The Gotek Floppy Drive Emulator In The IBM PC World

The Gotek floppy drive emulator is a simple, cheap and little device that, as its name says, emulates a floppy drive.  There are many varieties of these devices and they usually come with a USB port on the front of the unit and a 34-pin header + 4-pin power header on the back.  While originally intended to replace disk drives in industrial, sewing and musical equipment, they can be used with standard PC floppy controllers.  However, as they come they are at best diamonds in the rough, so in this blog entry I will describe how to make these devices more useful for vintage IBM PCs and compatibles.

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You say "obsessed" as if it is a bad thing.

MagicGate: Toxic Misogyny Invades Tabletop Gaming

Tabletop gaming has always had its share of women-hate and male toxicity.

Sexes were historically separated from playing together for thousands of years in order to avoid licentiousness. This was simply an extension of the general separation between the sexes. By the 19th and early 20th century, at least in Europe and the US, the sexes had found ways to mingle by means of parlor games, many of which we would consider overly racy today (a great many of them involved kissing and/or groping, for example).

The last hundred years of tabletop games saw women relegated to "women's divisions" (in Chess, for example), "girls" games (aka pink and/or about makeup and jewelry), or even the kitchen in the belief that they don't have what it takes to play at a man's level. They often don't, if you exclude them from serious training opportunities, exclude them from playing against top players, diminish their desires, goals, and accomplishments, require them to deal with unchecked harassment, and require from them a fanatical devotion to play for endless hours with unwashed, excruciatingly rude, and sexist jerks. Despite this, there are always a few women who are able and willing to complete with many of the top men in any game.

I had hope that in our little corner of the world, harassment would get no worse than that, and hopefully better. While anyone of any sex might get killed playing Dominoes in a Jamaica coffee shop or throwing dice on the streets of Taiwan, tabletop games remain a relatively safe, family-friendly, and gender-mixing activity. Chess, Go, and Bridge have women's divisions, but the majority of their competitions are mixed and relatively safe. Wargaming is a men's club, but it's not toxic to women as far as I know. CCG and RPG events are/were known to attract mostly young male jerks, which scared off some women (see above) but I hadn't thought that these jerks' behavior rose to level of toxicity associated with Gamergate. Unfortunately, I was wrong.

Women are not only harassed, but sexually assaulted at these conventions; the organizers and police are often unable or unwilling to help them. Apparently the CCG and RPG players who grew up  in their little boys' club are now adult enough to feel entitled and powerful enough to join the ranks of the male toxics, white nationalists, and "pickup artists", just like the Gamergate folks. And just as in Gamergate, douches post harassing videos and posts claiming that woman who complain about harassment are lying for the attention, as a result of which teeming hordes of similarly minded jerks harass them more, and more seriously. And when called on it, of course, they post endlessly, harassing everyone with why they are right and everyone else is lying and "missing the point". Ho hum, how familiar.

Seems like this behavior is getting worse, not better, and I can think of a few reasons why. I just wish that they didn't infect my hobby.

End Of Campaign: Dark Heresy

   We finished off our Dark Heresy campaign on Monday night. We had all sort of lost our interest in the game after almost a year of play. The last few months we have also had several challenges with getting together as a group to play, and that certainly didn't help things.

   So, how did it end? Well, we had just captured a dangerous psyker named Molokoff from Hive Tertiam on Fenk's World and barely managed to escape the planet before it was pulled entirely into the warp. Once aboard our vessel, the Cudgel of Drusus, we turned the prisoner over to the Inquisition. That's when things went to Hell.

   Literally.

   As our ship entered the warp to travel to our next destination, something went wrong. Horribly wrong. Demonic creatures began to pop up all over the ship. We fought like heroes, but watched our companions go down one by one.

   First to die was our 'tame' psyker, Volk. The power of the warp invading the ship began to overwhelm his mental defenses, and I was forced to put him down with a bolt pistol shell to the back of the head. Next was our favorite pilot, "Mad" Murdock (an NPC). On the hangar deck, as we were making our way to the main engineering area, he was dragged down by a horde of smaller demons.

   Third to fall was our chirurgeon, Sister Scythia. She burned down a few demons with her meltagun before a flamethrowing fiend doused her with a barrage of unholy napalm. Probably for the best, as she was not very careful with her shooting and a meltagun firing off in the engineering spaces would have been catastrophic.

