A Couple More Buildings

I'm on the way out the door in a minute or two, so I don't have much time to say anything right now. Yesterday, Dan and Ryan came over to build some terrain (with Brian and Ben coming over for a little too) for our western town. I was able to finish off the tavern I was crafting, and build up the stables I was hoping to get done this weekend. I want to make one or two more smaller buildings, then move on to things like wells and other smaller touches. I'll start building the interiors at that point, and we'll have a full-on city set to go.

Here are the two new buildings:





The tavern (with an attached kitchen)...

>



...and the stables (it will have three stalls for horses, aligned with the three windows on the front there.

My New Hobby

I don't like to paint models. I tried it back in the day when I was in high school on my Britonian army, but was heavily criticized for my attempts, and the memory stuck with me. I've never felt like I wanted to paint since then. I love the idea of a fully painted army, but it's never been a part of the hobby I ever really wanted to try again. Generally I seek out others who enjoy painting more and see if I can enlist their help in painting my armies. Early in my Warmachine lifetime, Jay painted a lot of what I had. More recently, Chris has done a significant amount of painting for me, nearly finishing off my Cygnar army and working on my Legion beasts. My fiance also loves to paint and has been working on my Legion troops and was generous enough to paint my entire Dindrenzi army as well as almost all of my Warmachine terrain.

Fast-forward to a few weeks ago. I was listening to a podcast, the d6 Generation (which, if you don't listen to and like gaming, I strongly recommend you start), and one of the hosts gave a quick audio tutorial on how to create wild west style buildings. I figured it sounded fun and I should give it a try. I think I'm much more interested in building things than I am in painting already made things.

Here are my first attempts. I've already learned a lot in the six days I've been building terrain. So far I have three buildings crafted, one in the process of, and a gallows set up. Not too bad for a newbie, I figure. Not great work, but passable, and a lot of fun to do. Take a look for yourself.









This is the first building I put together. I didn't really have a concept for what it was going to be. I assume perhaps a post office, or maybe a school house. Haven't really decided yet. Once I finished that one, though, I thought I should try something bigger.





Pretty sweet. I really like the balcony. A 30mm model will fit on it pretty easily. I figure this will be a good saloon. After that, I pulled together the scraps of materials I had left and built another building.



I have no idea what it is. But there it is. Finally, I decided I wanted to make a gallows to put somewhere in the square.



I'm not too happy with the brace around the top. It's pretty tall - almost as tall as a two-story building. So I think I'll have to cut it off and get some smaller materials to make something more appropriate. That'll be a project for the weekend, perhaps.

So I Took a Trip to Best Buy

I figured rather than getting a new camera, maybe I should just get the cord that connects my camera to my computer. This way I can download the hundreds of pictures I already had. I found pictures from my family vacation back in 2006, from a jaunt to see the Legwarmers last year, and some of Laura making sock monkeys for the kids this past Christmas.

Anywho, what that means is I was finally able to take some pictures of the things I've been doing over the past few weeks. First we'll start with the Firestorm Armada Dindrenzi fleet that Laura painted up for me while it was snowing the crazy 5' of snow that hit us.



Here's one of my battleships. I decided I wanted to paint them so the color stripes would be the identifying marker for them.







And here are both battleships together.





My two squadrons of Cruisers.









And my four squadrons of frigates. To cap it all off, here's the whole thing:



Not too shabby. Of course, they lost their world debut match against Jay and his Terran's, but I'm really just lulling people into a false sense of security. You know, so when the campaign starts, I'm ready to smash face!

Olympic Brussel Sprouts

While Apolo Ohno was racing for his sixth medal this winter Olympics, I came up with a new recipe for making my favorite vegetable: brussel sprouts. In honor of Ohno's achievement, Laura and I named them Olympic Brussel Sprouts.

16 oz brussel sprouts
1/2 cup slivered almonds
2 heaping tablespoons of garlic
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup fried onions
dash of pepper
dash of salt

Boil the brussel sprouts until soft. Essentially, boil them until they'd be just about ready to eat. Drain them and cut them each in half (wait until they're cool before doing that).

