By Hawking's Chair!

The great thing about being a geek, and about movies such as this is that you can take your kids along, and still get something out of it! Well Andy and I took our collective brood to go see MvA on this rainy afternoon. Funny thing, we saw our other buddy, Ray, while we were there in the row in front of us with his brood! I'm a school teacher, and I also saw no less than five students, in fact, for a 3 o'clock show, the movie theater was absolutely packed with sell out crowds.

This movie was great; a boat load of fun. We opted at the last minute to see the 3D version and I'm glad we did, it was visually amazing. It wasn't just 3D for the sake of it, it was rendered as a 3D movie from the ground up, and the shots, especially the ones of outer space were, well, breathtaking for lack of a better word. The movie, as the title Monsters versus Aliens, was a well written hybrid between science fiction and pulpy camp. Dreamworks animated pictures always have a bit more of a rougher edge to them than say, Pixar, especially in terms of borderline crude humor, and MvA was packed full of those inside jokes that only the adults in the theater would get, ala my favorite Bullwinkle and Rocky Show. Not only did it do a great job of capturing both a 1950's and modern feel at the same time, it also paid heavy homage to another all-time fave, Dr. Strangelove, with its scenes of the president in his war room.

Here's our team of government-sanctioned monsters:

The Missing Link: A frozen fish-ape hybrid from the Ice Age thawed out by scientists and subsequently captured in 1961.

Bob: Spontaneously created by mixing a genetically altered tomato and ranch-flavored dessert topping. He was captured in 1958. This is the year that the movie, The Blob, came out, I'm sure it's not coincidental.

Ginormica: Just before her wedding, she was hit by a meteor filled with a strange substance that mutated her DNA, causing her to grow at the altar into a 49 foot 11 inch woman. Captured in 2008.

Dr. Cockroach, Ph.D: When his teleportation device backfired, he ended up with the head of a cockroach, and the world domination plans of a maniacal genius. Captured in 1952.

Insectosaurus: Transformed by nuclear radiation from a one-inch grub to a 350 foot monster with a taste for Japanese cities. He's (she's?) also got a cocoon full of surprise!

The visuals, as I've said, are stunning, and it really is a beautiful movie with every attention to detail imaginable. It had a unique style to it with it's characters being cartoony and its tech being realistic. The 3D version was like watching the entire flick through a Viewmaster, and the effects didn't just consist of objects popping out at the viewer. Surprisingly, it was fairly dialog heavy, fleshing out the characters nicely. In the end, this is a fun romp with plenty of laugh out loud moments, two-fisted action, and overall geeky goodness. I don't really do ratings, but I'd give it two short thumbs up!


"You can't fight in here, this is the War Room!"

Let the Wild Rumpus Start!

Well, if I waited twenty three years for the Watchmen, then that makes it, oh, about thirty two years that I've been waiting on this one! I had heard about the book to screen project some time back, and although it is one of my all-time favorite books, I had doubts on how it would be a motion picture. Maurice Sendak is the author, and this is his best known piece, but it is a short story at best. It is an imaginative tale of Max, who after being sent to bed without his dinner for being naughty, is whisked away on a flight of imaginative fancy. His adventure takes him to the island of where the wild things are, and he becomes the king of their terrible kind. He longs for home and eventually leaves, much to the chagrin of the island monsters, only to awake in bed to a plate of dinner. Like I said, it is a simple tale and a very short story, but through powerful verse and amazing illustration, it is a story that never leaves you...easily one of my favorites. Did it need a movie? Probably not, but judging from the trailer it looks to be as imaginative as the original, just prepare for a lot of filling in of the gaps from the original. It should be a fun ride. Props to Andy for the heads up on the trailer.

Apocalypto

Apocalypto

It's funny, but I simply never got around to this film until now. What a mistake that was waiting this long! I caught the movie on cable of all things to boot. My undergrad is in Anthropology, and when this film was on the verge of release I was knee-deep in Meso American cultural studies, the two (for obvious reasons) go hand in hand. As movies go, yes there are many, many departures from what could be considered "accurate", but in my eyes, how often do Mayan based flicks of this magnitude come out anyway. If it brings a little light to a oft ignored people, setting, and genre, so be it, I'll allow for a few concessions.

