Warhammer League Plan

Well I can't give too much away here, as some of my fellow League players also read this blog. But every year I run a League. It consists of 8 games, followed by a 3 round single elimination playoff run for the top 8 players. Last year we had 30 players in the League, this year we already have 34 signed up.

I give out trophies, and we have a big party at the end, tons of fun.

In past years each game has been pretty basic. Either a set chart of 6 scenarios or just a pitched battle with some random objective. Nothing to string together what is going on.

This year is going to be a bit different. This year I have a theme and story line. Each game will lead you from 1 battle to the next. Their general is on a quest to gain the blessing of their particular deity. It is a hard and dangerous road. Many will fall on the wayside, either to quit or to pick themselves back up and continue the quest, even if they have to steal the secrets from an ally or enemy.

Scenario 1: The Gods are Watching: This scenario is nothing more than a pitched battle. This one earns their gods attention, and a dream is sent to him if they achieve the objective. The objective is very simple. Play your game on time and move at least 1 unit out of your deployment zone. Failure to do that will cost you the objective.

Synopsis of the dream: The god tells the chosen one, that he must earn his blessing. To do so, he must travel to the Temple of their forefathers. There they will find a scroll that will outline to them what they must do. In addition, he will tell them of the hidden artifact found in this sacred place.

Scenario 2: The Quest Begins. If you failed to achieve the objective in step 1, not all is lost. Your spies and scouts have discovered that many gods are looking around to bless someone. Seems like some bet or something is going on up topside. You must however follow another army and then attack once they have reached their destination.
If you failed the Scenario 1 objective, you are -1 to roll for sides and -1 to roll to see who goes first. And you may NOT look for the hidden artifact. You know nothing about it. If your opponent finds the secret door but fails to retrieve the artifact, you may at that point begin to search for the artifact.

You have traveled to the Acropolis of Heroes as your god told you to do. It is a large structure, and as your god informed you, time is not on your side. You must retrieve the scroll quickly. But alas, another has come to steal what is rightfully yours.
If you move a US 5+ unit within 6" of the acropolis, you may search the acropolis. On a 4+ you will find the scroll. Both players may find a scroll. As many units of US 5+ as you have near the Acropolis may look. You may not look if you are fleeing. Only troopers may look. So those that may not look includes swarms, wolves, monsters, bats and anything greater than US 3 that is not ridden (A hero, US 1, on a dragon may, but a dragon my himself may not.) If your planning on running a unit that is questionable ask ahead of time. You may only find 1 scroll.

Once you have the scroll you have fulfilled the quest. Once you have the scroll you may look for secret doors into the acropolis. If you are touching the Acropolis and spend an entire turn doing nothing but looking, no movement, shooting or magic. A character may leave the unit, and the unit has not counted as moving. On a 5+, they find the entrance. This may be increased to 4+ if a character is in the unit looking. Only 1 unit may search per player turn.

Once found a fireball will go off on the unit that finds the secret door. It will cause 2d6 str 3 hits on the unit. If the unit survives, and passes a panic test if necessary, then they have kept the door open and immediately retrieve the artifact. If they flee, or are wiped out, the door is shut, lost and the trap reset. The door must be found again as before. There is only 1 artifact, so once it is found, you own it, your opponent does not get it and it is secreted off the field of battle quickly.

What is this strange artifact? What is its purpose? What does it look like? How does it function? What is on the scroll? How do I continue if I don't find a scroll? All this and more will be revealed soon.

Until next time...

Movie Reviews

Got to see 2 movies this last weekend.

The first was a kids movie called the Ant Bully. This is a WB produced movie from back in July '06. It is a computer animated movie with such star power voices as Julia Roberts, Nicolas Cage, Meryl Streep, Paul Giamatti, Lily Tomlin, Bruce Campbell and Ricardo Mantalban.

The story itself I thought was excellent, and the writing was very, very good. I'm really surprised this movie did not do better at the box office. Perhaps it was just a matter of what it was up against.

The story plot involves a small boy, Lucas, is being picked on by a bully. He then turns his frustrations on the Ant Colony living in his yard. To the ants he is known as the Destroyer. So when the wizard ant makes a magic potion to shrink him everything changes. He is ordered by the Queen that he must remain and work among the ants until he becomes an ant.
He learns how to make friends, work as a team and never give up. Things many kids are lacking these days.
When the exterminator comes, he rallies the ants and enlists the help of the Ants enemies, the wasps, to attack the exterminator. But instead of one of those half faked battles where when the bugs turn on him, they run, the exterminator fights back. The plan looks doomed and the ant colony is on the verge of destruction, when Lucas saves the day. He is later awarded an Ant name and returned to his normal size. When the bully comes around again, he stands up to him.

Overall, I give all aspects of this movie a big thumbs up. If you have young kids, or even if you don't, this is a very funny movie with some good life lessons.

My 2 favorite lines were actually lines in passing, one referring to the mystical yellow rain. And the other was someone mentioning the boy had his skeleton on the inside and an ant said, "you mean he's turned inside out?" Friggen awesome.

Movie 2 was the Transformers. This Michael Bay Film released this year, has plenty of hot action in it. It was a bit lacking on star power as Shia LaBeouf from Holes, I,Robot and was great in Disturbia is the main star, Sam Witwicky. (he is also going to be in the upcoming Indiana Jones movie coming out next year.) He carries the show as the only other main star was Jon Voight, who looks like he is past his prime years.
Megan Fox as the very, very hot girlfriend, ex-con puts in a strong performance as does Josh Duhamel as Captain Lennox.
The rest of the cast was only so-so at best down to downright stupid.

While the plot overall was fine, some things seemed very out of place. The Computer hacker storyline was fine, but 2 characters had semi-main parts in the movie and yet contributed nothing to the actual story at all.
At 2 hours and 23 mins, it went on a bit, and there were many areas they could have been cut out.

A couple things I really liked about the movie:
1. The fact that a concentrated attack by the American forces could actually cripple and take down a transformer. I get really sick and tired of aliens who can come here and not even nuclear bombs have an effect on them.

2. I loved the scene when they are in the house looking for the old glasses. The Auto-bots were outside trying to "sneak" around, that was genius. In addition, when the parents find Megan in their son's bedroom, their reaction wasn't the typical hollywood, "what is a girl doing in here?" But instead the fathers bumping fists with his son to congratulate him and his mom is saying "your gorgeous", like, she can't believe her son is scoring this hot piece.

3. If for no other reason, you have to watch this movie for the special affects. OMG, they are awesome.

4. The fight scene at the end was great. The transformers were just wreaking havoc everywhere. And Megatron was done very well and looked totally evil.

5. Hell, all the fight scenes were great. From the original opening with the helicopter bot, to the scorpion bot in the desert, to the fight with bumblebee to save Sam.

Things I didn't like in the movie.
1. The name Witwicky, come on.

2. The computer genius hacker character. Totally stupid, added nothing to the movie at all. Cut this guy out completely. His comedic value was offset by him being just too damn stupid.

3. The government giving a full tour to all the characters of the most top secret military installation in the world. For no real apparent reason other than they needed to include it in the movie somewhere.

4. 20 mins into the main fight at the end, there were still people in their cars driving into the area. And yet, there were no cops. If I saw a bunch of transformers standing 5-8 stories tall, fighting. Buildings were being crushed, cars flying, etc.. It would take me all of about 2 mins to get well away from that entire area, even if on foot. There were people still just standing in the street watching the fight.

Overall, I thought there were a lot more positives than negatives. I thought the writing and editing could have been tightened up, but the acting from the main characters was good and the special affects are top notch.

For an evening of cool action with some great affects in a family movie that everyone is going to enjoy, another thumbs up from me.

Until next time...

Special Needs Soccer, No difference

In my spare time, I coach a special needs soccer team. We play in the fall and generally get the same kids year after year. I've come to love them all, for all their faults and abilities.

We have the teams split up pretty evenly and we just play each other every week. We have one boy, I'll call him Adam, who is still only 12 or 13, but already taller than me, fast as a whip and has a pretty good idea what is going on. He tends to kick the ball too hard and not always where he should. But is easily the best player on either team. So we tend to load up the other team that doesn't have Adam, and working together, they really give him a run for his money. And all of them learn not to be intimidated by taller players.

