Dungeon and Dragons session - Hellenika Campaign - just one more day!

After reading the previous session notes, I, the writer, realized that I haven't been focusing on my grammar. This is probably due to the fact that I am tired when I write these (not being a night person and entering these notes DURING the session). I sincerely hope that the readers of this text will be forgiving when verb tense changes and sentence fragments are encountered.

Aaaaaaannnnnnyyyyywwwwwaaaaayyyyyy......

The heroes realize at this point they only have an hour left before the time is up. Gal takes point and they hurry. During our travel, Tanaqa'l recommended to Tesla that he use his charm spells on the spider creatures. Kerin and Gal cast Neutralize poison on all the party members (except for poor Woof-Woof). Tanaqa'l asked Gal if "she'd reconsider" to which Gal replied "There is no way I'm going to spend the rest of my life on this island".

The heroes reached the edge of the forest. Gal checked the ground for any signs of the creatures and decided that this was not a place for an ambush. After a few minutes, Iridinae noticed that the area is suddenly devoid of birds. Tesla immediately cast fly on all the members of the party and the heroes prepare. They continue and encounter a massive amount of webbing. Gal lit her torch and Kerin cast Darkfire on herself. Iridinae sees a "bundle" of web that appeared to be a small humanoid wrapped up in webbing.

Suddenly, webbing shot out, missing the party. Battle ensued. Tesla cast charm at a spiderman as 2 spiders scuttled toward our heroes. Gal and Kerin each attacked a spider. The spiderman calls off the spider. With a "Sorry little elf", Tanaqa'l hits Tesla with his club. Kerin cast obscuring mist, and Tesla moved away...into a web. The remainder of the party focused on dealing with Tanaqa'l who "did not want to be alone". With Woof-woof's help, Tesla managed to break free just as the charmed spiderman came down out of the trees. Tesla asked him for the green gem.

As the battle raged in the mist, Gal cast Body of the Sun while Kerin kept the Darkfire touch attacks. The party managed to defeat Tanaqa'l and get the green gemstone. Gal touches the crystals and we appear before the Castallan.

The Castallan offers to take the party before the council. They first ask to be given the chance to clean up before they meet the council. He brings them to their rooms informing us that we are to be civil before the council and that normally women would not speak to the council. Obviously, this is an exception.

In time, they are brought before the council who is very condescending. Gal and Kerin plead to the council for the life of Boxo and the wishes of Lendor in the correction of the timeline. The council concedes to give us something to free Boxo and bring him back here to stand trial for corrupting the time stream.

However, it quickly became apparent that the council of time lords (all of whom are very old and bordering on senile it would seem) had no knowledge of the state of the island, the "harem of the castallan", and the meat shipments. The Castallan tried to give "false evidence" against us (very poorly). The council asked that Glargofage be summoned, only to discover that he had gone missing.

Next they sent the Castallan, accompanied by Kerin to "find a new crystal with more information". The Castallan took Kerin outside and promptly vanished. Kerin returned to the council chamber and the heroes learned that Glargofage's remains were found on the island drained of blood. After checking, the council discovered that the Castallan and his staff were nowhere to be found.

The council vanished to confer. Kerin made her way to the docks to find the captain for assistance. She made contact and convinced him to come and assist. Meanwhile, back in the council chamber, the servants from the rooms arrived bringing equipment because they had heard there was a "crisis". Gal advised them to return and let them know if there was any sounds of trouble and fighting.

Session ended.

A Quickie!

Buried in work and not Feeling well. Two crappy things made worse by each other. Haven't gotten in any 40k nor RPGing in the new year yet at all.

*bleh*

I've been playing City of Heroes/City of Villains again but no really heavy challenges there. I think I've finally gotten out of the burnout that had plagued me for that game.

In lieu of meaningful content, I leave you with this...

The Election

Slight departure here from usual fluff...

I'm not big on discussing politics. There are many reasons for this.

1. You will be interrupted while making an important point causing your argument to be missed - "The problem with that approach to education..." "VOUCHERS WORK!". Thank you, I think perhaps you should respect me enough to listen to my point.
   
