27 July 2009
Should I get some pink bows for my hair?
Shawday is pressuring me into reading the Twilight series, a story of a girl and a vampire.
I have heard nothing good about the book or the movies except from wistful girls who daydream about being married and 'taming the savage beast'.
Those who are actually down to earth say that it is a poorly written story that is Aimed at that particular audience.
To quote Aaron's Oxymoron: "The author repeats himself in a variety of ways."
His primary example was at the event of when the female protagonist (I've been lead to beleive she is a protagonist) looks at the character "Edward Cullen", she is taken aback from his beauty.
Every. Time.
Always something different as well. "My heart stopped a moment when I gazed upon his bulging eyebrow". "Birds sang as I stared into his perfectly rounded nostrils".
It's like hearing a corny romance novel, except that 'delicate flower' is probably just his left ear.
However, this surprised me when Shawday told me to begin reading these poorly written novels.
She is very down to earth and far from the target audience I mentioned above.
In her words: "They're so badly written that it's good. Ultimate love story. Made me depressed."
My return was: "That's what i heard. And I refuse to defile my eyes like that when there's perfectly good knives to stab them with. Not to mention the lemons."
Her laughter was a good sign to show that she didn't take it seriously. "But seriously. read them."
I submitted to her will (Girls: what can you do?) and said I would read the books to sate her gushing.
The only benefit I can see out of this is that I will be able to generate an unbiased opinion. Heck, maybe even a good opinion of it.
I have doubt for the latter, as this certainly is not my genre of reading, but you never know.
While on the subject of being opinionated about books, I've recently been reading through the Starcraft Novels. So far, I've completed "Wings of Liberty" and am currently halfway through "Shadow of the Xel'naga".
They're not bad books. Some parts could certainly be improved. There are a few insubstantial descriptions for key characters; and where there are descriptions, some of them are inappropriate for the actual scene.
Overall it's a read for Starcraft Fans, or someone who is looking into Starcraft.
That's about all I can say for now. I've still got another book and a half to read.
26 July 2009
TANK!
Luckily, I already had plans to see Dee for some catching up.
Alas, fate prevents us from conversing in person as work kept her back until late, leaving me to download the Cowboy Bebop Soundtracks to listen at my leisure. I ended up spending most of my time ordering up pizza and playing Doom, before retiring.
So I spent my time on facebook through my phone, a ritual that I should really break the habit of since I continue to check it more often than I really should since nobody really updates as often as I check.
Eventually I rose from my grave and shambled to the loungeroom for some personal work. With superglue and bourbon in hand, I worked my magic and assembled the remaining pieces of my Hordes figures while the sounds of Cowboy Bebop played in the background.
Unfortunately I slipped into the kiddy pool of despression between basing and sealing my models, and wrote something rather incoherent and rageful whilst under the influence so I won't put it up here.
Ah, Kingdom Hearts. The greatest cross-over fanfiction that ever came to be. Crossing the fantastic Disney Classic animated movies that I grew up on and dashed with characters from Final fantasy, while based around a particular set of unrelated characters and their adventures, it really is a fanfic without the gratuitous homosexuality.
Although, Sora has always had a questionable desire for finding Riku...
At least it's not Aladdin and Genie making out in the middle of a desert with a camel watching them...
Egads...
Either way, I played it until about 3 in the morning which was a bad Idea because I was seeing mum at 9 in the morning tomorrow.
Sunday was topped off with a visit to mother and a surprise appearance of my little sister!
The usual ritual with my mother of a fortnight is to go see a movie and hang out in the shopping centre for a bit before returning to her home for some relaxation (To which I usually end up having a nap on the couch and waking with a headache because the couch strains my neck).
This week, we went and saw "Harry Potter the Half-Blood Prince".
Honestly, my opinion was that it was all a big lead up to the "Snape Kills Dumbledore". It was entertaining for what it was worth.
Mind you, the cast gets older and cuter.
