#compared to making a full army for tabletop

[infinityreview]

Reviewing Takkure, a cyberpunk rugby game

Welcome to Infinity Review, a blog where I review miniatures from the excellent sci-fi tabletop game Infinity by Corvus Belli. Today I’m doing something a little different, and taking a look at Takkure, a cyberpunk rugby game by Ramper Designs and published by Zenit Miniatures. In this review I’ll be looking at just the miniatures and physical components of the game. I’ll talk about gameplay in a future post. You can find out more about Takkure and purchase the game on their official site. My first introduction to Takkure came with their 2020 Kickstarter, which offered their box set. The game’s overall look is very obviously inspired by anime and manga, with a feel that calls to mind the classic manga Battle Angel Alita.  The game’s overall aesthetic reminded me very much of 2nd edition Infinity, an era in that game which I really enjoyed. I supported the Kickstarter based on that  similarity, and its because of that similarity that I’m writing this review.

Takkure is a science fiction sports game with individual themed teams. The box set comes with 2 teams of 4 miniatures each, as well as a board, dice, tokens, booklet and other odds and ends. Lets take a look at the miniatures of each team! The Yamato are one of the two teams included in the base set. They have a strong Japanese cyberpunk theme, with Geisha, Sumo and Samurai inspired characters. The Yamato reminded me VERY MUCH of Infinity’s early Japanese Sectorial Army models, although Takkure’s miniatures certainly aren’t a copy. They have their separate style, with flowing cloth, armored plates and plenty of complicated looking cybernetics! 

The starter set comes with 4 Yamato players, with two more available as separate purchases. I really love these designs so much. The miniatures capture the cyberpunk Japanese feel so well, and the poses are dynamic and full of energy without being too outlandish.

The Teriomorphs are the other team in the starter box, and depending on your tastes their animal theme may seem either a little goofy or really awesome. I usually don’t care for animal themed designs, but the Teriomorphs alternate between very sleek and suitably chunky, and their animal aspects are much cooler than I expected. As I’ve assembled the models they’ve quickly become my favorite team, at least visually. Their poses are as dynamic as the Yamato team, but they also have a solidness that makes them very intimidating. Boar has quickly become my favorite, although all 6 members are great miniatures.

The Dorikin are the 3rd team, available as a separate purchase. They’re a youth motorcycle gang team, an obvious and well done homage to the classic manga/anime Akira. Dorikin team members look more youthful than the Yamato and Teriomorph players, and dress in more casual outfits instead cybernetic animal and samurai costumes. This helps them really stand out and have their own unique character. The Dorikin team includes the largest miniature in the game, a bulky mech suit that looks like it will be a blast to paint.

So are the miniatures any good? Yes, they are! The miniatures are all cast in metal, and each are multipart. For Infinity players, I would very much compare these miniatures to original Human Sphere/ mid N2 era Infinity, and I mean that as a compliment. The miniatures are dynamic and well sculpted, with loads of well rendered details, including very nice faces. The designs are attractive, and each team has a distinct aesthetic that makes them easy to identify, even unpainted.  The casting is very good. I didn’t find any miscasts in the 18 models I purchased, and mold lines were very easy to clean. Each model is multipart, and like many N2 era Infinity models they can be a little tricky to assemble. To be clear, some of the models are VERY easy to assemble, but a few others have some tricky bits that will take a little patience. If this is your first time working with metal models be prepared for a little frustration. But if you’re reading this you’re probably an Infinity player, and you shouldn’t have much trouble with anything in this box. The one exception is Kai, the mech suit wearing Dorikin player (pictured above). He took a little extra filing in order to assemble correctly, and I ended up scoring the individual parts with a hobby knife to provide a better surface for teh glue to adhere to. For me this extra effort was worth it for a great model. Should you buy Takkure? If you’re looking at Takkure as just a painting project, I think its a great buy. The models are very attractive and I expect they will be very fun to paint. If you’re looking at these models as a source for conversions or proxies for Infinity or other games, I think they’ll fit right in with your Infinity miniatures. Although a few of them are holding footballs! If you’re interested in trying Takkure as a game, its certainly an attractive package with great looking models. I can’t (yet) tell you if I think the game itself is any good, but the models and components are all great.

You can purchase the game on the Takkure site. You can also download the rules PDF there! Apparently Ramper is planning a second Kickstarter to introduce two new teams, so keep your eyes out for that!

#Takkure #cyberpunk #tabletop miniatures #Infinity review

[dritakk]

Warhammer stupid game

#Warhammer stupid game full

The science fiction version rapidly became more popular, and the guy who made Laserburn went on to join the company and then take it over in some kind of wasp eggs in a caterpillar type scenario. By 1985 they had a virtual stranglehold on the entire United Kingdom gaming community, and they decided in 1987 to steal a bunch of shit from Laserburn of all fucking things and make a science fiction spinoff of their fantasy monopoly. When they realized that they could become a vertical monopoly they did so in 1984 – becoming their own distributor, producer, and store. Games Workshop made shit for D&D in the 70s and in 1983 they decided that they should probably release some half assed rules for playing games with their fantasy minis. The origins of 40K are basically pretty stupid. In all reality, I believe we're going to run out and drink “whatever is left in the cupboard.” The label says “Premium British Beer” and I definitely agree that is British. For this I nominate Trooper, the Iron Maiden flavored beer. In any case, we should probably be drinking something appropriately British.

#Warhammer stupid game full

You don't fucking know enough people who have Full Thrust or Critter Commandos miniatures to have a league so those games might as well be written in Farsi. Was it good? Bad? Compared to what? In table top miniatures, most games are literally unplayable outside of gaming conventions. So right around the start of the 90s, WH40K eclipsed Warhammer Fantasy Battles as the biggest minis game, and that meant that when the third edition of 40K came out in 1998 it was already going to be the best minis game by definition just because of playability. Without another player who has spent hundreds of dollars on their miniature army, this is all you can do with your toy soldiers. You need other players and other players are only going to exist if they know there are other players for them and so on. This means that it very much isn't like an RPG that one of your friends can lend you the book after badgering you to give it a shot. The sad fact of that matter is that the barrier to entry to start playing is hundreds of dollars worth of little army guys, and if you want your army to not look like ass it's going to take hundreds of hours painting and assembling it. And in the tabletop minis business, popularity is quality. Probably the biggest questions you have going into this are probably “What the hell is Warhammer?” and of course “Why should I care?” Well, WH40K is a sci-fi spinoff of a fantasy tabletop miniatures game, and you care because it's the biggest game in the tabletop minis sector and has been for more than twenty fucking years. With Koumei taking the heavy lifting of someone for whom 3rd edition was a gateway drug, I guess I'll be playing the part of someone who had already been playing 40K when 3rd edition came out. Seriously, check out the individual vehicle damage tables back then. Looking over old Codices, which had crazy shit. Various tales and references by others.Ģ. So the take-away of this is that my knowledge of prior editions comes mostly from three sources: It was actually an exciting time in Warhams, because a new faction was released (and was spiky and edgy even before goth turned into “new” emo, and their basic Troops were multi-pose with lots of bits) and the iconic SPACE MARINES were getting new plastic kits with all sorts of bits and pieces. What this means is my first purchase included some plastic palm trees, the rules, dice and templates, two plastic measuring sticks that really hurt when you whack someone on the forearm with them (probably why they stopped using these), and two Tactical Squads, a Land Speeder and some number of Dark Eldar Warriors. Your average army probably had 30+ of those. I first walked into the store and asked about getting started just a few weeks before 3rd Edition 40K hit, so they set me up to pre-order the box set, and an extra Tactical Squad (the exciting new one that wasn’t all snap-fit mono-pose!) Also elves are almost always better than orks in both games (regardless of edition). Warhammer 40k and D&D both have some interesting similarities: I started with 3rd Edition in both cases, and 3rd Edition is the best Edition in both cases.

#Warhammer stupid game

[starr-fall-knight-rise]

Storm of Ice pt 2 “Family Ties”

So, I am going to be doing a bit of a mini-series on Krill’s adventures on earth, and this is part 2 to the beginning story. If you are here without reading that story you should probably read that one first. Usually I don’t do it this way, but today I will be. 

I finally decided to Give Captain Vir a first name, so that will be included in this story.

In the next few days I will be looking for suggestions on what to do while Krill is on earth, so please message me and comment if your ideas. You are much more likely to read what you want to read if you suggest an idea :)

He was trapped on a death world

He was trapped on a death world and the old human was staring at him.

He had never met an old human face to face before. He had seen them from a distance or seen them in pictures, but he had never actually met one before…… he was beginning to think that was a good thing. Captain Vir’s sire was tall and well-muscled with steel grey hair and matching eyes. His hands were thickly calloused and bent from years of work, and that expression of his could have melted iron.

The man tapped his fingers on the tabletop keeping Krill locked in his gaze.

“Where did you say you were from?” The man demanded as the storm raged outside snow and ice pounding against the house’s siding threatening to rip the house from its foundation and throw it into the sky.

He was trapped on a death world with its death species.

He stammered out a response, and instead of appearing pleased, the human’s eyes narrowed further, “And what is it you do on my son’s ship?”

More stammering.

“A surgeon. And where did you learn, what makes you qualified to treat humans.”

Captain Vir came to his rescue then placing a hand on his father’s shoulder, “Dad, give him a break. He’s one of the most experienced, and best members of my crew. I have and will trust him with my life….” He paused, “Don’t tell mom, but he was the one who performed the surgery when I…. you know lost my eye.”

The man leaned back in his chair arms crossed, “Fine.”

In comparison to her mate, the human female was almost opposite in her personality, and it didn’t really seem to matter what Captain Vir did or did not say. Not a few minutes after they had gotten inside, she sat him down aggressively crooning over his missing eye.

“My poor boy….. why do you have to be so reckless. I told your father that you joining the army was a bad idea. And now here you are, missing your leg AND your eye.” She hugged him to her chest as he squirmed, “I have half a mind to call someone about this.”

“Agh…. Mom, I’m fine, really.”

Krill looked on in uncomfortable interest shifting at the glower the old human shot at him, but interested in the protective and smothering aggression the female human was showing. As far as he understood Captain Vir was not a child, so there was really no reason for her to be acting like this. He was just now beginning to realize he knew absolutely nothing about human social structures.

He was about to get an even bigger shock when a booming voice roared from the top of the stairs followed by a chorus of three other voices.

“BABY BROTHER!”

Krill looked up just in time to see the three large, human men charged down the stairs to tackle his friend.

The three of them went to the ground hard, and Krill squealed ducking under the table as the three of them began to struggle yelling and squirming.

“HOLD HIM STILL!” One of them yelled

“HE WON’T STOP SQUIRMING!”

“GOT IT!”

And just like that, the three humans rolled away leaping to their feet, one of them triumphantly holding his bionic leg aloft.

Vir stumbled, with difficulty to his foot, “Come on guys give it back.” He lurched towards the brother with the leg, but the man tossed it to the shorter brother.

“Sorry, I don’t have it, Jeremy does.”

Vir turned holding out his hand. The leg was tossed over his head to the third human.

Vir sighed, “You know, I need that to walk.”

“Oh come on, stumpy, it’s much more fun to watch you hop.”

Krill watched from the safety of the table as the gang of humans continued their game of keep-away. The sudden change in dynamic had him in a tailspin. He was just so used to the captain in charge of everything, and here he was helpless against a gang of three humans in his own home. Was it normal for human families to aggressively tease a disabled sibling? It seemed sort of barbaric to Krill.

Vir lunged for one of his brothers, but caught his foot on the outstretched foot of another and came down hard.

His brothers laughed, “DAVID JOSUPH VIR, give him his leg back this instant.” Krill looked over to find the female human marching over to swipe the leg from the tallest human, “Honestly, he’s your brother and you three act like a couple of wild animals. It must have been hard enough for him to lose his leg much less have his own brothers teasing him so.”

She handed the leg back to Vir planting a kiss on the top of his head, “There you go.”

With a sigh and a grumble he accepted the leg, “Thanks.”

Behind her back the other two boys were making kissy faces. One whispering, “Here comes mommy to the rescue of her little boy.”

“Don’t sass me Thomas.” The woman said turning to glower at the two.

Krill looked on in confusion. He had sort of assumed that the old human would be the Alpha in the human pack, but no, the female seemed to have the greatest amount of pull. At her scolding the three boys had wilted and began shuffling their feet heads down. The alpha female nodded smugly and turned back to her work bustling away leaving the four brothers to glare at each other. Vir had reattached his leg and was watching the oldest brother, a sudden grin split his face and that was the only warning as the man leaped from his sitting position tackling his brother to the floor quickly dominating him one on one and with all his limbs attached.

Krill was forced to duck under the table once more as the wrestling turned to knocking over chairs with flailing feet and fists.

The wrestling grew so violent that they nearly toppled a shelf holding a couple of picture frames.

“ADAM, JEREMY, I swear to the dear LORD, that if you two break my pictures, I will put you over my knee!”

As the two pulled away from each other climbing back to their feet, Krill emerged from under the table. Interesting, it seemed if you were going to discipline a human you had to call them by their full name…. they appeared to have three. A new development since he had always just assumed the captain’s name was Vir.

It seemed that was actually a family name.

“GAH the HELL is that!”

Krill nearly tripped over himself as the three humans surrounded him eyes wide with curiosity poking and prodding at him. He squealed and tried to hide under the table again, but they wouldn’t let him.

“Where do you think you’re going?” The shortest human asked bending down to examine his antennae.

Thank goodness Captain Vir came to his rescue stepping in between him and the three humans, “Hey, go easy, he isn’t used to humans. And he especially isn’t used to your ugly mugs.”

