Ish

Are you with Verizon? They're giving all there customers a free year. Hard to say "no" to that price.

In the meantime, I've got oodles of cars that I'm more than happy to share.

Yes, the rules have different stats for different types of vehicle. The have different amounts of Hull (a.k.a. hit points), different maximum Gear (speed), equipment slots, crew values, and so forth. You can look at this Quick Reference Sheet to give you a good idea of what the vehicle categories are, even though you've never played the game you're a gamer, you should be able to figure out in general what the stats mean since they all are pretty straightforward in their naming. The categories are intentionally a little fuzzy, both to account for the myriad styles of toy cars out there and because people will make all sorts of kooky conversions. Having said that, the game isn't officially WYSIWYG, so you can use a pickup truck toy and call it a Truck, a Car, a Performance Car, or whatever you want. I think common courtesy and good sportsmanship should encourage us all to make our in-game vehicles be more or less like what they look like they are. A Matchbox Ford F-250 should probably always be used as a Truck, a Hot Wheels Ford GT40 Mk II should probably always be a Performance Car, and so forth. But because of conversions and kitbashing, there's no real hard and fast rule here... Just use common sense and ask yourself "What do I think other people will think this looks like?" I'd say the only four official Vehicle types that really can't be considered as anything but what they are would be the Motorcycle, Motorcycle with Sidecar, War Rig, and Truck-o-saurus. Maybe the Monster Truck too (it should definitely have big ass tires). These all have some very specific ways that they move and the way measuring is handled, so it'd be hard to use anything for them that was radically different from the suggested scale and size. (I used to think the same about the Gyrocopter, until I saw someone convert a Matchbox Delorean to look like the flying time-machine from Back to the Future, Part II...)

So... I have a big box of Samurai that I could turn into a Empire of Sonnstahl force easily enough (they were originally collected to be a WHFB Empire army), but like most gamers I am always constantly shopping... and the idea of buying some of Victrix new plastic Saxons for use in games of Saga appeals to me, since I already have a pewter Anglo-Saxons warband for that game. The below list can be made with just a couple of boxes of Victrix, some character models already in my collection, and some Reaper figures. This list comes out to 4,338 Points, so I have some room for magical items or other tweaks. Now, I've never actually played The 9th Age, but I used to play WHFB all the time and the game doesn't seem too radically different. Maneuver your troops, get stuck in, cause enough damage and/or have enough ranks to break the other guy. Repeat. The basic battleplan for the list below would be to send the Jarl, one block of 40x Åsklanders, and the 20x Berserkers into the flank via the Longship Raid rule. The other two blocks of Åsklanders and the block of Huskarls form the center of my lines, with the BSB in the Huskarls and one Wizards with each of the Åsklanders; Warhounds are chaff meant to harass or annoy enemy fast flankers; Ice Trolls and Jötunn are there as counter-punch units for enemy monsters. Hardly the most original battleplan, but despite it's simplicity it should still be reliable... Criticism and comments please? One night, Rudolf the Red said to his wife "Soon there will be a storm." "How can you be so certain?" she asked. "Because, Rudolf the Red knows rain, dear." ÅSKLANDERS 4500 POINTS Characters 200 - Åsklander Chief - Jarl, General, Shield (5), Spear (5), Heavy Armour, Longship Raid (50) 230 - Åsklander Chief - Battle Standard, Great Weapon (10), Heavy Armour, Battle Standard Bearer, Raven Banner (60) 210 - Seidhkennar, Wizard Adept (75), Witchcraft 360 - Seidhkennar, Wizard Master (225), Shamanism Core 490 - 40x Åsklanders, 40x Spear and Shield (120), Champion, Musician, Standard Bearer 490 - 40x Åsklanders, 40x Spear and Shield (120), Champion, Musician, Standard Bearer 490 - 40x Åsklanders, 40x Spear and Shield (120), Champion, Musician, Standard Bearer 95 - 5x Warhounds 95 - 5x Warhounds Special 540 - 30x Huskarls, 30x Replace Shield with Great Weapon (60), Champion, Musician, Standard Bearer 447 - 20x Berserkers, Paired Weapons (60), Champion, Musician 216 - 3x Ice Trolls Legendary Beasts 475 - Jötunn

