The BIGGEST ever 40K game? | Inquisitor
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 17 ส.ค. 2023
- Inquisitor was something special from Games Workshop: the only time they released a 54mm narrative wargame that owed as much to roleplaying and Rogue Trader as it did to the latest edition of Warhammer 40,000. A miniatures skirmish that was powered by roleplaying and storytelling.
Set in the 40k universe and introducing lore and concepts that had barely been explored to that point. The Imperium’s Inquisition was expanded and deepened, new characters and creatures like Arco-flagellants entered the universe, and Dan Abnett’s Inquisitor Gregor Eisenhorn first took to the page!
This is the history of a game that took a fresh look at the lore of 40k, created new narratives, and reshaped the whole universe!
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#40k #Warhammer40000 #Inquisitor #Warhammer #Oldhammer #Lore #GamesWorkshop #Roleplaying #storytelling #RPG #Eisenhorn
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Links & Sources:
[Gav Thorpe Blog] gavthorpe.co.uk/games/inquisi...
[Track of Words Dan Abnett Interview] www.trackofwords.com/2017/04/...
[Ex Profundis INQ28] www.exprofundis.com/what-is-i...
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Corrections:
I mistakenly say that the Fanatic magazine preceded the dedicated Inquisitor magazine Exterminatus, but this is incorrect. Exterminatus was published between 2001-2004, followed by the combined Fanatic magazine between 2004-2005.
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Art, Music, and Copyright:
Images used belong to their respective copyright owners
Jordan Sorcery Theme by Joylin Music
Jordan Sorcery Heraldry by Becka Moor
Jordan Sorcery Heraldry and Theme copyright @jordansorcery - เกม
I think the Inq28 movement was probably the best way Inquisitor could be preserved as a folk tradition after GW discontinued support. The 54mm scale certainly had its advantages...but 28mm is a lot easier to play with for most people. Easier to get minis and parts to convert them, easier to acquire terrain for, easier to store, and much cheaper. It was a good thing original Inquisitor used so few models per game: you were paying large monster prices for single infantry figures.
Hats off to GW for daring to experiment with some of these early 2000s games. This was one that didn't really appeal to me back then for whatever reason. But cool to know the history nonetheless 🙂
PS: With the current growth rate it probably won't be long before you'll be able to use the old Inquisitor Space Marine model for Warhammer 40K proper 😅
Artemis the Space Marine is probably already smaller than a Primaris lieutenant!
Scale creep is not creeping, these days...
i was working for GW during this time period, with a brilliant bloke named Matt. His ambition was to become a sculptor for GW, and he was continually practicing with Green Stuff. One of his practice pieces was a beaky helmet for brother Artemis, which i still own, but the piece that got him noticed was his inquisitor scale Daemonette, sculpted entirely from scratch. She appeared in one of the exterminatus magazines. Matt got his break, and is now a sculptor for GW, resposible for many kits ranging from the redesigned Broadside battlesuit, the Ork warbuggies, all the way up to Magnus the Red. An extremely talented and very humble, top-notch fella!
In a way Inquisitor went back to the roots of Rogue trader, wich also had a games master. And you can find a similar lack of balance in the warbands form realm of chaos, especially Slaves to darkness, where you start rolling a D1000 (not a typo!) and your champion gets Albino wich reduces his toughness while your opponent rolls Technollogy and ends up with a frikkin' lascannon! (yers, thats a lascannon in WHFB)
You’re absolutely right, there’s a lot of RT DNA in there. I love that D1000 mutation table! (might come in handy soon!)
such fun. Also rolling up your warband: "Cool, I got 5 orks and some chaos dwarfs! You? " "That's nice. I got an emperor dragon"
@@EntropicEcho Exactly!
It’s worth noting, that FFG 40k RPGs borrowed heavily from Inquisitor. First of their games was more or less Inquisitor, just with more RPG focus.
That’s a very interesting point! I’ve only played their Rogue Trader, but I never actually read any of the books!
Yeah Dark Heresy 1E was pretty much a mashup of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2E and Inquisitor.
