Posts are back, and Skyim is fantastic!

Today I reinvigorate my blog, revive my writing, transfer the mess swirling in my head to words on the internet. After much gentle, persistent, prodding from a good friend, I could do no less. I also figured that aside from the fabulous Tinkerbell stocking filled with Black Library novels I gave him, the best gift I can give is to post here again. I’m going to add something new to the blog to simply be called at this time – “What freaking game are they talking about?”. At times I come across juicy sayings that people use to refer to one of the many awesome games out there without mentioning the title of the game. Through much innuendo you can discern what they are talking about. Today is a great one from my cousin. It is at the end of the post, guess what game the quote is referring to and you will = awesome. So, without too much ado, here is a Skyrim post I worked on in the past and wanted to finally get out there. These were my earliest experiences with the beautifully constructed game.

To put it mildly, Skyrim is beyond all of my expectations, and putting it mildly does this game an injustice. I have invested five hours into the game and think I barely scrapped the surface of the main plot line. If you so choose to follow the main plot, Bethesda brilliantly leads you by making it seem like you are not being led at all. As you explore and engage individuals in towns and villages, or along the road, anywhere, and ask questions, it may lead you to a quest. They don’t blatantly have an obnoxious exclamation point over their head, or plastered on the map. It subtly refers you to your quest log if you happen across one such conversation. You can look at the quest log where you need to go trudge off towards that direction.

The mine was beautiful. The walls, rocks, miners tools, everything seemed to belong and was richly detailed. Out of habit I crouched and crept along till I heard two individuals speaking. One was refusing to sleep due to his security concerns, the other assured him the guard outside, and rock trap (that I accidentally tripped but was moving so slow I avoided damage by not moving under it), would keep out any nosey individuals. He relented and went to sleep, only to have it be disrupted when I launched an arrow from hiding at the one walking away. I crept through the rest of the mine and was impressed at every turn by the detail. This was not like a cave from Dragon Age 2 that seemed generically thrown together and reconstituted for a different task. I’d like to think all dungeons will be this original and have such a feeling of wonder.

After the mine I continued my walk and was fascinated again when I found you could harvest things found along the way. A bush that blended perfectly in with the mountain foliage was harvestable. I figured these flowers might be used in performing alchemical experiments to create potions. Just about anything in the environment, short of equipment, can be grinding into some tasty sort of potion. It took me a lot of random trying, but once you figure out a few properties of items you can glean others properties. Also, feel free to eat anything you come across, you might determine some properties by whatever happens to your character. I made the mistake of trying to store all my ingredients in a chest, and spammed the wrong button. Instead of storing the items, I ate them all. I should have noticed something was wrong.
These were early explorations and discoveries of mine into the world of Skyrim. I have much more to discuss since its been over 30 hours of playtime since writing this.

Time for today’s "What freaking game are they talking about?”! Good luck... No the answer is not World of Warcraft…

“The amount of human hours that game has feasted on is incalculable. It is the Great Maw that the Ogres worship. The insanity of spending years amassing a fortune to buy a spaceship that is then subsequently destroyed by some saboteur who has let an enemy corporation through your galactic defenses is too much for me.I'll stick to corpse runs in WoW, or alt-tabbing while the gankers jump and dance on my body.”

Feel free to comment with guesses. I’ll give the answer in the next post, which will force me to write on a schedule!

Hero Quest Revived!

Thursday we gathered to game. Instead of Shadowrun we needed a different avenue to satisfy our gaming needs. In that time of uncertainty, I pulled from the shelves Hero Quest. It saved the night!

What can I say about this game? It came out back in 1990, I was around ten or eleven years old when I got my copy. How did I end up getting it? Not sure, my parents purchased it for me for Christmas on a whim or because they felt I would enjoy it. I did like board games and I use to really enjoy playing Advanced Dungeons and Dragons on our Intellivision. Whatever the reason, I still should thank them today for buying it.