When we do go on the road, about half the kids from each team can go, so we form 1 team and the Road Warriors hit the convoy of cars. This year we decided to enter in the Mesquite Halloween tournament they have every year. They have been begging us to come for some time, but they always wanted to have us spread out over 3 days, ridiculous for special needs kids.
This year they promised us, only 2 games on Saturday. So we agreed. About 4 days before the tournament, we get the schedule and they have us for 3 games, all on Saturday. I'm extremely worried about the kids getting tired and losing interest.
But we decide to persevere anyway.

We get there Saturday morning and find out we are playing on a little kids field. I mean this thing is 50-60 yards long and only 25-30 wide. Small goals, it is kind of ridiculous. I shake my head.

Game 1 at 10AM, is against a short handed team and they cannot nearly stand up to our speed and aggressiveness. So we ended up giving them one of our best players, who plays goalie for them the whole game, and 2 older siblings play. Between the 3 of them, they were the best players on their team. It took us till the 2nd half to score. And then right afterwards, they kick towards our goal, my son Tim saves the goal and kicks it out, but Adam is back there and accidentally knocks it back in. We push hard close to the end of the game and manage a 2nd goal to win 2-1, in a match that had it not been for our player and the siblings, would have been 10-0.

Game 2 at 11 AM. The team we were supposed to play at 4, said they didn't want to stay so late, and wanted to move the game up if possible. We said sure and went at it. They were a bit bigger than we were, but slower. They did pass well and when they had an open shot, they didn't miss. I had sat Adam down for the first quarter, and before I brought him in, we were down 2-0. But then when Adam came in to tie everything up, our other players went wild. He scores twice quickly to tie it up and then the goalie girl from game 1, goes off with 6 goals!! A double hat trick. We score about 3-4 more times, I lose count and Tim even almost scores. We were not keeping score, but at the end it was around 12-4.

So we take a quick break and cook out hot dogs and everyone is having a great time.

Enter Game 3: At 1 PM. So we are now on our 3rd game in 3 hours. This is a bit absurd and you would never play a regular team like this. But here we go. I take a quick look at the team practicing goal kicks and immediately recognize them. We had played them in a road game a couple years ago and got waxed pretty good. 6-0 or something, it might have been worse.
They have 2 really, really good players and 2-3 others that can do a decent job of keeping things moving. But everyone of them looks to be 16-20 years old and very big. Compared to our average age of 13-15.

Then out comes our ref, OMG!!, this kid looks 6 or 7. I cannot believe this. Are you friggen kidding me??

So the game begins, I know right from the beginning we will have to play this team tough and hard. I decide I'm not going to sit Adam, but rotate everyone else. I put one of our best girls in goal and another on offense. Adam playing defense. They had their top player as goalie thinking their top girl would be able to handle us.
They were wrong. Most of the first half was played on their half of the field. We got 2-3 good goal shots, but nothing got past.
We had one great chance when the ball was bouncing to a player 3 feet in front of their goal and he catches it, then drops it. I'm thinking, ok, here comes our goal kick, but the ref doesn't call it!!
End of the first half, 0-0. Tempers are starting to rise. I can hear parents yelling from the sidelines about the ref letting the game get out of hand. Kids are pushing and now they are getting tired. This opposing team has never played a game, I'm guessing where they were not leading at halftime.

2nd half I put Tim in goal. The idea is to put both good girls on offense and go for a goal. But with sitting rotations, I again had to sit one of them. Tim makes 2 good saves as they have pulled their best player out of goal and him and their top girl are on offense. They are rotating weaker players, but their top 2-3 players are their the whole game. They have a break away as Adam let the girl get behind him. Tim is in goal and I know this is it, Adam gets down their and the 2 collide.
So they get a goal kick about 8-10 feet in front of our goal. I'm trying to get a wall setup and they go to kick it, so one of our boys, charges it and it bounces off of him and out of bounds. Thank God.

Game continues a bit and Adam has the ball right in front of our goal, the girl charges him, kicks him in the leg, goes down crying and the ref calls a foul on Adam. Parents are yelling at each other, its starting to get rough on the field and this ref is afraid to call anything, and what he does call he is wrong half the time. 90% of the calls are going against us.
This time, he lets me setup the wall. I've switched Tim out for one of our best girls in goal. The ball gets through the wall and our goalie, just saves the ball inches from the goal line.

A few minutes later I've got all our best players in, trying for an end of game goal to win it. One of our good boys, is just gang tackled. I run over to find out whats going on, and turn around to find one of their boys has tackled and is laying on top of one of my girls. I get him off and no call at all. I'm glaring at the ref, this kid needs to blow the damn whistle.
Right after that they kick the ball out of bounds, so I decide to send everything into a corner kick attempt. But no, jackwad the ref says it was out on us, even though we didn't even have a kid near the ball.
So all our guys are up on their half, so they put the ball down and try to kick it all the way down the field to catch us off guard.
Instead the kid nails one of his own teammates right in the face and the ball goes out of bounds. I decide, ok, great chance for one last shot, when the ref finally blows the whistle and says the game is over.

So it ended up a 0-0 tie. It is my guess our opponents had never, not won a game. They didn't know how to react. Their parents were calling our kids cheaters, etc.. It got pretty ugly. Luckily I missed most of it and heard about it on the ride home.
Just goes to show, parents are parents, doesn't matter who their kids are.

I still had a great time, we got out of it with no injuries, no losses and Tim got a great big trophy, as did I.

Whether we will go back or not, will depend on the parents. Whether we get a full regulation soccer field and whether we get a ref out of puberty.

Until next time...

Quick Weekend Recap

Another great weekend.

It didn't start off that well as we found out due to illness our Halloween party had been pushed to next weekend. But as it turned out, this was a blessing. For one, our costumes were not ready yet and we knew we would be pretty tired Saturday night. Marilyn did get them finished up on Sunday.

So we got to relax Friday night and watch another round of Sci-Fi Friday, which has yet to disappoint. Bionic Woman, Odyssey 5, Flash Gordon and finish it off with Stargate Atlantis. And don't forget to throw in 2 minutes of Battlestar Razor. Maybe the best 2 minutes on television right now.

Saturday was filled with a soccer tournament that was a lot of fun. I'll post more on this in detail later.

We came home just exhausted and kind of glad the party is next weekend. So we just laid around and watched movies Saturday night. We saw Ant Bully, which was a real surprise and the new movie Transformers. I'll give a more in-depth look at both of these a bit later as well.

Sunday was a relaxing day of football, working on my miniatures (got 5 more Marauders finished) and spending time with the family.

Kittens are doing well. Suzy has decided that they are pretty safe and is leaving them alone, more and more. Sparky and Max, our 2 male cats, look in on them to check them out, but never bother them.

Looks like I'm going to win my Fantasy Football league game again this week, putting me a whopping 7-1 and tied for first place with 1 other player. I'll be playing him next week to see who sits atop the League alone. He will be heavily favored because of LT.

Overall, I have to say, an excellent weekend.

Until next time...

Twins of Khorne Army: Progress Report

I still haven't had time to finish putting all the miniatures together. I bought the last of them and got them in. As I was opening 1 box, I found it had a broken Centaur. It broke where the leg connects to the main base, making it very difficult to fix.

That wouldn't have been too bad, except they also left out an entire leg/body sprue, making it impossible to build.

I quickly checked the rest of the boxes and they were all fine. Talked with the seller and he agreed to swap it out. So it is currently heading back to him and he is sending me a new box.

As of right now, I currently have:
2 Exalted heroes: built, 1 painted.
4 units of 5 Knights of Khorne, built
4 units of 5 Marauder horsemen with flails and axes. 1 unit built. 3 still to build.
2 units of 6 Centigors with spears and shields. built.
2 units of 5 Dogs of War Fast cav with Bows. built, but was going to add a few bits to them still. Quivers and shields.

So I took some pictures. They are not the best, but should give you an idea of where the army is going.

