Well ladies and gents, it is begun. We now have our very own webspace in which to store, wel...whatever. For those who might be interested, I will go over some things regarding our new online display area, mostly for those who may not have been following the "Is the Gate dead?" thread.

1. www.themilleniumgate.com exists as an online complement to milleniumgate.net. Our dear forum does not, I am informed, have the capability to host articles and/or sites that members have or might want to have. www.themilleniumgate.com has been created to fill this void. I have noticed that there are some creative people on this forum. That is indeed like saying water is wet; and just as obvious is the need for an outlet for that creativity. You now have it.

2. Once monthly updates. I am basically just creating a venue for you to display your stuff. There will be links back to the forum here, and I anticiapte most communication to be done by forum or by email. I will be putting together a front page to direct to, and then a directory to help websurfers find stuff. If web creation is not your thing, and you just have Word articles or some such lying about, I will be glad to help you get it online.

3. The site is open to all members of the milleniumgate.net forum. If you got a membership in here past the mods, you are good enough for me. Just drop me an email letting me know you would like a link on our frontpage, and send me your content at your convenience.

4. Not restricted to wargaming. However; no porn, no business traffic. If you would like to start an e-business, I wholeheartedly support your glorious endeavor however I will not be subsidizing your pursuit of the American Dream.

5. I look upon this again as a complement to the forum. Anyone has any issues, let me know. We are a pretty friendly and homey bunch in here for the most part, and I would like to see that conduct grow and thrive in our new venue.

6. There is nothing at the addy yet, except for a godaddy adpage. Do not view unless you want to buy stuff and be blinded by adds .

7. I will be accepting submissions starting now. I am not going to be getting any work done on the site through the holidays, as I will be offshore ad operating over a satellite link (ssssssssslllllllllllllllllllooooooooooooooooooowwwwwwwwwww) so moving mucho data is not a good thing. However, yahoo me what you have and I will get my first update up and running by 15 January 2009. The more stuff I get from y'all between now and zen, the better. Send me some searchwords you would like your individual articles filed by as well. This way I can start to get a feel for what different kinds of catagories y'all would like.

8. If you are getting the feeling that I am making hti sup as I go along, you are right!

Love and kisses,
-Grizgrin

Beer and peanuts all 'round!

Now maybe some piccy battlereps?

Well, we certainly have the space for it. And when that runs out we can expand, but I do not expect that to happen for quite a long time.

I know what the slow bandwidth is like. So, Grizgrin, what kind of format were you planning to have for the Gate? Are we going to make it look like a monthly online e-zine? A gateway to member pages, where they can post whatever? Both? Neither?

Where's Tankbusta? He said had a ton of ideas to throw onto here.

Ideas I got, time to develop, not so much. I am going to stop procratinating, but I keep putting it off.

Personally, I'd go for something similar to the MG site: "House Rules", "Missions", "Hobby Tips", "Units"(Greywinter had an all Sentinel unit with Jump Jets a la Mechwarrior, brilliant), all for 40K, then maybe a section for "Every other game" similar to what we have here for topics. You could also have a section called somethign like "I have a life outside of gaming" where articles on music , book reviews, and the like could be posted, if that is what you are going for for the site.

On Jen's thread, I mentioned updating/adapting missions, scenarios, etc from the older editions of 40K to fit into the 40K5 rules. $th ed had problems, but I really liked the various set ups, (defender centered, attackers from all sides; or "Rearguard: defender splits forces in half, picks one half to fight with against superior force, the "Planetfall" mission; the boarding actions; Space Hulk style crawls, etc.)

If the site has a monthly "Welcome and What's New" page, as Tigger does, it would make it easy to see what's been updated.

Just my ideas, Griz is the one doing the heavy lifting for organization and formatting.

Regarding pictures: will they be hosted on the site, or linked from Flickr, etc?

Griz, thanks in advance, I think this site will be a good complement.

Ryjak: I am definitely thinking of a gateway to member pages, however I would like to have gates to different subject areas as well. I am imagining a lot fo cross-referencing here, so that there is more than one way to reach articles. You can click on "JenBurdoo", and see all the different articles she has written on various subjects. Take a look at pics of her army in one area, a nifty little article about the conversions she did on her Catachans, and another article about some terrain she built. Now, say you surf back to the gateway page, and next to the list of member links to their individual sub-sites you see a list of catagories. One of them's "Terrain". Click it, and oyu see articles about use of terrain, building different types of terrain. And in there you find Jen's terrain article.

