Right now I am on my way to Eastercon, my first since I was 17, and I am really looking forward to it. It’s going to be Lindsay and Megan’s first time at an Eastercon and I hope they have a good time. Megan is very very nervous and anxious, so she is going to be sticking with me and Lindsay for the weekend as opposed to doing anything on her own, so we have arranged our program around her. There is a lot of stuff on my program I am looking forward to, and I am going to try and make time to chill out and listen to some Filk in the jamming space.
Last time I was at an Eastercon I borrowed a bodhrán and had a great time just drumming away on that, so perhaps I might get to do that again. I occasssionly think of buying one, but I am terrible at music so usually don’t proceed beyond putting it in my cart and then immediately closing the browser window.
This year Eastercon is particularly looking at disability in SFF, and I am attending a number of panels around this theme, I am specifically looking forward to “Characters with Disabilities Kicking-Ass” and “Curing Disabled Characters in TV”. We will also be attending a screening of the first episode of the new Season of Doctor Who on Saturday, followed by a pyjama party, for which I have bought myself a new pair of Batman pyjamas! There will also be a groan-a-long viewing of Plan 9 From Outer Space, which should be good, lets face it, it really is the worst film ever made, and Megan and Lindsay will be watching it for the first time.
There is also a 24 hour game room, so Lindsay and Megan aren’t expecting me to get a lot of sleep, I am taking along Splendor, One Night Revolution and Thunderbirds to try and play with people there. Oh and there is a LARP session going on as well, which should be fun, its been a few years since I did any LARP
We stopped off at Warhammer World on our way this morning for breakfast and so I could pick up a few things for people, Graham wanted some Thudd Guns, Aidan some shoulder pads and SOR a t-shirt. It’s always nice to pick up things for people and share the booty from a trip to Nottingham. I picked up a few things for myself but I will talk about those later.
We actually arrived at Warhammer World a full 25 minutes before it opened, I programmed in a much longer stop at Wheterby services for Lindsay to get her coffee, our quick stops there so often turn into a full hour! But this time we were quick, popped into the toilet, I grabbed a doughnut so I could take my pills, Lindsay got her coffee and she and Megan got some mini hash browns from Burger King and away we went!
I had a full English breakfast, they always do a good job of that here, I did want the Ogres Breakfast but Lindsay and Megan said no, apparently it’s too much meat and would make me ill!!! But they did let me have the deluxe Easter hot chocolate as a way which was nice, I would never have thought to put mini eggs in hot chocolate!
What I am Modelling
I have a big pile of stuff to paint so I am cracking on with that, and the first thing that has hit my desk is a squad of Tartaros Terminators for my Word Bearers. These guys are armed with three Power Fists, a Chainfists, Heavy Flamer and the Sgt has a Grenade Harness and a Power Axe. I haven’t got much done with them, I have the base coat of Mephiston Red done, got them washed and one has been tidied up. Alongside them I am also doing the Praetor Tribune as well.
What I am Reading
I listened to Magnus – Master of Prospero by Graham McNeil at the beginning of this week and I was very impressed, I will be giving my thoughts on it in the next Edge of Empire episode which should get released mid-next week so look out for that.
What I am Playing
This week I got in a game of Splendor with Lindsay and Megan, it was our first time playing in a while so I was a little rusty at first but a few turns in and I was back up and playing with ease.
I really enjoy Splendor, I got it in a Secret Santa on Board Game Geek a few years ago and its a firm favourite. I had thought I was won, I claimed 3 of the 4 nobles and when I picked up my last card, I got 16 points and declared myself the winner. I had that feeling for all of 5 seconds, when Megan piped up to say she also had 16 points, she thought we played until 20 points!!!
So my excitement at winning a game was crushed and Megan got to win again!
I still love the game though and I am taking it with us to Eastercon along with Thunderbirds.
What I am Backing
I am still backing Gloomhaven, which is an unusual campaign given that it’s a simple reprinting with no stretch goals or anything like that, but the updates are interesting and I am really looking forward to getting my hands on this.
I am also have a good look at Vikingar, a Canadian project, I am very much on the fence about it, but it’s reasonably cheap at CAD $70 which is about £35ish, anyway I have stared the project and will look at it again in the last 48hrs to decided on if I am backing it or not.
I got three Kickstarters in the post this week, Sliced Quarterly Volume #1, Paranoia and some expansions for Ember.
Sliced Quarterly Volume #1 was a quick turnaround and I am very impressed with the package, the colouring book is so much better than I thought it would be. Lindsay is particularly impressed with the Book Plate I got with it, the otter design really got a smile out of her.
As usual Kens ran a wonderful well oiled campaign and it’s a really nice book, and I will continue to recommend his projects to others, because I think they are worth it.
I have backed all of his projects so far, and I will certainly be backing any others he runs, he has the Kickstarter process down to a well refined machine now.
