I was inspired to play another game last night and won! Yay me! My experience was somewhat similar to yours Aeryk, I had an easy time of it in the brood lord room. I also randomized and had a very good pull, with both yellow (lightning claws), purple (flame on) and blue (f'in unkillable on defense). Luck mostly went my way too, this was the first time ever that Brother Claudio didn't die (roll 0) on his first attack. I was also much more careful with the "important guy" on each team, as well.

| ..aaaarrarrghhh....~rines... *final exhale*

Played me another two games last night and the night before. It's a fun game, but I think it would be a lot more fun if I didn't have a defective die that has 5 sides reading '0' and one side reading '4'...

I actually did win my game last night which puts me at about a 20% victory rate so far. I like to randomly select my teams from the counter mix which sometimes leaves me with some, er, poor options for killin' stealerz - any game without the autocannon is a super-extra tough hill to climb.

Last night I had the pleasure of hitting the last room with two counters on the door that let me eliminate two of the carry over genestealers which put the Brood Lords in two separate swarms of 1 and 3, including the Lords. The swarm of 3 just happened to spawn in front of monsieur autocannon and the other infront of a team of two that I had an attack card for.

Four marines survived the night!

I tend to only play this game late, late at night when my brain isn't willing to work on other projects anymore so it has made it's way into my subconscious as being a very dark, draining game. I need to play more in the light so I don't get burnt out on it, me thinks. Good stuff!

| SPACE MAaaaarrgh

OK, first of all, I found this article about Insane Clown Posse to be utterly hilarious.

Picked up Death Angel (Rude's tip of checking the bookstore paid off) and got in three games today! I've never encountered a rulebook further opposed from the way in which I like to learn rules, but the game itself is lots of fun. The first game was the most painful -- four of my six Marines died in the first room (of four), the last two barely keeled over quickly in the second. Second game was almost as nasty but I somehow made it to the third room and just now, two stalwart Marines made it to the last room before being utterly swarmed (although the Librarian did go out in a moment of glory, gunning down four consecutive 'stealers). I dig it!

| a little over two weeks

until we start writing our novels, Action Team! Start thinking of ideas, and stuff. :) I think I know what I'm going to write (was Sci-Fi, now Horror). The countdown begins!

| ps: death angel

Oh, Barnes & Noble had a killer board game selection and they had Space Hulk: Death Angel - $20 bucks, online it would have been around $16 but was sold out from where I like to shop. It's fun! Played a game this afternoon. Rules were a headache but eventually it all clicked. Only lost 1 marine through the first 3 rooms and then lost the reminder in the final room. Started with a card called "They're Everywhere!" I think that spawned a genestealer on EVERY marine. Then the last room had the two Brood Lords and I was able to kill 1 before just getting annihilated. Fun! Horribly laid out rules though, so I'm going to browse BGG to clarify a few things. But it's a good game.

Oh, you don't have to try my game Jon. I don't think it's very good, but it was just fun to try and create a game system. Might try to take some of these ideas and make something more concrete. Here was the basic rules:

Rules:
Advance 5 times on the Hospital-track to get your wife to the hospital in time. If you advance the Baby-track 8 times, roadside delivery and game over.

1. Shuffle tiles face down then draw 1 to begin.
2. Connect 1 to 3 new road tiles (depending on the tiles design) to the top of the current tile.
3. Choose which road you want to take and add the number next to that road to the number on the bottom of the destination tile. This is the target score you need to roll equal to or under on the six-sided dice to advance. If you roll over the target score, advance the baby-track by 1 and stay on the current tile. Re-roll on any available road. If you roll equal to or under the the target score, advance to the new tile and move the time-tracks according to the icons on the lower right-hand corner of the new tile. An 'H' means you've advanced 1 closer to the Hospital, while a baby-icon means the baby is 1 closer to arriving.
4. Repeat from step 2 until you reach the end of either the Hospital or Baby time tracks.

