I have been provided with an advance copy of the new Marvel Heroines book Squirrel Girl: Universe by Tristan Palmgren and 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 these things cloud my judgement in this review, but I accept that subconsciously it might.
Also, I won’t lie, I have looked at other reviews to see what others think, so there may be some influences from them in this book review. If I am going to quote them, I will attribute them. But if I forget to, or something is highly influenced by them, and you think I ought to attribute someone, let me know so that I can.
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!
The Marvel Heroines series focuses on the female hero’s of the Marvel universe, the other books in the series so far have all be very very good!
The Story
The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl aka Doreen Green, the heroine with the powers of a squirrel AND a girl, is one of Marvels most beloved modern characters, she is quirky, bubbly and fun, something which Tristan captures so well.
And above all else, she is a selfless hero who puts others before herself, and that’s where this story begins, as the Mad Thinker tries to relocate her adopted home of New York to the other side of the universe!
Taking action to prevent the entire city being moved, she takes action, but this ends up moving herself along with her trusty side squirrel Tippy Toe, fellow heroes Chipmunk Hunk, Koi Boy and Brain Drain, along with friends Nancy and Mary to a strange new world along with the Mad Thinker!
Hitching a ride on a passing Space Whale, turns out Koi Boy can communicate with stellar aquatic lifeforms too, and head to an alien space station, where they find themselves taken hostage on the frontline of a looming interstellar war that could claim the lives of trillions!
So just a perfectly normal week for THE UNBEATABLE SQUIRREL GIRL!!!!
Conclusion
This book took me ages to read, but that’s largely down to my brain injury giving me issues, but over the past couple of days I utterly devoured it, its an amazing book and captures the spirit of Squirrel Girl just right, as she sets out to prevent the war that to most seems inevitable.
That Squirrel Girl will stop this war against all odds, is never in question, its what she does, but how she gets there is fun!
The book is boisterous, fun and chaotic as well as super wholesome, and part of me wonders if this would be better targeted at young adults, but its juts as awesome for humans and squirrels of all ages!
There is literally nothing wrong with this book, its perfect, it has captured the spirit of the character perfectly and is a great example of what prose can do that comics can’t, especially in its beautiful descriptions of black holes and other stellar phenomena!
Also the Warhammer 40,000 and other sci-fi references are just *chefs kiss*!
I already bought the eBook to read again and Megan has gotten the paperback!
5 out of 5
Squirrel Girl: Universe is available now as an eBook and paperback.
I was having a few issues with OBS, seems to have been the last version update that was the issue, so I rolled back to 29.0.2 and that resolved the issues I was having.
What I Am Winning
Won a competition on Twitter for a copy of Star Wars Rouge Squadron 3D and Shadows of the Empire on Steam to celebrate the Star Wars Celebrationz
Played these games a lot as a nipper so will be nice to play it as an adult on a much better system!
What I Am Spending
I bought myself the Star Wars Deckbuilding Game at Star Wars Celebration, and got with it Star Wars Storycubes, the GameGenic sleeves, and a pin for Fennec Shand.
I also had a second Fennec Shand pin, that I swapped with Forbidden Planet for Chopper!
And although I didn’t spend the money, I did get a poster for the “Strike Me Down” promo along with a shiny promo card for Shatterpoint from Atomic Mass Games.
Also the Nvidia Shield Controller I was potentially getting was sorted and arrived, all I had to do was pay postage!
So all that’s left on my to buy list of controllers is a Luna and the Hyperkin Xeneon and the collection I am after is completed for now, although I must say a DualShock 4 is tempting!
Given that most of the ships, are in face tall sailing ships, the plan is to build a community of players and paint up our ships, displaying them in June publicly!
The T’au Objective markers I ordered also finally arrived, and will look great when used with that army!
This will be a short one, I am in London spending the weekend showing people how to play Shatterpoint and Legion.
We woke on Monday to find the leader of His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition outside, which was weird!