One of the humans peered over his shoulder, “He? Can it talk?”

“Of course he can talk jackass.”

“ADAM! Don’t make your father get the soap.”

Captain Vir cleared his throat, “Uh sorry, mom.”

Krill quickly hid behind Vir’s leg staring up at the three curious, and intimidating humans. He waved an arm, “Hi…”

The human’s eyes widened and they stepped back before rushing back in again with exclamations of wonder.

***

Turned out the captain had only brought him here because the crew was due for some leave, and he hadn’t wanted to leave Krill alone on a human colony. Krill honestly wasn’t sure how he felt about all of this. The weather made it pretty clear why everyone called it a death planet. If he were to step outside he would die within minutes, though the humans seemed far less worried. A few of them even admitted to enjoying the weather…. Crazy

Still it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to learn about the human social structure.

From wat he had learned, humans were usually born only one at a time with years between them. The oldest tended to claim seniority over the younger though all of the brothers complained that the youngest received special treatment by the mother.

The mother was the human female that seemed to the alpha of the household, she took care of most everything including the making and preparing of food. She had power over the male alpha who only really stepped in when his offspring were out of line. Additionally he doted on the human female and was often sent out to perform tasks in the cold. He was responsible for discipline when one of the offspring did something that the human female really did not like.

All of the offspring were old enough to be out of the house, but they had returned to their den for a “Holiday” And to see their younger brother who rarely had time to make it home when everyone else did. They had a sister too, but she was married with a toddler and another on the way, so she would only be able to visit once.

They all seemed very interested in krill, where he came from, what he did, and how he did it. They very much scared him. These humans had never been off-world and so were not used to interacting with species that weren’t used to humans. Compared to Captain vir, they were aggressive, emotional, and quite volatile. Captain Vir constantly had to remind them that humans were considered dangerous toth rest of the universe, and that it might be best for them to tone themselves down.

They had trouble with that.

Turns out the blizzard outside wasn’t even that intense for this time of year, and they expected a worse one within the week.

Krill very much felt that he was about to die, or that he would die on this visit.

If it wasn’t from exposure to the elements than it would definitely be exposure to the untamed humans.

The mother was very nice, upon asking him what he ate and him responding with photosynthesis, she had ordered one of her children to bring a specific type of lamp up from the basement. It was sweet in the way that humans are, or the way that this human was. She was aggressively worried about his health, wellbeing and needs, and made sure that her boys didn’t bother him too much. He found himself hiding behind her legs…. A lot.

He was about 95% sure he was going to die here.

#humans are space orcs #humans are space oddities #humans are space australians #humans are weird #earth is space australia

[nationallark]

Blood From the Stone, an adaptation of Onision’s Stones to Abbigale, Chapter One [EDIT: now complete] 3k words

(AN: hi friends! I decided to go ahead and align chapter one of my rework with chapter one of STA, so here it is for you guys! from now on, I’ll be posting the full chapters on Tumblr and I’ll put links to my Wattpad and Ao3 in my About page!!)

I hope you enjoy :)

The moment I opened my eyes, I was blinded by my freshly wallpapered room. Several days into my latest drastic redecoration, even the cast iron bed frame was now painted white. Light peeking through a narrow opening in the curtains bounced off the walls, making me clamp my eyes shut. Clearly, changing my room back to wall-to-wall white was another in a long line of self-inflicted psychological tortures.

My family could tell that the black had depressed me. I found comfort in the darkness, but neither extreme was without fault. I didn’t mind waffling between light and dark bedrooms, as I had ample spray paint and plenty of time to kill, but for a moment the intense light show pouring through the bay window felt like it was burning clear through to my brain.

Mom, having switched to the overnight shift by mid June, didn’t wake me up like she used to. Then again, neither did my alarm clock. I rolled away from the window and squinted into its plastic face only to see a cheaply backlit 8:17 AM staring back at me.

Great, I was going to be late again.

Not taking the time to grab my usual handful of cereal, I scribbled an excuse note and pulled a sweater over my sleep shirt before hopping on my scooter and pointing it in the direction of the school. As soon as the cold wind began to sting my cheeks, I realized that I in my haste had forgotten a scarf. Oh well.

I narrowly missed crashing into a giggly Lauren and Raymond who, hand in hand, were heading away from the school and towards the old church, no doubt to smoke or make out or any number of activities Lakewood students tended to use the place for.

Mr. Hanson, my heavyset history teacher, gave me a withering look as I ducked into his room with only fifteen minutes left in first period.

“James, talk to me after class,” he said mildly from his perch in the back of the room. I dropped my note on his desk on my way over to one of the few empty seats, electing to try and absorb some of the day’s lesson from the ongoing group activity rather than sit outside and count ceiling tiles.

It didn’t take long, however, for my mind to wander from British colonialism to the fascinating small scale history being made around me. I watched as Calvin, one of the honor students who was gunning for valedictorian, explained the reasoning behind his answers while Jaime nodded along and Miranda half paid attention to him while also monitoring Mr. Hanson to know when it was safe to chew her gum. It was too early in the school year for anyone to be too stressed out over grades, so there was only a sense of resigned monotony among the students.

That is, until the bell rang.

Over the ensuing bustle, Mr. Hanson glanced up from his work and looked at me expectantly, but I could only smile and shrug as I allowed myself to be pushed into the hallway with everyone else. Sorry, Mr. Hanson; I had a more important class to get to.

My second period was all the way across campus, relegated to one of the ancient trailers that also held the ESL students, sign language class, and music appreciation. Sculpture I, being one of the easier options for making the required fine arts credit, was naturally full of slackers and people who, like me, weren’t talented enough in music or theater to take anything else.

My cross-campus trek was interrupted by dozens of students circled around what I could only assume to be a fight. Unfortunately, the fight just happened to be in the center of the hallway that was my only path to art class. I hunched my shoulders and slipped through the growing crowd, breaking into a jog as the minute bell rang. I normally wouldn’t bother with getting to class on time, but I made an exception for sculpture; sculpture was the class I had with Abbi.

Ever since I’d seen Abbi in second period on the first day of senior year, she was all I could think about. Every day she would sit at the left side of a shared desk, drop her bag on the left side of her chair, and, resting her elbows on the tabletop, pick at the fake wood grain desk cover with her pencil.

As I ascended the creaking steps into the trailer, there were more seats open than I expected, probably because their usual occupants were still observing the fight I’d managed to squeeze past. There Abbi was, however, in the same getup as usual: her dark, wavy hair bunching on top of the desk as she bent over it, her deep purple eyeshadow and tinted brows still visible through the fringe. She had on the army jacket I’d never seen her without, even during messier art projects that showed in the cuffs of its sleeves. Even in the harsh light of the trailer’s fluorescent bulbs, she looked fantastic.

I tried not to make it too obvious that I was rushing to sit next to her, so I forced myself to slow down and take a casual approach to the desk. Step. Wave to Mrs. Stanley. Step. Check out the newest student-made hangings above her seat. Three steps. Gently drop my bag onto the desk.

Finally, I pulled the metal desk chair out and plopped into it with a grin ready for Abbi to turn and look at me...which happened to be at the exact same moment my thighs registered how ungodly cold the A/C had made the chair. I hissed in shock and stood up to save myself from mild frostbite, pushing the chair away from me and tipping it backwards and onto the floor with a metallic crash. Having looked up from her handiwork in time to see everything go down, Abbi glanced mildly at the chair, then at me, and went back to work without even laughing at me. Freaking smooth, James.

I picked up the chair amid the laughter of the other sculpture students and the quiet concern of Mrs. Stanley and sat down once again, this time being careful to pull the stretchy fabric of my shorts down long enough to cover the metal seat. I aimed my smile back at Abbi, who, this time, didn’t look up.

I barely had time to be disappointed before the stragglers arrived clearly invigorated by the hallway fight, whooping and hollering before Mrs. Stanley told them to quiet down or she’d mark them as tardy. Once again I looked at Abbi, whose attention was held steadfast by the desk cover. Well, at least it wasn’t just me that couldn’t get her attention. At this, I felt a wave of relief.

The relief was cut short, however, when one of the stragglers named Jason joined us at the shared desk, taking the seat directly across from Abbi. His arrival and unceremonious dumping of his bag on the desktop earned him a brief look and a practiced readjustment of Abbi’s position so that he wouldn’t accidentally bump into her, and once again the relief flooded my system.

Now that everyone was in their seats, Mrs. Stanley, looking for all the world like a walking retirement party, officially began class by going over the previous day’s finished assignment, which itself was the culmination of our unit on color and texture. I myself had modeled my project after my then-black room with soft black silk and smooth painted wood and was given an A for my trouble.

The main topic of discussion, however, wasn’t our grades. It was the introductory project for the next unit: symbolism and storytelling. Mrs. Stanley began to hand out the rubrics for the project while she gave us the bad news: we were going to be working with partners.

No, no, no. Not okay, because with my luck, I’d be paired with bonehead Jason or asshole Alex who’d just gotten back from a stint in alternative school for exposing himself in the cafeteria last year. I struggled to pay attention as she continued to outline the project.

“To simplify things,” she said, still handing out papers, “you’re going to be paired with the person across from you.”

That rule meant I was paired with….oh, God. While I wasn’t looking, Alex had apparently drifted into class and sat in the one remaining seat, which just so happened to be next to Jason and across from me. This wasn’t happening.

I’d been there in the cafeteria last year when Alex exposed himself. I’d even seen it. I can’t say I was particularly impressed, but I guess I didn’t have very much data with which to compare. Regardless, I was uninterested in being stuck with this kid for God knows how long while trying to work with whatever drivel he’d come up with and pass of as ideas.

My musing was interrupted by a voice that said “Can I be paired with James?”

Hearing the rare appearance of Abbi’s somber voice made me smile despite myself, and I took a moment to apprecia--wait. That was my name that had come out of her mouth. She’d asked to be paired with me. I couldn’t blame her, really, as her other option was Jason, who was barely a notch above Alex in terms of competence.

Despite her annoyance at Abbi’s resistance of her rules, Mrs. Stanley appeared to take pity on the both of us and rearranged our partnerships to put Abbi and I together and sic Jason and Alex upon each other. Looking only a little hurt, Jason huffed and looked Alex up and down before shrugging and choosing not to make a stink about the arrangement.

As Mrs. Stanley continued, I tried to remind myself that Abbi was only working with me to avoid the more offensive option that was Jason. Still, I couldn’t help but feel a little giddy at the thought that Abbi would be talking directly to me and nobody else in second period for the next several days.

“For this project, you will each take something you own, and together, you will create something that brings new meaning to your possessions. In case you can’t tell, this is a project that’s going to render the items you bring useless for the future, so I wouldn’t suggest bringing a favorite shirt or expensive electronic. Today, you’ll work on deciding what you’ll bring and sketching out the final product.”

My mind was racing with ideas about what I could bring when I stopped to consider what Abbi might have to offer. What would she consider useful but okay to part with? Surely she had a spare makeup brush or two, with all the work she clearly put into doing her face day after day.

“What are you going to bring?”

I wished she’d say my name again. I’d always thought my name was so boring, but coming from Abbi, it was beautiful. Shit, gotta answer before I look like a weirdo.

“Uh, I don’t know…” Great.

“You could bring something to go in my hamster cage,” said Abbi.

“Did he die or something?” I winced, mentally berating myself. Great, just great. Bring up her dead hamster. That’ll make her have the hots for you.

“Never had one. Dad got the cage and forgot the hamster.”

“How do you forget a hamster? Was he high?” Abbi shrugged and looked away, and I took the opportunity to feel like a complete ass, first for bringing up her nonexistent dead hamster and then for asking about her maybe-stoned father. I wondered, briefly, how the species ever managed to repopulate if there were men like me walking around and completely turning women off.

Instead of shutting my mouth, I decided to try one more time to lift her spirits.

“Maybe I could, uh, bring that weird thing my mom keeps in her bedside table?”

Abbi snorted and, for a fleeting moment, gave me the most perfectly little crooked smile I’d ever seen on those plum-painted lips. And, by God, I was the one who put it there. I let slip an eye-crinklingly wide smile before composing myself into what I hoped was a sly grin. Abbi got ahold of herself too and opened her mouth, hopefully not to be too grossed out with me.

“Tell me you didn’t actually touch your mom’s--”

“Of course not!” I interrupted her. I didn’t know if I could stand to hear that combination of words aimed at me and not die from the resulting embarrassment. I laced my fingers together and stared down at my desk, willing my reddening cheeks to calm down.

Soon, the bell rang and dismissed us to third period, and I quickly stood up, grabbing my things and getting ready to run away from the social situation my big mouth had put me in. I was in such a hurry, in fact, that I almost missed Abbi calling my name from our desk.

I stopped short of the door and sidestepped the other students rushing back to the main school building. Having successfully grabbed my attention, Abbi reached into the scrap paper box and pulled out a white and gold speckled scrap of tissue paper.

“Here,” she said, scribbling something down on it. “gotta run; gym class.”

I felt for her; to get to the stadium for girls’ gym, she was going to have to cross the whole campus and wait for the crosswalk. But more importantly, she gave me a note! I scrambled to open it as I walked to class and discovered she’d written down a phone number. Her phone number? My eyes snapped upwards to the hallway, but Abbi was long gone.

For the rest of the school day, I was floating on air. Abbi had never once given me a second look, but now that we’d spoken some she wanted me to have her phone number! Did she want me to call her? I decided to play it safe and wait until I was home to do anything. I moved my phone case and gently pushed the note inside for safekeeping.

