Well its the last day off in my work cycle so I guess I should be proactive and put something up. I am a wargamer, in layman's terms I play super chess with little figures that I assemble and (poorly) paint myself. Over the last year I had begun to pull away from the big company and see what else I might enjoy. Enter Warmachine. A Victorian England Steampunk themed wargame with giant robots wrecking house left and right? I'm listening...... I regularly play with my one friend as he enjoys the nerdy pursuits as much as I do, but he is much slower to purchase/assemble/paint so for the better part of a year I have collected a large force and never really gotten a game in. Yesterday I went to Heros World in Markham as Thursday is their Warmachine night to try and get some learning games in.
I was greeted with the usual cheer one can expect from fellow nerds and was able to get in 4-5 games that night. I had mentioned that while I have poured over the rules as best I can for quite a while I am still iffy on some things so most of my opponents were very mindful about explaining what they were doing and what it would mean for me. My first game was against a gentleman running a dwarf merc force. I ran the Cygnar battlebox with B13. The game was going well ( those little gun bunnies pack a whallop ) and with Earthquake from Stryker and some lucky damage rolls from my Charger I brought his Warcaster down to 1hp. Next turn saw my Lancer charge forward and Stryker arc Arcance Blast into him for the win. A fun game and John was a great opponent. ( I cant quite remember if I used the Chargers RoF 2 gun without paying the focus for it, as in a later game I was still thinking I could, but thats one more thing I will be sure to remember.)
2nd game was against a 15 point Circle force. I have been really interested in getting the Hordes mechanics down so I watched him with great interest. I played the same army. He had a caster that could basically Hulk out, a character heavy and another heavy. I managed to chip a good deal of damage off the one heavy and had set myself up so that my Ironclad would get the charge next turn. Turns out that caster has a spell that boosts the movement of his units so his character beast almost trashed my heavy in one go. After one more turn I figured if I was going down I was going down swinging, and charged pStryker in loaded with focus. BAD IDEA. There was poor damage rolls on my part but looking at it now I can see that pStryker shouldnt be doing that even under dire circumstances. He Cleaved me in twain his next turn. We were both laughing at how ineffectual Stryker was and he was excited to have won a game with his caster as he doesnt get many games in and usually gets rocked. A fun opponent and good guy to talk with during a game.
3rd game was with a younger player running a 25 point Merc list. I think he had Damiano with his character jack, min Nyss, Mangler, eEiyrss, Piper. I wanted to try eCaine as I really like the model. Caine had a Stormclad, Reinholdt, Squire, max Stormblades with UA and max WA, ATGM. This game was a lesson in waiting, my forces were taking a beating and thanks to Eiryss I couldnt use the Stormclad. He feated and had some other bonuses on his caster and I decided to take the assassination run. BAD IDEA. While I had used the back arc of his warjack to boost Caine's hitting power his caster was sitting on something like Def 17 ARM 19 or the like. I just couldnt get more than a love tap in. His turn sent Caine back to Cygnar in pieces. Not a bad game, my opponent offered his advice to me afterwards. Several players afterwards mentioned to me that he plays to win so I shouldnt feel bad about the absolute drubbing I took. I honestly didnt care, I have been around enough of the younger wargaming crowd to know that many are playing for the big W and I dont take it to heart.
The last game I got in was against another Cygnar player. 15 points, he had Siege with Defender, Squire and Reinholdt, eEyriss, B13, neither of us had a Stormsmith so he played with 14. I ran pStryker, Ol' Rowdy, B13, Hunter marshalled to Strangeways. We played the 3 flags 1 dissappears game. Due to oversight on his part Eyriss was next to his defender on Sieges feat turn which meant all he really was able to do was take out Rowdy's movement and bitch-slap my B13 back to momma. My turn 2 my hunter took one of the objectives and sent his Ryan packing, Strangeways repaired Rowdy's movement and then Rowdy charged at Eiryss who was siting on the other objective, it wasnt enough to reach her but enough to contest it if things went pear shaped. Stryker had feated so everything but the hunter was feeling pretty safe. He brought his B13 near my hunter to contest but Blur kept him from doing anything else. My turn Stryker had just enough movment to charge Eyriss and take her down. Which gave me the win by scenario. A nice game my opponent was really good about answering my questions and pointed out to me that I had been clustering my models. Apparently its a big way to tell who is coming from 40k. I went with a dozen or so of the guys for wings and beer afterwards. All in all a rather enjoyable time, I only wish it was closer to home. I will see if I feel up to it again next Thusday, I fly the following day and wont be back home for 2 weeks. On the table right now are 2 min units of forgeguard. I hope to be done them by next week.