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The night ended at my eldest sisters place. Today is my Nieces birthday, and due to nobody being there for her birthday due to work, everyone turned up sunday night to celebrate over Sausages and rolls, along with a "my little pony" cake made by my older sister.
All in all, it was a good weekend. I got something accomplished and saw family.
23 July 2009
Project MK-ULTRA
Experimented in the 1950's, a hapless citizen has been placed in a secret government experiment of Mind Control and Brainwashing. Nazi and American Scientists with torture theatres and interrogation chambers conducted their experiments on the hapless citizen.
A new drug is created, suspected to give remote control of the subject. Without properly suspecting the ending effect, the subject was given the drug.
In turn, the subject became telepathic and telekinetic. After years of brainwashing and torture, he turns on his captors by killing them in a variety of ways, giving a taste of their own experiments and giving himself a new motive to kill and bring down the CIA and it's experiments.
Improvising on stealth tactics and developing his telepathic abilities to escape the dungeon of the last so many years of his life, he dig deeper into the inhumaine experiments that the CIA have been conducting for so long and discovering what has transcended since he has been incarcerated.
I'm liking this idea
22 July 2009
"Somewhere, over the rainbow"
The local weather has been distasteful.
Of a morning, the chill will bite at your ankles and scratch away at your arms. To save yourself, you rug up in your best coat and hope for the best as you stand in the sun awaiting your morning train. To counter, the weather plans ahead with an overcast.
Then you realise you forgot your beanie, so the hair you do have is far from enough to keep your ears toasty because you've had a fight with a ceiling fan and thought headbutting it was a good idea. Bets were made and you lost the dodgy mullet that was cultivating your scalp, leaving your head as clean as a freshly mowed lawn.
Arriving at work, you find the clouds have parted and has begun warming the hearts and souls of every tradie working on the roads, footpaths and train station stairs across town.
You can see the rays dancing seductively outside from the corner of your eyes through the garage and past your employers freshly purchased Chrysler, the light tantelizing you with offers of warmth and comfort while secretly conversing with the winds on how you will suffer when you do accept the offer of pleasure, suggesting blistering gales that tear back your clothes and start with the anklebiting and arm clawing again.
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But resisting the urge to bath in a translucent blanket, you find yourself questioning your place in the world finding that what you want to do is within your grasp but you lack the pep to really get yourself to reach for it and grab the throbbing offer.
Could be a lack of masculinity?
Could be a complete lack of motivation?
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Then you get distracted. You search for an appropriate picture to link the word "Motivation" and find a match for a rather attractive young lady. You follow the link and find something epic that isn't Tits.
I am an old fan of Sonic the Hedgehog, so I'm sold on this like a Hooker at the Red Light District.
Since I've derailed enough, much like the Brisbane Train Systems, I'm going to leave this where it is.
And then you listen to them. Truly, this is a sad day for me. I downloaded music with enough screaming guitar to put a Banshee out of its job of prophesizing the death of a loved one.
19 July 2009
"He's an Ideas man"
Brimming with ideas, I am.
Brimming I say, like a pot on boil with too much broil.
Over the past... year?... I have made up Iron Kingdoms Diorama ideas.
A few people know about this, as I posted one up on Defiant Gaming not too long ago.
But wait. THERE'S MORE!
So I've posted them up on the net.
I was bored, okay?
One of my favourites is one I thought up for Spenny for his Heartkids events: Mammoth.
The figure is Beast-09, but with a Marauders head and weapons, standing in the gateway of an Orphanage, a stone Archway overgrown with vines, defending them from Tharn Ravagers, whom eat hearts.
I thought it was a little clever. Too bad I don't have the motivation (money or ability) to go through with it.
Another of my favourites is The Arcade, which is segregated into three parts (four as soon as I think of what to put in the fourth section).
The first is a Shooting gallery where some of the characters from Iron Kingdoms that use firearms as a preferred weapon are testing their skills on Spin offs of actual games, such as House of the Mechanithralls (House of the Dead).
The scenes in front of them are actually constructed from other IK figures.