   Fourth was our newest recruit, an Imperial Guardsman from the 24th Canopus Heavy Foot. Corporal Jones ran out of ammunition for his heavy stubber - which he toted about with his Bulging Biceps as if it were nothing more than an autogun. After spraying hundreds of rounds into the enemy, he heard that fatal 'click.' Before he could locate any more ammunition, he too was torn apart. Thankfully, he died before they began eating. I think.

   Adeptus Arbites Belisarion Graecus was the last to fall. Using his skills with a bolt pistol, he took out demon after demon with precision aim. The holy inscriptions on the sanctified weapon glowed brighter with every shot, and the Emperor's wrath flowed through the explosive shells, overcoming many a demon's unnatural toughness. But all things must end, and Graecus finally ran out of shells as well. He met his fate, praising the Emperor and pistol whipping a final demon into death as the hordes tore into his armour.

   The Cudgel of Drusus is marked as lost in the warp on Imperial records.

iOS 13.4 Update Is Landing On March 24, And It May Fix An Annoying iPhone Issue - TechRadar

iOS 13.4 update is landing on March 24, and it may fix an annoying iPhone issue

DE: Extending Threat With Obsidian Rose

Looks like meat is back on the menu boys!

One of the ways we're going to min-max my Black Heart Kabal list is to explore other Obsessions.  I've already got myself a rock solid list, the only thing I'm going to do now extending the threat range.  We just have to make sure we have enough units in a detachment to buy enough dedicated transports and the right mix of Obsessions.

What I'm going to do is turn the majority of my Blasters and Kabalite troops into Obsidian Rose.  This gives them 6" more range on all their weapons; which gives them 24" Blasters and 30"/15" Rapid-fire Splinter Rifles.  After, I'm going to stuff as many of them as I can into Black Heart Raiders so the 6+++ makes them harder to kill.  I can do this because all our transports have the Drukhari keyword and no Obsession specific ties.  This allows me to mix and match our Obsessions to get the most out of our units.

Quick note:
In case you're wondering, I think Flayed Skulls' extra 3" movement can be nice for more Wych-oriented lists using Raiders as the delivery mechanism.  Just keep in mind that not every Obsession works with others.  It just happens to be that Obsidian Rose and Black Heart's bonuses work simultaneously, without conflict and in perfect concert with one another.  It's a match made in hell.

Don't fret guys, this is very much with the fluff and it looks like it's intended.  We're supposed to be able to mix and match different Kabals, Cults and Covens to make a better army.  I think, if I'm to be completely honest, that people are just so used to Dark Eldar being a punching bags of the fucking game that all of a sudden, everything is question when we're suddenly powerful.  While I can see crap like the infinite CP loop and Agents of Vect not requiring Black Heart units as a problem, this is something I see as intended.  Just think of it as bribes and deals being struck before the battle.

Anyways, I didn't mean to rant.  This is what the updated list looks like:

1999 // 8 CP
Obsidian Rose Battalion +3 CP

HQ:
Archon, Agonizer, Blaster, PGL = 94
Archon, Agonizer, Blaster, PGL = 94

TROOP:
10x Warriors, 2x Blaster, Dark Lance = 114
10x Warriors, 2x Blaster, Dark Lance = 114
10x Warriors, 2x Blaster, Dark Lance = 114
10x Warriors, 2x Blaster, Dark Lance = 114

+++

Black Heart Spearhead +1 CP

HQ:
Archon, Agonizer, Blaster = 91
Warlord: Cunning, Living Muse

TROOP:
7x Warriors, Blaster = 59

PARTY BUS:
Raider, Dark Lance = 85
Raider, Dark Lance = 85
Raider, Dark Lance = 85
Raider, Dark Lance = 85
Raider, Dark Lance = 85

HEAVY:
Ravager, 3x Dinsintegrators = 125
Ravager, 3x Dinsintegrators = 125
Ravager, 3x Dinsintegrators = 125

+++

Black Heart Air Wing +1 CP

FLYER:
Razorwing, 2x Dinsintegrators = 135
Razorwing, 2x Dinsintegrators = 135
Razorwing, 2x Dinsintegrators = 135

Stalk thy enemy.  Slay thy enemy.

Increasing overall threat range is exactly what we want as a shooty army.  It gives greater distance between our fragile units and our enemies, and allows us to easily threaten even the most heavily armored units in much greater volume.  Extra range allows us to set the tempo of the game and control our opponents through the use of kiting and forcing desperate situations.  With Strategems such as Fire and Fade, you'll be able to pull off some amazing circumstances that your opponents will surely loathe you for.

