Transition Complete.

We are now finally out of the old place, and into the new. boxes EVERYWHERE, but it still feels tidier cleaner and more spacious than the old place... Plus the garden is awesome! Internet will be installed in about a week and a half, but for now: Study must be initiated - I have an exam on Monday...

-V

Brain melty.

I googled brain melt for an image... honest.

Packing is ongoing. Revision is crammed in where possible. It is 23:45 - and I have a LOT of ground to cover studying for tomorrows database exam. Thank Jupiter it is at 2:45pm... HOLAP, MOLAP, ROLAP, Aggregation, Relational Databases, Object Databases, Hypermedia, Real Time Databases, OLTP, biker mice from mars, Tom and Jerry, Dragon Orbs with demon spittle on. These are a few of my favourite things.

Huh, whats that? Oh crap! Yeah, Study.

Bai!
-V

Zombie Jesus Day

For some reason that name always makes me giggle. Now that the time of fertility celebrations are here - I cant help but think how much I wanna play wow and chase about little Noblegarden eggs... I must be insane.

May the 1st is Beltaine - I wish I was in a position to attend some of the celebrations that go on around the country at that time... it IS Sunday though - so perhaps a BBQ with some friends is in order... Then exam on the Monday. (Ah crap, I am moving tomorrow afternoon and all day wednesday... that leaves from Thursday to study for my next exam... yey! ...)

Anyhoo! Sooner they are done with the better. Just gonna enjoy the ride.

-V

Procrastination must not be added to!

Study study, pack, clean, study, play/feed/take care of kids, study study clean clean pack pack study study... Aargh! Wanna play my Death Knight :/ cant wait for the holidays...

D&D Campaign: The seal of Akatiel: 17th April

After running this session all I can say is: Epic dragon aerial battle encounters are HARD to choreograph!

Clutched in the massive claws of Chorgallon, the party ascends higher and higher into the sky. From the dragon well below, they see a stream of Huge Black Dragons spewing forth. Each has a cultist of some form riding them - except for 5 that appear riderless. They also see 2 red, 2 blue and 2 green dragons flying in from over the mountain from different directions to join them. Ahead over the horizon they can make out the rapidly closing group of metallic dragons approaching.

Chorgallon places the party members gently onto the backs of the riderless black dragons, where they find a makeshift harness/saddle in place that they can fix themselves to, and a large quiver filled with various colours of Javelins. Red, Blue, White, Green and a single Gold. It is clear what all Javelines represent with the exception of the Gold one, Edgar detects conjuration magic on it, and whilst contemplating Joe says "Hey, big wormy dude! Whats the gold one for!" to which Chorgallon responds: "Its for healing. Hit a target with it and it will restore them to full health. He informs them to be cautious with their selection to use in combat as they can only conjure a specific number of them at a time, and there may be benefits of using certain javelines on certain dragons, or in certain combinations for extra damage.

Edgar starts buffing party members up. Rapidly approaching they can make out 6 Bronze Dragons, and 3 Silver, copper, Brass and Gold Dragons. One Gold Dragon is significantly larger than the others and parts off to the flank from the rest of the force. Chorgallon splits off to intercept: One of one combat will commence.

The party advances towards the enemy, throwing javelines of Fire, Lightening, Cold and Acid at the enemy - starting with a gold dragon, between them and the rest of their force, they manage to kill it, and their combined energy rays and javelines from the metallic dragons forces takes out two of the Black Dragons, who start to desintegrate with the energies hitting them and fall from the sky, to impact with a hefty squelchy thud into the swampland a mile below. The party advances once more, Evictus raising his sword up and decapitating a dragon as his mount bites, claws, and lashes at it with its tail and wings, and the dragon cohorts charge forth into an aerial Melee, tearing a couple of the Bronze Dragons out of the sky. One by one dragons are falling from the sky on both sides, as our party guides their dragons around the aerial battlescape. They gang up on anyone loose from the pack tearing them to shreds.

