Loot. Also, looking ahead.

Hi,

We are slowly digging out from Christmas, and I have my traditional "now that all the running around is over, I have time to be sick" cold.  Cub is here for a few more days, so I'm making the most of that, and I've finally had a few quiet evenings, after the kids are in bed, to take stock.

Traditionally, I don't get much in the way of geek-related gilt at Christmas, partly a product of getting older, and partly a product of few people in my family having the faintest idea of what I'm up to with this stuff.  This year, however, was a bit of an exception.  I received a number of geek and / or history related books (Hellboy compendiums 4 and 5, a rather nice copy of Arrian, the memoirs of de Caulaincourt, and a book on 18th century (mostly French) radicalism.

With a little early Christmas money, I picked up some Lord of the Rings figures on the cheap from a friend at the THMG and via the blogger secret Santa, received some smashing Xyston figures, which will flesh out both my Antigonids and a planned "secret project".  My sister, bless her, surprised me with a copy of the rules for "In her Majesty's Name".  Finally, my wife picked up a fairly large stack of older Magic cards (suitable for casual play, modern, or commander) to flesh out my new collection.  I've been perusing the options for a commander deck over the last couple of days in response.

  

Next year is going to be fairly busy.  I'm actively looking for new work, as I'm coming to the end of a contract, and am hoping to land something a little more secure.  That in turn means at least the possibility of a move, and at a minimum, a degree of upheaval in our lives.  The hobby, for me, at least, is going to be more about working on things I've started rather than jumping on a new bandwagon.  I have enough projects on the go, or that I'd like to have on the go, that there's little excuse for jumping into something new.  I've been pretty good at slaying the Magpie this year, but want to try and do even better next.

I figure, rather than a list of resolutions / must dos, I'd simply make a list of projects that are active, or that I'd like to make a start on this year.

Projects that are currently active, for which I have unpainted stuff, and which I'd like to expand:

Impetus Antogonids.  I'd like to flesh these out, and grow the army to 400 or 500 points.

Impetus Spartans.  I'd like to get these to a playable 300 points.

15mm Bolt Action Soviets.  These are playable as is, but there's a number of additions I'd like to make, including expanding into the early war theatre.

Blood Bowl Humans.  I've got a basic roster finished for these guys, but there's plenty of work to be done in terms of markers and additional players.

Dystopian Wars.  Been ages since I've played, and there's a number of ships begging to be painted.

Skorne.  I have a small playable force painted, but there's so much from these guys I'd like to add.

Muskets and Tomahawks.  I'd like to expand this to 400 points, maybe more.

I've also got a list of other projects, essentially unstarted, I'd like to begin:

15mm Bolt Action Americans (desert)

In her Majesty's Name / Song of Blades and Heroes (using some of my Bones figures)

Firestorm Armada (new rules are out, and I have a starter set for Relthoza)

Impetus Secret project

Blood Bowl Orks

Fantasy Impetus Rohan / Isengard

I figure, what with everything else in my life, that should be enough to keep me busy ;)

FMB

Merry Christmas!

A belated Merry Christmas to the blogosphere.  This is the first chance I've had to get on-line in a couple of days, but I hope all of you were blessed with love, family, and abundance.

FMB

Blue Max Chaos

Hi,

Went out last night for the final THMG meeting of the year.  Watts and DaveB brought a metric ton of Wings of War gear between the two of them, and close to a dozen of us settled down for what started as a massive allies vs. entente game, but rapidly degenerated into a free-for-all.

Two hearts are better than one.

The quarry is spotted.

This was my first time playing what turns out to be a fun, fairly light, multi-player friendly game.  I was given a Sopwith Camel to fly, which worked out well with my eventual strategy of flying in circles and shooting at whatever targets presented themselves ;)

I believe they call this a "target rich environment".

That was something like the third time those two planes collided.

Each plane has a deck of manoeuvre cards, a damage rating, and an attack class.  Each turn, you plot three manoeuvre cards, to be resolved in sequence, with your range of choices limited to the manouvrability of the plane in question.  For example, I discovered a few turns in that while my Camel could turn right on a dime, it had trouble turning left; this apparently reflects the historical effects of engine torque.

Brought to you by Brazzers.

Precision measurement.

