I'm Back and Blogging

Well the last two years has been a bumpy ride, 2010 was a horrid yearly personally and 2011 was taken up almost entirely with selling my old house and the construction of my new one. Here's a pic of it from about a month ago.

So with that out of the way I hope to have more time blogging about topics in the new year. And this time I mean it! So roll on 2012.

WM

Stoneskin not quite as badass in 2nd Edition or is it?

Ahhh Stoneskin... I've thought I had this spell down pat over the years then looked at others interpretations of it and thought they were right and then went back to the source and wondered if there is no clear cut definition on the perhaps the most abused spell in 2nd edition AD&D.

I must admit I've played 2nd Edition Advanced Dungeons and Dragons for years and thought I knew this spell inside and out. But much like the 2nd amendment to the Constitution it's a bit puzzling in its phrasing.  There is one pertinent part is unclear or at least hinges on how its interpreted. By this I mean consider the following


Stoneskin
4th level Mage spell (page 163 in the 2nd Edition Players Handbook)
Range: Touch
Componnents: V, S M
Duration: Special
Casting Time: 1
Area of Effect: 1 creature
Saving Throw: None

When this spell is cast, the affected creature gains virtual immunity to any attack by cut, blow, projectile or the like. even a sword of sharpness cannot affect a creature protected by stoneskin, nor can a rock hurled by a giant, a snake's strike, etc. However, magical attacks from such spells as fireball. magic missile, lightning bolt, and so forth have their normal effects. The spell blocks 1d4 attacks, plus one attack per two levels of of experience of the caster has achieved. This limit apples regardless of attack rolls and regardless of whether the attack was physical or magical. For example, a stoneskin  spell cast by a 9th-level wizard would protect against five and eight attacks. An attacking griffon would reduce the protection by three each round; four magic missiles would count as four attacks in addition to inflicting their normal damage.

The material components of the spell are granite and diamond dust sprinkled on the recipient's skin.

Now I'm no rules lawyer, but the section that says "This limit apples regardless of attack rolls and regardless of whether the attack was physical or magical."

Now you can interpret it to say: Attack rolls whether the hit or not remove one "skin" from the spell.
Or you could say it doesn't much like where the commas are in the 2nd Amendment its a bit maddening...

So what did Sage Advice have to say about it?
Stoneskin: This spell is subject to considerable abuse by player characters. Multiple stoneskins placed on a single creature are not cumulative. If two or more stoneskin spells are cast on the same creature, roll normally for the number of attacks each spell protects against. If a new spell protects against more attacks than the present spell does, the recipient gets the benefit of the increased protection; otherwise there is no effect. The caster does not necessarily know how many attacks the spell can shield him from.

Stoneskin protects only against blows, cuts, pokes, and slashes directed at the recipient. It does not protect against falls, magical attacks, touch‑delivered special attacks (such as touch‑delivered spells, energy draining, green slime, etc.), or nonmagical attacks that do not involve blows (such as flaming oil, ingested or inhaled poisons, acid, constriction, and suffocation). Stoneskin lasts for 24 hours or until the spell has absorbed its allotment of attacks.

Well this helps, but only a little.

Gamesday 2011????

So Gamesday 2011 is in Chicago this year and so far I am undecided as to whether or not I will be going. Last year at Baltimore was to be blunt: disappointing to say the least when clearly GW was holding back. What do I mean by this? To put it bluntly they held back EVERYTHING on the Warhammer side of the house and instructed no one to talk about the upcoming information for Warhammer Forge. There were plenty of rumors going around the net and clearly the GW staffers were in the know were clearly choosing their words very carefully. Sorry guys, GW is not Apple, the secrecy game works for them, you guys? Not so much. It was nice to spend time with my friends and the like and it was cool to get some games of Warhammer in (which is an all to infrequent thing these days for me), but if this was their attempt, I’d almost rather they didn’t, at all. That may sound harsh but I like the new game, its refreshing, its weeded out a lot of the math-hammer, “your missed that charge by 1/16” of an inch” whiney a-holes. All that said, Gamesday needs to be better.

Sorry, but another halfhearted attempt again doesn’t make me feel better considering time and distance to travel. Traveling to Chicago is not that much further for me as I can cut through lower Ontario Canada to shave off some considerable time and distance; so its probably a 9 hour drive as opposed to 7 to Baltimore from where I live in Rochester NY. So it’s not the distance that concerns me, but rather it’s the effort. I ask you GW why should I expend this time and effort for what has become a lack-luster event in general? I like the fact that its later this year (July 30^th). I also look forward to see some of my friends in the Mid-West, but it’s largely a wasted effort on the Warhammer side of the house if GW does it half-assed again.  GW should note for me its not the money either, its rather the time and effort.

