That’s assuming the whole of the fight was those few orks vs. those few marines.

If in fact the marines had been dropped in to take back ground lost when the orks overran a part of the imperial line, and that ridge was a vital anchor to that flank, then dying to retake it makes perfect sense.

On the gripping hand, though, there’s a clear logical coherence (which you obviously see) between that movie and the idea of a chainsaw sword.

Or it could be an artillery spotter’s point; or just a berm with some critical location on the other side. Who knows?

Back to the salient point, DoW II is going to be an opening week purchase, definately.

I accept that a chainsaw gun is visually awesome, even if it doesn’t make any sense tactically – it’s fantasy, so whatever. I remember someone complaining about the DoW intro, where heavily armed guys charge a hill and die pointlessly when they could have stayed in their trench and mopped up. It looks cool, even if it is very stupid.

The point of the 40k Universe is to be hilarious AWESOME. It’s an examination of such mature themes as the role of authority and the price of war . . . as seen through the eyes of a twelve-year old boy with an Iron Maiden t-shirt and drawings of tanks all over his notebooks. In fact, the fiction, which is full of epic battles and planets getting cracked for cosmic demon space-omelettes, doesn’t go very far towards explaining why your two-dozen men and a tank fighting over a a few hundred yard’s worth tabletop is happening at all.

Instead, the fiction is there to craft a world wherein, thematically, a chainsaw sword does not look out of place.

Didn’t GW have a Rogue Trooper skirmish-type RPG game? I recollect reading a mission for it in some mag back when I was a PFY. On that note, a (computer) game truly doing 2000AD justice would be a game I’d buy in a second.

On the whole “what is a derivate of what” issue; yes, most things are based on the work of others, what seem to matter is the angle of attack. I’d say both 40K and StarCraft does a pretty decent job of it (and Nemesis does it so good you don’t even mind it). Granted, I haven’t read a 40K rule-book in about 10 years and their writing was on a slippery slope already back then. But the orcs of 40K used to be a pretty humourous bunch, and the writing in the first couple of books were quite funny from time to time.

KG

One could argue that the whole Wh40k shtick of sticking quotations everywhere in the gaming materials is descended from the similar pithy sayings in Nemesis the Warlock.

But the single, most important reference in a far bigger way than something like Dune is Nemesis The Warlock and the associated mythos in 2000 AD – the Termight Empire, Torquemada, etc.

I strongly recommend The Complete Nemesis The Warlock to anyone who wishes to investigate.

KG

(Sorry, had to)

And Space Hulk: hell yes please with sugar on top.

Oh, and come to think of it, a DoW: Horus Heresy would be quite nice too, the old school way, before they added all the spikey bits on the chaos marines that is. Damn, I’m getting old.

@Cap Gen: StarCraft doesn’t need any backstory as everything is a blatant rip-off of 40K anyway ;-)