I have been provided with an advance copy of the new Twilight Imperium book The Fractured Void by Tim Pratt, 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.
What is Twilight Imperium
Twilight Imperium is a much beloved strategy board game published by Fantasy Flight Games that’s currently in its 4th Edition.
First thing to know, it’s very long, my pal Drew, one of the owners of the amazing Meeple Perk, tells me it’s an 8 hour game as a minimum!
Secondly it’s an epic space opera, set in the power vacuum left behind by the decline and collapse of the Lazax Empire, as various races and factions vie for dominance and to become the new galactic superpower.
The Story
It’s a bit of an interesting one, clearly designed to introduce us in a gentle way to the lore of the game.
It focuses on the crew of the Temerious who are exiled to a backwater system where they patrol and occasionally help look for lost farm animals.
Lead by Captain Felix Duval they encounter a distres signal and end up rescuing a scientist named Thales, who is on the cusp of an astounding breakthrough that would change the balance of power in the galaxy.
Tasked by his commanders in the Mentak Coalition to assist Thales, they end up getting drawn into a cat and mouse game as they are pursued by black ops teams from two other galactic powers.
The book actually does a good job at introducing the setting, I have never played Twilight Imperium, despite it being right up my street, because Lindsay and Megan are unsure about it.
You get a lot of information and background, but it never feels like you get huge sections of exposition, but you do get the needed background. I can now after reading the book understand a lot about the lore of the game and the various factions in it.
The world building is second to none, it feels really well done and it’s an excellent primer.
But I do actually have some criticisms, firstly the books conclusion is kinda hurried, it’s feels too much like a set up for further books, you just know there is more to come, it heavily hinted at, and a big thing is kicked off, but not actually concluded.
I think I would have preferred a cleaner ending that wasn’t a setup for further adventures of Duval’s Devils.
Secondly, the characters for the most part, simply didn’t gel well with me. The heroes felt a little too cliche, we get it, they are raiders and little better than pirates. But it felt like that got pointed out at every opportunity.
The antagonists, well they again seemed forced, they as characters seemed to fit together quite well as an odd couple, but the escalation of their relationship felt a little forced at times.
But one character he did get right was Thales, an utterly detestable person, you just love to hate him and I tell you that you spend the whole book wanting him to get his comeuppance.
Tim does a great job with this character, he really gets you hating him and it really triggers an emotional response.
Conclusion
It was a fun space opera with a nice degree of humour and a good balance.
But I cannot state enough how rushed the conclusion was and how it really felt that little was actually resolved with the open left too open for me.
I want the story to be finished, which means I need to hope this sells enough to warrant a sequel, because it really needs a sequel to finish the story.
Duvals Devils did start to seem more interesting at the end as well, so I kinda want to see how they are developed.
Initially I was thinking of giving this 3 stars, but I ended up settling on 4. The book really makes you feel something, and that is hatred and anger towards Thales, and the writing is so good that when he gets his just desserts, it feels good.
Eben Brooks is a kickass filk artist who has proclaimed himself the superhero of San Diegio.
I picked this song for the advent, not only because it is such a positive representation of polyamory, but because I think it captures me, and I am someone who has never mentally aged beyond seventeen.
Megan has been pestering me for weeks to reorganise my desk, specifically by getting rid of my Citadel Painting Tray.
Well I followed her advice and I have to say, she was right, so now I have a hit more space on the desk and a permanent home for the Switch dock.
Plus it really does look a lot tidier, and you can see the RGB effects from the speakers a lot better.
I did also reconfigure the setup for the speakers, because the Xbox One and Switch connect to the monitor via HDMI, they bypassed the speakers. Which meant that I only had the option of hearing them through the crappy inbuilt speakers or by plugging in a headset to the monitor.
So what I did was grab a 3.5mm cable and plug the monitors headphone socket into the 3.5mm socket in the speakers.
I moved the cable organiser from the side of the desk and put it on the back, this now holds the 3.5mm extension from the PC, and a 3.5 mm extension that heads to the side of the desk to keep the headphone cable from trailing over the desk.
So somehow trying to reduce wires and faff under the desk, I actually added more wires!
I am still trying to figure out how to be able to listen to the music from Pretzel when I stream and feed it all though the Mixer, so far the solution involves physically feeding the music through an audio cable from the PC to the mixer. Which is not how I want to do it, the mixer is a USB one, I can hear the music through the headphones, but it just won’t record in OBS, quite frustrating and I just can’t quite figure out what’s going wrong.
Sunday was spent pottering about mostly, I rerouted a few cables around the back of the desk to make the whole setup look tidier.
On Wednesday I put in place a monitor stand which would allow me to slip the keyboard underneath it when not in use. And I also swapped the HDMI switch for one with a remote and extended IR receiver so that I could locate the box under the desk.
