The Dark Fortress – a brief history

www.thedarkfortress.co.uk started life very modestly in the Spring 2003 (the exact date of first upload lost in the hazy mists of time). The original intention was that it would be a simple journal site for my then new 4th Battle Company army, featuring batreps, fan fiction of my own creation and pictures – the usual fansite format. Funnily enough, it was the birth of our first son that prompted the idea of the site, as I spent a lot of time sitting around waiting to do the 2am bottle feed I thought: "why not make use of the time?" Since then it has been a labour of love, and yes I'm still sometimes doing stuff at 2am.

It was unfortunate that my site name closely resembled that of another existing and best DA site – Shadow Guard's the Fortress Unforgiven – and this has always been a source both disappointment and slight guilt on my behalf. The fact of the matter is that the "thedarkfortress" was registered as a domain name for another project that fell through – so as I'd already spent the money I thought I'd make use of it. I am always aware however of the Fortress Unforgiven and I am constantly conscious of not treading on Shadow Guards' toes with content of too similar a nature. Although some overlap is unavoidable of course, I try to keep it to the minimum, and that's why I generally keep away from fluff-related items, aiming more towards the gaming side of things.

From the outset I wanted the site to be easy to maintain and update as I have a limited amount of time to tinker as I'd much rather be creating proper content. This meant much of the internal navigation is by hypertext links as opposed to (then fashionable) complex and tedious to create rollovers – a method now fully endorsed by the plethora of blog sites and blog look-alike sites that clutter the web. And six years on the site still looks OK, is still very user-functional in it's low-tech way and easy on the bandwidth by not relying on plugin technology to work.

Inevitably the site quickly outgrew the original remit with the addition of downloadable banners, special rules and other tactical articles being published. Not only that but the site has also been used to host three wargame campaigns (so far). These forming separate standalone mini-sites.

Now, thedarkfortress forms a general resource for the Dark Angels and anyone else with an interest in Space Marines. It features a growing gallery section that also includes non-DA models; items of background information both fact fiction and conjectural; reviews; interviews and comments; and the core of tactics, fiction and rules. It currently has some 6000+ visitors a month. For the future, I'd like to include more modeling articles, more gallery items, more "homebrew" special rules and scenarios, and more campaigns. I am aware that some of the tactical articles especially are now a bit long in the tooth – since the introduction of 5th Edition Warhammer 40,000 the process of slow updating these is in progress.

With web technology and user-functionality becoming increasingly sophisticated the darkfortress needs to encompass more of it or fall behind. With that in mind I introduced an RSS feed early in May 2008 to enable monthly updates to be advertised more widely - a small but for me significant step forwards in self-promotion. In the late winter of 2008 a poll was added too, and more of these will be appearing in the future. I have no intention of "Flashing" the site up, nor of turning it into a out-and-out blog, but I have toyed with the idea of bolting on a forum dedicated to using Terminators in Warhammer 40K.

With the birth of our second son and all the other stuff that real life throws at me, and more recently moderating duties on the Bolter and Chainsword, has resulted in the slower production of content and updates then I'd like (aiming for three or four updates/new items per month if possible). This can't be helped of course and I have come to accept it – I'd rather publish less articles of a greater quality than more of a poor quality.

Whatever the future holds, thedarkfortress will always be content-driven. And in that respect I'd like to say thank you to all those who have made contributions in any way, whether it be taking part in a campaign, or saying yes when I pester them to allowing me to use their models in the gallery, or allowing me to use their tactics/other items elsewhere etc, so THANK YOU, you know who you are.