Ish

Not that I really need another hobby game to sink my limited budget into, but the buzz on the internet seems to point to this game being rather fun. Anyone here play it yet? I’m not a super big fan of Star Wars, as I fall firmly on the Star Trek side of the Great Geek Cultural Divide, but I do so love a good skirmish war game. The standard 800 Points level for organized play seems to make the average army size about twenty-ish infantry and a vehicle or two. Battle Reports seem to show the average game lasting about an hour or two. This would be a nice change of pace to the increasingly unwieldy scope of WH40k. The fact that there’s only two factions — Rebels and Empire — seems like a big downside though.

What a horrible night to have a curse...

Started watching Grimm a few nights ago. I’m a big BtVS fan, so all of my friends have been recommending the series for a long time now. Plus, y’know, the whole filmed on location in Portland thing. I’m about two-thirds through the first season and am not very impressed. Hopefully it’s yet another example of a genre series that “grows the beard” after a rocky early season. It ran for quite a while and seems to have an impressively loyal fanbase, so maybe there’s something here I just haven’t gotten to yet.

Well, industry professionals can be fans of stuff too. I mean, look at Star Trek Continues, it’s a series of “fan film” Star Trek episodes that has actual writers from the franchise writing some episodes, actual directors from the franchise directing some episodes, and actual actors from the franchise in some episodes... Sometimes playing the same characters! (And it’s more enjoyable and far better at being true to Star Trek than anything Paramount has officially made in decades.)

A new FAQ for the General's Handbook 2018 (a.k.a., the real rulebook) has just been released. No major changes, pretty much just some reorganization of the Chaos Pitched Battle Profiles and Allies matrix, to account for the new Battletome: Beasts of Chaos, nothing that should catch anyone by surprise. But, I figured I'd share it. https://www.warhammer-community.com/faqs/

Very nicely done, especially for a fan film. The use of lighting (or rather of darkness) really helps disguise the low budget. The only things I can even begin to think to criticize are incredible pedantic nit-picks. The lascarbine and the bolt pistol both have the wrong sound effects, but that's typical of every adaptation of WH40k (up to and including some of GW's own books) and the Angels of Vengeance Sergeant is missing his company badge and squad number... But, hell, once again this is something GW themselves frequently gets wrong.

Personally, due to my work schedule and my ex-husband's work schedule and having two school-age children, I don't get to get out nearly regularly enough. Things should stabilize in the next few months (Fingers cross and Gorkamorka willing) so that by late-winter / early spring I should be able to attend on a regular basis.

I'm really impressed by the terrain, might pick up some of the kits for that.

McTiernan was pretty hit-or-miss as a director, but he knocked it out of the park with Red October. I’ve always wished we could have gotten sequels to this movie, instead of the Harrison Ford films. They’re good movies, but Ford never feels like Jack Ryan, to me. He just feels like “Harrison Ford, Action Hero.” You could totally redub them with the name of his character from Air Force One and no one would notice. Ford is kind of like Liam Neeson and Tom Cruise: really good actors who have this tendency to play action flicks in this weird way where they are same character in all of them. (Cruise’s basically the character in Knight and Day, in Mission: Impossible, in Minority Report, etc. Baldwin’s Jack Ryan felt like Jack Ryan.

The Good Cop a Netflix original series that cannot decide if it wants to be a dramatic police show with some jokes (e.g, Castle), a comedy with murder mysteries (e.g, Psych), or a straight-up sitcom. Tony Danza is his usual charming self and is clearly having fun starring in a show again, the rest of the actors are solid too... But there’s clearly a disconnection between the writers and the directors. It’s got potential, it’s not a bad show, it just seems to be on uncertain footing. Maybe it can “grow the beard” and become a really good show. I’m giving it a 2.75 out of 5. If this was on a broadcast network, it would have been pulled after five episodes. On cable, it might have gotten a full season without a renewal... As Netflix original? It’s hard to say. I’ll finish watching the season, since I’m almost done with it. If a second season gets made, I’ll probably check it out if I run out of other stuff to watch.

You must construct additional pylons.

