In the palm of my hand...

1. a chunk of meteorite

2. a fossilized vertebrae from a Velociraptor

3. a fossilized tooth of a Spinosaurus

4. a piece of coal from an engine of the RMS Titanic

5. a chunk of the Berlin Wall

6. a fossilized piece of a Pterosaur egg

Leap of Faith

Wow, twelve days since my last post, sheesh. Not a "real" geek post in sight either. I certainly haven't had time for any miniature gaming and/or painting. Actually, there hasn't been too much gaming of any type going on. This is my final stretch before not only the summer, ahh, blissful, easy-going summer...but it's also the final stretch before graduation. Mind you, the next month-ish isn't going to be a cake walk, my dance card is filled up, I anticipate a lot a work ahead in not a lot of time. There's an unfamiliar feeling that's been creeping up in my psyche, I think it's tired. Not the usual kind of tired from lack of sleep or what-not, just an overall weariness, like I'd imagine a long distance runner might go through in the last twenty minutes or so of a seven hour race. Of course, I have to imagine that last part...'cause you'd never find me in a marathon, heh.

It's the easy things that have been catching my fancy since I don't have proper time to dedicate to the more complex hobbies. I might not be able to sit down and build and paint a new unit of Dwarves, or tackle any of a number of painting side projects, but there's other things to occupy my time. I've been getting into Lego's again, as mentioned, the new castle sets are pretty rockin'. I've also got my trusty Xbox, which is a great diversion when called upon. Time constraints are still killing me, but for a quick half hour of fun, it's there. The pic I chose for this post combines these two things, Legos and video games.

Justin Stebbins is the artist (do you call Lego builders artists?) of the diorama shown. Check out his Brickshelf gallery for more of his work, he's got some great builds, and his subject matter is rich with sci-fi goodness. On my gigantic wishlist of Xbox games is Assassin's Creed. When it first came out, there was some mixed reviews, but now that it's had time to properly age a bit, it's sounding like it's being received better and better. I'll get it eventually, but I won't even think of it before May. The scene shown is from the game itself, and there's just a magical quality about Lego's that you can really make pretty much anything you want and always have it translate perfectly. Funnily enough, if I was on the fence about Assassin's Creed earlier, this Lego diorama would seal the deal...

Lego iPod Mount

Crew in place, the perfect piece is selected to use as the backing...


A Devcon two-part epoxy solidly affixes the initial block mount.


Within easy reach, yet out of the way.


Powered up.

Dwarf Sticker

My last post had this Lego Dwarf image on it. For the record, I did not draw it. I got the line art image from Lego's Castle downloads page. I did, however, do all the color work in Photoshop, which with all the shading took me just as long to color as it would've to draw. Now, I could have drawn it, if I had the time, which I don't, heh.

Sure, it's geeky, but that's the name of the game, right? Having just professed my excitement over the new Castle Lego line last post, I figure this sticker would do the trick nicely, especially since it was the Lego Dwarves in particular that has spurred me on.

A quick trip to the local copy shop with my image on a stick drive was all it took. They made me a color copy, I trimmed it out with an x-acto blade, then laminated it with a sticky back sheet called a lami-label. Then I trimmed it out again, and voila, instant weatherproof sticker. I put it on the glass, not the actual car, because it will be a pain to get off whenever that time comes. Here's a pic of it on the back of my little escape pod of a car. It measures about five inches square...the sticker, not the car.

Lego: Once More Into the Fray...

There are 'dark ages' that AFOL's go through. A 'dark age' is a period of no Lego buying, no Lego building, no Lego nothin'; this usually takes place in the off-to-college years, or the too-cool-for-high-school years. An AFOL being an Adult Fan of Lego, of course, haha. I'm lucky, I never had a 'dark age'. I still own the same Legos I had in 1979 as I do today. However, with all the miniature gaming, rpg'ing, and what-not going on, I was never the most avid collector.

I think Lego has finally put a great design team in play. They've got some good sets out currently, and some stuff on the horizon is looking even better. I'll forgo the many details, like Indiana Jones, and super Star Wars sets, and focus on my fave, the Castle series.

The Castle sets out today are amazing, and they hearken back to the classic Castle sets of the early to mid-80's. However, there's a huge twist, now they're adding fantasy races. Undead, Orcs, Trolls, and freakin' Dwarves, woohoo. I'm pretty stoked now, and plan on picking up pretty much as much Castle as I can get, as time and money allows. I'm still painting the minis, still rolling dice, but you'll probably see a lot of Lego posts for a while.

Here's a teaser scan from this month's Club Magazine. Yes, Lego Wood Elves. It is a good time to get back on the Lego wagon. I see a lot of hints here I like. First of all, Elves. A return of the longbow, an accessory that's been far too scant over the last few years as its been replaced by the crossbow. A new shield design, and new helmet design too. Also, it looks like there will be a new hair piece as well that will fit under the new helmets, plus they'll have the Indy-style satchels too.

A Thac0 no more...

The same year I was born, Gary Gygax created Dungeons and Dragons. Now, thirty-three years later, he's passed away. His impact, influence, contributions, vision, the whole works, impacts pretty much every facet of gaming today. True, Tolkien laid some serious groundwork back in the day, but Gygax made the mythos into a game. I have to admit that I'm more than a little sad at his passing. Here's the original Associated Press article...

