Tactical Command
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The Anphelion Project
http://www.tacticalwargames.net/taccmd/viewtopic.php?f=127&t=9978		 Page 1 of 3
Author:  CyberShadow [ Sun Jul 15, 2007 3:54 pm ]
Post subject:  The Anphelion Project
Does anyone else have this? After IA3, I was looking forward to this book, but after reading through the 'fluff' section I have to say that I feel a bit cheated.

I wonder if anyone else has this and can comment.

A few of my gripes:

Lasguns - do they really make a 'crack' sound? This seems to be very common in GW background, but surely a laser wont make anything like this noise. Maybe a whine? Does this weapon really superheat air so fast as to produce a 'crack'? Anyway, this is a bit 'in depth', so I can live with it if I have to.

Page 6 - The introduction... This is the point at which Warwick points out how it all ends when talking about scenarios for 40K.  :glare:

OK. The situation is a load of ground Tyranids, originally held in place with field barriers, and the Imperials have the Elysians... so why, why, oh why dont they simply send out the Vultures? Simply flying runs, hitting with cluster bombs or missiles which cant be countered seems a fairly sensible thing... right? Why attempt a ground war at all?

Possibly my favourite passage - Descriptions of the Elysians dropping down from 30m using lines... followed by the Inquisitor landing and walking out the rear ramp!  :p

It is Aliens. Seriously, some of the scenes have been ripped straight from the movie. For example, the Magos confronted by a Hive Tyrant, who spears him, lifts him up, tears him in two and throws each half in opposite directions. Or, the Terminators who count down the approaching Genestealers, stating that they should be in the room before realising that they are under the floor!

Finally, I am confused about the Tyranids ability to reproduce and adapt. I always thought that only the Norn Queen produced new creatures. DNA is captured, and thrown into the reclamation pools, where it is then shipped up to the Norn Queen, who uses it to create new creatures, guided by the Hive Mind. However, on Anphelion, the Tyranid creatures some how manage to reproduce and evolve very rapidly, with no new DNA, and no Norn Queen at all. And, there is no mention at all about exactly how this is done, since none of the Tyranid creatures actually directly reproduces!

Am I just being picky, or is this book a little disappointing?

Thanks.
Author:  vanvlak [ Sun Jul 15, 2007 4:09 pm ]
Post subject:  The Anphelion Project

(CyberShadow @ Jul. 15 2007,16:54)
QUOTE
A few of my gripes:

Lasguns - do they really make a 'crack' sound? This seems to be very common in GW background, but surely a laser wont make anything like this noise. Maybe a whine? Does this weapon really superheat air so fast as to produce a 'crack'? Anyway, this is a bit 'in depth', so I can live with it if I have to.

Nitpicking here - but no. A whine would be produced by the turbines of a laser using gas as a medium; seeing that solid medium lasers already exist, the heavier gas systems would not be used for hand-held weapons, given the choice. So the weapon would be uninterestingly silent.
As for superheating the air and 'cracking' - no.  I cannot see how this would occur. Any laser travelling through air does not make a noise, and even the evaporation of a metal is silent, unless a plasma is generated, which may cause a guttering hiss. A plasma would not be generated in air, as it is unbound (i.e. out in the open) and could not absorb sufficient heat from the beam during passage. And any high rate of energy absorption would attenuate the beam, making it less effective - which, incidentally, can be a problem with laser-guided weapons in heavy rain or snow or fog.
So, no whine, no crack, no whoosh, and now glowing ray of light either! Just molten material where it hits, if it has sufficient power. And Necrons - in particular, highly polished ones - might even reflect most of the beam!
Author:  The_Real_Chris [ Sun Jul 15, 2007 5:00 pm ]
Post subject:  The Anphelion Project
I have visions of Necrons buffing themselves up before a battle.

As for the copyright infringement they better watch out (who fancies telling on GW? :) )

Yes it sounds badly thought out. There are lots of ways to force a ground war - simply forgetting to arm the fliers isn't it.
Author:  Legion 4 [ Sun Jul 15, 2007 5:28 pm ]
Post subject:  The Anphelion Project
Another reason Not to buy the over priced book ! G/W can't ever get the fluff right ! Or even some of "tactical(?)" aspects are usually "off" !  I'll stick with Drake's Hammer's Slammers ! :)
Author:  Evil and Chaos [ Sun Jul 15, 2007 6:03 pm ]
Post subject:  The Anphelion Project
They go for a ground operation in IA:4 a very simple reason:

     The ostensible mission is to recover data from the Anphellion base about its studies of the Tyranids before they broke containment. Thus they need troops on the ground.




Re: Tyranids reproducing whilst on the ground, that's a retcon of the background?

Presumably most Tyranid genus contain all the DNA patterns that its particular hive fleet has developed, thus, given enough time, a single Gaunt could spawn a few more Gaunts, then one of them spawns a brood of Warriors, then one  of the Warriors spawns a Hive Tyrant, and before you know it there are Dominatrices and Harridans lording it over the planet.

It is explicitly stated several times in the book that the Anphellion base was breeding Tyranids, and that genus types that were seemingly unrelated were eventually observed.

