We played a 3000 pt game today , GW Space Marines subbing in for Forgefathers and my GW Imperial Guard subbing in for Corpration . I wont bore you with details of the game , i'm not very good at AARs.

It should be noted from the start here the Corporation list includes a troop type called Marines in the true sense of the word ( HOO-RAH ) , not the all powerful super beings GW make although those do suit the role of Forgefathers quite well.

I must say it just played beautifully , we really enjoyed it , and mostly the enjoyment was due to the nice clean rules , there was no head scratching or rules debates .
We wanted to play a game on the same scale as 40k and we were able to field tanks ( big bl**dy tanks ) artillery , APC's , support weapons teams and lots of squads of soldiers , and it all worked together really really well .

I do have a few criticsims but they are very minor and easily overcome .

1. the current lists are somewhat limited , there are not enough characters/heroes/monsters in the available lists but i hope this will be changed once the official rule book comes out as happened with Kings of War . There could also be more in the way of support units , the heavy weapons units could do with more options ( ie: no mortars for the Corporation ? ) but i reckon this will also be changed and added to as was the case in the KoW rulebook release.

2. the current Warpath ruleset ( free online ) does not include all of the special rules available to some troop types ie: had to look up "stealthy " in KoW ( its not in the Warpath list of attributes ) and cannot locate definition of "bulky" anywhere , but as above i'm sure it will all be rectified once the official Warpath rulebook comes out.

Subbing in our two GW armies was not an issue , as everything was represented in the lists ( it almost seems intentional ) and we've done this for KoW as well .Using Space Marines for Forgefathers worked perfectly with my opponent being able to field something like 4-5 dreadnaughts to use as Iron Ancestors ( break out the AOBR Dreadies ) . For my Corporation i was able to feild three different generations of GW Imperial Guard to represent the Marines , Marine Veterans and Rangers. I used plastic 1st edition IG for Marines , metal 1st edition Cadians for Marine Veterans and Catachan IG for Rangers . My support weapons teams consisted of old plastic tarantula twin las cannons manned by converted plastic 1st edition IG . Ive never deployed all of my collection of IG together on the table before, they worked perfectly representing different troops of the Corpration . My 1st edition plastic IG all have fixed bayonets and extra webbing and truly look the part of traditional Marines , for 30 year old figures they still cut the mustard.

I dont know if there is an artillery piece in 40k but in Warpath the Corpration have them and if i ever hit anything with my bad dice rolling its going to be awesome .

If you want to have a go the rules and lists are free with only four lists available so far but if you look around on the Net there are viable fan made lists out there to sub in several 40k races .
This game wont replace 40k but if you ever want to have a go at something similiar without any rules debates its not a bad game at all once you get used to it . It is a different animal to 40k for sure but it still gives a good game in a few hours .

I look forward to the next few lists coming out , i hope it doesnt take long .

cheers Tom

Nicely written Tom
I'd like to try a game myself
Please let me know when you're available