It Figures.... Ultramarines Delayed

Yay.    :-(

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Dear Mike

RE: Order 100004835

Unfortunately, due to a production issue outside of our control, we are not able to start shipping your order for the ULTRAMARINES DVD Collector's Set today, November 29th as planned. We are working around the clock with our third party suppliers to resolve the issue as soon as possible and hope to be able to give you details of a new ship date tomorrow.

We at Codex Pictures know you will be very disappointed not to receive your DVD as soon as anticipated and are equally distressed ourselves that this has happened.

Please accept our sincere apologies and rest assured we are doing everything we can to resolve the issue and get your order to you quickly.

Codex Pictures

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I was wondering why there wasn't some big fanfare about the release date on their website.  Now I know.

Six Unrelated Things

Ulthwe Eldar: I'm working on a Wraithlord; a few small mods and he's looking pretty menacing with his sword.  The base is covered with a mix of vinyl wall spackle and sand, and it works great and is heavy enough to keep the model upright on inclined surfaces.

Ultramarines movie: I am pre-order 4835.  I understand these should be shipping today?  Hopefully?

Android: I have begun to develop for my HTC Evo.  I'm really digging real Java development for this phone.  Way better than J2ME ever was.

Ring The Bell!:  I took a shift ringing a bell for the Salvation Army on Saturday.  It was much more fun than I thought it would be.  I was also surprised at the high rate of donation, but mostly when my six-year-old cub scout was there with me in his uniform.  Just by myself... not so high a rate.

Parenting Moments: Designer7x shares painting with his son.  The next generation must know delayed gratification gaming!

Painting Competitions:  I have been undecided on whether to go to Adepticon to take part in the first Crystal Brush competition or go do Games Day and attempt another Golden Demon.  My wife's response: "Why not do both?"  <3 <3 <3

Attention Coffee Makers

I appreciate you trying to make coffee.  I really do.  But I expect more out of you.  When my kids help me in the kitchen I know at the end I'm going to have half a cup of flour on the floor and some egg shells in the batter.  They're kids.  It's expected.  When adults handle foodstuffs I have somewhat higher expectations.  Perhaps they are unrealistic.  I just expect that I can drink a cup of coffee without the bottom of my mug being filled with coffee grounds.

Let's discuss how this happens and how to avoid it, shall we?

First, our assumptions ... we're talking about regular drip coffee from a standard office coffee maker.  Not Turkish Coffee.  Not some French press thing.  Nothing fancy or complicated.  Here's the basic concept.

fig. 1, Coffee correctly confined in filter

Here we see the filter "basket" with a filter in it, and dry coffee grounds in the filter.  The water pours over the coffee grounds, absorbing some coffee-ishness from them, then seeps through the filter to the waiting coffee pot (not pictured!  don't panic!)  The filter has a very special job, you see!  It keeps the coffee grounds nicely separated from the final product: coffee that is 100% liquid.

Here's how it can go terribly wrong...

fig. 2, Coffee has escaped the filter!

You see, some coffee has escaped the bounds of the filter, making its way to the exit of the basket and therefore into the coffee pot.  And since coffee has a dark color, you never notice it until you drink it.

The end result.....

fig. 3, an unpleasant coffee-covered tongue

Do you see the problem?  We want to drink our coffee without having to chew it at the end.  You know who can help us?  You can!  You can make sure all the coffee is in the filter before adding the water!  When you pour the dry coffee grounds into the filter, do it slowly and carefully.  Not a single ground should escape its filter home if you are careful.  I know you can do it!

Do not just fling the grounds haphazardly at the filter, as I suspect you are doing currently.  You are not Tom Cruise in "Cocktail" when you make coffee.  Take your time and do it right for once.

fig. 4, some jerk

  Seriously.  I'm sick of crunchy-style coffee.

More BuckyBall Art

Can you name the game?  If not, it means your childhood is not as cool as mine (hint: cool is pronounced old in this instance.)  For clarity, the image was run through an edge filter.  It works remarkably well on metallic balls on a conference table.

...and yes, I know the imagery is not perfect.  It's iconic.  Cut me some slack.

The Gamers: Dorkness Rising (all too true)

In some dark former life I used to .... roleplay.

As a greasy teen I played the fare of the day.  AD&D, Gamma World, Star Frontiers, Call of Cthulhu, whatever my high school nerd buddies and I gravitated toward.  And it was fun.  But for all the hiding in basements yelling at each other and throwing dice as a teen, it wasn't until I tried roleplaying as an adult that the real freakshow began.  Seriously, these were some of the most malformed ego disorders I have ever encountered.  If you have gamed, you know the people and you know how accurate the stereotypes are.  The min-maxer; the serial NPC murderer; the rules lawyer; the person who throws mini-tantrums when things don't go their way. 