1st up Chaos Knights of Khorne:


Next up a unit of 5 Chaos Marauder Horsemen with flails and throwing axes:


And here is a more overhead shot of the same unit:


Next is the unit of 6 Centigors with spears and shields.


And a more overhead shot of them:


Finally a unit of 5 Dogs of War with Bows:



And a more overhead shot:



I still have to do a lot of greenwork stuff on them and then get started with the painting, after I finished building the last 15 models. They take a long time to build because of the excessive amount of flash and mold lines on them.

Hope you like them.
Until next time...

Balls of Fur

Yep, I didn't mean fury, though that movie is already on my queue to rent.

Just wanted to let you know after 24 hours, the little balls of fur are alive, look healthy and content with life.

Suzy (the momma cat) was a bit perturbed with our continue checking and picking up of her kittens and last night decided to move them to a more secure location.

So we limited her choices a bit and she decided to move them under a bed. We had a bit of a scare as we thought there was a chance she was leaving one behind and he was having a hard time finding the milk spouts.
But this morning she had moved both of them again and they looked happy and content.

Before the move, we snapped a couple of pics. This is probably what started the whole move thing.

Kitten #1. A bit blurry, sorry.



Kitten #2. Hes going to have some cool stripes.



And finally a pic of proud momma with her 2 balls of fur. Not really happy that we are taking pictures.



Until next time...

Battle in the Desert Trophy

I told you I got a really unique looking trophy for my Tournament win in Battle in the Desert.

Well here it is:


Its pretty cool and sitting on my fireplace mantle right now.

Until next time...

The Miracle of Life

Six weeks ago, we had found our household at only 2 cats. We usually seem to always have 3 around. One goes and another one seems to find its way to our door somehow. And sure enough soon after we had lost one of our cats, she went off into the woods and never came back, a small calico showed up just thin as a bone and needing a home.

Marilyn of course fed her and took her in before I could raise an squeak of protest. It was the only female cat we had now, and since she was still very young, probably only 6-7 months, she got along great with our other recent addition a small male cat, Sparky, about the same age.

So we now have 3 cats, Max, a solid white much older cat. Sparky, who definitely lives up to his name, also solid white. And Suzy Q, who is a very playful and loving calico. She ate everything she could get a hold of for a couple weeks and soon started putting on weight.

About 2-3 weeks ago we started noticing, she was putting on more than weight, and in the last few days decided, that she was probably pregnant.

Last night she started acting funny, so quickly we hit the internet to find out what we needed to do. As it turned out, look for a few things, but mainly nothing. The mother has to do it herself. And sure enough about 11:15 last night little Suzy gave birth to a little kitten.

I'm sure she didn't like it at all, was scared and probably in pain. She kept looking to me as if asking for help, but all I could do was talk calmly to her and reassure her. Soon, the mother instincts took over and the little kitten was nursing and Suzy was curled around her new kitten to help keep him warm.

This morning we found that during the night she had birthed a 2nd one. Both kittens and Suzy are doing well. The trio will be making a trip to the Vet this morning.
A quick count of days shows that she was already a couple weeks pregnant when she came to us.

Unfortunately, we are past our MCA, or Maximum Cat Allowance, which is 3. The thought of having 5 cats in the house, is more than I can bear. So in 6-8 weeks, we will be looking to give away the new little fur-balls of joy.

If you know anyone who would give them a good home right around Christmas time, let me know. Otherwise they will probably end up in a pet store, which I would rather avoid if possible.

Until next time...

Movie Review: Promonition

NOTE: This has movie spoilers in it. You have been warned.

This movie was an interesting take on the old topic of time travel and can you change history if you know what is going to happen.

Starring Sandra Bullock and Julian McMahon starts off in a very confusing manner but the viewer quickly catches onto what is going on, faster than Linda Hanson, Bullock's character.

The essence of the movie is that while everyone else is living in a straight time line as normal, Linda is living her days out of order. The movie revolves around a 1 week period of time Sunday through Saturday. With the exception of 30 seconds at the very beginning and very end of the movie.

The movie begins on Thursday and is the day after her husband is killed in an auto accident. Her kids sad and her mom comes and helps her through things.

She then jumps to Monday when her husband is alive, everyone is happy and she thinks it was just a bad dream.

The next morning she wakes up and it is Saturday. Everyone is in black for the funeral and we discover that her daughter has scars all over her face. Linda has no idea how this happens. There is a senseless scene at the funeral when some idiots drop the coffin and the husbands head comes out. She also confronts "the mistress" at the funeral who claims to have talked to her before, she had never met her before.
Satuday ends with her being hauled away to be committed because of what she did to her daughter.

She next wakes up and it is Tuesday. She is still a bit confused but starting to figure things out. She goes to his work and meets "the mistress" for the first time. She makes him promise her to wake her before he goes to work Wednesday. The day he is supposed to die. Also this day her daughter runs through the glass door and cuts her face all up. They go to the Emergency room.

Next it jumps to Friday. She goes and confronts the mistress and finds out they had planned on fooling around but had not actually done it yet. They were supposed to meet Wednesday. So I'm thinking ok, he was on his way to meet her when he was killed. If you can convince him to not do this, he lives. She meets with a priest and he tells her there is always hope. (Can't remember this may have happened Sunday.)

She then jumps to Sunday, when she gets the husband to play with the daughters. She then eventually seduces him and they make love.

She wakes up on Wednesday and her husband is already gone, even though he had promised her to wake her. She hops in her car, drives by the school to make sure the girls are there and then goes after him. But instead of preventing the accident, she actually ends up causing it and he is killed.

Movie ends with her pregnant and moving out of the house.
*****************

This movie started off with some real great ideas but the writer made just some huge goofs that I have a really hard time coming to grips with. If you write a movie like this, it has got to be tight. No errors, no mistakes. This movie had plenty.

We should assume first of all that basically nothing she does actually changes anything. Everything happens because of the way she performs on each day, and for everyone else it all lines up.

There were probably more, but here were the mistakes I caught:
1. She wakes up Thursday morning and knows that her husband was on a business trip. But this should have been Sunday morning. She should have been confused out of her mind wondering what the hell happened to the first 4 days of her week that she had no recollection of.

2. There are no scars on her daughters face at all Thursday, even though she went through the glass door on Tuesday. But they were there Saturday, even though Linda had not lived that day yet.

3. If she was not there to cause the accident Wednesday, there is no way there was an accident that day. She had him stop, at the mp marker location and turn around right into an oncoming truck. If she had not been there he is easily a mile further down before he passes the truck and there would have been no death for her to stop.

4. The cop came Thursday to tell her he was dead even though the accident was early in the morning. While his body would have been difficult to id, the car and license plate would have been fairly easy. And they would have at least called her Wednesday to let her know her car was in an accident.

5. Since she was at the accident Wednesday, and was a witness to the accident, how come she wasn't on the police report? Did she quickly leave the scene? Be in shock and forget the whole thing? I have a hard time believing this.

6. Had the accident occurred without her around on Wednesday, she didn't talk to him at all, even though there was a major accident on the road leading to town from their house? But the phone call and her calling him was on the machine Thursday. So it tends to lend itself that she was there.

7. So after she sees the accident, avoids giving a statement to the police, she goes and picks up her daughters from school and doesn't bother to tell them anything???
Because Thursday morning they know nothing of the accident.

8. Her daughter ran though the door on Tuesday and they decide to commit her on Saturday?? And they started doubting what really happened to the daughter, even though there was absolutely no proof or suggestion that anything different happened??

These were just a few of the problems I saw off the top of my head, I'm sure there were more. The worst yet was the alternate ending which had someone in the shower at the end, but didn't show who it was. This was several months after the funeral as she is now very pregnant. Did she forget he was alive, because her face looked like she had no idea who could be in the shower? It never showed who was in there, but you are left with the impression it was the husband. Totally bad idea.

Prefer the other ending.

But at the final accident scene, all she has to do is say, he lets drive slowly to the next mile marker. Instead on a blind hill, she tells him to turn around??? This made no sense at all. NONE!!

I hate it when a great movie idea is ruined. This was a great concept movie that flopped because the writer is an idiot. Everyone in the movie is convinced she is going through this weird loop, so she can change what happens. Oh, but lets make it unpredictable and make her be the one who causes it. You walk away pissed off at the writer and director, because the husband had decided not to have the affair. That he was ready to start working on their marriage to make it work. Then bam.

