Sylass  10/04/2007 - 18:39   

The Chapter Standard

Intro

The success of FIREBASE has shown the 40k forum community that it's possible for a group of dedicated posters to put together an e-zine. But equally, with FIREBASE's demise, there's a vaccuum that many people are rushing to fill. The Chapter Standard has assembled a strong and dynamic team from across the 40k community to create an e-zine in which we can do a number of things.

Firstly - We hope to provide help and advice for people creating a DIY Chapter, whether loyalist and traitor. The 40k universe is full of pitfalls and minefields for the uninitiated, and we hope to try to offer some advice.

Also, we plan to highlight and explore the issues around some of the most controversial topics within the DIY community. The Lost Legions? Female Marines? We're looking to combat both at a later date, with objectivity, tact and intelligence. We hope to spark good-natured, constructive and useful debate and drive a core focus towards the rich and vibrant background that seperates and defines the 40k universe from other games.

We also plan to examine the background of completed DIY Chapters, just like the Index Astartes articles from Games Workshop. But we intend to go one step further with our featured Chapters, displaying galleries of their models and interviewing their creators in an attempt to look at some of the issues behind their creation; again, to inform and inspire the reader.

We hope to raise the standard for the 40k Web-zine, to show GW what we can do. We've got a dedicated art department that's working on creating a slick, professional and razor-sharp look that ought to rival (if not excel!) everything currently on the 40k forum scene. We've got an extensive, vital writing staff incredibly passionate about their chosen subjects. We hope to solicit work from the community for later issues, to really make this a community project in the truest of senses.

We hope to build up a strong rapport with the reader (that's you!), in order that we may specifically tailor the 'zine to your demands. You'll be invited to comment or contribute, and we'll endeavour to utilise everything we receive. With only a month to conceive, design and create our 'zine, we're treating it very much as an experiment to see how you guys respond. We've set up an email address specifically for people to contact us, and further details will be given soon.

We hope you enjoy the 'zine, released April 2007!

Download

• The Chapter Standard Issue #1 [5,8 MB; pdf]

scarletsquig  10/04/2007 - 19:29   
tl; dr

Looked very nice, though, particularly liked the sketched artwork and the overall layout was fine, especially liked the inverted black text boxes breaking up the main articles a bit. Painting article looked good as well.

It's clear you've aimed for quality and I think you've done a good job of acheiving it

I have to ask what your target audience is, though. At it's heart, this is basically a fan fiction fanzine and I'm just curious as to whether you always plan on writing for the specific niche of "obscure SM chapter background junkies", or whether you plan on expanding into other areas of 40k background.

colrouphobic  10/04/2007 - 22:13   
The goal of he Chapter Standard is to look into any and all parts of DIY Chapters of the Adeptus Astartes. This means that it will look into both "obscure" chapters, as well as the more "standard" ones.
There are a couple of articles planned for next issue that will take up more Codex chapters and the possibilities with those as well.

And on behalf of myself and Captain Tiberius, who both stood for above "sketched artwork" Thank you

Daniel36  10/04/2007 - 23:35   
Hey guys,

I went through the magazine for a little while (as a break from my homework), and I must say I am impressed. The layout is marvellous, very clear, and very nice on the eyes, and as stated above, the sketches are wonderful.

However, I felt it was a little too high on written text, with not enough pictures. I know this is only Issue 1, and Issue 2 is probably going to contain a lot more pictures, but I just wanted to point that out. (I do love the pictures! )

Anyways, apart from that, it looks really nice, very clean layout, and I look forward to seeing more! (I love DIY Chapters!!)

One last question though. Is it (Chaos) Space Marines only or are Imperial Guard and others included as well?

Sigismund Himself  10/04/2007 - 23:41   
Next issue will contain more pics and artwork, the artists weren't given enough time to do specific sketches just their normal brilliant stuff Currently it is only for SM's because the writers we have only knowledge in that field. Enjoy!

Rogue 7  10/04/2007 - 23:50   
I personally loved it. The background articles were fantastic, and gave me a lot of insight into some remodling I'm going to have to do for my own DIY chapter. I'd love to see more like this, especially if you do more than simply space marines-Guard regiments in particular would be great to see.

salty  11/04/2007 - 01:10   
Very nice, very nice indeed! And you guys picked a great time to post it too as I have background (in IA style) to write for three chapters of Space Marines! Your article on writing Index Astartes style background has given me some useful pointers on where I need to expand.

The artwork was of a very high standard in there too, which was cool. Good to see you got Aerion on the Faithful as part of the team... his art is fantastic!

All in all, good work I guess! I personally can't wait to see the next installment!

Salty

Eniac  11/04/2007 - 09:07   
Far far far far far far too much text and not enough photos, the few photographs there was were awful and marred my impression of the whole 'zine. Why were they that bad when the sketched art (again, the few pieces there was) was so excellent?

Malchek  11/04/2007 - 16:38   
I'm afraid I'm very disappointed, I thought this was going to be a successor to Firebase but its a mag about marines.....

An Eniac said far too much text in huge blocks which should be broken up to ease reading.

Its a shame you're not trying to cover the same expanse as Firebase, I'm finding it hard to comprehend why you're doing this...??? You're just alienating a whole lot of potential readers.....

The art work was the best bit of the whole thing....

Anyway all power to you for having a go but I wont be reading again!

I didn't think Firebase was great but in comparison with TCS it is!?

Sorry

Malchek

AMBS  11/04/2007 - 17:00   
FIREBASE gave us so much stuff from so many angles. It'll be a long time before someone takes its crown.

asmodai_dark86  11/04/2007 - 20:37   
I didnt mind all the text - its a good read actually and it looks nice. Better to have too much text then not enough to be worth a read.

However, unless I was making a DIY marine chapter I wouldnt have bothered... And to be fair, marines are popular enough to warrent a mag but you'll get much more support and articles if you made it a general 40k mag.

Then again I'm repeating what most have said - looks the buisness, talks the buisness, but I'd rather be suprised at the contents week by week.

Plus, what was the questionaire thing at the end.... Very... odd.