Combat is dead simple.  If a target is in range and you shoot, the target player receives a number od damage cards governed by both the attack class of the shooter, and the range.  Out comes range from 0 damage to a straight kill, and there's a number of special effects (smoke, fire, jammed gun, wounded pilot, etc.).  If you're taking the game seriously, out-thinking your opponent becomes key to the game, but the mechanics are simple enough that a dozen players, half first-timers, can sit down to a game and have fun.  Not a game for every week, but fun, easy, and a great way to close out the season.

The Pink Baron finally meets his match.

Rebooting.  When we died, we just flew back on the table.  This was my second or third "launch".

We then repaired to Rol San, a local Chinese restaurant and late-night landmark, and feasted on Chinese and Dim Sum.  There was much loosening of belts before the night was through, and I'm not convinced my digestion has entirely recovered from an overdose of shrimp dumplings and Salt and Spicy Squid, but it was worth it ;)

A deadly dance.  Probably not the Charleston.

No, your other left!

I'm guessing Santa was piloting one of these planes.

Posting will be intermittent for the next couple of weeks, I suspect.  The Cub arrives tomorrow night (knock on wood, weather permitting) and we'll be in full-bore Christmas mode from that point.  Hopefully I'll have another post up before the big day, but if not, a very merry Christmas to you all, and all the joy of the new year.

FMB

Infinity, and beyond. Also, Warmahordes.

Hi,

Pretty relaxed night at the Dueling Grounds last night, Magic and some Warmahordes.  I was excited on arrival because I'd discovered my first card combination for Magic.  I've taken to spending my "desk lunches" perusing Wizards of the Coast's website, focusing on their Magic articles and the Gatherer utility.  The latter is a database of all their Magic cards with stats, rulings, updated rules text etc.

One article that intrigued me recently was on building a deck "out" from a single card.  I'd noticed this one the other day, and had decided to do a theoretical deck-building exercise, looking for cards under 25 cents (so a full deck would be around $20 with the sideboard cards, less than the pre-constructed starter deck I found).  The one that caught my eye (and which I still want to find a way to use) was Woodwraith Corrupter

The idea of the woods coming alive and attacking is too cool for school ;)

Once I had that card in mind, I started using Gatherer, searching for possible interactions; things that affect Forests, things that affect Saprolings, etc.  What I ended up finding was an interaction between these two cards, Sporemound, and Life and Limb:

Once both these cards are in play, all you have to do is play a land card.  Then the Sporemound makes a token, which is a Saproling and a Forest, which makes the Sporemound make a token, which is a Saproling and a Forest, which makes the Sporemound make a token, which is a Saproling and a Forest, which makes the Sporemound make a token, which is a Saproling and a Forest, which makes the Sporemound make a token, etc.  to infinity.  Basically, you end up in an infinite loop, with infinite green mana and infinite 1/1 creatures.

Now, the problem with this, is that infinite loops break the game (which defaults to a draw), which means to make it usable, the active player needs to be able to interrupt the cycle, as does the opponent if they wish to avoid the draw.  I'm now in the process of figuring out the best option(s) for that, as well as what to do with an infinite amount of mana and weedy little guys.  As it turns out, this combo had already been discovered and exploited, but I'm chuffed with myself, in spite of it This is the first time I've really connected the dots and discovered something like this.



After a few hands of Magic sadly bereft of infinite loops, ernieR, Otherdave and I say down to Otherdave's first Warmahordes game, a 15 point free-for-all.  ernieR brought his Trolls, and Otherdave brought Legion; Vayle, Typhon, and an Angelius came to play.



The game was mostly about demonstrating mechanics for Otherdave, really.  It also rather rapidly became about killing Typhon, when Otherdave advanced his beastie, and unloaded three flame sprays, one from each head.  That got ernieR's and my attention pretty quickly ;)



I sent in my Savage for some cheap beats, and ernieR threw in everything he had in range.  Between all of us, it was just (just!) enough to do in the great hydra.  Otherdave got in an assassination run with his Angelius against Madrak, which left it and Vayle against the might of Skorne.



Dave tried to pull the same trick on the Gladiator, but there was more beef than the flying snake could handle.  The return beats finished off the serpent, and Vayle was looking at several tons of angry Heffalump and friends.



We called it at that point.  Otherdave said he found things a little intimidating at first, but that it "clicked" for him part way through.  Hopefully that means some more games in the future.