Personally, I prefer it when the good guys win in my movies. This was a huge letdown. I could have been alright with all the 'mistakes' had they just had a good ending. But not this crap.

Thumbs down for me on this one.

Until next time...

Pictures from the Desert Tournament

I only managed to remember to take 3. And since I was on the same table the last 2 games, all 3 pics are on the same table, though at the end of both games.

Here is the left side of the table in game 2.


As you can see I still have my wounded Minotaur/Rat Ogre hiding behind the sphinx with my herd in the open. He has some dryads near the pyramid, his war dancers behind the sphinx and archers strewn out.

Here is the right side of the table in game 2.


Here you can see my herd by the temple controlling it, just 1/2" closer than the dryads. His Treekin right in front of me. Chariot between the woods, 2 Minotaurs/Rat Ogres close by. And finally the unit of 3 has turned around to come claim the table quarter.
Any other minis you see are dead.

Here is the table long view at the end of game 3.


As you can see Ratspawn is facing the Saurus block, at the end of the game, but the Saurus were destroyed at that time. That unit of 3 closest to the Sphinx was actually on the Saurus block flank and had already been moved before the pic. My herd again controlling the pyramid.

Mainly trying to show the excellent table. I wish I had taken pics of all the tables. I will next time sorry.

Until next time...

Chuck and Heroes

What a great night of TV last night.

Chuck did not fail to entertain me last night. Though there was a surprising lack of beautiful women wearing almost nothing, there was several sets of tight leather and good high kicks.

James Hong who was David Lo Pan in Big Trouble in Little China, (one of my fav movies of all time) was the bad guy in it. And there were several references to the movie. In one scene Chuck is pushing James Hong in a wheel chair and asked him if he had ever seen the movie. Truly excellent.

Then of course Heroes does not fail to impress me week after week. Three main stories ran last night.
1. A new character Monica Dawson, played by the very lovely Dana Davis has a cool little ability of muscle memory. Basically all she needs to do is see someone do something once, and she can then do it. Playing the piano to doing wrestling swing kick moves. Smartest thing she did was immediately turn on a Bruce Lee movie.
Her and Micah are living in the same house and he has helped her discover herself and understand it.

2. Nathan goes with Parkman to find Parkman's father. There he finds out his father can also read minds. But then the real killer, he finds out his father has taken his ability a step further. He can trap people in their own nightmares. So while they were busy with their nightmares, Parkman, the father, just walks out of the house.

3. And then we have Peter. He has formed a relationship with the bar girl and finally opens the box. Of course it tells him nothing except his last name, a ticket to Montreal and a picture of his brother. But he sees an empty canvas and does the whole painting the future gig. Nothing too revealing in the painting except that he is supposed to go somewhere the street signs are in French. Combined with the ticket to Montreal in the box, that is the likely destination.
But someone is hot on his tail. Enter Veronica Mars star Kristen Bell. The sweet little girl who use to solve mysteries at Neptune Beach now can shoot lightning bolts from her hands and has no problem killing anyone who doesn't tell her what she wants to know. Including Peter's new friend and brother of his girlfriend.
But, IMO, Kristen's character needs to know Peter is not an enemy you want to make.

Some other small side stories.
4. Hiro stayed in the past to help his childhood hero fulfill his destiny. Ends with the 3 of them looking down at an entire army they will have to fight.
5. Suresh takes Molly into the Company for help. There he runs into Niki. He wants to rescue her, but she tells him she is there of her own free will and wants to stay.
6. Suresh is sent to pick up Monica for observation by the Company.

Highlights for next week look awesome including bringing Syler back into focus. As well as continuing the story of Peter and HRG (Claire's Dad Noah) gets back into the action.

Should be another great episode.

Until next time...

Battle in the Desert Report game 3

Game 3: vs Lizardmen

Game 3 was against a good friend of mine, Ron Brown. We always talk list discussions and have played a few times. He is a good player, but easily gets bored with strong lists and takes them weaker and weaker just to see what he can get away with.

Again, I was placed on the Pyramid table. I didn't mind because the Pyramid offers you a chance to gain an extra 100 vp and victory points were being used for any tie breakers.

This time I took the other side of the table, because the side I was on in the round 2 battle was just hotter than hell. While on my side now, there was a fan right overhead that felt great. Advantage ME.

His army looked like from left to right.
First he had a line of 40 skirmishing skinks that went all the way across his battle line.
20 with blowpipes, 20 with javelins.
Behind them were
3 Kroxigor
Stegadon
3 Kroxigor
3 terradons (behind the pyramid)
18 Saurus warriors with BSB Saurus hero on cold one
18 Saurus warriors with Hero General on cold one
lvl 1 skink priest scroll caddy
3 salamanders
Lord level saurus with nike shoes, 2+ armor save 5+ ward save. Magic sword of whoop ass.

I won the roll off and decided to let him go first.

Turn 1a: Up come all the skinks, everything else a bit behind.

Turn 1b: I'm feeling a bit punchy and charge several hounds into the skinks. But I'm about 15" out and fail. He stands and shoots and kills a couple hounds.

turn 2a: Kroxigor on far left charge spawn through the skinks. But because the skinks were only an inch away, he had to shift them heavily and only 1 krox actually made contact.

Skinks all move up and shoot, salamanders move up and shoot. Few wounds here and there, nothing big.
Lord moves over behind sphynx.

Krox does only 1 wound to spawn. I do a wound back.

Turn 2b: Unit of 4 minotaurs, down to 3 now after shooting, wants to charge skinks right in front of them. But he will flee and it will put me right in front of the stegadon. But I charge with both them and the beast herd about 8" away, and they flee from the herd since its larger. He still flees and I catch them. The herd doesn't go far enough to be charged and the Minotaurs are now on the flank of the steg and out of charge arc for him.

3 Minotaurs into Krox in combat with the spawn. I move the hounds up to block the other krox.
lots of charges on skinks on the right. After its all said and done, some hounds end up in front of the saurus blocks after running down 2 fleeing hounds. salamanders fled a charge and got away.
Spawn ran into last skink unit. Killed a couple, but they held.

Moved 3 minotaurs around corner of sphynx. Lord would now have to charge them or move into center.
In magic phase I made the Minotaurs fighting the Kroxigor to now cause terror. So hopefully even a minor win would mean he would need insane courage. As it turns out, I rip him badly and he probably would have needed it anyway. I kill 2, the last one breaks and is run down. The 3 minotaurs hit the stegadon behind. The spawn doesn't make it.
I moved the herd so I could see the terradons, but miscast.

Turn 3a: Lord on foot, charges my hounds in front of the Saurus. Hounds flee and are wiped out. Lord is now out in the middle by himself.
Kroxigor charge hounds in front of them, they flee and are caught.
Terradons charge my beast herd to take out my wizards. 6 attacks on one shaman and only 1 wound. 3 attacks on the other no wounds. I kill one terradon, they fall back and rally.
Spawn wipes out all but 2 skinks, they break and run. I choose to restrain since they cannot rally. I didn't want to hit the saurus blocks.

Minotaurs on stegadon do 3 wounds. He does 1 back, I win, he holds because of stubborn.

Salamanders rallied. Skink priest ran into General's unit to avoid furies.

Turn 3b: Oh yea, this game is looking good.
3 Minotaurs into flank of stegadon
Herd into flank of kroxigor. Failed my fear test ugghh!!
Spawn moves into terradons, but only rolls 5" on 3d6. So he can stand and shoot even though he is only 4" away. He kills the spawn.
Chariot and unit of 4 minotaurs into Lord saurus on foot. After impact hits, a str 4 attack, 3 str 5 attacks and 6 str 6 attacks. I did nothing. The Lord does only 1 wound back. So I have unit strength and its a draw.

Minotaurs hack down the stegadon. skinks flee, I pursue with both, kill them.

Move 3 minotaurs and 5 furies to threaten salamanders.