What I Am Modelling
The first things I painted this week were a squad of Intercessors and Inceptors for my Blood Ravens.
The Inceptors are armed with Plasma Exterminators and the Intercessors are armed with Stalker Bolt Rifles.
All I have outstanding for them is the Indomitus box, a set of Intercessors I added earlier in the year and the Terminator Chaplain and Librarian that got released this year, oh and a Stormhawk Interceptor.
I then moved on to a squad of Death Korps of Krieg Grenadiers for Niki, along with two Heavy Flamer teams.
Once done with them I got Rippa’s Snarlfangs to the table and started work on these bad boys.
At the same time, I started work on the last Nighthaunt from Soul Wars, that’s the Grimghast Reapers and Glaivewraith Stalkers plus Crawlocke the Jailor.
I did them them finished, which means I have completed all of the models from both Age of Sigmar starter sets now.
Blood Ravens Intercessors with Assault Bolt Rifles
What I Am Reading
I read The Fractured Void by Tim Pratt and I will be getting a review up in the next couple of days.
What I Am Playing
On Friday I did four hours of BioShock, I am getting on well with the game and probably will be finished in a couple of weeks.
I was supposed to stream The Witcher III on Monday but Megan was expecting a phone call from the doctors and was very nervous, so she asked me to hang out with her instead.
On Friday night I tried Among Us for the first time, which was a lot of fun, although I kept getting voted off even though I wasn’t an Imposter!
I had a couple of games of Apex Legends on Saturday to try and test out how my new setup would work for streaming more intensive games, the bigger monitor with higher refresh rates is pretty taxing on my modest GPU.
First off I ran a new Heaven benchmark, whioch gave me a score of 3725, which is lower than what I got when I was running at 720i, but that’s expected I suppose.
Before the GPU I was getting and FPS of 52.8, with the GPU I got up to 217.0, but now with the bigger screen I am getting 147.9, but that’s still pretty good I think.
Anyway here are the videos of the live streams.
On Tuesday I played a single two hour session of The Witcher III.
And I also played a little bit of Star Wars: Squadrons that night as well
What I Am Backing
I am back Wyrd Science on Kickstarter, it’s got some articles in it by friends, and I am happy to jump in on this because I really want it to fund.
What I Am Cooking
On Thursday I made our teas a Colcannon Cottage Pie, which was really nice.
I want to try it again but with lamb instead so it’s a shepard’s pie and throw in some marrowfat peas. I think that this is a dish I would cook for nibbling as it’s jam packed full of veg.
Then on Friday I cooked again, this time I made Mongolian Glazed Chicken Wings, served with sides of Garlic Spinach in Chicken Broth, and a Chinese Cucumber Salad.
Since last years musical advent was such a huge sucess, I think its only right to bring it back this year!
So lets start with one that got cut from last years list, but only because I ran out of days, plus the artists had already been featured a few times!
I give to you today, This is My Jam by The Doubleclicks, a song which is really about loving things and being cool with people loving different things.
Take consoles, I am absolutely on team Xbox, but in no way do I look down on folks who play Playstation, that’s simply what they prefer. For me its all about the controller, Sony have never made a controller that I have found comfortable to use for myself. Plus I love Game Pass.
But if you like Playstation thats awesome too, I have no reason to hate on anyone who likes what they like, and I wish other people would act the same. We all like different things, and as ‘Abdu’l-Bahá says
Behold a beautiful garden full of flowers, shrubs, and trees. Each flower has a different charm, a peculiar beauty, its own delicious perfume and beautiful colour. The trees too, how varied are they in size, in growth, in foliage—and what different fruits they bear! Yet all these flowers, shrubs and trees spring from the self-same earth, the same sun shines upon them and the same clouds give them rain.
This is being abandoned, Megan has specifically asked me if painting our Orks can be a joint project for next year, so I am reluctantly abandoning this resolution.
Rebase the Orks
I really need to get in with this, must do it this month!
Completed Resolutions
Paint 867 Models
Rebase the Blood Ravens
Finish the Death Guard
Paint Mortarion for Everchosen
So what’s on my painting list as we head into December
Zone Mortalis Terrain
Rippa’s Snarlfangs
T’au KV128 Stormsurge
Ork Megatrakk Scrapjet
Nighthaunt Grimghast Reapers x 4, Glaivewraith Stalkers x 5 & Crawlocke the Jailer
Death Korps of Krieg Death Riders x 10
Nurgle Blood Bowl Team
Ork Meganobz x 3
Secret Heresy Project Unit
The Wurmspat & Hogthorns Mantrappwrs
Mood:- Groggy
Caffeinated Beverages Consumed:- 8
In My Ears:- Last Christmas – Manic Street Preachers