I loved the depth that Gav & the guys went into for Inquisitor. It really did feel like RT2.0. Without Inquisitor, we wouldn't have had Eisenhorn and all the awesome worlds of the BL. We had real fun during the development, blasting away at each other, with the occasional backstab from "I'll be a traitor" Thorpe. And thanks for showing the conversions page; my guy's on there ;)
Inquisitor was an interesting premise, but the scale - especially for metal minis - was a big challenge. Somewhere I’ve got an unassembled Artemis mini because at the time I didn’t have the tools or skill to do it well.
Very off putting to get it right..
Converting & painting challenges, but also scenery making, & gaming at that scale. Unless you had a 12' playing area half the game mechanics were irrelevant!
The 40k lore in general owes so much to this game, and it does indeed feature the most 40k art of any GW game.
Yeah, I just played it with the 28mm miniatures and terrain I already had. And using a gamesmaster to have the players play against, like a battle heavy tactical story driven RPG. Probably why it "failed", because many people played without buying any of the miniatures, so they didn't see the sales. But I bought a lot of models just for this game. Same thing with Warhammer Quest. They should have kept that going, but I don't think they realized how many miniatures they were selling because of it.
I bought a bunch of special 28 mm models from forgeworld after finding the pdfs for inquisitor online several years after its run (GW apparently put them up for free a few years after its run, wish they continued to do this with all their old rulebooks and games, they'd probably move more plastic imo, and it doesn't cost them anything, they aren't selling the old rulebooks anymore) and played it as an rpg like DND with my friends. We built a bunch of special terrain for it, and while things kind of broke down towards the end due to us raising some weird rules questions that we had no answers for, it was still interesting to play. I get the impression Inquisitor somewhat pivoted towards this style of play (albeit at 54mm) based on the existence of the conspiracies books, but it seems clear the intent wasn't originally to be a DND style rpg system, more of a small scale combat system, which was responsible for the lack of enemy stat lines and experience points systems.
Omg I forgot all about this! I started 40k back in 2010, but could swear I remember seeing these Inquisitor miniatures on the site and being in awe of them. I probably would've loved Inquisitor, as I played Dark Heresy in the early 2010s.
Update: Recently found the Inquisitor at my local used book store. Didn't realize it was paperback! Sadly didn't have $40 for it though... Amazingly the store also had d20 Modern: Dark Matter!
At the time I considered the rules of inquisitor to be an evolution of the pre-Necromunda game “Confrontation”.
A lifelong Tau player? My brother, you've just earned another patron.
For the greater good!
I never knew this existed until today. Thanks for the informative video!
I started playing around the time the cities of death terrain came out. Those terrain kits actually sized up perfectly so I never had any issues.
It was such a great game though. We never played with named characters, preferring to make up our own. My Inquisitor had Lucretia Bravus' closed helm, covenants swords, and Eisenhorns body. This game was the most fun I've had playing any 40k content (bar Dark Heresy). Seeing this has made me dig through the old models. I might have to repaint a warband or two and have another game!
This book was the peak of 40k as far as I'm concerned
It’s a fantastically good book!
Great video. I love that creators like Gav see how fantastic you videos are and take the time to help give more historical context to what was happening at GW when their games were developed. Looking forward to next friday already 😊
I can't believe you're at 10,000 subscribers! I remember checking back once a day to see if you'd released the second Warhammer Quest yet, and now look at how many amazing videos you've done. Congratulations mate!
Thanks Shaun! It’s been a fun ride so far, and hopefully more to come. Appreciate you sticking with me!
He had them at "....hello."
Excellent video and interview with Gav! Inquisitor really got our creativity flowing, even though we just ended up sticking with our 28mm figs because of the terrain issue. I always felt the d100 base of the game and high level of combat detail owed a debt to WFRP and Runequest. Later when Black Industries put out Dark Heresy I remember thinking that it was just Inquisitor achieving its inevitable final form as an rpg.
I was long past collecting minis, but I came across a copy of 'Ravenor' at the library where I worked around 2006 or 7 and this got me back into the lore, so I guess Inquisitor was my gateway back into 40K.