But my sleep has been all over the shop so I expect this weekend to be difficult.
Some Studio Remodel Plans
Ok the controller holders look pants, mostly cause I put them up so badly, so they are gonna come down next month and I am replacing them with some pegboards from IKEA so the controllers can be mounted and look great.
At the moment the controllers I want displayed are:-
PC Engine
Stadia
CD32
GameCube
Xbox 360 (Gonna replace this with a Xenon when that comes out in the summer)
Switch Pro
SNES
NES
Wavebird
Xbox Duke
Saturn
Tribute 64
Neo Geo CD
Dualshock 3
PlayStation Controller
Mega Drive
Mega Drive 6 Button
Steam Controller
Xbox Core
DualSense
Plus I think I have found a cheap NVIDIA Shield Controller, and I hope to have this in my hands by late next week, meaning all I want beyond that is a Luna controller. Actually I am not sure on that, it looks cool, but it doesn’t seem to have even the same interestingness as the Stadia controller.
I’d also like to display one of my SN30 as well if I can, that’s currently away in a drawer, its place having been taken by the Steam Controller.
I am thinking of getting two black Skâdis boards and mounting them one on top of the other above my desk, which should get me enough space to store the controllers, and hopefully eventually my Switch JoyCons and Wiimotes.
Plus I am gonna get a nice braided pair of USB A-C and USB A-Micro B cables to hang up there for use with the controllers when I want to use normally wireless controllers (I prefer to use controllers in wired mode for the lowest latency possible)
I am going to mount a RGB strip around the border of the whole thing to make it really gamery!
That said, its more expensive, but there are the Uppspel boards which whilst £10 more expensive, do look quite a bit cooler with that ROG branding. Either way the Uppsepel accessory kits will be getting used for some stuff as they are compatible with the Skâdis boards, and the magnetic strip would absolutely have some uses.
Thinking the straps might be a good way to store/display the Steam Deck when I get it.
Also I am hoping my Govee prize will come soon which could add some more coolness.
And finally, I am considering a clock, I know I have one on the PC, but I think I want a physical one, oh and a couple more fake plants.
What I Am Modelling
I started out by painting the second Firestrike Servo Turret for the Space Wolves.
So what will be up to paint once I am, back from London!
Ultramarines Assault Intercessors x 10
Man-Skewer Bolt-Boyz x 6
Necron Triarch Stalkers x 3 & Triarch Praetorians x 5
Kairic Acolytes x 18
Drukhari Helions x 10
Imagifier
The Guild x 8
Ultramarines Repulsor
Hedkrakka’s Madmob
Skaven Deathrunners x 2
What I Am Reading
I finished Echoes of Eternity as an audiobook, and yeah, what a story, really blows my mind away!
I listened to The Eye of the Scorpion by Iain McLaughlin, which was fairly good, would have been great if it had been made into a TV serial, but alas. Anyway that brought me 2 years into the Monthly Adventures series!
I then listened to Colditz by Steve Lyons, which as well as being an interesting story of growth for Ace, is also the Doctor Who debut of David Tennant, in a villainous role, which in my opinion is just as insidious as his portrayal of The Purple Man!
Then I moved on to Primeval by Lance Parkin, a bit of a sequel/prequel to the first Nyssa story, The Keeper of Traken. Very good story and I loved how it expanded on that story and established a deeper understanding of the culture and history of Traken.
I finally finished processing my Big Finish Doctor Who audio stuff on to the audio book server, and oh wow that was a slog that has taken over six months to get sorted!
Mind you its a complete collection dating back 25 years, so yeah its a lot of stuff to sort out, would be easier if the software could scrape data from Big Finish, but sadly it can’t so I have to enter the data in manually!
What Video Games I Am Playing
Played a bit more of The Witcher 3, have transitioned to using the Steam Controller, just to really give it a go.
But alas the game still has major crashing issues, and I get maybe an hour and then it crashes to the desktop 🙁
I tried to play Control on stream on Tuesday night only for OBS to keep crashing so I gave up, edited what videos I had together, and then uploaded them.
