Many a weekend of my youth was spent in an arcade playing racing games, they were for a very long time my favourite genre of games.
Believe you me, if I had the space and money, I would have a racing sim rig in the house, at the moment, I don’t even have a basic wheel!
But that aside, my favourite games that I played at home, were Outrun and Road Rash, beautiful games which just were so much fun.
And that’s where 80’s Overdrive comes in, its a 2D pixelart racing game, that evokes memories of Outrun.
Now lets start with this, I didn’t go out of my way to buy this game, I got it in a mystery bundle with Fanatical a few weeks ago, and I thought it looked ok and I might try it eventually.
But when I got my Steam Deck and fired it up, the first game in my Great on Deck section of the Library, was this game and I thought, why not just install it to give it a try.
And I am glad I did, its a very enjoyable game, mostly.
Its very 80s, like super 80s and its unashamedly so, in all its artwork, and its excellent soundtrack, which I am actually annoyed isn’t available.
So I spent a total of 5 hours and 36 minutes playing this game, mostly in career mode, which was fun, I liked the management aspect, upgrading your car, keeping it fueled and repaired.
But after a while, it started to get a bit dull, and to be honest at that point, I was mostly working towards the various achievements, I think if these were lacking, I would have stopped playing after a couple of hours.
The most annoying aspect was that no matter what you did, you could never get ahead of the other cars enough so that if you crashed, or were forced off the road by another driver or police car, you had zero chance of winning and you were better off restarting the race.
There were also missions, which were ok, and I enjoyed them, the finish ahead of such and such a racer seemed moot because you were already going to be trying your best to win.
I am glad it only cost me 95p, because I don’t think I would pay £8.99, its not that its not a good game, it just feels like an incomplete experience and it could do with more work to make it a better experience.
I would absolutely look at a sequel, because I think the bones of this are good, it just needs, a bit more, like the ability to retry failed missions, or reducing the rubber banding.
£4 would be a fair price I think, but I would pay £8.99 for the soundtrack, which is amazing!
I think in fairness, I can only give this game 6.5 out of 10.
Due to illness, the May update kinda ended up getting forgotten about, but hey lets not let that be an issue, and even this update is very late!
Build & Paint a 2000 Points Army of Drukhari – 22.75% Complete
We got the Raider finished, but due to the points in the new edition the Wych detachment is now 45pts short of 500 🙁
But the next step is the Kabal detachment, which will be as follows
Archon - 85
Drazhar - 105
Kabalite Warriors x 10 - 120
Incubui x 5 - 85
Raider - 90
Ravager - 95
Total - 580
So once done that should give me a total size of 1035!
Build & Paint a 500 Points Combat Patrol of Genestealer Cultists – o% Complete
The new points means what I have is now 340pts, so to get these back to 500 I will be adding Atalan Jackals and a Achillies Ridgerunner at some point!
Build & Paint a 2000 Points Combat Patrol of Tyranids – 27% Complete
We have painted a Parasite of Mortrek, and this is now a 2000 point army project thanks to Leviathan, so lets take a look at what we are thinking for this army!
I actually managed to get all 19 models painted up on the day, and I am so happy about that!
Although I was absolutely shattered afterwards, but I raised £195 for The Willow Foundation, and if you want to add to that, you can here.
So I am very very happy, more details about the models in the next section.
But a special shoutout to Megan and Lindsay who really helped get me through it, particularly Megan given that it was a sad anniversary, but you guys are amazing!
And Paul helped too with his micky taking in the first couple of hours!
So next years challenge will be happening and I am gonna have a good think on what to paint for that closer to the time!
What I Am Modelling
Most of the week was dominated by the 24 hour charity stream and I painted the Drukhari Combat Patrol.
I managed to get it all done which I was super happy with, and even had 25 minutes to spare!
Hopefully it will be here by the weekend, its already been dispatched and is in the hands of GLS right now!
In the meantime, I grabbed a 1TB Corsair MP600 Mini, a 256GB Micro SD Card and a JSAUX Screen Protector to upgrade the deck a little bit from its 64GB of storage and protect it a little bit.
As with most years recently, other than 2023, I am going to paint this weekend for 24 hours,this time to try and paint a Drukhari Combat Patrol in 24 hours!