Tonight, I was perusing Netflix on-demand and came across "The Gamers: Dorkness Rising" and started watching it, and I was surprisingly entertained.  I found myself remembering people I hadn't thought of in years as the characters in the movie did things in-game that were so typical of the miscreants in my gaming circles.  The acting isn't stellar but you don't think about it most of the time.  The important thing is that the people who made this film love the source material and it showed.  If you have never role-played, you probably won't find this terribly appealing.  If you have, this will make you laugh.

Searching for the above image, I have discovered that "Dorkness Rising" is really part 2.  I think I'll go watch part 1 now.  Both of them appear to be available on youtube.  Oh, and they have some sort of website with more stuff.

Accidental Sobchak

A coworker was messing around with the Bucky Balls and came up with this:

It is, of course, a stylized rendition of Walter Sobchak chucking his bowling bag at a nihilist.  I don't think he had that particular image in mind when he started, but that is clearly what he has produced.


In case you have not seen The Big Lebowski, or do not remember the scene....
http://www.evtv1.com/player.aspx?itemnum=8981

Magnetic art of this caliber is way out of your league Donny.

SpecOps Killzone BatReps: Everyone's a Winner!

Last night Mark and I played two SpecOps Killzone games, my Space Marines against his Orks.  Mark has the dubious honor of getting me into this crazy hobby a few years ago, so he has no excuse for ever losing to me for any reason, ever.

That said, I wiped his Orks out in game one without taking a casualty.  Orks <= lol

He reciprocated by changing his army and wiping me out and only losing 4/18 Orks.  /shame

The mission was Extraction, in which one model for the defender is the "High Value Target" or HVT.  In game one it was a Nob w/ a power klaw.  The Ork list was 4 Lootas, a few boyz with shootas and said Nob.  My list was the six model force from my last post here.  The battle field was this attractive group of white boxes to represent.... something boxy I guess.

The battle started well for the Orks, with one of the Lootas making a very unlikely armor save against the Terminator's storm bolter.  Things didn't go so well after that, with every Space Marine making his armor save against the few Ork shots that hit.

Finally, the Orks got tired of doing all the dying and the Nob charged the Terminator.  Noooo!  He's the High Value Target!  If I even touch him with that power first it'll turn him into pesto.  So I was actually rooting for the Klaw to kill the Termie so that I could rapid-fire the Nob to death with the nearby tactical Marines.  No, instead the Termie made his invulnerable save and proceeded to flatten the Nob.  As a side note, I know you can't "turn off" the power fist anymore, but can one choose not to fight in melee?

Anyway after total Marine domination, Mark retooled his Ork list to maximize shootas, big shootas and throw in a couple burnas.  The result.  Ouch.  Ouch.  Ouch.  Ouch.  So many shots... so many wounds... so many armor saves, most of which I saved but every miss was a dear loss.

The end result... everyone won!  Well, not all at once, but both Marines and Orks got their moment to shine.  Mark is writing up the scenarios for these, and I'll link to his much neglected blog once he posts them.  It was a fun game and I'm looking forward to playing the next scenario.  Apparently the goal is to ramp up from SO:K 175 pts last night to an Apocalypse game!  Yikes!

Mark's blog, for scenario fluffiness: 40kbadmoonz.blogspot.com

SpecOps Killzone Space Marines tonight!

A friend and I are playing some SpecOps Killzone as part of an 40k escalation series.  He will be playing Orks (including, I fear, Lootas) and I will be playing Space Marines.  My list is as follows:


Vanguard Veteran Fraunhofer (power weapon, bolt pistol, medipack, team leader)
Tactical Marine Leitus (bolter, bolt pistol)
Tactical Marine Banhof (bolter, bolt pistol)
Tactical Marine Leipner (missile launcher, bolt pistol)
Tactical Marine Justov (heavy bolter, suspensors, bolt pistol)
Terminator Hestophar (storm bolter, power fist)
---
Total: 174 points

More after the battle!

SpecOps Killzone BatRep: 'Nids vs. Orks

Outta da way, bugz!  We's got some know-wotz fer da Boss!

175 pt game, reconnaissance.
Orks were attackers.