The game is basically Dungeons and Dragons lite. One person keeps in hand the map of the level and all key information and runs Zargon's Forces (the bad guys), and 1 to 4 people play the characters shown above. There are special dice made for the attack rolls, all characters stats are completed and shown on cards. There are magic cards split between the heros. It was a blast. I believe I enjoy it more now than I did when I was young and foolhardy. One thing I had back then that I keep to this day, is my ridiculous, and obsessive, need to account for every piece of my games. I scrutinize the floor to make sure nothing is lost. I panic if someone mishandles my game pieces. I don't panic openly, this might take away from the fun, but if something is happening that borders on breaking or ruining a game piece I'm all over it.

Hero Quest on Thursday saw me as the Dungeon Master and four of my D&D/Shadowrun friends as the heros. The first level specifically talks about teamwork to survive, team work, working together, etc. I was surprised how much it mentioned it. Much to my pleasure the guys/gals threw caution to the wind and started romping around the dungeon solo. Opening all the doors they could! Before I knew it, I had 3 orcs, a chaos warrior, the gargoyle, 2 zombies, and one mummy chasing the heros back to the stairs. At this point the Barbarian, Ulric, was dead and I was debating to allow his twin, Alric, make a showing.

Once the threat was handled sufficiently, the group set off again. Just the barbarian going out on his down, to die again. Olric made his way into the Dungeon next, who knew Ulric was one of triplets? The Elf died, but I allowed Alric to thump him back to life at 2 HP and suffer the loss of one mental point because of the head bashing Alric used to awaken him. There were other rule bendings and eventually they succeeded in making it out of the dungeon.

The second quest saw my monsters bowled over by an efficient team of heros and terrible rolling on my part. Maybe we'll get to do quest three sometime. According to this magic 8-ball, "My signs point to yes".

Dark Eldar Raiders Ravaged

Elated over a new bolter? Happy for sending more xeno filth to the Emperor for righteous judgment? Or barely contained joy over a fresh shipment of Imperium standard bar chocolate and much needed feminine hosiery requisitions finally made it to your deep space outpost.... You be the judge. (the photo was retrieved from DeviantArt user Luthernial, credit goes to him on a pretty sweet drawing)


Whatever the result of her smile, my Sisters of the Burning Blade succeeded in their second preparatory NOVA Open battle. This was against my friends Dark Eldar host consisting of 3 ravagers, one raider with haemocculi with wyches, and several venom craft, some with elites, others with 5 man troops and blasters. My sisters owe much of the battle to the steadfastness of their inducted guard allies, especially the durability of the chimeras. The chimera's were heavily targeted by my DE opponent. This was probable because of the threat the vehicles posed with multi-lasers and autocannon occupants, or the guard squads inside would make easy kill points once extricated from their armored carriers, or he just so happened to mass on the side where the chimera's were located. I think it was the latter.


My celestian unit, in addition to their immolater transport, were the first target eradicated. It took a large amount of dedicated shooting but they did fall to the first shooting phase. Exorcist# 1 bought the Imperial Hydroponics plot first turn, as well as my platoon command squad chimera and two troopers. A trio of foolhardy DE bikers thought the remaining guardsmen would be easy prey, this would end up not being the case.


The first Dark Eldar turn put out a lot of shooting and was fairly successful in that it gave my opponent 4 kill points. I was questioning my deployment heavily since my force was separated. It appeared the right flank, where he placed all his units, might buckle swiftly the next turn before my flanking units could intervene. The next shooting phase would not go as well for the DE.


His shooting effectively hit, but often could not reach glancing or penetrating levels, or failed do wreck or destroy the vehicle targeted. Scourges came in but I knew I could snatch quick kill points with one or two well placed flamers. My firing was slowly plucking away the 11 and 10 open topped DE vehicles. While his force inched slowly toward my chimera's that continued to weather his fire. By turn 4 my other units were engaging the flank of his forces, which never turned from the chimera's to face the approaching threat.


The game ended at 17 kill points to 9-10 kp for the DE. Again the early turns, like my battle against the IG, proved to be painful. Steady progress was made through the game which brought a final victory. I know the above post was not a very descriptive battle report but I just wanted to put out significant points I noticed from the battle.


What I learned

-heavy fire designed to cause armor saves will eradicate squads with enough DE shooting .

+ power armor of sisters forces much more shooting to kill entire units.

