The Independent Characters | Warhammer 40k Podcast

Episode 82 of The Independent Characters takes us into the deadly arenas and dangerous combats of Zone Mortalis! Zone Mortalis is a set of rules from Forge World which are free to download from their site. Within this set of rules you will find some of the most deadly close quarters combat of the 41st Millennium! Explore Space Hulks, root out enemies in abandoned mines and sewer systems, and battl...

Episode 81 of The Independent Characters takes a look at the Deathwatch RPG by Fantasy Flight Games. Deathwatch is a roleplaying game in which you take on the role of a member of the Adeptus Astartes – the devout, bio-engineered super-soldiers also known as Space Marines. After many years of exemplary service within your own chapter, you have been singled out and selected to join one of the most u...

Episode 80 of The Independent Characters covers a tremendous variety of topics. As usual, we start our with our hobby progress and (lack of) games played. But then we get right into the main course of the show. Imperial Armour 3 2nd Edition: The Taros Campaign is the first part of our two part main course this episode. We go through the changes between the 1st edition and now, and ultimately let y...

Episode 79 will complete our two episode series on the running of events. The intention of this series is not to tell you a bullet pointed list of what to bring and exactly how to do it, but to inform on thoughts and ideas around running and growing events. While this is 40k focused for our purposes, the information contained in these episodes is not limited strictly to any one gaming system. This...

Episode 78 begins a two episode series in which we discuss what goes into, and how to run events. While this will include tournaments, this is not limited to just that style of play. Over the course of these two episodes (78 and 79) we will discuss the thinking behind running events, how to avoid problems that may pop up and how to make your event more successful. We will start off by talking abou...

Episode 77 sweeps through the sector as we cover Imperial Armour 12: The Fall of Orpheus. This is the latest book from Forge World that details a massive Necron invasion (cleansing?) of The Orpheus sector and pits the soulless androids against The Death Korps of Krieg and The Minotaurs Chapter of The Adeptus Astartes! Of course, we have been gone for some time from our normal programming, so we ha...

Episode 76 of The Independent Characters addresses the topic of Cheating on your spouse with 40k! We all know someone who has a significant other who is Gamer Intolerant. We go over some tips and tricks to keep your love affair with Warhammer 40k going while keeping those closest to you in the dark! We also spend quite a bit of time discussing hobby progress, games played, Zone Mortalis and the ne...

Episode 75 of The Independent Characters addresses the problem of Identifying your Warhammer 40k Playstyle. To help us out with this, we have our good friend Josh joining us for a good portion of the show. So often players aren't having as much fun as they could have with 40k because they are playing armies or builds within armies that go against the nature of the way they enjoy playing. We set ou...

As mentioned on our Facebook page, our front page and our forums, this episode seems to have been cursed with a run of bad luck. So instead of our planned topic of Identifying your 40k Playstyle, we are just releasing the Warrior Lodge segment of this episode to tide you over until we record Identifying your 40k Playstyle in Episode 75. Sometimes things just take a turn for the worst and you have...

Episode 73 of The Independent Characters sees us exploring the dark corners of an even darker universe as we delve into Dark Heresy the Role Playing Game! Much of our background comes from roleplaying games and we have waited quite awhile to cover this game. We were fortunate to get one of the former authors of the game, and former host of the Dice Like Thunder Podcast, Mack Martin, to run us and...

Episode 72 of The Independent Characters takes a long and hard look at White Dwarf of the past, present and future. Over the years White Dwarf has provided endless pictures and articles about the Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40k Hobby (as well as other Specialist Games by GW). However, in recent years the magazine has come under a high amount of criticism that it is nothing more than a "Catalog...

Episode 71 of The Independent Characters starts off with a lengthy Hobby Progress and Games Played segment. We then focus on our topic of the show, which is how to meet new players and introduce them to your gaming group. Also, we talk about how to be a new player to an established gaming group. We will discuss the do's and don'ts of meeting new players (safely) and evaluating whether these people...

