Overview

Demon Ship, designed by Malev Da Shinobi and available from Black Site Studios, is a great microgame where you control the Survivor after something has gone terribly wrong and the [space]ship is now infested with demonic creatures. The premise is very on brand for the Warhammer 40,000 setting. In fact, it is virtually identical to the premise of the Rogue Trader expansion for the 2018 edition of Kill Team. While the official products available from BSS are great (the magnetized kit is awesome), the game itself allows players to use any 6x6 board. In addition to that magnetized kit, I've created a Lego version of the game as well as a magnetized meeple version. Those are nice and all, but I intend to create a WH40K version, too. Many other hobbyists have used WH40K stuff (Zone Mortalis boards, minis, etc.) to WH40Kify Demon Ship and I want to jump on that bandwagon. While I'll cover my personal efforts in this endeavor in a separate blog in this club, I'd love to see other hobbyists' Demon Ship WH40Kification efforts in this blog, too. The necessary elements that I see are: A suitable 6x6 board (note that I didn't give increments, I'll address this later) Miniatures (1x survivor, 2x blade demons, 1x gun demon, 1x frog demon, to be expanded as Malev Da Shinobi expands the game) Terrain (2x 1x3 walls, 1x 1x2 wall, 1x 1x1 wall, 2x chests, 2x barrels, 1x console, 1x platform, 2x doors) The game is played on a 6x6 grid. The default is 1" squares, but this can be scaled up or down based on the miniatures. My meeple set, for example, uses smaller squares. With WH40K miniatures, most likely on 32mm bases, I'll need the squares to be 32mm or larger on each side. I may use the Zone Mortalis boards, or I may craft my own bespoke board. If I do the latter, I'll be able to magnetize things, though that will be optional. The miniatures are where I see a lot of room for variability. The "Demon Ship" name automatically lends towards using daemons. It occurred to me, however, that Necrons might be a good fit. Figuring out who the baddies are will help me figure out who/what the Survivor is. If I go with daemons, I'm leaning towards a Grey Knight. If I go with Necrons, I'm leaning towards a member of the Deathwatch. There are lots of other options, however, including a Sister of Silence, an Inquisitor, an Assassin, etc. And I don't need the Survivor to be from the Imperium. What if the Survivor were a Harlequin? Or a Necromunda ganger? Or a voidsman-at-arms? There is a lot of room for interpretation and I'll go into more detail on that when I create my own blog. I'd love to see how other hobbyists decide to WH40Kify this game, however. The terrain, too, allows for a lot of freedom and will depend largely upon the theme/premise. For example, if one uses the premise of an Imperial ship whose Geller fields have failed, the terrain might resemble corrupted Imperial STC architecture. Someone using the premise of a Deathwatch operative inside a Necron tomb world/ship, meanwhile, might lean on architecture appropriate to the Necrons (the Tomb World killzone might provide fodder). Someone else might want to represent their demon ship as Adeptus Astartes warriors clearing an Ork rok during the Third War for Armageddon, with suitably asteroidish features. And at least four other ideas have occurred to me as I've been composing this. Overall, it will be interesting to see how different hobbyists decide to re-theme this gem of a game to fit the WH40K aesthetic.