-Inquisitor Squad with 2 plasma rifle vets managed to eliminate a ravager and proved mildly effective in a game without negating psychic powers.

-Hitting armor and penetrating armor is just half of the game, that dreaded damage roll can confound everything if you continue to get 1's or 2's

-Don't forget faith points for killed units

-Don't forget Chimera's do not come with extra armor like Sister Rhinos

-Platoon Command Squad counts as a Troop for claiming objectives and such

-Chimera's massed in an area may provide an attractive target for the enemy


That is it for now.

My Sisters Schedule a Dark Eldar Date-night

August is quickly approaching and the time to tune my army for the NOVA Open is dwindling. I managed to finally compose a list that I am 90% comfortable with. I played one game against my long time friend and opponent General with the list. It was a tough game, came down to the end, to one leadership roll that chased his unit off his objective. That roll combined with the rolls that failed to kill my unit on my objective. The victory was slight, but the most I got from this battle was that my army weathered a ton of Imperial Guard fire and was still around.

Now my Sisters have set a date to battle my friends Dark Eldar list. I've seen his army and know I'll be walking into a game of withering fire and facing vehicles that will limit my own army's ability to range them. It will be interesting to see how the new DE army will fight. I can recall several games with my brothers Dark Eldar, who decimated many opponents at the GW Battle Bunker. Those games often saw my sisters on the better end, but times have changed, and so have army books.

I think I prefer to stare down Dark Lances before Heat Lances. I feel much better when someone tries to penetrate on S8 with 1 die, as opposed to S6 on 2 dice. Two dice are much more forgiving than one. I am curious how much shooting he will have and if it will be enough to handle all the vehicles and the armor. Where the guard have large blast templates combined with high strength, I am not sure the Dark Eldar have the same capabilities. I predict more direct fire weapons and a better chance for a larger amount of troops to survive. The DE will bring more combat ready troops and a threat of eliminating my guard, and even sisters in Hand to hand.

I need to take in games at the local hobby store "Your Hobby Place" and get some battles in against the new Grey Knights, Blood Angels, and Space Wolves. All marine armies with new lists and powerful capabilities. I need to read the rules and get down to specifics. What happens to skimmers that turbo boost if they get immobilized? When do you roll for leadership tests? If you are pinned does that overrule a leadership test to flee? Lots of rules taken for granted in friendly games, but facing down a tournament setting it pays to know in advance.

What else needs to be done?

-buy another Exorcist

-Put together Autocannon crews

-Build two more Chimeras

-Work on painting the entire army

-Design a board to carry the army

-Prepare another list incase the Sisters of Battle rules change before August 1st!!! I already know I'll just throw as many sisters in as possible.

Maybe I can get some completed tonight? Asking too much?

NOVA Open 40k Grand Tournament

I recently threw my lot in to participate in the Northern Virginia Open Warhammer 40k Grand Tournament. There was a hiccup at first when I attempted to registered, but spots did not sell out and I was able to nab one of the 256 tickets. Two hundred fifty six people playing in a 40k tournament, just that was enough to make me want to join the fray. I also stopped by the 2010 open held in Dulles to see how a friends fantasy army was doing, that also wet my whistle for NOVA GT melee.

Now that I am signed up, what is the plan of attack? One option is to decide casually on a list, maybe even write it up the day before the tournament and just walk into it. The other is approaching it like a sport even to train for that is months out. Make several lists, try these lists out in smaller tournaments, study strategies and find out what lists out there are the ones to beat, find out the literature spread on the web about my list and army (if any), plan a deployment for different situations, know my army inside and out, know the rules and oddities, and be ready to rock and roll come game day!

How will that play out? Well I want to shoot for the latter approach, but I am sure I will hit the mark somewhere in between. The biggest thing I need to decide on is to use Sisters, Sisters with IG, or Grey Knights. Problem with the Grey Knights is they do not get released until April. It is probably better to work with a codex that is not in a state of flux.

So in the coming months will be the march towards the NOVA Open 2011. This means aside from the preparation in the rest of the post, painting my chosen army to completion is a goal. So let the fun begin.