I am aiming to raise £100 for the Willow Foundation, a charity that’s very very close to my heart.
I am going to be painting this weekend from 10pm on Friday night to 10pm Saturday night, so it would be great if you could drop by and hang out, and if you believe in the cause, drop a few quid in.
The Willow Foundation is an amazing charity that does special days for very ill young people, and made my friend Lees last days very happy, and his family and friends continue to raise money for the charity with LeeStock, an amazing festival in Suffolk.
But let me let the Willow Foundation tell their story in their own words.
At Willow we believe in quality of life and quality of time. Willow is the only national charity working with seriously ill young adults aged 16 to 40 to fulfil uplifting and unforgettable Special Days. This year we hope to fulfil 1,400 Special Days – a day to anticipate, to share and to remember when happy memories really do count. Sadly for some, it’s a last chance to fulfil a dream with the people that really matter. Thankfully for many more their Special Day is an important opportunity to put much-needed normality back into living.
To give to my fundraiser, visit this link, and you will be able to follow along on Twitch.
What I Am Modelling
I started off by painting the Catacomb Command Barge for the Necrons
I finished listening to The Helwinter Gate by Chris Wraight, got to admit the trilogy started off rough, but was absolutely phenomenal by the end, I hope to hear more from the pack in the future!
I took a lot of injuries in the game, like 4 players got taken out of the match in the end!
At one point I had only one players on the field!
What Video Games I Am Playing
Mostly The Witcher 3, I finished Hearts of Stone in it and am now working on Blood and Wine.
What I Am Creating
The latest episode of Edge of Empire has landed, both in audio and on YouTube!
What I Am Winning
Won a prize on Twitter, a new Western Digital 1TB M.2 NVME SSD, along with a Genshin Impact mousemat and a muscular bunny who looks a bit like my bunny Angron, Eater of Cables!
I am also backing the Jon Hodgson Backgrounds Book campaign, but undecided if I want to go with the Sci-Fi book or the original book, very torn on that one!
Ok this has been a long update, my health and metal capabilities have been in the damn toilet, but better later thane never!
It was a really fun weekend and I spent it demoing games on the Star Wars games, moving between being a stand greeter, Shatterpoint, Legion, X-Wing and the Deck Building game, all of which are a hell of a lot of fun.
Myself, Lindsay and Sean came down by car on the Thursday night, and got to Birmingham, around 9:30ish and we got a Dominos and hung out.
The hotel is fine, its not the best hotel, but it was okay, the biggest gripe was breakfast which had zero diabetes friendly option, but I was able to remedy that by buying some Wheetbix of my own.
It was a really fun if exhausting weekend, and once I get paid at the end of July, I am hoping to buy a Steam Deck, depending if its even in stock, cause that’s been a huge issue in the past few months 4.
I actually came away with the belief that this was the best UK Games Expo I have been to since before the plague, yes a few minor niggles, but actually really positive, probably helped by having an awesome stand manager and an absolutely brilliant team to work with.
Cannot wait for next year!
What I Am Modelling
I started off by finishing my scenery for the Imperium table, first up was the Haemotrope Reactor.
I also listened to Blightslayer by Richard Strachan, which is rather good, I had feared the loss of Maleneth but Amara isn’t a bad character, but I am still sad at losing the Witch Aelf.
Blitzer x 2
Gutter Runner x 2
Rat Ogre
Skaven Clanrat Linemanx 5
Thrower
Re-Roll x 3
What Video Games I Am Playing
Bit more time on The Witcher 3 as I start on the DLC.
I also started playing Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun on stream, and that’s a lot of fun!
Also played a bit of Control on Stream too.
What I Am Creating
The second battle report of 2023 is out, and its Dropfleet Commander!!!
The new 40K podcast from the Edge of Empire team is here, its currently lacking a title, but here is our first episode!
What I Am Winning
Its been a minute, but I won these Govee gaming lights back in March, and they arrived this week, and will be getting installed on Megan’s desk in the next few days!
I finally got my hands on Kâhl Yôht Grendok, he took a bit to get made, but he is here now and I quite like him, cannot wait to get him built and painted!