Off to the side the Great Wyrms do battle - behind them, silhouetted against the clouds two ghostly visages can be made out. Behind the black dragon is the 5-headed dragon: Tiamat the chromatic dragon Godess, and behind the gold dragon there is Behamut, the Platinum Dragon god, and father of Tiamat. The Colossal Gold Dragon grips Chorgallon in its claws and rips its wings from its body, discarding them as the great Black Dragon plummets towards the earth. Joe steers his mount into a dive and hurls his Golden Javeline of healing at Chorgallon, healing him as he impacts the ground. He stands up having survived the impact to survey the swamp. In the clouds above, the Metallic Dragons retreat at the site of Chorgallons body plummeting towards the swamp. As the Great Wyrm gold dragon ascends into the cloudline there is a colossal crack of thunder and hissing as the sky lights up with an array of lightening forks, cascading through the cloudline, and a red fiery glow... a moment later the Gold Dragon falls, body broken, scales and wings blasted clean off.
Ceinwen attempts to hit the dragon with a Golden Spear to try to allow for the opportunity for negotiations, but it is already dead, obliterated by whatever force was out of site in the cloudline. She dismounts as she does so, and impacts with the ground hard enough to break her vampiric body into a puff of smoke, and start drifting downwind.

The remaining dragon forces disperse, 3 surviving metallic dragons and 6 surviving Chromatic plus their riding mounts, and the party fly down on their dragons to investigate the swamp where 2 great wyrms and a vampire have hit the dirt. Well, I say they fly down on their dragons: Edgar BECAME a red dragon using a polymorph spell, although he is dwarfed by the dragons he descends alongside.

End of session. 
This campaign will resume after a few sessions of other games have been played, I want some fun gaming not as DM :p. I need a break!

-V

Adventures of moving to the new geekery-pad.

So, last night we planned out the big move. We have moved roughly once every year and a half since 2003 and every time we move, we seem to get less organised and pick up more and more crap. This time around we plan to be organised!

So...
We made a packing and task chart...

Which rooms to start on, what stuff to pack in advance, what tasks need taken care off (e.g cancelling services, changing billing addresses, etc.), the list is crazy and seemingly endless - but feels much more organised. Damn having these exams and some remaining admin to take care of before the move is officially official (i.e we actually get moving and don't just lose some of the deposit by pulling out.) I want to start packing and moving stuff in now!

Anyway, one of the things I am looking forward to the most is actually having a gaming area at last! At the moment if I want to play Warhammer I have to set up a single 2'x6' board on the living room floor or go to a friends house to play there. When running D&D and other P&P RPG's (Captain Acronym today!) we basically gather a couple of rickety old chairs around a big cushion and couch, and place a 2'x2' gaming board on the floor with some miniatures and a stack of dice on.
In the new place - the living room is fairly big, and will only have a couch and a couple of bits of furniture, and the kitchen has a 6-seater table. This gives us choice, and space! I cant wait to get the first game under way!

Productivity Downturn

I'm going to be going into a little bit of a hibernation mode for the next month. The last d&d game before the exam period will take place this coming Sunday. I have exams starting in 11 days, and I move house in 12. Its going to be a hella-busy and stressful time period with no internet for a short duration. Ill post whatever comes to my mind when I can, but it wont be the average post a day I have been trying to maintain lately.

Brb
-V

D&D Campaign: The seal of Akatiel: 11th April - Part 1

The party had previously reached a river and initiated combat with a Dragonne. Forest lines the river on both sides up ahead, and a mountain range can be seen in the distance – the Well of Dragons is said to be nestled amongst these mountains.

The party drains the Dragonnes blood into the river, and the Black coach trundles through the polluted river to the other side, and the party follows the river to the North. There is enough space alongside the river for the Black Coach to comfortably fit. After about an hour of travel, the sun is starting to set again – and the treeline to the east is thinning out... The trees seem limp and lifeless, with no leaves with the bark faded out to a pallid grey-green. Several wild animals litter the ground.

The party goes over to investigate. A stream flows down from the mountains and comes to a stop, draining underground near the main river. All the trees within 50ft of this river are dead, and the trail of the river can clearly be seen snaking right over to the nearest mountain and up the mountainside. The scene is very ambivalent. A beautiful darkening sky over the snow-peaked mountain, the forest all around and then the death and decay surrounding the river. Upon investigating the area they identify that the water is fouled, likely caused by Black Dragons - the water is Toxic and Acidic as hinted at by the dead animals and plantlife in the nearby vicinity. Joe pokes a stick in, and it dissolved in a matter of seconds - he holds it up giggling and just manages to avoid a glob of the liquid dripping onto his bare hand from the stick.

