Borderlands 2

Woo! I'll be picking up my Xbox Copy around that time.

Madness?

I came across a game that I didn't expect, tonight. Risk: Legacy. It's a Campaigning for Risk. Which is cool. However, I find that it's a bit wasteful. Why? Because the rules themselves literally say "DESTROY".

What makes this game unique is that when powers are chosen, players must choose one of their faction's two powers, affix that power's sticker to their faction card, then destroy the card that has the other rule on it – and by destroy, the rules mean what they say: "If a card is DESTROYED, it is removed from the game permanently. Rip it up. Throw it in the trash."
- Board Game Geek

The game itself provide a large number of features that are very VERY permanent. So for instance, if one player wins a game they can create a city where they would like. They can name it whatever they like. They write the name on a sticker and place said sticker onto the preferred territory.

Your deck of territory cards have a number of circles on them which you can place up to about 6 or 8 gold stickers onto each of them. It's a feature that you can upgrade the value of a territory when it comes about again in future games. Same thing with other effects, such as biohazards in certain territories.

Now I like the idea. The idea of campaigning in Risk with rules and strategies that expand and continue to do so is very cool. I've thought about it for ages, just a way to make a consistant campaign for Risk, and frankly this has it available to play over 15 games. With a regular weekly set of sessions, that makes 15 weeks of an exciting campaign of domination.

However, I don't want to deface my stuff just for the satisfaction of one game. I feel that's ripping myself off for future games. Yes, I can play a normal game of Risk on it by just ignoring the stickers and such, but what I would rather have is another Campaign.

As I said, I like the idea of playing a campaign, but I would rather play multiple campaigns with my friends than just the one, because while the one campaign is cool, more is that little bit better.

I'm going to figure out a better way around keeping that maintained if I get this game.

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Oh and another thing that I forgot to mention: The game doesn't really provide rules for the Basic Game! So any new players, which amounted to everyone last night except for two of us who weren't really being listened to, were getting really confused through the one rulebook.

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Risk Legacy was never meant to play Classic Risk on it.
However, if the person is trying to get a count of stars on cards in the current Risk, the answer is: 30 territories have one star, 12 territories have two stars.

The response from the higher ups of Hasbro, which successfully provides me, and anyone else who wants/needs it, the ability to play using star cards rules. I'm going to make a page on this too.

Skorne Ponderings

A few years back, I was playing Skorne for Hordes. They were pretty fun, with odd combos but I felt a significantly unnerving disadvantage towards the other factions, such as a lack of damage or just being unable to out-manoeuvre my opponent. They didn't have the same feel as Khador, and so I stepped out of playing Skorne and rolled back to the Old Faithful Motherland.

That was back in the MKI days. Things have changed since then, but I am well engrossed with my Khador stuff that I hesitate to consider going back to Skorne again. Or even to Farrow, whom I thought to myself as my new Hordes Faction since they played differently and possibly a little more to my own taste in play. That fell a little flat for other reasons.

Now one thing that has gotten me engrossed with Khador again is the variety of Warcasters. I'm mixing and matching all over the place. I haven't picked up Irusk in quite a few months simply because I'm playing other Warcasters, such as Harkevich, Zerkova and Strakhov. I've yet to pull out Epic Vladimir Tspesci as I haven't found him. (I know exactly where he COULD be)

So to this effect of playing different Warlocks rather than a single Warlock regularly, I'll pull out my Battlebox which I've still got hiding somewhere (I may even assemble and paint them too) and start playing some 15 Point games with them of a Sunday. Eventually I may pick up more Warlocks to play at the same points value, but I may save that for after i get my Colossal.

It's true, he never keeps his shirt on

This past weekend was pretty good. After two days of fucking around and trying to help my manager with some computer security problems, which was like banging my head against a brick wall before giving up and waiting for it to erode*, the weekend rocked up and first thing on order was to get home, finish off the bottle of Scrumpys I had, (which isn't the best cider I've had) and go to the INCUBUS concert at the Convention Centre with Shaz-Mattaz.

I haven't seen Shez in a Looong time. We've gotten a little distant for multiple reasons, but it was really good to see her and make her laugh. She definitely needed it, I reckon. She had a great big laugh when I said that Incubus played my song, Anna Molly, because they knew I was at their concert here in Brisbane. Shez reckons they don't know I exist, BUT THEY DO! OTHERWISE THEY WOULDN'T PLAY MY SONG!

"Yes they would, it's one of their most popular songs!"
"BULLSHIT!"

