Ish

"No being can wield that kind of power [that the Jedi Order does] for centuries without becoming complacent at best or corrupt at worst. He has no idea that it's overtaken him; he no longer sees all the little cumulative evils that the Republic tolerates and fosters, from slavery to endless wars, and he never asks, 'Why are we not acting to stop this?' Live alongside corruption for too long, and you no longer notice the stench." ―Count Dooku

However, you can still only move into 1" (or less) distance of an enemy model as part of a Charge. Remembering this can come in handy if you want to use one of your models (who is presumably tankier than others) to block off a narrow catwalk, door, or other choke point.

I wish I had the artistic skill to draw fan art of Mando and Karga re-enacting the epic Ahnold/Carl handshake from Predator...

I’m also going to be on the tentative “might be there” list.

I think the best approach to Necromunda is to always try to err on the side of permissiveness. The intent of Versatile weapons seems to be clear enough to me: extra reach for thumpin’ people. So it seems counterintuitive to require someone with an extra long weapon not be considered to have extra reach when engaging...

There’s nothing about this in the official GW FAQ for Necromunda, but I found what seems like a reasonable answer on the Yak Tribe forums: So, you make the move, ending 2 inches from a fighter. By the definition of the Versatile trait, you may now be considered engaged. If you charged, this allows you to make a free fight action.

A crossover between the story of King Midas and King Oedipus would be pure motherf—ing gold.

Okay, so Kuill and IG-11 probably aren't coming back... But Cara Dune, The Armorer, and Apollo Creed Dillon U. Sunnuvabetch Greef Karga will almost certainly be back in Series Two.

You don't honestly think they're not coming back do you? It's a Space Western, which means it's following many of the conventions of the classic Western genre... Which in turn blatantly stole took inspiration from the old Knight Errant tales: The Wandering Hero rides into town, is confronted by some Great Injustice, he thwarts it, and then he rides off into the sunset. There's almost always some sort of Quest that the Wandering Hero is on that drives him from town to town -- a MacGuffin like a Holy Grail, a fetch quest like returning a magic sword to a shrine, or even just a journey of self discovery... And the Wandering Hero almost always builds up a stable of recurring characters along the way.

The intent of the filmmaker is that Ben Skywalker redeemed himself by aiding Rey in her defeat of Palpatine. Because despite The Last Jedi and the Clone Wars and Rebels cartoons hinting that there might be something more to the Force than mere Black Versus White, they decided to scuttle all of that with The Rise of Skywalker. Palpatine is Bad, Rey is Good. Helping Rey stop the Bad Man makes Kylo a Good Man. Jedi is Good, Sith is Bad, Nuance is Nonexistent. Honestly, the friggin' G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero cartoon of the early Eighties had more complicated ethical philosophy than The Rise of Skywalker and the bad guys there were literally called "Cobra: The Enemy" on the toy packaging.

I’m just giddy they referred to the heavy crew-served blaster as an “E-WEB,” a name first given to it by West End Games. D6 System forever!

There’s also the odd fact that the “Massacre of Innocents” is recorded only in the Gospel of Matthew. No other historical records of it exist, it’s not even mentioned in the other Gospels or referenced in any of the Pauline epistles... You don’t have to have any expertise in history to realize that the King of Judea ordering the massacre of every newborn child in his kingdom would have been mentioned by someone.

Ahsoka Tanno and Ezra Bridger were in The Rise of Skywalker and the gorram Darksabre is in The Mandalorian!? Disney really seems to have learned some of that “interconnected universe” magic from their buy out of Marvel.

Nope, those are boobs. Yes, this was intentional by the director.

Nice to see someone remembering that the chittering, all-conquering ever-hungry swarm is the reason for the season. Too many of today’s youth thing the holiday is all about empty consumerism and not existential horror from beyond the stars.