Let's take a closer look at our Firepower with respect to Range:

15 Disintegrators at BS3+ at 36"+ range
9 Dark Lances at BS3+ with 4 of these shooting from 42" range
9 Blasters at BS3+ with 8 of these shooting from 24"+ range
3 Blasters at BS2+ with 2 of these shooting from 24"+ range
3 Razorwing Missiles at BS3+ at 48"+ range
41 Splinter Rifles at BS3+ with 28 of these shooting from 30" range, 15" Rapid-fire

The pluses at the end of the range represent all the unaccounted movement.  As you can see here, extending the range of our weapons is primarily to benefit the multiple Blasters I have in each unit.  If you think about it:  Moving a Raider within 24" of something pretty much turns the thing into a Ravager with Dark Lances.  You get the extra S8 AP-4 D6 damage shots at full ballistic skill and if you have Archons nearby to give re-rolls, all the better.  The one thing I want you guys to take away from all this is that extra range is always good for a shooty army.  You want to be able to control the battlefield with your movement and through sheer firepower.  The extra threat range gives us the ability to control virtually any engagement as long as it's favorable for us.  This is control at its absolute finest.

I hereby decree this list as the Kabal of the Black Rose using the units that I've selected.

We Need More Information

The story behind CIA: Collect it All is a fascinating one. Last year several games designed by the CIA for use as training simulations were declassified by the U. S. government. Since they were designed by a government employee in the course of his work they are automatically in the public domain in the U. S., so an enterprising game publisher got to work designing a commercial version which was funded using Kickstarter and delivered to backers in December of 2018.

The game uses cards to represent intelligence collection techniques such as media analysis, satellite imaging, and data hacking. Players use those cards to solve global crises like foreign missile testing or election interference, by matching the correct types of intelligence to the crises they will be effective against. Opponents can interfere by playing "reality check" cards which represent the idea that nothing ever goes as planned.

As a training tool, an important part of the game was the inclusion of "manager challenge" cards, which forced the CIA trainees to justify the plays they made, explaining how, for example, "document and media exploitation" would be effective against "European crime and corruption" in the real world. These are included in the game as an optional variant, but the rules suggest only using them if all the players have a "firm understanding of intelligence techniques."

In theory the idea of this game is very compelling, but without the manager challenge cards, it's really just a symbol matching game, with each player trying to match the symbols on their collection cards to the ones on the crisis cards. It might have worked a lot better if there were more background information on the cards, to give players more information they could use to at least bluff their way through a manager challenge. I think the designers really missed an opportunity to create a game that would be informational and intellectually stimulating as well as entertaining.

Rating: 2 (out of 5) not a terrible game but a huge missed opportunity.

• CIA: Collect it All official website
• CIA: Collect it All on BoardGameGeek

Download Tekken 6 Full Version For Pc

Download Tekken 6 Full Version For pc

Tekken 6 Full Review

Welcome to Tekken 6 is one of the best fighting game especially for fighting lovers that has been developed  and published by Bandai Namco Games.This game was released on 26th November 2007.

Screenshot

System Requirements of Tekken 6 For Windows PC

• Operating System: Windows XP/Vista/ Windows 7 ( 64 Bit )
• CPU: Intel Pentium 4 or later.
• Setup Size: 700 MB
• RAM: 1GB
• Hard Disk Space: 1GB

Episode 35: My Kingdom For An App Is Live!

Ep 35: My Kingdom for an App is live!

https://soundcloud.com/user-989538417/episode-35-my-kingdom-for-an-app

Adam Loper and I talk about Tabletop Minions and finding opponents for your games.

Join the conversation at https://theveteranwargamer.blogspot.com, email theveteranwargamer@gmail.com, Twitter @veteranwargamer

Follow Adam and the Game For app on Twitter! @tabletopminions @iamgamefor

Game For app for iOS and Android https://iamgamefor.com/

Tabletop Minions Expo https://tabletopminions.org/tmx/ June 9th-10th, 2018

Try Audible for your free audiobook credit by going to http://audibletrial.com/tvwg

Tabletop Minions Youtube Channel https://www.youtube.com/user/tabletopminions

Tabletop Minions Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/tabletopminions/

Tabletop Minions Paint Showcase Club Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/236901433338119/

Sam Lenz blog http://samsonminis.blogspot.com/

GenCon http://www.gencon.com/

Adepticon http://www.adepticon.org/

MOHISTORY show at Ft. Leonard Wood, MO. https://www.eventbrite.com/e/mohistory-tickets-41577851473

Music courtesy bensound.com. Recorded with zencastr.com. Edited with Audacity. Make your town beautiful; get a haircut.

