u/Substantial_Owl_7392

Hey, I've been trying to expand my range of wargames to match my shifting hobbying tastes, but I'm having difficulty finding options that meet my kind of weird requirements. You see, my main opponent is my dad, who is not getting any younger and has much less brain space to learn different rulesets than me. While we greatly enjoy both kill team and 40k, it usually comes with ignoring about half of the rules and playing on much smaller boards than intended. Generally, we play and enjoyed turnip28 and warcry as well. I'd like some more options, especially for low-ish fantasy settings. Anyways, I'm looking for anything has the following vague characteristics:

- Easy to pick up/learn over a couple sessions. We usually don't play more than a couple times a month, so simplicity is good. That said, we've tried much more simple things like OPR and found them pretty dull. At the very least, give us room to cut stuff we find boring out.

- Not a ton of weird "meta" gameplay. I don't want to worry about stuff like command points or action dice or other things like that. If it does exist, I'd prefer that it be as intuitive/fluffy as possible. For example, 40k fans may know about the tau spotting mechanic, where one unit can guide another. That's intuitive, fun, and makes sense to both of us. Spending one GoodBoy Point to give my guns extra range makes no sense, and he will forget about them completely.

- At least one faction with rule-light units. He likes to stick to one faction, usually on the tanky side, that lets him worry more about the actual tactics and maneuvers than special rules. He's a military history nerd so that kind of stuff makes sense to him, but not stuff like "these guys can reroll one dice when the mercury is in retrograde"

- Cool weirdo factions! This is an absolute must. I am an avid kitbasher and like to have loads of weird mini-projects running around at once.

- No nazis. I hate to say it, because we are both very interested in WW2, but I really just don't want to collect them. It's not a judgement of people who do, it's just not really my thing.

- Mini agnostic is not a requirement! I know this is a rare one, but as far as I'm concerned, everything is miniature agnostic.

- Any size is good. We tend to enjoy having 30-40 28mm minis per side, but we also play loads of skirmish, and I'd love to break into epic scale tank battles or warships or something.

- Generally, I prefer it when the unit's weapons are all on the card or are aggregated into one statline. Not a requirement but it is an ask.

- No campaigns, or at least no campaign focus. A game that "comes to life in a campaign" requires too much effort, book keeping, weird meta mechanics, and scheduling for us. Mordheim, Necromunda, Trench Crusade, etc are all just not our thing.

Anyways, if you read this far, thank you! Literally any suggestions are helpful. Except for OPR. Don't like OPR. No offense.

i accidentally enjoyed an alex g song. i will be turning in my niche license along with a written apology this afternoon.

Maybe this is me just being a linguistics nerd, but I always found the names of space marine units to be pretty funny. Many of them are named the "something-or", which sometimes leads to a pretty clear meaning, and sometimes very much doesn't. The most critical example of this is an "intercessor", who... intercesses?

I already made a post about the names of some esoteric chapters, so I figured I might as well check out what the actual units are named after as well! These are also the units in the 10th edition codex, by the way, since I don't have easy access to every unit ever. However it will include legends and divergent chapters as well. Also, I'm going in the order the wahapedia puts them in, if you're interested in following. Without further ado:

Heroes first:

- Judiciar: An "ar" instead of an "or", but whatever. As far as I can tell, it's made up, but it's quite similar to "judiciary", which is someone who judges.

- The Sanguinor: Not a word, obviously. "Sanguine" means blood and is also the name of the primarch. This is pretty obvious, I think.

- Execrator: Someone who execrates, which means to completely and utterly hate and denounce. Very fun word that clearly someone did actual research into, because it fits the execrator to a T.

No I'm not gonna do Pedro KantOR. Screw you.

Battleline/dedicated transports:

- Intercessor: Oh boy. I'm not gonna lie, this one makes me irrationally angry. It's the -or form of intercede, which is when you try to mediate a conflict or act on someone else's behalf. The image this gives is that the space marine intercessor is acting to try and stop an existing situation for the sake of protecting someone, which to me makes them feel much more passive than they should be. This name would fit great for bodyguards, or maybe assassins, but not the core battleline infantry. This goes double when you staple on arbitrary adjectives. How does one intercede in a heavy manner? How is it that stabbing someone with a chainsword is assault interceding, but shooting someone is just normal interceding? Why is it considered such a minor act to wear a jet pack that that's just called assault interceding with a jetpack? Gah. I could go on for hours about why I don't like this.

