Warhammer 40k: Retrospective

For the first time in a long time, I suffered the greatest of all creative issues: burnout.  When you fin that you just can't bring yourself to work because you either over-committed yourself, or if you're over-stressed, then you might burnout, and I had a pretty bad one.  It definitely affected my output for this semester, but finding a solution to a little while.
The first step, as cliche as it sounds, is to admit there's an issue.  If you don't, then the problem goes unsolved forever.  The second step, in my experience, is to find another small project to work on, just to give your mind a creative break.  I found that painting for a little while actually worked as a mental vacation.  Below is one of the paintings I did this semester.

Warhammer 40k: Polish

Part of what makes a finished project, is polishing it up at the end.  However, because Warhammer relies so heavily on perfect mechanics, we have to playtest and re-balance constantly.  Over the course of the semester, I really designed some of the most broken, over powered levels, but with the help of playtesting, I was able to polish them to a finished state.

Warhammer 40k: Tactical Objectives

Part of our finished product was the production of Tactical Objectives.  These cards are special situations in which you can earn extra points.  Since the Fungal Orks are primarily based on infecting others, much of their Tactical Objectives are as well.  We also printed them and cut them out ourselves in order to have a better overall project.

Warhammer 40k: The Death Mire

 

Perhaps the most infamous level I've ever designed, the Death Mire is probably the one we playtested the most.  I heard about certain planets in the Warhammer universe called Death Worlds, which are deadly, that it's impossible for normal people to live on it.  Only Space Marines are able to even set foot on this world.
Thinking that this might have a good RGN factor to it, I created a scenario on the death world Sauria, which is filled with dinosaurs.  And based on this, the players have a great chance of stepping in a deadly situation.  But it was too deadly, so it was rebalanced and rebalanced to get it just right.

Warhammer 40k: Burning Metal

It's my personal belief that Warhammer 40k Orks are more like the villains in a Mad Max movie than any other orcs in fiction.  Their penchant for soldering on random bits of metal and their love of violence is reminiscent of Immorten Joe.

 

So with them being very Mad Max, I wanted to have a scenario that would reflect that.  Eponymously named Burning Metal, it's high octane violence in the desert.
I did make a new rule called Sandstorm!, where a sandstorm is rolling.  Originally, the sandstorm would just roll in unexpectedly, but after some feedback it was changed to a gradually increasing effect, where the results would increase in damage over time.

Warhammer 40k: Secrets of Aurelia and Ambush

After iterating on the Snowed In story line, I came up with the idea of G'mork seeking an human STC.  For those unaware of deep Warhammer 40k lore, an STC is object created during the golden age of humanity to act as a mobile library of all of humanity's knowledge.  It was used for early space colonies who would travel for centuries in space, then land on a distant world and use the ship and STC to build a new settlement.

In this scenario, G'mork is trying to rebuild this STC because they are considered to most invaluable thing in the galaxy.  Access to all of humanity's secrets would give anyone a massive advantage.

Warhammer 40k: Snowed In

The first few level designs I did were based upon interesting worlds and interesting climate conditions.  The Warhammer universe is full of dangerous planets that are difficult to survive on.  You would definitely need a super human race to conquer planets filled with demons and dinosaurs.  One such planet is Aurelia, which was once the home of a human hive city, long since abandoned, and frozen over.

G'mork journey's to Aurelia to loot the abandoned hive city for any ancient human tech.  However, after running into the Imperial Guard, they accidentally set off an avalanche.
A definite through-line of all my levels are environmental disasters, because having the opportunity to take out a lot of models from a freak avalanche is pretty fun for Ork players.