So as I stand here in late January, early February it’s a unsettled and uncertain thing: I want to go, I want GW to show me something there that will make it worth my time and effort, but sadly I have this sneaking feeling that if there are any big announcements, they will save it for Gamesday UK in the Fall and leave Gamesday US as a half-hearted attempt again. Note: that’s not that I know of any because usually when I post these things my inbox gets flooded, ;)

As to how this could be better (as I a firm believer rather then complaining offer up constructive criticism) is this: Rather then instructing everyone to talk about nothing or with half speak, how about some open dialogue. I fail to see what GW gains by being so closed. I’m sorry the consumer is getting smarter and from where I live not everyone is jumping on the latest army anymore; people aren't that free with their money anymore, even the “kids”. So if the fear is that “If we tell you, you’ll just wait until that army comes out…” Guess what GW? I’ve been doing that for years, I have money I will give you for the product that I want. Apparently you don’t want that money, so here I wait.

How about you? What are your thoughts regarding attendance at the closest Gamesday to you this year?

WM

Some improvements to the Blog!

As you can see I've added some improvements to the blog in order to make it easier on the eye strain. Reversed type is ok, but for long periods of time its a bit taxing.

Also never fear I have a bunch of posts in the pileline for the blog in various states of completion, just trying to get things organized.

Its also important to note that the blog is still going to cover Warhammer stuff but is also expanding to cover gaming in general and other nerd topics, maybe sports too.

Willmark

Jamarcus Russell Thank the Sith Gods he's gone!

I'm going to take the opportunity to thank the Sith Lords for finally cutting the worst, and I mean worst quarterback ever to disgrace himself in football. The Oakland Raiders and us the long suffering Nation can finally move on from this complete and utter craptastic "QB". Really, now the debate about who was worse: Ryan Leaf or JaMarcus can begin. For a comparison see below.

I was against this tool when the Raiders drafted him in 2007 and so was Lane Kiffin, not that I was a huge fan of his either They could have drafted anyone , but no they had to take him #1 in the draft.

In retrospect this "QB" set the franchise back years by his in consistent "play". Fortunately the Crypt Keeper (Al Davis) finally wised up and cut ties with him admitting the mistake.

One of the more amazing things is what he got paid 39 million dollars to win 7 games... to put it into perspective: http://espn.go.com/espn/thelife/salary/index?athleteId=5142920

How depressing is that?

Then from the USA Today
"That works out to $110,169.49 per completion. If Peyton Manning were paid at the same rate, he'd have earned $466 million by now. And Brett Favre would have topped $670 million."

Even more amazing for JaMarcus Russell, he "earned" $110,000 per completion, 2 million per TD pass, 5 million per win... if that doesn't suck I dont know what does.

JaMarcus Russel 2007-2009
Games: 31 / QB Rating: 65.2/ Comp: 354 Att 680/ %52.1 Yds 4083 TD 18 INT 23 Record 7-18

Ryan Leaf 1998-2001
Games: 25 / QB Rating: 65.2/ Comp: 317 Att 655/ %48.4 Yds 3666 TD 14 INT 36 Record 4-17

So let the debate begin and there have been some truly horrendous QBs to "grace" the NFL over the last 20 years: Akili Smith, Tim Couch, Todd Marinovich, Andre Ware, Rex Grossman, Dan McGwire, Kelly Stouffer, Danny Wuerffel, Jim Druckenmiller, and Heath Shuler to name but a few (Cade McNown, Rick Mirer and Joey Harrington) are question marks to me in a lot of respects.

And there are even more when you look at the NFL over the last say 40 years, but at the top of the scrap heap? Ryan Leaf and JaMarcus Russell with JR being #1 in my mind.

The Bellower Issue 2

The Big flabby, guts over at Ogre Stronghold are back at it again, and this time with the latest release of the Bellower,. The Bellower being the the ezine of the excellent Ogre Stronghold website. As one would imagine (but for the benefit of those not in the know) this is for the game of Warhammer, specifically the Ogre faction of the Warhammer World. The Ogre Kingdoms site can be accessed at: (www.ogrestronghold.com)

In much the same way the production delays seem to plague the Word of Hashut the Bellower got out a bit later then last time, not that I know anything about that...

For layout it is in the horizontal (landscape) format again and that is fine. To me personally its immaterial as my laptop is often hooked up to a large monitor for reading or I read them on my home desktop and a 24” screen…

There are no real noticeable production glitches and being the geek that I am I noticed that the ezine was created in Scribus which is open source; that would be my choice if I did not use InDesign on Gold and Glory and The Word of Hashut so kudos there. Why would anyone check this you ask? Because if you create these things you winder what someone else is using that’s why. Scribus is freely available from here: http://www.scribus.net


First off the good things that I liked or noticed as I read through it
Great job on the cover. A good looking cover is a necessity for ezines in this day and age. In a world of increasing ezines its harder to stand out unless there is a good cover, this one fulfills those requirements. The cover also ties in nicely to the content inside. It shows that the Bellower Staff is looking at theme rather then a random picture on the cover that has only marginally meaning to the contents.