The final bell couldn’t have come soon enough. I picked up my scooter and ran to the bus in hopes of getting home as soon as possible, and Davis waved me over from a seat near the back. I joined him.

“Blow me off again this morning? I’m starting to get lonely,” Davis said with a theatrical sigh. I gave him my best eye roll in return while artfully cramming my scooter in one of the overhead storage areas. I sat down next to Davis and held my backpack in my lap.

“Alarm didn’t go off,” I said, gazing out the window at all the people milling around in the bus circle. Why wouldn’t they get out of the way? Didn’t they know I had something important to do?

“Whatcha’ looking at?” said Davis.

“Oh, nothing. Just wish these assholes would mo--”

And suddenly through the throng of students and teachers I saw Abbi perched on the hood of an old Sedan in the parking lot, looking bored out of her mind and utterly, utterly perfect. Without looking away I grabbed Davis’ sleeve and pulled him towards the window.

“See that girl? That’s Abbi.” I said.

Davis squinted at the parking lot. “The emo chick with the crappy car? That’s your dream girl?”

I smacked him on the shoulder and spoke, still unable to look away.

“She’s amazing. She’s artistic and good at carving, she always does her eyebrows perfectly, and she matches her makeup to the paint stains on her jacket cuffs.”

“Uh, okay. Why not wash the jacket?”

I was getting ready to reply when an unwelcome figure entered my field of vision. Seth, one of the assholes in my history class who liked to talk back to Mr. Hanson, walked up to Abbi and hugged her while she sat on the hood. And sure enough, those paint speckled cuffs wrapped around his waist and hugged right back.

I sat back in my seat and tried not to look as devastated I felt. Of course she had a boyfriend. How could a girl like that not have a boyfriend already? Besides, I didn’t have any right to be upset. Before today, I’d barely said ten words to her altogether. I opened my phone case and pulled out Abbi’s note. Why had she given me this, then?

When my stop came I rode my scooter the rest of the way home and dumped my backpack on the floor before flopping onto my bed. So, Abbi wasn’t trying to get me to ask her out. And she wasn’t asking me out, either. So...what gives? I sent her a text, trying my best to seem casual. Abbi? It’s James.

She replied a few minutes later, Cool. Was wondering when you’d text. So, what are you bringing? And don’t say your mom’s vibrator.

Oh, so that’s why she gave me her number. Of course. We hadn’t started on the sketch for our project, and we hadn’t even figured out what we were bringing. Scanning the room, I came up with the first thing I saw and texted her back. A stuffed animal?

This time, her response was almost instantaneous. What if I bring one of mine and we do like a zombie animal?

I couldn’t help sighing dreamily at her idea. I did tell Davis she was artistic, after all. Sounds cool! :)

Sweet.

As much as I wanted to keep talking to Abbi, I couldn’t think of anything else to say, so I set my phone down and picked a stuffed animal I was willing to part with--a brown bear with a red ribbon--and put it in my backpack for tomorrow before hopping in the shower. I lowered myself to the floor of the tub and distantly felt the warm water hitting my chest.

#onision #anti o #stones to abbigale #blood from the stone #bfts #anti onion boy

[wholesaletechgear015]

How Much Do People Spend Annually On Tech Gadgets?

Acquisition: $500 Sennheiser is popular in the audio world for crafting top-tier earphones -- especially in the recording market. As well as they have actually pared that exact same knowledge into their more mobile and cordless IE 80 S BT earbuds. Flaunting the same premium noise you would certainly anticipate, these are hi-fi earphones without the secure of a cable-- they even have proper X codec support.

Acquisition: $500 Incorporating the convenience of a handheld with the ability of a full collection of navigational tools and communication tools, the Garmin GPSMAP 66i is a giant for outdoorsmen that's little enough to quickly suit a pocket or treking knapsack. It has TOPO maps , the capacity to function as a satellite communicator, IPX 7 dirt- and water-resistance, as well as up to 200 hrs of battery life.

It additionally includes a clever LED that auto-adjusts relying on the ambient light in the room, an age-adaptive system that will alter how it runs as you age, as well as a special "heatpipe" system that permits the light bulb to last for up to 60 years without the requirement for a substitute.

Certain, the 11 Pro is certainly more qualified-- however that's likewise partially because it's a tremendous $300 extra expensive. In this situation, we think the more affordable option victories. Purchase: $699+ If your off-grid experiences normally take place behind the wheel of a 4 × 4 SUV, after that you might desire to explore picking up Garmin's Overlander GPS system.

What Are The Best Tech Gadgets?

Acquisition: $700 For all you homebrewers who have ever before intended to attempt distilling your own spirits, we provide this useful tabletop bundle. Consisted of is whatever you need to make your own scotch, bourbon, rum, and so on all from the comfort of your own residence. You can also use it to make mixed drink bitters, crucial oils, and even jump oil-- among a multitude of various other things.

Acquisition: $772 If you have a Segway mini PRO, Ninebot's set you see prior to you will certainly transform that individual flexibility gadget right into a much more fun version of itself. Made to instantly boost the efficiency of the tool, it will certainly transform it right into a real go-kart with the ability of rising to 15 mph.

Great gear that could be headed your way - Army News News ...

Acquisition: $799 Among the outright best consumer digital fact headsets on the marketplace-- as well as one that's backed by a major manufacturer, no less-- the Vive Pro flaunts high-resolution AMOLED displays with a 2880 x 1600 resolution, a comfortable and also light design best for extended periods of wear, hi-res spacial 3D sound, and-- possibly best of all-- Heavy steam compatibility.

Purchase: $799+ There are a whole lot of actually excellent analog dive watches out there. However none of them compare even from another location to Suunto's D 5 in regards to usefulness and abilities. Not only can this gadget endure midsts of approximately 100 meters (that's extremely deep for an electronic tool), however it additionally provides customers with an incredible quantity of important info and also devices-- like storage tank stress, a digital compass, mobile phone connectivity with a combined application, and also a lot even more.

Which Is A Pollutant Associated With High Tech Gadgets In Landfills?

But we're particularly keen on their Mavic Air drone for its unique combination of ability as well as density. This drone is small enough when folded down that it might feasibly match a coat pocket. However it also boasts an HD video camera that can fire 4k UHD video footage or 120 fps slow-motion, a 21-minute flight time, 8 jobs of interior storage space, and even auto-pilot.

Cool Tech Upgrades For Your Apartment - Guy Gear

They also have great Retina screens, SSD hard disks, an all-day battery, a polished key-board, as well as quicken to 5.0 GHz. Certain, Apple's computers aren't for everyone-- however if you have actually obtained the scrape, especially if you're in the design globe, they're really hard to defeat. Acquisition: $1,299+ Whereas most people just use their smartphones to play songs when they're on the go, true audiophiles could be a bit much more interested in a standalone device for a much better overall experience.

It flaunts Twin DAC tech, indigenous DSD, a quad-core CPU (that's extra powerful than some full-sized computer systems), 128 jobs of built-in memory, and a gorgeous touchscreen display screen. If you desire hi-fi music on the go, this is the device to make that dream a fact. Acquisition: $1,499 If you're mosting likely to go scuba diving, you might get a wrist-mounted computer.

Obviously, there's an additional choice: the hands-free Scubapro Galileo HUD. This modular gadget connects to your mask and also reveals every one of the details right in your area of vision without needing to look down or relocate your hand up. As well as it can be connected easily to just concerning any criterion diving mask.

What Company Provides Amazon Tech Gadgets?

And they do not obtain better than the Optoma Movie Theater X P 1-- which flaunts a 3,000-lumen result, 4K ultra HD image outcome, a projection size of as much as a monstrous 120 inches, an incorporated Dolby soundbar, as well as straightforward alignment that can be handled by your smartphone. It's not a tv in the standard feeling, yet that could be a very excellent point in this case.

That's because this digital buoy is actually a non-lethal shark deterrent-- utilizing ultrasonic waves to develop a 26 ′ obstacle that fends off the sea's fiercest predators. Better still, it can be tethered with each other with numerous systems to raise the security area significantly. And yes, this device has actually been definitively proven to be an effective deterrent.

Yet the company seems to be obtaining a little bit extra consumer-friendly with their offerings-- beginning with the medium-format X 1D II 50C video camera you see right here. Certain, almost $6k is still a significant price, yet it's a serious decrease from its brethren as well as it still provides a tremendous number of remarkable functions also specialist photographers will certainly drool over.

Acquisition: $5,750 Definitely to be taken into consideration the best in unnecessary luxury, the Elemental Beverage Snapchiller utilizes innovative thermodynamics to change warm and/or fresh beverages into cold drinks on-demand. In just a min, it can go down the temperature level of a hot, 180-degree coffee to listed below 50 levels as well as can also cool it even more to below-freezing.

[linuxgamenews]

Fell Seal releases a new movie Intro

Fell Seal: Arbiter’s Mark releases a new story trailer for Linux, Mac and Windows. So thanks to 6 Eyes Studio the new content is quite spicy. This also comes with a new update for the turn-based tactical RPG. Celebrate the game’s extremely successful Steam Early Access campaign. Fell Seal: Arbiter’s Mark is expecting to release in Spring 2019. Also the isometric, story-driven RPG currently has a 93% “Very Positive” cumulative rating in Early Access on Steam. While players compare it favorably to tactical RPG classics. Which is indeed impressive. Fell Seal: Arbiter’s Mark is takes place in a fantasy world with a touch of steampunk. While players control the Arbiter Kyrie, an Immortal Council agent tasked with preserving order throughout the land. As well as a squad of companions. Since the game pays homage to tactical RPG legends. It also stands on its own with a slew of improvements and additions to the genre. Through the Early Access program, this experience is better, through thoughtful development and helpful player comments. Including the latest update, the following key additions have been made:

Numerous balance updates based on feedback, including changes for abilities, classes, shops, loot tables, and treasure

More special and unique weapons

Made the game enjoyable for more players by adding five preset difficulty settings and full customization options that let gamers choose enemy counts and levels, stats, and item usage

Game dialogue has been rewritten by a professional writer

New visuals including over 200 spell effects

New monsters and the new Bzil race, including a secret playable Bzil character

Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark new story trailer (Linux, Mac, Windows)

The large number of improvements since the August Early Access launch. Given that the game’s developer, 6 Eyes Studio, is a husband and wife team. Making the game as the only two developers, with some external contractors. However, their collective experience doing everything from making games for EA and Activision. Creating art for tabletop gaming books has fully prepared them—and extensive player feedback. A helped focus development efforts. Upcoming updates include more Story Battles, Patrols, polish, and content besides this new story trailer, as per the developers’ Early Access roadmap.

Game Features:

Classic Tactical Combat Battles: Including rugged terrain and elevation, taking place on beautiful hand-drawn, isometric environments

Handcrafted Look and Feel: Hand-drawn pixel art and colorful graphics for all 40 maps

Deep Class System: 25 classes and 200 abilities let you truly customize every one of your characters through the selection of their class, sub-class, and passives to create a versatile generalist, a dedicated spell-caster, or a mighty foe-crushing specialist!

Extensive Customization: Customize all characters via a wide selection of portraits, outfits, colors, and overall visuals

Epic Storyline: Unfolding over 40 story encounters and culminating in challenging end-game content

Nice Loot: Equip your army with over 240 pieces of equipment that you can purchase, gather from fallen enemies, or create by crafting

Fell Seal: Arbiter’s Mark is still in developer y 6 Eyes Studio and published by 1C Entertainment. It is now available for Linux, Mac and Windows via Steam Early Access for $19.99 USD. If you want to play the game to get an idea, check out the Free Demo (Linux, Mac, Windows).

#fell seal #fell seal arbiter's mark #linux #gaming news #6 eyes studio #ubuntu #mac #windows #pc #steam

[wolfsoulfulme]

Daven the Huntmaster

Daven started in my army as a Ravenwing biker who I threw a mk4 helm on. Like all of my guys I take a pinch of white paint and underneath his model I write down a name. So here’s Daven. Random Ravenwing biker of squad Azerous a four man squad with an attack bike support.

His first match was nothing spectacular. This was back with our old codex when I could take Ravenwing as troops because of good old Sammy. He and his squad are outflanking to give my squad of Deathwing ready for deep strike on the following turn and perhaps take our my buddies Long Fangs. They come in and in a round of good shooting I wipe out half of those furry fuckers but oh shit here comes a whole squad of uh… fucking furries. UHHHHHHH Blood Claws!!! Fucking ha… I wish our scouts had power armor…. *sighs* Anywho a squad of ten of those fuckers charges the bikes and I’m like. Well fuck there goes that flanking idea. So fight fight fight same Initiative all resolved I kill 4 they kill all wait…. no way. 4 armor saves left and all made at 5s and 6s on Daven. Huh no shit. I hit and run out of there straight towards my buddies TEQ (terminator command deathstar blah blah.) and the following turn my Deathwing Deepstrike next to them and unload a glorious amount office into there asses and basically secures us slay the warlord. So I’m like ok ok

Hmmmm He’s worth watching, and my friend agrees. So I start rolling separately for him. Oh and he stole a few wolf totems and shit from the blood claws he kicked the shit out of in that “Training accident.” Allies of the Imperium remember?  

So after 4 more games he’s only gone down once and that was to lucky las fire so I’m like eh he’s just glanced he’ll recover, and I play my Ravenwing aggressive as hell (It’s hard to counter a heavy handed ravenwing assault.) so I’m surprised cause his squads died around him time and time again. Finally I’m like…. this guys a Bad Ass and has survived a lot of shit. That’s Black Knight Material right there. So BOOM I pop on some gibs onto him, give him a sick black robe with red edgings and pop him on a bike with plasma talons, oh and of course his new pick axe of fucking doom. 