The film is a little over two hours, but it flies by in the blink of an eye. At its core it is incredibly simple; a sweeping story told in three parts, with a foot race that would make Forrest Gump jealous at its conclusion. It's an action flick, sure, but cleverly disguised by amazing sets, costumes, and cinematography. Even the dialog, which is a localized dialect of Yucatecan Mayan, lends that extra 'something' to the overall film. The action is intense and the images of Mayan culture aren't held in check whatsoever, they are laid for bare in all their graphic glory. It's a decadent culture in decline, and if one just had to look for allegory, you could find it at every corner. Although worlds apart, many facets of the Mayan culture on display mimic our own world today, and possibly serve as a warning.

Ruchtcon

Our friend and gaming buddy, who has unfortunately moved out of town a few years back, had a birthday recently and threw himself a gaming con. The good news is that he doesn't live too far away, a little less than two hours, so a couple of us local players headed up for 'Ruchtcon'. Rucht is no stranger to conventions, and I was impressed with how he scheduled the weekend. Just like a large-scale con, it was broken down into four hour blocks, with a variety of games, and half a dozen guest GM's to run said games. It was by-and-large a roleplaying con, which was refreshing since that's something I haven't had a whole lot of lately. In total there were about fifteen to twenty people who came and went over the course of the weekend, and we all had a blast. Here's a glimpse of just what all went down.


Battlestar Galactica

The first game in progress when Oz and I arrived was a board game of BSG. I forgot to bring my camera, so all of these pics are from my phone, so excuse the image quality! We had to get to the store before the next slot started for some beverage and snack purchasing, so I didn't get to sit in on this one. The guys seemed to be having fun with it though and it might be worth a second look.


In all of the filler slots between scheduled games there was plenty of Xbox 360 going on. Some people who weren't signed up for a particular slot just hung out and played some pickup games, then at other times, coordinated sessions were played too. Although I didn't partake, I saw a host of games being played; Rock Band, Guitar Hero World Tour, Left 4 Dead, BioShock, and Resident Evil 5.


Talisman

The only other board game I saw was the new edition of Talisman. I remember playing the old Talisman quite a bit, it was both fast and fun. I didn't play in this one, which is too bad, I'd like to test drive it a couple of times to see if it's worth a purchase or not. At just a few glances in between trips to the refrigerator, there wasn't a whole lot to look at really. The only pieces that ever made it onto the game board itself were just the PC's, with a score of cards all lining the edges of the board. I know the group playing were going on for about three or four hours and quite often I heard a lot of laughing and carrying on in there, usually coinciding with the draw of a new event card or some new polymorphing catastrophe.


Dark Heresy

Well, I'm a 40k fan, end of story. Sure there have been annoying editions of the rules come and go, but I probably wouldn't be the miniature gamer I am today if Rogue Trader didn't kick it all off for me so long ago. To have an RPG come out, set in the 40k universe, was something I've been waiting a long time for, and it's finally here.

I did play in this one, and I liked what I saw mechanics-wise. To get the most out of the game however, you really need to be familiar with the universe itself. A few of the players at the table were strangers to 40k, and I think they were lost a little bit of the time.

Rucht ran this one, and I played a mind-cleansed Imperial Guardsman, Oz played a Techpriest. Both are pretty memorable characters, but then again, everyone is a unique individual in the game...it's just that life is cheap. We were sent in as acolytes to investigate some occult killing of local nobles and see if there was a link to chaos. We tracked down the individuals involved across a couple of different sprawling cities, including a walking city the size of a mountain chain. Out team had an eclectic mix of heroes, including a sanctioned 10 year girl psyker. It was a fun game, and definitely inspired to play some more after getting just a small taste of it over the weekend.