2. Your assertion will be interpreted in such a way as to be different than what you mean - "I think there should be serious discussion regarding universal healthcare." "Socialized medicine sucks." I wasn't talking about socialized medicine.
   
3. Evidence will be offered to refute a claim that is anecdotal and/or completely without detail to allow a critical analysis - "No they tried that in this one district I think in Nevada and it failed completely."
   
4. All news organizations boil information down to a "soundbite" so that a complex question cannot be meaningfully answered by the candidates. "This is an important issue that necessarily needs careful consideration. I intend to take a strong stance on this."
5. Blatantly untrue information being passed as fact. "Barach Obama is a Muslim"....uhm, no he isn't. From what I can tell, he never was (I was taken in by this, even though it didn't matter to me).
   

As one of my friends put it...
"I know yer opponent molests children, smells bad and assassinates nuns, what I want to know is how are you going to end the war in Iraq with honour, fight terrorism, end global warming, balance the budget, reduce the national debt and reduce the bureaucracy's footprint without pixie dust or a magic wand?"

The thing traditional media doesn't realize is that people are only as stupid as they are permitted to be. This is the only way that we are going to move away from the candidates which are nothing more than the "Giant Douche" and the "Turd Sandwich".

I've heard tell that the internet can change that, I want to know where this info is....I'd like to hear fact and not an uninformed analyst's opinion, the candidate's opinion. (That's right, Mr. Limbaugh and Mr. Moore, I don't care what you think - you are both assholes.)

OK, back to the fluff....

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Although, it really looks like they dropped the ball on this one.



Here is an in depth analysis of the events of 2007 - Link

Here is Bill Maher's Dickheads of the Year.

22

The Film Crew: Hollywood After Dark - Review

"Rue McClanahan stripping!"

Yes, really.

I'm not kidding.

The Film Crew is a current movie riffing project by former MST3k alumni Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy, and Bill Corbett. The first movie out of the gate they "riffed" was this one (which I got for Christmas). The premise of the host segments is that the three of them have been hired by billionaire "Mr. Honcho" to make sure that all movies in existence have commentaries. No bots and no silhouette theater seats.

Well, in true MST style, this movie is skin-peelingly painful and incredibly bleak. There seems to be several semi-related plot elements, but not really a cohesive plot. For those who know me, this is exactly what I look for in a bad movie. (Yes, I can tell the difference between good and bad movies, it just doesn't have much bearing on whether or not I like it). There is a fair amount of titillating semi-nudity (if you've seen Ed Wood's 'nudie' flicks, you know what to expect). Rue is the hot and sexy female star of the film. I have nothing against Rue, but I think that they should have picked a different hair stylist/makeup artist for her. She had too much of a "Barbara Bush" look for this film (and sadly, we didn't even get to see her breasts).

But, that isn't why you watch this movie. You watch it for the commentary. The commentary is funny after it gets going. I got the impression at the beginning that they were trying to get back into the groove of riffing (or perhaps it was just me). However, it was rather solid and had a number of moments where I laughed out loud (you have to watch it if you want to hear the quips). Much to my surprise, there were MST3k style host segments. Spot on and funny.

I did feel that this could seamlessly be placed in an MST3k marathon, and people would enjoy it. With the voices in question, I could almost close my eyes and imagine that the lines by Bill and Kevin were spoken by Crow and Tom. My only criticism is that while I know they are trying to keep costs down, I think they could use one or two more writers so they have a few more "riffs" to work with when picking out jokes to use. However, this criticism is minor considering the quality of production and that it's a funny as it is. It's only $15 from Amazon, check it out.

The Film Crew: Hollywood After Dark at Amazon
The Film Crew Online

My Name is Bruce

"Bruce Campbell is the greatest actor of his generation!"



Internet Movie Database Link.

1337 1007 w00t

What did the fat guy give you this year?

Apparently I was a VERY good person this year.

• A DREMEL!
• Stevie Ray Vaughan - Solos, Sessions & Encores
• The Film Crew - Hollywood After Dark
• A Red Sweater
• An Art Book
• Socks (gotta have socks!)
• and much much more!