Long Live the Space Dwarves!

A pic taken from Jes Goodwin's sketchbook.

“You misunderstand, this is Tau space, despite what the Gue’la [human] may claim and you are welcomed to it as friend. We too have suffered difficulty with the Or’es’la, since it seems they wish no unity. We would be honoured to have you fight alongside us against this common enemy. You will find it to the benefit of both our peoples, You will find it, I have no doubt, to be for the greater good.”
- Por’O Dal’yth V’Rok greets the Thurm Brotherhood during first contact with the Demiurg ARMADA 109

Blips on the horizon, and increased chatter over the ether, points to a possible resurgence of the magnanimous Space Dwarfs. Call 'em what you want; Squats, Scrunts, Dwarves, Dwarfs, whatever the name, there has been sightings. Now of course, Space Dwarves have been around for a while, and still are through Bob Olley and others. The Scrunts even have an entry in 5150. I'm talking in the realm of the ubiquitous GW, who at one point had them, then killed them, then kinda had them back, etc. Their latest moniker the Demiurg. That link's got a pretty succinct writeup too. I've also collected some other nuggets on the subject.

From Jervis Johnson:

In the end (and it took years to really get to the roots of the problem) this led to a realisation that we were going to have to drop the Squats in their 'Squat' form from the 40K background. There was little point having a major race that we weren't willing to make an army book for, and their inclusion in the background meant that people kept asking us when we'd do a Squat Codex. Instead we decided that we'd write the Squats out of the background by saying that their Homworlds had been devoured by a Tyranid Hivefleet. This would give us the option in the future to return to making a race based on the Squat archetype for 40K. This race was given the name of Demiurg, and a certain amount of preliminary work was done to get a 'feel' for what the race would be like. At present the only hint of the Demiurg in 40K is the Demiurg spaceship for BFG. However, we do have this race 'in our back pocket' as a possible new race for 40K, or an interesting character model in Inquisitor, or whatever. So far the Demiurg have lost out to other projects, and it may be that their time never actually comes, as they will have to win through on their merits, not simply because we once made some Squat models in the past. At present, I have to say that it is more lilely that they *don't* make the cut than do, as there is a certain predudice these days to simply taking races from Warhammer and cross them over to 40K like we did in the early days, so it may be that the Squats/Demiurg end up remaining a footnote in the history of the 40K galaxy. Only time will tell...

A three-up bust sculpt from the shelves at GW, of an "unknown" alien...

“They are aliens, granted. But if ever I witness another creature so furiously keen to wipe out the greenskinned scum, it could be a ship’s plasma-rat, and I wouldn’t think twice about having them fight by my side.”
- Rogue Trader Ennumerius Skurien

Some thoughts gleaned from a scattering of forums:

Are the Demiurge the remnants of the Squat Empire that was destroyed by the Tyranids? If so they should be recognizable as Abhumans. You can still work with that to give them rock-like flesh in browns/grays. You can make them utterly psychologically incompatible with humanity since they are the survivors of a genocidal betrayal and are probably looking to even the score. Not to mention what did they have to do to survive the Tyranid? Did they have a...patron of some sort? It doesn't have to be Chaos. It could be some sort of Old One technology they discovered or something else.

Change the name. It would be I think highly appropriate to make the term 'squat' an imperial derogatory term like ratling. The squats must have a name for themselves, and it would give them much more credibility. The fact that they were part of the original human colonists to spread out to the galaxy could give you a clue- maybe they see themselves as the only TRUE humans left? They retain the technology of their forefathers and teh memory of them, why not give them an air of racial superiority in addition to their technological one? Perhaps they call themselves the trueborn, or Lastbloods, or Pureborn? Maybe they call themselves Primatorians or Unimans (a play on human). They are the oldest human colonists with thousands of years of isolation to develop a very distinct culture- it would be good to have them as 'squats' in slurs only.

Moray Battle Rifle (MBR)

Think of this as a sneak peek of sorts. Rucht did (and usually does) all the crunchwork when it comes to stats and stuff, actually the whole setting, I 'just' made up the name and drew it. Our rpg group played a great campaign a few years back called Alpha Wolfpack; it was super d20 Future, before d20 Future even existed. Think military sci-fi with some horror thrown in. All we had at our disposal was a lot of energy, the incredibly excellent d20 Modern sourcebook, and a couple of now-obsolete Gamma World d20 sourcebooks. Enough...

Moray Battle Rifle (MBR) (European Union): This railgun is the premier rail rifle of its kind. It is known for its extremely long range, making it a choice weapon for forces deployed onto barren planets with a far horizon. Its unique electromagnetic chamber, which maximizes its forward propelling power is the weapon’s key to its extreme range. The MBR, like all of its other precessors, can be modified to fire micro-missiles instead of railgun needles.

Type: Railgun
Rules: If the MBR is modified to become a micro-missile launcher, it fires the same ammunition as the Colt Basilisk, but at its normal range of 160. Getting a modified MBR raises the cost of the weapon by +1.

Moray (MBR)
damage: 3d12
firing bonus: +1
critical: 19-20/x2
type: railgun
range: 160'
RoF: single
magazine: 60/12
size: large