I thought there were like 4-5 inquisitor 54mm scale figures but there’s loads and they’re so cool! But expensive on eBay…oh no
They also sold accessories for them! There was one Space Marine, but a load of options to change him up or any of other characters. Really a lot of conversion for the game.
I made a Sister of Battle with bits from like 4 of the Inquisitor models and some regular 40k. There were rules for Sisters and other characters that exactly the models they sold.
@@godconvoy yeah I found a site called like mini set that has a bunch/all(?) of them and they’re incredible
Loved the game when it came out and did play a game with gav at warhammer World with several others at an open day just before the book came out,shame I couldn't get enough friends to give it ago,collected about 60 figures for it but only got about 10 painted but your inspirational vid has made me look up the loft and find out the unbuilt and undercoated figures and maybe soon I'll get my 10 man imperial guard squad done to fight the mutants,need to expand on scenery as I only had one of the inquisitor buildings.....thank the gods for never selling any thing😊
An awesome concept and aesthetic. I loved reading the narrative battle reports in White Dwarf back in the day.
I think part of Inquisitor’s downfall for me, is the absence of between battle gaming. Omitting those social, investigative elements that would add context and investment for the battles themselves was a mistake IMhO.
Have you ever tried ‘Dark Heresy’ Jordan?
Very cool! Thanks for the video!
Not the best experience of role playing experience, but we bought into it after giving away Warhammer fantasy 5th Ed. I still have the models and books but we played 2x games and never painted the models. Our terrain was simple and what was left over from 40K.
Got that book back when it first came out. I didn't know it had impacted 40K lore so much. Currently getting into Imperium Maledictum (very exciting) and it's great to see how Inquisitor contributed to shaping that wolrd. Patreoned
I’m really glad I found this channel and these series of videos. I know you have more Warhammer Fantasy content, but I hope you start a history on the 40K side as well. Great video!
I’m glad too! 40k history is on the project list for sure!
awesome as always Jordan!
I’d love to try this one day, sadly it was another game that I missed while taking my ‘gaming break’ while at uni and just after.
Another brilliant video, hoping to hear more from your chat with Gav Thorpe as well.
Cheers Stu! Gav was incredible to talk to and had loads to say about a lot of different games. Looking forward to sharing more!
A few years ago, pre-sickness times of coof, I managed to find a NIB lot of almost the entire range of Inquisitor on Ebay. I had a White Dwarf that was new at the time, talking about Karnak? An alien bounty hunter for INQ54. Ah, good times.
Very good timing, as I found the Inquisitor book for $1 this week
Bargain!
@@jordansorcery gotta love the surplus store at my local university, never know what you'll find there. I got it largely just for the art and lore
27:28 - Oh, what a note of hope to end upon!
I still have my Inquisitor models. My archo flagelent and mutant are currently been Nurgle Spawn for my Death Guard but if anyone fancies a match I think I have the rule book
Thank you for these! Your channel really inspired me to finally start my own channel. Especially your Warhammer History series. I thought: "If this man can make something this complicated and brilliant...I can make something straight forward and stupid at least!"
Cool video! I never played Inquisitor, as I never liked the models and especially the scale, but I've played a good many games and campaigns using the Inquisimunda rules. Most notable achievement was shooting at the unkillable Inquisitor of my friend, with insane armour saves and ward saves,.. whereupon he indeed passed his save, but fell from a ledge and promptly broke his neck.
I got this book and the eisenhorn mini when I was a teenager. I was so excited about the concept! It's a shame it never took off.
Gav! 🤩
Thanks for an overview and deep dive of an anomalous game. After the first year of its release some friends and I dicuscussed ideas, but in part due to the lack of both miniatures and terrain we postponed playing. Eventually setting up proxy terrain and using other toys; like we did back in the 80s with a 10,000 point 40k that was half Star Wars toys.