Little Fears

I don't know much about this one at all. I've never heard of it before, I've never played it, and while I was there, I didn't see it being played. The link I put up is fairly expansive and should give a good idea about what this indie RPG game is all about.


Star Wars Saga Edition

I really wanted to play in this one. I've heard good things about the new rules system, and although I'm completely turned off by the prequel movies, deep down inside I'm still a Star Wars fan. The game run at the con was set in the Old Republic, a time period 4,000 years before the movie Episode IV, A New Hope.


Werewolf

I've never been much interested in the host of White Wolf games out there. I don't know why, I've always had plenty of other shiny products to distract me with. At one point I had almost talked myself in getting in on a Mage: the Awakening game, but that fell through. This is purely a personal choice, and I know just from being around the RPG scene for sometime, that the game didn't need me, the World of Darkness series has a huge following of gamers out there, and it does very well by itself. They ran a game on Saturday night, and they all seemed to be into it. The GM was knowledgeable and the action was fast. All I picked up was that it was set in the modern day near Boulder, Colorado.


Witch Hunter: the Invisible World

This was another one I played in, and I'm glad I did. I've played some WH before, and thoroughly loved it, I've even mentioned it on here once or twice as well. Witch Hunter takes place in the late 1600's in the colonization of the New World. witchcraft, demons, and monsters are all very real, but quickly explained away by local gossip and superstition. It is the role of Witch Hunters, a secret sect of individuals, to covertly investigate and eliminate these threats.

This one holds a special place for us because one of our own, Rucht, helped write the game from the ground up and develop it, so who better to run it than that guy? He's even got a monster book out too, but I've yet to pick it up.

Our Witch Hunters converged on the scene of a small town afflicted by a strange series of women dropping dead after becoming very ill. The common thread, heh, pun intended, was that they were all seamstresses. We searched around some and through our investigations we tracked down the lead suspect who, along with her daughter, were witches. The battle took place in earnest, with arrow, musket shot, and magical flame being exchanged. We put her down eventually and captured the daughter. In the employ of the witch were a host of Watchdolls, malevolent little dolls, wicked with intent, who could magically stitch together limbs, lips, and the eyes of their victims. These were minions at best, but were much creepier than the head witch herself.

I was able to use my Native American character from a previous game for this one. He's a hunter and melee fighter mostly, but has some skill with medicine and tracking too. He's an outcast member of the Huron. Oz played (in usual Oz fashion) a clergyman; an Anglican Priest fresh from England. I don't know the particulars about his character, but he had some kind of holy staff that was rolling ungodly (err, I guess Godly is more appropriate) amounts of damage dice.


This barn set the scene for the mute Frenchman and myself to investigate, and stumble upon the grisly remains of a fellow Witch Hunter. The victim had been stitched together by a Watch Doll, with whom we then battled. It took the better part of both of our skills just to win the combat.


A big ole pile of Damnation and Fate chips that were custom made for a con some time back specifically for the game. These are hard to get your hands on nowadays, and honestly any chip or counter will do, but these are extra nifty.



A lot of people like to claim that their group's GM is the "best", but we have the proof to back it up, haha!

Dark Angels Command Squad

Chalk up five more Dark Angels that move from my painting desk to the shelves. I see a lot of army lists out there, but seldom do I see people fielding command squads. For me, it's too cool of an option to pass up, never having used them before, I can't say how effective they are, but I really like the idea of having them out there. In a little reverse-tutorial style, I'll go about how I got these guys from primer to tabletop quality in just a couple of nights.


The Death Dealers

Poking around in my bits box I found these pretty nifty transfers. They're from a GW sheet titled "Undead" and had these and more on it, although these were the least cheesy of the bunch. I figured this command squad would be unique and have their own logo and moniker and squad badge logo to boot.


Being the proper Dark Angels that they are, they still had to represent with their chapter icons. My vintage supply of twenty year old Rogue Trader era icons is fast dwindling, but those who had spare room on their right shoulders got one. One was the raised icon of the sword and wings, and the standard bearer had a raised skull with honor wreath. The last I think might a raised chaplain shoulder, but I added black wings from a transfer I cut in half, and put them on both sides of the apothecary's skull emblem.