Put the almonds in a pan with some butter and fry them until they start to turn golden brown. Pull them off the heat.

Put the brussel sprouts in a large pan with a little oil/butter/Pam to make sure they don't stick. Add in everything else (the cheese, the garlic, the browned almonds, the onions, the pepper and the salt). Mix them until the cheese has melted. Pull them off the heat and serve.

Serves 4

All in all, a pretty solid mix of stuff and makes a nice way to cook brussel sprouts that we've never tried before. I'd be interested to try cooking it with a little balsamic vinegar as well, but I haven't gotten around to it quite yet. Anywho, if it looks up your alley, give it a try. Or if you're ever over at my place, ask me to make them. They're pretty easy and taste good.

I Need a Camera

I've had two points in the last couple weeks where I wanted to take pictures of something to post on my blog here, but because I don't have a camera, I can't do it. Well, I do have a camera, but I don't have the cords to get the pictures to my computer. And neither does Best Buy, that I could tell.

The first was a while ago when all the snow was going on. My lovely fiance was kind enough to paint up my entire Firestorm Armada fleet. They look awesome. Twenty Dindrenzi ships, all painted, all ready to hit the table and take down the enemy.

The second was just yesterday. At the behest of Craig from the d6 Generation (a great podcast that I recommend to all if you're interested in gaming), I started creating old west-style buildings for terrain for my wargames. They turned out to be remarkably easy. Over the course of the weekend, I finished the frames of two buildings, both of them table ready. I need to do the interior of both and then paint them up, but they look good enough to hit the table. I'd love to be able to show them off (they're not shabby for my first attempts), but again, no camera.

With this new terrain I built, I got in another game of Malifaux against Dan recently. He pulled up his Seamus box. I wanted to play the hag, but she's got a lot of anti-willpower spells and Seamus' undead hookers don't seem to care about willpower. Instead I went with Lilith again. Dan wanted to try out a game against her and see how he could fair, and I figured it would probably be a good thing for me to try a game where I'm running my list solo (since Dan helped me a lot last time around).

We set the board terrain-heavy. I pulled out some Legion of Everblight models to proxy as my Malifaux crew. The first turn, I launched my Mature Nephlim on top of a building and I ran Lilith into a building and had her hide behind one of the walls. Why? Because I could with the new terrain. I don't think it game me a tactical advantage whatsoever, but it was fun. Dan moved up, and in the second turn, things really started. My Mature Nephlim flew down into the forest Lilith had put up and killed Dan's unique hooker. I was able to stop almost all the lures he kept trying by cheating with a pretty solid hand (two Kings, a Queen and a Jack in the hand for the second turn). He was able to drop my Mature Nephlim to 1 life, but it took almost everything he had to do it. Lilith rushed out and chopped at a Belle, but didn't kill it (8 wounds is rough!).

The next turn, things turned against me. My Mature Nephlim was killed and a new Belle had been resurrected. I was in a bad way and knew I had to kill Seamus if I wanted to win (it was also my mission, thankfully!). Lilith moved out of combat and into combat with Seamus after the mad hatter had already gone. She chopped him down by about 5 life (he used a few stones to soak the damage), but still had a ways to go. Meanwhile, one of my Tots fed off a blood counter and became a Younger Nephlim, ready to move in and fight. The next go around, I won initiative and activated Lilith to go before Seamus got a chance. Hit him with the first strike and flipped the Red Joker for damage, which meant I got to flip another damage flip. A Queen, meaning I got Seamus for a massive 12 damage. He wasn't able to knock the damage down enough and was dropped to one life (damn Hard to Kill). My next attack hit but got the Black Joker for damage, so nothing. My last attack finished him, though.

From there, it was a bit of clean-up. The Belle's lost their big hitter, and without being able to make more, I could concentrate where I wanted. I was able to raise another Younger Nephlim and then raise one of them to a Mature Nephlim before I finished off Dan's last Belle.

Still not sure I like the cards in Malifaux, but they're growing on me. Having the hand does mitigate some of the luck factor, but there's still a lot of luck in the cards too. I've ordered the book and a deck of cards, as well as the hag's box and the voodoo doll, but we'll see how long it takes to arrive. All in all, I think I'll enjoy this game, though a large part of that may be all the cool terrain we're making for it. Fighting in a saloon just sounds like fun.