Gaslands doesn't require anything other than buying a Matchbox or Hot Wheels type toy car and taking it out of the packaging. Gluing guns, rams, spikes, and other implements of carnage to them is certainly a fun part of the game, but its not necessary. Crazy conversions and elaborate customizing is also good, dirty fun, but not necessary either. On the other hand, it should require much exertion on your injured thumb to due some simple Gasland'ing of toy cars. The car below was made by gluing four pieces (ram, gun, square plate on the hood, sheet metal on the rear window) to a car, no other modifications to the standard Hot Wheel car besides super-gluing the wheels in place. The ram, gun, square thingy on the hood, and rear window armor were painted gold, then dirty washed in sepia. (Oh, I drilled some holes in the rear window plate to look like bullet holes) The net over the driver's window (which was the same clear as the windshield originally) was painted black, the sides were painted black to cover up the large Hot Wheels comet logo, then I coated all of the car with a sloppy thick layer of red wash which I intentionally allowed to pool. A generous amount of Stirland Mud texture paint on the sides and the leading edge of the ram... and done. Even counting glue drying and paint drying times, it took maybe two hours.

Games that have smaller numbers of models might also be a good option. You’ll get that feeling of accomplishment from completing a full force, but only need a dozen models instead of a hundred. Necromunda, Frostgrave, or Infinity only need 10-20 models. Gaslands and BattleTech only need about 4-8 models... And have you heard the Good News of our Lord and Savior known as Saga: Age of Vikings and/or Saga: Age of Crusades? In the standard Six Point game format for Saga, it’s actually mathematically impossible to have more than 73 models in an army (six points of 12-strong Levy units and the free Warlord leading them... and that’s gonna be a [big bad swear word]ty army that no sane person would ever play). Usually you’re looking at about 30-40 models.

I experienced login issues on the evening of day one and day one only. Didn’t get an error message giving me a specific reason, just the little loading pinwheel spinning and spinning and spinning... I just shrugged, chalked it up to the fact that it was prime-time on day one of a much hyped new service and just watched something on Amazon Prime.

A few growing pains, as to be expected by the rollout of any massive service... we all know about day one bugs on MMORPGs, right? But nothing any worse than I’ve seen with other streaming services.

Respectfully to all involved, but perhaps we should segue the discussion on be psychology, metaphysics, and philosophy around suicide to the Realm of Chaos sub forum and return this thread to silly random thoughts.

Okay, I’m hijacking the thread again, but no one’s told me to shut up yet and people seem to find it interesting. I found this excellent picture that illustrates the heraldic concept of “this is on top of that” that I was talking about earlier. When writing the description for a coat of arms, known as a blazon, heralds use a specific set of jargon, syntax, and keywords that works almost like a programming language. Just like two computers on opposite sides of the globe fed identical lines of machine code will spit out the same data, give two heralds the same blazon and you’ll get the same shield. The blazon for the below shield would be Gules a pale argent on a chief azure three mullets of the second. Which “translated” into words normal people is would be Red, a vertical line of white, on a horizontal line at the top of blue, three five-pointed stars of white. The first line in most blazons tells you the color of “the field,” this will be the main background that everything else sits on. In this case it’s red, so we begin simply with the word: “Gules...” Next, we need to know if their are any complex designs (“charges”) like lions or dragons or just simple geometric shapes (“ordinaries”) on the field. In this case, we have a vertical white band that takes up approximately 1/3 to 1/5 of the space, this is a very common design an is the ordinary known as the “pale.” (There’s a modern variation that’s 1/2 to 4/5 of the space known as the Canadian Pale. It was invented in 1964 for their flag.) So in the blazon we need to identify the shape and it’s size: “Gules, a pale argent...” This shield has two ordinaries on it, the white vertical line and the horizontal blue line that take up about 1/3 to 1/5 of the shield. This line across the top is known as a “chief” and is always along the top. A horizontal band across the middle is a “fess.” Since the chief will be going “over” the pale it is listed second in the blazon: “Gules, a pale argent, a chief azure...” This shield has three complex shapes or charges on the chief. All the various charges used in heraldry have specific names and there is a whole lot of rules on how that all works. But suffice it to say that it’s kinda like keywords. Every herald knows that “lion rampant” means a lion posed to attack and a “lion dormant” means a lion sleeping and a thousand other variations. In the case of our example shield, we’ve got the five-pointed stars that were common in English heraldry but not the heraldry on the continent that favored six-pointed stars. Well, the French nabbed the keyword “star” first so that charge is always a six-pointed star by default. So the five-pointed star came to be called a “mullet.” We add them to the blazon with just a bit editing to be certain to get them where we want. Like so: “Gules, a pale argent, on a chief azure three mullets argent.” Alternatively, when a blazon has lots of colors repeated in it, you can just refer back to one previously mentioned. “Gules, a pale argent, on a chief azure three mullets of the second.” A herald will read that “of the second” bit and then return to the start of the blazon and look for the second color mentioned. Basically, like a 20 GOTO 10 line in computer code. If it read “...of the first” the stars would be red, if it said “..of the third” they’d be blue. (Both of those are bad examples that break the rule of tincture, but you get my drift.) Thank you for coming to my TEDTalk.