The party follow the river towards its source, it leads out of the woodland and up the slopes of the mountain... After about 500M the river disappears into several springs in the hillside. High above in the darkened sky, a couple of circling flying figures can be seen... The Silhouettes clearly identify them as dragons. One of them goes into a dive, appearing to be diving to a point further up the hill... After a few seconds, it billows out its wings and slows its decent and disappears out of your line of sight. To the party it looks like a young black Dragon. Not a great threat to the party on its own.

Casting invisibility on themselves, the party heads up hill

Egan sends his familiar forth to see if it can identify where the dragon went. He assumes there must be an entrance of some sort to access an underground lair. The bird flies up and circles around for a moment before reporting back via its Empathic Link that there is a couple of structures ahead and that there is a huge hole in the ground between them. The party proceed and after about 20 minutes of climbing up the rocky hillside,they reach a small plateau on the hillside. The Plateau is a couple of hundred ft  around and two wooden frames sit in the middle of it about 40’ apart, between them there is a gaping hole in the ground. Suspended from each wooden frame is a hefty Rope ladder. It looks sturdy enough and of a suitable size for a human to use, but is clearly designed for something of greater stature.

Evictus bounds onto the rope, and Ceinwen decides to climb onto him - and together they begin to descend. Joe follows them down the ladder whilst Egan levitates himself down the chasm beside them and Dreinell decides to just jump.

With a loud crunch Dreinell hits the solid rock floor at the bottom of the chasm, some 75 foot down. A moment later there is some shouting in an unrecognised language and then a couple of lines of acid cut the ropes on either side - on the side that has people climbing down, it causes Evictus and Ceinwen to plummet, but Joe is left hanging from the ladder.

Nobody is badly hurt from the falls, and the party examines their surroundings: A large cavern, made of Hewn stone - cut out of the odd combination of Granite and Limestone that this area of the hill comprises of. The chamber extends to the south where another wooden structure can be made out in the gloom, and tunnels extend to the east and the west. To the east there are two Dragonkin, much like those in the White Dragon lair, but this time they appear to have lizard-like skin. 

Egan floats down points his finger and says "Kapow!" and a dark beam bursts from his hands, narrowly missing one of the beasts and disintegrating a football sized hole in the solid rock behind him. Evictus bounds into the closest guy and initiates combat, whilst Ceinwen and Dreinell pick themselves up from the floor and cast at the two targets. Dreinell inflicting wounds and Ceinwen casting Friend to Foe and turning one of the DragonKin on the other. Joe in a feat of Acrobatic Fail attempts to spin round and dangle from his knees, but loses his grip and narrowly manages to catch the rope as he starts to fall, watching in vain as most of the arrows from his quiver clatter harmlessly onto the cavern floor below, along with a handful of poorly stowed daggers.

The DragonKin fight each other and Evictus. Dreinell inflicts further wounds, Ceinwen whelms the standing target, whilst Joe attempts to hook himself in place, succedes and fires a single arrow shot that misses. Evictus hacks away, and Egan casts Haste on the party.

Evictus and the DragonKin that has Friend to Foe cast on it cut down the injured DragonKin and Ceinwen manages to convince the other that they are not enemies. It stops fighting and looks at them confused as Joe makes a long jump from the rope onto the ground, tumbles up behind him and performs two viscious critting sneak attacks that kill him.

The party quickly check the bodies for loot and retrieve a number of items (loot at end), then head to the next chamber downwards. This one is about 100ft deep, and again Dreinell dives down whilst the others start to climb. The glow of fire can be seen at the bottom. 

With a thunk Dreinell lands, and Ceinwen calls down "Hello, we are friends!" which convinces one of the hidden Mindflayers to step out from hiding to speak. 

The party shuffle down and as soon as they are on the ground they all get hit with a Mind Blast from a powerful Illithid Sorceror, knocking Egan unconscious. They also notice the Gold Orb sat on a pedestal in the corner of the cavern. Evictus notices the ground being disturbed by the invisible Sorceror and charges over, but fails to hit it - it then retalliates and manages to land two of its tentacles on him and grapples him to the ground, ready to suck his brains out. Joe comes over and starts poking wildly into the fray, but fails to do any damage. 