Friday 20 July 2012
Thursday 12 July 2012
Get out of the Bitter Barn and play in the hay
Well its been more than a while since I last was typing here, mostly because I am less than savy when it comes to more than simple operation of programs. But often in the midst of my mundane life I find I will mull over ideas, opinions, etc and eventually build the urge to write something down. It may be a short story of my own device or I will try to pin point where and how a book or show I enjoy has gone off track and try and think of how it could have been saved. I know, I know that reeks of Fan Fiction Mary Sue-ness and I sound quite full of myself saying I could "correct" another writers work but as a "consumer" of the material I feel that I am entitled to point out where and why I think the story went off the rails.
This little preamble is to explain that while many of the posts I will probably put up here may seem negative or like I am complaining, it is actually because I will get passionate more often about something that bothers me more than I will about something that I think stands alone and requires no input to correct it.
Which leads me to The Walking Dead;
I came into season 1 with no knowledge of the graphic novel and for the most part was blown away. I woke with Rick in an unfamiliar setting and tried to adjust to the New World right there with him. There are only 3 instances that spring to mind that I felt just didnt fit in the world. It felt to me as if the writers were trying to force a square peg into a round hole. First I will touch on the lesser or at least the more subtle of them; Deus Ex Machina ( but only for Rick ). *SPOILER ALERT* The first one that really bothered me was the Mexican stand off at the Retirement Home. I am going to assume you have seen the show so I won't be painting the settings for you. Two groups are ready to gun each other down, until an old lady walks out and with her senility diffuses the situation, now both groups stand down. Then the "Gang bangers" are revealed to be "anti-heros" so to speak so both sides become friends and reach a compromise. This happens more and more as the show goes on but this was the first instance that really jumped out at me. I dont really mind if this has to happen occasionally, I understand the writers can't spin gold for every episode but theres only so much "re-route _____ through the deflector" that I will accept. (Thats a TNG reference if you missed it)
The second and I feel worse issue comes with Shanes character. The whole shotgun thing in the (3rd?) episode just came out of nowhere. I have heard many people say that Shane was a pyscho and the fall of civilization allowed him to sink to his true level. I won't try to argue that point as I feel only the actual writers are privy to the motivations and we are just making guesses. The second issue with Shane's character was the shower rape. I had no problem with Shane making a drunken pass at Lori but I just didnt think his character would go like that.
I think everyone knew from episode 2 on that Shane was going to be a villian, or at least as close to a villian while still allowing him to travel with the group. But I wanted his fall to be enacted better than he got. Shane, in my opinion get relegated to some rabid dog. He is too dangerous to be around everyone and eventually (thematically) destroys himself. While I liked the idea of Shane getting dumped on for everything he did to help, ( telling Lori that Rick was dead, taking care of her and Carl, etc ) I thought that many of them were not well thought out. When Lori gets into a car accident in season 2 for no reason other than to create stupid tension, and Shane gets blasted for telling her that Rick was at the farm. I remember thinking to myself, "this chick took off on her own, got in an accident and started walking into zombie town with a possible concussion, and refused to turn back so Shane told her what he needed to in order to save her life. Then everyone (characters and viewers ) blasts him saying he did it for selfish reasons ( he wants Lori and the baby ).