I enjoyed the focus on the Trapper. It’s always nice to see articles that challenge the status quo of thinking for a particular army, whether it’s from the theoretical or a necessity. All too often many Warhammer players cant get out of their rut. I think those that don’t play “Point and Click armies” are able to do this better and such is the case here. Also the Trapper article was well laid out and an easy read. A few more graphics and/or pictures might have helped it “breathe” a bit more as the last page of the article felt a bit cramped in terms of its space.

I also really liked the recap of Animosity IV, this is a great example of a short, concise article that gets to the salient points quickly and is an easy read. Great job here Mercules.

The Saber step-by-step guide: It was well laid out and and clear about what steps you were doing. In short a great guide for a newbie to follow. A few bigger pictures showing the painted goods might have gone a long way here.

I like the look of the ezine with varying shades of gray; it breaks up the pages nicely. With that said see my comments below about improvements. Also the flip side of prolonged usage of white text on dark backgrounds is eyestrain. This issue has a lot of reversed type. The flip is to beware of too dark of a background with black type as it can blend.(Of course this blog is black and white but I keep the posts short(ist).

Things to work on
The next step for the Bellower Team is to step up their game and to attempt an ezine in full color. The (largely) black and white layout/theme is well executed and looks great, its also fun to do once in a while but for the sake of variation its good to add more color. This is more difficult to accomplish but worth it to give it a try. This is more of a style thing, not that anything is wrong.

I noticed a few typos here and there; nothing too major and I know how tough it can be to catch them all.

Careful use of the text wrapping tools! I know for a fact how tricky this one can be. The fact that the software can easily wrap text is great. The downside is that it can produce tight text to an object or even weird separations or gaps of the text. When finished its always a good idea to have someone else look at it who has a fresh set of eyes: after looking at it for months you tend to fill stuff in mentally, I know I do.

From the layout perspective the Painting Competition article was a bit unfocused. What I mean is that it was not always clear looking at it what won what placing in the competition. I know I did a double take a few times here and there. Once I looked it over again I can see where the idea was going but it seemed a bit disjointed.

The back cover is a minor point but an important one. The back cover sets the tone for the next issue and also gives a sneak peak as to what’s coming next. Now how this goes its likely that someone was supposed to do it then “something came up” forcing Randroid to scramble, not that I would know anything like that.

If you are looking for a great read that focuses on the flabby mercs of the Warhammer World then these are your lads and this is your mag. There is nothing bad about the issue at all and overall I'd feel comfortable giving it a 4 out 5 rating, easily. All in all a fine effort from the group here and all around its nice to see an improvement from Issue 1. Congratulations on the good work and keep it up.

Willmark

Writing and Producing 2e Modules for sale, eventually.

2nd Edition Adventure in the works, eventually.

For those of you not in the know I also play 2nd Edition ADD. I'm not a big fan of either 3rd or 4th edition and would play it if I had to, but fortunately I don't ;)

Right now I'm DMing once a week and have been working on a high level adventure on and off for a while. Considering the success of the Word of Hashut I'm pretty confident I can produce a good layout. I'm thinking about writing a module and possibly selling it at Lulu. I am in the process of putting together a high level adventure based on a few ideas that I have had for some time now. Cool thing there is a homage to both the remake and original Clash of the Titans in it.

I dont expect this will happen soon, but I do think that once I finish up Gold and Glory #4 I will have a bit more time.

So as time goes by I'll update here with more bits and pieces.

(PS: Wow first time I made more then 2 blog posts in a month!)

Warhammer 8th edition and the fate of Chaos Dwarfs?

Warhammer 8th edition
As the entire world is now talking about this I might as well post about it too ;)

But rather then hash out all the rumors that have already been gone over ad naseum I wonder what the fate of Chaos Dwarfs will be in 8th. As we know they were inserted into the back of the 7th edition books with the notation of no current rule book or some such. Then through the entire run of 7th, and 6th for that matter, nothing.

The question then becomes will GW remove them this time around? If they are in its probably a good sign that they will continue, if not, who knows what that means but its probably not anything good.

Like any business GW has to make money. They normally do not do anything and teh past results of Chaos Dwarfs are hardly encouraging in that regard. Lets just how that the efforts of www.chaos-dwarfs.com has made them reconsider. I think that they have a far bigger fan base then creating another army out of left field like they did for Ogre Kingdoms.

I'd be hard pressed to name another faction of Warhammer that has more fan support then Chaos Dwarfs. Oh that's right there isnt one!

