Now with the announcement of the 40K animations movie ULTRAMARINES ( ultramarinesthemovie.com/ ), hopefully FFG will be able to release the Deathwatch RPG at the same time, that would be a huge opportunity for FFG to get a new customer base.

And yes, hopefully that would speed up their plans for a Deathwatch RPG release

Well FFG certainly got a good (and well deserved IMHO) plug on the GW blog yesterday so I expect we'll see more "cross selling" across the product lines and media licences in teh months and years to come.

That will all very much depend on the Ultramarines movie being good! I'm hoping that they finally do it right with this film, and stop screwing around. As for GW plugging FFG stuff, I say it's about **** time. I hope that there is a huge FFG presence at Games Day this year... last year, there was none at all.

Personally, I was hoping that they put out the Dark Eldar codex, and FFG puts out a book solely on the Dark Eldar, for use with any 40KRPG game....but, that's just wishful thinking, I don't think either book will ever happen.

Ripper.McGuirl said:

Well Dan Abnett is writing the screenplay from what I have read. That's a good sign in my opinion.

I've read over 20 of his books and immensely enjoyed each one. That being said, films have a way of starting from a good place and mutating into a horrific mess by the time they're done.

Ripper.McGuirl said:

Well to be honest I was kind of sceptic towards the notion of a movie about Ultramarines. I mean, not only are they dull space marines, they are the dullest of the dull, goody two shoes ULTRA SMURFS!

In all honesty, I could imagine a plethora of different protagonists belonging to A LOT more interesting factions than the GW poster boys. But if you're gonna do a 40K movie and it has to be about space marines, I can also imagine a lot more interesting chapters than the highly standardized glory hogs that is the Ultramarines.

Personally, I would have like to see a movie sort of reminiscent of Saving Private Ryan or the HBO tv-series Band of Brothers, but about Gaunt's Ghosts instead of an Ultramarines movie.

That being said, im still somewhat optimistic, because in my opinion, Dan Abnett is one of the few authors who managed to make astartes characters interesting (based on the Horus Heresy books I've read which he wrote). The only other author I could think of would be Graham McNeil (Fulgrim - Visions of Treachery is one of the true high marks of the Horus Heresy series in my opinion) who could certainly pull it off.

So if one were to base his or her expectations on my personal judgement, I think it's saying something that despite that I find the SMurfs to be one of the most boring factions in the 40K universe, im still optimistic, mainly because of Dan Abnett.

My main misgiving regarding "Ultramarines" is that it may be little more than 'Brothers of the Snake' on film. My hope, of course, is that it'd be more akin to Horus Rising or Titanicus or Eisenhorn on film (i.e. good quality).

But enough of that. I'm confident in Dan, even if he's not always 100%.

With regards to Deathwatch, it'd be nice if they roped in Steve Parker to 'help out' with some of the story/background/lore stuff. His shortstory Headhunted in Heroes of the Space Marines illustrates his excellence as an author and, as a single story, it's almost exactly the sort of thing you'd kill to play an RP in! (Five astartes of varied origins and a Dreadnought, an anonymous Inquisitior watching from the sidelines, a hulk-load of orks and a very curious mission with a bloody potent archvillain *AND* massive in-Universe plot twists! What's not to like?)

In fact, I'll lay that right down: Get Steve Parker to figure out the background 'plots', story, detail and such for Deathwatch in Calixis/Expanse/NewNearbyPlace. Solid author and interesting stories. (I much prefer Parker's approach to Deathwatch than C.S. Goto's, though he did introduce some neat ideas which I'd not encountered before.)

Hell, having the Dark Eldar as the primary arch-antagonists in Death Watch could be a good synchronisation of ideas (if UM, DE and DW come about at 'roughly' the same time...)

Xisor said:

Don´t quote me on this, but somewhere on Mr. Parker´s blog I think I read something about new story about kill-team featured in Headhunted , I´m just not sure if it will be published in Legends of the Space Marines , or in Fear the Alien .

I agree that the Ultramarines are the most boring, one-dimensional Space Marines ever. The Blood Angels, Dark Angels or Space Wolves are way more interesting.

Also I resd Dan Abnett's Inquisitor trilogy, which was ok but not mind-blowing IMHO. Every story seemed to follow the same lines: investigations that lead to a massive raid on the [iNSERT HERETIC'S NAME] secret base of operations.

*chuckles* Ultra Smurfs. HA! Well, of course, the best Chapter is the Chapter that fought shoulder to shoulder with the Emperor himself. And I of course mean the Imperial Fists. <DUCkS!> Okay, okay. Sorry, I could resist the add in my own favorite chapter to the teasing and joking. Seriously though, I certainly hope this brings nothing but love for FFG. You guys are doing a great job. Keep up the great work.

from france

i am somewhat more skeptical. yes dan abnett is one of the best but i remenber the snake brother and i dind't apreciate it. the kill ratio against the dark eldar for example is dubious at best. maybe it is a execption because it was his firt try about marines. the firts book of the horus heresy was quite good i admitt but the excelent "legion" was a lot about gi also something he know better.

also i agree the spacemarines are the most boring chapter but my guess is that they are the easiest to selle to good parents. they are the kind of heroes they want their child to adopt rather than blood drinker space marines. maybe games workshop tries by sheer sturborness to make player adopte this chapter despite the fact that very few player want to play them. in my country theyr are not the most popular. players prefer to play succcessor chapter because at least they can customize their chapter.

so i do not expect much. maybe i will be surprise.

