Role Playing a Bug

It was a gloomy, frigid autumn day in Pittsburgh when The Traveler arrived.  He bore the strange fabrics of foreign lands on his frame, and sinister malice in his heart.  So it was, as the two-tone Chevy Lumina pulled in behind the other chariots, that Norm knew his fate was sealed.  For in the grim darkness of last Saturday, there is only...

[Fake Editor's note: Stop that.  We don't have pictures for the battle report yet.]

Oh.  Well damn.  I was all set to regale you all with the story of my most recent battle against none other than this blog's other esteemed writer, Frank.  I'm all role-played up, though.  You know the feeling.  When you decide that being a regular guy with a regular job is dumb, and you're just drunk enough to pretend to be an Ork for a few hours.  Even if you don't 'for-real' role play, you've probably gotten caught up in a really good game at some point.  Maybe you made your commander leap theatrically from his Land Raider, or used his obnoxiously large sword to topple enemy models.

[Editor's note: Please respect your opponents and his or her models at all times.]


Yep, you have.  You gave your guys names, or at least silly ad hoc names like Plasma O'Slaughterham, and played the game with a bit more fervor than is socially acceptable.  If you haven't, I sincerely suggest that you try it, because it's a blast.

That's all well and good for the two-legs-and-a-face crowd, but what about Tyranids?  What about Necrons?  One of the reasons I never played Tyranids, and eventually drifted away from my beloved 'Crons was that I could never justify naming them, or attributing heroic feats to my favorite models. Even Marines fall prey to role-playing difficulties, because everything in the fluff suggests that being a Marine is actually very, very boring.

It seems like I'd deliver an action movie line here, but that wouldn't glorify the Emperor.

Boring, that is, if you give too many craps about 'real' fluff.  I, personally, give one half of one crap, which I think is ideal.  A half-crap is just enough to enjoy fluff when it's good, and to ignore it completely when it suits me.  Which brings me to the kernel of goodness in this post: my next project.  My next project, which is Vampire Tyranids.

Vampire Tyranids, you exclaim disgustedly? Yes, that's right, and it's only twice as stupid as you think it is.  As fluff enthusiasts never, ever let us forget, the 'Old World' on which WHFB takes place is not actually in the past, it's just one severely underdeveloped planet in the 41st millennium.  It's a pretty cool concept, really, and it makes sense that nobody would have time to build a rocket ship if they're constantly chucking rocks at each other.  Except, vampires.  They live forever, dig?  So it's not like the potential scientists and researchers of the vampire world are being stifled by dying from dysentery or anything.  They, in fact, have an eternity to figure out how to escape the Old World and spread their reach across the galaxy.  If anybody's building a rocket, it's vampires.

Now, this is a bit of a stretch, but vampires are also known for subjugating lesser life forms.  In my Warped Little Roleplay Brain™, I'm thinking that means Tyranids.  They're the only playable race in 40k that doesn't really demonstrate higher intelligence*.  So the WLRB™ decided that vampires -having developed space travel but not blaster rifles- would just commandeer some bugs like it's NBD.  This way, it's not a bug doing bug things, it's a kickass vampire doing vampire things; The bug is simply a tool he uses to chop up bad guys (good guys? Whooo, vampire morality!)

The goal is to have as many Carnifexs and other beasties as possible, then install chariot-style mounts to them with vampires on top.  I don't have a list yet. I'm not sure when I'll be able to pull this off cash-wise.  But since we have to wait for the JAR Grudge Match-tacular 2011™ photos, I figured I'd fill you all in on how an amateur blogger can ruin his credibility and wreck up a bunch of expensive models.  Wish me luck!

MS Paint aside, this seems reasonable. To me. WLRB!

*Yeah, Tyrants and other synapse creatures have some kind of brains, I guess.  I'm not sure yet how I'll square that away in my fluff.  Suggestions are more than welcome!