Happy New Year!!!

And may 2006 bring you all the "Street Cred" you deserve!

Sometimes I get some pretty odd links when I'm looking at the usage statistics for this blog. One of them was "http://ilovemybreasts.blogspot.com", the blog of a charitable (anonymous) young lady that likes to take pictures of her breasts in cute settings. This is a noble pursuit from a generous soul. Having browsed around the blog a bit I've discovered a larger movement amongst similar, noble and selfless ladies who wish to display the assets that God gave them. This is called "Half Nekkid Thursday" or HNT. Witness the contributions of the lovely Leesa, Mz. Naughty, shannin, Tess, Wenchy, Lee Ann, Blondie, Libra! and many others.

Ladies, what can I say? I salute your selfess dedication and generosity. Your efforts make the internet a better place for humanity.

Retro Gaming at its finest

Way back in the day, one of the first SF roleplaying games that my friends and I played (nay, played to death) was METAMORPHASIS ALPHA, a TSR product by the inestimable James Ward.



The premise of this great little game was simple: you were born on a great generational spaceship named Warden. The spaceship long ago passed through a radiation storm that affected the entire crew, animals and plant life of the Warden, causing rampant mutation and the death of the original crew.

So Warden drifts, her systems still miraculously running (somehow), giving rise to rumors of ancestors of the crew still being on duty... somewhere. Warden is immense.. huge... each deck is several miles long and contains different ecosystems. The desecendants of the crew have gone tribal (some of the mutants with advance mutation powers, some of them advanced animals, some of them mutated plants). Life is short and brutish on the main ecosystem decks.. as the denizens fight with each other to survive. You play a RPG character, one of those tribesmen who is out skylarking and adventuring.

This was a game I played (and ran adventures in) ad infinitum, long after it was out of print, because of the elegance of the setting and the plot design. My gaming group loved it and many epic adventures came about as a result of this setting.

I'm pleased to see that the ORIGINAL game is available as a rtf download, which I recommend to any SF Roleplayers out there. You can see what was done with a pencil, paper and some imagination, back in the days before everything was handed to you. Virtually everything ever published for the original game is also available on that site, as well.

Some good news: James Ward, the original author of MA, is publishing a 25th anniversary edition, which will update the original in many ways.



For more information, check the official new MA site

Ward's new book, Midshipwizard Halcyon Blythe, is a good read if you like this sort of thing. I just finished it.

A recent Acquisition

Found on ebay, manufactured by Chiltern Miniatures. This is a company I had no knowledge of until stumbling on a listing for "Flashman miniatures" today. A pleasant surprise!!! The figures are listed as 28mm and are apparently modelled from the covers of the Flashman Novels.

Here's what I got:

Balloon Busting

Garrett (aged 7) and I tried out the new WINGS OF WAR expansion, BURNING DRACHENS, yesterday.

Gar loves this series and suggests it frequently. He is comfortable enough with the game to know what plane to pick ("the one with all the damage points, daddy!"), and he knows what a maneuver and a damage deck is (see previous games with "Watch your Back").

Drachens introduces strafing, altitude changes, barrage balloons, and artillery. The only new planes are the Nieuport, the Pfalz, and the Albatros.

We chose the scenario where a single Nieuport tries to take down a barrage balloon protected by two AA guns. A single Alabatros is protecting the German side.

I flew in from the left, dodging the AA (interesting mechanic here.. the shooting player has to guess where the plane will fly and try to land his arty shots there on the third execution of movement cards). This turned out to be easier to do than it looks, but then again I was outguessing a seven year old.

So none of the arty hit me, and I got inside his AA arc close enough to get two ROCKET shots off to hit the barrage balloon squarely. Alas, they didn't do near enough damage to take out the balloon (9 out of 22 points) but it DID start a fire. So I pulled out of the stall, banked left, and got riddled with bullets by the Albatros, furiously defending his charge. That jammed my rudder left, and I had to fly in circles.

Gar made some mistakes here and maneuevered in the wrong direction... this resulted in me lining up on him ONE more time, to devastating point blank effect (but it also did for me). I was down quite a bit and flying in circles; Gar eventually crashed. Since a fire draws a damage card once per turn, it took 8 turns to blow it up..

A victory of sorts, but not a very decisive one.

In the mails today were two packages: NAPOLEON IN THE DESERT by Avalanche Press, and a sample box of Lost Battallion Games' wargamer hex terrain tiles. I don't really have a hex tile set at the moment, but have used GEO-HEX style hex terrain in the past. The tile set being sold by LBG looks like is designed for between 6mm to 15mm scaled miniature games (perhaps 20mm, but it might be crowded for that scale).

