Many moons ago a collection of Warhammer 40k gamers created their own homebrew set of rules called 'In the Emperor's Name' as a way of creating narrative games in the 40k universe. It was played in a skirmish scale and covered a multitude of troop types including those long abandoned by GW. It allowed for flavourful games and even covered action on abandoned floating space hulks as well as more traditional battlefield settings. The game has garnered a community of players, playtesters and game designers through the 'Forge of War Development Group' and the game, now in its third edition, can be obtained free and legally here: http://iten-game.org/ . Although the game I am looking at in this article has moved far beyond its ITEN origins it is worth mentioning as the hobbyist approach runs right through this new product.
One of the original authors of ITEN is Craig Cartmell. He was approached by the good people at Osprey Publishing to write a Steampunk skirmish game for their burgeoning range of wargames rules. The outcome of which is 'In Her Majesty's Name' a skirmish game that pits adventuring companies of Victorians armed with suitably outlandish weapons (as well as more familiar period weapons that can still be just as deadly) against each other in a wide range of scenario types and settings. The list of antagonists run from the humble Metropolitan Bobbie (armed with the English electric truncheon!) to re-animated, mummified Egyptian priests, abominable Yetis, fiendish magic users and a certain consulting detective...
