useful addresses

12. Submitting rules questions to GWUK via the internet

13. Warhammer-related WWW addresses

14. Mailing Lists

Updates History:

07th Jun 98 - Corrected BloodBowl mailing list address.

24th May 98 - Added abbreviation for Warhammer Ancient Battles (WAB:)

11th May 98 - Corrected web address for WH unofficial FAQ.

20th Apr 98 - Added a "Splitting the newsgroup" section (Section 4).

31st Mar 98 - Added Bloodbowl mailing list details.

25th Feb 98 - Added Updates History (!) and Epic mailing list details.

************************************************************************

1. Subject line abbreviations listing

Games:

40K: Warhammer 40,000 (GW) AHQ: (Advanced) HeroQuest (MB/GW)

BB: Blood Bowl (GW) E40K: Epic Warhammer 40,000 (GW)

EPIC: Includes SM: and TL: (GW) GM: Gorkamorka (GW)

MOW: Man o' War (GW) NEC: Necromunda (GW)

SH: Space Hulk (GW) SM: Space Marine (GW)

TL: Titan Legions (GW) WAB: Warhammer Ancient Battles

WH: Warhammer Fantasy (GW) WFRP: WH Fantasy Role-Play (HH)

WQ: Warhammer Quest (GW)

Companies:

GW: Games Workshop HHG: Heartbreaker Hobbies & Games

MB: Milton Bradley RP: Ral Partha

HH: Hogshead Publishing

Miscellaneous Other Abbreviations Sometimes Used:

WTB: Want To Buy

WTT: Want To Trade

FS: For Sale

FT: For Trade

MISC: Anything that couldn't be covered by the other prefixes!

FAQ: This thing. Add *FAQ:* to your killfile if you never want to

see the FAQ again... :(

------

The subject line abbreviations (SLA's) listed above are an important

part of the rec.games.miniatures.warhammer (r.g.m.w.) newsgroup, so

please read the following information carefully and take care to use

the appropriate SLA when you post:

Rec.games.miniatures.warhammer covers a large number of games set in the

Warhammer universe. Some concepts (e.g. Shooting or Victory Points) or

armies (e.g. Chaos) exist in more than one of the game systems discussed

on this newsgroup. If you title your post "Fighting Daemons", nobody

can tell from your header which game you are refering to because Daemons

appear in both WH and 40K.

Some players may be interested in WH, for instance, but have no interest

in 40K. If you post a question about "Chaos" or "Juggernauts", which

exist in both games but are handled differently in each, you need to

make your audience aware of which game you want to talk about. This is

where the subject line abbreviations come in.

All you need to do is start the subject line of your post with the

appropriate SLA from the list given above. Here are some examples of

subject lines that have been correctly prefixed:

WH: Daemonic Saves 40K: Chaos Army, please comment

WH: Working out victory points 40K: Choosing a target

WH: Campaign rules? 40K: Saving throws

Think about these sample headers; without the SLA at the start, nobody

would have the faintest idea what game your message talks about!

It is very useful if readers of the newsgroup can tell at a glance which

game you are trying to discuss. This helps people identify the posts

that interest them (and the ones that don't!) and it attracts these

interested parties to your message because they can see that they want

to read it.

In addition, you can use your kill-file to filter out the posts that

don't interest you by entering the SLA's into it. For example, if you

only play WH you could instruct your kill-file to remove all messages

beginning 40K: and avoid seeing all of these posts.

Please note that the colon ( : ) at the end of each SLA is important.

The colon at the end helps to avoid ambiguities. For example, if you

set your kill-file to weed out "*SM*" for "Space Marine", you could end

up blocking subjects like "Small Figures", "Painting Smiles", "Abysmal

Tactics" or "Smile When You Say That", because these headers all have

"sm" in them somewhere. Including the colon allows you to specify

"*SM:*" in your kill-file, eliminating any posts on the game Space

Marine (provided the poster bothered to use the correct abbreviation!)

but retaining all of the other examples given above.

Note that for the prefix system to work properly it is vital that

everyone uses the same abbreviations. A kill-file which has been

instructed to search for NEC: will not find [NEC] or NM: (two of the

more common "alternative" prefixes for Necromunda). A full list of

prefixes is included in this FAQ, for your convenience.

If you need more help please e-mail me directly.

------

* * * * * * * *

* PLEASE NOTE * New abbreviations from 20th October 1995.

* * * * * * * *

In view of the increasing amount of traffic on the newsgroup dedicated

to either commercial advertising (not to be confused with FS: above,

which is for private sales) or complaining about GW's

prices/attitude/business tactics/etc you are politely requested to use

the following prefixes for any messages falling into either of these

categories:

ADVERT: If you want to place one (bad 'netiquette though!) or respond.