Barring any sudden developments, like sick kids or an unexpected marriage proposal from Anne Hathaway, I plan to be there.

Fair enough. I was really late in jumping onto this anyway.

Just got the game and made a team, Sweeeeet Transylvanians.

“Hold My Beard”

The High Crusade by Poul Anderson is a rip-roaring adventure from the golden age of sci-fi, although I like The Excalibur Alternative by David Weber better. (Weber's book most definitely owes its existence to Anderson's, it's essentially the same story.) Both involve medieval armies encountering aliens and spiral out from there... Might be a fun way to wean yourself off of medieval drama and into sci-fi adventure. And give you perfect justification for having the Kingdom of Equality-tane do battle with Space Marines.

On the book front, I highly recommend 1066: The Year of the Conquest by David Howarth. I haven't listened to it as an audiobook but I've read the dead-tree edition a half dozen times. Obviously, the Crusades were a few decades to a few centuries after 1066. The First Crusade (1095–1099) and the Third Crusade (1189–1192) being the most well known... Since the First Crusader was the most successful one for Christians and the Third Crusade had all the "big names" like Richard the Lionheart, Balian of Ibelin, Saladin, et. al. Still, the Norman Conquest of England isn't too far removed from the early Crusades and it is an event of singular importance in the history of Great Britain, western Europe, and the English-speaking world. (The Fireforge Games Templar and Teutonic Knight models are all Third Crusade era.) Howarth takes the somewhat convoluted succession crisis that triggered it and explains it in a easy to follow way, but he also takes care to explain why the succession dispute was mostly just a fig-leaf for the real causes of the war: economics, population pressures, and naked ambition. Howarth also makes it about more than just names, dates, and dry recitation of battlefield stats. The book is still a work of history, but he weaves it into a cohesive narrative that makes it feel almost like you're reading a novel.

I came here to have a good time and I’m honestly feeling so attacked right now...

Your General is renowned for his cautious and pragmatic approach to warfare... (If you won you last game) Rather than risk the lives of his men pursuing a risky break-through, he orders his men to fortify their position. He secures his supply lines, has his scouts reconnoiter the area, and confers with his closest lieutenants. (If you lost your last game) Rather than rush off in an uncontrolled rout, your General’s level-headed stoicism has rubbed off on his troops and they withdraw to safety in an orderly fashion. The rearguard bravely holds on long enough for vital supplies to be moved, the scouts have already found a new safe camp, and his lieutenants rally their units keeping morale high. So, give the player who missed a week whatever the “average” or “median” result would be had they played. Presumably there’s some sort of result chart, right? X for a Win, Y for a Loss? There should be a point halfway between X and Y...

Would post this in the Random Photo Thread, but it does kinda have a spoiler for the big reveal at the end of Chapter 1:

Yep, he’s a Bloodthirster.

I’m just surprised that Hirst Arts hasn’t leveraged their decades of brand building and good reputation into starting a 3D printer file shop. Yes, their plaster molds are great, but I think that’s a business model that isn’t going to last much longer. If they took their mold designs and replicated them as downloadable files for 3D printers, I bet they’d clean up.

I’ve a large WHFB Empire army which was made up of samurai and ashigaru from historical miniatures manufactures and not GW stuff. It’s been in storage back in Michigan, but I’m trying to make arraignments to get it shipped to me here... If that happens, I might jump into this league. Big, fat, monstrous creature sized “if” on that though.

The section on how to make corrugated metal, at the bottom of the linked page, should also prove useful for Gaslands.