Turn 4a: terradons back into herd again to pick off shamans. Whiffed on shamans, killed 3 gors. But I kill both terradons.
Generals saurus block charges flank of minotaurs fighting Lord Saurus. Between saurus block, hero general and Lord, they kill off the minotaurs. Chariot flees and smashes into sphynx.

BSB's unit turns around to face Minotaurs coming around left flank.
Salamanders spit at furies and kill 3. Leaving 2.

Kroxigor turn around to face herd.

Turn 4b: Ratspawn and Co charge flank of his general's saurus unit.
3 Minotaurs and furies charge the salamanders.
both herds and spawn charge the kroxigor. But herd on far left, fails fear test again and stands there.

Move hound unit up, so Lord on foot can only charge them.
He flees with his generals unit and gets away.
I move the other 2 minotaur units to face the BSB unit. Out of his charge range, but in mine.

In combat, Minotaurs and furies kill all but 1 salamander and a couple skinks. They need insane courage and fail. Furies pursue and wipe them out. Minotaurs restrain.

Herd and spawn only manage a single wound on the kroxigor. But they only manage 2 wounds back. With unit strength, rank and banner I win by 2. The Krox fail their break test and are run down.

Turn 5a: Lord charges hounds. Generals unit rallies and faces Ratspawn. BSB runs over to generals unit for one last stand.

Lord on foot kills 3 hounds. Last 2 hounds break and run, but get away.

Turn 5b: Ratspawn and Co into front of generals unit. Minotaur unit that just killed salamanders into flank.
Both minotaur units charge into the front of other Saurus block.
Chariot into Lord Saurus on foot.

Herds move to capture quarters and Pyramid. No magic.

Chariot impact hits manage a wound. And then the Beastigor with great weapon kill the Saurus Lord. I overrun but need about 17" to hit the Saurus block, only roll 13".

Then do combat with no heroes. 5 Minotaurs attack and kill 6 Saurus, so no swings back. Now outnumbered by fear causers, so insane courage, he flees and is caught. Needed about 10" overrun to get Minotaurs into other flank of final saurus block with general, BSB and skink priest. I don't roll high enough.

Final combat, I challenge and his general accepts. He has sword of hornet so swings first and puts 2 wounds on Ratspawn. I put 4 on him though, killing with 2 overkill. Minotaurs then just go for Saurus and put another 6 wounds on them.

That left only the BSB and skink priest to swing back. He does a couple wounds, but not enough. When it was added up, I won by 6. So insane courage again, on 3d6 with the re-roll from the BSB.

He fails them both and I chase him down. Not a single Lizardman model left on the board.

He let me do my turn 6 move, so I got 3 table quarters, the pyramid, +100 for his general, and +300 from standards. So with the 2244 points for the army I picked up a whopping 3044 victory points!!! Holy crap.

He ended up with about 550.

The guy that was 2-0 lost, leaving 2 of us at 2-0-1. But he only had about 1800 vp in his last game. So I felt pretty good heading into the awards.

And when they announced 2nd best general and it wasn't me. I knew I had pulled it out. Sure enough...

Best General: Ben Burns.

Very sweet victory for my Beastmen.

I won a limited edition Resin casting of a Mummy coming out of a coffin as my trophy. It is very nice. I'll post some pics.

And I won the GW box set of the Chapel. Something that looks very nice, that I probably would have never bought for myself.

If you read this far, I hope you enjoyed it.

Until next time...

Battle in the Desert Report game 2

Thanks so far guys. Game 2: vs Wood Elves.

This board is dominated by a huge pyramid, dead center of the field. It is about 1 foot square and impassable. There is also a sphynx on the left side, impassable. 2 hills on the left in the enemy deployment as well as a large wood on the right in his deployment zone. A small group of 3 hills are on the far right, 1 in my deployment zone.

Scenario is Historical land mark. Whoever controls the pyramid, gains 100 extra victory points like a table quarter. But 1 unit cannot control the pyramid and a table quarter.

His army looked like this:
On far left he placed 2 units of 7 wardancers with champions.
On the hill he put 10 archers in 2 ranks.
then 10 more archers in one rank.
Then 10 more archers in one rank with wizard. (2 d.scrolls, Lvl 1)

behind the pyramid he had a hero general on warhawk eagle with biting blade and hail of doom arrow.
8 dryads with Lvl 1 dryad hero, +1 dispel dice and 6's to hit in challenge.
3 Treekin
8 drayds
5 Wildriders with full command, warbanner, hero wildrider with dawn spear
7 scouts went in the woods (no where else to put them)
Eagle
6 Glade Riders

This was 1 beautiful army. OMG!! It was easily the best painted army there. And the player was a very good sport and a good general to boot.
He got the first turn.

Turn 1a: He runs the wardancers behind the sphynx. He runs the units behind the pyramid up to it. He moves everything on the right flank.

Shooting on the right with the glade riders and scouts doesn't do much. But the 30 shots on the left side wipe out 2 hound units and force panic checks all around. My herd on the far left fail. So I'm running sideways and I'm only 4" from the table edge. I roll 3" and stop before the edge. Wow!!

turn 1b: No charges and herd rallies. Everything moves up a bit. On the right I run the last hound unit right up in the face of the wildriders, so they either have to charge them or no one.
spawns move up. One in the middle by the pyramid. Other on the far left towards the wardancers. It moves too far and is up past the spynx by the wardancers.
furies hide behind the pyramid.

Turn 2a: wardancers charge the spawn, kill it and don't overrun.
Hero on eagle flies behind my lines and shoots Hail of doom at the furies, but only manages to kill 4. His Wild riders and glade riders shift around a bit. Not much going on there.
Archers this turn only manage a couple wounds on Ratspawns unit.
He flies eagle behind my right flank lines.

Turn 2b: On far right 3 Minotaurs charge into glade riders. If he flees he is off the table, so he stands and shoots. Does 2 wounds. I'm thinking dead glade riders. Nope, I whiff badly killing only 1 with 9 attacks. He does 2 wounds back, wins combat, I hold on a 6.
Last spawn rolls 15" and hits an archer unit. They flee and get away.
Hounds move up in wildriders face again. It is really annoying him.
I charged herd in middle at the eagle but was just out of range.
I turn chariot around to face hero on eagle.

Cast Wind of death on eagle. Miscast, take str 6 hit. ouch.
Cast the beast movement spell on chariot to charge hero on eagle. Miscast, take str 4 hit and but I'm not wounded. Magic ends.

Turn 3a: Dryads with hero charge spawn on left.
Dryads charge annoying hounds. Hounds flee and get away.
Hero charges lone fury, kill him.

shooting takes out 2 Minotaurs out of Ratspawns unit. Makes panic test.
In his magic phase, on 2 dice his dryad hero miscasts. And suffers a wound.

In combat, the dryads fail to wound the spawn who kills a dryad and the hero.
Glade riders kill a 2nd minotaur, I kill 1 glade rider and I break. Glade riders run me down and are on a hill in my back right corner.

Turn 3b: Do or Die time. 4 Minotaurs along with chariot hit the dryads on the right.
Herd into the eagle. The eagle flees and flies 17" right off the board.
Ratspawn and Co into a unit of wardancers. It was right at the 12" range. And I mean exactly. I could tell he wanted to say I was out, but it was there. So in I go.
Should have moved the other unit of 4 around from behind the sphynx, my screw up there.

Backup chariot to again try the charge spell on the hero with eagle.
With only 3 DD now, and 1 scroll left he is in trouble. I do the charge spell and he scrolls it. I cast wind of death on the glade riders, he fails to dispel by 1, and glade riders go poof.

In combat, the chariot and 4 Minotaurs kill off all but 1 dryad. Sweet. He fails his insane courage and runs right towards the wild riders. Both my units pursue. Minotaurs go 15", chariot 13" and both slam into the wild riders. They were in the woods except for one small part that was hanging out. Chariot was lined up perfectly for that and missed the woods.

Ratspawn gets challenged and even with the 4+ ward dance I kill the champ with an overkill and a couple more wardancers go down. He does a couple wounds back, but loses by 4. Needing a 4 to stay. HE MAKES IT!! NOOOO!!!

This one really hurt. If he fails that, I'm in great position. If I stay, oh is it bad.

