Halved Space Marines as a separate race
The idea
There have been more than a few occasions, when people have asked me about online-play with a skin and seemed dissapointed that it'll apply to all models of a race in their view, but none of the models of a race in their opponent's view (unless their opponent also has the same skin pack installed). Since this is a limitation of the Dawn of War engine - each model can only have one texture in a game - new races needed to be created with distinct models and textures.
Enter IBBoard's Skins As Races! Soon, you'll be able to play as the Halved Space Marines while your opponent fields an army of normal Space Marines in classic Relic textures.
What will be included?
The Skins As Races mods will be very simple, being a perfect clone of the standard Space Marine army, but with new textures. All troops that are included in the Space Marine army will be included in the Mod, but with new textures (where available).
Also, the mod is designed in such a way that if Relic tweak the stats of a Space Marine, then the new races will inherit those changes and automatically get the same balance treatment.
What about Winter Assault?
At the moment, the plan is to release a v1.0 of the Mod as soon as the Beta Testers have approved it and I've fixed any remaining bugs. Once Winter Assault is released, a patch will be developed to add the Chaplain and any other changes to the cloned races.
Will it have AI for skirmishes against the computer?
Unfortunately not at the moment. Danimator from the Relic Forums is working on the AI for the new Halved Space Marines race, but there are still some bugs causing it to crash, so AI will probably not be included in the first release. Many thanks to Danimator for his offer and the work he is putting in.
What about the future?
In the future, once the first Skins As Races mod is released, I hope to release several more with races for the Quartered Space Marines being a definate. Skins As Races mods may even be released for some of the other contributor's skins, such as Mel_Danes' Legion of the Damned textures - with their permission of course!
Where can I find out more, discuss the mod or find screenshots?
Currently, discussion and all of the information that isn't included here (generally because it is development discussion) can be found in the "Halved Space Marine texture as an inherited race" thread in Relic Forums' "Adeptus Modificatus".
Screenshots are, as yet, unavailable. If you want to see what the Halved Space Marine skin looks like, then check out the pattern download for the skin pack. All other buildings and the interface remain the same as for a normal Space Marine army.
