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This pages is a one stop shop to connect to all things Philhammer, Spheres of War or Sciror. Bookmark it for easy reference. Here are links to support my work, subscribe to my RSS feed or sign up to receive notifications by email of every new post! There is also a latest comments section, a confidential contact form, and a guestbook at the very end where you can drop a quick note on articles.

I can also be found on the Bolter and Chainsword forum, posting under 'Philip S'.

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If you'd like to support my work there are many ways you can give, but the best thing you can do is share my articles. Discussion is what drives everything forward!

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Recent Comments

As I am always working on things, with everything being a continuous WIP, I thrive on feedback. Let me know what you think and jump into a conversation. Agree or disagree, like or dislike, if you can form a good argument I want to hear it!

  1. I'm glad you enjoyed your journey through Philhammer. In answer to you question: I imagine Kron is an Artiloid (by…

  2. Hi Phil, I really enjoyed reading through your Philhammer concepts and it's nice to see a fan with as much…

  3. Donald Hawley on Connect

    None of the Dreadnought yet, but I've been 3d modeling with Sketchup and have posted some of my work on…

  4. Ah, life, yeah, that'll do it 😐 I'll check out those CBC podcast. etc. Thanks for the heads up. Do…

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Private Message

You are more than welcome to contact me privately using the form below. Please allow a week for me to get back to you. If it's not confidential, and want to say hello or leave a comment about this website, please share your thoughts below in the Comments section.


161 Responses

Hearing feedback is very important to me in developing my ideas. Much of my designs are inspired, and crafted, by chatting to fans on forums before snowballing into a full concept you'll find here. I would like to thank all those who have contributed critiques and participated in discussions over the years, and I would especially like to thank all those who commented on this specific topic. If you would like join in, you are most welcome!

To support my work: Connect

  1. Michael M Dillon says:

    Phil, OMG You have some excellent ideas!

    I got busy and didn't post this feedback to your guestbook earlier, but here is my quick praise in random order:

    Ogryn:
    Wow, makes more sense!
    It's really an ethnicity and a culture, not a mutation. They are huge and tough because they are born and raised on G1 planets while ancestors were adapted to crushing punishing high grav toxic environment. Like an average human born in low G.
    They seem moronic purely because of a strong culture clash (and cuz of the BONEhead lobotomization measures sometimes taken to "control their stupidity.")
    F ing brilliant. Suddenly I respect the whole Ogryn concept.

    Standardized 8x8 unit blocks:
    ? A convenient & very plausible reason all the gaming maps have 2-square-wide corridors!

    Ecoria, hives, etc:
    Dammm spot on, that makes it work efficiently enough to actually WORK, without necessarily removing grimdark. The classic terrible overcrowded slums of the great hive planets idea still works even with the ideal ecoria since the huge block is mostly food production and STILL can only support like 8 people per villa. Very easy to overcrowd actually. Goofy humans.

    Why SO many dead worlds:
    Oh. Right. Good point.

    AdMech:
    Ooooh nice sophisticated expansion on the "machine god" concept. Of course they don't explain in detail to uncouth outsiders. And with loss of higher -level implants, then yes, even the magi can only access "instinctive" and fairly basic utilitarian knowledge about the tech they themselves use. ??? totally works.

    I myself had been wondering HOW in heck you can have a specific land raider in service for *several thousand years* and not have the AdMech or techmarines actually understand engineering. Well they understand basic physics and metallurgy and stuff but apparently chant gibberish and hammer things with wrenches? What, GW? - No, as you say, what looks like barbaric superstition is really trance-inducing ritual, actually required to access external memory.

    In a way they are all severely handicapped by the implant culture: without it they would have been forced to discover and learn advanced skills etc and then have more actual personal knowledge. But the implants also provide vastly broader, if shallower, knowledge, plus a connection to the cloud that really does connect - distantly- to the Omnissiah. So in actual use, even the limited implants are indispensable.

    Besides, the Stone Men gestalt etc most likely needs them at this level to act as some part of their own system ... (the original Matrix script has humans as bio nodes for cloud computing. They ARE the Matrix. Producers dumbed it to batteries, which doesn't work...)

    Fall of the Golden Age:
    YES with a capital YES.
    The whole fear OF machines (that Asimov tried to overcome 60 years ago for Ghod's sake) is a pretty movie-executive plot line. Yours is MUCH more likely.

    The computer sentience provides and controls Such advanced tech, for FREE (cuz money doesn't even make sense really), and bam, human civilization collapses! Realistic (and hilarious. And sad)... so humans instantly enslaved to benevolent computers. Hey, they thought that was a win-win.

    The flaw is we are just advanced organic animals and need conflict to continue to evolve. Meh.

    Oh, and the AdMech empire:
    O
    M
    G
    That is so obvious, why did I keep glossing over the thought before?

    The fluff SAYS, and has for decades, that the AdMech is not so much a "department" of the Imperium as an ally. They are kind of a separate, but symbiotic, empire.

    But wait, if the precursor to today's AdMech was the empire of the machines, which coddled and supported and relied on the civilization of humans... and the galaxy was vastly colonized... and then machines turned off... and then eventually limited ability returned to those humans dedicated to the "holistic machine" cult... all throughout the galaxy...