My friends like fuck ya the next time he sees him (Wish I had a pick guys sorry.) 

So next time is a grand campaign that lasts a full month which is Guard/Dark Angels (Me)/ and my buddy as the Space Furries against three chaos war bands all dedicated to diff gods so Nurg/Slanesh/Khorne why no Tzeentch cause JUST AS PLANNED no… No.. He just. That Mark sucks balls. 

So as Daven roams around blasting away in true DA fashion PREFERRED ENEMY CHAOS YOU HERITICAL FUCKS!! so boom boom boom. I’m like damn  he’s a good shot. My buddies agree so +1 to BS and later he’s charging a chaos term squad that we just hosed with glorious blue and green plasma all over their pink armored back (Probably liked it sick fucks). and killed two with rending hits so we’re like fucking A he just killed two Emperors Children Veterans of the Long war terms no props and survived everything…. +1 WS and Promotion to HUNTMASTER!!  So Davens a Huntsmaster your like meh. So what they’re good but not great. 

Well my friends are like you know Daven reminds us of you. Both of your names start with D you like bikes, your a crack shot at the range and you have an addiction to sharp things. Make him your second in command. So we start this new thing kinda based off of miniwargaming and have these fools ready to take over just in case so Daven got another stat line and a fancy new weapon. My Buddies second didn’t like Daven. Thought he was a pussy compared to his thunder wolf.(UNFAIR AF UTHRAL) so we decided the Space Wolf Dark Angel duel was a good way to settle it. So no mounts we have them go toe to toe Daven with his Corvus hammer s+1 ap- rending and Uthral with his Special Frost sword he won during the campaign which others said was somewhat overpowered (*scoffs trying not to snicker* Wasn’t… at least I thought so after the duel.) It’s a s+1 ap4 power sword/spear sword with instant death to represent that a single cut could freeze an opponent in place. So Daven starts combat I roll first with my 4 attacks 2 base, pistol, charge so boom boom boom I hit and I get three wounds. Uthral only has three so he’s like fuck me in the wolf ass. 

We agreed to roll saves after. (None rending.) He swings with his 4 attacks……………. Everyone else started laughing. 1,1,1,4……. He rolls and wounds. 

NOW THE MOMENTS YOU”VE MAYBE NOT KNOWING YOU WERE WAITING FOR!!!

I rolled a 3 on the armor save….

The narrative is this. Uthral swung his sword. Daven catches it on his gauntlet then proceeds to beat the shit out of Uthral. Uthral fails all saves. As a bonus for the one round wonder Daven levels up in the campaign and as a trophy I take Uthrals helm, his sword, and his fucking wolf pelt because of his shitty attitude something which should make any Space Wolf player mad that I have an awesome SW sword and helm. All DA players I expect appropriate praise. Ah fuck it all of you praise me. So on the Level up table I roll +1 to Initiative and with some extra points laying around and a broken Tech Marine around I Kitbash together some sweet looking artificer armor with his robe, a wolf pelt over shoulder, this new fuck ass big sword that’s insta gibing gits everywhere. Daven became a killer of legendary preparations on the tabletop. It was him I eventually brought over to Deathwatch and now he’s leading a custom faction I made the Lost but Unforgotten. His rules at the end of the campaign are as follows.

WS 5 BS 5 S4 T4 (5)  I5 W3 A3 Ld 10 sv2+5++

Rage (Table rolled rule [Laugh as you imagine those attacks]), Ravenwing, Grim Resolve, Preferred enemy Chaos, Dickus bigger than yoursus (lol). 

So ya. Basically i made most Captains start wishing they were him and I could bring him at the cost of one in most games as long as my opponent didn’t mine. Overall. LOST LORD FOR LIFE

#warhammer #battlereport #40k #dark angels #lost lord #sillyhammer

[immedtech]

The Morning After: Robots running free

Welcome to Friday! We're wrapping up our Google I/O coverage today, but we've also taken a behind-the-scenes look at how the Guardians of the Galaxy got a redesigned ship, a possible due date on the end of Net Neutrality and a robot frolicking in a field.

I didn't sign up to take a Turing Test today. Google: Duplex phone calling AI will identify itself

While the Duplex AI demo Google showed during I/O was impressive, it creeped many of us out by pretending to be human. On a phone call with apparently unaware restaurant and salon workers, the system peppered its conversation with "umms" and "ahhs" while setting up appointments. That tech might make it more comfortable to talk to, but now Google has confirmed that when it starts testing the feature in Google Assistant this summer, it will let people know they're talking to an automated system.

How long does the battery last at full sprint? Asking for a human friend. Boston Dynamics' Atlas robot shows off its agility for the scouts

The humanoid robot took an untethered jog and showed off its vertical ability by leaping over a log. Atlas isn't ready for a free agent NFL contract just yet, but comparing the robot's smooth moves now to demos from 2009 shows just how far the technology has come.

Marvel's most unorthodox heroes have a new home in 'Avengers: Infinity War.' Designing a spaceship for the Guardians of the Galaxy

Avengers: Infinity War is a jam-packed movie, flipping between superheroes young and old as they try to defend against Thanos. Almost every scene required a tremendous amount of computer-generated visual effects, meaning Marvel had to tap a small army of external partners to complete the project, including a company based in London and San Francisco called Territory Studio. The independent team worked on over a hundred 130 animated "screens" of make-believe software, with a lot of this work focused on the Guardians of the Galaxy's spaceship. These exotic control panels are the tip of Territory's contributions, which spanned tables, door air locks and a spherical escape pod. The company's mission was to reinvent the UI -- and by extension, the larger look and feel -- of the Guardians' moving home. It was a small piece of the movie but an important one to quickly convey how the group had been living since the end of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.

There's a slim chance the House and Senate could repeal, though. Net Neutrality dies June 11th

Net Neutrality officially dies June 11th, almost three years to the day after it was put into law. In a press release from Ajit Pai's office, he repeated his rhetoric that the internet was never broken and bemoaned Title II rules (more rigorous regulation which touches on throttling, blocking and paid prioritization of data) as being "heavy handed" and "outdated."

The US Senate has forced a vote, scheduled for next week, to overturn Pai's decision. If the Senate is successful, the House of Representatives will have to take similar measures before Pai's framework is overruled. For now, a handful of states have passed their own bills upholding Title II provisions.

Ditch the dock. Nintendo is making a $20 charging stand for the Switch

You can game on the Switch in various ways, but if you want to charge while playing in Tabletop mode, you'd have to be creative in finding ways to prop it up. Even if you do find a way, you're at risk of ruining its cord, considering its charging port is at the bottom. Nintendo's thankfully fixing that problem by releasing a $20 accessory, which serves as a charger and an adjustable stand. It'll arrive next month, ready for that summer vacation / staycation.

But wait, there's more...

NYPD says 'Skim Reaper' device could curb ATM fraud

Uber's 'Skyport' plans are straight out of science fiction

Apple's aluminum devices will be a bit more environmentally friendly

House Democrats release over 3,500 Russian Facebook ads

Create your own Avengers-esque visual effects with help from FXHome

'Star Trek: Bridge Crew' gets Picard's ship

Amazon won't distribute Terry Gilliam's ill-fated movie

Nine Inch Nails skips online ticket sales to fight scalper bots

Lenovo's latest Ideapads are for students on a budget

The Morning After is a new daily newsletter from Engadget designed to help you fight off FOMO. Who knows what you'll miss if you don't Subscribe.

Craving even more? Like us on Facebook or Follow us on Twitter.

Have a suggestion on how we can improve The Morning After? Send us a note.

- Repost from: engadget Post

#ITlive #engadget #The Morning After: Robots running free

[caeliri]

Better Late - pt. I

She was late.

Struggling to swallow back the sickness swelling in her stomach, Caeliri pressed her lips into a thin, grim line, and closed to her eyes to the cacophony of colors that cascaded through her vision. Everything was bleary and bumbling, motion-blurred despite the stillness of her body; she’d tried to rise too quick from bed, and every inch of her slight form gave protest. Bile rose high in her throat and only through the efforts of several minutes of great, calming breaths did she at last soothe the sickness enough to rise and tend the tasks long overdue.

Alcohol did not mix well with sour-moods, a lesson she should have learned long ago -- a lesson one look at the Ranger-Captain should have reminded her of. But youth made her foolish - she didn’t know what his excuse was - and impulsive, and a bottle of wine later she’d been laid out along the satin sheets on her bed in her suite in Dalaran, full of regret, and no less burdened by the memories and thoughts she’d been trying to drown. They were still there, louder now even, but despite their lingering, there was work to be done.

Winter’s Veil was her favorite holiday, and it had already come and gone - the days leading up to the holiday had been too busy; her days were consumed with running papers back and forth from Quel’thalas to Dalaran, her workload doubled with Sunward Stormsummer still abed, and her involvement in the province the Archon had put beneath her charge. There was no rest, no peace, and on the day of the holiday, when she’d meant to see these gifts sent out before the stroke of midnight, well --

Harsh words flared in her memory, and her fingers rose to touch phantom bruises on her throat. The marks were long gone, but the pain remained affixed to her memory; a reminder, one that lessened the same as the black-and-blue skin of her neck by the days. Again, the sickness rose inside of her, but Caeliri pressed past it, and past the threshold of her bedroom into the sitting room in her suite. With the more constant presences of guests as of late, she’d slipped all her gifts off somewhere unseen, but now they lay strewn across floor and couches and tabletops alike, a fleet of gaping boxes with their goods proudly on display, waiting to be sealed and sent to their destinations. Another deep breath rolled through the hollow of her chest, and Caeliri approached the army of gifts, settling in to tend to the overdue task.

--

The first was for Elleynah. Caeliri had wept when she received the other mender’s gifts, each more touching than the last; they were practical as the woman who had gifted them, and still managed to have an edge of finery. It made the younger mender smile; the Ginger Witch had found a way to broach the strange barrier that hung between them, to make something with the glitter and intrigue that held Caeliri’s eye while offering things with earnest, unquestionable use. Moths and Butterflies, indeed -- Caeliri reciprocated in kind.

Despite the fierce friendship forged between the two, it had been difficult, almost, to find something for Elleynah ( @stormandozone). Cards were the easiest option, but the painted faces were not Elleynah; they were just a tool, a gift among her many others, one facet of a multi-edged stone, but not her. It was during a trip to Summerglen that Caeliri found the answer she had sought, in the swaying limbs of the trees that sprinkled shadow-shot light along the mislaid roads that led into the village. The Dawn had shattered Elleynah’s last staff, and though Caeliri was sure by now the mender had replaced it with something comparable, still… memories of false dawn in Azsuna, where they stood on the salt-soaked shore and ran smoothly through the motions of combat swirled in her mind, and in her heart of hearts she knew there was no better gift.

There was give to the dark wood, enough that it would not break on contact with an enemy’s skull, while being firm enough to fight with. Though it was a weapon still, there was gentle beauty to it; Caeliri had it’s length carved in floral patterns, snaking vines and roots and blooms shaped as those used in Elleynah’s brews and earth-muddied magics. It’s core was wrapped ‘round with warm, soft leather in the dark shade of moist soil, tied taut to keep the Sunward’s grip sure, it’s loose ends dappled with copper charms and small glass baubles - no more than an inch, and forged in phoenix fire to save them from shattering - filled with small flowers. Within their crystalline chamber, they would stay forever pure; some commentary that was, perhaps, unintentional on the part of the young - it was likely she only saw them for their beauty, and no deeper meaning. Beneath a mender’s touch, though, the delicate engravings in the staff would glow gold-green - it served as much as magical focus as weapon in it’s own right. Nature-born, Light-blessed; just like the mender who would now hold it.

With it came new belts, made in the same dark leather that hugged the shaft of the staff, edged with copper and decorated the same, and heavyset with pouches and empty slots for potions. Tucked in one of the pouches - because if one thing remained ever true about the young Dame, it was that she loved games - was her letter;

Elleynah,

I hope my late gifts don’t seem to say I am not thankful, or that I fail to appreciate you; I have been… busy. When I see you next I will… explain in further detail, but until then--

There is no gift I could give that would ever match that which you have given me - I mean not the book and glove and pins you gave, though they were beyond anything I could ever wish and touched my heart so hard I cried (a lot), but the wisdom you have passed to me. The days we spent together in Aszuna have been some of my best, and though our nights in the ruins were fraught and strange, I would relive them a hundred times for the honor of your company. When there seemed no more sun left inside of me, you taught me the value of pressing on; there are few I know who could match you in fortitude, and there will never be words enough to thank you for what strength I have gleaned from you.

When next you’re free, I want to invite you to Summerglen - I think you’d like it as much as I. It’s wooded and warm and wonderful there; perhaps when the war breaks and there is a softer dawn on the horizon, we can go together.

Your friend, Caeliri

Satisfied, she set the odd, long box to the floor and slid it away with her foot, seeking something smaller now to fix her attentions on - something she found immediately, something that made her wince. Caeliri reached across the table, pulling the small, floral-patterned box towards her to peer within. The locket was cast in silver and warm to the touch, devoid of flouncy, feminine patterns on its front in favor of a riveted edge that gave it a more masculine air. Batting the box back and forth between her open palms, she watched the glimmer of light dance on it’s smooth front, wondering if she should send this gift at all. Before, there had been no question, but these days...