Cha'alt Hardcover Deal

This Deal Is Now Over!

This weekend only - from now until Monday morning at 10am - I'm running a special deal...

$50 for one Cha'alt hardcover or two for $75!  If you live within the USA, shipping is included.  If you live outside the USA, $25 shipping for the first book and $35 for both.

All you gotta do is send $ via paypal: Venger.Satanis@yahoo.com

You've never seen an RPG tome of this high quality!!!

Along with the print version, you'll get complimentary digital files; just need your DriveThruRPG associated email address.

Thanks,

VS

Let's Play Batman Arkham Asylum Part - 1 Walkthrough GTX 750TI (60FPS) [...

Earth: An Introduction To Physical Geology, Global Edition, 12Th Edition - Fox eBook

Earth: An Introduction to Physical Geology, Global Edition, 12th Edition

DE: Powerful Builds For Your HQ

You know you're in some shit if someone points.

This one is going to be a short one since we're going to be primarily focused on the use of HQs.  One thing's for damn sure:  I feel that we have some fantastic melee HQ options for the price.

Here are some my favorites so far:

• Archon, Labyrinthine Cunning, Writ of the Living Muse = 72 base
• Archon, Hatred Eternal, Djin Blade = 76 base
• Archon, Famed Savagery, Djin Blade = 76 base
• Succubus, Blood Dancer, Adrenalight, Triptych Whip = 54 base
• Succubus, Hyper-swift Reflexes, Adrenalight, Blood Glaive = 54 base
• Succubus, Precision Blows, Adrenalight, Triptych Whip = 54 base
• Haeomculus, Diabolical Soothsayer, Vexator Mask = 75 base

Let's start with the Archons.  You've all probably seen me take the Archon with Cunning and Writ of the Living Muse in my lists.  That's because it's one of the most powerful Warlords in the game for the points IMO.  Cunning is absolutely fantastic at regenerating CPs whenever a CP is spent for both you and your opponents.  For DE, I find that some of our Strategems are a little costly, especially that Agents of Vect counterspell that costs 3 just by itself.  With Cunning, you can do some really crazy recycling that can help you sustain the longer gameplan:

For example:

• You don't want a 2-cost Strategem to go off so you throw out Agents of Vect.
• Before you even put AoV down, you roll 2 dice for his Strategem for Cunning.
• Next, you AoV and since you just spent 3 CP, you roll 3 more dice to see if you get any back from Cunning.
• Agents of Vect then takes effect, hopefuly blocking his Strategem.
• In this example right here, you're probably going to get back a CP from just playing the game regularly.

When you play Black Heart, you almost have to bring Writ of the Living Muse.  It's one of the best buff batteries in the entire game and enhances the damage potential of every single Black Heart unit within 6".  Everything within this distance gets re-roll 1s to Hit and Wound that that is a huge damage amplifier, especially on things like Dark Lances and Disintegrators when you absolutely need to hit with your more expensive damaging weapons.  Living Muse simply gives you consistent damage and that's exactly what you need to turn your very good shooting up a notch to exceptional.

As for melee Archons, I see two main options here:  Both of which have the Djin Blade of course which is just an upscaled Huskblade.  Hatred Eternal gives you more consistent results via re-roll all wounds in melee but the Famed Savagery Archon from Flayed Skull gives you great burst damage.  With Famed Savagery, you have 8 S5 AP-3 D3 attacks that hits on 2s with re-roll 1s.  Personally, if I was to pick one of the two, I would go for more consistent damage with the Hatred Eternal Warlord trait.  There are bonus points in the fact that Hatred Eternal is a generic WL trait and thus doesn't lock you to any particular Obssession.  As for arming the Archons further, always seek out the Blaster first since you have a fantastic BS2+ and Blasters are amazing with their S8 AP-4 D6 damage from 18" (24" for Obsidian Rose).

I whip my hair back and forth.