Lets touch on the baby issue while we are here. I am, for arguements sake going to say it is Shane's baby. I not only understand with Rick's statement that the baby will be raised as Rick's and as far as anyone is going to be concerned Shane is not affiliated with their family, but I agree with it. However let's take a look at Shane's argument. The world for lack of a better word has ended. Those nice clean little family lines Rick wants to draw don't really exist anymore, family seems to be more what you can make of it. You come across some kids in your travels, take them in, and after a year or so you may very well consider them your children. Now imagine that you have a child with your wife or girlfriend, then her ex husband comes walking back in and she leaves you to go back to him. He then tells you that child of yours, is his now, and you will have no fatherly interaction with it nor will it think of you as its father. Are you going to take that?
I thought Shane was going to get evicted from the group in Season 2 and during Season 3 there would be a few scenes where - unexplainedly - you are seeing a POV camera angle of someone watching the group or hunting animals or something. Then sometime after Lori gives birth, the baby is taken and its revealed that Shane has been following them. The second half of season 3 or season 4 could have dealt with chasing Shane down. I dont want a crazy eyed creepy sex breathing Shane staring Rick down. I want a cold Shane, one who looks at this world and sees numbers not people. I always felt that was the difference between them, that Shane is a twisted version of Rick, in the Old World they may have seemed very similar, but in this New World the key difference is Rick wants a life, while Shane is interested in existing.
Going hand in hand with both those points ( Deus Ex for Rick, and living vs existing ) is I can't stand how Rick is such a white hat sometimes, ( cowboy ref ). When they had the little annoying sniper kid for a while and everything and everyone is screaming they need to kill him, Rick refuses, because he is the fraking hero and killing someone who seconds ago was trying to kill you is too much apparently. I thought for a second he was going to mention that they needed to keep him alive because Carl ( whom I loath ) was kinda becoming this little mentally disturbed annoyance. When Carl sneaks into the barn to see sniper boy and starts approaching him, the camera starts panning down and away a little and I was sure they were going to show a knife on Carl's belt, not even show his hand going for it or anything, just leave it to the audiences imagination if Carl was coming to kill this kid in cold blood or was just curious. This I could buy; " We cant just kill this sniper kid, if we start acting like this then what are we becoming? Look at what my son was ready to do, a (10?) year old was going to stab some stranger he had never met because we aren't sure if he is a threat or not." This gives me a plausable reason why Rick would say no. He is worried what this world is doing to them.
Theres other points but this post is becoming long enough. I think next time I stop in here I will laud something. Perhaps The Most Dangerous Game, or Season 1 of BSG ( everything after falls into the otehr category ), Comics ( note: my knowledge of comics comes mostly second hand from the friends who still collect ), or if I can get some Wargaming in maybe some Bat Reps. I could also try and transcribe some of the RPG sessions when we get them in like a certain blog ( http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/ ) I read and was pleasantly impressed with. Until then,
Turk
This little preamble is to explain that while many of the posts I will probably put up here may seem negative or like I am complaining, it is actually because I will get passionate more often about something that bothers me more than I will about something that I think stands alone and requires no input to correct it.
Which leads me to The Walking Dead;
I came into season 1 with no knowledge of the graphic novel and for the most part was blown away. I woke with Rick in an unfamiliar setting and tried to adjust to the New World right there with him. There are only 3 instances that spring to mind that I felt just didnt fit in the world. It felt to me as if the writers were trying to force a square peg into a round hole. First I will touch on the lesser or at least the more subtle of them; Deus Ex Machina ( but only for Rick ). *SPOILER ALERT* The first one that really bothered me was the Mexican stand off at the Retirement Home. I am going to assume you have seen the show so I won't be painting the settings for you. Two groups are ready to gun each other down, until an old lady walks out and with her senility diffuses the situation, now both groups stand down. Then the "Gang bangers" are revealed to be "anti-heros" so to speak so both sides become friends and reach a compromise. This happens more and more as the show goes on but this was the first instance that really jumped out at me. I dont really mind if this has to happen occasionally, I understand the writers can't spin gold for every episode but theres only so much "re-route _____ through the deflector" that I will accept. (Thats a TNG reference if you missed it)
The second and I feel worse issue comes with Shanes character. The whole shotgun thing in the (3rd?) episode just came out of nowhere. I have heard many people say that Shane was a pyscho and the fall of civilization allowed him to sink to his true level. I won't try to argue that point as I feel only the actual writers are privy to the motivations and we are just making guesses. The second issue with Shane's character was the shower rape. I had no problem with Shane making a drunken pass at Lori but I just didnt think his character would go like that.