Xisor said:

I keep seeing people sling crap all over Brothers of the Snake, just what the hell is wrong with it? does it paint space marines in a space marine novel in too bright a light for you pessimistic bastards or what? is it because it's just a collection of Abnetts Inferno! Iron Snake stories squeezed into a novel?

Zamnil Blackaxe said:

Not at all, the plausibility of the thing is all over the place. I wonder that you could be right on the pessimistic bastards comment, the first story with the Dark Eldar is one of the worst things I'd encountered. A dog kills a dark eldar warrior. Not some feral dog, or a fierce monster, but an aged politician's dog. This in itself isn't terrible, it just seems...bleh.

There's the note of ten astartes defeating thousands of orks using pure phalanx tactics, nothing else. On a featureless plane.

There's very thorough complaints, but as I've not even finished Brothers of the Snake. It's a real slog to work through. If you look at many of the complaints about the latest Dr Who Christmas Special, you'll find similar things. Alot of stuff just happens for the hell of it, making little sense.

Of course, I understand the thematics behind it (this year's Star Trek got away with it very nicely), that we're looking at 'heroes' doing 'cool stuff''. But for me, it didn't read as fun, exciting or enthralling, it read as 'bleargh'. Abnett can do awesome stuff, but BotS wasn't up to scratch. I'm told many folks love it; how they do that, I've no idea. Possibly not thinking? I don't know.

I find Abnett works best when he deals with human protagonists, or at least as human as psykers really are. I see many writers try to tackle space marines and get caught up in the whole speesh mareeenz invincible concept and they lose any human interest or abilities. And sometimes that can be fun, like with Space Wolves and what no´t, but usually it is just boring.

Now I did enjoy several of the ultra marine novels, but they usually have a healthy dose of human supporting characters running about doing important stuff.

But if I was to make a 40K animated feature, I would definately start with Space Marines vs Orks (or Nids) as they are both two of the more popular armies. From there I would move on, maybe introduce some guard characters or a good inquisitor in the first feature and the second movie would be about him and his quest or whatever.

I think we can all see why they needed to have a Space Marine film. Even a film that had Space Marines in might put some people off (no one here of course) it was mainly about an Inquisitor or IG.

Of course they are missing a trick in that if it had been about an Inquisitor (for example) you could get the full impact of Space Marines by have them turn up unexpectedly in full force, pods, teleports and flyers would make a bigger impact. Of course that leaves you with a lot of screen time that doesn't have Space Marines in and that'd what they are worried about.

And yes I would liked a more interesting Chapter choice. I've got my favorites but it would have been nice to see the Crimson Fists keeping it real.

This is not the first attempt by GW to make an animated Space Marine themed movie, but the first one died in development. Let us all hope that Ultramarines fare better then the Blood Angels did, as I would love to see this. Do not dismiss the Ultramarines as boring out of hand. Yes, they historically have been the "generic marine" chapter, but with all the recent changes due to the Tyranid invasion the "smurfs" are no longer the generic cookie-cutter marines they have been for the last 10,000 years. I also have faith that Dan Abnett can come up with a decent story line. I am not expecting Inquisitor Shakespeare to wax poetic about the nature of existance in the 41st millenium. Give me a plot that makes sense, decent dialogue and voice acting, excessive heroic violence and avoids making massive re-writes of existing canon and I will be a happy viewer.

Yes, I would be even happier with Dark Angels, Imperial Fists, Black Templars or similar. Many of you likewise have favourites. Assuming that this movie actually makes it to the theatre (or more likely DVD) then the Ultramarines are actually a good choice as an "intro to the 40k universe". The target audience is obviously existing fans, but it is silly to think that there will be many "virgin eyes" watching. Superhuman Greeks in power armour is easier to explain to a casual viewer then the fine details of less "codex" chapters.

I say the main problem with Brothers of the Snake was that the Dark Eldar sucked. The characters were believable as people, the Iron Snakes had an interesting culture, and I even liked the odd homage to 300 . It's just that when a bunch of Chaos FARMERS kill more marines than highly advanced, very fast aliens who are supposedly intelligent enough to plan and implement a whole Ork invasion, something's wrong. I didn't even have a problem with the trained war dog taking out a single Dark Eldar warrior (let's face it, Eldar in general are pretty bloody fragile), just that the Marines suffered zero casualties in the climactic fight.

The Ultramarines are potentially the most boring chapter to do a movie about, because they literally do things by the Book. I have confidence in Abnett's ability to make sympathetic, watchable characters out of them, though.