MOAN: If that is what you intend to do, however justified your reason.

Note that this group is not moderated in any way, and that these

conventions are not being imposed on you. However they do allow you to

demonstrate your consideration for other users, who may have to pay for

the privelidge of downloading threads that are of no interest to them.

You have _every_ right to express your opinions on this newsgroup, but

no real right to impose them forcibly on people who don't want to read

them. Please be considerate - use the prefixes in your subject line.

************************************************************************

2. Disclaimers and explanations

The purpose of this FAQ is to provide information about the

rec.games.miniatures.warhammer newsgroup, its place in the

rec.games.miniatures.* hierarchy, and pointers to any other sources

of information about specific game systems in the Warhammer universe.

Questions and answers about rules interpretations and errata are beyond

the scope of this FAQ. For particular FAQs and other material, be sure

to check out the ftp.wais.com ftp site, in the pub/games/miniatures

directory. There are numerous subdirectories devoted to the various

Warhammer games.

This FAQ was originally assembled by T. Jordan "Greywolf" Peacock. It

is currently maintained by Andy Sheppard [andy@sheppard.demon.co.uk],

who is not a moderator of any sort, without any authority (or desire!)

to dictate what anyone may or may not do on this newsgroup.

************************************************************************

3. Charter for rec.games.miniatures.warhammer

rec.games.miniatures.warhammer is an unmoderated newsgroup which passed

its vote for creation by 318:30 as reported in news.announce.newgroups

on 29 May 1995.

For your newsgroups file:

rec.games.miniatures.warhammer Wargaming in the Warhammer Universe.

The charter, culled from the call for votes:

Rec.games.miniatures.warhammer shall be an unmoderated recreational

newsgroup devoted to the discussion of various fantasy and science-

fiction miniatures games set in the "Warhammer" universe, including but

not limited to such games as Warhammer (WH), Warhammer 40,000 (40K) and

Man o' War (MOW).

************************************************************************

4. Splitting the newgroup

About once every three to six months someone posts a suggestion that

involves r.g.m.w. being split into several sub-groups (typical examples

include r.g.m.w.40K and r.g.m.w.fantasy, but the list is often slightly

different each time).

Lively debate on this issue rapidly declines into flame wars (people

insulting each other over differences in opinion). The flames persist

for about a month or so then things gradually return to normal. The

newsgroup does not split.

If you are new to this newsgroup, please be aware of the following:

-> This topic is not a new one, nor is it one which will be met with

good feeling or polite comments. Most of the long-term readers of

the newsgroup have endured it at least once, and they won't thank

you for bringing it up _again_ and starting a new round of flame

wars.

-> The process of creating a new newsgroup in the rec hierarchy is a

long and difficult one. Splitting an existing newsgroup also

requires that you get a strong pro- vote from the readership of that

existing newsgroup. Broadly speaking you need two-thirds of those

that respond to the Call For Votes (CFV) to vote in favour of the

split, and the number of voters in favour must exceed the number of

voters against by more than one hundred.

-> In late 1997 someone tried to split the newsgroup, volunteering

himself as proponent and instigating an informal call for votes.

To his credit, he was the first person to do more than talk about a

split - most people start a thread on this topic without any idea of

what it would involve, or any inclination to do any of the

necessary work to make it happen. Approximately two-thirds of

those that voted voted against a split. Needless to say, it didn't

happen.

-> The main reason cited by those voting for a split was:

* I don't want to read about [the game I don't play] so we should

split those posts off so I don't have to see them.

-> The (repeatable!) responses to this included:

* I play all of the games and I don't want to have to trawl through

at least twice as many newsgroups.

* The traffic to the existing group is not high enough to justify a

split (debatable, but technically true at the time of writing).

* Two newsgroups would cause twice as much spam (you have heard of

RAM Doublers, a newsgroup split is a potential SPAM Doubler).

* Improper crossposting would mean some messages (like auctions)

would appear in all of the new newsgroups. If you don't like

seeing a certain type of post once, think how much you'd hate

seeing it several times.

* If you don't want see posts relating to a particular game system,

use the Subject Line Abbreviations (SLA's) listed in this FAQ when

you post, and encourage others to do the same. Add the SLA's for

the games you don't play to your kill-file and you won't see them.

See Section 1 of this FAQ for more details.