I was trying to make it so it wasn't JUST random d6 rolls determining if you win or lose. I tried to make it so the more desirable tiles, ones that just advance the Hospital track and not the baby track, are harder to get on. So they'd have only a +1. You might get lucky and have it connect to a piece of road with a +3 but that's just chance. So trying to make risk/reward system. The theme is silly and cliched too. :)

Alien Frontiers
You guys heard about this indy title?
Alien Frontiers!
I guess they used that Kickstarter program to get funding for it and it built up hype on BGG. Someone on the SA Forums play tested it and said it was good. It's a "worker placement game" - what's another example of that type of game? I don't have the exp that you guys have.

Maybe I'll pick that up! I heard the movie was OK -- good, not great. There are a lot of Michael Cera haters out there. Personally I'm not one of them, he's still got love stored up from Arrested Development and Superbad, but I get it if people don't like him.

What have I been up to...

1. Today we actually finished a WFRP adventure! Wow! Took one intro session and three sessions (well, two and a half). Overall I like the system and the adventure went pretty well. It was an investigation where the PCs had to uncover a cult at an isolated hunting lodge surrounded by Beastmen. The adventure was fairly "sandboxy" and pretty much resolved in a big, ugly fight in the Chaos temple in the basement. Enron's character almost went permanently insane, everyone came out of it with some critical injuries, and at one point a group of cultists was totally obliterated by a single blast from a blunderbuss.

2. I picked up Batman: The Long Halloween which people seem to think is pretty good. Looks like the two Nolan Batman movies lifted a bunch of dialogue and characters from it.

3. The last two weeks have been totally exhausting in terms of my new job and I'm glad they're over.

4. I'll try your game Rude, but is it a coincidence that the pieces for a game about driving your pregnant wife to the hospital real fast are shaped like tiny, baby coffins?

| Scott "Debates" Pilgrim - Kill all the vampires

Scott Pilgrim: I haven't seen the movie but I was curious about the comic and picked up the entire series, Vol 1-6, for around $23 bucks on Amazon. At the book store they're about $12 bucks each, so this was a massive deal. Just read the first book and it's really good! I highly recommend it. Very much feels a part of "our generation", similar to how MicroSerfs felt back in the day. I'll see the movie after I finish the series. If you look up book 1 on Amazon (it's $3.63) there's a "buy 1-3 together and save X dollars" - so buy that 3 pack and then look up book 4 and find the 4-6 together to do the same. Bargain! I suspect they over-stocked it for the movie or something.

| babytime, go go

I knocked out that print-and-play game. It's not playtested OR very good, but I like the tiles I made and the idea is alright. In my mind the actual tiles would have more art to them than just a road, but for a 1 week contest I only spent 3-4 hours on it; been busy! I won't give you the rules, but I will say the game involves 1d6. See if you can figure it out. :)

bad relegon
Wow, I had no idea they had a new album. Listened to the samples on Amazon. Sounds okay, and like Ry I love the guys voice, but I don't think I'll get it. Let us know if it grows on you Ry-dub.

Rudy's Car Advenutre gaem
On the forums there's a little 1-week contest to design a free print-and-play solitaire game. I have till this weekend to post it. I was thinking of a tile-laying car game. The premise could be, you're wife's having a baby, get her to the hospital ASAP! There's a start piece (home or wherever) and the hospital as the finish piece. To keep it simple I'd like to use a d6. You'll have a time limit (she gives birth in 10 turns or maybe it's random or maybe certain tiles will advance her birth-o-meter.) Maybe your car has a speed and the faster you go, the sooner you'd get her there, but maybe with riskier dice rolls to make.

I dunno, sounds simple enough and I think it'll be fun to try it out over the next couple nights. If you guys have any idears, let me know! One thing I was thinking of trying was, you're laying the piece of road that's 1 ahead of you, so you can decide to speed up or slow down depending on what's there (curvy road, traffic, construction, cop, etc.)

| BR

The special lady friend and I just picked up tickets to see BR on 11/19. Looking forward to seeing them in concert again. I saw them on their last tour and I was quite glad I did. They really have a knack for revitalizing my interest in that era of punk and they really put on a solid show. I haven't heard the new album but I think I will check it out.