Paranoia was the first delivery, I pledged for the Ultraviolet boxset with all the add ons. Yesterday I took the first delivery which was the main Ultraviolet boxset, GM Screen, and Forms Pack and I am very impressed, it has quite a bit of heft to it. The books are only A5, but in all honesty I had no expectations about that either way, but a lot of other backers seemed to have been expecting A4, and to be honest since the PDFs were released, its been pretty obvious they would be A5.
In the box we got the Players Handbook, the Gamemasters Handbook, Mission Book, a Guide to Alpha Complex, 6 dry erase character sheets, the cards needed to play and some dice.
Now you can tell that some corners have been cut in final production, for example, the outer covering of the box is not fixed with the kind of attention to detail I expected and the paper in the books is a little thinner than I would have liked. Now saying that, this project went to print late last year and the reality is that the £ was worth a lot less than it was when this project funded, so I am guessing that forced them to make some budgetary decisions that they might not have wanted to do, and the paper isn’t exactly tissue thin, its about as thick as the paper in 5th edition D&D books.
The two areas where they did in my opinion screw up, are the GM Screen and the player dice. The GM screen is pretty poor on the joins between the screen sheets, its just really poor attention to detail and should have been done better, it doesn’t make it unusable, but frankly it looks pretty crap. There are two different dice, we get a 16mm Computer Dice for the GM which is OK I would have preferred the symbols be etched in rather than printed, but they are ok, but the player dice which are 14mm, are really crap. They are the kind of dice one would expect from a really crap supermarket version of Snakes and Ladders, or out of a Christmas cracker, they are just bad, they are cheap and shoddy and they lower the quality of an otherwise pretty good boxset.
Now I understand why they did it, as I said, the financial situation changed between when the game funded and when it went to print, but personally I think they should have tried to do better on the dice, or to be honest, not included them and just gave us the Computer Dice, D6s are easy to come by, every FLGS will sell them to you.
But don’t let those complaints take away from the fact that this is a really good package, if you backed just for this in the Kickstarter it would have cost you £30 which frankly is an amazing deal, I paid £95 simply because I wanted everything they were doing, and James Wallis, the lead writer is a friend and I know and trust his work, yes he took his sweet time with this, but it really was worth it in the end, plus he is going to autograph it at the UK Games Expo in June for me!!!
I also got some expansions for Ember a card game I backed from District 31 games last year, the guy lives in Scarborough so its sort of local, but when we meet him at the UK Games Expo last year his enthusiasm for his game really infected me and Lindsay, so I have backed the two projects he ran for expansions since then. They were From the Ashes, which has he put it, was designed to supercharge Ember, and the to two mini expansions that formed the Light and Dark project.
now the truth be told, I am yet to actually play Ember, but its the guys passion which got me hooked in, I really need to actually get round to playing it as its part of my pile of shame, games that I have yet to play, which i might blog about in a few weeks. Anyway the art in these is lovely and he also included some nice player sheets which list the stages of play, so that will be handy for when I actually get round to playing it.
What I am Spending
This week I have kept my spending small given that I am going to Eastercon. Although when we stopped off at Warhammer World I picked up a few things, I got a Space Wolves Legion transfer sheet, Space Marine Command Tanks, the reprint of Rogue Trader, a Reikland Reavers and a Space Wolves t-shirt, some MKIII Ultramarines shoulder pads, pack of Volkite Chargers and Varag Ghoul-Chewer for my Gouged Eye.
I did take advantage of a £10 off voucher from Warlord Games and ordered my myself a Blitzkrieg German 75mm LeiG 18 light artillery for my early war German army for Bolt Action. I already had one of these, but I bought it before they released a Blitzkrieg version, so it doesn’t really match the rest of the army, but now I have one that will. So at some point I will be selling that one which is currently unbuilt.
I also spent $9.99 on Robots of Unusual Size, the first mission for Paranoia outside the boxset which Kickstarter backers are just getting in their hands now, and from what I have read so far, is a pretty interesting adventure.
Also Thrawn was also released this week and I have had it on preorder for ages, so it was nice to be able to download it and then pop it on my Kobo, not to forget I also got the audiobook as well. I am very much looking forward to reading that, but then again, I have all the new Star Wars cannon books to read still!
In addition, its not really spending, but I did pay for the postage, I have been sent a copy of the Suicide Squad Batman Miniatures Game boxset to review, so look out for that in about a month or so. So yeah I paid for postage for that and I picked it up yesterday.
New Section!!!
I am trying out this new little section below, I am going to try and blog more frequently so this will make a lot more sense, I have pinched the idea from friend Monica Valentinelli‘s blog, which given recent events has got a lot of my attention this week.
So I present to you this section, which may or may not interest you, but who knows eh!
- Mood: Jubilant
- Caffeinated Beverages Consumed: 1, a Sugar Free Mountain Dew
- In My Ears: (It’s Not War) Just The End of Love
- Game Last Played: Ticket to Ride Germany Map
- Book Last Read: Predator, Prey by Rob Sanders
- Movie/TV Show Last Viewed: Suicide Squad Extended Cut
- Current State of Projects: Tartaros Terminators Basecoated