Bestigor, the line in the sand this week
Looking at my Warhammer Fantasy Battle miniature backlog is a truly daunting thing. I have a 4000 point chaos army, a 3000 point beastman army and a small Dark Elf army sitting on shelves with, for the most part, no paint on them. I have been pushing through painting a 30+ bestigor horde for the last—YEAR. This week that’s got to end. I sat down yesterday and cranked on four of them and when I finish those off I will be down to five to finish off the unit.
With painting, it’s one of those things that’s not hard– I don’t set a super high standard for my core units (though they do look really good on the table) so there’s no nervousness around painting that you would have with say, anything CONFRONTATION or 28mm skirmish anything (including Blood Bowl) where it really has to look good when close viewed. It’s more of a motivation thing– my painting table is filled with miniatures and when I finish them, they go away in a box so ALL I see is the unpainted stuff and a mass of metal and grey and black staring back at you with their dead, unpainted eyes can be intimidating to the extreme. I’ve been painting beastmen on and off since 2005 or so when we thought we’d start playing 6th edition (we didn’t). With the bestigor unit done, I will have 100+ painted models for the beasts– really a small amount for a horde army but the bestigor unit completion the rest of the army is all downhill. Next up are 25 Ungor– not a joy to paint but easy and then about 15 more Gor, which I can probably paint in my sleep. After that, Nine minotaurs …at that point I could slap together another chariot, paint the Giant or get the obligatory swarm of level 1 bray shaman to huddle around the Herdstone Shard done. With the exception of the minotaurs, all pretty easy stuff considering. So this week the Bestigor get done…
I just have to keep chanting:
Their walls will fall.
Their faith will fail.
Their flesh will tear.
The Aeneid: a not even pseudo-intellectual review
After I finished off the excellent Rubicon (detailing the events and people leading up to the death of the Roman Republic) by Tom Holland, I delved into some pulp stuff for a bit but was itching to complete my reading of Robert Fagles’s Aeneid to tie in the fantasy with the reality. It was a long haul this one. I think I started reading it in 2010 got a bit into it and moved on to other things–lots of other things. Modern translations of the classic trilogy (Iliad, Odyssey and the Roman Aeneid) are amazing compared to the shit we had in the 80’s when I was struggling through some early 1900’s direct translation in High school that had no ear for the words. The modern translations take a lot of liberties with the text and come out amazingly readable in comparison. I started with Stanley Lombardo’s version of the Iliad years ago and immediately went in for his version of the Odyssey. Apparently he actually PERFORMS these stories for audiences. That’s heavy stuff and the lyricism used in actual telling was not lost in his translation.
My dad gave me the Robert Fagles’s version of the Aeneid and I was skeptical at first but it turned out to be an excellent read– though Virgil is much longer winded than Homer I felt.
The plot is this– Troy gets sacked after the Iliad ends (we never get to see the sacking from Homer though) and apparently a bunch of Trojans survive and head out to found a second Troy. Aeneas is their leadeger and he knows he is destined eventually to found a city in Latinum (Italy). He fucks around a bit on his boats and ends up in Carthage betrothed to the queen there: Dido. He’s fucking her all across the palace for months and months and then has a vision of his destiny and clears out that night with his fellow Trojans. Dido tries to stop him and then kills herself. There’s some more stuff on boats (sounds like the Odyssey doesn’t it) and Aeneas goes to talk to his dad in the underworld, seeing future Roman leaders in the process (?!). His dad tells him to go kick ass. Eventually, the Trojans get to Latinum and the Latins are at first amicable, with the King betrothing his daughter to Aeneas. Unfortunately the gods all get involved because Juno (Hera) is still fucking raging pissed at the Trojans over the whole golden apple thing that started it all (if you trace it way back, it was the seduction of Atalanta that began this whole bloodfest) and they fuck up the betrothal and everyone starts throwing down. The rest of the book is the Iliad again with fighting on chariots and 99% of the characters dying in the paragraph that they are introduced. This is an amazing part of the book with the gods trying to help out their favorites, chicks fighting with bare breasts on chariots, people using magic weapons and armor and a lot of people, surprisingly, getting brained to death by rocks and boulders. The book ‘The sword decides all” is probably the best in the entire thing with just a massive dust up after an attempt at a peace treaty is fucked up by the gods again. And the end, like the Iliad, just sort of stops when the main antagonist (Turnus) is killed. That’s the end. No denouement or anything like that. Turnus hits the ground and that’s the last paragraph in this giant tome. Amazing.