Caeliri took a deep breath, recalling words Vaelrin had for her, ‘You are his lover still.’ Was she? The Highlord ( @theshadowavatar) was a ghost to her - less than that, even. Ghosts, at least, she heard still - since that trip to Azsuna with Elleynah, there’d been more than a handful of phantom voices in her ear, but none of them were the voice she’d hoped for. Again and again the Ranger-Captain assured her that her anxieties were misplaced, that there was affection between her long-dead lover and herself still -- while also swearing up and down the dead had no feelings to give. The back and forth had been maddening, the conversations circular always, but something in all the words between them stuck with her even now. ‘Rightly so.’ It was threaded through with such…

Drawing a hand through her silken hair, Caeliri let those thoughts ebb away as she popped open the locket to look inside and assure all was in order. It was a thick, weighty thing, with multiple panes of glass that flipped on an internal hinge. Five panes in total made up the interior, and three were already filled with small portraits of Zarandarin, Talthin, and Elrandarin. The last two were blank, for the new born Lords she’d yet to see. Her note was simple, swift - if she lingered too long on it, she feared what she might say.

Arandur, Don’t forget them.

She did not sign her name.

The box was closed, hastily, and shoved into the depths of her medical bag - she’d leave it in his office in the Dawnspire, the only place she knew to send something to, one day, get back to him. A weight struck her shoulder suddenly, and she didn’t need to twist her head to know Grace had come to occupy her common perch. She was growing these days - growing fat, at least, with all the treats she’d received for the holiday. Trilling brightly, the phoenix let her golden flames gust over Caeliri’s face as she began to preen the mender’s long, unbound hair, tucking it and twisting it as she desired.

Swallowing, hard, she moved on to something else, seeking… seeking --

She swung her foot idly beneath the table, and her toes smacked hard against something beneath the table. Both cheeks puffed up, a withheld sound of pain vibrating in her throat for a long, long, long minute, before she wrangled the box between her feet, still aching toes hugging the back edge of it, and slid it across the carpets. It was heavy, without much give, and gave quite a struggle as she tried to pull it into her line of sight - one look at the contents and she understood why she’d limping for the rest of the day.

This gift was for Vulthaen Voidsunder ( @curiouslich), the Forgemaster in the Dawnspire, who’d taken such great interest in the design and forging of the ceremonial armor she wore as Dame. Beneath the ebon’s dark hands the ithimithril had been shaped and shaded in the soft pinks and stark golds of a brilliant, blinding dawn, set against matte ivory steel and swathed in glittering cloth; Caeliri had worn it once, already, and near trapped herself inside it’s enchanted grasp - she wasn’t quite used to the lack of straps or buckles to close it, and it had been difficult to find the runes and speak the spells to break it open while it was on her slim form.

Ever bound to his vigil at the forges, along side his sisters, she’d reasoned he was unable to get his hands on the raw materials found on the Broken Isles. Given her proximity to not only the Isles but traders eager to exchange coin for their wares, it had been easy to fill a box with a sampling of raw ores to send back to the Dawnspire. Another gift for another dead man, Caeliri gave a half-hearted laugh into her empty room, aware that elsewhere in her armada lay another gift for another departed soul whose body still lingered. Death-touched, her nightmares had whispered, you carry crypts inside you. Perhaps there was truth to that yet.

A bead of nervous sweat broke on her lower back, but she paid it no mind, and put pen to paper;

Forgemaster, There are few who serve as faithfully or as eternally as you. Though you told me, often, that your work was your passion and your hobby and was a gift in and of itself, I will still feel forever in your debt for your careful handling of my armor, and for the kindness you showed me while touring the forges. Elleynah still reminds Grace of your disapproval, as well of that of her mother, when she misbehaves, and I’m pleased to report that it still works.

I doubt you have the time, or inclination, to wander far from the Dawnforge, and so I’ve sent along what I could gather of Leystone Ore from the Isles. The ore is yours to do with as you please - I figure it may prove useful, if nothing more than for your examination of its properties.

Be well, my friend, and give Shimmer all our love, Caeliri and Grace

She planted her palms flat on the table, and scooted back her chair rising up on screaming toes to hobble across the room, sliding the box with her good foot. It made the journey much longer than it needed to be, but she needed to remove this gift from her vicinity before she harmed herself again - because that was extremely likely. On her shoulder, Grace cooed, eyeing another box of treats that had been sent along for her with greedy glee. She fluttered across the room to land atop it, cooing loudly at Caeliri, before dipping her head down to peck and the box of cinnamon bark Iiloridan ( @edaigoa) had sent for her.

“No,” Caeliri lilted back, shuffling back to her chair. “You eat any more of that and you won’t be able to fly.” Grace’s feathers fluffed up in absolute offense to the rejection and the insult, and she cooed sourly at the mender.

Caeliri flopped back into her chair, nose scrunching slightly at the way her stomach squealed. With a sigh, she reached for blank parchment, attending to the next item that sprung to mind.

#my writing #caeliri #the sunguard #winter's veil #elleynah #arandur #vulthaen

[epochxp]

How to Get Miniature Gaming Mileage Out of Old Role-Playing Games!

1st Edition box cover | Amazon.co.uk 

I have been a wargamer since 1983 and a role player since 1985, and the truth is, no game was as formative to my gaming “zeitgeist” as it were, as was Twilight:2000. Why is this so? Because first, the timing of the game was excellent. The Cold War was in full swing, and Ronald Reagan was hell-bent on beating the Soviets, and it seemed to many, damned the cost. With movies like Threads, The Day After, and Testament being made, it seemed NATO and the Warsaw Pact might very well come to blows. 

Or at least it did to this 10-year-old growing up in Gaithersburg, MD, which is a stone’s throw from Washington DC. Maybe it was my subconscious need to make sense of it all. Maybe I wanted to play something other than sword and sandal RPGs. I just wasn’t that into that sort of thing? Well, come one day, I was reading Analog magazine, and I read a review of Twilight:2000. I was hooked. I got the game as a birthday present that next summer and collected pretty much everything that came out for the game until GDW folded up shop in 1993, but here I was, plenty of books and a fertile ground of ideas…what to do with it, right?

I was fortunate in that the game has had something of a bias towards miniatures since the beginning. In fact, a set of Twilight:2000 miniatures rules were published in Challenge Issue 25, which was GDW’s house magazine for its RPGs. (The rules had a very proto-Command Decision feel and could be its predecessor.)

US Army Vehicle Guide Cover | Amazon.com

Furthermore, the game had an official line of miniatures (by Grenadier Miniatures, long OOP), but if you look hard at convention flea markets (bring and buys to our British cousins), you’ll still find from time to time a supply of the figures usually in lots of 6 or 8 packs of figures. The miniatures themselves are a bit smallish compared to some 20mm lines (Britannia comes to mind), but they’ll fit in well with some others, like Ehliem, and they have some nice poses and sculpts. 

Jason Weiser, “500 Miles..” 

And if that wasn’t enough? GDW published the US Army Vehicle Guide, which had an entire section, and black and white pictorial on just how to use Roco and Roskopf vehicles with your figures (not to mention how to make conversions of some of the harder to find stuff). Dated stuff today, but the pictures are a real bit of inspiration on how a gaming table for Twilight:2000 should look.

So, this all inspired the beginnings of my blog. I’d done some stuff for Twilight:2000 before, on the late, lamented Guild Wargamers forum. (which was a real boon for all things 20mm) and I wanted to write a blog to tell those small group of souls that “Good Luck, You’re Not Alone” in this crazy subset of a subset of a hobby, and with all this Cold War Gone Hot nostalgia going around (Down in front, Team Yankee!), I thought, “perfect time for a blog, right?”

So thus, “500 Miles to the German Border” was born. I was prolific my first year and wrote a wargaming-focused analysis on everything that could be of use to the Twilight: 2000 gamer. I think my best stuff has been my writeups of the various role-playing modules as suitable miniature wargaming scenario material, but I have found my blog being quoted in a lot of places, including The Miniatures Page, and even some Twilight:2000 role-playing pages as they mine it back for ideas.

This is just my own experience, really, but honestly? There’re tons of older RPGs out there, collecting dust and not being played, but they’re chock full of ideas that await the application of your favorite miniatures rules sets(s). But the best advice I can give is the following.

Pick a single game and stick with it: It really works best this way. Focusing on Twilight: 2000 has let me do a lot with the game and let me reexamine an old favorite in a new light. I mean, I didn’t realize that Allegheny Uprising could probably take the cake as “grimmest     adventure I’ve ever read”. This is especially true when you’re searching     the module for miniature gaming ideas, and they’re all grim. And readers     like knowing what to expect from each blog entry.

2. Be flexible: It’s more important you stick with the spirit of the game than the letter. I will admit I have had to fudge here and there (the canon color plates in the Vehicle Guides versus the RL schemes that probably would have been used in my vehicle color schemes articles is a good example).

Respect the Copyright: You’re playing in someone else’s sandbox, so be a good net citizen and don’t be posting PDFs online or such. If you must quote, use citations. And always credit photos if you can. I know that’s not always possible but get in the habit of doing so. 

Listen to feedback: Sometimes, comments can really be a big help. My figure review articles, for example, have been nothing but improved due to the assistance some posters have provided (especially the 28mm article, which is a scale I know little to nothing about).

Know your audience: My audience, for example, is going to want all sorts of tutorials, news on where to get neat stuff to improve on that Twilight: 2000 look on the table, and plain inspiration anywhere you can get it. When I am not writing on a topic myself, I am recruiting contributors, and I have two part-time contributors already! 

So, what does all this mean for the miniatures gamer who is looking to crack open a “dead” RPG for inspiration? Well, there’s a fertile ground out there. You’d be surprised what you can find, and honestly, a few throwaway sentences buried in an adventure can be the basis of a great scenario or two for the tabletop. 

And that’s the final point, do something that makes you want to write about it. Blog writing for miniature wargaming should never be a chore. And be consistent, if not prolific, once or twice a month for a posting schedule is pretty good and will keep your fans satisfied for the most part. And do not be afraid to ask your audience occasionally what they’d like to see. You’d be surprised as to what they might come up with. 

So, how is this Not Another Third World War?

As you’ve read from the sidebar, Twilight: 2000 wasn’t a game that posited the usual what I call “Soviet Sunday Drive to the Rhine.” Instead, the Warsaw Pact was on the defensive for most of the game’s background (which can make for some interesting games for all those 6mm types, as all the vehicle guides have HELPFUL information on TOEs). Also, with the end of the Cold War, there are tons of declassified materials you can mine for orders of battle, scenario ideas, and a whole host of other things. (And EpochXperience can help you with that, we’ve got a lot of archival experience!)

By the time 2000 rolls around, you have a background that has some of the bells and whistles left, but not all. What’s striking and fun is the dichotomy. Horse Cav with GPMG and ATGM, MBTs running on hooch and different uniforms even within the same unit. And you can steal ideas from Mad Max, Day After, or dare I say it? Threads? (There is a certain traffic warden that would look awesome in 20mm, and Ehliem makes a nice figure that would make a great starting point. Crooked Dice also makes him in 28mm!). All of this is a historical zeitgeist of the 1980s, where we were pretty convinced the Cold War was going to end with a bang and not a whimper. It left a big impression on my life.

Figures by Ehliem | Jason Weiser, “500 Miles…”

What’s also nice? If you like infantry heavy games? This milieu is for you. As I said before, there’s some ironmongery, but not a lot. And for the modelers? The fact there is fewer vehicles and heavy weapons means you can let your imaginations run riot and really personalize your AFVs and other vehicles, as the “gypsy caravan” look is very, very in Twilight: 2000. 

So, there is a rich tapestry out there for a 35-year-old RPG and plenty of 15 and 20mm figures out there to paint up for it. Why not give it a try?

About Twilight: 2000

Twilight:2000 burst onto the scene in November 1984 in a period of high tension during the Cold War. It took a then likely East-West confrontation and turned it into good RPG fodder, with some historical allegory to the Thirty Years War (with Poland standing in for Germany). 

The game’s initial background posited a Soviet invasion of China after escalating border tensions in the then-future of 1995. This distracted the Soviet Union, and West Germany, in cooperation with East Germany, moved to kick the Soviets out of East Germany by force of arms. This naturally went badly, and expanded into a Third World War that pulled NATO and the Warsaw Pact. The second edition of the game was printed in 1990 and changed the flashpoint to German/Polish border issues in Western Poland and ethnic Germans in Silesia, and the 2.2 edition of the game was published in 1993, just before GDW folded and changed the timeline again, this time positing a successful hardliner coup in 1991.

 The game, while a bit dated, still has something of a following and was even an attempt to bring the game back as Twilight: 2013 in 2008, to mixed reviews, and the game still has a small but fanatically loyal fanbase as the story of soldiers lost, far from home in a post-apocalyptic landscape has had something of an appeal since the story of Xenophon.

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At Epoch Xperience, we specialize in creating compelling narratives and provide research to give your game the kind of details that engage your players and create a resonant world they want to spend time in. If you are interested in learning more about our gaming research services, you can browse Epoch Xperience’s service on our parent site, SJR Research.

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(This article is credited to Jason Weiser. Jason is a long-time wargamer with published works in the Journal of the Society of Twentieth Century Wargamers; Miniature Wargames Magazine; and Wargames, Strategy, and Soldier.)

#Wargame Figures/Miniatures #wargaming #wargames #miniatures

[componentplanet]

Best Games for Laptops and Low-End PCs in 2020

When I first became interested in computers, the idea of gaming on a low-end laptop or desktop was a contradiction in terms. Your options were: Intel, if you could afford them, AMD if you needed a cheaper but good-enough option, and Cyrix if you hated yourself. In the modern era, we aren’t nearly so constrained. Modern games target every type of device and form factor, making it comparatively easy to find titles to play.

We’ve rounded up some of the better ones below.