The Perfect Storm (bolter)

At a mere three points a pop, how can you not equip everyone you can with a Storm Bolter? Not to mention that this is, by far, the easiest conversion you can do. Take two boltguns, cut or shave off the inside smooth, then just glue them together. Voila, instant Storm Bolter. Being veterans I gave them three generations worth of Storm Bolters; the far left is the new 'modern' boltgun, in the middle is the vintage MkVI 'beaky' bolter, and on the far right is the middle aged MkVII bolter. If you can grab some of these MkVII's, I would do so, 'cause I think it makes the best looking gun of the three. The really old one is cool, just 'cause they aren't seen a lot nowadays, but it doesn't have a casing or anything, so looks kinda plain.


My standard bearer is the older Brother Bethor model. He's got the look of the rest of the squad, robes and hood covering power armor, but the figure shows its age slightly. Its profile is much flatter than the newer models and seems somewhat slight. Overall it is still a good fig, and sports some serious Dark Angels bling around the neck. The banner was taken from the Bell of Lost Souls site and their many awesome sheets they have for download. This was printed on plain white bond paper off of a desktop color printer. The circle in the center is left blank and I simply added a transfer to it, although I had to use a watered down white glue to keep it from peeling off the paper, which it kept doing on my test piece.


Since most everyone else had a Storm Bolter, I didn't want the standard bearer to be left out. I painted up his standard boltgun attached to his pack a tad more elaborately. I used Tin Bitz for the metal with Burnished Gold highlights, Bleached Bone for the casing, and Mithril and Blackened Steel for the magazine, skull, and front sight. The handle I did in leather (Vermin Brown with Snakebite Leather) and the foregrip I did in wood (craft paints).


Here's my apothecary using an older metal DA veteran trooper body. I put a pair of newer marine arms on for the bolt pistol and chainsword. He may not have that funky medical gauntlet that comes standard, but he can still perform battlefield amputations. He was already wearing white robes, so I didn't want to paint his armor white too, so I just painted the shoulder pads in apothecary colors.


I went with a very old Space Wolf Scout metal backpack to serve as the apothecary pack to set him apart form the rest. I tried to find one of these online just now for reference, but had zero luck, there's been a few Space Wolf Scouts come along since then apparently.


I squeeze white glue directly onto the tops of the bases and then paint it around with an older brush. Next I dip and swish the base around in the sand tub, making sure to get some of the larger pebbles, not just sand. To give it an extra layer of durability I then use a 50/50 mix of white glue and water, put it in an empty syringe, and just apply a few drops to the top of the bases. It will soak in and when it's dry, be rock solid. You can get empty syringes at the pharmacy counter, they're the ones for administering liquid medicine to children and don't have anything to do with needles at all.


So close to finish! For my Dark Angels army I chose desert sandy bases, and just use a tub of GW's modelling sand, and painted the edges of the bases (and some of the tops) in Reaper's Dark Skin.


I found the $3 dollar wonder bottle that is Micro Sol with my last project and I put it to use again. It works wonders on more than just smoothing decals over round shoulder pads too, Here I used some red icons on their robes. The Micro Sol conformed them "magically" to the folds and bends of their legs, and the red contrasts nicely with the white robes and matched the weapons.


For the guns I painted the metallic areas in Codex Grey and highlighted them with Fortress Grey. Casings were painted in straight Blood Red, without highlights. The gun emblems were done in craft paint white, then given a wash in Devlan Mud.


Here's some detail on the packs.


While I had the Tin Bitz out I painted other metallic areas on the figs with it; like icons and assorted doodads. I also began to paint the purity seals with Blood Red, and the scrolls that were attached with Kommando Khaki. I had to use this so they would contrast with the off white robes. The 'text' on the scrolls was done with a fine line, waterproof drafting pen you can get pretty much anywhere.