So how is it? The Iliad and Aeneid are sort of tied for good reads, while the Odyssey is by far the best because it’s just about this one guy and his desire to get home, and I really felt I could relate to that a ton more than all the hero fighting. There’s not a lot of confusion in the Odyssey about all these other characters and their motivations as well. You really don’t know what’s going to happen to him in the end– what the COST will be for him to get home and what home is like. Whereas the Aeneid, you know Rome is going to be founded (not by him though) and it’s really just watching Aeneas kick ass to get there and having his friends die. Yet, once he started balling Dido– I was like “Who is this guy?” The whole Dido distraction doesn’t make as much sense as the Circe one in the Odyssey. In the Iliad, there is this huge group of Greek heroes that you start to figure out CANNOT BE KILLED and every time they fight they just kill everyone. Achilles? Ok badass, but there are so many Greek heroes that are made to seem just as powerful, the Iliad seems like an episode of the Superfriends to me. The verdict? Don’t bother with the Aeneid if you haven’t read the Iliad. You could skip the Odyssey, but since it’s the best one you may as well read it before the Aeneid as well. The Fagles version is excellent and I will likely pick up the Lombardo one for a comparison of the translation. Don’t mess around with stuff not translated by either of these two. You will die of fucking boredom.
Finally, a use for Twitter!
Probably the best twitter feed I’ve ever seen. Florida Man. https://twitter.com/_floridaman
New Elder Sign expansion means new Elder Sign Expansion for the iphone (plus blood bowl)!
Fantasy Flight announced a new expansion for the excellent Elder Sign (which is a lighter, better version of Arkham Horror) which means, soon, we will get it on the iPhone. While I don’t know anyone that actually owns the cardboard version of the game– just about everyone has the iphone version to be mentally raped by Cthulhu and friends while riding the bus to work.
…And an expansion for the Blood Bowl Team Manager game is coming soon. I’ve had a bad experience with the Team Manager game after a couple plays that I felt I automatically lost because I went last each game so I’m skeptical if it will be worth it as it never hits the table. However, the expansion DOES include the Dark Elves so there’s that. Everyone knows the Dark Elves are the best.
What will happen to Saint’s Row?
As predicted awhile back by just about everyone in the games industry, THQ bit the dust last week and was carved up by it’s competitors right quick. While I care about Company of Heroes, I care about Saint’s Row more after the amazing third installment. I think Volition was the real prize out of the grab bag of studios THQ dropped when it died. Volition got picked up by Koch Media out of Germany (no relation to the Tammany Hall style Koch brothers that rape the Midwest of resources) with a rather large bid.
So the last thing I heard Volition was working on was a stand alone add on to Saints Row 3 where Aliens attack the city–looking like it features giant Kaiju style monsters as well which would be fantastical in every way. Given that I doubt anyone would want to mess with a good thing–this will likely come out but after that? Can there be a Saints Row 4? Will they move to some other type of game in the interim? We’ll be watching.
Just in case you forgot:
Shadowfist – first night with the new starter decks
Shadowfist has had a long, venerable run over the last few decades and it’s time looks like it’s pretty much come, or has it? That said, there are a few brave souls trying to keep it going and turn it into an LCG (Living Card Game) which could be solid IF DONE CORRECTLY (i.e.: getting it into stores for starters).
Last night I got to play with the new starter decks from Combat in Kowloon (that was originally going to come out in 1996!!!!) and Back for Seconds (adding the Jammers and Monarchs). I played as the Ascended, then Hand, then Monarchs. Ascended deck was great and fun albeit ALL Transformed animals (where are the pledged?). The others, tough to judge after one play but I will anyway, were boring. I’ve heard from people two things that I can confirm– the Feng Shui sites and foundation characters are pretty awesome and the set should be picked up for those alone.