What choice items made their way into YOUR stocking? Leave a comment and tell me!

Merry X-Mas

The Sci Fi Sounds Quiz

	I received 85 credits on The Sci Fi Sounds Quiz How much of a Sci-Fi geek are you?
Guess the Sci-Fi Movie Sounds hereCanon powershot

Fantasy and 40000 Armies in the works

The Anger Sharks
Well, I think the Space Marine Army is more or less set in stone. I'll probably look at nerfing it a bit as I get better, but for now it's a good list that most of the people I know think is a good power level.

Lordship of ???????
Those who've chatted with me enough know that I'm working on a Bretonnian Army for Warhammer Fantasy Battles. I'm looking forward to a new game that provides a change of pace. The army I'm building is (in theory) rather nasty. However, I'm actually planning for an army that accurately reflects how Bretonnians WOULD fight. Medieval armies would have conscripted archers and sent off the Knights. If it's too much? Probably a work in a few more bowmen and a trebuchet.

• Lord on Warhorse
• Paladin Standard Bearer
• Damsel of the Lady on Warhorse
• Damsel of the Lady
• 8 Knights Errant
• 8 Knights Errant
• 8 Knights of the Realm
• 8 Knights of the Realm
• 8 Knights of the Realm
• 3 Pegasus Knights
• 6 Grail Knights
• 16 Peasant Bowmen

This ends up being 2248 points. If I need an even 2k, I can drop one of the units of Knights and trim a couple bowmen. The models are almost all collected, I'm just needing to meet up with someone and get the last few things I need. The models I have are almost completely assembled, I just need a few more Knights of the Realm and a unit of Grail Knights, which I plan to buy from Clay. Then I can start painting the bright colours.

The New Army - ELDAR
And so, I've decided to start building another 40k army. Chris is building a Tau Army, and so I think it's probably a good time. As nice as the Space Marines are playing, they just aren't....pretty. I want an army that looks elegant and I can make gorgeous. And so, despite all of the flack I'm getting whenever I say it, I'm looking to build an Eldar army. The Craftworld will be Ulthwe as this colour-scheme worked so well on my Chaplain.

I'm thinking that the best approach will be to create two army lists.

1. The fun list that really shows off how pretty the army can be. Furthermore, this list will reflect the fact that most of Ulthwe's Aspect Warriors have been killed off due to wars. So, there will be Wraithguard and Wraithlords and a fair amount of Guardians (the weaker infantry).

2. The 'competitive' list. If you know Eldar, you know what this list looks like.

So, what is on my shopping list? Thankfully the Apocalypse Boxes will provide a good foundation:

1. A mess of Eldar Guardians
   
2. Eldar Aspect Assault Wave
3. Eldar Spirit Host
4. Eldar Cloudstrike Squadron
   

This should start me with a nice variety of stuff that I can enjoy painting and assembling.

And no, I'm NOT taking Eldrad, I think he's too nasty unless you are doing a pure Guardian mob. Plus, local groups generally don't allow him.

What's after all this? Who knows? It will probably be back to Fantasy (assuming I like it - I haven't actually played it yet) and picking....hrm....Dark Elves? Lizardmen?

Warhammer Podcasts

During the day, I listen to podcasts while I work on MANY different subjects. Today, a podcast showed up that I'd like to recommend. Remember that you do not need an iPod NOR iTunes to listen to podcasts. In fact, if you do not have an iPod, I recommend the software Miro to listen and download them with.

Anyway,

Podhammer is a Warhammer Fantasy Podcast. It is extremely well done and worth a listen. The host is Australian and will cover many topics related to "The Hobby". The most recent one addresses painting tournament armies which I think applies to 40k as well.

The other one I listen to is The Drop Pod Cast. This one is more of an ensemble of Canadian Hosts that covers general Games Workshop news along with info about various video games based on the GW IP. Its not bad, but it's not as good as Podhammer.

Both are available at the Miniatures Wargame Union website.

50 Cent Video

Not game related, but...

