A few weeks ago Kyle from Gear Gut's Mek Shop was visiting MiniWarGaming (again).
He had brought his enormous collection of Orc Bruisers (his line of unique orc variants) to play a huge 300,000 point apocalypse game against Dave's Chaos, just like they had done a couple of years ago.
Dave and Kyle's Game From 2 Years Ago
I was walking through the gaming hall where they were setting up hundreds (or maybe even thousands) of miniatures. I loved seeing all of Kyle's designs, from the smallest orc up to his huge walkers.
His style of Orc reminded me of the custom Orcs that we had made 8 years ago for our first Deffwatch campaign. Back then Lee, our in-house painter and kit-basher, had made all the Orcs from a variety of other models. 3D printing wasn't a thing, so kit-bashing was the only way to really make unique models.
Look at those young men! Matthew was showing off Lee's creations in this video series.
Seeing Kyle's minis brought me back to the super fun and zany Orc Deffwatch campaign I ran with Quirk and Steve shortly after. It was definitely not meant to be taken seriously, and Steve and Quirk definitely didn't!
The Deffwatch is the Orc's "parody" of the Space Marines Deathwatch. They'll never admit it, but they want to be more like Space Marines, and the Deffwatch are proof of that.
Not awkward at all...
And then the idea hit me. It seemed so obvious after the fact. I approached Kyle and asked if he would be interested in sculpting some custom Orc minis for our next Deffwatch campaign.
I asked him, and he immediately said "Sure!"
And then three days later he started sending me renders of the work he did.
Did I mention that Kyle can design and sculpt ridiculously quickly? It probably helps that he has personally sculpted hundreds of miniatures, many of which are Orcs.
The very first concept that Kyle sent me. This one is of the Deffwatch Sniper.
This has inspired me to make this narrative campaign (i.e. Deffwatch Season 2) different than any other narrative campaign I've made before.
How so?
Well, here are some of my ideas:
1. The missions will each be a sort of "mini-game" within the Warhammer 40k rules
The entire concept of the Deffwatch is to have two Kill Teams (one Team Gork, one Team Mork) face off against each other to prove who is better.
This time Steve and Josh will be in "kompetition" to see who is the better orc.
Each mission will have unique rules and unique encounters to keep it feeling fresh.
2. This will be a competitive / co-op campaign.
Our campaigns are usually either competitive (like Mordheim, Necromunda, etc), or co-op (like narrative-heavy story-driven ones that I make up).
This one will be both.
The two Kill Teams won't directly fight each other, but there will be plenty of opportunities to sabotage, and maybe "accidentally" detonate an explosive a little too near the other "friendly" Kill Team.
My goal is to get Steve and Josh to do everything possible to annoy and frustrate each other, but in the best way.
3. The story will involve all sorts of weird twists and turns.
I already have so many ideas, I wish I could share them here. But that would spoil it.
Let's just say I'll probably get others involved to antagonize both Steve and Josh.
4. (Hopefully) I will get more terrain and models made for this campaign.
This last one depends on the support we receive from this campaign. It already costs between $10,000 and $20,000 to make a narrative campaign.
I don't expect this campaign to cover all the costs, but the more it raises the more I can invest in this campaign to make it extra special.
This update has gotten rather long, so I'll finish it here.
I want to create something truly unique, and I need your help.
If you've already backed, thank you! If you haven't, please consider joining others to make this a reality.