Pouches and holster were painted with Vermin Brown first, highlighted with Snakebite Leather, and wash with Devlan Mud. Buckles and buttons were painted in Tin Bitz.


I used Snot Green to 'fine line' the armor and highlight certain areas to make them stand out. I used a Thraka Green Wash to blend the two greens together to better blend them.


All armor areas were painted unceremoniously in Dark Angels Green.


Recessed areas of the robes received a heavy wash of Devlan Mud.


The models were assembled with regular super glue and primered with a generic black spray paint. Next I did a very heavy and sloppy coat of Bleached Bone over all the cloth areas.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

Solar Prominence

I've been a big fan of NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day site for a few years now. As you might imagine, it "gives a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe...along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer", which is cool enough for me. With daily pics, there have been hundreds of great pics come across over the year; today's image of a beautiful solar prominence of our Sun was too good to pass up here. For scale, our own Earth could pass between the above solar cloud and the Sun itself with plenty of room to spare.

Summer of Geek Movie Goodness

This summer promises to hold an abundance of films for those of a geek inclination. My title is somewhat misleading however, just because I used the word "goodness" doesn't necessarily mean these will be, well, good, haha. Nonetheless, there are gems in the rough to be found. Hopefully I'll get the chance to see most of these, but unlike the Watchmen, hopefully I won't be going solo.

More Warlands

5x4 table with a central highway and plenty of wilderness

So we kicked it into high gear again this week with some more of Aberrant's Warlands. Andy and I got a taste of it last week, and this time we added three more vehicles and a third player, Chris P. We're still using the vehicle stats from the starter rules, and the battlefield? (I don't know what to call it in Warlands) had the strewn debris of wrecked cars as added obstacles. We were going to count these as AM5 wrecks in terms of smashing into (and through) them. I used the leftover pieces from my car bits box.


Andy's Antagonizers

Andy was chided about being the only player to show up with unpainted minis, haha. He was using all the Warlands box set resin vehicles; two dune buggies and a utility truck. After the game we were looking at the truck and we're pretty sure it was computer drafted first, then modeled from the 3D model. A note to scale, the truck is large, quite beefy even for a "dualie", but the dune buggies on the other hand are spot on considering you are also using 1:64th scale cars...which we were.


Chris P.'s Pillagers

Chris went with the store bought Matchbox and Hot Wheels combo. These Matchbox dune buggies can't be beat in price for .99 cents, and they'll look excellent once banged up and painted. The Hot Wheels Baja race truck is great too, and it's also a buck. Any car along the lines of off road racers will be better suited for conversion work. They'll already come roll cage equipped and usually have spare gear or tires on the back.


Mik's Marauders

I had the biggest departure in terms of proxying. I used my Hot Wheels dune buggy (center) slightly painted and weathered as, well, a dune buggy. The Hot Wheels Volkswagon on the far right has a lot more conversion work done to it, and it's also proxying as a dune buggy. On the left is one of my oldest, a 1974 Hot Wheels Redline Van. It was acting as my truck, and thinking back on it, it's kind of neat that I am using a toy car that I've owned for over thirty years in a war game.


Sandwiched between enemy buggies

The rules were even easier to get to grips with this time around, and we got stuck in the action fairly quick (those dune buggies can haul). In a three player game it's always interesting to see how the sides will play out, will someone get ganged up on? It was a fairly even mix in our game, but it did seem that I got flanked by two opponents pretty fast. We're going to make some new speed counters too. Looking back at these pics, they seem static, and without knowing exactly what's going on in-game you don't really know who's coming or going. To spare me another hour or so in Photoshop, we'll whip up these new speed counters and they should hopefully fix this.


She'll be coming 'round the refinery when she comes...

Chris' truck is swinging through a turn with Andy's buggy hot on his heels. Being a little more familiar with the rules this time around we found that we were more daring wiht the turns and maneuvering. This also meant several times we had cars swerve out of control, but no one flipped or anything exciting. At one point my Redline van almost plowed off the table's edge, but I performed an emergency brake maneuver and stopped in the nick of time.