Quality wise, these things are excellent. They're actually flocked on the bottom, reducing slipping and sliding. I like this. I will probably buy some of the Desert set.

I stumbled upon a Mr. Jon Power's little Christmas gift to game geekdom recently, courtesy of Tom Vasel's blog.

Hoorah! Today is Isaac Newton's birthday (it really is! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newtonmas ) so let's celebrate humanity's discoveries in science and drive back those foolish, supersticious mythologies. (sic) Please add more scientific heroes with suitable games.

By foolish, superstitious mythologies, I assume Power meant belief in a Supreme Being. Unless it's merely an astounding coincidence that he posted this list on Christmas Day, the day traditionally associated with the birth of Christ?

And he weighs in with his opinions on believers in Divine Creation:

You're never to young to learn about Evolution through Natural Selection! Just think, we've evolved over millions of years, and there are still people dumb enough to think we were created by some mythological creature! What a laugh!

Note that... you who believe in what you believe are, de facto, stupid. Now that's an elevated argument. Pseudo-Intellectual hate-speak at its finest.

And let's talk about praying-- to place this in context, this is in response to the comfort of the wounded praying to God on the battlefield, and was posed as an ironic reference: 'praying to scientists' wouldn't do the trick, as it were.

I'll bet she didn't find any atheists on the battlefields. Nor for that matter, anyone sick and dying praying to scientists for help and comfort.

Why would you pray to a scientist? That's really stupid. Why pray at all? There are no voices in the sky.

I suspect, and this is only a suspicion mark you, that all the people on the battlefield were *made* to go to religious services and worship mythical creatures as part of being in the army. You know, there may even have been army officers who's entire job was to indoctrinate the soldiers in the um doctrine. If you didn't go to the mythical creature worshipping service, you were on a charge and faced disciplinary procedures.

And the dying on battlefileds (sic) generally call for their mother, I gather. Not having been on one thankfully.

No surprise there, that last one. However, the concept of the sick and dying being comforted by prayer is shrugged off as something soldiers were ordered to do. Not having been on a battlefield, how would he know?

Again, the smug satisfaction and condescension of the true know-it-all.

I loved the evaluation of Rene Descartes, life long devout Catholic;

We'll just gloss over his philosophical work, since that runs counter to this list's intentions. harumph.

Harumph indeed.. changing the rules to fit a hypothesis would have had the REAL Descartes spitting in this guy's face.

And the afterlife gets short shrift...

When you get to the end of your life, there is no comfort looking forward. That's when the liars descend and tell you to clutch this book, make this sign, and you will live for ever in Paradise. Bunkum!

It goes on and on. As you might know from reading my bio, I believe in God and am a practising Catholic, so (Duh!) I don't agree with this guy. This is not to say I ever thought that science and God are mutually exclusive. The Hand of the Creator is a hard thing to discern,and I credit Him with being subtle in his works. So yes, I do honor science and the achievements of the people 'honored' on this geeklist. Who are we to say God didn't use the mechanism of evolution to people the planet? Or that God doesn't work miracles through humanity? (I'm sure his response would be that this is a very convenient philosophy, but there it is).

Alas, the other side of the argument rarely grants the concession of manners.

The problem I have with it is the manner in which this so called "honor" of human science is in the sneering manner in which it is given. The faith of Christians, Jews and Moslems is depicted as myths and superstitions, our common God a "god-thingie". We are mocked, and our belief in the afterlife is pure "bunkum".

What a sweetheart.

Intolerance of this kind is nothing new and Christianity, particularly Catholicism, gets its fair share of this treatment. It's not very amusing to find it cropping up on Boardgamegeek, which is one of the few online communities that I did not associate with agendas. Consimworld seems almost like a pack of sweethearts by comparison-- and believe you me, we fight like cats and dogs over there, but we try to find a common ground. I used to think that the sysop, John Kranz, was a tad heavy handed in his moderation. I almost appreciate it now, seeing intolerance like the Happy Newtonmas thread popping up on BGG. Fortunately, God gave me a brain (rumor has it) and I can always ignore certain people. It's a pity that we can't filter some posters out like we can on CONSIMWORLD, or "stifle" like we can on The Miniatures Page.

At the heart of it,I don't think this guy is evil, just somebody who sponges up any kind of attention he can get, even the negative kind-- as evidenced by posting on Christmas day. He is to be pitied.