The second scene is a Skirmish map.
You know Skirmish, with the paintballs that leave welts on your body large enough to convince people you have cancer.
That. So far, I have Trenchers and Dawnguard. Their melee weapons would be painted like Nerf Bats, because lets face it: People wouldn't be allowed into Skirmish with a sharpened blade. Nerf solves everything.
The third is a little uninspired. It's the "Managers office".
It's just the Butcher of Khardov, with Lola removed (Lola is his weapon), attacking a punching clown, in the midst of a messy room.
Uninspired, but still a little funny.
Other ideas that I've fiddled around with in my head is a Starcraft/Warcraft custom campaign story.
I have no idea what story I would do, but the desire is there!
A while ago, I wanted to do a webcomic.
That's right, a webcomic.
I have poor drawing skills however, which in my opinion is a rather large obstacle.
The comic would be a gaming comic, basing a few characters 'Role Playing' in different gaming settings.
The first story would be based on a D&D Campaign idea I have based on Wonder Boy.
The first arc would be Wonderboy in Monster Land, a classic tale of a boy destined to defeat the evil dragon.
The second arc would be Wonder boy III, the Dragons trap. The sequel and continuation to Wonderboy in Monster Land, where after defeating the Dragon, he finds that there is more to the incideous plot and continues his adventures to remove the curse that the Dragon has placed on him.
The third arc is not related to the Wonder Boy games, though. No, the third arc would be based on Ghouls and Ghosts, originally a story of a Knight names Arthur who saves the princess from the god Loki who is sending the world into an Apocalypse.
Since there are more than one character 'Role Playing', there are some slight variations (Such as more than one Wonder Boy). And instead of having to fight the Trickster God, Loki, I thought to have the party fight Tiamat instead. Since they will be fighting dragons through the whole thing, why not fight the Five Headed God of Dragons to finish off the story?
I thought it was a cool idea.
Just having a bit of trouble figuring out what to change the players races to in the WBIII set.
If there's one thing I've learnt as well about D&D is that you can make it "Episodic", something I learnt from Rob. Episodic makes it interesting between levels. You can have one session, with three encounters and role play between, and you would have a good session.
Changing subject entirely I move onto Monsterpocalypse, a game based on Gigantic Monsters rampaging through a city to defeat their opponent/s.
The game has been around for approx 8 months now (maybe 9) and has had 3 Series: "Rise", "I Chomp NY", and "All Your Base".
The current series, "All Your Base", has taken a different spin on monsters by creating "Morphers": Units that transform into a Monster. For those who don't quite understand, think "Voltron". Or "Devastator" from Transformers.
So as per my own tradition I have my Series 3 Monster to represent my faction through this series.
First season, I swapped between Yasheth and Cthugrosh. Yasheth was the biggest fear because he regained health up the wazoo so he was rather tough to kill.
Second season, I discovered I didn't like Mogroth. So I played Ulgoth for the whole season. Turns out Ulgoth is ridiculously difficult to play against for most monsters as he 'explodes' every time you attack him, and if you're standing next to Ulgoth when he 'explodes' then you suffer damage. Also, his Ultra version deals additional damage on his normal attacks. To top it all off he couldn't be 'Thrown', one of the more common power attacks in the game.
Because he was so brutal I won his Mega form which I play to this day as he is not as brutal as his Ultra version.
Season Three, I field Osheroth, the first Morpher monster of the Faction. Four tentacles, burst through the ground to tear apart and manipulate their enemies in a small variety of ways.
The Morphers are an interesting concept. They work a lot like Units, however are very dangerous.
Osheroth's tentacles (yes, four tentacles with different painted tips) aren't the most threatening in the game. They have the same stat line, have average health, and have mostly the same abilities each.
Their differences lie in their melee attacks.
The two most dangerous are those with Beat-back and Vampirism. The other two are there for combining attacks and summoning.
The Summoner remains behind, helping with securing buildings and increasing your units on the field.