This club has been created to provide members of the community with a place to discuss reskinning non-WH40K games to the themes and aesthetics of the Warhammer 40,000 setting based on our community rules. This includes things like creating a WH40K-themed chess set, creating a WH40K version of Candyland (I'm not sure why you would do that, but more power to you if that's a project you want to undertake ), etc. What do we mean by "reskinning" here? There isn't necessarily a hard and fast answer to that question. For the most part, we are talking about taking the theme of the game in terms of its visuals and the setting/participants, and changing them from something non-WH40Kish into something WH40Kish. For example, someone might want to reskin the Root game to change the woodland creatures and setting into something representative of the WH40K universe. This would involve replacing all of the visual elements (meeples, cards, maps, etc.) with imagery more suited to the grimdark future, perhaps with a few tweaks to the rules. Official examples of reskinning include Monopoly: Warhammer 40,000 and Risk: Warhammer 40,000. What we're not talking about is using Warhammer 40,000 miniatures with [mini-agnostic] tabletop miniature wargames. For example, simply using the Infinity rules with WH40K miniatures isn't really a "reskinning" (though you're not using the thematic elements of the Infinity setting). There is a little wiggle-room here, however. For example, someone might get up the gumption to create Infinity style rules to represent one or more WH40K factions. This kind of thing might be acceptable if it is done to apply the rules of the other game without the setting (i.e., you're not adapting the WH40K faction(s) into the Infinity setting - you're simply using the Infinity rules and representing WH40K factions based on those rules while retaining the WH40K setting). There may be other areas for wiggle room, so if you have an idea and aren't sure whether or not it will be acceptable, feel free to contact the staff beforehand. The club menu shows various site features that have been enabled to support these efforts, including: Topics Blogs Images Files You can see how these features can be used in conjunction with each other in this blog entry, and tutorials about each feature can be found here. As a general rule, any project conducted in the Topics feature is a group effort whereas any project conducted in the Blogs is an individual effort. In both cases, other members are free (and welcome) to provide feedback and input, but the owner of a blog has sole decision-making authority whereas a project conducted as a discussion topic may have a more democratic process (though there will need to be some final arbitration method). The Images and Files features support both of the other features, allowing members to submit images, create galleries for images, and submit files to support all game reskinning efforts. As a general rule, we will maintain a single discussion topic for any one game. For example, all efforts to reskin Demon Ship will be covered within a discussion topic dedicated to that game, while all efforts to reskin Settlers of Catan will be covered within a discussion topic dedicated to that game. Members are free to create their own blogs to cover their personal takes on reskinning games. So while there may be a single discussion topic for the Demon Ship game, member X may create a blog to present their own take on such a reskinning while member Y may also create their own blog for their efforts relating to the same game. In such cases, members are free to post links to their blogs/blog entries in the discussion topics for the games they reskin. When needed, we will create an index of games linking to the various topics/blogs covering those games. This index will list games in alphabetical order with links to the discussion topic and related blog(s) for each game. This will facilitate finding content (instead of having to search through, hopefully, pages and pages of discussions/blogs/blog entries). When you create a discussion topic for a game, we recommend that you include a link to the Board Game Geek (BGG) page for that game (if one exists) and a link to the official website for the game (if one exists). Similarly, if you create a blog for a game, please include a link to the discussion topic for that game here in this club (if one exists) and a link to the BGG page and/or official website for the game (if either exists). These links will help other members to see the official content that exists for the game, which will be especially helpful in cases where members aren't already familiar with the game. IMPORTANT!!! The only content that may be submitted is that which is part of the reskinning process. While familiarity with a game's original rules and components may be conducive to the reskinning process, such content is generally not allowed here. In cases where members need to refer to such content, we recommend that you refer to the BGG website or the official website for the game (when it doesn't have an entry at the Board Game Geek). Most games have entries at the BGG, and each game's page usually includes images, files, links to publisher websites, etc. Additionally, intellectual property ownership will be enforced. This means that a game's rules and other content may not be posted here. It is fine to submit files that include any changes you make to a game's rules in the reskinning process, but no one should be able to use content submitted to the B&C as a way to play an official game "for free." In many cases, a games rules, or a description of them, is available at the BGG or at the publisher's website, so members participating in the reskinning process will often be able to refer to the rules without violating intellectual property ownership. Note that these rules will be modified as needed. Notes: The club's banner image is based on this image submitted by member Marek Raczyński at the BGG and is used by permission. The club's "profile" image is a blue meeple with a boltgun - it's an Ultrameeple. Yes, I created it and take full responsibility for the cringeworthy name.