Oh yea, dryads fail to wound the spawn again and I do 2 wounds back. He again holds.

Turn 4a: Wardancers into front of Ratspawn and archers in 2 ranks down the hill and into my flank. Hero on eagle charges chariot.

Shooting doesn't do much.
Combat, Wardancers again challenge. He fails to wound Ratspawn and I kill the champ with 1 overkill again. But the rest kill 2 minotaurs and only 2 wardancers dead. I lose by 5. Needing a 4 to stay, I fail and run into the sphyx to die.

Dryads finally after 2 rounds of doing no wounds on the spawn, do 3 wounds in one round of combat.
In Wild riders combat, the chariot plows through the wild riders with 6 impact hits and the 4 attacks kills all 5 wild riders. His Hero is all that is left and facing 2 minotaurs, we chop him down. Chariot for some reason overruns, through the woods and takes a wound doing that. Brain fart I thought it was his turn next.

Hero on eagle charge the chariot, and in a display of ineptitude manage 2 wounds on the chariot, and I save 1. I go after the general and with 4 attacks, manage to kill him. The eagle loses and flees. chariot pursues but doesn't catch him.

Turn 4b: Chariot charges fleeing eagle, who doesn't fly very far and I catch him. I move the 4 minotaurs up with the chariot. We are going to kill something.
Magic kills a few archers in 1 unit and does a wound on the treekin.
Chariot runs around woods, 4 Minotaurs turn around.
3 Minotaurs move up to face the treekin.

Turn 5a: He moves around some, backs up some. Moves dryads up by the pyramid.
Then in a display of archery, puts 11 wounds on the 4 minotaurs. The last one makes his panic check.

Turn 5b: Chariot charges wardancer unit. Chariot charges scout archers.
I was going to have herd go after dryads by pyramid, but fails unruly and runs towards treekin. Not good.

Magic kills off more in same archer unit, they are down to 3 and panic and run.
Wind of death gives me 8 hits on the treekin with no wounds.
chariot plows down archers killing them all.
Chariot kills all but 1 wardancer even with his 4+ ward. He looses by 3, so needing a 5 not to break, he gets it. If he fails, I wipe him out and run off the board to safety.

Turn 6a: Wardancers charge flank of chariot, wipe it out. Archers shoot herd, but only kill a couple.
Treekin won't take the bait and back up.

Turn 6b: Everyone is out of range, so I capture table quarters, and pyramid and set up for double magic missile's on archer unit with mage. I do 5 wounds and he makes his panic check.

End of the game. We add it up and I have 2060 points to his 1880 points. It is a bloody, bloody battle that ends in a draw.

The turn 3 charges should have won me the game, but his wardancers holding on a 4, then holding on turn 5 with a 5 kept him in it. If he fails either of those, I win the game.

Ton of fun, with a beautiful army that was played very well.

Result was a draw so 1-0-1 going into the final round.
We find out only one player is 2-0 and 4 of us are at 1-0-1.

Game 3 coming soon.

Until then...

Battle in the Desert Report game 1

I took my Doombull army to the Battle in the Desert tourney yesterday. It was a relatively small tournament with 12 players, 3 rounds.

The tournament itself was fantastic. Every table was set up with desert terrain features from Pyramids and Sphinx models, to oasis, tents, obelisks, and other desert type terrain. Every table looked like you stepped into Egypt.

Each table was a different scenario. So the table you played on determined the scenario you were playing.

My list consisted of:
Ratspawn, Doombull, Undivided, hvy armor, Sword of Might
Level 2 shaman, staff of Darkoth, dispel scroll
Level 2 shaman, bray staff, dispel scroll
Level 2 shaman, bray staff, dispel scroll

5 Minotaurs undivided, standard, great weapons
4 Minotaurs undivided, great weapons
4 Minotaurs undivided, great weapons
3 Minotaurs undivided, great weapons
3 Minotaurs undivided, great weapons

6 Chaos Hounds
5 Chaos Hounds
5 Chaos Hounds
2 Beast chariot
2 Herds, 7 Gors, 6 Ungors, full commands

5 Chaos furies
2 Spawn mark of slaanesh

Game 1: This table had a Wall of Kings on my right side. It was impassable, so you were destroyed if you fled into it. But if you were fleeing towards nearest table edge, you would not go towards it.
On the left side was a river that ran almost the entire length of the table. And was difficult terrain. 2 small walls were at the edge of my opponents deployment zone in the middle.

And fitting enough I was facing a Tomb King army.
He had from my left to right:
3 chariots
Big spear unit of 24 skeletons with Tomb King
3 carrion
Skull chucker catapult
20 Archers with Heirophant lich priest
10 archers with lich priest
Another big unit of 24 skeletons with Tomb Prince
Bone Giant
3 chariots

And 2 tunnel markers for his 2 tomb scorpions in the middle, closer to my side.

Turn 1: He moved almost nothing except his 3 carrions into the middle of the board.
He then shot twice with the catapult and missed the first time and kills a single fury with the 2nd shot. His magic and archers did nothing.

Turn 1b: I move a herd up in the river towards his chariots. A spawn and 3 Minotaurs are also moving up that side.
I have 2 hound units charge the carrion. 1 fails its fear test on Ld 9, but the other makes it and kills off the carrion in 2 rounds of combat without losing a hound.
On the right side I have a unit of 3 Minotaurs on the far right facing off his 3 chariots and my 2 chariots beside him. The 2nd herd is there for magical support.
My furies fly in behind his carrion. Due to some impassable terrain there, nothing could charge them.

Turn 2: Again, not much movement. Scorpions do not show up. His Giant moves up some. He shoots his catapult and misfires. So cannot shoot this magic phase, or his shooting phase.
His archers do almost nothing.

Turn 2b: Furies charge the catapult. Kill 2, win, the other crumbles, I destroy the catapult and fly behind his lines. Ouch he is not happy.
I line up my minotaurs to charge his chariots. I also line up minotaurs to charge his archer units with the lich priests. Spawn is moving up on skeletons with tomb king. I place some Minotaurs behind a wall, so I can still get off the flank charge on them if they charge.
My herd on the right fails its unruly and runs up close to the giant.

In magic I do a wound to his chariot on the far right.

Turn 3a: one scorpion comes up, he decides to hold off charging. Nothing near it that can charge it.
3 chariots into Minotaurs on the right. I flee 3", but still manage to get away, so the chariots fail their charge.
He doesn't charge the giant into my herd that I thought he would. He is trying to keep his battle line in tact.
He wants to move his lich priests behind his lines, but I kindly remind him my furies are hanging back there. So he reforms his 20 archers into a block, but has to keep the Lich priest at the front. He moves the 2nd lich priest into the block with the prince for more protection.

He tries some magical charges, but I shut him down except for 1 on his far left chariots. I let it go. He charges my minotaurs about 13" away, so I figure as long as I roll 3" or more I'm fine. Of course on 2d6 I roll 2" and they are cut down. But my herd makes their panic check. Whew!!

Turn 3b: Herd into flank of the chariots. Chariots into his far right chariots.
Minotaurs into his archers with the Heirophant Lich Priest. Spawn into the rear of the far left chariots in combat with the herd which makes its fear test.
The fleeing minotaurs rally.
I do a wound on the giant with magic.
In combat, the far left chariots suffer 4 wounds and with the rest of my combat res, the chariots crumble.
On the far right only 1 of my beast chariots makes its fear test so charges the 3 chariots. But with impact hits and regular strikes I manage 5 wounds plus the 1 wound from magic earlier, and I kill 2 of the 3. He does nothing back and crumbles. The chariot moves out of the charge arc of the giant.
And finally the big one, the 4 Minotaurs charged the archers behind a wall. So the archers swung first, doing only a single wound. I kill 4 archers and then do 2 wounds to the heirophant killing him. I win combat, and he begins to crumble.

Turn 4a: More crumbling. 2nd scorpion pops up, both charge rear of Ratspawns unit of 5 minotaurs. He does only 1 wound. I do 6 wounds back and he crumbles to dust.
Giant charges hounds who flee leaving the giant hanging badly. He is afraid to do anything with the Tomb King and Tomb princes unit.
Minotaurs fighting the archers, kill another 8 and the rest of the unit crumbles.