The Succubus went from one of the most overcosted units in the entire game to arguably the most cost-efficient melee blender in the game.  I'll start off by listing the Blood Dancer variant that comes with 9 attacks hitting on 2s, re-rolling 1s, and each Hit roll of a 6 turns into 3 Hits instead of 1.  On the regular, she can throw out something like 14 attacks with an Agonizer (Poison 4+ AP-2 1D) and that's just obscene.  Against single wound models, she is almost guaranteed to wipe out entire squads by herself.  She just reminds me of the Blenderlord that I ran for Vampire Counts back in the days of Fantasy.  To make things even more exciting, once you hit Turn 3+, you can activate these multiple hits on a 5+ instead of 6 because of the PFP chart.  The only downside here is that she's a Succubus and she just explodes if anyone swings back at her because she only has a 4++/6+++ with T3 and 5 wounds.  Regardless, LO_OK at her points cost!  For 54 points, she's an absolute steal.  I can't help but hear this garbage ass song whenever she enters combat.

Other variants of the Succubus are also really strong; such as the Blood Glaive Succubus with 5 attacks with Adrenalight dealing S6 AP-3 D3 damage attacks.  I've seen this particular variant built two ways really; with either the Red Grief specific WL trait of 3++ or with Stimm Addict with Grave Lotus and Adrenalight.  This gives her 5 attacks at S7 which is now a serious threat to virtually all targets including light vehicles.  Again, 54 points of awesome.

Another variant I want to introduce you to someone who might be our best duelist.  She has 9 attacks with the Whip just like the Blender because she's from Cult of Strife (for +1 attack), however instead of Blood Dancer, she has the Precision Blows WL trait.  When you're hitting with 8-9 attacks every turn, you're going to be looking for 6s that can just do straight mortal wounds in addition to the regular wounds inflicted with an Agonizer.  That's very good.  For all these Succubus, I highly recommend taking a Blast Pistol on the Blood Glaive Succy to take advantage of her superior BS2+.  Funny enough, the Precision Blows Succubus can still do mortal wounds to Vehicles and Titans.

Never trust someone with 5-6, 7? arms.

Lastly, we have the Haemonculus that you will probably see most frequently if you're planning to take Coven units and Alliance of Agony for 1 CP.  This is because Diabolical Soothsayer essentially pays for itself immediately and you can get 2 more CP if you roll well (D3 in total).  Sure, you also get that once a game re-roll for your Warlord, but no one really cares about that because you also gain access to the Vexator Mask.  This thing is actually pretty hilarious.  You can basically take this Haemonculus and just charge into something to tie it up because they cannot use Overwatch on you.  You can then charge your Wyches into them for free without any fear of OW fire.  To make things even more enjoyable, the mask also gives an enemy unit with 6" of the Haemonculus ASL essentially, making them strike last after all other units have gone int the Fight phase.  That's just funny considering the amount of melee boss HQs we have in the Codex.

What are some of your favorite HQs to bring?  I know I've been extra boring with the Black Heart Archon, but hey, it's been working so why not!

5 GAMES FOR OCTOBER

On this eve of All Hallow's Eve, take a trip down memories once forgotten with October's spooktacular quintet of games. Adventure meets FPS in the movie tie-in to the classic horror franchise Bloodwings: Pumpkinhead's Revenge. Then make sure you Don't Go Alone in an under-appreciated computer RPG from the late 80s. If you make it out alive, investigate some real-life hauntings with Christopher Lee in Ghosts. Need some lighter scares? Try Scooby-Doo! Showdown in Ghost Town, a point-and-click adventure for younger players. If bloody gore's more your thing, enter the horrifying fantasy world of Witchaven, an often overlooked FPS using the Build engine. Enjoy.... if you dare!!!

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Playing Grim2/Madrak2 In The July Scrum (Plus Match Report)

My wife was kind enough to allow me to play in the local Scrum League taking place this month. For those that don't know, the Scrum is a Steam Roller event that takes place over the course of a month, one game a week. 

My Pairing

I've only started to get back into the WM swing of things and as such I don't feel I have enough games to really expect to actually win the Scrum. So my main goal for the event is to simply enjoy it and frankly, learn my way around playing competitively again.  We've got the new Steamroller 2018 Scenarios to play with, and simply learning to deal with that is going to be an adventure all its own.