The Vampire and Beat-backer charge up the front to either deal damage to the monster, or steal back hit points lost. The last guy, who has Fling and Telekinesis, goes where he wants. I find myself securing buildings, most of the time.
A trick I pulled out on The Dick yesterday was one pulled on me not long ago. When you power up and go into your ultra form, you place your ultra overlapping a space one of your morphers were occupying. You then move using one action dice.
When you're in a profitable position, you power down into your Morphers Form using the same spaces that your ultra form occupied.
Aside from the similarity of matching abilities, the morphers each have a Red ability allowing figures adjacent to them gain that ability as well.
So all four have Telekinesis, Siphon, Penetrator and Hit-and-Run. The only two that really matter are Siphon (Steal a Power dice from them) and Penetrator (Lowers their DEF stat). Use summon to bring in a Cthulubite, a new unit that also lowers opponents DEF stat, and then brawl away at them against their DEF-2.
Most monsters come down to about DEF 4 or 5, easy enough for 2 combined attacks to really put the hurt on. Heck, if you're lucky enough to get a Corruptor in there with flank (Another -1 DEF to the enemy) then you can easily make 4 attacks against the monster for a MASSIVE amount of damage.
Back to the original setup: One combined attack to steal back health, siphoning Power dice at the same time, and the other combined attack to throw them into a nearby building, siphoning more Power dice.
Four damage, right there, if you consider the hazard available as well.
This was possible because the Powerup on my monster is Cheap. Probably too cheap. The only thing that Osheroth really has going for him is Annihilate and Radial attack. Sacrifice is a nifty ability if you have units to spare, and Global Telekinesis adds options to your units that you didn't have before unless you fielded taskmasters in your force. Frankly, I rarely have a taskmaster on the field as they are too expensive and hardly worth the effort, and when I do I put their shadow incarnations on at a discounted cost (Summon at 1A-die or a dying Meat Slave at 0A-die, compared to 3A-die) only to act as a distraction.
So with a ultra so cheap I feel a little overpowered since my morphers are really quite powerful, and when I lose my morphers I have an ultra that can clean up what's left.
What should I be afraid of?
Monsters with immunity to buildings or super damage.
Or maybe martians with enough Nuclear hazards around the field. A good example of this is Tharsis-5. He doesn't have Immunity to Super Damage, but he does have immunity to buildings, so hitting him into a building is not going to do much damage unless it is a fire hazard that he can land in.
Monsters with beat-back. This is actually something ALL morphers should be worried about. If you have a morpher aligned with another one of your morphers, they will suffer 3 points of damage from a single beat-back attack (one for the attack and 1 each for collisions). It's a harsh thing.
Multishot is no longer a worry. Multishot has been nerfed to only target units with the additional attacks.
Radial Attack is somewhat of a big danger. If a monster is surrounded by Morphers, they can deal a bucketload of damage. An example is if Osheroth was surrounded by morphers and he did a radial attack, that would be 5 damage to the enemy morpher form. Super damage does not apply to the additional attacks, so 2 to the initial target, and 1 each to the morphers around him. Still, 5 damage is not a easy thing to pull off. It's usually reserved for those situational events and is often worth it since it drops a monster out of form (In most cases).
So this Season of MONSTERPOCALYPSE? Yeah, it's going to be fun.
And if I'm lucky, Erin might get bored one tuesday night, offer a drive wherever and we can chat afterwards. If she's really lucky, I'll be in a complimentive mood.
On a final note, I'm loving the Horizontal rules.
They do well separating subjects.
Brimming I say, like a pot on boil with too much broil.
Over the past... year?... I have made up Iron Kingdoms Diorama ideas.
A few people know about this, as I posted one up on Defiant Gaming not too long ago.
But wait. THERE'S MORE!
So I've posted them up on the net.
I was bored, okay?
One of my favourites is one I thought up for Spenny for his Heartkids events: Mammoth.
The figure is Beast-09, but with a Marauders head and weapons, standing in the gateway of an Orphanage, a stone Archway overgrown with vines, defending them from Tharn Ravagers, whom eat hearts.
