Author: michael Page 9 of 58

Planet Havoc

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On 26th December 2022

In Book Reviews

I have been provided with an advance copy of the new Zombicide Invader book Planet Havoc by Tim Waggoner, published by Aconyte Books, so here is the honest review I promised in exchange for the book.

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.

So let’s crack on with a review then!

What is Zombicide

Zombicide Invader is a co-op adventure game set in a post zombie apocalyptic world, created by Guillotine Games and published by CMON.

Each player controls a survivor, as they look to complete a narrative objective before being overrun by Xenos, who come in various different forms, the more you kill, the more skilled you get and the more Xenos you can kill.

Its a spin off of the popular Zombicide games.

The Story

The story sees a mercenary crew, employed by a new Guild, Leviathan, who aim to plunder the planet of a mysterious new source of fuel.

Upon landing on the planet they discover the neighboring planet was devastated by a vicious race of aliens called the Xenos, potentially linked to the new fuel.

But pursuing the mercenaries is a quarantine ship, who aim to stop them landing on this quarantined world, and preventing them from finding out its secrets.

Conclusion

Right off the bat, I read one chapter, went to sleep, the next night I picked it up intending to read a little bit more and couldn’t put it down and read it until its conclusion.

Its an amazing, well written and fantastic book, filled with wonderful characters, ok the aliens aren’t really zombies, but close enough, they kind of remind me of Tyranids.

The mercenaries have the more colourful variety of characters, but the military aren’t completely without charm.

Look I am not sure what else I can say, its a great book, go buy it and read it, you won’t regret it.

Oh and Tim, sequel???

5 out of 5 stars!

Planet Havoc is out now as a paperback, eBook and audiobook!

Nerdy Musical Advent 2022 – 23rd December – Dancing Baby Groot – Kirby Krackle

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On 24th December 2022

In Nerdy Music Advent

Its been a long time since we featured Kirby Krackle and what better way to do so than we this song about dancing baby Groot!

Lets face it, it was the best MCU post credit scene thus far!

Shadow Avengers

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On 24th December 2022

In Book Reviews

I have been provided with an advance copy of the new Marvel Crisis Protocol book Shadow Avengers by Carrie Harris, published by Aconyte Books, so here is the honest review I promised in exchange for the book.

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 this cloud my judgement in this review, but I accept that subconsciously it might.

What is Marvel

Look at this point I would bore you with a bit of background to the game/universe, but lets not, you all know the Marvel Universe, if you don’t have you been living under a rock!

Marvel Crisis Protocol is a tabletop skirmish miniatures game from Atomic Mass Games based on the Marvel comic characters, with its starter set conations five of the Avengers (Captain America, Captain Marvel, Iron Man, Spider-Man and Black Widow) and five of the Kabel (Barron Zemo, Red Skull, Crossbones, Doctor Octopus and Ultron).

I own the core set and its well worth investing into, if you fancy it you can purchase it from my Element Games affiliate link!

The Story

This novel starts up a few months following the first book in the series Target Kree by Stuart Moore with Doctor Strange having kept a group of heroes, he calls the Shadow Avengers, to investigate and deal with ongoing threat of Dormammu, a mystical being who desires to bring the entire multiverse under his control, and the Aconyte universe is now square in his sights.

The story kicks off with Spider-Man finding Loki and Venom battling around an OSCORP chemical tanker, pumping a strange green goo down into the water supply.

This leads Doctor Strange, Ms. Marvel, Spider-Man, Luke Cage, Black Panther, Wong, and She-Hulk going up against Loki, Venom and the Green Goblin as they investigate a series of mysterious portals opening in Wakonda and New York City, and figure out what these have to do with Dormammu and his sinister plans!

Conclusion

The last book in the series was difficult to review, but as a result it makes this book easier to review, it feels in many ways like the kind of campaign you yourself could play at home, and at the same time, is a really enjoyable story.

Yes, its rather obvious where the story was going, it wasn’t exactly filled with unexpected twists, other than the origin of the stories Asgardians.

But it was very fund to read, very cinematic in nature, and I could easily see this being the novelisation of an animated film, the locations were very well described and I felt like the locations were very real and you could almost feel being in a crocodile filled swamp at one point!

The heart of this book is Ms Marvel, and she really brings out the best aspects of all the charcters, even managing to break through Doctor Strange’s arrogance, and I found using her inexperience in the Avengers as a place for us to sit in her shoes, to be really good and very similar to the introduction of Kitty Pryde to the X-Men.

And the relationship between her and Spider-Man was fantastic, a teacher/student relationship slash big brother/little sister.

I really enjoyed this book and actually went out and bought the physical book as a Christmas present for one of my nibblings about halfway through reading it!

4.5 out of 5 stars!

Shadow Avengers is out now as an ebook and paperback!

Nerdy Musical Advent 2022 – 23rd December – Desolation Row – My Chemical Romance

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On 23rd December 2022

In Nerdy Music Advent

This is a rather mainstream cover of one of Bob Dylans greatest hit, but its a song which features a lot in Alan Moore’s Watchmen with the title of the first chapter “At Midnight All the Agents” being ripped from the lyrics.

Watchmen was one of the first serious comic I was introduced to, probably way way too young, but I still love it, my mum less so when I asked what a whore was on Christmas morning when I opened it!

Anyway, My Chemical Romance covered the song for the soundtrack to Zack Snyder’s film version of the story, which I enjoyed, but I know was controversial.

Nerdy Musical Advent 2022 – 21st December – World Eater – Bolt Thrower

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On 23rd December 2022

In Nerdy Music Advent

If you are a person of a certain age, and we’re into Warhammer then this is a band you will be very familiar with!

Good old Bolt Thrower, a band so intertwined with the history of Games Workshop, it’s hard to imagine this being a staple of the stores of my youth!