Vincent Schiavelli RIP

This highly recognizeable character died over the weekend. He's been in a gazillion movies, probably most recognizeable as the Angry Ghost in "GHOST". I always liked him as the red 'lektroid in Buckaroo Bonzai..

John O'Connor: "Hey look! It's Buckaroo Banzai... GOMPH!!!! (after getting kicked in the stones)



Full Obit here...

Yehuda Berlinger, whose blog on gaming, family life, Judaism, and the 'gaming scene' in Israel I recommend highly, mentions a new series of online awards for gaming spearheaded by the GONE GAMING group blog.

The direct link is HERE.

I like the idea that gaming blogs are such a major category, though I suspect it will become a form of mutual admiration society-- the obvious candidates will be the gaming fanatic types (Tom Vasel, Yehuda himself (though he says he is ineligible), Greg Schloesser, Chris Farrell, etc).

My personal nomination will be for Alfred Wallaces' Musings, Rants, and things left Unsaid, followed by Coldfoot's &games blog. Oh, yes, Coldfoot's also out of the running. Well, I might nominate them anyway, to increase their self-image and feeling of worth.

Results for Spring, 1904 (Movement)

General Notices:

Order Results:

Annie looks thrilled, doesn't she?
We stayed around here for the holiday. I went over to my parents Christmas Eve. Usually, I'm a bit defensive at these things, this time I had a blast. My brother and sister inlaw were pleasant to to talk to. I sure do pity my nephew, though. He's a gymnast, and the conversation got 'round to how my brother takes him (my nephew) out to a gymnastics center in my neighborhood (right next to where I catch the train every day), and wouldn't it be cool if we (my brother and I) went somewhere to "work out" while my nephew as at practice? I inquired how often he went... the answer was every day, from six to ten. That's a hell of a workout.. oh well, maybe we'll see a future Olympian there.

It was good to see my cousin Danny; he's an artist and professor in NYC, married to the lovely Marjan, also an artist (I performed their marriage ceremony six years ago). Danny's turning into quite the numismatist. He gave us all silver dollar coins from various eras-- I got a "Fat Man Dollar" from China, circa 1904.

My sister is always fun to hang out with (and I've always enjoyed her partner, Lynne). We performed the "Schwetty Balls" skit together from Saturday Night live's "Delicious Dish NPR" bit for my somewhat shocked relatives.

We went home; Drey and I did the wrapping/packaging Santa thing. The next morning, we popped in the Yule Log:



... and woke everyone up to come downstairs.

And What did Santa bring us? The kids did alright; Gar got a Robo Raptor, Anne got her Ipod (*Shuffle), which we still can't seem to get to work. Gar got a cool rocket from my folks that turns tap water into hydrogen rocket fuel. We're going out to try it today. Anne got lots of girly stuff-- makeup, clothes, etc. I also got them lots of small things from Archie McPhee. I got Drey (mostly) jewelry-- you can't go wrong there, plus a few items that she likes every year, books and such (but not clothing-- I often fail at clothing). I didn't get the Japanese fleet from YALU that I was requesting-- no surprise there-- I'll pick it up some time in January. I DID get DESCENT (fantasy flight), the mapboard, eastern front and terrain upgrades to MEMOIR 44, and game about ballooning (gee, who knew I might have an interest?). I also got a nifty portable DVD player and the HORNBLOWER SERIES from A&E, which I'm now watching on the train. I had nothing to complain about, gifts aren't that important to get at this stage of life. I do still enjoy Christmas quite a bit, and this was one of the better Christmases in recent years.

After that, did equal time over at the inlaws, who had another blazing Yule log going:



As soon as I can find a camera cord that works, I'll post Christmas Tree Pictures.


Gar reports success!



*We thought that Santa would be remiss in giving a THREE HUNDRED DOLLAR piece of gear to an 11 year old that loses stuff constantly, so we requested he bring the Shuffle, not the regular Ipod (color: pink) that was in said child's letter to Santa.

It's a Ho-Ho-HOlocaust!!!

---

Introduction:

In the Grim Darkness of the North Pole, there is only War....

In a future that is only the day after tommorrow away, a corporate colossus spans the Earth. The fortuitous marriage of the scion of the venture capital giant Scrooge and Marley, Ltd. and the great-great daughter of Sam Walton, Lavinia Walton, has created a partnership that generates a remarkable asset.. Samuel Scrooge-Walton, named in honor of Lavinia's illustrious ancestor. The merging of one of the world's greatest sources of capital and the world's leading retailer was a recipe for global domination.