I have now transferred the gameplay videos for Horizon Zero Dawn over to the Big Geordie Geek Plays channel, so you can find them there, if you want mind-numbingly bad game play videos!
What I Am Spending
I bought Vampire Survivors, it looked alright for a few quid and well, it did win the BAFTA, the bundle I got also came with its expansion, Legacy of the Moonspell.
And cause it was super cheap, and I really fancy playing it again after having last done so on the Sega Saturn, I bought Resident Evil HD which came with Resident Evil 0 HD.
My Humble Choice also came out this week for April, and that got me:-
The final game was a big 3500 point list and for that I took my 2k list replacing the Champion with Fafnir Rann, and adding a Warhound Scout Titan and a few other bits!
I played Damian’s World Eaters in game one, and my lack of weapons that could intercept was a flaw that allowed a Leviathan to drop down and kill my Kratos.
The Contemptors were a bugger to deal with, but I managed to take them out, but at the end of the game I just had 5 Templar Brethren and a Champion plus Apothecary left!
I played against Jacobs Sons of Horus, and the addition of a pair of Sicarans, and a Warhound Titan really changed things up for me!
The Sicaran is, if I am honest, a bit more effective than the Kratos, but the Kratos actually did get to shine a bit here, until it was taken out by a Terminator!
Sadly however, my bane was a pair of Leviathan Siege Dreadnoughts which over 4 or 5 rounds of combat took out my Warhound, but it was only able to do 6 wounds in response, I just couldn’t hurt them.
In the end I won, destroying everything in the table apart from the Leviathans and a couple of straggling Veterans.
My Thoughts On The Event
Pretty good event, the tables terrain was nice, especially the last games.
A few teething issues, particularly around general admin at the end, but show me an event that doesn’t deal with that, and as an EO myself I thought they did really well.
If they run anymore Heresy events, I will be returning for them, really really fun day!
Imperium Expansion
We have known for quite a while now that Warhammer 40,000 Imperium was being extended by 10 issues, and I thought, why not mention what I think about the contents!
Issues 81 – 83
The Sisters get a hell of an expansion with the Paragon Warsuits, spread over three issues, costing £8.99, that means you get them for £26.97, saving nearly £20 off the RRP!
These are great looking models and I have ordered an additional two of each issue!
Issue 84
A Skitarii Marshall, seems a bit of a let down when compared to the stuff the other factions are getting, yeah it’s a lovely model, but still, would have preferred something else, but to be fair, the Mechanicus range isn’t easy to grab something from for this.
Issue 85
The Hexmark Destroyer is one of the best looking models in the Necron range, ok, a bit pants in game, who cares when it looks like that!
I already have one, but I don’t mind having another!
Issue 86 – 88
The Space Marines get the full multipart Redemptor Dreadnought, which is a great kit and pretty cool to have in here.
Personally I would have preferred the Invictor Tactical Warsuit, but that’s down to my personal collection!
Issue 89
Inquisitor Draxus is a cool looking model, but we subscribers already got an Inquisitor in the form of Katarina Greyfax, so this whilst cool, wasn’t the greatest choice, personally I would have replaced this and the Skitarii Marshall with a two part AdMech kit.
Still great model and I can’t wait to paint her to join the rest of my Inquisitorial forces!
Issue 90
Not only does Illuminator Szeras represent great value, but also, is a wonderful and beautiful model for your collection!
Really over the moon we are getting this amazing character
In Conclusion
We are getting some really nice models, for my personal collection, a couple don’t make sense, but hey, it’s not all about me.
The only thing that I am currently wondering, is where to put the Redemptor Dreadnought.
Not sure any of my Space Marine armies need another one, but it’s likely going with the Ultramarines.
What I Am Modelling
Started off urgently beavering away to finish the bits for the Imperial Fists for the event by painting first up a pair of Sicaran Battle Tanks.