If they are not included I'm not sure I want to throw in the towel but by the same token the last chaos dwarf book was... 1993. Some people have never even seen the cover of White Dwarf Presents: Chaos Dwarfs! In fact some who are playing Warhammer right now have never even seen them on the table top, some probably weren't even born yet. Man I now feel old.

Word of Hashut #8

Word of Hashut #8 Finally done!
This is not a review of my own work, but more of a post to say yep its out and I'm glad its done because now its onto Gold and Glory #4 for Dogs of War Online. *

Word of Hashut #8 was a milestone for many ways. For one it is now equal in terms of issues to the Citizen Levy for the High Elves (http://www.ulthuan.net/forum/portal.php) and puts us on par with the Skavenblight Gazette.

Its important to note that for me this is not just about the length of the content or how many issues, truly and simply its about giving something back to the Warhammer community and to keep the dream of Chaos Dwarfs alive.

Its also important that now we are closing in on Issue #9 and 2 years of doing the ezine as well as our 10th issue right after, all fine achievements, but we are not resting on our laurels. we are looking for new ways to make it even better.

Many across the web think we (I) are dreaming about the return of Chaos Dwarfs to Warhammer. To which I say: "What's wrong with dreaming?" To paraphrase from the movie Miracle " I find the term Dream Teams ironic, because now that we have dream teams, we seldom get to dream".

I don't know about you but a little dreaming coupled with some hard work isn't a bad thing.

* www.dogsofwaronline.com

Review of the Invocation #4

Its the end of a three month span so we all know what that means, a number of ezines will soon be making their way to the internet. The first out of the gate is the Invocation from Carpe Noctrum and can be found here:

http://vampirecounts.net/invocation.php

Once again the guys led by Disciple of Nagash have done a good job for the undead fans of the Warhammer world.

Likes
First off I liked the step-by-step painting guide for undead beasts: pictures were clear and color was/is good on the photos.

Next up is the comic/graphic novel: I'm liking it. The style of the story fits well as does the storyline and action. The artistic style also has an appeal to it (to me at least) that evokes the right feelings. I especially liked the final panel.

Battle Report: Knowing how much of a pain these art to organize, photograph and write I have to give props just for getting one in! For those not in the know these are not necessarily the most fun thing to do for an ezine. It follows and reads well so you can clearly see what is going on.

Now to some of the criticisms
Each time the Invocation has been out each issue has felt long and this one is no exception at 149 pages. Simply put reading it tends to feel like a chore in spots. No ezine is immune to this and I for one am looking to cut down the Word of Hashut so its not as unwieldy.

The use of white text on a illustrated background with no stroke to the characters. This is not a problem in and of itself but make for difficult reading when it is a issue of this length. Again, in and of itself not an issue, but coupled with page length it becomes more noticeable.

A minor quibble for typesetting: Either make a headline bold or underline, but not both at the same time. ;)

In short the criticisms are minor and correctable for the future but it looks like the DoN and the gang did another fine job. I plan on re-reading it again more in depth and will add any further comments to this blog post.

WM

Word of Hashut... and Orcs and Goblins???

Word of Hashut Update
Well I'm not sure if I am going to make it with the deadline being the 28th of March, but what else is new huh?

One really good factor is almost anything in terms of contents is in and I am working on getting it organized.

So stay tuned for the next few weeks and we will see what transpires.

Next up... Orcs and Goblins?
By now everyone now knows it looks like Orcs and Goblins are next up on the release schedule: http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?aId=9000010a

To me this a bit unusual as it was not the next army I was expecting to see come out after Beastmen. This will prove interesting and I wonder what might be coming next after this bit of a curve ball.

Of course does this mean a new book and army fully?

Chaos Dwarfs Online

As the longtime members know today was the worst day in terms of site "performance" in quite some time.

In case you missed as I noted on www.chaos-dwarfs.com I am now looking into alternatives for site hosting and getting a migration plan together.

For those that follow the site/are members hang in there everyone.

WM

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Look out for the New Minotaurs!

I'm not one of those doom and gloom folks that think that every new army that comes out is "broken".

I will point out however those new rules for Minotaurs in the Beastmen book are sick: S5; additional hand weapon or great weapon, boodgreed. Now I haven't faced off against them in years but wow.

Make you check out this months WD and see what they did to a unit of Grail Knights...

WM

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

The Defintion of insanity is this blog

Well as if I do not have enough to do I figured I'd actually use my blog space that I created nearly 2 years ago. This blog will mainly focus on the comings and goings of my websites that I'm either a Admin or Co Admin for: www.chaos-dwarfs.com and www.dogsofwaronline.com; plus my work on the Word of Hashut ezine. Gold and Glory the ezine of Dogs of War Online may figure into here as well.

So be sure to stop back as I get this up and running.

Also some non-Warhammer related items my appear here from time to time.

WM