WestRider

The Lake on Clinton Road: It manages a couple of semi-effective jump scares, but that's it. Not worth it.

5 minutes ago, Ish said:

Random turn length is a sacred cow that needed to be slaughtered a long time ago. If it was an aspect of one or two narrative scenarios  where it added some sort of tension – Can you defend the spaceport long enough for the civilians to evacuate? – it wouldn’t be so bad, but when any given scenario has a 67% chance of going to turn six, and a 33% chance of going to turn seven...

The game becomes a chore. You either have to table your opponent or build up an unassailable lead by turn five. Otherwise, your opponent will drop all pretense of trying to win and just play for the draw. 

I'm hoping that the addition of Progressive Objectives will be enough to offset the plague of "go second, hide until the last turn, jump on all the Objectives at the last minute" that I ran into way too often the last time they did fixed game length.

6 hours ago, Ish said:

I was making a joke, WestRider: Hyperbolic exaggeration for comedic effect.

It was 3 in the morning. I get very literal at that time of day 😉

Given that most hereditary titles were originally awarded for military accomplishments, they're basically just a fancy way of saying "my dad beat up your dad"

12 hours ago, WestRider said:

Serried ranks it is!

11 hours ago, Ish said:

 

Those are evenly aligned ranks. C'mon, man, I figured you of all people would know that serried* ranks are when each rank is offset by half a space. So you have two ranks, each with 2" spacing, with 1.7" between the two ranks.

Or, if you really only need to maintain the screen for one Turn, you can just do a little trio on each end, and keep the rest of it in a single line like before. Maybe sprinkle a couple of Models through as extra "fire breaks" if you want. Probably will take a bit of experimentation to figure out what the ideal balance is between ground coverage and morale coverage.

*For those who don't know, it's from the same root as "serrated".

Island Zero: Much better than it had any right to be. Don't get me wrong, it has plenty of flaws (mostly budget-related), but there's also some really good character development that made me actually care about these folks, and the director maintains and ramps up tension very well. It stumbles a bit when it tries to go into detail with the monsters, but when it just lets them be a poorly understood threat, it's fantastic. Most of the cast are apparently local amateurs, which means some of the performances are a bit shaky, but the folks other than the handful of main characters (who are all from various other places) all have proper Maine accents, and don't really need to stretch to get into character. Given the budget, some of the effects are fairly impressive as well, even if they are still noticeable as such. They still do their job. As a final note, the music is pretty cool. Rather than the Civil War documentary style soundtracks so many horror flicks seem to use these days, this one is synth-heavy, reminiscent of some of John Carpenter's stuff, like Prince of Darkness.

Also, a note I forgot about Scanners: Given that the main antagonist is named Revok, I felt like it was a serious missed opportunity that no action at any point in the film was referred to as "irrevocable" 😉

Serried ranks it is!

The Rampage sequel is looking great!

She's a former member of the Adepta Sororitas who seemingly came back from the dead and has been a living weapon since that day. He's a Harlequin of the Laughing God who is now an outcast from his own people. Bound by fate, this unlikely pair fight the forces of Chaos wherever they find them. Together, they fight crime.

3 hours ago, Ish said:

Faction Focus: Hungry Space Bugs is out today, but the real gem in the article is that they’re telling us what Dense Cover does.

 

That's cool, but what really got me salivating was the mention of a Vertical Engagement Range. Letting sufficiently large Models reach out and touch Units on higher levels is a real game-changer.

The Darkness: It worked for what I wanted, which was just something mildly creepy to have on in the background. Can't recommend it beyond that, tho. The acting is very uneven, the characters are all incredibly one-dimensional (Cheating Dad, Alcoholic Mom, Bulimic Daughter, Autistic Son. None of them have any real personality traits beyond that), and it just generally doesn't hold together very well.

Scanners: Good stuff. It feels older than '81, tho. More like Scream and Scream Again or Invasion of the Body Snatchers than, say, The Final Conflict. I think it's mostly due to much of the costuming and acting being highly stylized, for example, Vale's clothing at the start of the movie is of a suitable type for a vagrant, but it's all far too clean and new. More symbolizing his station in life than depicting it. Dr. Ruth often comes across like he's performing on stage, the way he enunciates and gestures and directs his gaze. Not a bad thing by any means, but it is a style that tended to fade as time went by and tech got better and budgets got bigger and on-screen depictions could more often be more realistic.

I was thinking gloss for the ones that are still living people, since that's a god visual shorthand for glass-like and something they can see through, but then whatever the default is for the Wraith-constructs, since they literally don't see in the visual spectrum, and have no need for a transparent visor. But also, Eldar Wraithbone tech can do whatever it wants, and matte might make more sense for Rangers, who wouldn't want the gleam to give away their positions.

It's hard to tell in the photo. Do they have a gloss finish on the masks? I can see arguments for going either way.

Yeah, I've roped myself into doing something complex that was cool on one Model, but a nightmare on a Squad or more. Def a good reason to go for the simpler option.

That looks super cool! In some other circumstances, I could see running other coloured inks over it, have it shading from one colour to another. Probably best left for a diorama or something with fixed lighting.

5 hours ago, WestRider said:

Get ready to point and laugh as even the AI Halflings manage to beat me up!😂

OK, that didn't actually happen, but I still had some atrocious rolling:

Note that all of those Dodges were 3+ with a re-roll. I didn't try Dodging into Tackle Zones, they didn't have Tackle, none of that. Even without the re-rolls it should be better.

Also, the one Drive I was on Offense, they got a Blitz result and landed the ball so close to the Midfield line (Without the Kick Skill) that they were able to run someone in there and actually catch their own Kickoff. Not complaining too much, because I did still win the game handily, but yeah, some of that was ludicrous.

29 minutes ago, Ish said:

Those little blighters rolled a suspiciously high number of single die knock downs when I played them.

Given that I have, at one point in the past, had a Troll killed by an AI-controlled Skink that made a 3 dice against block at it, I tend to assume the worst.

Get ready to point and laugh as even the AI Halflings manage to beat me up!😂

@Ish