-> Finally, please be aware that starting a thread about splitting the

r.g.m.w. newsgroup identifies you as a total newbie who hasn't even

bothered to read this newsgroup FAQ. Expect abuse from those who

have seen and suffered this thread at least once before, and know

that you deserve it! :)

************************************************************************

5. The other r.g.m.* newsgroups

At this writing, there are two other r.g.m.* newsgroups at this step in

the hierarchy: r.g.m.historical and r.g.m.misc. r.g.m.historical deals

with the discussion of historical/modern tabletop games, and related

issues. r.g.m.misc is a "catch-all" miniatures group that covers topics

that are not more specifically covered by r.g.m.historical or

r.g.m.warhammer, including discussion of various non-Warhammer sci-fi

and fantasy game systems, and technical discussions (such as painting,

sculpting, molding, storage, etc.) that do not pertain to any particular

game system.

At this writing, there is no miniatures "marketplace" newsgroup.

Therefore, any for sale/trade posts should be posted on the appropriate

sub-group. Cross-posting to multiple sub-groups (i.e. to all of the

r.g.m.* newsgroups at once) is not acceptable -- If your post does not

pertain to either the Warhammer universe or historical gaming, then the

".misc" group would be your best bet. Until a proper "marketplace"

group is established, commercial posts would be acceptable so long as

they pertain to the topic at hand: Posting ads for collectible card

games, video games, "get rich quick" schemes, etc. would be better off

elsewhere.

If you wish to post binaries, the best etiquette is to simply make it

available on an ftp or web site, and post a note about where to find

your binaries. This is not a binaries group.

************************************************************************

6. Alternate newsgroups

For some of the games that are covered by this newsgroup, the following

are just a few suggestions of other newsgroups you might want to check

out if you do not find enough discussion of your topic of choice here.

This information may be somewhat "dated", as threads come and go.

Warhammer Fantasy Role-Play -- This game was previously discontinued by

Games Workshop, but has now been licensed to and revived by Hogshead

Publishing.

For more information about this game, send queries to:

Furthermore, since this group is mostly dominated by wargames, an

alternate newsgroup you might consider for discussion about WFRP would

be rec.games.frp.misc, where role-playing games (and role-playing

topics) are continually discussed.

There is also a mailing list for the discussion of Warhammer FRP. To

join, send email to "wfrp-request@gojira.monsta.com" with the word

"subscribe" in the subject line.

Warhammer Quest -- This is Games Workshop's replacement for Advanced

HeroQuest, and can either be played as a board game or as a role-playing

game. Hence, discussion threads for this game have appeared on both

rec.games.board and rec.games.frp.misc.

Blood Bowl -- This game is often discussed (at the time of writing)

on rec.games.board.

Talisman -- This game is also discussed on rec.games.board, where a

"Talisman FAQ" is also maintained.

************************************************************************

7. Common post abbreviations

Guide to Other Obscure Abbreviations Found in Postings

AFAIK : As Far As I Know

BTW : By The Way

FEX : For Example (sometimes appears as "F'ex" and other

variations)

FWIW : For What It's Worth

FYI : For Your Information

IIRC : If I Remember Correctly

IMHO : In My Humble Opinion

IMNSHO : In My Not-So-Humble Opinion

IMO : In My Opinion (same general meaning as IMHO)

OTOH : On The Other Hand

ROTFL : Rolls On The Floor Laughing (indicating a jovial reaction)

SFX : Special Effects

WYSIWYG : What You See Is What You Get (indicates that the armour

and equipment visible on the figure represents the actual

"game" armament for that miniature, so a Space Marine

figure holding a boltgun will not turn out to be equipped

with a meltagun!)

YMMV : Your Mileage May Vary (i.e. This works for me, but not

necessarily for everybody)

=) :) :-) : "Emoticon" (smiley faces) -- indicates mood of the poster,

often used to indicate that the poster is joking; variants

are "winky" [ ;) ], or sad [ :-( ] or shocked [ :-O ].

If you can't see smiley faces try tilting your head 90

degrees to your left and have another look. :) Better?

{g} : (grin) -- another way of adding levity to a message

o/~ : "Musical Note" (usually accompanies a song quote)

************************************************************************

8. Miniatures glossary

The following are various terms which may be seen in posts on this group

which have particular relevance to miniatures and sometimes to Warhammer

gaming in particular.

beardy : A word which has started to crop up in the Citadel

Journal (GW's "other" magazine, published bi-monthly)

with a similar meaning to "cheese" below. A "beardy"

player is more interested in winning at any cost than

observing such niceties as background material and game

balance.

You may also see "beardy" used on the newsgroup in a

different context. Some use "beardy" to describe an

older player who has been in the game for many years.

