Introducing Warhiver 40,000!

Hey kids! Love Warhammer 40k, but wanna play a game that's actually--y'know--fun???

;)

Well, I might have just the thing for you! Introducing Warhiver 40,000...

Warhiver is an oldhammer-themed reskin of the popular board-less boardgame, Hive, by John Yianni. And if you're not familiar with Hive, it's an extremely popular area-control strategy game very much like chess, but the games are quicker and more tactical. It's tense, and your immediate reactions to your opponent's moves can be just as pivotal as your overall strategy. I suck at this game.

But it's damn fun!

One of the things that makes Hive so great is that it requires no board. The physical game consists *only* of the game tiles. Players just need a relatively flat surface to play on.

Then what's so special about "Warhiver"? Well, the original Hive game is themed very loosely around various species of...bugs. Most of which do not form hives. I mean, the "queen bee" piece is represented by a male worker bee. :P But whatever. It's fine. The bug icon on the tile is there just to tell you how that tile is supposed to behave in the game. The icon can be anything. Anything...at...all...

Just as classic chess has six different types of pieces, Hive (along with its official expansions) features eight different types of pieces that move and operate in a unique manner. It just so happens that these unit profiles line up rather nicely with a certain other tabletop game!

So as you can probably tell by now, I simply took those eight types of Hive pieces, ditched the arthropod crap, and slapped oldhammer Space Marine unit types on 'em (because, as we all know, oldhammer is besthammer!). There are no changes whatsoever to the ruleset. I'm just adding a much stronger, more flavorful theme...at least for those into 40k!

In Warhiver, players take on the role of rival Space Marine commanders. The "HQ" piece, represented by the Astartes icon, is the equivalent of Hive's queen bee or the king in chess. Terminator squads are slow and lumbering, but they can easily dominate adjacent units. Rhinos are fast, but not very versatile. Land Speeders can jump great distances over other units on the field. Librarians can teleport adjacent units (swap their positions). It goes on!

The tiles are 3D-printed in two chapter-themed ABS plastic colors, and of course are acetone-vapor treated to give them a glossy, rippled finish. And I'm especially proud of the instruction sheet (1, 2)! The grimderp is dialed up to 11, and everything is written in a very classic GW-codex kind of way. Lots of goofy Space Marine one-liners worked into the text. Check it--I even nailed the font ;)

Each Warhiver set will come with two Space Marine armies (14 tiles each, for a total of 28) and the folded instruction sheet inside a handsome drawstring bag. Perfect for travel!

As you can see from these images, I currently only have Ultramarines, Dark Angels, Imperial Fists, and Blood Angels. I was hoping to have Space Wolves and Salamanders in time for Zolocon 2025, but the plastic didn't arrive in time. Anyway, I'll have about a dozen sets of the game for Zolocon, but I'll likely offer them online on a made-to-order basis in the future (that'll allow folks to select what colors they want for full-customization).

There are about a zillion custom Hive sets available to download for free on sites like thingiverse and cults3d, so while I'll probably continue producing physical sets for folks who don't have printers, I'd like to post my 3D files (and instructions) on one of these sites eventually.

Okay, that's it for now, folks. Be in touch...and I hope to see YOU at Zolocon!