I returned to the game later using 28mm. These days we don't even use miniatures, I have a play-by-mail game that is a fusion of Inquisitor and some other systems. 😀
Inquisitor Khrulclaw, Ashen Prophet of Ordo Ratius (Squeak-Squeak) 🐀🌠
I love how games can evolve and grow in the hands of different player groups and communities; it’s genuinely one of my favourite things about the hobby!
Minor point, Exterminatus preceded Fanatic magazine. Fanatic magazine was the death knell for the Specialist Games.
My mistake, I'll drop a correction in the description. Thanks!
I placed 3rd at the 2012 inquisitpr GT and I got my fan rules published online in Fanatic 94. I love Inquisitor!
Nice work! What characters were you using?
One of my favorite games, that I wish I could get the models for again.
Coming to this game from Necromunda, the things that ruined it for me were that it required a GM and that there was no attempt at competitive balancing.
The 54mm figs weren't *required* (you could play it with regular 40K figs), but if you wanted to use them they had two huge problems: first, they weren't "modular", thus necessitating power tools and copious amounts of Green Stuff for even minor conversions, and second that the Inquisitors were a distinctly different scale than the Henchmen, making "kitbashing" even harder.
I couldn't afford Warhammer Fantasy, Lord of the Rings, 40k as well as Inquisitor, so I never bought into it. I have regretted that decision ever since. Thank goodness for JoyToy. My local stockist is encouraging me to pursue Kill Team at that scale. I so want instead to do Inquisitor at 54mm.
Pretty sure that was the first Cybernastiff.
Yes ! You need to do that dog video ! I'm waiting !
My game group played at the L.A. Battle Bunker (back when those were a thing) and we had a VERY large Inquisitor base. I still have all the stuff and would love to get a group to play again. It's quicker than it looks like it should be and so dynamic. When the original 13th Black Crusade world wide campaign happened, we had several Inquisitor games that were worked into the Bunker's campaign. #GoodTimes
We were lucky because the bunker had several pre-built tables that worked really well with both 28 and 54mm minis. Especially a really cool Necromunda highway/city block. Also one of our members, Matt Staley, made some Inquisitor specific terrain that was featured in Fanatic magazine.
I’ve heard of people playing this but on the 28mm scale. If I could get a hold of the book, I might give it a go. This way I can use the Necromunda terrain that I already own.
It was a nice game I still have the minis. The eldar ranger was amazing. For the mastiff, I think in Necromunda 1st edition 2 miniature were available and 3 necrohound.
The best thing about inquistor is it truly showed what the difference between a regular human and an astartes was. The stateline shown in the book is before he put his power armour on. He could literally take a kraken grenade to the face and still carry on fighting. As is lore accurate. Worth 1000 regular Guardsmen.
I really like the Eisenhorn and Ravenor novels. In one of the novels there's a chase scene among an motorway on an Imperial world and then I realised that (at the time) we had no art or miniatures for civilian vehicles in 40k. Inquisitor definatly added a lot more grimdark to the grim darkness of 40k. Everything you've been told is a lie!
Inquisitor came out at a time when I'd completely stopped paying attention to anything that was going on in the Games Workshop and Warhammer worlds and I only found out about it many years later. I even own the Inquisitor art book and didn't realize at the time that I bought it that the art was from the game and not just extra incidental 40K art. It was only later when I really sat down and did more than just leaf through looking at pictures that I realized Inquisitor was it's own thing! 😆
This video was an education for me, I'd never heard of this game until now! It sounds like it might have been a fun one to play, too. In any event, another excellent video, sir, and I loved hearing from Gavin Thorpe.
So much great insight from Gav, I’m very grateful that he joined me to chat Inquisitor! Glad you enjoyed the video!
Inquisitor was released during my miniature gaming hiatus, but the White Dwarf announcing its release was the only one I bought between 1994 and my return to the hobby in 2018. I was intrigued by the idea of Inquisitor but at the time the cost of the models put me off.