I then rebased an old Reiver Squad for my Space Wolves, originally built for Kill Team in the last edition, but on a different basing scheme, when I convinced myself that my Wolves wouldn’t have any Primarise stuff!
Anyway, they now join the Infiltrators, Redemptor Dreadnought, Ragnar, Aggressors and Repulsor that currently comprise the Wolves Primaris forces, and I have more on the way at some point!
Then, the last Tomb Blade was finished for the Necrons!
Been trying to play The Witcher 3, but the latest update has caused an issue with random crashes, so I may have to abandon the game for a bit until that’s fixed.
This past weekend, I got to work at Airecon, a wonderful little board game convention in Harrrogate.
I spent the weekend showing people how to play Star Wars Legion, using a capture the flag scenario that gave people a very very basic taste of the game, to tempt them to join the Dark Side and crush the rebels!
Got to stay at the Crown Plaza, which was nice, until they nicked my pizza, but that’s another story!
Really nice breakfast though and I got to have Eggs Benedict on Sunday, weirdly served with bacon, and I ate probably very badly, existing on pizza, burgers and Coke Zero!
And I needed to hook up the Xbox Series S, PlayStation 5 and printer to the network physically, so I bought 3 Amazon Basics Cat 6 ethernet cables to do this.
I grabbed Fallout 2, Fallout 3: Game of the Year Edition and Fallout Tactics for Steam, kinda decided I am going to buy a Steam Deck at some point in the next 12 months, so grabbing a bunch of games I really enjoy that are cheap specifically for Steam.
I mist admit I was tempted to get 100 cans of Pepsi Max, cause I don’t drink, but Lindsay wanted some alcohol free gin and cider, so I ordered that for her, and then made up the remainder with soft drinks, total cost to us was £1.75!!!
I won another game in the form of Row of Numbers for the PlayStation.
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 these things cloud my judgement in this review, but I accept that subconsciously it might.
What’s is Descent: Journeys in the Dark
Simply put Descent: Journeys in the Dark is good old fashioned dungeon crawler whose linage goes all the way back to Heroquest.
Based very much on the Doom board game published by Fantasy Flight Games, you can see influences from across the gaming hobby, with bits from Space Hulk and Lord of the Rings being identifiable.
It’s set in the world of Terrinoth, a setting shared with Runewars, Runeage and a few other games and RPGs published by Fantasty Flight Games.
It’s a high fantasy universe and you will recognise many of the tropes and races seen in other similar fantasy style settings. It’s not particularly unique, but it is fairly well developed and interesting.
Descent is the dungeon crawler game in that universe, with one player being the evil overlord of the dungeon and the others taking in the roles of the hero’s.
For a dungeon crawler, let’s be honest it’s one of the best out there, and the only reason it’s not in my collection is that Lindsay and Megan aren’t as enthusiastic about high fantasy as I am!
The Story
In this epic tale, the Uthuk Y’llan are sweeping across the realms of Terrinoth, killing, burning and destroying all in their path.
This demonic powered horde of killers is lead by a murderous Beastmaster, who has a plan, a plan to take the forest of Bloodwood and control the mysterious source of power at its heart, so that he can destroy Terrinoth and bring all the world under his control.
But fleeing the destruction of their home city, a pair of humans, an orc and a catfolk, band together, and with the aid of an elven hunter, are thrust into an adventure to save the Bloodwood and by extension the world.
Traveling from the world they know, into the realms of the elves, this misfit band, will see wonders and horrors, and have to dig deep into themselves and fight the monsters that are the Uthuk Y’llan.
Conculsuion
This is a classic, adventure story, the kind of adventure you no doubt have played around a table with D20s with bottles of Pepsi and bowls of Wotsits as a nipper!
And that is why this story is so good, because it just hits that sweet spot of nostalgia and with fantastic writing, it really brings to life the words on the page. I really did feel pulled into the story and found myself putting off sleep to just read another chapter!