I thought it was a little clever. Too bad I don't have the motivation (money or ability) to go through with it.
Another of my favourites is The Arcade, which is segregated into three parts (four as soon as I think of what to put in the fourth section).
The first is a Shooting gallery where some of the characters from Iron Kingdoms that use firearms as a preferred weapon are testing their skills on Spin offs of actual games, such as House of the Mechanithralls (House of the Dead).
The scenes in front of them are actually constructed from other IK figures.
The second scene is a Skirmish map.
You know Skirmish, with the paintballs that leave welts on your body large enough to convince people you have cancer.
That. So far, I have Trenchers and Dawnguard. Their melee weapons would be painted like Nerf Bats, because lets face it: People wouldn't be allowed into Skirmish with a sharpened blade. Nerf solves everything.
The third is a little uninspired. It's the "Managers office".
It's just the Butcher of Khardov, with Lola removed (Lola is his weapon), attacking a punching clown, in the midst of a messy room.
Uninspired, but still a little funny.
Other ideas that I've fiddled around with in my head is a Starcraft/Warcraft custom campaign story.
I have no idea what story I would do, but the desire is there!
A while ago, I wanted to do a webcomic.
That's right, a webcomic.
I have poor drawing skills however, which in my opinion is a rather large obstacle.
The comic would be a gaming comic, basing a few characters 'Role Playing' in different gaming settings.
The first story would be based on a D&D Campaign idea I have based on Wonder Boy.
The first arc would be Wonderboy in Monster Land, a classic tale of a boy destined to defeat the evil dragon.
The second arc would be Wonder boy III, the Dragons trap. The sequel and continuation to Wonderboy in Monster Land, where after defeating the Dragon, he finds that there is more to the incideous plot and continues his adventures to remove the curse that the Dragon has placed on him.
The third arc is not related to the Wonder Boy games, though. No, the third arc would be based on Ghouls and Ghosts, originally a story of a Knight names Arthur who saves the princess from the god Loki who is sending the world into an Apocalypse.
Since there are more than one character 'Role Playing', there are some slight variations (Such as more than one Wonder Boy). And instead of having to fight the Trickster God, Loki, I thought to have the party fight Tiamat instead. Since they will be fighting dragons through the whole thing, why not fight the Five Headed God of Dragons to finish off the story?
I thought it was a cool idea.
Just having a bit of trouble figuring out what to change the players races to in the WBIII set.
If there's one thing I've learnt as well about D&D is that you can make it "Episodic", something I learnt from Rob. Episodic makes it interesting between levels. You can have one session, with three encounters and role play between, and you would have a good session.
Changing subject entirely I move onto Monsterpocalypse, a game based on Gigantic Monsters rampaging through a city to defeat their opponent/s.
The game has been around for approx 8 months now (maybe 9) and has had 3 Series: "Rise", "I Chomp NY", and "All Your Base".
The current series, "All Your Base", has taken a different spin on monsters by creating "Morphers": Units that transform into a Monster. For those who don't quite understand, think "Voltron". Or "Devastator" from Transformers.
So as per my own tradition I have my Series 3 Monster to represent my faction through this series.
First season, I swapped between Yasheth and Cthugrosh. Yasheth was the biggest fear because he regained health up the wazoo so he was rather tough to kill.
Second season, I discovered I didn't like Mogroth. So I played Ulgoth for the whole season. Turns out Ulgoth is ridiculously difficult to play against for most monsters as he 'explodes' every time you attack him, and if you're standing next to Ulgoth when he 'explodes' then you suffer damage. Also, his Ultra version deals additional damage on his normal attacks. To top it all off he couldn't be 'Thrown', one of the more common power attacks in the game.
Because he was so brutal I won his Mega form which I play to this day as he is not as brutal as his Ultra version.
Season Three, I field Osheroth, the first Morpher monster of the Faction. Four tentacles, burst through the ground to tear apart and manipulate their enemies in a small variety of ways.