After a remarkable youth, highlighted by an energetic and innovative approach towards solving the problem of the Wal*mart-Target war (leaving parts of Minneapolis St. Paul radioactive to this day), Sam came into his maturity, and the controlling interest in the mother corporation, when he arrived at the age of 25. Almost immediately he commenced working on the "Strike North" campaign. Long had he gazed on the one, last uncontrolled toy distribution network left on the face of the earth. He had to control it, and the time had come for aggressive negotiation.

Against the advice of key subordinates, Sam prepared a strike force of elite Wal*Mart Security teams Blue, White and Grey (named in honor of the store's heraldic colors), and allowed reprentatives of the Longshoreman's union (purchased long ago) and the Sweat Shop Union (from China and the Latin American shops) to accompany as observers. "We are up against indiginous personnel with almost no weapons, men!" Sam gleefully chortled in the mission pre-brief. "This should be a walkover". He chortled with glee as he swiftly approached his target.

Full Backstory piece and mission briefs located here

The Game!

in the frigid darkness of a North Pole morning, a certain village wakes to another day's frenetic activity. The dominant industry of the town has an impending deadline to make, and everywhere there is signs of rush, as the evening shift of skilled workers goes home to rest and the morning shift takes over.



Suddenly, the warning klaxon blares out:
Alarm! Alarm! Outer defenses have been breached! There is a large shape approaching Gingerbread Village at a high rate of speed. The object is metallic, of high density, and with many life forms inside!



Santa Claus, the Legend of the North, confers with chief elf Sherman: "Get the guard elves to the inner defenses. Activate the gingerbread people... and for God's sake, MOVE THOSE PRESENTS INTO THE WAREHOUSE!!!

Santa grimaces and comments to the Bumble: "Dang it, this happens EVERY YEAR!!! And we have the entire Teddy Bear army locked up in the South fighting off the Mouse King!"

GM Note: Mouse King is a reference to last year's Christmas Game, which featured Marxist Mouse soldiers and Brave Teddy Bear defenders of the North Pole

Elves and gingerbread people (hastily dragooned into the militia, grabbing for their peppermint stick melee weapons) burst into a frenzied activity to prepare for invaders.



(above) Santa knows he can call upon his friends in the Royal Canadian Mounties, Sergeant Preston, Rex the Wonder Horse, King and Dudley. But he might not need to, with the troops he has at hand...



... such as the Professor, Naughty Elf, and the Professor's Animated Snowman squad.

(GM notes: the professor can cause the snowmen to ambulate and attack. Naughty elf has the power to "Beguile" humans when the professor spanks her. This equates to a human peforming a 'duck back' if in cover or just standing still)



(above) The vast majority of troops on hand, however, are the Gingerbread folk in the nearby village. The elves dragoon them into service with the weapons on hand, mostly giant peppermint sticks.



(above) On the horrizon, the behemoth approachs like a fast land-whale...



(above) CRASH! The Wal*Mat Offense force barrels on to the table, Goes about 100 more feet and crashes into a snow drift. Sam, in the command center, curses. He had meant to penetrate the village itself.

The grey team pops out and moves towards target quickly.





(above 2) The right flank of the invasion force hangs open precariously... fortunately, gingerpeople don't move fast.



(above) Sherman commands gingerpeople to move the packages indoors.



(above) Meanwhile, Boomer, the littlest grenadier elf, bravely encounters the Wal*Mart truck.

... and we all discover that THIS brave little elf is aptly named.



(above)

BOOM!!!

(above) Boomer is concussed; he lays there happily in the snowbank, thinking happy thoughts.



(above) Blue Team joins Grey Team as the Gingers line up for the gingerbread wave attack.

See that brown felt piece? It's ginger goo left from a gingerbread casualty destined for the rebaking ovens.

(NOTE: incoming "Dead" Gingers went to the "bake pile" in groups of four. At the start of each turn, you rolled 1D6 for each bake pile. If it matched how many stands were in that pile, the stand was placed in the Biscuit shop.



(above) Sam Scrooge-Walton jumps out and runs for protection behind the grey squad. This is not going as planned. He whistles up for some longshoremen reinforcments, but only one is bellicose to stop cowering in the back of the truck.



(above) On the right flank of the Wal*Mart attack, White Team is doing markedly better.




(above 2) The gingerbread wave on the left flank was awesome. Here, the chef "Goops" a Blue Team soldier.

GM Note: A Ginger Person can fire (twice) a big gob of icing at a target before dissolveing. These are "Shooters". The icing halts movement for a turn

We got a man down!!!