I just got my passport renewal back the other day. I can not believe it has only been 10 years since eLzar and I went to Europa. That seems like eons ago.

Just a head's up, the Gen Con Indy 2011 dates have been announced: August 4-7, 2011. Badge registration begins in January and it sounds like January will also be when "Housing Opens". So, once we have a badge, we can reserve rooms as part of the Gen Con hotel block.

D>M>

| The new Bad Religion...

... is just okay so far. I have really only listened to it a couple of times all the way through and only a couple of tunes stick out. Pound for pound, it isn't as good as the last album, but Greg Graffin's voice is very comforting to me and it still is good to hear some new songs. It is still worth picking up IMHO.

The bonus songs on the album are live versions of Generator, Best For You, Pessimistic Lines, and How Much Is Enough. Admittedly, those are not my favorite BR tunes (except Generator. I really, really like that song for some reason), it made me go back and listen to Against the Grain, No Control, and Suffer this last week.

BR is celebrating its 30th year (!), and there is some crappy comp coming out with some crappy bands covering some classic songs.

Where would my music tastes be today without the influence of this band?

| big plastic barrel of pretzels

Been a hectic couple of weeks. I got a new job. Still with the city, but after next week I'll no longer be with the crime lab. Moving over to records in San Pedro near the port. It's a little more money and a lot more closer to home. 15 minute commute versus 45+. The only weird part is that after a few months I'll be moving into a AM shift which is Midnight-8:30 in the morning or so. Yikes! Been years since I worked a night shift. Can't wait to see how it goes. I think it will be an adventure.

Applied for a passport this morning. Never had one but since they last 10 years, figure this will spur me to travel some. I think 8-11 (never forget) and the need for a passport to visit Mexico or Canada also played a part. I'd like to take a cheesy cruise some day. They're so damn cheap and local, so in 5-6 weeks I'll be legal to get off the boat on occasion.

Finished Arthur C. Clarke's "Rendezvous with Rama". It was good but hasn't aged as well as some other classic sci-fi. It has a really dry narrative and felt "too safe". I never feared for any of the character's lives. The basic story is interesting and I'm glad I read it. There are a bunch of sequels that were written by a collaborator, right up into the 1990's, and the plot summaries are hilariously bad.

Still going to write a novel in November, so taking Stephen King's main piece of advice from "On Writing" and READING as much as possible.

Next on my to-read list are a bunch of Elmore Leonard's short-story westerns, random Steinbeck I've never read (I loved Grapes of Wrath in school and never really read much else by him), and "The Passage" vampire book.

I've gotten horribly out of shape again, so I've also been trying to bring hiking back into my routine. I love it and it's convenient to where I currently work, but I'm going to have to find a new exercise hobby when I start work in San Pedro. Maybe riding my bike at the beach?

| Xamnation

Well... Nothing really terribly exciting for all you Actionteam members. Just boring work news:

We just sold our building to yesterday for a cool $265 million. Of which I get a little less than the real estate brokers. They get 3%. I get 0%. Sweet. It's cool though, I do get to keep my job for another 6-12 months at a minimum. After that, I will hopefully be joining the new management group with the rest of our staff. A new company. Again. That will be 4 companies in 6 years for the same job at the same location. The good news is this company is a long term asset holder, so hopefully no more name changes. Also, I don't like my current company. It is a big, bureaucratic, company filled with Kool-Aid drinking cheerleaders. That and the left hand never seems too know what the right hand is doing.

I also joined the nefarious eLzar sponsored fantasy hockey league. Yay hockey.

Also, I hear eLzar likes green.

jr0n, I am stoked that you started reading The First Law trilogy. I really enjoyed the series. I have the second and third books if you are interested.

D>M>

or defined as a website that helps you pass that test to all your college courses,

or a site dedicated to diagnostics for aids/herpes/genital/mamographic testing.