Ish

There were rumors floating around, very briefly, that Her Imperial HighnessPrincess Kako of Akishino (second-eldest grandchild of Emperor Akihito) was dating then HRH Prince Henry of Wales when she started attending university in London. Given that “Lieutenant Harry Wales” was on the frontlines in Iraq at the time, this rumor was quickly proven false. OTOH, I am kind of intrigued by the idea of the British Royal Family and Japanese Imperial House becoming linked by marriage. Seems like a fascinating “point of divergence” for an alt-history timeline.

“Victory is the greatest tribute we can pay those who sacrifice their lives for us! Rise, our people, Rise! Take your sorrow, and turn it into anger! Zeon thirsts for the strength of its people! Sieg Zeon!” Zaku green Crisis Suits, with your Warlord’s suit in a distinct shade of pink red? Line infantry in earth tones, but with plenty of bling on the officers? Do it. Doooo eeeeet.

I figured they were just trying to replicate the True GW Experience.

It’s a very useful tool, but it’s not uncommon for there to be errors (or just plain missing) information in its fan-built databases.

I'm not WestRider, but I did recently snag the audio book of the first novel, The Beast Arises: I am Slaughter on Audible.com... I've been hearing great things about it and thought it might be interesting to have while putting together my new Imperial Fists army. Listened to the first four or five chapters so far. My review, so far: Sigh. I've read maybe four or five 40K novels over the years, including ones that everybody swears are some of the best ever... I've found most of them to be boring slogs, with stiff and wooden characters, very repetitive plots, and just generally nothing that grabs my interest. Which is weird, since I've been a huge fan of WH40k since 1991. I enjoy reading the codices, setting materials, and roleplaying supplements for leisure; I've played and enjoyed a lot of the video games; I enjoyed the Damnatus fan-film, enjoyed the Ultramarines movie, and other fan films... But, for some reason, the novels just don't do anything for me. I suspect the fact that I've devoured much of literature that served as the inspiration for Priestly, Johnson, Blanche, et. al., when they were developing the setting. I'd much rather re-read Dune or Starship Troopers for the umpteenth time than most WH40k novels. I plan to keep working my way through I am Slaughter, maybe my opinion will change as it goes on. But, for now: Sigh.

I do kinda wish they'd put an asterisk next to the changed points or something...

Here's your homework assignment for the weekend, class: every MCU film, television show, and direct-to-streaming series in proper viewing order. I'm still behind, having not yet seen Runaways or Cloak and Dagger.

Quit job. Watch Netflix. ??????? Profit!

Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, The Punisher, and The Defenders are all joint Marvel Studios / Netflix productions and they all take place in the MCU universe. The shows don't directly crossover with the films (although they do crossover with each other to the point that you cannot really watch any of them standalone) but they do reference events from the MCU films up to and including the first Avengers film.

Clint Barton and Matt Murdock were the two best known characters to assume the “Ronin” persona. So it’s a long shot, but part of of me is wondering if this could be used to more directly bridge the Netflix-MCU and the Cinematic-MCU.

I would love to try out the game. You have my choppa.

Now this is a movie I’d pay good money to see.

There are always rumors of new codices for the Space Marines. But, frankly, I highly doubt we will see one within the next year or two, the current one only came out in July 2017. We will probably see more “codex supplement” type books that add options onto the basic codex, but I highly doubt we’ll see it get replaced outright. For what it’s worth, as I type this, I’m walking into Guardian Games to buy a massive pile of Imperial Fists. So if the current codex gets replaced, I’ll be just as “SOL” as you. 😁

It’s a bit awkwardly worded, but it’s one re-roll for each unit with the sept tenet during the phase in which they shoot (so, yes, it also works during the overwatch shots).

That’s what GW says and it’s how the equivalent Generals’ Handbooks for AoS have worked.