This is a long delayed battle report, and I am very sorry its taken so long, was a bit of a case of lining things up and developing a new workflow that didn’t need days to edit a single report!
Figured it out now, so I have to catch up in order to meet my resolution requirements!
Anyway, enjoy!
Fleet Lists
United Colonies of Mankind
Line Battlegroup
Strategy Rating: 5
1 X Rio
Vanguard Battlegroup
Strategy Rating: 12
1 X Moscow
2 X New Orleans
Pathfinder Battlegroup
Strategy Rating: 7
2 X Toulon
1 X Berlin
The Scourge
Pathfinder Battlegroup 1
Strategy Rating: 7
1 X Ifrit
2 X Harpy
Line Battlegroup 1
Strategy Rating: 5
1 X Wyvern
Vanguard Battlegroup 1
Strategy Rating: 12
2 X Gargoyle
1 X Shenlong
These two fleets are made up of models you can find in the Dropfleet Commander boxset from TT Combat, and you can get yourself a copy from Element Games for just £54 and start playing with everything you need!
Alternatively, my old Air Cadet buddy runs Extra Fox Games on eBay where he sells it for £54.49 and helps him out, plus has free postage!
So here is an important disclaimer which is always important to put out there first. I have a casual work contact with Asmodee to demonstrate board games for them in stores and at conventions. Asmodee being the parent company of Aconyte the publisher.
I am going to try my best to not let that cloud my judgement in this review, but I accept that subconsciously it might.
What is Arkham Horror
Anyway that put to one side, let’s look at this book, by first looking at the game Arkham Horror which is a cooperative game, originally designed by Richard Launius, and is now in its third edition which was released in 2019.
It’s published by Fantasy Flight Games, a subsidiary of Asmodee, and is set in 1926 in the town of Arkham, Massachusetts. Each player takes on the role of an investigator, who are working to stop the Ancient Ones, eldritch horrors which lurk in the void beyond space and time.
It’s a 1-6 player game and you work together to gather clues and defeat the evil of the Ancient Ones and save the world.
As I said I haven’t actually played Arkham Horror but I do own its spin off Elder Sign the cooperative dice game.
The Story
In this story we find Professor Miranda Ventham, seriously ill with TB as she books herself into the Stroud Institute, a new sanatorium with a new modern way to treat the disease and heal the patients of Arkham.
But dreams, bad dreams plague Miranda, and she cannot quite shake the feeling that something is wrong, deeply wrong with the Stroud Institute, especially with its mysterious director, Donovan Stroud.
With help from her friend, the parapsycholist Agatha Crane, they work to unravel the mystery of the Stroud Institute, in an investigation that takes them from Arkham, to Scotland and into the heart of the mysterious labyrinth, and the sinister secrets it holds, that is longing to be set free.
Conclusion
This is a subtle book, there aren’t many cultists or monsters as with most Arkham Horror books, but a look at the blurring between dreams and reality with a smattering of Romantic poetry and a look at 1920s health care.
I have been very critical in the past of David Annadales books, but I must admit his Arkham Horror stuff is very good, in fact its probably his strongest stuff and this shows off what he does well, brilliantly. Its a subtle type of horror, almost insidious and it feels like its getting under your skin.
For me this book feels like an idea way to get into the Arkham Horror series, its not too in depth, but touches on and introduces key concepts in the series and the wider Lovecraft mythos is a way that is very apporachable.
The protagonists are really rather good, and I hope to see their further adventures in the future.
One negative, that very nearly had me give up right at the beginning, the prologue is set in Scotland and the local priest is involved, and the locals refer to him as a Vicar, and that annoyed me, because there is not a chance in hell a Scotsman in any day or age will use that word for a priest, and it did destroy any chance of immersion in that prologue and made me feel like the book was going to have been very poorly researched. It just felt lazy, so please rectify that for the next printing, that needs changing to minister, or rector.
But the thing is, the book is incredible well researched, I found myself checking things about the treatment of TB and yeah, they really did stuff like that, so gah, why do I let myself get obsessed over little things like that!
Regardless of that tiny issue, I really loved this book, incredibly good story and its so well written and flows really well.