An Unexpected Phone Call

This morning I'm on the computer and just checking the news before I make my lunch and head out the door when my cell phone rings. No one normally calls me this early in the day, so I'm a little worried. The name flashes across the screen saying it's my mother. So I pick up the phone.

"Hello?"

There's a long pause. My mother is up at my brother's house. He lives tucked back in Pennsylvania, and I know my mother's phone doesn't have great reception. I wait a minute.

"Hello?" I ask again.

"Hello," a tiny voice comes back, clearly not my mother. It's got to be Nicholas or Mary Kate, my nephew and niece. Natalie would have a bit more to say.

"Hey there," I say, and start chatting. The conversation is pretty vacant on the other end of the phone, usually with only one word answers. "Is Nana around?" "Yeah." "Can I talk to her?" A long pause, then a "No." So I chat with my niece/nephew. "Did you get to play in the snow?" "Yeah." "That must have been a lot of fun." "No."

Eventually, my niece/nephew bored of the conversation, set the phone down, and walked away. I hung up and headed for work with a smile on my face. I'm sure my mom will eventually find her phone on the floor at my brother's house and wonder why it was left there, and whether the kids managed to call anyone.

Random Gaming Things

Last night I ended up back at the Parlor for the first time in a while. Dan, Ryan, Jay and I hit up a few games of Malifaux, then headed out for pizza, like old times. It was a nice diversion. Evidently Mondays are a pretty good night to go to the Parlor as the miniatures tables were pretty much empty. And by "pretty much" I mean the four of us were the only ones there. Something to remember.

Dan found a model space station at the Parlor. It's an old "Russian Space Station" from the movie Armageddon. While that proved lucky for me - I've been looking for a basic space station model and figured kits would be the best way to get one - it just made me laugh. Why was this thing ever put on the Parlor's shelf? It makes no sense! I don't understand some of their practices. They have a lot of space filled with stock that doesn't move. That's got to be expensive to maintain. Still, it's the best gaming store around, and they always treat us well. But yeah, got a space station. I'll be putting it together (tonight, maybe) in preparation for the Firestorm: Armada campaign we're going to try. Several of the missions require space stations, so now we'll have one!

We ended up playing Malifaux at the Parlor. Between the three of us (Jay was late, so he didn't play), we have only one book, so there was a lot of down time as people were trying to read what their people did. This was my first game and I picked up the Neverborn faction to proxy and try. Lilith and her demons. Massive in melee with no ranged options. I faced Ryan with a group of shooters. Everything fell my way. I had lost only one model by the time his last model did a last-ditch suicide plan to try to kill as much as he could, and then I lost a second model. It probably wasn't a very good game to see how the games could go. Bad match-up, I think.

I played this game once at GenCon and after playing last night and then watching Dan play, I still have the same conclusion: interesting concept and I like how every model is so dynamic in its abilities, but I dislike the card mechanic. It's basically like rolling a d13 for your variability. It's the same reason I dislike rolling a d20 in roleplaying games. I prefer the roll and keep method where you have a bell curve of results rather than a flat chance of everything. In Warmachine, for example, you're rolling two dice (most times) and adding them. So while I could get from a 2 to a 12, I'm far more likely to end up in the 6-8 range. It's a bit easier to count on. Sure there are games where luck is a huge factor, but they'll be less likely than a game where I'm as likely to pull a King (13) as an Ace (1).

Anywho, in the end, I'll play the game, because everyone else is. It uses the same scale as Warmachine, so I can easily proxy some of my existing models for the ones I'd need, and I can bum the book from others when I need to. I'd just prefer if the mechanic was more consistent. Maybe you pull a number of cards equal to your ATK or DEF stat (or whatever the equal is) and keep the highest. That way I'd be pulling in four cards and knowing I'd have better odds for getting a higher number instead of pulling in one card and keeping it, and then maybe cheating (if my cheating hand was lucky enough to pull high). In the two games last night and the demo, the cards had such a huge factor in how the game went that tactics, I felt, took a back seat.