FMB

Doldrums

Hi,

The last few (okay, several) weeks have been slow in terms of painting.  Work at this time of year is pretty gonzo, and I find by the time I drag myself home, I lack the energy or inclination to sit down with a brush.  It could also be the time of year, as the world has been looking particularly gloomy of late, which does little to improve my frame of mind. I'm getting to the point where I miss painting, to be honest, but I've not been feeling it, and I learned some time ago that forcing projects, and turning them into work, is generally a bad idea.

On a happy note, I had a package arrive as part of the Blogger Secret Santa organized by Ian at The Blog with No Name, and his enormously patient wife, Cath.   I opened it just enough to confirm it was from Secret Santa, and have since handed it over to my own Beloved for safe-keeping.  Now I just have to patiently wait for Christmas to find out what the man in the red suit brought.  I'm still waiting for word that the package I sent out has arrived.  It was supposedly shipped weeks ago, so I'm working on the assumption the Royal Mail is simply dragging its heels.

I've one more thoroughly busy week coming up, and then things hopefully will begin to settle down a bit.  With a little luck, I should have a few easy days where I can do some Christmas prep, and then the Cub arrives, and we'll be in full Holiday mode.

With a little over three weeks left in the year, I was looking at my start-of-the-year goals and taking stock.  The plan had been to bring my Antigonids and M&T French to 400 points, my BA Soviets to 500, my Skorne to 35, paint an Ayyubid force, and start fantasy Impetus Rohhirim. Instead, I brought my Soviets to over 1000 points, started both Ayyubids and Spartans for Impetus, finished 200 points of French, 15 points of Skorne, a human team for Bloodbowl, finished up a small playable force for Dystopian Wars.  Not bad, I think.

FMB

P2P, Omega threat

We're into the last hours of the Pewter to Poppies fundraiser the club is doing for the Wounded Warrior fund is up and running.  Auctions can be found here, and in addition to my napoleonic piece, there are several others as well - do please take the time to check them out.

If any readers are willing, I'd very much appreciate help promoting the fund-raiser.  The links above can be used to provide info on the project, and link to the related auctions.

I got down to the club Wednesday night for some pre-game gaming (Magic) and our first trial of Level 7:  Omega Protocol.  Otherdave brought the game in for his first trip out to the club in a while, and five of us sat down to contain the alien menace.

The game uses reversible room and corridor templates for variance between scenarios.  Each player takes one or more members of the marine squad (we each took one), and selects from a variety of optional gear.  I took enhanced marksmanship, an advanced medkit, and a remote sentry drone (always nice to have another shooter on the team ;) ).  We cracked the initial door, moved into the complex, and discovered some alien peons, of whom we made short work.

The core mechanic of the game is the generation of resource tokens (adrenaline) for the game-master.  The more the players try to do in a turn, the more adrenaline they generate.  At the end of the players turn, they give all generated adrenaline to the GM, who can use it for various nefarious purposes, including spawning aliens, creating environmental hazards and other sneakiness.

Our mission in the scenario had two components.  First, we had to locate the former base commander's office and obtain the security codes.  Then, we had to find the elevator to the lower levels.  The first part proved relatively easy, as the office proved to be the first room we searched (determined randomly, it could have been any of the 4 main rooms in the lay-out).

The second part would prove a bit trickier.  We proceeded down the hallway to the second room, but on the way, triggered an ambush.  Aliens started to pop up all over the place, and what was worse, they started using the air vents to pop out behind us and break up the squad.

Bad-ass marines that we were, we pushed through, blowing apart aliens just a bit faster than they could spawn.  Most of the team was at least slightly wounded, and my second and last drone went down under  a swarm, but we were closing in on the elevator shaft.

We had a scary moment when one of our team, the heavy weapons specialist piloted by Nick the Lemming, was swarmed by a pack of aliens, and went to "downed" health status (i.e., severely compromised in terms of movement and available actions) at about the same time we hit the crisis phase of the game (where players can actually die).  Thankfully, I and two others were within range of the elevator.  We blew a hole through the aliens guarding it, and got enough of our guys inside to meet the scenario objective before the pack pulled Nick down.

It's a fun game, one we all seemed to enjoy, and I'm looking forward to the next scenario in the game.

FMB

Pewter to Poppies Promo

Just a reminder, the first round of the Pewter to Poppies fundraiser the club is doing for the Wounded Warrior fund is up and running.  Auctions can be found here, and in addition to my napoleonic piece, there are several others as well - do please take the time to check them out.

If any readers are willing, I'd very much appreciate help promoting the fund-raiser.  The links above can be used to provide info on the project, and link to the related auctions.

FMB