- Impulsor: Not a word. The closest is "impulsive", which is not what an impulsor is supposed to be. Arguably, it gives an image of a rapid assault, which I guess is fair. Anyhow.

"Other", aka the fun part:

- Aggressor: The person who attacks first or the invading country. Could fit any number of units, but it does arguably fit these guys quite well.

- Devastator squad: Someone who devastates. Reasonable naming choice.

- Eliminator: Someone who eliminates, or remove/get rid of. Clean, clinical, perfect. No notes, except that this is also apparently the name for something that "operates from a power line to supply current and voltage to a circuit designed to be operated by a battery", (Dictionary.com). Kinda funny.

- Eradicator: Someone who eradicates, or... removes/gets rid of. Just slightly more completely than an eliminator. Except that these guys are also kind of single-target destroyers, so it's not great.

- Inceptor: Incept means... to digest? Or take in? I have no idea what they were thinking of here, to be honestly. Apparently in British English it used to mean to accept a degree at a university? It's weird because this does mean something, just not something I think they're supposed to be doing.

- Incursor: Not a word, BUT incursion is. That means to a hostile, sudden raid, which is quite fun and makes sense. Maybe they should be swapped with Inceptor, though? Since incursors "take in" information? Too much of a stretch?

- Infiltrator: Come on. It's someone who infiltrates.

- Invictor Tactical Warsuit: Not a word. Not just "-or where it shouldn't be", like actually just flat out not a word that means anything. "Invictus" means "unconquered" in Latin, though?

- Redemptor Dreadnought: Not a word, but presumably means someone who redeems or is redeemed. If they're there to redeem, I'm gonna guess the image is that they're "redeeming" heretics from the sin of being alive. If they're there to be redeemed, then they've failed the emperor by dying, I guess? Not really sure, someone better educated on primaris lore can tell me.

- Reiver: Not an "or" word, but I love these guys so I was curious. This means to rob/plunder, and is mostly scottish in nature. Variant of "reaver", which everyone here should know.

- Repulsor: Not a word, but "repulser" is. Unfortunately it looks a lot less cool. Means to repel, which yep, these certainly do.

- Suppressor: Someone who suppresses, which means a lot of things but in this case means provides pinning/covering fire. Yeah, I kinda can't think of a better name, lol.

- Terminator: Someone who... removes/gets rid of. Kind of a terrible name if you think about it, given these guys are really supposed to TAKE hits rather than deliver them, but they're old so I can't be mad at them.

- Vindicator: Someone who vindicates, or who justifies/defends/clears the name of. Honestly, I kind of think "vindictive" would have worked better, which means "punishes/is spiteful towards". GW's use of the two and their poor decision-making surrounding it could be a whole separate post, though.

Anyways, most of the rest are either very self-explanatory (gladiator, predator, etc) or just not that interesting (land raider, storm speeder). However, as a quick bonus, Horus Heresy:

- Mortificator: While I do get what they were going for here, it's actually closest to "mortify", which means... to embarrass. lol. Probably supposed to be more like "mortician"

- Vigilator: Again, probably connected to "vigil", but... actually pretty close to "invigilator" which is a british word meaning someone who watches over a school/museum. Could be a cool name for something.

- Condemptor Dreadnought: Not a word, but probably connected to "condemn" plus "contempt". Honestly, it kinda bugs me they went out of their way to make it so "Execrator" was used, but they can't figure out stuff like this.

- Arquitor: Not a word, probably connected to "arquebus" which is an early medieval firearm.

- Sicarian Venator: Not a word. Connected to "venatio" and "venatic", both of which are connected to hunting. Pretty cool!

Anyways, that's the list. If you made it this far, please feel free to call me a nerd for typing all this out.

I've been taking some inspiration from analog horror for a recent project of mine that involves quite a lot of monsters. While I know about Dr Nowhere, Flesh Pit National Park, Obelisk, and the Walten Files, I'm curious what other series have monsters with interesting designs and unique behaviors. Many of the other ones I watched have focused on purely abstract horrors or the monster is fairly bland.

(also, for the mods, sorry about the now-deleted post, hopefully these edits make it more in line with the sub).

I've been working on something analog-horror adjacent that requires me to design a lot of different monsters. While I've watched some of the classics (Dr Nowhere, Walten Files, Obelisk, etc), I'd like to know what's out there in terms of creepy and distinct creatures. I figured you guys would probably know the best.