If 50 Cent's stuff was more like this regularly, I'd probably enjoy hip-hop more.




Hip-Hop? That sounds like something a rabbit would listen to...

The Ninja Pirate Tournament on 12-16-07

While my game in 40k has been nicely improving, the tourney yesterday was one of my poorer showings.

Round 1:
Cricket is a Tyranid player who hangs out at Ninja Pirate (I've not mentioned it before, but kids today, at least the ones who hang out at NP, have somewhat nonsensical nicknames - The S.S. Pequod considers this BADASS! Kudos to the leaders of tomorrow!) Aaaanyway, as of this weekend, he has gone to Space Marines. He relies very heavily on tactical squads, a las cannon predator, and a Vindicator. I'm actually glad he's doing this, because I finally get a regular "shooty" army that I can run against to practice.

I drew him on round one.

He took turn one and was able to really neuter my forces before I could develop them. I couldn't get my Baals placed correctly, I couldn't get my squads up close enough, and I couldn't easily wrap my head around the scenario. He did very well and walked away with a crushing victory.

What did I learn? I don't think I can rely on deeps striking squads behind the gunlines to kill them.

Round 2:
A 'Bigger' bug list played by Adam. You can see pictures here. I REALLY hated this scenario. It called for the Escalation rules, which means "Infantry only". I run a 100% Jump army with vehicles. So, starting out, I had nothing on the table. ZIP, Zero. I won initiative so I was able to slow him down a round and my 3 Baals came in on Round 2. As we can see with this pic, I did rather well mowing down genestealers.



However, the scenario's secondary objective ended up turning this from a draw into a crushing victory because he'd had a large number of big bugs in the center of the table.

Adam was a hoot to play with as his bugs moved away like Curly, "Woo-Woo-Woo-Woo!"

Round 3:
The advantage of doing poorly, is that I get to play against Chris (just teasing you Chris!!!!). While he is also a Blood Angels player, he is a fun guy to play against. This was a much more straight forward scenario than previous ones. However, I was able to get my Baals where they could be best used first and take out his veteran squad which made my life a great deal easier. Had I realized that there was also an Honor guard, I'd've turned and took that next. However, despite this error, I still managed to take both main objectives and deny him the third objective. This gave me a Victorious Slaughter.

Chapter Master of The Anger Sharks

Firstly, Mike posted the battle results! Read it here.

To come up with the name of the Chapter Master of "The Anger Sharks", I've decided to turn to one of the best lists of names I could.



If you have a suggestion for the name of the General of "The Anger Sharks", please post in the comments.

Extra points are given on what makes me laugh the most.

Death to the Bugs!

On Saturday, I was hanging out at Ninja Pirate with "THE ANGER SHARKS!" hoping to get a game in. Around 8pm, in walks Mike. We decided to go ahead and have a 2000 point game. Mike is an excellent player; he has won first place at every tournament I've seen him play at. He is also a nice guy. I'd played against him twice before and both times I had been killed off of the table by round 3 (here and here). Needless to say, I was expecting a similar showing. He fielded his Tyranid Force which was a version similar to the 1500 point version I'd fought before. I made a quick tweak to throw in a 3rd Baal Pred instead of the Vindicator (a change I'm likely going to permanently make). And so, the battle began.

The Baals performed wonderfully, wiping out a squad of genestealers every round. This meant I didn't have to engage them in close combat where they would have eaten my troops for lunch (literally, since genestealers do that). They each managed to hang on until round 6 when all 3 were finally destroyed. The speeders also did well, managing to wear the shooty bugs down to less than half strength. Also, as in our last battle, Death Company came in and ate a couple of big bugs. Sadly, the Chaplain didn't make it past the first round of close combat. I'll let Mike record the details of the battle, as he will no doubt do it far more eloquently than I.

I did make a couple mistakes in on my side though. It turns out that there were two cases where I forgot to shoot before my squads assaulted the big bugs. This was a major failure in my tactics as it meant that I didn't get plasma pistol and meltagun shots off which would have nicely finished a couple of the big bugs a round quicker.