4 out of 5 stars!
In the Coils of the Labyrinth is out now as a paperback, eBook or audiobook!
The other weekend we had our friend Iain, a fellow games demonstrator, down from Scotland to play Firefly: The Game, which is one of our favourite board games!
So we took the whole day had snacks planned out and we laid out our Whole Damn ‘Verse Mat, and set up all the contact and supply decks and just played a very basic game, in which the aim was to raise $12,000!
For ships, Iain took the Artful Dodger, Lindsay captained Jetwash, Megan sailed on the Emeralda and I was lugging around the S.S. Walden from Pirates & Bounty Hunters.
So there were some interesting differences in our tactics, I went for slow and steady with lots of space for cargo and passengers, Iain went for speed and more crew space, Lindsay wanted a fast ship with some tricks and Megan opted for a ship that could carry people who didn’t want any Alliance entanglements.
We had a great time and played for a good number of hours, but in the end, of course Megan won, me and Iain were quite close with just $200 between us, and Lindsay ended up with no meney!
Well let’s be honest, there were a lot of issues, huge numbers of them, and let me be frank about the biggest issue, the shop.
The shop is something that GW should be able to and can do well, at the UK Games Expo last year they had a far bigger presence and more stock, what they had in Manchester was small and focused on a few stands.
The queue to pay was 90 minutes long, there was very very little third party licenced stuff, a few McFarlane and JoyToy figures, a small selection of the Cubicle 7 RPGs and a limited number of art prints.
So no board games, clothing, dice bags, posters, phone cases, mugs, notebooks etc
It felt very lacking in terms of that stuff.
There were a few gaming stalls and credit to them, they put on an amazing show, but because they were one of the few things there, the queues were mental.
Never got a chance to try Boltgun, but I am gonna preorder it anyway, the community lass from Tacticus convinced me to give it a go, and it’s actually pretty good.
Warpforge seems a lot of fun and Horus Heresy Legions is as good as ever.
There was one set of painted models on display for 10th edition 40K, in between the queue for the shop and the queue to try 10th edition, so you could barely get to take a gander at them.
There were 5 tables to try 10th on and a lad I know queued for 4 hours to get a turn at trying it, which if I am honest was ridiculous and a bit of stupid decision, at the Fest when 8th launched there were 20 or 30 tables if I remember correctly.
Its sad cause the last event was so good, and this was just a real let down.
But I still had lots of fun, but that’s cause I got to meet up with people I rarely get to see and play with and in that respect it was good, but still it shouldn’t have been so lacking in content.
Will I go again, depends, if I can get a tournament to play in sure, but if not, perhaps I won’t.
I went and got the Skådis Pegboard from IKEA, well I had them delivered to a local shop, IKEA want 20 notes to deliver to the house, but only £2 to send it to a shop 5 minutes away!!!
First up I had to remove all the controller mounts from the wall, then fill in the holes and paint over them.
This meant the girls insisted that I sort out the cupboard under the stairs, and I will have to take a trip to B&Q to get colour matched paint.
So I started with the cuboard sort, then filled in the holes with the filler and the put the boards up, the bits of filled wall need painting still, but B&Q in Hartlepool is now closed so it’s a trip to Stockton for that!
The pegboard went up pretty easily, I went with the black Skådis, I did consider the Uppspel board with the ROG branding, but that would have been an extra £20 I didn’t fancy spending!
The controllers are now all up, I went with the Skådis hooks to mount them, because it works, mostly.
I did get an Uppspel accessory kit, mostly for the magnetic strip, but the straps are great for holding the NES and SNES controllers, and I plan to get a couple more to hold the PC Engine, CD32, Neo Geo CD and SN30 Pro controllers.
Also, my future Steam Deck may be stored in the board using these straps!
The magnetic strip currently holds a pair of nice braided cables to connect the controllers to the PC directly, one cable is USB C and the other is Micro USB. The WaveBird receiver is also held on it too!
What I Am Modelling
I started out by painting the Imagifier for the Sisters of Battle!
Myself, Graham, Rob and Niall had a game of 30K at Element Games, which was a hell of a lot of fun, and my first time visiting Element in person, and its a really fun place.