The Wolfman

Laura and I went out to see The Wolfman last night in the theaters (very romantic). It's the new Benicio Del Toro, Anthony Hopkins and Hugo Weaving movie about the werewolf story. It takes place in England just before the 1900s.

The movie looked stunning. It had the creepy outdoors feeling down, and the blue-washed colors kept it feeling cold and dangerous. The mansion, with its complete lack of tidiness, plus the miles of massive trees looked amazing. I was hooked early on.

But the movie pretty quickly turned from the horror movie I was hoping for into a movie entirely about guts and things jumping out unseen with loud noises accompanying them. There wasn't the frightening anticipation of what the wolfman is doing, because you see him in action so early. The actions of the creature didn't even seem to make sense - they weren't all that animalistic or anything. It just seemed like "scare people with missing limbs and torn bodies." Which doesn't really work when it happens to everyone.

In the end, I walked away very disappointed with this movie. The "twist" was telegraphed from the beginning. The ending didn't really make sense. The main female character's motivations were suspect at best. And it wasn't all that frightening.

I think if I want to see a good movie about a beast, I'm going to have to stick with Brotherhood of the Wolf for now. Though I'd love to see a good - and frightening - werewolf film come up at some point.

New Family Member

Kate and Eric have a new baby boy! John Patrick was born yesterday at around 3:00 PM. He came in around 11 lbs. Both mother and son are doing fine. Mary Kate took to him immediately (no doubt very pleased she was no longer the youngest). Natalie's taking the eldest child role very seriously and keeping watch over him. She was holding John when I was talking to my mother yesterday. Nicholas just fell asleep after meeting John.

Kate made it home in time for Lost. Got to have your priorities, after all.

Firestorm: Armada Campaign Update

One nice thing the snow has done for me is give me time to sit around the house and find things to do. Since the snow started last Friday (some 36-48" ago), Laura has been kind enough to paint my entire Dindrenzi fleet. All 20 ships are painted up and ready to be fielded. I liked the grey tones the official color scheme had, and I liked the understated colored lines on them, but I didn't like the entire fleet being a single color. I ended up grouping my ships into squadrons and giving like squadrons the same color schemes, and slightly altering the pattern on each ship in the squadron to better differentiate them.

Meanwhile, I spent a lot of time working on the rules to the campaign. Most of it I was able to keep the same as the Battlefleet Gothic campaign I found, but I did have to change the specific rules and the scenarios a bit. I kept the overall theme to most of them, but I added in a couple more scenarios I wanted to play in space and changed a couple around to keep them more interesting.

The first I added was an assault on a space station where a fleet had to come in, board the space station, extract vital data, and escape. The second was a raid where a group of ships was able to yank an enemy fleet out of hyperspace and ambush them. I've wanted to play something like this since hearing about Interdector Cruisers in Star Wars. I think it would be great fun for one fleet to be fleeing to a safe part of the board to take off into hyperspace while the other tries to hunt them down.

The full rules document ended up coming to about 44 pages. Far longer than I expected. But at least it's done now. No doubt playing through it will find some inconsistencies that will need to be adjusted, but for my purposes, they're ready to go.

Now if only it would stop snowing so we could play...

Snow, Again

This winter has been one of the worst I've ever seen. Actually, strike that, this has been the worst I can remember.

There was the winter where we were snowed in for almost a week with a blizzard (what was that... '96? '95? Eric was just in college and I was still in high school). But starting at around 10:00 AM yesterday, we got hit with our second crippling blizzard. I got to work from home, which was nice. By 5:00, I had already shoveled once, and it looked like I had done nothing.

So Brian and Mary invite us over for board games, and we figure we'll shovel ourselves out, head over (since it's likely the last time we'll be able to do so for a while), then head back around midnight with Brian helping us get out. Of course, that doesn't happen. Around 7:30, Laura and I get the cars all plowed out and are ready to head over when I get a call from Brian:

"We lost power."