Players who have been in the game for many years often

also possess "Gamer Rewards" in addition to their long

grey beards. These Gamer Rewards work similarly to

Chaos Rewards and include things like "Magnificent Gut"

and that old favourite "Miasma of Stale Sweat". An

older gamer is not obliged to take these rewards though,

so not all mature players will have them.

bitz : "Spare bitz" refer to spare, alternate parts provided with

some miniatures kits (such as the old Skeleton Army

pack), or which are left over after conversions. A

collection of such spare piece kept on hand for

customization of miniatures is often known as a "bitz

box". (Or a "bits box", for those who prefer to avoid

Orky spelling conventions.)

cheese : This is a derogatory term of frequently argued definition

that generally refers to tactics or troop selections by an

opponent which are considered unfairly advantageous. It

is also applied as a criticism of game systems that allow

certain combinations (such as special characters with lots

of powerful magic items) that are alleged to encourage

such behavior.

kitbash : The process of "kitbashing" generally refers to the

practice of taking pieces from various different

miniatures and recombining them in order to make a

customized model. This term is sometimes more generally

applied to other modifications to a model, such as

blending out certain details, or adding new ones with

putty. Perhaps the most common "kitbash" procedure is

simply to replace a model's weapon with a different one.

munchkin : This is a derogatory term of frequently argued definition

that usually has more application to role-playing games

than wargames. In the context of wargames, it is usually

closely related to "cheese", applied usually in the

context of the practice of sinking resources into

immensely powerful special characters with special

monsters, special magic items, etc., rather than regular

troops. (With this sort of outlook, it is possible that

Conan the Barbarian was a "munchkin". :) )

************************************************************************

9. Other FAQs at ftp.wais.com

There are a number of FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) files available

at the wais.com ftp site pertaining to miniatures games, found in the

pub/games/miniatures directory (and subdirectories). Here you can find

the Painting Guide (Painting_Guide.gz), the Sculpting FAQ

(sculpting.FAQ.gz), the Miniatures Companies List (Miniatures_Companies_

List.gz), and several other articles of interest to players of various

popular miniatures game systems.

You will need the "gzip" utility on your system to decode any of these

files. You can find "gzip" in the pub/games/gzip directory, with

executable files for a number of different platforms.

Of particular interest to players of games in the Warhammer Universe are

the HeroQuest FAQ and White Dwarf Index files, plus subdirectories

devoted to WH, 40K, Space Marine and Blood Bowl.

There are also some FAQ's (including scenery/terrain) on the web at

http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Zone/5177/ if you don't use ftp.

************************************************************************

10. Addresses for Games Workshop

Games Workshop has a well-developed and fully-featured WWW site. You

can find it at

An incomplete list of WWW site run by enthusiasts is given below.

Tim Huckelbery, GWUS's Customer Services person, can be reached at:

or by leaving a message in the newsgroup and hoping (!) that he sees it.

Put something obvious and noticable in your message header if you want

to improve your chances. ;)

He can also be reached on 1-800-492-8820, where they also handle rule

and product queries.

For normal mail, the addresses for Games Workshop US and UK are:

Games Workshop US

6721 Baymeadow Dr

Glen Burnie, MD

21060-6401

Games Workshop UK

Willow Road,

Lenton,

Nottingham NG7 2WS

UNITED KINGDOM

GWUK Mail Order Phone +44 115 91 40000

Fax +44 115 91 68002

************************************************************************

11. Other Useful Addresses

The following companies have all made resin models of Epic vehicles in

40K scale. At the time of writing only Armorcast holds a current

licence from GW to make these vehicles, and their resin kits are not

available for export from the USA. Special rules for titans in 40K are

included with the kits, pending the development of 40K 2nd edition

datafaxes for the titans. The addition of these addresses to the FAQ was

suggested by Jack Hebert (jph3915@ucs.usl.edu).

ARMORCAST

Tim DuPertuis, David Garton

PO Box 14485

Santa Rosa, CA 95402-6485

(707) 576-1619 Voice, (707) 571-7719 Fax

FORGE WORLD MODELS

John Richardson, Owner of Forge World Models

P.O. Box 577243

Modesto, CA 95357-7243

(209) 551-8760

EPICAST

1495 Quail Valley Run

Oakley, CA

94561-3425

(510) 625-5862

************************************************************************

12. Submitting Rules Questions to GWUK via the Internet

Many of the questions that are eventually published in the Q&A pages of

White Dwarf have come from members of the Internet community.

Recogising that the potential number of rules questions arising from

this newsgroup alone could be rather large (!), GWUK have enlisted the

assistance of several people who act as a focal point for questions

regarding one or more game systems.