The Morphers are an interesting concept. They work a lot like Units, however are very dangerous.
Osheroth's tentacles (yes, four tentacles with different painted tips) aren't the most threatening in the game. They have the same stat line, have average health, and have mostly the same abilities each.
Their differences lie in their melee attacks.
The two most dangerous are those with Beat-back and Vampirism. The other two are there for combining attacks and summoning.
The Summoner remains behind, helping with securing buildings and increasing your units on the field.
The Vampire and Beat-backer charge up the front to either deal damage to the monster, or steal back hit points lost. The last guy, who has Fling and Telekinesis, goes where he wants. I find myself securing buildings, most of the time.
A trick I pulled out on The Dick yesterday was one pulled on me not long ago. When you power up and go into your ultra form, you place your ultra overlapping a space one of your morphers were occupying. You then move using one action dice.
When you're in a profitable position, you power down into your Morphers Form using the same spaces that your ultra form occupied.
Aside from the similarity of matching abilities, the morphers each have a Red ability allowing figures adjacent to them gain that ability as well.
So all four have Telekinesis, Siphon, Penetrator and Hit-and-Run. The only two that really matter are Siphon (Steal a Power dice from them) and Penetrator (Lowers their DEF stat). Use summon to bring in a Cthulubite, a new unit that also lowers opponents DEF stat, and then brawl away at them against their DEF-2.
Most monsters come down to about DEF 4 or 5, easy enough for 2 combined attacks to really put the hurt on. Heck, if you're lucky enough to get a Corruptor in there with flank (Another -1 DEF to the enemy) then you can easily make 4 attacks against the monster for a MASSIVE amount of damage.
Back to the original setup: One combined attack to steal back health, siphoning Power dice at the same time, and the other combined attack to throw them into a nearby building, siphoning more Power dice.
Four damage, right there, if you consider the hazard available as well.
This was possible because the Powerup on my monster is Cheap. Probably too cheap. The only thing that Osheroth really has going for him is Annihilate and Radial attack. Sacrifice is a nifty ability if you have units to spare, and Global Telekinesis adds options to your units that you didn't have before unless you fielded taskmasters in your force. Frankly, I rarely have a taskmaster on the field as they are too expensive and hardly worth the effort, and when I do I put their shadow incarnations on at a discounted cost (Summon at 1A-die or a dying Meat Slave at 0A-die, compared to 3A-die) only to act as a distraction.
So with a ultra so cheap I feel a little overpowered since my morphers are really quite powerful, and when I lose my morphers I have an ultra that can clean up what's left.
What should I be afraid of?
Monsters with immunity to buildings or super damage.
Or maybe martians with enough Nuclear hazards around the field. A good example of this is Tharsis-5. He doesn't have Immunity to Super Damage, but he does have immunity to buildings, so hitting him into a building is not going to do much damage unless it is a fire hazard that he can land in.
Monsters with beat-back. This is actually something ALL morphers should be worried about. If you have a morpher aligned with another one of your morphers, they will suffer 3 points of damage from a single beat-back attack (one for the attack and 1 each for collisions). It's a harsh thing.
Multishot is no longer a worry. Multishot has been nerfed to only target units with the additional attacks.
Radial Attack is somewhat of a big danger. If a monster is surrounded by Morphers, they can deal a bucketload of damage. An example is if Osheroth was surrounded by morphers and he did a radial attack, that would be 5 damage to the enemy morpher form. Super damage does not apply to the additional attacks, so 2 to the initial target, and 1 each to the morphers around him. Still, 5 damage is not a easy thing to pull off. It's usually reserved for those situational events and is often worth it since it drops a monster out of form (In most cases).
So this Season of MONSTERPOCALYPSE? Yeah, it's going to be fun.
And if I'm lucky, Erin might get bored one tuesday night, offer a drive wherever and we can chat afterwards. If she's really lucky, I'll be in a complimentive mood.
On a final note, I'm loving the Horizontal rules.
They do well separating subjects.
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