Flame on!

This game saw an insane amount of ramming, but more on that later. Here, one of Chris' buggies T-bones one of Andy's buggies, which then promptly caught fire (and exploded the following turn). You may be asking yourself (How do I work this?), err, "Where did he get those cool Litko fire counters?". Well, they're not Litko, but LEGO! If you couldn't tell from the tabletop, our highways are also LEGO. Since the game was kind of thrown together at the last minute, we just used what was on hand. I thought the fire 'tokens' worked rather well though! They're standard LEGO fire pieces.


Missiles away

My buggy missed Andy's truck with the missile launcher, but got lucky with the deviation and caught him in the blast. Since less than half of his truck was covered, he only took half damage. A word on missile launchers; I'm thinking they should have a 360° degree firing arc, instead of the 180° that they have now. I imagine a guy strapped to the roll cage, but with a shoulder mounted rocket launcher, he ought to have larger firing arc.

Unless a host of new game mechanics are introduced in the full rules, they might want to change the name to Crash Up Derby Lands, because it all comes down to ramming one another, setting up the ram, and trying to avoid the ram. About halfway through the game we realized we had been forgetting to do initiative right, which did make a difference in the ram game in the second half of the game. You start with the fastest car, in initiative order, and work your way down from there.

There were more than a few backwards rams too. Since we had three players worth of cars on the table, it came down to a quagmire in the middle. After a ram you are stationary, so often there'd be a target behind you, so you could hit reverse and perform the SLOW RAM (take it easy!) sure, it's only a dice or two of damage, but it's still fun.

Lastly on ramming, your cars will always come to a dead stand still. You can fudge the rules a little and take your shots after the ram occurs. Since you can shoot at any time before, after, or during your move, you may as well wait until the smoke clears. In the previous game, Andy and I were stopping about an inch before impact, unloading all weapons at that point, then continuing with the ram. Well consider you are about to shoot a fast moving target. Due to its speed, your target number will be very high in order to hit it. A stationary target is a cinch to hit with ranged weapons however, and since both vehicles go to stationary after a collision, well, save your ammo 'til then. Also, don't forget that bonus assault damage die for being so close.

All in all, we had a blast yet again. We are using the starter rules, so they're not jaw dropping at this point, but we threw together a good sized game, with multiple players in no time and had a fun couple of hours while at it. Some things I'd like to see addressed in the complete rules (or what would clinch it for me) would be ala carte custom car building. If I have a points menu to build my own custom cars off of, I will be MEGA happy. In the spirit of Car Wars, I'd like to see more than just weapons and armor on the menu too, give me minelayers, nitro boosters, radar jammers, and the like, even the ejection seat would be cool. I like the idea of having pre-statted vehicles, sure, but I also want the freedom to make my own.

A few times in the rule sit mentions pedestrians and walkers. It will be interesting to see how they introduce bipedal mecha into the game, and that will be cool if done right. I also want to see how foot troops will work, that could really set Warlands apart from the other car games out there. Plus, I want motorcycles, but I'm sure those are coming. The price point of this game to get into is about the cheapest you can get too, after the rules of course, and it shows a lot of promise.


Some bags full of goodies

Stan Johansen Miniatures offers a great line of 20mm "Road Warrior" products, which work beautifully with Warlands. Shown above are some accessory packs Andy picked up for me back at Historicon a couple of years back, so a belated thanks go out to him. The parts are great and include stowage, fuel cans, fuel drums, and a host of manned and automatic turret systems, with or without armor plating. Also included are some figures, many are in seated or standing positions for manning some of the turrets. They're small, as you might imagine for true 20mm, but still have nice extras like scalp trophies attached to the tops of their helmets.


The Cooper that set the land jump record

It's tough to see in this pic, but it shows a Stan Johansen fig in the passenger seat, and as you can see, it fits really well. In a game of Axles and Alloys a couple of years back, this little car set a ridiculous airborne leap record, which I'll try to dig up photos on.