Joe himself gets flanked by another mind flayer who fails to hit him, Dreinell inflicts wounds and Ceinwen convinces the Minflayer that is not fighting to reveal himself and dispels the invisibility on the Sorceror. The melee continues, with Evictus breaking free from the MindFlayers grip and giving it a powerful whack from his Sword as Joe proceeds with a hasted backstab flurry (x5) against the sorceror, dropping it in a flurry of damage and constitution draining.

Ceinwen convinces the remaining flayer to stop attacking and sleight of hands the orb off the pedestal as Joe slays the freshly convinced mind flayer in another flurry of sneak attacks.

As Ceinwen lifts the orb up, two large glowing orbs are seen in a cavern to the east, which quickly grow and the form of a Gargantuan Black dragon emerges from the chamber, swooping towards Ceinwen who just picked up the orb. She yells "we are friends" to the Dragon who pauses in confusion. She tries to convince him that the party is more powerful but he assesses the party as no threat, but plays it safe since he believes the bluff and offers an allegiance. On a tenuous acceptance, he grabs the entire party in his claws and scrabbles up the exit tunnels and out into the open air. A number of large - huge Black Dragons start spewing forth from the hole in the ground behind them. In the distance they can see a number of shadowy specs on the horizon, growing larger, and a few of the party members think that they spot another dragon high overhead, with multiple heads - but when they look again, there is nothing to be seen.

>End of session<

Loot:

Amulet of health +2 <+2 con>
Scroll of Phase Door
Ring of climbing
Potion of greater magic weapon +3
Potion of Water Walk
2x Potion of Hide from Undead
2x Potion of cure serious wounds
Masterwork Silver Dagger
Bag of holding I

-V

The exploits of Sgt Robinus, continued!

I had a couple of games of Warhammer 40k last night against a mate playing Imperial Guard. Sgt Robinus once again performed some thrilling heroics that provided some entertainment. In fact, without them both games would have had a VERY different result! Below are two brief battle reports, centered around his actions.

Marine army: 
Chaplain (melta bombs + jump pack + Plasma Pistol)
Assault Squad x10 (2 Plasma Pistols, Power Claw and Combat Shield.)
2 x Tactical Squads with Rhinos, (Power Fist, Combi-Melta, Melta gun and Missile Launcher - both squads combat-squadded for both battles.)
2 x Landspeeder Tornado's - MultiMelta and Heavy Flamer.

Battle 1: <5 objectives>
The imperial guard brought along a pretty decent tank army. 2 chimaeras, a Leman Russ Demolisher and a Leman Russ Executioner (I hate these things!) as well as a Valkyrie filled with Veterans It was very intimidating - especially when considering my lack of heavy weapons.

Sgt Robinus rode around midfield for half the battle guarding an objective, supporting the assault squad and the other Rhino looking for targets.  In the latter half of the game, him and his squad trundled up nose to nose against the executioner on the right flank, with the Valkyrie (Immobilised) and its vets behind it. The combi-Melta wrecked the Executioner, and everyone mounted back up and trundled over to the vets, who Demo packed their ride, and charged the squad once they dismounted. The squad held out and the next round a chaplain who's assault squad had been wiped out jumped on in and between them they took down the remaining vets. 2:0 win for the marines due to 2 rounds of rediculously lucky shooting from the the 2 missile launchers up the back.

Battle 2: <Objectives, 3 markers.>
The imperial guard brought an infantry army for this one - 80+ troops, 8 scoring units - considering I had a footslogging assault squad - this was more intimidating than the last (At least I could block the executioners line of site in the first battle - cant block the lines of site from all 80 guardsmen, or their 6 missile launchers, 3 Lascannons, hotshotting Storm Troopers (Ap3 lasguns), and dozen or so Melta guns/plasma guns on vets!) The assault squad made some major judgment BooBoo's that resulted in them being mowed down in the open in front of 90% of the guards line. As for Sgt Robinus: His squad and the other squad went up the right flank - the other squad being dismounted, slogging up the middle and eventually being slain to plasma fire.