As such I was faced with a choice on what to run: use well established "strong lists" or to play something off the wall that I've cooked up.  The established "Strong Lists" were going to be stealing Tim Banky's Madrak1 Band of Heroes list (Champs, min Long Riders, Fenns + UA) and Borka2 Power of Dhunia list.

Given that I was also in the process of being tempted to play Convergence soon, I didn't want to just grind games with a strong pair to get competitive with it especially since when I was last playing WM I had ground out a lot of Madrak1 games already.

So I went with some off beat choices with old favorites from MK2, to try and continue a Tour of Trolls: Grim2 and Madrak2.

Trollblood - Grim2 WW

Theme: Kriel Company

3 / 3 Free Cards     75 / 75 Army

Hunters Grim - WB: +25

-    Muggs & Krump

-    Trollkin Runebearer - PC: 0

-    Dire Troll Bomber - PC: 19 (Battlegroup Points Used: 19)

-    Dire Troll Bomber - PC: 19 (Battlegroup Points Used: 6)

War Wagon - PC: 16

Fell Caller Hero - PC: 0

Feralgeist - PC: 2

Krielstone Bearer & Stone Scribes - Leader & 5 Grunts: 9

-    Stone Scribe Elder - PC: 3

Northkin Raiders - Leader & 9 Grunts: 15

Greygore Boomhowler & Co. - Boomhowler & 9 Grunts: 17

Thumper Crew - Gunner & 2 Grunts: 0

For Grim2 I really wanted to get games in with the War Wagon more than anything, and I figured both Raiders and Boomhowlers of all things would actually pack a sufficient melee punch as well for the normally shooty oriented Kriel Company.  I also opted for double Bomber vs. a Glacier King in order to maximize shooting output and having access to Far Strike on Grim for non-feat turns.

The Madrak2 list is one I have played previously and discussed here.

Trollblood - Madrak2 Toughallo

Theme: Band of Heroes
3 / 3 Free Cards     74 / 75 Army

Madrak Ironhide, World Ender - WB: +28
-    Trollkin Runebearer - PC: 0
-    Dire Troll Mauler - PC: 15 (Battlegroup Points Used: 15)
-    Dire Troll Bomber - PC: 19 (Battlegroup Points Used: 13)

Fell Caller Hero - PC: 0
Fell Caller Hero - PC: 0
Eilish Garrity, the Occultist - PC: 5

Krielstone Bearer & Stone Scribes - Leader & 5 Grunts: 9
-    Stone Scribe Elder - PC: 3
Trollkin Long Riders - Leader & 4 Grunts: 20
Trollkin Long Riders - Leader & 4 Grunts: 20
Kriel Warriors - Leader & 9 Grunts: 11

Match Report 1

My first matchup was vs. the Scrum Overlord himself, Mark.  He's our resident Convergence player, so I was quite excited about the matchup since I'd get to see how Convergence would play.  His lists were:

Axis – Destruction Initiative

Axis

-Corollary

-Diffuser

-Galvanizer

-Inverter

-Inverter

-Inverter

-Inverter

Attunement Servitors

Ellish Garrity

Elimination Servitors

Elimination Servitors

Reflex Servitors

Optifex Directive

Transfinite Emergence Projector

Iron Mother – Destruction Initiative

Iron Mother

-Exponent Servitors

-Corollary

-Mitigator

-Prime Axiom

Algorithmic Dispersion Optifex

Algorithmic Dispersion Optifex

Ellish Garity

Attunement Servitors

Elimination Servitors

Elimination Servitors

Elimination Servitors

Optifex Directive

Transfinite Emergence Projector

Transfinite Emergence Projector

My matchup analysis for this was correct, even though my conclusions weren't particularly great for my chances.  

Axis had enough juice to push through Madrak2 to the point where I wasn't going to be able to kill enough to get through the feat before attrition swung too hard on me.   Mother would eat Grim2 alive, but Madrak2 would run right over her list.  This left Grim2 into Axis as probably the closest to a 50/50 for me, despite the fact that Destruction Initiative brings tons of shield guards. My Grim2 list brings an incredible number of shots to the table and should theoretically push through them. 

There was also the idea that with the Axis/Mother pairing in CoC, Axis handles Hordes while Mother handles Warmachine. I went in dropping Grim2 and expecting Axis and that's exactly what happened. 

Our scenario was Spread the Net, which I didn't have nearly enough playtime on. 