(above) Freshly baked reinforcements rush up to cover the left flank. That brown felt is ginger goo from a gingerperson casualty.

Grey team goes down (mostly) due to head wounds from melee (mostly). Blue team engages a couple of multiple attack stands... things look bad.



(above) Cute and cuddly doesn't equal "Stupid." Here, Wilma and Boomer hide in the snowbank created by the truck explosion and let the "big cookies" catch lead for them.

"You Hear that, human? That's the Jingle Bells of DOOM, and they're ringing for YOU!!!



(above) A longshoreman summons the courage to join in. See that multiple candy stick base up there? It was the best fighter the gingers had, and it kicked butt with three attacks per turn.



(above) Blastina (r), Bronson (c) and Boomer (l, under partial cover), engage White Team directly. They must sense weakness.



(above) Some of the faster Gingers (on sleds) approach on the run.





(above 2) Blastina and Bronson don't know of the reinforcements arriving right behind them. Good thing; they are now riddled with bullets.



(above) The Longshoremen finally show up in force; they show the SWAT guys how it's done; six bat-wielding Longshoremen to one Ginger turns Gingerbread people into ginger goo!



(above) Blue team, in extremis, is bailed out by the Longshoremen..



(above) Bronson gives White Team a lesson on how sawed off shotguns are no fun at close range.

"Mercy, please!"

"I'm sorry, you've been Naughty!" (BOOOM!)



(above) The tide might have turned a bit with the arrival of the Longshoremen, but Sam now knows this battle is lost. "Retreat, boys! Retreat! There will be a another day!" he howls, as he runs for the comms unit to call in a chopper extraction. "Curse you, Claus!!!! You haven't heard the last of meeeeee!"

As he gazed out on the smoking ruin of of the Wal*Mart assault, Santa laughed a cheeful "Ho Ho HO!"...

"These Waltons are amateurs.. we've been fighting a war at the North Pole every year for a thousand years!"

"How did you know how to defeat him, Santa?" asked Sherman

"'Tis Simple, Sherman.. I knew all about it in advance, due to my highly skilled intelligence network. After all, I know when you've been sleeping, I know when you're awaaaake..." shouted Santa over his shoulder, as he hustled back to the Workshop to supervise another job lot of toys getting prepped for shipment.

Merry Christmas, Everyone!

Casualties:

White Team: All Dead or severly wounded.

Grey Team: one dead, three unconscious, one alive.

Blue Team: one unconscious.

No Longshoremen casualties.

No Sweat Shop union casualties.

Elves: Four elves severely wounded.

Countless Gingerbread casaulties.


Clearly, The North Pole was victorious. No presents were extracted, nobody got kidnapped, and no industrial secrets were compromised.

Christmas was saved!

Wal*Mart, suffering a bloody nose, vowed to try again next Yuletide.

Technical Notes

The rules were heavily modified RULES WITH NO NAME (originally by Brian Ansell, heavily modified by me and many others over the years). I have conversion notes, mission briefs, North Pole Creature notes, and etc. available at the following link:

http://mrnizz.50megs.com/darksecretdownload.htm (50megs popup warning!)

TRWNN works very well for this game, but it badly needs tinkering. The Elf-controlling the Gingerbread thing did give the North Pole side an awesome advantage in melee (not ranged) combat, and having fewer troops on the bad guy side didn't help much, even if they did have autofire weapons.

I tried the modern rules conversion for autofire (Foundry's street chaos rules) and found them too complex and slow for our game, we went back to a modified "Gatling gun" approach towards autofire.

As in many of our Western games, Duck Backs (but NOT recovery) were quickly abandoned as a game slower.

This game was concieved by Walt O'Hara and executed by Walt and Harry Morris, who provided most of the terrain pieces (except for the village and factory), the snowmen, various Wal*Mart teams, Santa and the bumble. I provided all of the Elves, the Mounties, the Longshoremen, the Gingerbread People, and various terrain bits.

Figures were a real hodgepodge of a lot of everything, mostly Eureka, Copplestone and Foundry.

Picture of "Doctor Jeckyl" above is copyright 2005 Parroom Station.

Special thanks to Anne O'Hara for painting all those candy sticks for me.

Summary:

Speaking from my own perspective, this was one of the funnest games I've ever run, with exactly the right crowd to play it. I just wish we had run it earlier in the month so that we could have had about 4 more players. I look forward to a rematch.

Oh; and the truck was donated to a deserving kid...