Makes a change from the Lord of the Rings soundtracks most stores play these days doesn’t it!

Nerdy Musical Advent 2022 – 21st December – March of Cambreadth – Alexander James Adams

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On 23rd December 2022

In Nerdy Music Advent

This plague continues to vex me, and so another three days need to be squeezed into one 🙁

Anyway here is an awesome battle song by Alexander James Adams that has been around for flippin donkeys and is utterly amazeballs!

For my Warhammer fans out there, it’s often used in fanon as the battle hymn of the Tanith First and Only!

So go check it out my friends!

Nerdy Musical Advent 2022 – 20th December – Tribbles – Debs & Errols

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On 20th December 2022

In Nerdy Music Advent

Today I am sick as a plaguebearer who has been blessed a hell of a lot by papa Nurgle, so I am probably not going to be able to do this wonderful piece the justice it deserves.

But here, enjoy, Star Trek good, song great!, good Taylor Swift parody!

Christmas Next Weekend

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On 20th December 2022

In Blog

Well, Christmas is almost with us, and this year we are doing a quiet one.

With the loss of Mary, having loved house and money being tight due to stupidly high energy bills, it’s going to be a lot more restrained.

The girls are just getting a book and a donation to a local cat rescue, and I expect the same in return.

The biggest thing I think I have been involved in really is three Secret Santas, one for my game demonstrator friends, which was capped at £5, another for Board Game Geek, which was £35 and a third for Video Game Geek which was £15.

I got my GDN Santee a poster of retro game controllers through the years, my BGG one got a Back to the Future dice game, and my VGG target got Horizon Zero Dawn and Nickelodeon All Star Brawl.

I have gotten my BGG gift which was a copy of Arkham Horror, as I posted the other week, but have yet to hear back about the other two yet.

Hoping I will be feeling good, the past few weeks I have had a horrid cold that just won’t bugger off.

What I Am Modelling

I painted 13 Kruleboyz Gutrippas this week, my first real attempt to get some Kruleboyz done for my Orruk Warclans army.

I then did a quick bit of work on my Sectors for Dropfleet Commander, super simple, but they do the job.

After that I started on some T’au Empire Crisis Suits and a Commander.

So what’s coming up next for me on the painting table?

  1. T’au Crisis Suit Team x 3 & Commander
  2. Imperial Fists Contemptor Dreadnought
  3. Ultramarine Intercessors x 5
  4. Silver Tower Heroes
  5. Blood Angels Repulsor
  6. Templar Brethren x 10
  7. Hobgrot Slitaz x 20
  8. Leagues of Votann Kâhl and Einhyr Champion
  9. The Crimson Court
  10. Ultramarines Lieutenants x 8

What I Am Reading

I finished listening to The Extinction Key by Greg Keyes and it was okay, but the Aconyte stuff is far better.

Speaking of Aconyte books, I just finished Shadow Avengers by Carrie Harris and will have a review up tomorrow.

What I Am Backing

We got our delivery of the Avatar Legends RPG, but the books corners are all damaged as a result of very poor packing and sending it with Evri.

I have reported the issues and hopefully will get a replacement set of books in the new year.

What I Am Cooking

I did manage to cook something for the first time in forever, a batch of my Kansas City BBQ Rocket Sauce, which has been distilled into bottles to give away as Christmas presents to friends and family.

What I Am Winning

I won a coupe of games from Wicked Uncle from a competition on Rachel Bustin’s website, a copy of This or That and a Glow in the Dark Push-n-Pop toy.

These are going into a box of things I have won, to be given next Christmas as presents to friends and family.

What I Am Spending

I grabbed a copy or Arena Mortis for Direchasm to add to my Underworlds collection.

I also bought a pack of UCM Destroyers for Dropfleet Commander, which I plan to build as Vancouver’s I think, the Launch capacity could be rather helpful.

As I mentioned last week, it seemed like the DisplayPort cable for my PC was buggered, so I ordered a new one, after the HDMI cable worked no problem.

And well it fixed the issue, so that’s great.

Another serious issue we have had in the house is Wi-Fi coverage, so we bit the bullet and invested in a mesh Wi-Fi system, the heating system is dependent on Wi-Fi and it just so happens that the boiler is in the part of the house with the weakest Wi-Fi.

So we bought this TP-Link Deco S7 system to replace to replace the Wi-Fi network on the Virgin Media provided router which is to be perfectly honest, pretty dreadful.

And yeah it seems to be fixed now and working wonderfully, it also helped that Virgin Media finally replaced the faulty router we have had to put up with for so long, and combined this has made a huge difference.

Nerdy Musical Advent 2022 – 19th December – Download This Song – MC Lars

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On 19th December 2022

In Nerdy Music Advent

I am not sure why we have never featured MC Lars before, but this is a great song from 2006, and its all about the paradigm shift that my generation did in terms of going from buying physical music to downloading it, not always legally.

The video is great and has a lot of fun poking at the styles of the time and the way brands like Apple and Microsoft marketed music services and players at us.

Now I feel very old!

Nerdy Musical Advent 2022 – 18th December – Banned from Argo – Leslie Fish

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On 18th December 2022

In Nerdy Music Advent

Lets head right back to the distant past of 1977 for a relatively old but classic piece of Filk, Banned from Argo.

This song was one of the first Filk songs I ever heard and I think I was about 6 or 7 and I thought it was quite funny then, I think perhaps I watched too much Star Trek at that age even, considering that there were only 79 episodes, and we only had very bad copies on a mix of BetaMax and VHS, that was quite a feat!

Anyway enjoy this absolute classic!

I am afraid recordings of this classic by Leslie, are difficult to find online which is a real shame, I hope one day that’s sorted out so we can continue to share this classic!

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