Crap. So I tell him if his power comes back soon, we'll be on our way over. About fifteen minutes later, he calls back. No power still, but if it goes like this for much longer, can he pack the family and head over here since we still have heat. Sure thing. We've got a bed ready and everything.

Of course, this actually happens, and by about 9:00, he, Mary and the kids are packed away in our house. Sean is sleeping soundly (after being upset that snow would dare fall on him when he's outside), and Ben is excited about a sleepover at Uncle Mike's. We settle in, grab a few beers, chat for a little while, and then pull out Order of the Stick.

And naturally, this is when Brian and Mary get power back. They call to confirm with a neighbor, and sure enough. We decide to play anyway (a pretty funny game, and very light-hearted) and get to close to midnight before we have to head back out and shovel my walk and Brian's car back out of the snow. Plows were going up and down our streets, keeping them clear. While we shoveled we were passed by no less than four plows (probably the same ones a couple times) as they were just trying to stay ahead of the snow.

This morning, however, I went outside at 8:00 and we had a ton of snow. About a foot, despite all the shoveling we had done. So I shoveled my walk and my neighbor Robin's walk (she's recovering from chemo and I'd rather she stayed indoors if possible). Now I'm eating breakfast two hours later, looking outside, and we've already got another inch and change of snow where I was working.

And it's supposed to keep going like this all day.

Firestorm: Armada Campaign

Since I started looking over the rules and playing Firestorm: Armada, the new space fleet combat game from Spartan Games, I've wanted to play with scenarios. Maybe it's all the times I've seen space combat that has an actual purpose (taking down the Deathstar, fighting to get out of Ragnok Station and away from the Cylons, etc.) I've wanted to play space combat games that had a purpose. Not just a fleet encounters another one and they fight, but I wanted to see fleets running blockades, or on convoy duty, or trying to assault planets.

Which is pretty strange. My favorite miniatures game, Warmachine, has a bunch of scenarios, and I dislike playing with them. I prefer to toss my army out there and fight with it.

But with Firestorm: Armada, I want the story that links together. Trying to wrest control of systems away from evil-doers (unless I'm the evil-doer, than I want to wrest control from those do-gooders).

So I started looking up online for space-based campaign guides. I had played Battlefleet Gothic before, so I started there. I found a great campaign guide with a little effort and spent the day converting the rules over to Firestorm: Armada style. Now to get the game started...

Forces of Cygnar

I picked up the Forces of Warmachine: Cygnar book last night (and Kara Sloan – couldn’t resist that rifle-toting girl) in hardcover. I have to say, a nice piece of work. I already had the Retribution book, so I knew basically what to expect. There’s some new art, but not a lot. Given that they’re redoing all the books this year, plus Prime, and did an entire book of new art last year in Retribution, I’m not surprised. I would have liked more one-off pictures like in Apotheosis, but I’m not unhappy with the reused pictures.

The book’s got a painting guide, a gallery of all the models, some fluff, and some description of the history and military structure of Cygnar. As well as all the model rules for Cygnar, including the ones in Prime MKII. I like that touch. It means I don’t have to bring Prime MKII anywhere if I just want a book of all Cygnar rules.

There were eight new entries to the Cygnar force this time around. For the most part, I’m happy with them.

Kara Sloan, our new rifle-toting girl. She’s hitting the table with a RNG 14, POW 12 Weapon Master rifle. It’s only ROF 1, but with her feat and the gobber, she can pick up 2 more shots. She has a spell that gives half of Snipe to all of her battlegroup for the turn. Not bad at all. I was hoping that we’d finally get another caster with Snipe since most of our stuff seems to have that in mind, but this is pretty close and I like the idea of RNG 12 Cyclones and RNG 18 Defenders on the same turn. She did get Dead Eye, which is a solid ranged support spell. I’m really looking forward to giving her a try. I think she’ll better fit my style than Caine, who is too much of a super solo for my taste. But I don’t know if she’ll replace Siege as my favorite. B+