With Sa’cea, you can re-roll a single failed hit roll for each sept unit, like the Salamander’s Chapter Tactic. This benefits MSU to a greater degree than larger units: one ten-man squad can re-roll one missed shot, but two five-man squads can re-roll two missed shots. This strikes me as wonderfully useful when “markerlight fishing.”

Wouldn’t Sa'cea Sept benefit you more than the T’au Sept, since you’re running a lot of small units?

Eight is the sacred number of Khorne, so this would actually be a fluffy list to field... Probably too limited to win a tourney, probably too cheesy to make your regular “pick up game” list, but it would be fun to see that many Greater Dæmons on the table at once.

Games Workshop Limited v. Chapterhouse Studios LLC was a very complicated case. I was still working as a paralegal in a contract law firm when it was going through the courts, so I followed it pretty closely. I won't claim to be an expert in the field of intellectual property law, I'm not a lawyer of any kind... But, having read the final memorandum opinion and order the TL;DR summary of the whole thing is that both sides lost in part and both sides won in part. GW brought something like 300 specific claims of infringement against Chapterhouse, but only actually "won" on roughly a third of their claims. In the end, Chapterhouse had to stop using specific names, words, and phrases that Games Workshop had trademarked. But Chapterhouse could continue to use GW's trademarks when selling compatible parts. This is what prompted the Great Renaming, terms like "imperial guard" are too vague to be trademarked in most jurisdictions whereas "Astra Militarum" is unique enough to slap a trademark on. Also, the ruling held that there was no infringement for the use of the underlying shape and size of a GW product to manufacture some third-party thing that got attached to it: hence the booming third-party shoulder pad industry isn't going away. Red Dog Miniatures is a bit more direct in their advertising by showing actual GW models with their bits attached, but as long as Red Dog includes disclaimer text saying that the model isn't theirs and all the boiler plate that acknowledges GW's IP rights, they should be Okay. (But I remind you I am not a lawyer.) You'd probably feel differently if you were an author relying on royalty checks to pay for your kid's braces or a musician trying to pay your rent with album sales... Don't get me wrong, their are certain parts of intellectual property law that need revision (Damn you Walt Disney!) but the concept of copyright in and of itself is very necessary.

You can’t really copyright generic laser guns...

Well, since I’m looking at building an All-Primaris force (unless I decide to strip and repaint my Deathwing) I’m going to have a lot of S4 AP -1 small arms that just slightly out range the 24” small arms of most factions. Primaris Marines are a “shooty” force that doesn’t have the raw numbers to compete with a dedicated gunline army, like Guard or Tau. The Imperial Fists chapter tactic should actually encourage them to get out from their ruins and trench lines and come towards me. In theory, I should be able to use LOS and movement blocking terrain to channel the enemy’s superior numbers into kill zones and tunnels where I can bring my guns to bear on just a small part of their force. In theory. I’m not going to pretend like I’ve got some sort of tourney smashing master plan in the works. I just like how the models look and enjoy rolling fistfuls of dice.

Ronin!

Thanos’ Finger Snap O Doom was far more devastating than we ever knew. He killed Cap’s beard!

Yeah, that always struck me as an odd design decision. I’ve always seen the two legions as siege masters, but with the Imperial Fists putting the emphasis on defensive tactics and the Iron Warriors on the offensive: Dorn builds up, Perturabo tears down. I’d have made it so that the Imperial Fists got an enhanced bonus from cover and had harder Fortifications; But given the Iron Warriors a bonus against targets in cover and extra oomph against Fortifications... So they’d both do better against most enemies, but they’d cancel each other out in a head to head match up. Oh well, it is what it is...

Blood of Kittens is reporting that one of the universal rule changes in Chapter Approved is “-1 to hit “Chapter Tactics” type rules across all codexes is now +1 cover.” And I’ve got 2,000 Points of Imperial Fists and their “enemy units do not receive cover benefits to their saves” chapter trait on pre-order. I am fully capable of the laughter.