Plus, one of the models usable in 40k is a 'brood nest', which is a nest of embryonic brood creatures, that can birth itself at some point during the game... so obviously they can reproduce on the planet!

http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/bnest.htm

Apparently, all the Nids in the book were decended from an original 4 creatures.
Author:  colonel_sponsz [ Sun Jul 15, 2007 9:17 pm ]
Post subject:  The Anphelion Project
I think you might be being a bit picky but I agree that after IA3 it did feel a bit thin.  No one I know that's read it hasn't made the Alien's connection, but then again that didn't stop us liking Space Hulk  :cool:

As to the GW fluff, it's been revised and retrospectively changed so many times that I've stopped noticing when it happens again.

Orde
Author:  Evil and Chaos [ Sun Jul 15, 2007 9:19 pm ]
Post subject:  The Anphelion Project
BTW I was in the room one time before IA:4 was released.

Warwick was heard to say something like "Anphellion is nothing like LV4-26... nothing like it at all..."


So erm, they knew what they were doing. :)
Author:  mageboltrat [ Sun Jul 15, 2007 10:40 pm ]
Post subject:  The Anphelion Project

(The_Real_Chris @ Jul. 15 2007,17:00)
QUOTE
As for the copyright infringement they better watch out (who fancies telling on GW? :) )

It's not going to happen. They already tried. It didn't work out for them. Turns out the costumes in Starship Troopers were rather similar to Cadian standard uniform. They settled out of court with a handshake.
Author:  colonel_sponsz [ Sun Jul 15, 2007 11:35 pm ]
Post subject:  The Anphelion Project
Given the amount of 'inspiration' GW takes from other sources their stance over IP has always seemed a bit OTT.  Sure they need to protect thier product but I'm sure Kaizer Bill's hypothetical IP lawyer might have something to say about the Death Corps of Kreig's uniforms...

Orde
Author:  Markconz [ Mon Jul 16, 2007 12:07 am ]
Post subject:  The Anphelion Project
As one of my friends said - FW and BL are 'crappy examples of an already generally crappy genre of fiction'.

Better off reading some real history books I think, or read less critically maybe :)
Author:  Vermis [ Mon Jul 16, 2007 1:41 pm ]
Post subject:  The Anphelion Project
Nid biology: to be frank GW (and subsidiaries) make up whatever they feel like, and what they make is gross inconsistency.
I remember one reference about gaunts or something lacking a digestive system. ?So unless they photosynthesise or something (which I doubt) this would mean they're prepacked with metabolites when spawned (dormant, inside their spore pods?) on the hive ship, and simply burn out after a certain amount of activity planetside. ?This links with the absorption of the swarms - alongside everything else - after the planet is subdued; but it links with little else, especially not the long-term maintenance and breeding (!!!) of swarm creatures in an Imperial outpost.

Purely from a zoologist's POV, Nid biology pisses me off.  However, I could indulge in it (alongside a lot of other fantasy/sci-fantasy concepts) if the people writing the damned stuff could agree to one set of 'rules', and stick to it.
Author:  Evil and Chaos [ Mon Jul 16, 2007 3:59 pm ]
Post subject:  The Anphelion Project
IIRC the only 'nid known to have no digestive system is the Hierodule.
Author:  orangesm [ Mon Jul 16, 2007 9:55 pm ]
Post subject:  The Anphelion Project
Well they can easily get away with saying it is all written from the Imperium's perspective and that the Imperium being such a large organization lacks consistency.

Lasguns cracking - they may make that sound.  An internal component could make a cracking sound as it discharges the weapon.  It may be that the circuit of the weapon is not entirely closed and that an arc created across the gap (what is the sound that static makes when it arcs between you and something metal) creates the sound.  For the weapon not being visible, yes it would not be visible for probably a variety of possible different reasons including it may not have the majority of its energy in the visible spectrum, but if for example it is a high-intensity IR laser with a small fraction of its energy put into the Red edge of the visible spectrum and there are clouds of dust and debris in the air the Las-weapon could very well have a 'visible' path.

There the crack of a lasgun (arc in the firing chamber) and how you could see the path of the weapons fire.  Now whether that is how it works I do not know.

I would suspect that a Lascannon might make a thunderclap when fired!

I am surprised they are saying the Nids are carbon based (if they have I guess that is the assumption).  They could be silicon (it is almost too heavy) or any variety of possible things that we could or can not imagine.  I am sorry but allowing a fictional alien lifeforms biology to piss you off because it does not fit into the current scientific understanding of life is pushing it for me.  The idea that they travel FTL by riping a hole in the very fabric of reality throws a lot of what we know out the window for me.  There are demons and such nasties too.  I guess if you do not like the background you could just play the games because they are fun, but the background is part of the fun for me.

I doubt GW would hire a Zoologist to help them make the Tyranid background seem more accurate, an aeronautical engineer to give them ways for the Thunderhawk to fly, a military historian/strategist to provide accurate estimates of strength to invade and conqueror a planet.
Author:  CyberShadow [ Mon Jul 16, 2007 10:12 pm ]
Post subject:  The Anphelion Project
OK. I am going to get really picky now!  :p

Roman numerals, sub-species number:

These dont seem to be in a logical order. Surely the creatures discovered later would have a higher number?

Also, and this is a pet irritation of mine (irrational, I know), but CLIIV is not a real number (Malanthrope). Finally, why do the Ripper Swarms and Meiotic Spores have the same sub-species number?

Sorry.  :blush:
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