I think everyone knew from episode 2 on that Shane was going to be a villian, or at least as close to a villian while still allowing him to travel with the group. But I wanted his fall to be enacted better than he got. Shane, in my opinion get relegated to some rabid dog. He is too dangerous to be around everyone and eventually (thematically) destroys himself. While I liked the idea of Shane getting dumped on for everything he did to help, ( telling Lori that Rick was dead, taking care of her and Carl, etc ) I thought that many of them were not well thought out. When Lori gets into a car accident in season 2 for no reason other than to create stupid tension, and Shane gets blasted for telling her that Rick was at the farm. I remember thinking to myself, "this chick took off on her own, got in an accident and started walking into zombie town with a possible concussion, and refused to turn back so Shane told her what he needed to in order to save her life. Then everyone (characters and viewers ) blasts him saying he did it for selfish reasons ( he wants Lori and the baby ).
Lets touch on the baby issue while we are here. I am, for arguements sake going to say it is Shane's baby. I not only understand with Rick's statement that the baby will be raised as Rick's and as far as anyone is going to be concerned Shane is not affiliated with their family, but I agree with it. However let's take a look at Shane's argument. The world for lack of a better word has ended. Those nice clean little family lines Rick wants to draw don't really exist anymore, family seems to be more what you can make of it. You come across some kids in your travels, take them in, and after a year or so you may very well consider them your children. Now imagine that you have a child with your wife or girlfriend, then her ex husband comes walking back in and she leaves you to go back to him. He then tells you that child of yours, is his now, and you will have no fatherly interaction with it nor will it think of you as its father. Are you going to take that?
I thought Shane was going to get evicted from the group in Season 2 and during Season 3 there would be a few scenes where - unexplainedly - you are seeing a POV camera angle of someone watching the group or hunting animals or something. Then sometime after Lori gives birth, the baby is taken and its revealed that Shane has been following them. The second half of season 3 or season 4 could have dealt with chasing Shane down. I dont want a crazy eyed creepy sex breathing Shane staring Rick down. I want a cold Shane, one who looks at this world and sees numbers not people. I always felt that was the difference between them, that Shane is a twisted version of Rick, in the Old World they may have seemed very similar, but in this New World the key difference is Rick wants a life, while Shane is interested in existing.
Going hand in hand with both those points ( Deus Ex for Rick, and living vs existing ) is I can't stand how Rick is such a white hat sometimes, ( cowboy ref ). When they had the little annoying sniper kid for a while and everything and everyone is screaming they need to kill him, Rick refuses, because he is the fraking hero and killing someone who seconds ago was trying to kill you is too much apparently. I thought for a second he was going to mention that they needed to keep him alive because Carl ( whom I loath ) was kinda becoming this little mentally disturbed annoyance. When Carl sneaks into the barn to see sniper boy and starts approaching him, the camera starts panning down and away a little and I was sure they were going to show a knife on Carl's belt, not even show his hand going for it or anything, just leave it to the audiences imagination if Carl was coming to kill this kid in cold blood or was just curious. This I could buy; " We cant just kill this sniper kid, if we start acting like this then what are we becoming? Look at what my son was ready to do, a (10?) year old was going to stab some stranger he had never met because we aren't sure if he is a threat or not." This gives me a plausable reason why Rick would say no. He is worried what this world is doing to them.
Theres other points but this post is becoming long enough. I think next time I stop in here I will laud something. Perhaps The Most Dangerous Game, or Season 1 of BSG ( everything after falls into the otehr category ), Comics ( note: my knowledge of comics comes mostly second hand from the friends who still collect ), or if I can get some Wargaming in maybe some Bat Reps. I could also try and transcribe some of the RPG sessions when we get them in like a certain blog ( http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/ ) I read and was pleasantly impressed with. Until then,
Turk
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