Turn 4b: Ratspawn and unit into the giant with a chariot in the flank. Kills the giant outright. Minotaurs into flank (only 3 left) of the small unit of archers, kill them all.

I now have the Tomb Prince unit completely surrounds with Minotaurs on every side except the rear where a chariot is ready to plow in.
The tomb kings unit is in a really bad position with a spawn on its flank and 4 Minotaurs ready to hop a wall to get to its flank. And those are the only 2 units he has left.

He concedes the game at this point.

My opponent had some really bad luck luck with his dice and was really hesitant on what to do. He was just not ready for a wall of beef with great weapons running at him like that. It was like looking at a deer in the headlights. I felt pretty bad for the guy. He was a great sport about it, and went on to win his other 2 games.
I just think the Doombull list was something he had never played against before.
And once the furies punched through the catapult, he had NO where to hide those Lich priests where they would be safe.

The river was also a huge advantage for me as I could move my herd down there trying to get to the flank of the chariots without fear of them charging me.
I also felt he deployed really poorly.

But great game for Ratspawn and company.

Round 2 coming Soon.

Ben

What a great weekend

Damn what a great weekend this was. Sometimes the stars align and everything goes right for you in one weekend. Well except for a couple of really minor things, this weekend was just about as good as anyone could expect.

Starting off with Friday, had a nice relaxing evening of Sci-Fi television. Bionic Woman, Odyssey 5, Flash Gordon. The 2 min clip of Battle star that was really cool, and then Stargate Atlantis to round out the evening.
We paused it for around 45 mins, and got some stuff around the house, which for me was working on my Centaur army. Got 2 guys finished this weekend and another 2 about 3/4 finished. Then when you watch it, you jump right over the commercials. Damn I love that.

Odyssey 5 is a cool little show that is several years old. Must have been made for a cable channel as they have to bleep out all the F bombs they drop. ;-) Sci-Fi channel has picked it up and started it back at the beginning agin. It has a really neat concept. They are on a space mission when the Earth is destroyed. They are about to run out of oxygen when they are rescued by an alien life form. He can take a copy of their brains and paste that into their bodies 5 years in the past.

So this crew of 5 people have 5 years to figure out who destroyed the Earth and try to stop it. Acting isn't bad, and writing is pretty good. I'm anxious to see where the show goes.

Saturday: Soccer game with the kids, and my little guys played great. Tim had 2 shots on goal and both barely missed. He made 3 saves as goalie and we won the game 4-0.
Then onto Tim's school carnival where we had a good time. And Tim had a blast, playing games, winning prizes, and decent carnival food. Didn't win the cake walk, but you can't have everything. ;)

Saturday evening we watched a Sci-Fi movie "Premonition". I love Sandra Bullock and she did a good job in the movie. But I have some real problems with the writing of the movie. I'll do a full review later. Suffice it to say this was probably the low point of the weekend.

Sunday I had a Warhammer Tournament, where I got to play 3 great games of Warhammer. I'll do a full battle report later, but had a great time.
Got home and watched the Cowboys beat the Vikings. Its great when you record the game. I can watch the whole game in about an hour or just over.
and finally my Fantasy team won again, giving me a record of 6-1 for the season. Still in a 3 way tie for first place.

Until next time...

The Twins of Khorne

Well I have started working on my new army, and I'm ready to announce it to the world. Or that very small percentage that read this blog.

My next army will be entirely a Centaur army. It will be Chaos Mortals list of Khorne.

I am using the Confrontation line of models that have some Kelt Centaurs.
They have a special character model. I have acquired 2 of these. They will be the Twins of Khorne and will be my 2 exalted heroes on chaos steeds.

A friend of mine, Bret Amundson painted 1, and he will be my general. I will try and paint the rest of my army up to this level.
Here are a couple of pics:


And here he is from the side:


I have just now acquired the rest of the miniatures to finish the project.
They have 3 different poses for their older Kelt Centaurs, and I have used those for my Chaos knights.

They have now discontinued those models and put out a box set that comes with 3 different models all in different posses and they can have an assortment of weapons from Bows, to small axes to spears.

A little creativity, green stuff, bits and imagination and I have the following army list:

2 Exalted Heroes
4 units of 5 Chaos Khorne Knights, standards, musicians
4 units of 5 Chaos Marauder Horsemen with flails, throwing axes and musicians.
2 units of 6 Centigors with spears, shields, throwing axes and musicians
2 units of 5 DoW Fast Cavalry with Bows, shields, musicians

Total of 64 models. I'll be running this army in my upcoming league while I try and get it painted. I'll be posting pics as I finish building the army and paint them.

I hope you enjoy it.

Until next time...

Halloween, oh the bother!!

I can't believe how stressed out I was about Halloween this year. For the first time in many, many years, my family and I were invited to a costume party. Some friends of ours are having it and it is a family thing, so kids will be there as well. Their son is one of Tim's best friends, so he is really looking forward to it.

We had a hard time trying to figure out what we wanted to dress up as. We decided a group theme was important and it is something Tim would want to do. Tim wanted to do Star Wars, but Marilyn had no real desire to be a Star Wars character.

As it turns out, she has recently been hooked into a show on the Sci-Fi station that we never watched in its 10 years of running, Stargate SG-1. We watched the original movie and I loved it, we even have the DVD and I've seen it probably 6-10 times. But for some reason, we never got into the TV show. Well, Marilyn is now into it deep. She watches it 5 times a week and wants the entire DVD collection so we can watch the entire series from start to finish.

So when I brought up the idea that we go as the SG-1 team for the party, she was all over that. Took a bit of convincing to get Tim into it, but he is now all ready as well.

So now you have to worry about cost. How much is too much to spend on Halloween costumes? When you are buying stuff from scratch for 3 people, the cost can skyrocket really fast. We decided a budget of $150 was enough, but we knew we might have to go to $200.

First thing we did was started looking at pictures of the SG-1 team that were posted on the internet. As it turns out, they didn't wear the same outfits from show to show. Similar to real military, it varied from mission to mission depending on the terrain. Everything from the basic olive green to desert cammo gear. Boots, pants, belts, shirts, hats, vests, weapons, etc...

The list was long and expensive to do a full mock up of their attire. We decided a more non-combat mission was in order. We picked their most common attire which was the solid olive green. And we decided to leave off any vests and weapons. I had boots as did Marilyn and Tim could wear his sneakers. But the most important part had to be the Stargate patches they wear on their shirts.

Careful study of several dozen pictures and we came up with the following. They wear a Stargate world project patch that looks like this:


It goes on the left arm just below the shoulder.

There is then the SG-1 team patch that goes on the right shoulder.



There was also another patch of air force wings under the team patch, but it was only there about 50% of the time, but we decided to get it also if available.

Onto getting the items. We found the patches on the SG-1 website but at $9 a piece, for 9 patches, we were looking at $81, this seemed ridiculous to us.
I then found someone on eBay selling them for sets of 3 for $10. OMG!! This was such a deal, but they were in England and with only 2 weeks till the party, I was afraid it was going to be a problem. I emailed her right away and she informed me there was a huge postal strike going on as well. Nix that seller.
I found another guy who said he could get them, but at $6 a patch, we decided to nix the air force wings and just go with the 2 main patches. Still looking at $36 but not that bad.

In the mean time I head to the local Army & Navy store to find the green shirts, pants, belts and hats. That is when I saw the $25 per shirt and $25 per pants cost. There was our $150 budget already and we hadn't even gotten the hats, belts or patches yet. So the next step, we dropped the pants and belts. These costumes are getting slimmed down fast, but bluejeans would probably be more comfortable anyway.

So I picked up 3 shirts at $25 a piece and 3 army baseball type hats at $5 each. Major Carter in the series wore this specific type a lot as did Dr. Jackson. Col. O'Niell usually wore a more traditional baseball cap, but we decided looking the same here was OK, and we went with that look.

Tuesday comes and goes, no word on the patches.
Wednesday comes and goes, no word on the patches.
Thursday comes and no word on the patches. I email my supplier and ask what is up. I have only 9 days till the party and no word yet.