It was a good night. It was good to have fun with Shaz-Mattaz. Hope I get to see her again. And next time, in the Mosh Pit where I can fkn dance like a maniac. Got so energetic sitting in that seat, I think I began to annoy the guy next to me.

Let see, what else happened. Saturday I spent the majority of the day sleeping. Woke up at around 9 to play Skylanders with my Nephew. He brought around a purchasable level. And by purchasable level, I don't mean you can download it. You have to unlock it by placing a figure of the level entrance, such as a Crypt Door, an Ice Cave, a Pirate Ship or a Dragon Temple, and that gets coupled with a character and items you can use in the game. Such as a Healing Potion. Or random skeletons to come and help you fight for a period of time.

I tell you, "Toys for Bob" are onto a fkn good thing here. They even announced their sequel, Skylanders: GIANTS. Yes, GIANTS.
I'm curious whether you can use the new Giant Figs in the first game. Because you can use the old figs in the new game, and it would be COOL.

After we solved the level and he headed off home with his Mum, I went back to sleep for a few hours, woke up, played some Gears of War 3 and levelled up my Horde Stuff, went back to sleep at 6, woke up at about 12:30am, talked with Jenny for a few hours, went back to sleep and woke up to head off to Spring Hill for Warmachine.

Twas a good day. The store is running a league, and while I'm not particularly interested in competing in the League, I'm following the general rule of "you choose 2 warcasters to play with and keep playing with them throughout the league". I chose two casters that I really wanted to play, whom I hadn't really played: Zerkova and Strakhov. I had the two assembled at the time, and put them forward as my choice.

So Sunday, I played 3 Games. Two games were against Aiden (AKA: Callum, I'm pretty sure I confused him before today). First game was using Zerkova versus Karchev.

This would happen to be one of the tougher match ups for Zerkova. Very High Armour with a Very High Damage output if he came into contact with her. So after being dropped to 2 HP after a couple of good hits from something... I can't quite remember what it was, it was probably Karchev's Fissure. But anyway, she was on the backfoot after that. The Kodiak was dealing with the Devastator by throwing him away constantly, with a Unit of Greylords freezing him one time (to which Aiden forgot to shake off earlier), and a Berserker taken down by Great Bears and a Juggernaut. It was a pretty good steam roll on one side.

The other side was an even better steamroll. Rorsh and Brine along with a Marauder just tore through a Full unit of Man-O-War Shocktroopers, a Min Unit of Bombardiers, and a unit of Greylords. I had a unit of Winterguard with Kovnik Joe too, but they were too far out on a flank to be any trouble, really. Kovnik Joe was helpful since he got to the other side of the centre piece, a circular ruin with 3 entry ways, decided to cut through the ruins after going around it, and ended up rolling box-cars on an open Devastator to Destroy him. (After the sod tore apart my Marauder)

Kovnik Joe! Kovnik Joe! Kovnik Joe! HOO-RAH!

This saved Zerkova, only for her, Rorsh and Kovnik Joe to continue to try and take down a 1hp Karchev.

Eventually I lost. A Focus Hoarding Karchev at ARM 23/24 cannot be taken down by a Pig with a Rifle, a Bearded Man with a Handcannon, and a Lady pelting Ice Cream Cones filled with Liquid Nitrogen. No they cannot.

The funniest thing though was later on in the day, I realised something. I pulled my army out based on a list I had printed out for Cancon. The average army list is about 35pts here at Spring Hill. The list was 50pts. I deserve to lose a little bit, but still it was a Fun game.

Second game was against Aiden again, and I made a list using iBodger at 35pts for Strakhov. This game was against Epic Butcher, the madman of Khador, and was over a little quicker than it probably should have been. Y'see, he was so excited about being able to go on a murderous rampage through a field of Winterguard, so he went ahead and did that. Though he did end up in front of Black Ivan. Who was more than ready to go ahead and Destroy him. Greylords advanced and luckily dropped his DEF by 2, Superiority cast on Black ivan for the +2 Mat (didn't need the SPD) and after one or two hits (no crits, sadly) Epic Butcher was removed from the table.

He learnt his lesson: Don't throw your warcaster out so recklessly.

Last game was against a fairly new guy. His game with me was his Fourth game ever, and he was playing with Epic Sorscha. He was slowly learning the ways of Sorscha Assassination. And he pulled it off on me, he had a wall of Winterguard, which I shut down and trampled over with a Juggernaut and walled off with a Marauder and Kodiak (Vent Steam Rocks, by the way). But after clearing them out with Zerkova, that left a very Obvious lane for him to Charge me with.