Most of what I am thinking I am seeing reflected in the suggestions here. I am just going to have to go ahead and get something in the air and tweak it as time goes on.

I have a few more things to iron out with the hosting, and then something will be actually appearing on our frontpage.There will definitely be a section for "Beyond Wargaming". Put up your latest project in the yard, pics of the kids latest artwork from school, some neato concept you just got in physics class that was proved out for you in some hysterical fashion. Again, these articles will be cross linked over to your personal subsite.Also, for those of you who are web-literate, and have formatted your articles all up with a certain style, I plan on preserving that when I post it up on your subsite as much as possible. If you just send in Word or text articles, then I will just use the formatting of the site as a bit of a default.

In that case, I think the first thing to do is build the main "gateway" page, and come up with a look for it, as well as a generic look for member articles on the site. If we do it right, people will just want to change colors of their articles to give their stuff a personal field. And for certain subjects, like Terrain, we have a way to visually tie that in too.

Yeah, I got ahold of the GIMP over on Dakka so I can edit images. Right now I am working on a front page, and am needing some input on it. Anyone have something they would like to see? Imagery would be nice. Would li,ke to use the image you see top left of the pages of this forum, just to help tie the two together. Black background, and a large graphic of some sort for the center. Preferably a large, very impressive Gate of some sort. Looked at using Rodin's Gates of Hell, but too dark I think. Found some real good gates for Angkor Wat, however still trying to find a pic of suitable size.

edited b/c I'd forget my own name if it hadn't been stitched on for so many years.

Just right click on it and select "Save Picture As." Boom. Done.

Yeah Tiger, I figgered that one out. Time for the edit stick. Guess I am just demonstrating the diffeerential on my learning curve. But thank you for the assist, it is appreciated.

In a few months I can probably help with graphics and stuff... not so much right now though.

As for building an actual "gate", it shouldn't be too hard to steal someone elses html code as a template, especially since it sounds like that's something you wanted to learn. The easiest thing to do is to create a graphic that continuously repeats down the page, no matter how long or short the actual page is, or how big or small it is displayed... Then just cap it with a graphic that creates the archway at the top of the gate, and you're set.

How hi-tech/low-tech of a gate do we want?

Initially we will be going for a lo-tech gate. I am interested in getting something up in the air that is solid, looks good, works good, and performs the needed function. We always have time to fancy it up.

No, what I meant was stylistically. Would we rather have a wooden or stone Gate, or something a little more hi-tech? Do we want it to look generic, or keyed to a specific 40k race style?

As for long term, I will always prefer a low-tech site with good content (like The Jungle) as opposed to a high-tech site full of crap. That kind of site loads quickly, doesn't bug the user with installing special software, and is very easy to build and maintain.

Howdy. Sorry I've ben silent for a few days. Between leaving town, coming back the next day, the holidays, and then leaving town again for awhile this time; it's ben really busy. I'm finally settled in a bit on a vessel in the Gulf of Mexico. All is well.

I'm going for lo-tech, to answer your question Ryjak. I've done a little work on a front page, which will serve as a gateway for site nav. You could have a more primitive site, but you would have to use a rock. Anyway, looking for a little content to get ready for the planned 15 Jan opener. Anyone got anything they would like to see put up, please send it to me, and I will put it up. Again, if you have material you would like to see on your section of the site but have no web knowledge, I will get it up there for you. If you have a site that's already done up, I will upload it for you and leave the rest as is.

As far as an actual gate Ryjak, lo-tech is best. I am looking for something that can be loaded up on slower connections; and to be honest, the most high spe dlo drag intro around will grow old after time; especially if it take "forever" to load. As far as style, I was thinking something primitive, but stately looking. I really saw some potential in some google searches I made for the gates around Angkor Wat. There's some stuff that really has a sense of forever to it, which I thought appropriate.
I was not really keying to a 40k race, since there has ben some mention of people posting up stuff outside of wargaming. I am hoping for and anticipating content for much more than just 40k, and indeed more than just wargaming. So some kind of splash graphic that represents a 40k race, or even 40k in general would be perfectrly fine, but it's not a realm we should necessarily limit ourselves to. Got any suggestions or ideas?