At the roll off my +1 to go first failed me, but Mark decided he wanted me to go first anyway, preferring to be able to score first.  Initially I thought Mark was making a huge mistake here, but in hindsight he was being rather brilliant. Spoiler Alert: I lost the game. 

Apologies for my lack of pictures here, but I was under clock pressure. I will attempt to rectify this for the next games in the Scrum.

What ended up happening was that by making me deploy first, Mark was able to counter deploy his TEP so that he would be able to get shots into me more easily where if I deployed second I could have mitigated the TEP's influence somewhat. 

At the top of turn two I burned way too much clock thinking about taking an assassination, only to realize that it would be impossible because the CoC walking vectors all have steady.  As such I was under clock pressure from the get go. 

Instead I feated and shot an Inverter off the table, positioned to score my flag and zone, and tried to mitigate the incoming TEP damage to my two units. 

Mark was able to shoot the Feralgeist off my flag (yay Optifex Directives) and run a servitor to contest my zone, conversely he killed what I was contesting his zone with (I didn't put enough in) and feated on most of my army.  Between Jacks and the TEP I lost nearly all of my Raiders but Boomhowlers were largely intact, with some being out of the feat and they had Mirage on them.   Mark is able to score his zone and flag, while also leaving two Inverters staring down my beasts and Grim.

Turn 3 is where everything went off the rails. I had 4 Boomhowlers in charge range after Mirage of the TEP, as well as a Raider who could walk and punch it under the Feat.  I landed the Mortality on the TEP from the Runebearer and started activating the units to hopefully punch it to death, but I was low enough on time that I wasn't smart enough to use the Stone for strength. DOH!

Here my dice did come up rather short, with two charges putting only 1-2 points on the TEP and the Raider doing next to nothing.  All plans swapped to killing the TEP so it doesn't wreck the rest of my lines, which was largely a mistake. I had a plan with the War Wagon to kill the servitor contesting my zone, then shoot/kill the servitor on Mark's flag and moving into contesting range while also scoring my zone with it. This diverted to get what shots I had left into the TEP and to burn shield guards.  This also meant my bombers and Grim2 were shooting at the TEP to finish it instead of killing at least one of the Inverters in my face. 

In all my haste I neglected to move part of Grim's unit to contest my zone and I left his inverters alive in the middle, although jammed by the War Wagon.  Mark scored his flag while I scored my own with the Fell Caller. 

Here Mark arguably had a workable assassination on Grim, though he was able to get a much easier path to victory.  Mark cleared out what I had in his friendly zone and scored with a Galvanizer, his solo scored his flag again, and since I had nothing in my zone he was able to run one Inverter in to score that, and then all he had to do was get the other Inverter from the middle to contest my flag and he wins. Mark tries to kill the Boomhowler in the way, missing all his servitor shots, Axis's spell, and a Diffuser shot, forgetting he can just cast the Bulldoze spell to avoid taking any free strikes at all.  I had Mortality on the Inverter, and so I was able to take two boosted POW15's on the jack, with one damage roll hitting triple 6's, but it wasn't enough and he's able to run to contest my flag – ending the game. 

Conclusions

Man the rust from not playing for a few months and not having played Grim2 since MK2 really was noticeable.  I also didn't read the TEP card close enough when investigating convergence, thinking that it lost the ability to put servitors in the back arc to get extra shots, when PP just moved the rule for that to the permutation servitors section.  Also forgetting Steady on the jacks was a major issue which caused me to burn too much clock.  I also simply made a lot of positioning mistakes that Mark was able to capitalize on very effectively.

After the game Mark asked why I didn't attempt an assassination on Axis during turn 3 while under his feat, despite his 5 camp he only had 2 shield guards I arguably had enough guns to get the job done.

In truth I saw the shield guards and camp and decided to avoid it, not realizing exactly how dicey my chances were getting.  I could have used Grim's unit to gum up the Inverters to stop counter charge, or at least partially done so, stuck a mortality and then powered through as much as possible into Axis.

Overall I'm looking forward to trying more games with Grim2, but we will have to see what this week brings.   

From the Convergence side of things, I'm definitely intrigued by Mark's list and while I would probably swap one Inverter for another jack (I only own 3), I like the idea of 1 TEP in Axis. It certainly looked fun to play. 

I Don't Want That

Normally, OSR blog posts lack any real divisiveness.  I mean, we all kind of agree on certain things, and where we disagree, we're mostly fine accepting those differences.