In this list of our favorites, we’ve tried to blend a mixture of modern titles and a handful of older classics. If you’ve been gaming for a number of years, we strongly suggest Googling “best games of X,” to remind yourself what hidden gems you might have missed the first time around. A game that required a midrange PC to play in 2011 likely runs just fine on an integrated GPU in 2019, especially if you’ve got an Ice Lake-based notebook or Ryzen Mobile 4000-based laptop. Integrated graphics don’t have to mean unplayable games.

The PC gaming news cycle often doesn’t serve the interests of the larger PC gaming community when it comes to game discovery. This is particularly and sadly true for low-end gamers. Lost in the endless churn of new titles is the fact that there are literally thousands of amazing PC titles released long before you bought your system. Don’t be afraid to go digging for gems you might have missed in previous generations.

One way to express a love of PC gaming is certainly by investing lots of money in gaming hardware, but it’s certainly not the only one. What matters isn’t the amount of money you can plow into the hobby, or how new the games are, but whether you enjoy them.

This time around, I’ve added a “Runs on” listing to give the minimum specs for the game. I cannot guarantee how good the experience at the minimum spec is, but this way you can eyeball games and get a sense of whether your hardware can run them.

All games should be assumed to require Windows 7 or above unless specifically stated otherwise.

Poly Bridge

Your Inner Civil Engineer Requires: Pentium 4 2GHz, 2GB of RAM, GeForce 7200 GS, 150MB of storage.

Poly Bridge is a great puzzle game, somewhat in the tradition of now-ancient titles like The Incredible Machine. In this case, you must design bridges that can carry a certain number of vehicles while also coming in under budget. These two simple goals can be difficult to achieve in later levels (there are more than 60), since the game adds various hazards and the need to deploy construction techniques I’m fairly certain the Army Corps of Engineers does not approve of.

The game recently got a sequel (which I haven’t played yet). Reviews of it seem a bit less enthused than for Poly Bridge, with one noting it felt more like an expansion pack to the original. It is, however, excellently rated on Steam.

Disco Elysium:

Stagger Drunkenly at an Adequate Frame Rate: Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB RAM, 20GB HDD space, 512MB graphics card.

In Disco Elysium, you’re an alcohol-and-drug-abusing amnesiac detective who has been hired to solve a murder mystery. This sort of thing happens so often in games, you’d think there’d be some kind of agency in charge of ensuring would-be detectives still knew their own names.

As you work to solve a murder you’ll remember things about yourself as well and have access to a system of traits with which to flesh out your character. There are 24 skills in the game, and they all have an impact on how the game evolves. Pick the wrong (or right) ones, and you may end up arguing with yourself over the correct course of action. It won Game of the Year from several publications, and it’ll run on 14-year-old hardware.

Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden

Search for Scrap On: Core i5-760, Phenom II X4 965, GTX 580 / AMD Radeon 7870 HD, 6GB RAM, 8GB HDD.

This XCOM-meets-Fallout title is based on the tabletop Mutant Year Zero game. If you’ve played the modern XCOM games, you’ll be familiar with most of the gameplay elements, though Mutant Year Zero gives you direct control of your squad outside of combat and fuses XCOM’s gameplay with some light RPG elements.

The worst thing we can say about Mutant Year Zero is that you’ll have to do some Googling to figure out which buttons are tied to which keyboard functions. The game’s plot and post-apocalyptic setting recall the best parts of Fallout, and while the game isn’t as deep as one of those sprawling titles, it still feels like a spiritual sequel. Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden feels a bit like a “AA” game, for lack of a better phrase. Reasonably well-polished with solid aspirations, but you won’t mistake it for a 400-hour dungeon crawler.

World of Warcraft Classic

Visit Beautiful Molten Core if You Own: Is your PC literally old enough to vote? No? You’re fine. Officially, Core 2 Duo E6600 or AMD Phenom X3 8750, 8800 GT or Radeon HD 4850, or Intel HD Graphics 4000. Unofficially, you can run probably run Classic on less. I’ve tested it on a 2015 Razer Blade Stealth with Intel 520 HD graphics and the frame rate was high enough to make me think there’s some headroom in those already-low-end graphics options. Interestingly, WoW Classic isn’t listed as requiring a DX11 GPU.

Lakeshire, Redridge Mountains. Left is Retail, right is Classic.

Revisit a simpler time, when an MMO that largely takes place outside and requires you to congregate with large groups of people didn’t feel fantastical (at least not for those reasons). WoW Classic is everything you loved (or hated) about original World of Warcraft. I’m a biased fan, to be clear, but just because I’m biased doesn’t mean I’m wrong.

It’s World of Warcraft: Classic, which is to say, #NoChanges (except for a few of the changes, but really, there aren’t that many).  There’s a lot to love in the original version of Blizzard’s MMO classic, especially if you like games of this era in the first place. It may use the modern WoW engine, but Blizzard re-used original WoW’s textures and assets. The result is a game that runs just fine on a low-end PC, including Carrizo-powered AMD ultrabooks and Intel integrated graphics.

Alternately, you could pick up Runescape Classic, which literally runs on mobile phones now. Your move, Blizzard.

Untitled Goose Game

Chase People Like an A****** With: Core 2 Duo 8500, Nvidia GeForce 510, 4GB of RAM, 820MB storage. The 510 is a bottom-end card from 2011, which means midrange or high-end cards from 2011. As long as your GPU can handle DX11, you’re fine.

Untitled Goose Game challenges you to find the Canadian goose inside yourself. Yup. This is a game about being an unrepentant asshole. Since the joys of honking and flapping don’t require a high-end PC, Untitled Goose Game is another game that’ll run on just about any toaster you can drag out of storage.

Honk. Flap. Steal objects, trick humans, annoy pets, wash, rinse, and repeat if necessary. It’s a brilliant game for people turned off by “typical” titles looking for a silly, funny, low-key experience.

Arkham City

Soars Through Gotham On: Any dual-core CPU at 2.4GHz or more, Nvidia 8800 GT or AMD Radeon 3850, 2GB of RAM. Supports Windows XP.

I’m sticking with Arkham City in this update, rather than moving on to one of the newer titles. Arkham Asylum is, to be sure, still an excellent game, and it runs on an even lower-spec system than Arkham City. But between the two of them, Arkham City is the better overall Batman game. Batman’s overall bag of tricks gets polished and AC offers you playing time as characters like Catwoman, with her own distinct moveset and animation style.

Arkham City feels as though it genuinely captures what it would be like to “be” Batman, with a clever twist on why you face a never-ending army of thugs. If you want to find out if you’re going to like the Arkham game series, I’d say this is the best one to try. If you need something even gentler on system specs, try the original Arkham Asylum.

Into the Breach

Calculate Strategic Micro-combat Using: Any 1.7GHz CPU, 1GB of RAM, 300MB storage, and an Intel HD 3000 IGP.

Into the Breach is a turn-based strategy game that takes place on small maps of 8×8 grids. From the makers of FTL, Into the Breach challenges you to beat back waves of attackers in turn-based combat. There are no XCOM-style probability fields to deal with here — you get full transparency into what actions will be taken by both your own characters and the enemies you engage with.

Into the Breach launched in 2018, but it’s still winning recognition for its unique approach to turn-based combat today. Definitely worth checking out, if you’re looking for some turn-based combat options.

West of Loathing

Spittoon-and Snake-Themed Exploration Needs: An Nvidia GeForce 7200 GS, Core 2 Duo 7400, 2GB of RAM, and 4GB of storage. Runs on Windows XP SP2+.

West of Loathing is a “graphical” adventure game that could run on a Lite-Brite. Don’t let the black-and-white stick-based graphics fool you — under the hood is a classic adventure game with RPG elements, killer clowns, demon cows, snake oil salesman, and a heap of spittoons to dig through in search of loot. The dialog is laugh-out-loud funny and the game’s irreverent humor recalls the best adventure game writing of earlier eras.

West of Loathing came out at the end of 2017, but it’s still a top pick if you need a game that runs on anything and offers some genuine laugh-out-loud moments.

Stardew Valley

Want to Farm Crops and Help People? You’ll Need: Any CPU at 2GHz or more, any GPU with at least 256MB of RAM and SM 3.0 support, 2GB of RAM and 500MB of storage.

Stardew Valley was heavily inspired by the Harvest Moon series of video games but adds its own spin on the concept. Explore Pelican Town, make friends, fall in love, and restore your grandfather’s farm to health in a gentle, open-ended title that will tease your curiosity as opposed to yanking you hither and yon with frantic quest demands.

Stardew Valley received a major endgame update last fall in Patch 1.4, with new monsters, fish ponds, a new mystery to solve, various bug-fixes, quality-of-life improvements, and similar updates. Multiplayer support is also now available.

Cuphead

Visit the Era of Classic Animation (and Try Not to Die) if You’ve Got: An Intel Core 2 Duo E8400, AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+, 2GB of RAM, Nvidia GeForce 9600 GT / AMD Radeon HD 3870, 20GB HDD space. Only needs DirectX 9.0c support, but still requires Windows 7.

Cuphead’s visual aesthetic is truly unique — it’s the only game we’ve ever seen that mimics the “rubber hose” animation style of the early 1930s in a frenetic 2D game. You’ll need sharp reflexes to beat the game, but not much in the way of PC horsepower.

Cuphead is a great game for someone looking for a game you might fairly call “Nintendo hard,” particularly if they enjoy its animation.

Minecraft

Fend off Creepers and Illigers With: A Core i3 3210 or A8-7600, 4GB of RAM, 180-1GB HDD space, Intel HD 4000 or AMD’s Radeon R5 family, and a 1024×768 display.

The open-world sandbox of Minecraft has been used to create everything from 1:1 scale models of the starship Enterprise to functional (if simple) CPUs. In between, there’s an easily accessible game with a rich crafting system, dangerous mobs, and huge worlds to explore. If your ideas of gameplay run more towards “give me a big space and lots of tools,” and less towards coherent narrative and story-driven play, you may find Minecraft much to your liking.

That doesn’t actually tell you nearly enough about Minecraft, a game that’s inspired millions of people to spend billions of hours stacking blocks on top of each other. Minecraft is a phenomenal crafting and building game.

Orcs Must Die, Orcs Must Die 2

Revisit the Simple Joy of Spring-Loaded Traps and Acid Bombs: Any dual-core CPU at 2GHz or above, a GeForce 6800 or ATI Radeon x1950 with 256GB of RAM, 2GB of RAM, and at least 256MB of VRAM. Supports Windows XP.

I recommend both, but OMD2 is definitely the better game.

Orcs Must Die and Orcs Must Die 2 are some of our favorite titles for mindless slaughtery goodness and have a permanent space on my hard drive. This hybrid tower-defense/action game tasks you with burning, blasting, freezing, smashing, dissolving, shooting, and generally wreaking mayhem against wave after wave of orcs, trolls, ogres, and other various bad guys. It’s easy to learn and sometimes surprisingly difficult to master.

OMD excels at offering a variety of fun ways to slaughter monsters in quick succession. Spring-loaded traps that hurl creatures through the air? Check. Acid sprayers and arrow traps? Check. Trinkets to transform you into a massive ogre, hurl fireballs, or turn orcs into chickens? Check.

Darkest Dungeon

Explore Your Ancestor’s Darkest Secrets: 2GB of RAM, a GPU capable of supporting OpenGL 3.2 (released in 2009), 2GB of storage. 1080p, 16:9 displays recommended.

Darkest Dungeon is a 2D, side-scrolling dungeon crawler with a side helping of Lovecraftian horror (hold the racism) and a mental health management simulator. As your heroes wind their way through the stygian abyss, they’ll face the dripping claws and rasping moans of the eons-damned creatures that dwell beyond the stars. Safeguard them carefully, or you’ll find the abyss staring back at you when you least expect it…

Darkest Dungeon can be legitimately annoying, but if you love mods like “Longest War” for XCOM, this series is a treasure. DD doesn’t pull punches, and if you think you’ve figured the game out, that probably means there’s a DLC or difficulty level waiting to kneecap you around the corner.

So that’s our list. Feel free to chime in with your own. What older games or titles still have a cherished spot on your hard drive, and what games do you find yourself returning to, long after they’ve supposedly been surpassed by more recent releases?

Now Read:

Microsoft Flight Simulator Ships on 10 DVDs

Report: Nvidia Ends Production of RTX Turing GPUs, Ampere Is on the Way

Microsoft Details How the Xbox Series X Achieves Its Storage Performance

from ExtremeTechExtremeTech https://www.extremetech.com/gaming/269774-best-games-you-can-play-on-laptops-and-low-end-pcs from Blogger http://componentplanet.blogspot.com/2020/07/best-games-for-laptops-and-low-end-pcs.html

#Best Games for Laptops and Low-End PCs in 2020

[biofunmy]

When Resistance Became Too Loud to Ignore

At times the fight for civil rights is a straight road pocked with speed bumps; at other times a maddening spiral of detours. It was a battlefield in the early hours of June 28, 1969, when a small group of gay, lesbian and transgender people, herded by police out of a Greenwich Village bar called the Stonewall Inn, just said no: shoved back; threw bricks, bottles, punches. As the police defensively barricaded themselves inside the bar, the fight — since variously termed a riot, an uprising, a rebellion — spread through the Village, then through the country, then through history.

It’s still spreading, expanding the way the term “gay” has expanded to include lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer and other categories of identity. And for this summer’s half-century Stonewall anniversary, substantial displays of art produced in the long wake of the uprising are filling some New York City museums and public spaces.