After returning to the hobby a friend bought a copy of Inquisitor and I had a look at it. Personally I find that the position it occupies between a more traditional competitive wargames and roleplaying games to be a bit of an awkward one, and its very crunchy combat mechanics put me off a bit too. So for me it remains an intriguing idea but not one I've looked into with any depth. It feels like personally I'm glad that it existed and agree it has had a positive effect on the 40k universe as a whole, but it's probably not for me!
Also I find it curious that you managed to make an entire video about conflicts between inquisitors and the GW of decades past without once mentioning Jaq Draco and the Inqusition War trilogy of books in which he starred!
Fair point re the Watson novels, a mention certainly wouldn’t have gone amiss!
the scale really hurt it from my point of view since you couldnt use them in your armies or whatever terrain you had didnt fit so it was a big investment in time and money with no synergy to the other games. kind of a shame really. i was thinking about buying some of them for use as demon princes but never pulled the trigger before going out of production
The problem i saw was the shear size of scenery items needed...models were 90% lovely though
Dark Future!!! I loved that game!
I still have the rule books from the 2000s but sadly not the figs anymore, but me and my brother have been thinking about playing it with joytoy warhammer action figs
I still have an inquisitor mini of Lucius Devlan.
Exterminatus came first Fanatic Magazine came after they decided combine the separate magazines into one.
Ah, that's my mistake. Thanks for the heads up, I'll drop a correction in the description
I’ve got a suggestion for a future video. Can we get a one about every single dog in citadel history please? You can have that idea for free.
This is the kind of out of the box thinking we need more of round here!
Do Warmaster...never seen a vid on the history of this.
More than anything else I really feel theres room for a new Inquisitor far more that BFG or even the new epic
I imagine it would be really popular if released today, 3D printing and the modern conversion culture is perfect for it
@@jordansorcery And with RPG's now effectively mainstream and with a large part of that audience looking for a 'new hotness', artistic hobby being more commercial than ever, even from a business standpoint it makes a lot of sense for GW
Gav's voice is deepervthat I expected...
I remember playing this with normal scale 40K figures. Mostly IIRC the figures that went with the Timewarp expansion for Talisman.
That how inq28 began. Me and my friend was playing Necromunda with Inquisitor rules using 28.m models. It was super cool and engaging.
Necron war machines vs Titans on Mars.... please GW, please... what a way that would be to bring Adeptus Titanicus to 40k.... 🤤🤤🤤 (as usual, a great video about a topic I know nothing about! Bring on the dog video!!)
Wait wait wait, Warhammer...in space? I've heard some pretty wild ideas but that'll never take off
They tried some wild experiments back in the day!
Reminds me somewhat of confrontation
I love some of the models for Inquisitor, but the game itself felt like a rare swing and a miss to me. As others have said, 54mm meant a requirement for 54mm terrain which wasn't sold and no one had already, but also limited the pool of conversion parts available, and doing those conversions at that scale with metal models that barely wanted to stay together when assembled "properly" was a tall ask for most people. And the models themselves honestly are less detailed than most modern releases, they're just bigger.
It was an RPG without character creation, a wargame without a points system... rather than being able to knit those worlds together, it just felt awkwardly positioned between them, not doing either that well. But we gained the Eisenhorn trilogy and the Deathwatch, and better to take chances than play it safe all the time. If they were ever to revive this one, I think it would be best done as a fork of Kill Team, at regular scale, which immediately gives you access to an enormous parts catalogue and a colossal pool of enemies to draw from.
A bit of a gap in this history is Dark Heresy. Inquisitor was so close to being an rpg that it's no coincidence that just a few years later the first true 40k rpg would dive back into that Blanchian world of feuding inquisitors in even more detail! This game may have been a bit of a dead end mechanically, but it paved the way for DH by showing there was a market for an rpg!
I've really been warming to the idea of larger scale minis, like Star Wars shatterpoint. The idea of less models, but more detailed ones, seems like a great option. I feel like in our current age of TH-cam and instagram being full of incredible mini painters, that GW would be wise to consider some kind of return to the bigger minis.
On the topic of older 40k rpgs, think you'll cover the Rogue trader or deathwatch books?
I think you’re quite right about a larger scale game working very well in the modern hobby era!