So fair enough, he Cyclone'd and Charged me. I would've done the same, the Math is all for him to win. The poor fella wasn't lucky enough though. He hit me once and dropped me down to 6 HP, and he even hit me with his Mortar Crew (who had boosted attack dice), and hit me a second or third time but rolled snake eyes, dealing no damage. Naturally, on my turn, I ordered the nearby Kodiak to move over and pound away at him which won me the game, but it was a hollow win. He has earnt the Moral Assassination. He should have gotten it, he really should've. Next time I see him, I'm gonna recommend to check his Orders of Operations. He threw a Mortar shot after he had engaged Zerkova which caused it to miss, and probably would have won him the game.

All in all, it was a very good weekend. I got home on Sunday and played some more Gears of War 3 (Levelling up Decoys can be a bitch), watched Castle and talked to Jenny before going to bed. Jeez I can't wait for her to get here.

WARMACHINE: Colossals Preview

Holy Children of the Motherland, Batman. I want two. I keep saying I want two, but I can't really afford two. I'll be lucky to afford one.Lets give it an easy overview assuming it'll have the same base rules as battle Engines.

• No penalty or restrictions for being Engaged.
• No rerolls against friendly models while the target is engaged.
• You can always see it.
• Volume is 5" tall on a 120mm circular base
• Can't be pushed, pulled, slammed, or thrown. CAN be placed.
• Weapons allocated on L and R can only attack within their half of the front arc (90*), whereas weapons marked with "-" can fire in either.

As for New Rules

• Power Attacks!
  • Stomp: make an attack with one weapon against all models in 2" of that arc.
  • Swat: Target is slammed d6+2" away
• Works like a Warjacks,so can be allocated focus for additional attacks and boosts.
• Has TWO damage grids.
• Has a Weapons Platform-esque rule, where it can fire ranged weapons regardless of whether it's engaged or already made it's melee attacks

Now for speculations.

• It very obviously has Man-o-War kovniks for fists. So it'll be a P+S 20 weapon master. Probably more.
• The main turret shoots Devastators, so when they land it's POW 18 within 1" of the target and POW 9 within another 3 after that. So... AOE 8?
• The turrets can fire Manhunters or Doomreavers, depending on how harsh you're feeling.
• It can deploy Berserker Warjacks at will. Place within 1" of the base and let it roam free.
• Avalanches can be summoned and will simply remove your opponents models from the field.

You'll have to excuse me. I'm getting flustered.

#JenCon2012 - Dates posted!

Jenny is coming. 27th May, Sunday morning she arrives, for a Fortnight. I even put a countdown timer on the bloggery here! So I thought I'd bring back an old post of suggestions of what to do in Brisneyland!

Ben C: Fortitude Valley on a Saturday Night

Space Lizard: Straya Zoo (Australia for those at home). Also Currumbin Sanctuary also goes off like a Fish sandwich with US Tourists.

Greg W: A trip on the city Cat is a nice way to show off the city. And it would be remiss of me to not promote the Planetarium as well.

Doc Y: Probably some sort of local sporting event too depending what season it is.
Which worked out with a later post:
Erin: How bout experiencing a Netball game? Do they have that in the US? You can come watch me fall over!

Doc Y: Mt Cootha, Goldie Beaches, Straddie, Glass House Mtns, Tamborine/Springbook, Pub Crawl, Mt Glorious, Wivenhoe and back through Moko Country.

GirlClumsy: Ooh, well if she's here 29 Sept-1 Oct we have an impro festival. Nov/Dec is How To Be A Man. Lots of things 2nd half of Year!
Might ask for what's playing at the new dates, GC!

Birmo: Overnighter to North Coast. Noosa, if the beach is back. Maybe a visit to Hughsey's Farm, I'll drive. Dinner and Drinks at Claret House. Riverfront walk around to Powerhouse for some Fkn Cultcher.

Erin: Games and Nerd Love at the Mana Bar!

Del: Go Kart Track! Ripley's! Mt Tamborine! WEEEEEE!

Gaz: Take Jen up to Binna Burra or O'reilys in the Gold Coast Hinterland. Scenic views etc. Tree top walkway at O'reilys.

I even got a couple of free passes into a few of the theme parks down on the Goldie for Xmas last year (Thanks again Humph), and I plan on getting everyone to rock up to a pub in the middle weekend (2-3rd June) and have dinner, maybe go out on the town afterwards!

Any more suggestions?!