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Mining for Gold As you may know, the reason I started this website was because there was so little useful information available about Warhammer 40k, and the websites that did exist were mostly crap. More recently, I have started Warhammer Fantasy Battles and so I've been trying to find out more information about that. Sadly, the same situation seems to be the case here. To save myself some trouble, I asked where to find Orc and Goblin related websites at one of the boards I frequent. I thought that the regulars there could point me to a few good sites to get me started, so I wouldn't have to wade through all the crappy ones. I figured that if they'd already done the work, there was no reason for me to have to do it as well. Several people basically ignored my request, or just told me to ask them if I had questions. One of them, however, said that he hadn't found any other good sites. After going around with the others for a bit about their lack of response, it came out that the others hadn't found much in the way of other good sites either. So, I waded in and started sorting through the sites myself. It occurred to me that what I found out, and how I found it out, might be useful to others. Even if you are not interested in, for example, Orcs and Goblins or Chaos, there are still useful Fantasy sites to be found, and the good sites may have links to other good sites. For that matter, even if you are not interested in Fantasy at all, there will be some sites that have information and links for both, leading you to good 40k pastures as well. You can locate new websites in several different ways. You can ask other people, such as in forums or chatrooms. You can go onto webrings, or look through lists of links as well. If you ask around in a forum or chatroom, be aware of who tells you what. If you are familiar with the posters, you'll be able to recognize the ones that are more likely to give you useful websites, or ones that may be more specifically oriented to what you are looking for than others. Essentially, gauge the quality of their information by what you know about them. If they typically just give attitude in their posts but little information, they will probably not be giving you quality links. On the other hand, if they give detailed answers and are somewhat friendly, you can generally trust what they offer. For that matter, unless you specify the subject matter (not just Orcs, I want Orc tactics) their biases are likely to come through. If the poster is big on painting, you'll probably get sites that are painting-oriented. Webrings can be goldmines of useful material, or they can be complete wastes of time. Typically, webrings are devoted to a particular specialty (Orcs, for example) which means that you are less likely to get websites that are totally unrelated to your search. Unfortunately, most webrings aren't very picky, so you often get a lot of chaff with your wheat. Webrings that are less focused, such as the GW webway, give you an even higher percentage of nothing, since there typically aren't useful ways of searching them, and they don't even have the aforementioned specialization to help. In other words, you don't know if the next website will be the Orc equivalent of Sun Tzu's Art of War, or if it will be just an Ultramarine picture gallery. Lists of Links, either at a site you already go to, or at a big site devoted to links, also offer a mixed bag. They typically give you a larger group to pull from, so you have more options. On the other hand, if they don't offer some way of sorting the sites, either through searches or by simply categorizing them, they end up being too unfocused. (Unfocused doesn't mean useless, it just means that you'll probably have to check a lot of links to find what you are looking for. I'm on a dialup connection, so that's a rather tedious process.) The lists that offer ways of either rating the link or that offer descriptions of the site, are the best option here. That way you know that what you are clicking on has a better chance of being useful, by virtue of people having voted on it, or because the description includes some key words that suggest they have what you are looking for. (If the site got 8 out of 10 in the voting, or is described as Orc Strategies and Tactics, Da thinkin' bitz, you know you've got a chance at something good.) If you find a good website, make sure you check it's links as well. Chances are that if you like a particular website, you share some values with the creator of the site. In turn, the creator of the site is likely to put up links to websites that share his or her values, so you know you've got a better chance of finding something you like. So, how do you tell if it's a good website that you are on? I'm glad you asked... A good website to me, is one that has a lot of information and is regularly updated. Even better is if has a good chunk of articles on tactics, since those are what I really savor. However, you don't have to spend a long time on a website to see whether or not it is any good. A good website starts by having reasonable load times. I don't know how many times I've had to wait around for a bajillion stupid images and flickering torches and shooting terminators and driving tanks to load up. A good website will keep that stuff a bit lighter so that you can actually read the page at some point. You can also tell a good website by looking at when it was last updated and the amount of information available. If it's only got two articles, but it's only been around since last Tuesday, there's a good possibility of more in the future. On the other hand, if the last update was in 1999, it's likely the site is dead, which means that, even if they have useful information stored there, you will never see any new stuff. One more way to tell a good website is by looking at some of the things posted there. As I typically look for tactics and army construction articles, I focus on those. Start by just clicking a few of the links, to make sure that they are all there. (A pet peeve of mine is when people put up a list of things that they plan to have on the site, but don't follow through, such as having a list of links up to different army tacticas, but not having the links go anywhere, since they haven't posted the article yet.) Once you've determined that there is content there, skim through it. The first paragraph or two should give you an idea of whether or not the information given is reliable. I remember reading a Dark Eldar tactica that went on and on about Incubi, since his retinue of Incubi had once killed a squad of Genestealers through very lucky rolls of the dice. I didn't bother reading any further. If the writer makes that much of a big deal about a one-time lucky event, I don't need to know what they think about tactics. Here is a short list of the most useful websites I've found and descriptions of why they are useful: Fantasy in General
The Old World. A good fantasy forum, though it's a bit small at the moment. Orcs and Goblins Chaos 40k in General The Millennium Gate. This site has some pretty good articles and battle reports, but I mostly go there because it's one of the two friendliest and most useful forums I've ever found. There are veteran players that are willing to give advice freely. Very informative.
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