Well, I've stumbled onto something I'm really passionate about - a subject that my friend is equally passionate about.  Yay, an argument!

The following is a copy/paste from the comment section beneath his review of Old School Renaissance Like A Fucking Boss.  It might make more sense if I included Endzeitgeist's review of Crimson Dragon Slayer D20 for context, as well as, my own blog post response to it.

While it may seem obvious, let me mention it here - I like old school for the most part, I play old school for the most part, and I create old school content for the most part, but that doesn't mean I slavishly adhere to it at all costs.  If this renaissance doesn't grant us a modicum of freedom, then what the fuck are we doing here?

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Care for a fun experiment / playtest?

Let's do a 5-minute Roll20 or 10 email posts (for each of us) combat scene. You can play a cleric with 2 allies against 5 goblins. I'll GM. Then we'll see if the cleric is broken or not.

Also, thanks for the review and shout-out, hoss!

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Your suggestions for the frame of the playtest make clear that you do not understand, or do not want to understand, the root of the issue.

The very foundation of the mathematic baselines and narrative tensions underlying any D&D-adjacent game are based on a degree of tactics and resource-attrition to some degree or another.

Particularly the OSR tradition uses this and considers it to be a virtue and one of the pillars of player skill. Same goes for 5e.

Your game professes to be based on both for branding, but purposefully flaunts the very central pillar on which this is based.

As a direct consequence, your infinite healing clerics and, as a consequence, infinite casting wizards are BROKEN because they invalidate the central baseline.

You *can* call that deliberate and skew encounter-difficulty to make (almost) every encounter hinge on nigh annihilation (see what Cha'alt's Black Pyramid often does), only to have everyone miraculously regain all resources after the encounter.

However: Encounters are not tied to time in-game; they make no sense as a metric in-game.
Doing so invalidates any notion of survival struggle or danger…beyond excessive damage output and save-or-suck.

That might work for a small one-shot, sure. It wrecks any long-term appeal of your rules-lite games, though…because you don't ever really are rewarded for doing anything but throwing your best damage at the enemy as fast as possible. Because you either are fine, or you're dead.

You're walking into a dead-end for design and tension, and have been for some time. And I really think that you're better than that.

In the long run?
You can't erect a system with any degree of longevity on it, because this relegates EVERY single challenge to being just a different coat of paint over the same metrics. Unless the players are super easy to please, this "oh, we almost died to damage/oh, some died to save or suck – oh well, we're good now!" as the only type of danger to be encountered EVERY ENCOUNTER will turn stale very fast.

Infinite healing powering infinite spellcasting has, AUTOMATICALLY, this long-term effect.

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Your contention that "I don't understand" or my game "flaunts the very central pillar" smacks of badwrongfun.  Rather than what I'd call macro-tension that might be better suited to the long haul of a extensive campaign, my focus is micro-tension; certainly better suited to one-shots and shorter campaigns.  You sacrifice one for the other.  That means in order to fulfill the one, you neglect the other.  Sure, some try to have it both ways, but we both know that's not easy to find, let alone maintain. 

Essentially, you're treating combat like some kind of gritty and desperate sport, but still a sport.  All things must be in alignment or balanced, uphill and against the current, so combat turns into a long-game of pick-your-poison suffering and resource management masturbation. 

Crimson Dragon Slayer D20 treats combat as war, but a potentially winnable war focused on the immediate, the here and now.  I have no interest in incentivizing the 5-minute workday or making certain classes suck because the rules treat them as one-hit wonders... but awesome after level 5.

I've allowed everyone to have a valuable role, a seat at the proverbial table, regarding combat.  That's one of my favorite things about the OSR.  It's not so rooted in old school play-styles from decades past that it can't innovate depending on the creator's design goals.

There are some things that just don't work for me regarding early D&D, that's why I came up with my own thing.  If I merely wanted to play the game as it was played back in 1980, I would just play B/X and call it a day.  Your acting like my personal revelation is nothing aside from the madness of delusion.

Falling into the same tired mistakes, the design dead-ends and cul-de-sacs of our predecessors doesn't help us pursue those strange new avenues necessary to birth RPGs catering to those looking for something different.  Not inherently better or worse... just different.

My "ultimate RPG" is going to be subjective, it has to be, or else RPG designers are chasing the "standard gamer audience" dragon of mainstream utilitarianism.  Other designers are welcome to it, but I don't want that.

VS

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Feel free to post your thoughts below...