That said, there were a lot of reprints, most of which are very good choices throughout the set for most factions. Word of warning though: the Dragon deck is fucking awful crap that no one will want except for a few cards. No Ting Ting, Steven Wu, Golden Gunman NOR the new Red Wedding Big Bruiser? I thought they were joking when someone said it was a vehicle state deck–but it’s true. There are a few good cards in there but for new players only getting these cards, the dragon reprints are pure shit. it’s really a massive failure there that some of the penultimate chase cards in the faction were not included, especially since for new players the Dragons are the most forgiving and easiest to play. Oh and there are no Architects of the Flesh. They chose one of the original JOKE factions (Jammers) instead to include rather than one of the most fearsome evil factions in the game–the faction that was always coming up with the devious plans to fuck everyone up. Now who is left as the big bad? The Eaters of the Lotus sure but the rest of the factions could be perfectly happy SKATEBOARDING OFF EACH-OTHER’S DICKS rather than trying to eliminate each other from the time stream.
Typos. One type in particular is inexcusable. Reprinting an ancient card like Violet Meditation and having a typo that isn’t a spelling mistake, but something that drastically changes the cards effect? You start to think if there was a failure at something so simple as that, where else are there failures? And for new players– HOW THE FUCK ARE THEY SUPPOSED TO KNOW? Terrible.
Last point of contention–the pay for my face on a card cards. The ones before this were mostly tasteful and OK because the artists were good and took a lot of license with the way the person looked. The only one that was spot on was Zev’s card and it was cute because he was hiding behind a wall getting shot at (an not so subtle allusion to us and the playtesters complaining all the time). I can accept that one. There were apparently 6 cards in the set with nerd faces on them and they stick out like tits in a bra at Woodstock. Two of them are OK– the rest are ridiculous and just absolutely SHATTER the suspension of disbelief while playing the game. While this isn’t the worst of the lot, there is a Hand card with a skinny wiener nerd on it who is an EIGHT fighting. Not 3, not 5 as a ramp up or utility, but an EIGHT. Oh but he payed $500? Fuck all. At least back in the day you had to earn it by winning the big tournament at Gencon. The other thing is, once you have your picture on a card, you should never be able to have it on another one. We now have two cards with Jade Willow as different characters for fucksake.
Anyway, despite some failures in the set, the cardstock was far better than the cheapest-possible-to-be-still-considered-a-card cardstock used for the Seven Masters reprint (which to me, signaled the downfall of the game– even when shit was going south with Jose and Shadowfist Games, they never skimped on the quality of the product that badly) and there are some great cards in here that will change the game up a bit when playing with all the cards in the game, I will buy some and probably regret not buying more as it goes out of print. Is this the rebirth or the death-knell (which we’ve heard many times before) for Shadowfist? Do we really need any more expansions or should they just all be set up as Print on Demand? We played for 4-5 years with only Standard, Limited, Netherworld and Flashpoint and it was GREAT.
Torchlight 2 Elite Hardcore tips Levels 21-30
So you made it to level 21 in Torchlight Hardcore Elite aye? Think it was tough? Think it was a slough and many of your characters died even with my other list of tips as reference? Well Act 1 is fucking CHEESE CAKE compared to Act 2 Elite. I want to tell you straight away: you will not make it through Act 2 Elite hardcore. It’s really best to give up now. Act 2 comes down on you so hard that you will need aircrash coroners to piece you back together again. That said, here are ten more tips if you do choose to keep going past level 20. These are not class specific. You better know your build and how it’s going to both deal out and survive damage. There are tons of solid builds out their on the interwebtubes to look at for all classes. After my level 23 or so Embermage bit the dust, I ran Elite Hardcore with a Berserker and used THIS build strategy. I cannot comment on any other classes above 20 because, pathetic as it is, all my other characters died in the second part of Act 1. I didn’t cry, I promise.