Firefly, our new reach, non-arc node, light jack. Only 5 points. Great! Immune to Electricity. All good. Storm Smiths can triangulate off him. Okay. But what I was really hoping for was a good ranged weapon for the electricity theme. Instead we have ANOTHER range 10, pow 10, electro leap pow 10 hit. It’s only ROF 1 too. So it’ll smack a couple of guys, but really, it’s going to want to be in melee with its P+S 13 more. Except it has no shield, so it’s only ARM 16. A very strange jack. Built to be ranged, but given a poor ranged weapon. The Sentinel is more likely to kill more guys than he is. He’s finally reach to go with Sword Knights, and I’ll try it out to see how I like it, but on paper, I don’t know that’s enough. C

Cyclone, our new double-chain gun heavy. Okay, this guy is awesome. Two guns with rapid fire (Cygnar learned how to make chain guns work!) or the ability to set out a couple suppressing fire plates. All with two open fists? Yes, please. My first try with this guy ended poorly, but I did miss four shots needing 10s to hit, boosting three of them, so I hardly fault him for that one. A

Storm Blade Storm Gunner Weapon Attachment. A point per guy (up to 3 per unit), and they have all the abilities of Storm Blades plus a 10” gun that, if they hit, lets all other shots from the unit auto-hit this turn. Even without that ability, I like them. I can get 11 Storm Blades in a unit for 11 points now, and that’s going to be a hard-hitting force. Since they’re all the same unit, my spells can protect them all at once too. I like them. A

Trencher Commandos. Advanced Deploy and Stealth. Cool deal. No digging in for these guys, but that’s okay. Where Trenchers are more ranged attack, defense oriented with smoke and all, these guys want to bring the attacks to the front. They’ve got the standard trencher gun, plus 6” grenades and trencher knives. They have anatomical precision, so they’ll kill anything they hit in melee. Not bad. They’d be really good with Pathfinder, but alas, they fall short there. A point a model. I’d be more likely to use these guys than regular Trencher. B

Trencher Commando Scattergunners. They bring in an 8” spray instead of their trencher rifle and grenades. A point a model. Otherwise exactly the same. They have a low RAT (only 5), but since Sprays ignore almost any kind of defense bonus, they could put out some damage. B

Stormsmith Storm Tower. Okay, who doesn’t want to have a few of these things sitting around, manned by crazy people calling lightning down from the sky to fry their enemies. They crit disrupt, and launch out mini Chain Lightnings at a range of 14”. Only d3 extra guys, but yes, please. With the Range Finder, they’re tossing them out at RAT 7. Finally some good artillery for Cygnar. And at only 2 points, very affordable. A

Trencher Master Gunner, the turd. Every book’s got one, and this is ours. He’s a CMD 9 Commander. Good, but most of our stuff is CMD 9 anyway (unless it’s in the back lines, like our Long Gunners, or far ahead of everyone including this guy, like our Rangers). He can use an action to give us +2 to hit for our AOE attacks for a single model and can reroll the distance/deviation. Except Cygnar doesn’t have many AOEs. He can make sure a single model’s AOEs don’t damage anything friendly, except it sucks because it’s only a single model, not model/unit, so it can’t protect the whole Commando unit from killing each other. And he’s got dig in. For two points, his only saving grace is an 8” spray attack with RAT 6. I think if I took him, it would be for that, and that alone. Everything else is just meh. F

So there we have it – that’s what I think of the new Cygnar models. Can’t wait to try them out on the table.

Fantasy Writing

I like to listen to podcasts on the way to and from work. It's a nice way to hear about different things rather than listening to music, and unlike listening to the radio talk shows, with podcasts, I'm pretty much sure I'll be interested in the topic. Most of the podcasts I listen to are gaming related, but there are a few other ones that slip in. A podcast about LOST, one about fantasy football, one about logic puzzles, etc.

I recently heard about three podcasts about short stories, each with a different genre. There's EscapePod for Science Fiction, PseudoPod for Horror, and PodCastle for Fantasy. I started with EscapePod. I've heard three stories off it now and while I liked the first one, the second two were a bit lacking in my opinion. I decided to download the current story for the other two and see what they were like. On the way in to work today, I was listening to "Another End of the Empire" on PodCastle.