As it turns out, he doesn't have the patches, they never came in and he is not sure when he will get them. His mail comes at 3:30, he will let me know.
So I find another supplier. Patches will be $7 a piece. Ouch. Up to $42. So I email him and ask him how he wants to do this, since he didn't have three of each patch listed on eBay. Buying my time until 3:30.

3:30 comes and goes, no message. 4 PM comes and goes, no message. 4:30, I email him, whats up, did they come. He answers pretty quick. Sorry No patches. Great.

Email my backup supplier, I need to do this today. No response still. Its been almost 5 hours.

I go online and find a real distributer. A great little online store called the Intergalactic Trading Company. You need anything Sci-Fi and they got it. You can buy anything there. They had all the patches and also at $7 a piece. So still $42 but at least I can just go online and buy them. So I do and pay. Get my confirmation. I email them and ask how fast they will get out. 8 days and counting and Marilyn still has to have time to sew them on.

No email this morning from them, and I'm starting to get nervous. Sometimes stores can take their times getting things out the door. I go back to their website and start scanning every bit of fine print I can find about their shipping policies. Then I find it. Usually ships in 2 business days and then 3-9 days for delivery. Ouch. This fell outside the range of the party. What was a guy to do???

So the next step, find a phone number. I do and its even an 800 number. A quick phone call and I talk to a very nice young man who said because of Halloween, he had come in today and already had my order printed off and it was going in the mail today. HUZZAAAA!!! Victory is ours. With any luck the patches will be here Monday or Tuesday at the latest.

Total cost was pants: $75, Hats: $15, patches: $42. Total cost: $132. And even with tax and shipping costs we were just under the $150 budget.

So with any luck, we will be all dressed up as SG-1 in a week and ready for some serious partying.

Until next time...

The House doesn't screw it up

I promised not a lot of politics, but I'm glad the House got this right. Or should I say, they didn't screw things up worse even when they tried.

We already have an SCHIP program in place. Lots of kids are covered, some even that really shouldn't be. I mean come on, if I don't buy insurance to cover my family and something happens, I don't put my hand out and expect you guys to pay for it.

The Democrats spent the last 24 hours parading up a lot of kids and families in front of congress in hopes to sway some votes to override the president's veto.

Problem is, everyone they showed and used (yes used) is already covered by the program and will already continue to be covered by the program.

What was vetoed was the EXPANSION of this program to cover a family of 4 who make up to $86,000 a year.

Excuse me, since when does anyone who makes 80 grand a year really need a handout.
In addition, there is very little to no asset checking in this program. If I'm a millionaire, but only made $30K last year because I was lazy and didn't really like to work, I'd qualify. Even if I owned a ton of property, cars, jewelry, traveled heavily and had a wad of cash that would allow me to easily pay for my kids health care in the bank. My kids would be covered.

And finally, they were expanding it to include many adults as well, though I don't know all the specifics on that. It was tough to get the real scoop on that. Even though its a Childs health Care plan.

This expansion was a bad idea, it was simply the foundation laid for socialized medicine. Another trillion dollar government program with an endless bureaucratic money pit, that will continue to grow forever. Once in place it would only be a nudge to push everyone into it except the rich. Then we would have 2 health care systems. The huge monster congress created that anyone who makes under $100K will have to use. It will be horrible with huge waits, and terrible care.

And another set of doctors that will only be available to the really rich.
Guess which one your US Congress will be using.

Thanks house for not screwing things up.

On TVs and TV Shows

Over the summer I had my older 60" big screen TV go out on me. Just plop, stopped working. So we did some research and I got myself a very nice 52" Wide screen LCD HD TV. Very sweet indeed and I really love the picture I get.

Add this on top of the excellent selection of TV shows that are on the TV over the last couple of years and I watch, WAAAYYYY too much TV.

Some of my top shows of the year:
Heroes: Damn if this isn't the best TV show that has been on, ever. I love the characters, the writers, the acting, the story. Just damn. I love all the powers these guys come up with. I knew Sylar lived at the end of last season when it showed an overhead shot and his body was gone, but they sure brought him back quick. Other than that, what can you complain about.

Chuck is one of my new favs this year. Zachary Levi as Chuck is great. Yvonne Strahovski is so hot it just hurts and Josh as Morgan is hilarious as that weird friend you just can't get rid of. Great crew, great writers. Great chemistry.

Pushing Daisies. This is a very strange new dark comedy that I don't expect to make it more than a year or two. But so far, it is just genius. Check it out.

Sci-Fi never fails to give me some lower tier shows that I enjoy.
Bionic woman: While actually on another network, I watch it on Sci-Fi Friday nights. Its a fun little show that will be canceled. No real chemistry, too much weird stuff going on, but is fun to watch.

Flash Gordon: Love this new little show. Too bad the acting is sub-par and some of the "situations" are a bit silly as well as some responses. Sometimes the scene just changes with no explanation how they got out of the highest security city in the universe, how a total stranger to our world found his son in a few hours, things like that, but oh well. I love the concept, the chemistry is good, with good casting and some of the stories are fun. They need to tighten up the story writing. Hope it makes it another year or 2.

Best TV show I miss that didn't make it back.
Dresden files. Really sad to hear this one wasn't coming back. I really enjoyed it, I thought the writing was top notch, the acting was good, special affects were good and the whole idea excellent.

Well, thats enough TV talk for now. What are some of your fav TV shows?

Until next time...

Welcome Back

I have decided I still have a lot more to say, so I am going to keep the Blog going. It will not be as dedicated to Warhammer as it once was, but it will still have a lot of Warhammer in it.

Instead the blog will be more geared towards just Sci-Fi and Fantasy pursuits, TV shows, games, movies and other hobbies of mine. I might even throw in a smattering of politics on occasion. But I'll try to keep those to a minimum. I know not all of you are as enlightened as I am about that topic.

Since my last blog entry I've attended another Warhammer Grand Tournament, the Lone Wolf GT in Dallas. I had a very respectable 4-1 record and took home the 3rd best general trophy. I played my Rat Ogre Beast army who's pics you can find through the archives in my blog. I also came in 4th place in the voting for players choice, missing out on 3rd place by a single vote.

Some notables from the tournament.
Round 1: Faced off with a Tomb King player and cleared the board of the undead by turn 4.

Round 2: Verse a Dwarf player with the anvil. He complained about how it always blows up on him, only to have it work perfectly throughout the entire game even getting off a master Wrack and Rune that almost pulled out the game for him. But a badly timed panic check failure on Ld 10 on his iron-breakers, won me the game.

Round 3: Faced off against an Empire Stank and Walter combo. Very nasty but they were about the only thing worth while left on the board at the end, and I got the win. Lucky for me a streak of multiple 1's rolled in 1 turn saved me the game as cannon balls bounced off of Ratspawn's chest and his Priest couldn't make a 2+ armor save.

Round 4: Lined up against my Nemesis, David Long. He played a slightly weaker version of his High Elf army with only a level 4 wizard instead of the level 4 and level 2 combo I faced and lost to in Houston this year. Also in round 4. This game was just as tactical as the last couple, but a BSB charge into my spawn where he whiffs, I win combat and chase him down, changed the game. A couple of other minor mistakes sealed the deal and I finally beat David after 3 games.

Round 5: So I'm on table 1 at 4-0 verse a Bretonian player with 5 lances of knights. Some outstanding dice rolling on his part, so very inopportune rolling on my part on a couple of panic checks, some stupid moves on my part at the end of the game and my opponent beat me pretty soundly. This game could have gone so differently if I'd only done a couple things differently. Oh well.

My round 5 opponent picked up the Best general trophy and a good friend of mine Rick Thompson who went 5-0 also and was on table 2, took Best overall.

Whats coming up for me in the Warhammer world you ask?

Well, lots really.
1. I have a small 12 man "Meet in the Desert" tournament this Sunday.
2. I've started a new army and lots of pics will be posted here as it slowly evolves.
3. My Warhammer league is right around the corner.
4. The new Warhammer on line game is gearing up for startup in about 6 months. I've been looking forward to this for 3 years.

Until next time...

Welcome Back.