I'm thinking of running a marathon game of Gaslands as part of the Ordo Fanaticus Club Challenge in July 2020. My idea is to mix the post-apocalyptic mayhem of Gaslands with the pageantry of the 24 Hours of Le Mans race, and maybe raise some donations for a food bank, homeless shelter, or similar worthy cause. I've thrown together a rough-draft of my proposed rules for such an event and welcome feedback from everyone. I'm calling the event... 24 Heures du Carnage SETUP The 24 Heures du Carnage circuit will be set up in advance by the Gaslands Heads of Gaming ("HoGs" or "Gas HoGs") for the Ordo Fnaticus Club Challenge. The 24 Heures du Carnage circuit will be styled similar to the actual Circuit de la Sarthe but will not be a scale model of it (an actual 1:64 scale model of the Circuit de la Sarthe would be close to 700 feet long!). The circuit will consist of a Starting Gate (which will also be the Lap Line) and several other Gates. The circuit will also be big, I'm currently thinking something along the lines of 20' or more in total length of track! Vehicles must pass through gates sequentially (Gate One, Gate Two, Gate Three...). Vehicles will keep a record of each gate they pass through. Vehicles will keep a record of each time they pass over the Lap Line. Vehicles only count as passing through the gate when they cross it moving in the right direction. The circuit will have plenty of obstacles on the track in in the way of the race. The circuit will be much longer and much larger than the typical Gaslands track. The circuit will be designed to emphasize endurance as much as speed. TEAMS The 24 Heures du Carnage will by played by four to six teams consisting of two or three players. Each team will have a budget of 60 Cans to spend on vehicles, weapons, perks, etc. One player per team will be playing at any one time, with no player allowed to play for more than six hours at a time. SCAVENGERS' ADVANTAGE For every can of food (or an item of like worth, at the Gas HoGs' discretion) that a team donates, they may add +5 Cans to their budget, to a maximum of 120 cans total (60 Cans initial, plus up to 60 Cans gained via donate). POLE POSITION Roll off to determine who has Pole Position. The player will pole position deploys the first vehicle and activates the first vehicle. Whenever the player with Pole Position passes through a gate with any vehicle, they must immediately choose another player and pass Pole Position to them. STARTING GRID The Starting Grid will be four vehicles wide and as deep as required to deploy all vehicles. Starting with the player in Pole Position, players will take it in turn to place a vehicle anywhere in the first rank of the Starting Grid. Players must fill up the first rank of the Starting Grid before a vehicle can be placed into the second rank, and so on. WEAPONS HOT Vehicles may not make shooting or dropped weapon attacks until they have passed through all Gates and passed the Starting Line to complete one lap. AUDIENCE VOTES The producers of the Gaslands TV show don't like a clear winner. It doesn't make good television. When any active vehicle crosses the Starting Line, completing a Lap, every other player rolls a D6 and adds the number of Gates behind the active vehicle that their front-most vehicle is. If the total is 6 or more, they immediately gain one Audience Vote. BLATANT BRIBERY At any point during the 24 Heures du Carnage event audience members -- persons not on a team and not a Gas HoG -- may place cash donations into the Tip Jar. Every dollar donated will convert to an Audience Vote for a team of their choosing. RACE END Twenty-four hours after the first activation of the initial Pole Position vehicle the 24 Heures du Carnage will end. As soon as the twenty-four hours end, freeze play and check the positions of all vehicles. The closest vehicle to the Lap Line that has completed the most Laps is the winner. The next closest vehicle to the finish line that has completed the most Laps is in second place, and so on.

“What is myrrh anyway?”

This sums up my feelings of the adequacy of this film's adequate nature quite adequately.

Just left the theater. I am terribly underwhelmed. It was not a bad film. The acting was good, the design was good, the music was average (which is weirdly disappointing from John Williams), the special effects and computer graphics were top notch... The script was good. Not great, but good. The problem was I felt like I was watching one of a thousand fan-films or reading one of a million fan-fics of how people wanted it to end. It was paint by numbers. It was... safe. The Last Jedi teased us with hints that the Star Wars universe might be more than a Black versus White story of One Big Screwed Up Family of angst-riddden space wizards. Instead, we learn it’s a Black versus White story of Two Big Screwed Up Families of angst-riddden space wizards. It was good. It wasn’t bad. It wasn’t great. It just... was.

One of us, one of us! Gooble gobble, gooble gobble! We accept her, we accept her! One of us, one of us!

"I think George Lucas is gonna sue somebody" ~ Chaka Luther King

Hawaii’s flag is pretty much that of a British Commonwealth nation, which was actually intentional on the part of King Kamehameha I when he had it designed...

I like the flag that was proposed in 2001, although if I had my druthers the top stripe would be red and the canton wouldn’t have any fimbriation.