Not a bad deal for the price. That neoprene material should allow these things to last for years, even with regular use. If you only use them infrequently, you could be handing them to your grandkids one day.

I think the FAQs are due more to GW’s “conversational” style of writing their rules, instead of a more “legalistic” style of writing.

I imagine both options will be dealt with in a future supplement.

Basically anything you’d find in the tabletop war game is possible in the RPG. Although, obviously some things require higher skill levels and/or specialized equipment than a starting character will posses. (i.e., Much like in a Star Wars game, you can eventually become as badass as Darth Vader, you don’t get to start that way. You can be an ALEPH post-human solider, but can’t be Achilles to start.) The game is kind of similar to Traveller in that it is “career based” and not “class based” like D&D or a totally open “skill based” system like Shadowrun. Character creation even uses a life path sort of system, like Traveller. Using just the core book, everyone is human (or a human mind uploaded into a post-human robot body). There’s optional rules for Dog Warriors in the Ariadna supplement. To sum up very quickly, you roll for your character’s faction (PanO, Nomad, etc.), their homeworld (Earth, Corrieador, etc.), their social class, and can roll for a Basic Career (fairly generic universal ones like “Soldier” or “Mechanic”) or you can roll for a Faction Career (specialized but limited by your faction, like “112 Emergency Services” are limited to Ariadanna) or you can risk a Hazard Career (real cool stuff like “Special Forces,” but you risk not being able to get in). You can (and probably will) have multiple careers or repeat a career a couple times before you start gameplay. Each step grants you skills and/or talents, maybe some starting equipment, and the like. You also have charts of random Events that tell you a bit about what happened at any stage of you life. Several of the possibile random events include death. (But you get uploaded into an new body. Still, the roleplaying opportunity of playing a guy trying to solve his own murder or a woman who committed suicide but was brought back against her own will... Sounds fascinating.) It can be a little tedious doing it with just the book, pen, paper, and dice. Luckily, Modiphius has made a web app for character creation that automates some steps and saves you from having to flip from page to page to page through the book.

Game mechanics-wise, there are certain bonuses you can buy for your team that enchance die rolls, let you re-roll certain tests, or grant other bonuses. These all have names related to various “off field” sporting positions: Cheerleaders, Coaches, Medics, and so forth. You don’t need to have models for them, it’s essentially just something you’d need to note on your roster. Hobby-wise, some people just really enjoy painting and collecting models and/or think the game’s more fun when your “wizard fan who sometimes casts fireballs at the enemy team” is represented by a model that looks like Dumbledore with a big foam finger that says “We Are #1!” on. Business-wise, it’s another half dozen figures they might entice you to buy, plenty of people do buy them, and the manufacturing cost is pretty low... So why not sell ‘em?

New Whovians who watched a couple Tom Baker DVDs telling two of the most prominent Doctor Who writers they aren’t “true fans.” Riiight...

He could tell you, but then he’d have to kill you.

My daughter has a small Sylvaneth collection (which will be growing larger come Christmakkuh).

More games being played means more games getting made.

I liked the idea behind Vulcan, but the execution was incredibly hamfisted. But apart from that, I thought the first series was otherwise excellent.

Neil Gaiman’s ‘American Gods’ was also adapted into what is, nominally, an ongoing series. But with only eight episodes in the first “season” and another eight slated for the second... So it’s not so much an ongoing series in the traditional sense as it is a stretched out miniseries. I can only assume this is the plan for ‘Good Omens.’ Gaiman has an excellent track record for television adaptations of his works and has written some very good original television and films himself. So while I’m normally apprehensive about any of my favorite books getting adapted for film or television, I’m a lot less nervous about one of his works (especially when he’s directly involved in the production).

A general rule of thumb is the maxim “specific over general.” Because, on the whole, WH40k is an “exceptions-based” game, rather than a “permissions-based” game. In an “exceptions-based” design, the core rules tell you how things always work, but special rules give you exceptions to bypass those rules in certain circumstances.

Alternatively, the community could collectively decide to move to games of smaller scope. (See my arguments for this earlier in the thread.)