    Then today's AdMech really IS a separate empire, *bigger* than the Imperium, and in fact the Imperium is only ONE of several of ITS supporting symbiotes.

    Mind officially blown, thank you.

    Petram Permanens.

  2. Midnight-Blue766 says:

    Just one more thing: I can use your ideas in my fics as long as I give credit, right?

  3. Vicky says:

    Science illiterate here. Why is ceraous rarely used for armor if it's the strongest ceramic?

    • Philip S says:

      Ceraous is the strongest form of Ceramite. There are stronger materials than Ceraous that the Imperium uses for armours, these being the CerMets (ceramic-metals). The Imperium would generally use Adamantia (Adamantium-13), a CerMet, instead of Ceraous for armour.

      Ceraous would only be used for armour where p-field propagation is required (psi-weapons and power-fields). In Psi-weapons and armours, and power-field modified armours (which is a sub-set of psi phenomena), the metal in the Cermets interferes with psi-flow and the propagation of p-fields.

      A power-sword would be made of Ceraous, even through Ceraous is intrinsically a weaker material than Adamantia, because coupled with a p-field emitter it becomes a more powerful cutting weapon than a sword made from Adamantia. A sword made of Adamantia would not propagate the energy properly from a p-field emitter, acting more like an insulator than a conductor, and therefore not be a 'power-sword'. It would strike like an normal sword made of Adamantia. Further, because of the resistance to the flow of the energy of the p-field, it will damage the blade. In effect the power-field effect would attack the blade instead of the target you would be striking, and this attack on the blade would soften the blade causing it to snap (at the hilt, where the p-field emitter injects into the blade).

      Ceraous is used for mono-molecular blades because it is 'phased' using p-fields, which is a weaker form of a power-weapon. Ceraous is easier to phase than Adamantia, and retains a phase for longer. This phasing is what makes mono-molecular possible, and why it's a robust weapon. If we tried to make one using today's technology, or even with Adamantia, it would blunt very quickly (first strike).

  4. Don Hawley says:

    Good day, Philip.

    I accidentally found your blog again and it's good to see your work. If it's worth it, your female Ultra Marine is excellent, it's what they would look like for sure. From 2010 to 2015 I was involved in WH40k and discovered your very creative take on the lore and back story of the Imperium. It was a refreshing and original interpretation of it and I hope your journey to rediscovering your artistic talent is successful. Good luck and I look forward to seeing your work again.

    Don Hawley, Hobiest and model builder.

    • Philip S says:

      Thank you for your kind words.
      Why are you no longer involved in WH40k since 2015?

      • Donald Hawley says:

        Family, work, and all the other things that take time and focus away from hobbies. As well, it was getting harder to find other players. I still have two modified Dreadnought figures sitting on my storage shelf, and thanks to 3d modeling, I was able to indulge in a bit of what if by modeling a Star Wars take on the Warlord. My oldest seems to have been bitten though, and it's been fun getting back into talking background and lore with her. By the way, check out the CBC Podcast, The Doc Project with Acey Rowe, they just released an episode on WHFB and WH40K called War Games, it got me thinking about trying again. Again, good luck. Don

        • Philip S says:

          Ah, life, yeah, that'll do it 😐 I'll check out those CBC podcast. etc. Thanks for the heads up. Do you have photos of your dreadnoughts online somewhere? I would like to a Star Wars Titan!

          • Donald Hawley says:

            None of the Dreadnought yet, but I've been 3d modeling with Sketchup and have posted some of my work on Deviantart, under Donnewtype. Including an Imperial Lucius Pattern Titan and the Star Wars AT-AT Titan as well.

  5. Jamie says:

    Hi Phil,

    I really enjoyed reading through your Philhammer concepts and it's nice to see a fan with as much passion as yours, I only wish GW would put the same effort into their own franchise as you put into Philhammer!

    I've always been fascinated with the Dark age of technology side of 40k and I particularly enjoyed your thoughts/theories surrounding that period of time.

    Can I ask have you ever read the story of Kron by Andy Chambers and if you have what are your thoughts about who/what he is? I couldn't quite place him as an Artilect or Artiloid. - I do appreciate that the 40k universe is full of unique and crazy stuff and that this story could just be a one off.

    Another favourite of mine is the Forge of Mars series by Graham McNeill and the star of the show the "Speranza". I'd love to hear your theories surrounding the Speranza if you have read the books.

    Kind Regards and keep up the great great work! /J

    • Philip S says:

      I'm glad you enjoyed your journey through Philhammer.

      In answer to you question: I imagine Kron is an Artiloid (by the sound of it, or a perpetual). In Philhammer they were the friendly machine-human interface between mankind and the Artilects during the Golden Age of Technology (Artilects are the size of mountains, and often take over whole worlds, so they created the Artiloids for communicating with us tiny humans). Artiloids are self repairing and unless destroyed effectively 'immortal', so it's not unusual for them to be thousands of years old. What is unusual in Philhammer that they are still found within the Imperium after the machines withdrew. Most unusual, though nothing is ever 100%, there are always exceptions, so there may well be some Artiloids wandering about in 40K.

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