The short of it is we managed to have a more or less equal amount of points on the table by the end of the battle. We each had about 200 points or so left of the table. The DIFFERENCE was that I managed to truck my speeder deep into his deployment zone in the last round of the game (we were playing cleanse). This thousand point boost was just enough to eek me into the "Crushing Victory" range.

Yes, a "Crushing Victory" against one of the best players I know. O_O

A Name for my Space Marine army

After playing against Chris yesterday at Ninja Pirate, Cliff made a comment that has given a name to my Space Marine Chapter. I've been trying to come up with a name for them for some time, but to no avail....

But now...I present...

THE ANGER SHARKS

Yes, really...

The Savage Worlds of Soloman Kane

On Friday night, I was up at the Ninja Pirate and I decided to hop into a game of "The Savage World of Solomon Kane". This is a RPG based upon the Solomon Kane works of Robert Howard. It uses the "Savage Worlds" system.

I've not read the Solomon Kane books. Indeed, I was not even aware of their existence before hearing about this game. The premise of the adventure was that our group was on a journey to the New World (it is 1600) and 'weird stuff' happens. To the GM's credit, this felt like a pulp adventure as I might read in an Edgar Rice Burroughs book (most are not aware that I adore the John Carter series). The scenario was a high action mystery as one would expect of the genre. Kudos to you, Cliff!

As mentioned previously, this game uses Pinnacle Entertainment's Savage Worlds system. This is a game I've heard about quite a bit on Fear the Boot as it is Luke's favored system. It is a rather rules light system that is designed more around fast action and simplicity. The base mechanic is simply rolling a die, and trying to meet a set difficulty number. "Which die?" you ask. All of them. Your character's stats can be any of the common types of dice used in an RPG. For example, Magdalena's stats run thus

Agility - D8
Smarts - D8
Spirit - D6
Strength - D4
Vigor - D4

So, if I need to make a strength check, I'd roll a 4-sided die and try to make the target. If I need to make an Agility check, I'd roll an 8-sided die. The system even has a "critical hit" concept. If you roll the maximum on a specific die, like an 8 on a D8, you reroll and add that value to the original roll.

You also have a concept called "Bennies" that allows you to increase your chance for success. You get 3 Bennies each session. I didn't quite catch how that mechanic worked in practice and I've not read the rules yet, my apologies, dear reader.

Character creation took about 15 minutes and I had enough of the rules to be rolling in about 5 minutes. Yes, it's that simple. However, this simplicity really seemed to work to the games advantage. I'd imagine that it would be very easy to prepare a game for this system since it lends itself to allows the GM to come up with stats off of the top of his head.

I really like the Savage Worlds system. Those players who prefer a crunchier system will not like it as much, but if you prefer a system which permits you to get started in minutes and focus more on the adventure than the NPCs/Monsters, this may be the system for you. It certainly lends itself to the pulp/adventure genre.

Check it out, you might like it.

It's beautifully hideous!

I finished my Slayer and various Bonejacks.

OH MY GOODNESS!

I went a little heavy on the Bonejacks, so much so that the rust obscures the colours. However, they look like "exquisite corpses". The Slayer Warjack though. I did a lighter coat on him. He is now the most beautiful model I've ever painted. Under bright lights, you can see the differentiation of colors. The rust effect has the most wonderfully organic quality. I'll need to touch him up a bit, but he is so wonderfully dirty and gross. As soon as I can get a good picture, I'll post it.

The rust method is worth a try.

Painting Status Part 3

I got the two solos and I've started painting my initial box in earnest.

After reading the Brushthrall method, I decided that the colours were too brights for Cryx. However, there are some other interesting things I've found.

I am going to be going with the Brushthrall method for the glowing green vents. However, I ran across a couple of interesting articles that I'm trying out: a Games Workshop Article on Battle Damage and Weathering and this article on creating rust effects.

So, I picked up a Gale Force 9 drill and *GASP* damaged my figures. I've started with the Defilers and the Deathrippers figuring that there would be no big loss if those turn out terrible. I'm going to paint those first as experiments to see if these experiments work out.

I'll be in touch.