You will spend most of your time in that second part of act 1– the winter part. Obviously make sure your ICE armor is 100+ or you’re meatpastecicle. There is a lot to look out for in that region– but be especially careful of bosses that shoot out ice/earth in a line straight at your character (Ice Elementals and Chillhoof are examples of this). This type of attack seems to do MASSIVE damage and can one hit you if you let it connect. You will eventually build up to level 27-28– that is the time to hit the Grand Regent (boss of Act 1)– not before unless you are very sure of yourself. GR has a couple of attacks that do huge damage and unless you’ve fought him oodles of times before on Elite Normal, you won’t know the visual triggers for those attacks until you are already a corpse. That said, here is the list!
- Play alone or with one other person ONLY. Damage modelling, which I won’t pretend to understand, seems to go off the charts when you have more than two people playing together, and it’s really not worth the risk of untimely demise. This is sad because TL2 is all about the multiplayer but it gets really tough when you just can’t take down mobs and take tons of damage more than you are used to. This is Elite remember, ELITE so if you want to go have a jag with your friends, go back to Veteran.
- Stay in Act 1 for as long as you can stand it. You could conceivably spend levels 21-30 IN Act 1 because the end dungeon is fairly difficult, but you will yearn to go to Act 2 because level ups will become painfully slow and, because you are not dying, you will build up a lot of ember chips to merge up. However, you need to grind for gear, especially stuff that gives you elemental protection and armor. You need as much armor as you can load on and will you need to level up to at least the late 20’s before hitting Act 1’s boss. Act 1 may start to seem pussy to you after a span of time and this is a good thing. Use that to build up gold reserves and farm for items. The items are FAR better in Act 2, but your chance of survival coming right out of Act 1 is close to zero if you haven’t taken precautions.
- Level up more than you think you need. If you are used to Disgaea and the like you know what it is to level up prematurely. With Torchlight Elite Hardcore, you only have one shot at this or you’re back to square one. If you think you need to be at level 24 for a dungeon– make sure you are at least 4 levels higher. This will take time– but less time bringing another character up to level 20 again!
- Play super conservatively. You cannot survive against anything mobbed up in Act 2 when you first get up inside the act. Get that into your head straight away. Go very slowly through the main map and break up mobs by running off. Use your summons (both from scrolls and from your class skills) to take out enemies as you run away to safety. I’m assuming you have seen the enemies you need to watch out for from previous plays, but if you haven’t make sure to study the enemies you go up against before diving in. Some of the mobs in Act 2 are insanely brutal.
- Remember: One critical from a boss and you are done. If you get a critical hit against you from a boss, you’re character is dirt. There is no way to prepare for those types of hits. You will never have enough armor or vitality to survive it– so DO NOT GET HIT. One of the advantages of Torchlight 2 as a game is that you can dodge attacks and don’t have to stand there and be hit from across the screen due to hit lag like Diablo 3. Use this to your advantage. Don’t stand toe to toe against anything unless your build allows it. Engineers– don’t get overconfident that you can tank. You can’t.
- Run Grell– Go back and run General Grel from the first part of act 1. Grell sometimes drops an EYE that reduces ALL damage by 3%. You could do worse than to fill ALL of your available sockets with the Eyes of Grell. This will take time not so much on the run itself, but finding the Dungeon can take awhile.
- Use both your weapons sets. (switch with W) One should be for defense and one should be for offense. Ideally the offensive one would give you health steal and the defensive would give mana steal. Shields are great for any class– yes they reduce your damage output compared to the 2-handers or dual-wielding but what’s most important in hardcore? Survival!
- Map your Keys – I’m not going to go into class specifics but hunting and pecking for shit on the number row in the middle of a fight (which you are doing right now aren’t you?) = DIRT for a character. So remap your main keys for a fight to WASD or QWE and remember Z and X are already mapped to heal.