Ork list:  Lugruk's RuffBoyz (174 pts)

Lugruk, Nob w/ 'eavy armor, power klaw, slugga (50 pts)
Skabgut, Nob w/ 'eavy armor, choppa, slugga (25 pts)
Gobstik, Nob Painboy w/ 'eavy armor (55 pts)
Skumbad, 'ard Boy w/ shoota, close combat accesssories (11 pts)
Durthug, 'ard Boy w/ Big Shoota (15 pts)
Skarslag, 'ard Boy w/ Big Shoota, targeter (18 pts)

Steve's Tyranid List:

3 x Warrior w/ Venom Cannon, scything talons

5 x Hormagaunts, adrenal glands

This was a lunch-hour battle, so our terrain was made up of boxes I had around my office.  Very urban, I suppose.  Turn 1 saw the Orks surge forward and kill a 'gaunt with the big shootas.  Nids fired venom cannons and put a wound on both Lugruk and Skabgut.  Turn 2 we rolled for priority and Nids won (and they won every turn thereafter.)  Hormagaunts practically flew across the table and each big shoota got charged by two of them, doing no wounds at all.  The warrior on the far side of the table sniped Skumbad, taking his shoota out of the game.  The boyz returned hits on the gaunts for no wounds, then really did some hurt when the Nobs charged in for the bottom of turn 2.  Skabgut fell to a venom cannon, and poor Durthug was left struggling with a gaunt as the rest of the mob pressed toward the goal.  Watching the painboy stomp off must have been irritating.

Once the gaunts had been dealt with, it was onto the warriors.  Turn 3, Orks called the Waaaagh and charged all the way into assault with the two warriors in the back.  it was the beginning of the end for the nids.  Lugruk showed why his name goes on top of the list as he single-handedly (hur hur) power klawed each warrior into bite-sized morsels.  

Things may have gone differently if Steve had done things in a slightly different order.  Lugruk missed an armor save near the end of the game, but still made his FNP roll.  In the same turn, at the same initiative, Painboy Gobstik was killed by the Warrior he was engaged with.  If the Painboy had gone down first, Lugruk would have gone down as well.  It would have been pretty dicey for the Orks after that, with only the two big shoota boyz, Durthug and Skarslag, left to take out two Warriors.  Instead, the last bug got significantly ganged up on and finally fell to Lugruk's Klaw.  Victory for da Orks!

The Renaissance Has Begun

Listen up, you lot.

When the web comic Ctrl-Alt-Delete does comics on war-gaming, it's funny stuff.
When Penny Arcade does a comic on war-gaming, it's something big.
When Penny Arcade does two comics on war-gaming in less than two weeks, something huge is happening.
When the largest prize ever offered for a miniature painting competition is at an American convention....

...we are seeing the beginning of a renaissance of miniature gaming in America.

I can hope, can't I?

Last Night's Revelations

Because education is good.

1. My hand makes a lousy cutting board.
2. A bread knife is plenty sharp to slice the skin on your palm open.
3. band-aids make everything better
4. The Kids In The Hall are looking really old nowadays.
5. Tony Chachere's Creole Seasoning is fantastic on freshly roasted pumpkin seeds
6. Tony Chachere's Creole Seasoning is about 99.4% salt
7. Salt really hurts when it gets into the corner of a fresh bread-knife wound.

And now you know.

Attention All Gamers: Cavalry != Calvary

It's a small thing, but it drives me to distraction.  Behold:

Cavalry: Troops trained to fight mounted on horses (or perhaps bears.  Or sharks!)


Calvary: A hill outside ancient Jerusalem where Jesus was crucified, also called Golgotha.


Notice the small, but all-important spelling difference in letters 3-6.  Gamers seem to have no problem referring to cavalry as "cav" but only seem to be able to say "cavalry" about 50% of the time instead of saying "calvary."  Cav-al-ry.  Cal-va-ry.  Not the same.

Also, when you say "supposably" you probably mean "supposedly."  Supposably is a real word, but it means conceivably.  So, GW is supposedly releasing a new Daemonhunters codex soon, but they are supposably releasing a new army made up of power-armored chihuahuas in 2011.  Supposably.

Spoiler Alert: The Chicken Gets It

Please, please tell me who this cinematic is supposed to appeal to?!?  After rooting for this oppressed chicken as she makes her daring escape attempt I was appalled to see her get snuffed by the stupid cook guy. Really depressing.

Doesn't the little guy (or gal) win anymore? Shame on you, chicken haters. I don't care about your dark mood-setting back story. All I hear is blah, blah, blah now anyway.