It is once again time for our Independent Characters Annual Year in Review. This time we are obviously talking about 2012 and how it stacked up for Warhammer 40k and Games Workshop. This was, of course, the 25th Anniversary Year of Warhammer 40k and we will take a look back at every release from Games Workshop, Black Library, Forge World, Fantasy Flight and any other licensee of Warhammer 40k over...

Episode 69 is a veritable buffet of content. After our standard Hobby Progress and Games Played segments, we talk briefly about some of our New Years Resolutions as they pertain to Warhammer 40k. We also go into some detail around the 2013 Independent Characters Hobby Progress Challenge. We had a lot of people asking us to do it again, so we have! Our second segment of the show is an overview and...

In Episode 68 we discuss terrain as the "Third Army" on the gaming table. We touch on some rules around terrain before we talk about the availability of terrain kits from various companies. In the second portion of the show we discuss the building of custom terrain as well as a few solutions for the safe storage of your hard work. We have a rather lengthy hobby progress and games played section in...

Episode 67 focuses on how to create and develop great Battle Reports! Whether it is through video, writing, photography or (God Emperor help you…) audio, we are going to go through the pros and cons of each format and how to get the best results for your time and effort. We will discuss how to record games of 40k (either through video, photo, notes, etc) and then how to edit what you have and make...

Episode 66 focuses on how to develop your own background and history for your Warhammer 40k Army. We throw out some ideas for character development and give you our thoughts on the "Do's and Dont's" of lore creation in the Warhammer 40k Universe. The topic of this episode, which is very subjective at best, will surely evoke some strong reactions as to what people think is and is not "cool" for bac...

We change gears a bit for Episode 65 and take this time to talk about a legendary game from Games Workshops Specialist range; Necromunda. This is a game of gang warfare in the bowels of the Hive Cities of the Warhammer 40k Universe. We take our turn playing through the game, spend some time talking about the background and story surrounding it, as well as explain some (all too familiar!) rules. To...

The Horus Heresy Book 1: Betrayal by Forge World  and author Alan Bligh (and Team), is the continued topic of conversation for Episode 64. This is the second part of our two part series in which we cover the latest (and greatest!) Forge World release. In this episode we go into some of the units and how the Space Marine Crusade Army List works for the Horus Heresy series. We also discuss, in depth...

The Horus Heresy Book 1: Betrayal by Forge World  and author Alan Bligh, is the topic of conversation for Episode 63. This is a project that 40k fans have been waiting more than 25 years for and it is finally here! This is part one of a two part series in which we cover the latest (and greatest!) Forge World release. In this episode we cover the backstory that makes up The Horus Heresy (and in par...

Episode 62 sees Geoffs excuses for not completing any Hobby Progress dry up as Celesticon, the Northern California Gaming Convention has now finished. We spend a tremendous time this episode talking about our Hobby Progress and Games Played since we skipped it last episode. We also talk about the Gamer Experience at Celesticon this year and then move into the experience of working a gaming convent...

Episode 61 has forced us to make a new rule here in the studio. No one holds the mic while recording! We know the occassional tapping is annoying – our apologies. Now on to the show! We have very special guests Scott, Josh and Jordan from the G3 Santa Cruz Gaming Group, here to discuss The Mestre Incursion Campaign event that we attended last month. This was seriously one of the coolest narrative...

Episode 60 is now available and in it we do some in depth coverage of Imperial Armour Aeronautica. Before we go any further though, we have to mention that the heat in The Boiler Room reached an all time high, and during this recording we ended up opening the windows and doors. So yes, that isn't the crickets of the audience (we hope!) but the sounds of actual nature outside the studio. Hopefully...

Episode 59 is a huge one! For those that do not like long episodes, we apologize. However, there is a TON of great information in this episode. After we lead off with our usual Workbench and Games Played section, we dive into the third, and final episode around Competition and Warhammer 40k. To help us along we have brought in some of the big guns of the Warhammer 40k Tournament Scenes. TastyTaste...

Episode 58 has a couple of very special guests. We have Jason from The Overlords 40k Podcast (A member of The Hobby Talk Network) as well as our gaming group friend Justin joining us for a discussion of the difference between the US and UK gaming scenes. We of course have a ton of discussion around 6th edition as well. As usual we have a discussion around our workbench progress and games played. W...