Figured I should let everyone know I submitted an article to The Millenium Gate. You can find my article here. I might have another one get posted soon, but probably won't have anything new for a month or so.

Hope you enjoy it.

Cool stuff, there, 'jak!

I agree. Nice photos particularly.

And this topic just got itself a (long overdue) sticky.

I'll leave one of you guys to make a rude joke about that...

Thanks! I'm going to take pictures of my Tyranids and write a short write-up on that army, as well 2 army lists I came up with today, using an army building philosophy someone posted over at the B&C.

Hopefully grizgrin will be able to make some modifications/additions in the next few days, once he gets back from being off-shore.

If anyone ever has any questions or suggestions, please let me know.

What army-building philosophy is this?

Well, I suppose I could make the collection of articles (all 30 pages) available for download. A gentleman at the B&C had the 40K game system "crystalize" for him; he calls it "Killhammer". It focuses on creating a "kill gap" to achieve victory, and he has an interesting way of analyzing a unit's effectiveness in the game. While he mostly focuses on winning primarily through utterly destroying your enemy (a KO victory) he acknoledges that often you have to win by mission parameters (a TKO) and if things go badly, work on achieving a draw. He also emphasizes flexibility in your army, geared towards a winning "theme", while focusing particular units to specific tasks.

I'm corrisponding with him right now, trying to rebuild my Vindicators using his philosophy. He's pretty much sold me on using many of the special characters, because most of them improve your army AND come with cool equipment at a significant discount. (Try mimicing the equipment loadout if you don't believe me) It almost dirtys my soul to consider fielding a Special Character, but if I'm not playing to win, why am I even playing?

Don't be surprised if Consul Carrelus gets his storm bolter replaced with a plasma pistol so I can use him as Sicarius, or I use an OLD model I bought about 15 years ago to become "Pedro Cantor." I might even take some of my unfinished Tactical Marines and paint 'em up to be Sternguard to ride in a Razorback... I'm not sure where I'll get Heavy Flamers, though. Maybe I'll just stick with bolters.

Ah, but as Tiger Raja says, if I use, say, Gaunt or Creed to mimic the Tanith 1st or Cadian 8th, how is my army any different from the Tanith 1st or Cadian 8th? If I wanted to play those regiments I would (well, I would love to play Tanith but I want more than half-a-dozen minis to work with). I've found a way to tie together my own interests with two armies I admire, and I'd rather play them.

Still, I like to win, more so because I rarely do. They're much sweeter that way, which is a poor excuse but the best I have. Can you link to these articles, or at least tell me the handle of this tac wizard?

That raminds me of the days I played 40k...

*misty eyes*

We've lost him to the dark side I'm afraid, Master Yoda.

Playing to win is fine, but are you lame and need a crutch? I don't think so.

Well, I might need a crutch to start... I haven't played in years, really. It's not like I'm planning to play a Sternguard list with Pedro, a Bike list (perhaps with Khan), a Vulkan list, or a Drop Pod list (perhaps with Tigerus), which seem to be all anyone ever uses now.

What I can't figure out (and I think this goes for everyone) is how in the world GW came up with the point costs for their "special" characters. Chapter Master Pedro is 175 points, which means all his gear and abilities is 50 points. A standard Chapter Master pays 25 points to get a powerfist like Pedro, and would need something like Hellfire rounds and a auxilary grenade launcher to get something like the dakka Pedro has. That's another 25 points.

Which of two would you rather have for 175 points?

They pull those numbers right out of their heads. Or about three feet lower and slightly back.



If you want to talk value and effectiveness, SM special characters can't be beat. If you want to talk style, they bring negative value. Because of your color scheme and most gamers' myopia, you have a hard time making your army distinct: everyone thinks they're White Scars. In the future, they'll think they're White Scars led by Sicarius. Your army will be much better on the tabletop, but it will be less distinct.

Special characters are Ginger: sexy and superficial and desired by nearly everyone. Regular characters are Mary Ann: easily overlooked, but solid: they'll still be around under the next codex, when (God willing) the current special character fetish will be over. Really, whom would you rather marry?

What the heck are you talking about? Mary Ann was HAWT!
Yeah folks, I basically have lost access to updating our .com for the moment. I fouhgt the web filter issue, and was then nailed by the bandwidth issue. But, I go home to-day after a two month float, so after 2 days of travel and a couple of days to decompress with the family, I will fix up Ryjak's stuff per his requests.