I’ve played a little of the FFG Rogue Trader and thoroughly enjoyed it, and I’m a big fan of a lot of the FFG licence WD games so I wouldn’t be surprised if I get round to them at some point. Though probably not in the immediate future!
@@jordansorcery yeah, there is so much warhammer content out there, I imagine it's going to take years to really dig into the more niche stuff.
interview with gav thorpe: you tube channel win
Cheers, glad you liked it!
I always wondered why we never got a 40K equivalent of Bloodbowl, but with a different sport: Like basketball but with space marines with jumppacks.
Well the Bloodbowl world is separate to Warhammer. Elves and vampire and so on go in most fantasy settings while Space Marines are very much 40K and it would not be in keeping with the setting to have Necrons having a kickabout with Bloodletters
@@richardharrison4762 I know, but you could have the same alternate world where you could have the Golden throne warriors play a match against the Phoenix lord suns in the NBA: Necron Bellicose Arena.
Full contact laser space cricket? I think so!
@@SonofSethoitae That's what those thunderhammers are for!
Oh man, Inquisitor was a game I really wished I'd been able to get into when it came out, but there was no way 13yr old me could have put one of those metal minis together, let alone convert them into different characters. I think doing it at a scale where you couldn't get any bits for converting the models and had to do a lot of sculpting was what doomed it, but now that 3d printers are a thing maybe another game company could do something similar?
Cooooooooool!
GW doomed Inquisitor to failure as soon as they decided on 54mm. At the time it came out I hung out at the US headquarters store in Maryland multiple days a week. I got to know a lot of the employees and no one outside of the employees bought the game, and that's because they had to. It was a disaster. They pushed it hard but people didn't want expensive models they couldn't do anything else with. Part of the selling point of Mordheim was people could use the models for other things. When GW closed the Maryland factory and moved it to Tennessee, it was cheaper to give the leftover stock to employees and write it off than to ship it to TN. At that point they couldn't even give the models away. Employees took one or two but whole cases of them went in the trash because no one would take them.
I'm not surprised. It also would have required new terrain that couldn't be used in anything else.
I always wanted to get that but it was too much of a scale departure and I was neck deep in half a dissent other armies/warbands/gangs/etc already.. It did look stunning though.
The biggest hurdle for me trying new 40k games back in the day was money. Even in the early 2000s it was difficult to justify money on minis over getting new cds or films or the like.
Today the biggest hurdle is time and the rulesets and money.
It's funny, I used to not care about the rules too much. But now i'm just constantly being annoyed by them. Like they lead you by the nose rather than let the player have fun. idk maybe i'm just seeing the past with rose tinted glasses.
I always wanted to play this but could not afford it when it first came out. Any money I had went to Mordheim and Warmaster
Adrian Smith? Didn't he play for Iron Maiden??
Gonna sound weird but stopped watching your stuff lately…
Cos I wanted to save up enough new episodes to watch during my vacation week here 😅
Love this stuff. Like exactly how I nerded out over blood bowl but for all stuff I just don’t have time or even knowledge of to do so. Holy fudge even got Gav on this one
Hope you enjoy your vacation!
Why not redo the game in the HH? Seems ripe for the pickings. I have just redone so models in 40k with my 3d printer and terrian just because i wanted to see what was possible.
PRINGLES CAN SNIPER TOWER
Great video, really enjoy all your stuff but Nuala's name is pronounced Noo-la not Noo-a-la.
I didn't realise that, appreciate the correction!
I liked this video because I liked it.
The purest form of engagement!
it's only a matter of time where main 40k is 54mm
It may already be too late!
Well you got Joytoys making 1/18th action figures of a lot of 40k models. you could use those.
Comment no. 64
I felt like a fool for wasting my money on it. Every one said it's a one off. Why oh why is every poor attempt by GW to make a RPG percentile? Blackstone was not poor but it was not a true rpg
It failed as it didn't go far enough people wanted 18kmm scale inquisitors
Never played it but bought the rullebook. Seemed real cool.. I wanted some RPG-ish in that universe too..