The largest of them is the two-part “Art After Stonewall, 1969-1989” shared by Grey Art Gallery, New York University, and the Leslie-Lohman Museum in Soho. A trio of small archival shows at the New-York Historical Society adds background depth to the story. And at the Brooklyn Museum, “Nobody Promised You Tomorrow: Art 50 Years After Stonewall,” 28 young queer and transgender artists, most born after 1980, carry the buzz of resistance into the present.

Grey Art Gallery and Leslie-Lohman Museum

‘Art After Stonewall, 1969-1989’

This survey, organized by the Columbus Museum of Art in Ohio, where it will later appear, is split into two rough chunks defined by decades, with material from the ’70s mostly at Leslie-Lohman and from the ’80s at Grey. Unsurprisingly, the Leslie-Lohman half is livelier. A lot of what’s in it was hot off the political burner when made, responsive to crisis conditions. The modest scale of the gallery spaces makes the hanging feel tight and combustible. And as a time of many “firsts,” the early years had a built-in excitement.

There was, of course, the thrill of the uprising itself, captured by the Village Voice beat photographer Fred W. McDarrah in an on-the-spot nighttime shot of protesters grinning and vamping outside the Stonewall. (One of them, the mixed-media artist Thomas Lanigan-Schmidt has sparkling, tabletop-size sculptures in both sections of the show.) Activist groups quickly formed, and a way of life that had once been discreetly underground pushed out into the open.

The Gay Liberation Front, aligning itself with antiwar and international human rights struggles, coalesced within days after Stonewall, soon followed by the Gay Activists Alliance, which focused specifically on gay and lesbian issues. It was clear pretty fast that both were predominantly male, white and middle class — misogyny, racism and classism have plagued L.G.B.T. politics from the start — and further groups splintered off: Radicalesbians, Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR), and later, the Salsa Soul Sisters. All the energy produced, among other things, the first Christopher Street Liberation Day March (now the NYC Pride March).

Many of the Stonewall-era trailblazers, like Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera — one black, the other Latinx, both self-identified drag queens — were longtime veterans of the West Village gay scene. But for many other people the event prompted a first full public coming out, which was no light matter.

In 1969, even mild affectional acts between same-sex couples were illegal in much of the United States, as was cross-dressing. An arrest — and there were many — could instantly end a career, destroy a family, shut down a future. Bullying gay men was considered normal; violence was acceptable.

As a gay person, you went through the world watching your movements, monitoring your speech, worrying about how much of yourself, just by being yourself, you were giving away. This could make for a lonely life. If, for some reason, you were heedless, or incapable, of acting straight, good luck to you.

So when safety arrived in the form of an army of out-and-proud lovers and protesters, the relief was tremendous. And you can feel the rush of at Leslie-Lohman, in photographs of the first marches in New York and Los Angeles taken by participants like Cathy Cade, Leonard Fink, Diana Davies, Kay Tobin Lahusen (who, in a wall label, is credited as being the first openly gay American woman photojournalist).

Particularly strong among these images is Bettye Lane’s shot of a raging Sylvia Rivera confronting a jeering gay crowd — they had just been applauding an anti-trans speech by the lesbian feminist leader Jean O’Leary — at the 1973 New York march. But no picture can compare in gut-level impact with the short glitchy surviving video of Rivera in action that day. (You can find it on YouTube. I urge you to watch it.)

Women and transgender people are the heart of the Leslie-Lohman half of the show, not only in its documentary components but in the art chosen by the curator Jonathan Weinberg, working with Tyler Cann of the Columbus Museum of Art and Drew Sawyer of the Brooklyn Museum.

Standouts include a Tee A. Corinne-designed coloring book consisting of exquisite line drawings of vulvae; Harmony Hammond’s sculpture of two clothbound ladderlike forms leaning protectively together; and Louise Fishman’s 1973 “Angry Paintings,” acts of controlled gestural chaos that name heroic lesbian names (the critic Jill Johnston, the anthropologist Esther Newton, Ms. Fishman’s partner at the time) and speak of emotions once suppressed, now released.

The Grey Gallery half of the show, which brings us into the 1980s, makes a quieter impression. Partly this is because of a more spacious installation spread over two floors, and to the more polished-and-framed look of much of the work. Political content is, with vivid exceptions, subtle, indirect, which is not in itself a bad thing, though an earlier charge of communal energy is diminished. We’re basically now in a different, more market-conscious, canon-shaping art world, one closer to the museum than to the street.

And though we’re in the era of AIDS, the sense of urgency that absolutely defined that time is missing. This is not to say there’s a shortage of good work. The show would be valuable if it did nothing more than showcase artists like Laura Aguilar, Luis Cruz Azaceta, Jerome Caja, Lenore Chinn, Maxine Fine, Luis Frangella and Marc Lida, all seldom, if ever, seen in New York now.

Here again photography opens a window on cultural histories that would otherwise be lost to memory. Dona Ann McAdams’ shots of performances at the lesbian-feminist W.O.W. (Women’s One World) Café, and other East Village clubs, are reminders of the radical talents — John Bernd, Karen Finley, Ishmael Houston-Jones, Holly Hughes, Tim Miller — that this brief time and vanished environment nurtured.

In the end, though, it was two text-pieces, familiar but reverberant, that stayed in my mind. One, a 1989 print by Felix Gonzalez-Torres, was originally enlarged to billboard size and installed on Christopher Street, near where the Stonewall Inn still stands. It’s plain black field is empty except for two unpunctuated lines of small white type read, as if floating up from delirium: “People With AIDS Coalition 1985 Police Harassment 1969 Oscar Wilde 1895 Supreme Court 1986 Harvey Milk 1977 March on Washington 1987 Stonewall Rebellion 1969.”

The other piece is a 1988 poster designed by the AIDS activist collective Gran Fury. In large letters it commands us to “Take Collective Direct Action to End the AIDS crisis.” In smaller type it acknowledges that, “With 42,000 dead, art is not enough.”

In an ethically pressurized political present, it’s a message I find myself carrying away from a lot of recent contemporary shows.

New York University Bobst Library

‘Violet Holdings: LGBTQ+ Highlights From the N.Y.U. Special Collections’

With the Stonewall Inn — now a national monument (and a bar again; it was a bagel shop in the 1980s) — in its neighborhood, New York University has scheduled several additional events around the anniversary, among them a homegrown archival exhibition called “Violet Holdings: LGBTQ+ Highlights from the N.Y.U. Special Collections,” on view at Bobst Library, across the park from Grey Art Gallery.

Organized by Hugh Ryan, it tracks the history of queer identity back to the 19th century with documents related to Elizabeth Robins (1862-1952), an American actor, suffragist and friend of Virginia Woolf, forward with material on pathbreaking organizations like the Mattachine Society and the Daughters of Bilitis, and close to the present in the form of ephemera associated with the musician and drag king Johnny Science (1955-2007), and the D.J. Larry Levan (1954-1992), who, in the 1980s, presided godlike at the gay disco called the Paradise Garage, then a short walk from the N.Y.U. campus.

New-York Historical Society

‘Stonewall 50’

The Paradise Garage, or “Gay-rage,” has high visibility in “Letting Loose and Fighting Back: LGBTQ Nightlife Before and After Stonewall,” one of a cluster of dense micro-show at New-York Historical Society. The club’s metal street sign is here, along with some theme-dance fliers, and a mash-note drawing of Levan by Keith Haring. A matchbook from working-class lesbian bar called the Sea Colony, is a souvenir of 50s butch-femme culture in New York. A key fob and a flip-top lighter are relics of gay male sex clubs, like the Anvil and the Ramrod, that sizzled in the ’70s. So plentiful were such pleasure emporia that some activists feared they were sapping the strength of goal-oriented gay politics.

Yet activism is the essence of a second show, “By the Force of Our Presence: Highlights from the Lesbian Herstory Archives,” which documents the founding in 1974 — by Joan Nestle, Deborah Edel, Sahli Cavallaro, Pamela Olin, and Julia Stanley — of a compendious and still-growing register of lesbian history. The items on view represent a small part of the whole but still suggest the arc of a larger story driven by charismatic personalities.

And personality-plus is what you get in a set of separate solo homages to such out-and-proud imperishables as Stormé DeLarverie (1920-2014); Mother Flawless Sabrina/Jack Doroshow (1939-2017); and Rollerena Fairy Godmother (born 1948). All three, for decades and in different ways, served the L.G.B.T.Q.+ community, as guardian angels (Ms. DeLarverie, a biracial male impersonator, worked as a bouncer at lesbian bars); style models (Ms. Flawless was impresaria of countless drag pageants); and cheerleaders (who could forget the delight, in the ’70s, of seeing Rollerena, purse in hand, whizz by?).

Brooklyn Museum

‘Nobody Promised You Tomorrow: Art 50 Years After Stonewall’

As it happens, Ms. DeLarverie is stage center in this notably youthful and history-conscious — and history-correcting — survey at the Brooklyn Museum. The museum commissioned the artist L.J. Roberts, self-identified as genderqueer, to create a Stonewall monument for the occasion. Ms. DeLarverie is the subject the artist chose to honor, both as a power of example and as a figure whose role at Stonewall — some accounts have her landing the first punch on intruding police — has been obscured. In the sculpture, a construction of light boxes on bricks, her image appears repeatedly, along with those of Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera. (A monument commemorating both will be placed in the vicinity of the Stonewall Inn.)

Rivera, who died of cancer at 50 in 2002, and Johnson, who was found dead in the Hudson River in 1992 (her death, ruled suicide at the time, is still under investigation), are further saluted in a video docudrama by Sasha Wortzel and the artist Tourmaline, and in a bannerlike sequined hanging by Tuesday Smillie.

Friends in life, the two historical figures are tutelary spirits of an exhibition in which a trans presence, long marginalized by mainstream gay politics, is pronounced.

It’s here in the work of the queer graffiti artist Hugo Gyrl, in the diarylike photographs of Elle Perez (a participant in the current Whitney Biennial), in the vivid memorial portraits of murdered trans women by the painter David Antonio Cruz, in the songs of Linda LaBeija, in the internet-based work of Mark Aguhar, a femme-identified transgender artist who died in 2012; and in the hand-sewn textile protest signs of Elektra KB.

For many reasons, protest is a logical direction for art right now. There is still no federal law prohibiting discrimination against L.G.B.T.Q.+ people on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity (although some states and cities have enacted laws prohibiting it). Trans women continue to be victims of violence. The rate of new H.I.V./AIDS transmission among gay black men remains high. And the impulse within the gay mainstream to accommodate and assimilate is by now deeply ingrained. The time has come to hear Sylvia Rivera calling us out again.

Art After Stonewall, 1969-1989

Through July 21 at the Leslie-Lohman Museum, 26 Wooster Street; 212-431-2609, leslielohman.org, and through July 20, at Grey Art Gallery, New York University, 100 Washington Square East; 212-998-6780, greyartgallery.nyu.edu.

Violet Holdings: LGBTQ+ Highlights from the N.Y.U. Special Collections

Through Dec. 31, New York University Bobst Library, 70 Washington Square South; 212-998-2500, library.nyu.edu.

Stonewall 50 at New-York Historical Society

Through Sept. 22 at the New-York Historical Society, 170 Central Park West; 212-873-3400, www.nyhistory.org .

Nobody Promised You Tomorrow: 50 Years After Stonewall

Through Dec. 8 at the Brooklyn Museum, 200 Eastern Parkway; 718-638-5000, brooklynmuseum.org,.

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[williamsjoan]

Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden Review — A Welcome Genre Mutation

Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden isn’t the first video game to be adapted from a tabletop game, and it certainly won’t be the last. That being said, while most titles end up being based on large properties like Dungeons and Dragons or Warhammer, this game instead opts to flesh out the world of Mutant, an obscure Swedish tabletop game from the 1980s. Surprisingly, the world is quite interesting and dense, lending itself well to a strategy game clearly inspired by the XCOM series that attempts to stand out with unique exploration portions.

While some odd difficulty spikes, the game’s short length, and an overall budget-title feel can put a bit of a damper on the fun, Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden’s addition of real-time exploration in an interesting world are the kind of genre mutations (pun intended) that help spice up what could otherwise be considered a standard XCOM clone.

As I’ve mentioned in my previous previews of the title, one of the most interesting and unique aspects of Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden is the world it takes place in. The world of Mutant, which was previously only home to a couple of obscure tabletop games, is a post-apocalyptic one ripe with potential. Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden mainly follows two Stalkers (scavenging mutants) Bormin and Dux as they venture through the dangerous world in order to find the titular Eden and a missing technical genius named Hammon.

The Ark, which seemingly serves as the last bastion of humanity, requires Hammon’s expertise to run properly. As a result, the aforementioned Stalkers are sent out by The Elder, who may have connections to the pre-apocalypse world, in order to find Hammon. Throughout their journey, Bormin and Dux meet other interesting Stalkers named Selma, Magnus, and Farrow. These characters join the party as well, forming a creative and well-rounded main cast.

“…Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden’s addition of real-time exploration in an interesting world are the kind of genre mutations (pun intended) that help spice up what could otherwise be considered a standard XCOM clone.”

While the voice acting leaves a bit to be desired, the characters and world have a surprising amount of intrigue and depth that makes you want to see Mutant Year Zero: Road of Eden through to the end. While post-apocalyptic stories are usually considered to be overdone, this game is willing to get creative with its character and world designs, which constantly made me want to learn more. If anything, Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden’s story is a bit too short and ends a bit too abruptly, but I was still interested in everything that happened until then.

The tactical gameplay with Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden may be similar to XCOM titles at its core, but the gameplay loop of individual missions feels a bit different. Instead of having a massive army of soldiers to customize before sending them out into procedurally generated tactics-only battles, Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden has players enter each level in a real-time exploration mode that encourages stealth and planning before each skirmish.