- Monsters to look out for in the second part of Act 1: Mirka Frostbinder (really watch out for these), Blackfist Assassins en masse, Bosses: Ice Elemental (make sure to kill all of his mob before taking him out), King Ice Gel (he can one hit you like nobody’s business).
- Monsters to watch out for in Act 2 (the early part): Basilisks in a Mob with anything. Dune Mothers. Ezrohir Snatchers. Bosses: Caius the Fleet, almost all the dungeon bosses are tough.
- (bonus number eleven) Don’t wander into any Act 2 dungeons until level 29+. Some of these drop you immediately into a big boss battle during which guess what? Your character dies.
You should probably all see Dredd
I missed it in the theatre because we went to see Looper instead hence I’m going to compare it to that a lot below. They are both sci fi films and while Looper isn’t a bad film, and I’m no film critic, it’s sort of a lot of shit spun up for believability with the time travel and telekinesis and farming and a lot of thought went into all those things and how to express them to the audience and then there is a fucking glaring mistake, one that completely invalidates the entire plot of the film and the whole house of cards comes tumbling down.
Dredd has no such mistakes. Dredd doesn’t try to create any type of convoluted time-twisting trickery to validate it’s existence as a film. Dredd makes no pretensions about human condition, redemptions or any of that confusion and while it does have a psionic, it doesn’t try to jam some universal world view onto it’s audience except that the future sucks– real bad, not The Road real bad, but close. There’s one city left in the USA and it’s huge and has arcologies that loom over the wreckage of the old city. The plot is essentially a day in the life of Judge Dredd in said city, albeit one that goes pretty horribly wrong for everyone involved. That’s it. Police officers go on a call, it goes crazy, lots of people get shot or thrown off stuff and that’s it, end of story. No one is left shaking their heads at plot holes galore or how they really wasted two and a half hours because the director had a couple hits in the 70’s and 80’s.
That said, it’s not the greatest film ever, but for what it is, Dredd is extremely well done. The helmets still look stupid and the firepower packed within the little pistols the Judges carry is a wee bit ridiculous. In a few parts the budget looks so low that the suspension of disbelief that you are within a giant arcology gets a bit stretched (like watching part of an old Dr. Who, where they just rearrange some of the sci fi hallways to make a new hallway for that episode. Small flaws aside, I wish I had seen this in the theater instead of Looper.
You are kickstarting my balls
Ok so you have convinced me to back your shit via kickstarter– I already think it’s a good idea and I think you’ll get it done (someday) so there is my fucking money. While I am interested in your progress I am really not interested in anything but the finished product, i.e.: when the fuck it’s coming out, when the fuck I will get to play it or have it and if there are any delays about points one and two. I have no interest in my inbox being peppered with constant emails about the minutiae of your development process or any of the cool stuff that will be in your game or piece of art– I will see ALL that shit when it gets into my hot little hands. Don’t want your interim artwork, don’t want your videos about stuff, don’t want your backslapping about how great your kickstarter went either. All that is fine, but I really just want YOUR PRODUCT. What’s more, if you have an inkling that your kickstarter is going to fail, please stop sending me the pleading emails to tell all my friends. I have already pinged you on some social networks, I have already told people of like interest I know about it and they either chose to throw some cash in, or did not. Sending me constant emails with banners to slap all over my site to back the kickstarter just displays an underlying anticipation of failure. And if you think your kickstarter wouldn’t generate enough $$– why did you GO SO FUCKING HIGH SO THAT THE GOAL CANNOT BE REACHED? Sure Kingdom Death went to some insane levels of funding, but they were only asking for 35,000$ to start– it’s not their fault that they are incredibly talented modelers and had SEX EVERYWHERE (not death at all)
That said, I did back the above 40K rehash and also recently backed the Cortex Plus Hacker’s Guide. I am just having so much fun using the Marvel Heroic Roleplaying system (if not the setting) that I just can’t help myself but hope for more shit for that system. While I really like FATE, I’m starting to lean a lot more towards Cortex because it really does supers well and with the eventual goal to be running Exalted again with a better system than 2nd edition, Cortex is much more suited for it than FATE is (Kerberos Club is close though).