I'm not sure if it's representative of the rest of the stories on PodCastle, or if I just happened to be lucky, but this story is fantastic! I haven't finished it yet (I'll finish it up on the way home from work today), but so far I'm enthralled.

It starts with the idea that many fantasy stories currently have three cliches:

1. The farmboy in the village grows up to destroy the evil overlord.
2. Said evil overlord is pretty shortsighted and lacking politically.
3. There is a prophecy that says farmboy will trump evil overlord.

So let's see how the story opens:

Sure enough, the evil overlord who has conquered most of the known world hears a prophecy about how a child in a village will grow up and overthrow the evil overlord. When he asks how long he has, the witch tells him it won't happen for a while. That's good. The witch's prophecy for his father had a little more immediacy: "You have a malignant tumor."

The witch expects the warlord to send his armies to the village and destroy it, but he knows better. It may be what his father would have done, but as he says, he's more "modern." The kid would escape somehow, find that the evil overlord killed his family and friends, and swear vengeance, coming back in years to kill the warlord.

Instead, he sends his people to the village and they rip the central town hall to the ground. The villagers, all keenly aware that they're likely to end up slaves, are surprised to find the overlords architects rebuild a larger, more modern and energy-efficient town hall, complete with a dome and tinted glass. The overlord comes in and renames the village "Progress Village" and sets about building schools and instituting a large quantity of positive social changes.

I won't tell you any more of the story than that, but it's a very funny one. I'd recommend you head over to PodCastle and see if you can download the story (it's episode number 88).

Hordes Legion MK II Overview

Of course, this is only my opinion. It’s the correct opinion, but if you’re okay with being wrong, you can disagree.

When I first saw Cygnar MK II during the fieldtest, I was very excited. Storm Blades were fun, the Storm Clad was great. Gun Mages could shoot well, etc. Then, when the actual rules for MKII Cygnar came out, a lot of what I was excited for ended up being dropped in power or stayed at its former lack of glory. Darius and Kraye, two of my favorites, were at the bottom of the pack. The Thunderhead became a liability unless you went with a lot of lightning-immune stuff. Gun Mages lost some range. Electro Leap remained a difficult prospect to pull off well. Centurions were nigh useless. I could go on.

So when Legion MKII rules came out, I was very excited again, but cautiously so. Lylyth looked like fun, and Vayl and Saeryn, my two favorites from before, held the top ranks of Legion power. There were some spots that needed work, and they got attention. But throughout the whole field test, I was still cautiously optimistic. Being burned by Cygnar still stood fresh in my mind. Finally, Privateer Press released the “final” field test rules for the models, and I felt exactly what happened to Cygnar happened again. They teased us with a lot of really fun things, and then pulled the rug out from under us at the end. Saeryn and Vayl both got heavily hit, which means of the warlocks I own (every one but Epic Thagrosh), there is only one that looks like fun: Absylonia. And she dies to anything that can deal with upkeep spells. Beyond the warlocks, I’m pleased with Legion. It’s just that I can’t find a warlock that I am excited about trying.

Work Exists

Sometimes that's frustrating.

Take today, for example. I came in to the office today, excited because all my hard work over the weekend (lost the majority of Sunday to work) meant I should have a pretty easy rest of the week. Unfortunately, that was not the case.

Oh, quick aside - I'm listening to the soundtrack to Book of Eli. Creepy music. Great movie. I'll try to talk more about it later. I was going to blog about it the day after I saw it, but I decided I couldn't say I wasn't all that religious and then have my first two posts be about religion.

Back to the story. So I come in to the office, ready with a new topic to post about (Legion MKII, for those who are curious), but as soon as I got in, I found two waiting emails. The first referred to an employee who was not listed right. I did some research - nope, the employee was listed right. The second was referring to 95 employees who were not mapped correctly in the hierarchy. I checked. Sure enough, they could be marked wrong, but when given the option to look over things earlier, they didn't.

Long story short, I am now having to rush around and make a bunch of changes to the data because employees did not look over their data earlier when we requested. Now that the data is due, they want everything correct immediately. Which means I have a lot to do, and means I can't go over Legion today. Maybe tomorrow... though I may have to talk about LOST instead. We'll see...