I completely agree: Mary Ann was totally hot.

The kids have no clue who the hell we're talking about.

You're right, I was too young to know Ginger was supposed to be hot, so Mary Ann ALWAYS seemed like a better woman to me.

If Captains and/or Commanders still had Rites of Battle I wouldn't even consider taking Sicarius. But since he's now the only SM with it now, and as it was my favourite ability of any of the HQ options (doubly so with 5th ed assault resolutions) Sicarius is a no-brainer for effectiveness. The Captain was changed to be a more popular choice (only W3 basic HQ), but they ditched his distinctive feature - being a commander and inspiring his troops. Aside from command squads he's pretty useless. he can be made into a killer and lead a killer unit, but so can the Chaplain.

I guess special characters are going to be more and more common in the new codecii - even as upgrade characters like Chronus and Zagstruk. Many of the HQ choices define the style of army (Belial for Deathwing, Sammael for Ravenwing, Warboss for Nob Troops, Big Mek for more dreads etc) rather than having seperate lists or different units (how stikkbommerz, trukkers and boyz are all now a single unit).

I like Chronus and Sicarius as they fit my army, but if the generic Captain had RoB still, I wouldn't use Sicarius, but I no longer have that option so I use what the rulebook provides. I'd really like an el'cheapo option like the old 35pt 'force commander' so I can spend more points on more troops really!

There is a big stigma on special characters, no doubt in large part from 2nd ed and the game dominating monstrosoties it spawned. But having a unit reffered to as a crutch or being lame and like like is pretty annoying - I could refer such people to this site where I read an article on there being no cheese, but I think they know where to find it I even had someone say that in regards to taking Belial - they failed to comprehend it was impossible to field a Deathwing army without a 'cheezy special character'.

Sorry to rant, I've just run into the 'special characters suxx0rz' viewpoint a few times in the last couple of weeks. I do agree that choosing a special character based solely on their abilities, and not for them to complement an army choice is a bit 'gamey' for my liking (like Nob bikers for jerk style wound allocation). I feel most sorry for Salamanders players from before the rise of Vulkan. I imagine they get called cheesy wherever they go due to Vulkan's cheesy tag.

I agree with that. My pal Sho-T takes a version of Wazdakka because that's the only way you can field a "Kult of Speed" type army with Ork bikers as Troops (like you used to be able to back when Codex: Armaggedon came out). I have no problem with that. Nor do I have any problems with folks playing Belial or Sammael--from what I understand, you have to take them to field those armies. And I still firmly believe that "there is no cheese" and that "playing to win" is not a bad thing.

What I meant by my comments was that as far as style goes, IMHO, you're not going to win any points for special characters. Obviously, I need to tone down my rhetoric. Sorry.

I think GW is trying to steal some of the Warmachine players by using the special character angle which is pretty similar to how Warmachine special characters affect the overall force as far as special abilities and units available go. GW simply does not do as good a job as certain special characters are vastly better than their other options within a given army choice.

Based on that I am not sure this is a passing fad, especially since this trend is so similar to the old Herohammer days of yore.

2nd Edition Herohammer is indeed where the majority of "special" character disdain comes from. Back then, that's about all you'd see in someone's "army". It's too bad you must take these characters to field certain kinds of armies now, instead of just fielding them because they're cool.

Can't do much about it, unless you develop our own rules for 40K.

No need to apologise, I was a bit OTT above myself. You're not alone in not wining any points - in the last tourney I went in (came 13th out of 32!) my army only lost comp points for Sicarius. But had I taken the same points in any other HQ I would have likely done alot worse. The Warmachine analogy is quite apt, and hopefully it doesn't get any more prominent and make the regular HQs obsolite. The upcoming Guard Codex rumours indicating taking the advisors to shape your army looks like a step in the right direction. Special characters who are also generic characters is much better IMO.

Anything going on with Millenium Gate.com? Have we lost Grizgrin in the Warp?

That was my impression, since he's not returning my phone-calls, and the P.I. can't locate him.

Though I wasn't familiar with this person yet, I've been wondering about the updates to the site and such.

This is a perfect example of why I don't get all excited when someone debuts a website. Anyone can post something once or twice: it's doing it on a consistent basis over the long haul that's difficult. I read somewhere that the average lifespan of a website is 18 months: I figure if you're not committed to doing something past that, why bother?

Tis' a valid point.