The characters, get quite a bit of padding out, with perhaps not the deepest of backstories, but enough so that you get a real feel for them.
Whilst the synopsis talks about them having to overcome their differences, I found that they seemed to become friends rather quickly, helping each other and being comrades to people they met when thrown in the mud together.
They only briefly feel safe, and the story moves along at a brisk pace, just like your RPG sessions.
The characters are all really interesting, but I did finds myself enjoying the elderly teacher Emery most, his almost childlike wonder, as for the first time in his life he finds himself travelling in the wild and seeing things he had only read about in books was really cool.
I really hope we get to meet these characters again.
This is a wonderful book and I am gonna give it 4.5 stars out of 5.
I do worry that some people will see my reviews for Aconyte as overly positive, but to be honest, apart from one stinker, all their books have been amazing!
I have been provided with an advance copy of the new Assassins Creed book The Magus Conspiracy by the wonderful Kate Heartfield, 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 Assassin Creed
Assassins Creed is an adventure game franchise published by Ubisoft (One of my Edge of Empire Co-hosts used to work there as well I should probably mention), and depicts a millennia-old conflict between the Assassins, who fight to preserve free will, and the Templars who desire to bring around peace by controlling people.
The games take place throughout various historical periods, the original 2007 game being set in the era of the 3rd Crusades, and the latest game Assassins Creed Valhalla, set in the Viking Invasion of Britain, and the next game Assassin’s Creed Mirage will be set in Baghdad during the Islamic Golden Age.
The Story
This book takes place over about a decade before Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, starting in 1851 with the passing of Ada Lovelace, the genius daughter of Lord Byron. Confessing to her friend, the 19 year old acrobat Pierrette Arnaud, her concerns over technology and ideas she may have passed onto a shadowy mysterious correspondent, known only as the Magus.
Meanwhile, Adas childhood friend Simeon Price, is shipwreaked when the troopship, HMS Birkenhead, carrying him and his regiment to the Cape Colony runs aground. After being saved by a mysterious cloaked stranger, he decides to take the strangers advice, and desert from the army, and seek out a new brotherhood in Vienna.
When Ada finally passes away, she leaves Pierrette with instructions to seek out Simeon, having received word that he survived, believing that he may be able to undo what she has done and stop the Magus.
And thus our characters are thrown into a decade spanning adventure, as they encounter the Assassin’s and learn that Nothing is True, Everything is Permitted.
Conclusion
Look, I am always gonna look on an Assassin’s Creed book with a fairly high opinion as its one of my favourite video game IPs, I am currently replaying Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood, so I may be a bit biased in that regard.
The Magus Conspiracy weaves through a period of history that in the UK, we kind of look back on as being fairly stable and an era of massive industrial revolution, but on the continent it was an age of upheaval, revolution and brutal repression.
This particular story, as with many Assassin’s Creed games, takes us through historic events, such as the 1853 attempted assassination of Emperor Franz Joseph and the Orsini Affair and has us encounter historic characters, such as Julius Jacob von Haynau, the Habsburg Tiger, John Ruskin and Lizzie Siddal.
This book feels like a love letter to the period and gives us a fantastic trip through parts of Europe as events such as the unification of Italy are in full swing, the Crimean war is underway and Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte crowns himself as Napoleon III.
Crack is this book, stands on its own quite well, knowing a bit about the games, will help ease you in, but its easy enough to grasp the key concepts.
The characters are nicely well rounded and feel like whole people, and I am very much looking forward to the publication of the rest of the trilogy, to encounter them some more.
Now the Magus, well, I clocked who he was pretty quickly, which was a bit of a shame, but sometimes that’s just the way things need to work, after all, I was holding more facts than the characters were.
There is plenty of action here, and I loved the little decision that Pierrette made that meshes up with the real history and is an obvious place for a sequel!
I came away from this book, kinda hoping that Ubisoft do something with the characters and put them in a game, oh and meeting Ethan Frye and Jayadeep Mir again was a nice little treat!