These people collate the questions that are submitted, provide an

instant answer to any that have been raised (and answered) before,

eliminate duplicates then forward those questions that are left to GWUK

for an "official" response. Although the answers are not officially

official (!?) until they appear in White Dwarf the answers received

rarely change before they make their way into the magazine.

If you would like to submit a question, e-mail it to the appropriate

person listed below. Please ensure that you put the name of the game

system that the question relates to (e.g. 40K) in the header of your

message, and try to phrase your question in a manner that allows a short

answer (preferably Yes or No).

For questions regarding WFB:

For questions regarding 40K:

Please note that Ed has been quiet for some time and does not seem to be

dealing with questions any more.

You may also e-mail questions to GWUS directly using the following

address:

************************************************************************

13. Warhammer-related WWW addresses

This section details some of the additional web sites that you might

like to visit if you are a fan of one of the games covered by this

newsgroup.

I have not deliberately excluded _anyone_ from the list, if you don't

see your site then I genuinely don't have the URL for it. Please e-mail

it to me with details of what your site covers and I'll add it.

Conversely, if I include your site and you want it removed, please let

me know.

This is a difficult section to keep up-to-date so I would be grateful

if site-maintainers would advise me of any changes, and users would

let me know if any of the sites listed appears to have closed down.

Thanks in advance...

[40K:]

Andy Sheppard's Page (monthly White Dwarf reviews, tons of info)

This FAQ also resides here, if you ever need an up-to-date copy.

Ed Etkin's "Gates of Fenris", home of the old 40K and Epic Q&A's

Howard Liu's "Cult of the Four-Armed Emperor" 40K Page

Isaac Tobin's 40K page

Joseph Goodman's 40K Page

[WH:]

Home of the unofficial WH FAQ

[NM:]

Isaac Tobin's Necromunda page

[Misc]

"The Games Workshop Gateway" by Kaare Rud Flarup, links to many others

************************************************************************

14. Mailing Lists

There are a number of mailing lists that cover the various games set in

the Warhammer universes. This section is intended to help you identify

and join any mailing lists that may interest you.

IMPORTANT: the mailing lists are generally _not_ like the newsgroup.

They are set up and run by enthusiasts, normally at their own expense

in terms of time and money. As a result the person running the mailing

list will often define a set of rules or a code of conduct for those

wishing to join the list, and these rules are rarely negotiable! If

you violate the rules the list maintainer can and will suspend your

posting privelidges or kick you off of the list entirely. For this

reason it is very important that you appraise yourself of the rules

for the list you are joining (they normally arrive as your first

message from the mailing list) and observe them for as long as you want

to remain a subscriber.

At this point you may be wondering why you would want to subscribe to

a mailing list if it has lots of rules and you can't always say exactly

what you'd like. The answer is that most mailing lists enjoy a much

better signal to noise ratio than the newsgroup. Signal to noise ratio

broadly means how much drivel (noise) you have to wade through to find

each pearl of wisdom (signal), and at times the signal to noise ratio

on the newsgroup can be extremely poor. The mailing lists tend to be

more focused and relevant. If in doubt, try one and see!

Some lists offer a digest mode as well as an ordinary mail mode. If

you subscribe to the ordinary mail mode every posting to the mailing

list will be sent on to your mailbox. This can mean that you receive

dozens (possibly hundreds!) of e-mails from the list each day, something

that you need to be a bit wary of if you share a mailbox with someone

else. The digest mode "bundles" groups of messages together and sends

them out at regular intervals. Each digest might contain ten or more

individual messages, making it easier to manage your mailbox. The

choice is yours, but choose wisely.

I have listed below the mailing lists that I am aware of. If you run

a list and would like it added, please e-mail me.

-----

40K List (igcom.net)

To subscribe to: Send an e-mail to: Message:

-----

40K List (swcp.com) PLEASE NOTE: I THINK THIS LIST HAS SHUT DOWN NOW

To subscribe to: Send an e-mail to: Message:

-----

Warhammer List (direwolf.com)

To subscribe to: Send an e-mail to: Message:

-----

Epic List (acc.umu.se)

To subscribe to: Send an e-mail to: Message:

MAIL mode Majordomo@acc.umu.se subscribe space-marine

[your e-mail address]

-----

Bloodbowl List (cs.utk.edu)

To subscribe to: Send an e-mail to: Message:

MAIL mode bbowl-l@bbowl.com subscribe

-----

You should then be contacted by the mailing list and told what to do

next. Most of the lists send detailed instructions on how to use the

list (including how to unsubscribe) and I would _strongly_ recommend

that you save these instructions somewhere for future reference.

************************************************************************

Any suggestions for updates should be directed to