While some XCOM-inspired games like Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle let players wander around the world outside of battle, I’d consider the real-time exploration mechanics an even more pivotal part of the experience with Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden. Outside of the fact that these exploration segments are where players will find most of the resources needed to upgrade and survive, players can draw singular enemies out and ambush them in this mode, thinning the enemies’ ranks before the real battle begins.

“…the characters and world have a surprising amount of intrigue and depth that makes you want to see Mutant Year Zero: Road of Eden through to the end.”

If nothing else, players can at least get themselves in an advantageous position before the first shots are fired. Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden can be nail-bitingly tough if players don’t do this, which should please the hardcore strategy game fans looking for a good challenge. Movement is quite slow, which may turn some people off, but it seems to have been a deliberate choice to encourage smart stealth and planning.

Once you get into a firefight, things get fairly cut and dry, though unique character abilities and weapons do fortunately spice things up. The additional power, verticality, or defense these special abilities can offer often prove pivotal in some of the game’s later fights. Like most strategy titles, Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden can occasionally suffer from odd difficulty spikes, but they can all be persevered if you take full advantage of that pre-battle exploration phase. It’s quite different than what other games in the genre offer, so the developers over at The Bearded Ladies Consulting ensured that it was a pivotal mechanic.

The weakest aspect of Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden when looked at alongside its competitors is the presentation. Fortunately, the game does not feature any significant frame rate issues and most of the environments feel atmospheric and look quite nice. That being said, character models, while creative looking, are mediocre and have rough animations.

“…Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden can occasionally suffer from odd difficulty spikes, but they can all be persevered if you take full advantage of that pre-battle exploration phase.”

Cutscenes also usually opt for a plain slideshow-with-voiceover format and the music is unmemorable. The game’s world and overall presentation does have its own unique strengths, but when it’s compared to the high presentation bar of quality titles like XCOM 2 and Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle, Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden does pale a bit in comparison.

There’s no shortage of XCOM-inspired strategy games nowadays. Fans of the genre can satiate themselves with everything from the granddaddy that is XCOM: Enemy Unknown to indie titles like Phantom Doctrine and Nintendo games like Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle. While all of these titles are unique in a few ways, the genre is at risk of becoming saturated.

“…this is a strategy game title I see myself consistently returning to.”

Hopefully, this won’t be happening anytime soon if strategy games continue to introduce unique takes on the tride-and-true formula like Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden does with its real-time exploration segments. Even though Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden’s length and parts of the presentation may lack when compared to those aforementioned titles, this is a strategy game title I see myself consistently returning to.

Its handcrafted levels and real-time exploration segments encourage me to be even more thorough in future runs, and I couldn’t help but fall in love with the interesting yet underexposed world of Mutant. There are tons of intriguing but obscure worlds like that of Mutant that are ripe with potential when it comes to video game adaptations, and I’d love to see more get the same treatment that Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden received in the future.

The post Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden Review — A Welcome Genre Mutation by Tomas Franzese appeared first on DualShockers.

Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden Review — A Welcome Genre Mutation published first on https://timloewe.tumblr.com/

[tossinghydras]

Workbench Monthly

Now that I’m getting back into the swing of things I wanted a more consistent way to keep people updated on just what I am working on. Workbench Wednesday is already a great thing in many circles (Especially the people who found me through my miniature work), so I came up with a concept I am calling Workbench Monthly.  This will release on the first Wednesday of the month and will contain a comprehensive overview of what I have been working on during that period and any concepts I’m kicking around for future projects.

This doesn’t mean I won’t be doing other periodic updates if I want feedback or to tease certain work, but hopefully, this will help people get a better idea of the progress of my various projects.

Miniatures

Honestly, most of these are on hold now due to lack of funds, but the creative juices are still flowing. Many people have been following me for the Wraith Fleet work I’ve done (especially on twitter) and I have really enjoyed doing those nautically themed water spirits.  So much so that I’d like to do something similar for each Grand Alliance at some point. To do this I’ve made some changes to the project.

First, I’m changing the name to Muireann’s Chosen and will make an overall campaign/army book for it under this name (Wanted one for my projects ever since seeing some great custom ones online for tournaments). Besides lore and such this will be divided between the Wraithfleet (Death), Marijke’s Children (Destruction), The Stormcalled Reavers (Chaos) and Niyda Radahad’s Privateers (Order).

The goal is to convert up a 1000 pts of each faction, though I plan to bring the Wraithfleet up to at least 2000 as it is the force I want to play with. To that end I’ve been kicking around some army list ideas so they won’t be completely useless on the tabletop, but fluff and design are my main concerns. So, let's take a look at each faction.

Wraithfleet: This is what I’m most known for, though haven’t made any new progress lately. The big addition to this is the land-based section I’ve designed around a reborn Isabella von Carstein. I’ve also drawn up a rough idea of a display board that I might try to get done for Armies on Parade 2019.

Marijke’s Children: So full disclaimer… I have been watching a lot of Pirate Coast videos for Total War: Warhammer.  And I LOVE the designs made in that game. The idea for this one right now is an Arachnarok Junk Ship named Marijke and the spider cult that worships her and her hermit spider children. So far this includes Marijke herself, Spider Riders converted to have hermit crab shells and Ogors converted up to fill the ranks as a sudo-animated hulk/spider baby incubator.

The Stormcalled Reavers: I couldn’t come up with a concept for Chaos for a long time. I didn’t really want to do deamons partially because I couldn’t pick a patron god and partially because I’ll probably revive an old Slaannesh project when their new stuff drops. Then enter the Godsworn Hunt. I’ve always liked the design of the Darkoath Queen and with this new warband for Underworlds it inspired me to do something around them.  So far, the concept is a maori-ish tribe who seek to slay great beasts. Beyond getting the warband and adding the Chieftain and Queen I’m thinking of throwing in a warshrine done up as a salvaged airship/whaling barge.

Niyda Radahad’s Privateers: I’m still undecided with this, though I am leaning towards some kind of Elvish themed Overlords or maybe a mixed list with KO and Elves riding giant seabirds. Unfortunately, this faction has the least design input so far.

Keep an eye out for updates on these as I develop their lore.

Next up a friend of mine picked up the Kill Team 2 player set this weekend so I’m currently kicking around plans for that. I will probably go with the Inquisition/Guard Kill Team I used when my local group was playing the Heralds of Ruin ruleset. I never got to finish it as the group stopped playing before I got it where I liked.  Basic conversions using Empire Greatswords and Cadians. Will probably have to come up with a few new units considering how different GW’s KT is compared to HoR.

Other than that, I have plans to build a scenery board for our family Christmas village we set up every year, which I will probably post on here as well.

 Tabletop

Alright onto the meat of this month’s article. As many who follow the blog know I had some setbacks early in the year.  First, my computer died and then I lost a notebook full of notes, so it has taken quite a while to recreate those ideas and afford a new computer.  But I am now back up and working.

First let’s look at the project I’ve made the least progress on: Savage Stuffing.

I’ve cleaned up the initial document and believe I have a working resolution system for the game. I need to organise a destruction playtest to see if this works before expanding on the other mechanics. I’ve also outlined the various sections in the book, initial magic and equipment as well as the playtest adventure. Probably won’t see any real work done on this project in 2018.

Now let’s take a look at my main project: Goblins & Kobolds.

So, I’ve added an upgrade to my office in the form of a project board and have taken another look at the overall project to get a feel of the financial and creative obligations to make the project what I wanted and to keep myself focus on the design points.  While working on this I have once again changed the scope of the project.

Between the Goblin’s book and Kobold’s book I realized I had a new subclass for 6 classes, 3 in each book. I eventually decided to increase that to 4 in each book and add a few new subclasses and racial subtypes to the final book, which I hadn’t planned on doing originally.

This means that Book 1 for each arch will have the race, 3 racial subtypes, 1 subclass for 4 different classes (themed either racially or to the setting) as well as items and equipment themed for those environments. The mega dungeon book will also include 1 subclass for 4 different classes and an additional racial subtype themed to a more nautical location.

 Now let’s look at the progress for book 1 in the Winter Trilogy: Fistful of Silver.

Managed to get quite a bit done. The Goblin PC race is complete, including its subtypes. I have also completed work on the Destruction Domain (Cleric) and Goblin Outrider (Fighter).  Sapper (Rogue) and Witchling (Sorcerer) have been outlined, but I’m still adjusting them for fit and balance, so they aren’t quite ready but are about 90% complete.

The Equipment and Item section has been outlined with everything I plan to include, just working on some stats and pricing. Probably about 60% done here.

I’ve outlined the crafting system and environmental hazards but that’s all for these sections.

For the Adventure, I have all the locales designed and prototype maps drawn up (which you may have seen on my Instagram or Twitter). I have also written out the progression for the adventure and noted what monsters appear where, so all the preliminary work is complete.  All that remains now is to flesh out the writing and stat up the unique monsters that appear in the adventure, so I’d say 50% complete here.

I’m happy with the progress so far. Not quite as far along as I planned to be this year, but it is almost ready for playtesting. The plan right now is to finish the writing by the end of 2018 and then begin playtesting after the holidays, so mid-late January.

 I have also written out a rough design draft for the Sand Trilogy Book 1: Run, Kobold, Run.

Everything is in the early design phase, but I do have design concepts written up for the following;

Kobold race (Common, Winged, Sand)

Scorpion Hunter (Monk), Dragonshield (Paladin), Dustblight (Ranger), Wyrm Priest (Warlock)

Adventure Setting

Basic Adventure plot and progression.

 Overall things are progressing at an acceptable pace. If you have any ideas, questions or feedback feel free to drop me a message on any of my social media and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.

If you like what I do you can follow the blog on Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Or support me through Patreon and Ko-fi.

#wraithfleet #muireannschosen #marijkeschildren #stormcalledreavers #radahadsprivateers #miniatures #gamesworkshop #goblins&kobolds #killteam #workbenchwednesday #tabletop

[cleaneraugustvsfy186-blog]

House Cleaning Services Dublin - An Overview

The days are much longer; the sun radiates brighter. Toss open up the windows and inhale in the wonderful smell of fresh cut grass and the lavenders blooming outside! The world is coming back to life, and you've got a lot more power and interest. It's time to shake off the darkness of winter season with an excellent round of Spring Cleaning!

On the listing is bringing extra light into your residence. Remove website your drapes and window shades and give them a great cleaning. Bring Venetian blinds outside and hose pipe them down. Iron curtains with starch for a crisp clean look, yet don't hang them up once more up until you've washed the home windows-- inside and out! You can clean your windows in someday with a bucket of water and ammonia, a squeegee and a pile of newspapers. Clean windows are the primary feature of a bright, inviting residence. Change dark insulated drapes with large curtains or perhaps just a window topper to permit the sunlight to brighten the space.

Since you could see more plainly, browse. Is your home full of clutter? Have heaps of publications and newspapers, scattered toys, heaps of papers and different chances and finishes taken control of your counters, tabletops, chairs, and the flooring? Throw out everything you don't require-- and possibilities are a lot of it could go out with the garbage. Obtain some attractive storage space containers or bookcases/shelving devices to hold the stuff you do require.

What shape are the walls in? Think of painting the wall surfaces after cleaning them with a lemon-scented degreaser. Light tones illuminate an area. Experiment, you could be surprised to find that light colors really brighten your state of mind. Or merely give your wall surfaces a good cleaning and stencil on a border, or hang a preferred print or dried flower arrangement. Think about utilizing a corridor as a gallery for mounted family members images.

Clean the woodwork with a bucket of water and a little bit of Murphy's Oil soap to more info add a real sparkle to your areas. Get the carpets cleaned or purchase some brilliant scatter carpets to include a touch of shade.

If you've relocated the furnishings to obtain your cleaning done, think of placing it back differently. Reorganizing your furnishings, getting rid of or including either pieces, can give your room an entire brand-new feeling.

This is also an excellent time to go through your storage rooms and drawers and obtain rid of any garments you have not put on in the last three years. There's nothing more gratifying compared to carrying some large trash bags loaded with clothing you no longer requirement or desire to Goodwill or the Salvation Army-- and you get a tax obligation break!

Since the heavy household chores is done, have some enjoyable. Grab some new bed linens for your beds, wash them in detergent meant for baby garments, and hang them outside to completely dry. You'll like the clean wonderful odor. New guest read more towels and expensive soaps can add oomph to bathrooms. Obtain a running start on your veggie garden-- and bring new life to your kitchen-- by starting your tomatoes and peppers in bright ceramic pots on a windowsill or a sunny counter top. And a brand-new tablecloth (or a brand-new dining set!) will make it much easier to eat the right foods so you fit into the swimwear you'll be putting on all ahead of time!

Candles with the scent of springtime, like peach or honeysuckle, and fresh blossoms-- also a single daffodil, crocus, lily or tulip in a bud vase-- in every area of your house will certainly complete the rebirth of your home-- from wintertime blahs to the brand-new birth of Spring!

Quick! Have your mother-in-law over before your house goes back to its old methods!

The globe is coming back to life, and you've obtained a lot more energy and excitement. Obtain some good-looking storage space containers or bookcases/shelving devices to hold the stuff you do require.

Obtain the rugs cleaned up or purchase some bright scatter carpets to include a touch of color.

There's nothing more rewarding compared to transporting some big trash bags filled up with garments you no longer need or desire to Goodwill or the Salvation Army-- and you obtain a tax break! Get a head start on your vegetable garden-- and bring new life to your cooking area-- by starting your tomatoes and peppers in intense ceramic pots on a windowsill or a sunny counter top.

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