Robinus and his squad trundled up through the woodlands, and emptied out in front of a heavy weapons team and guardsman squad, and opened up with Melta guns and rapid fire bolters forcing the surviving heavy weapon guy to flee. They took the shots from the guardsman squad losing the Melta gunner, whilst the rhino got stripped of weapons beside them. The rhino moved over whilst Sgt Robinus and co. moved over to the guardsmen and assaulted. The charge was a failure, the combat was tied - but this meant that the squad was safe from guard shooting next round. In the Imperial Guard round the guardsmen lost, and were cut down in their retreat. The Rhino tank shocked a heavy weapon squad behind the guardsmen squad that had just been killed forcing them to flee, and they continued off of the board. Sgt Robinus and his squad continued over to a vet squad, charging and killing all but 2, the storm troopers joined in in the guard round and the battle there raged for another two rounds before Robinus was cut down by the remaining Colonel and the remaining Storm Trooper leaders power sword. (Robinus+co tally: 2 heavy weapons squads, 2 guardsman squads!) I am proud of this little marine... anything less from them and the battle would have been a tie, or lost. As it was, it ended with a score of 2:1 to the Marines.

It was an interesting evening - I may have stumbled onto a 1k point army I actually like with Marines! I dont think they would fair well against Tyranids however! They have always been my Achilles heel...

-V

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - articles

Christian Heilmann (@codepo8 on twitter) who works at Mozilla here in the UK, and who is a huge advocate of HTML5 in web development linked the updated Elder Scrolls website as being written in HTML 5, so I went for a browse. I have been a huge fan of the Elder Scrolls series ever since I stumbled across Morrowind back in  2002, so I took a long look at the eyecandy provided on this site - and actually found a number of very interesting articles - articles that are very interesting if you are interested in game development.

Having a browse on the TES site, the following articles relating to the development of TES IV, Oblivion caught my eye:

Game Audio. Focusing on audio immersion and voice acting.
Graphics Design in-game. Deceptively titled, this article goes into details of how they generate in-game terrain, scenery and sprites.

Im looking forward to Skyrim :) - though i have a backlog of games to work on. Dragon Age 2 and The Witcher 2 being the most prevalent. But what can I say. Vikings v Dragons sounds like its gonna be AwesomeSauce!

-V

D&D Campaign: The seal of Akatiel: 3rd April 2011. (Pt 2.)

The party moved fast. Cassie informed them that they need to make their way to the Well of Dragons and find the Black Dragon lair there and retrieve the Golden Dragon Orb.

The party ask Cassie to fetch Ceinwen's coach from Velgoth, where they were before they teleported to Willow, whilst they headed across the isle to the port town to the north where they have a reclaimed Battleship in dock. They set sail for Waterdeep, anchor their ship and head out the SouthEast gate, onto the Sword Coast Highway, where they meet up with the Black Coach that Cassie delivered. The coach is essential for this leg of the journey as it protects Ceinwen from the harsh daylight. Her amulet works well enough but only for short periods of time, and the journey to the Well could take several days.

The party proceed with their travels, and after a couple of hours come across a hamlet called WatersDale. Out of sheer boredom they decide to have a little fun...

Watersdale - A hamlet near Waterdeep, on the Sword Coast Highway.

The party pull up outside the inn in the center of town and head in... Inside there is 3 guys and a young girl, and two people behind the bar. A man and a woman tend the bar. The young girl takes one look at the disguised Ceinwen and tries to get her dad to leave, and runs off when he waves her off. She runs out the door, followed subtly by Joe...

Evictus, Egan and Dreinell walk up to the bar and ask for the strongest drink, which the barkeep introduces as "Waterdavian Death Brew" - a 91% alcohol beverage. Virtually poison, and highly flammable, if you can get an ignition source to it before it evaporates. Ceinwen asks him what he has to eat, and convinces him to take her through to the kitchen... where she feasts. On him.

Evictus, Egan and Dreinell take their first taste of the drink. Evictus enjoys, feeling slightly intoxicated within moments, Egan only managed to hold it down for a few seconds before throwing up all over the barmaid, and Dreinell drinks it unaffected. Evictus jokingly holds a lit tindertwig to Dreinells lips when he takes another swig, and the fumes ignite. Dreinell spits the drink out which goes all over the bar-maid, setting her hair on fire. She runs into the kitchen and dives head first into the sink, with a loud splash and hiss. She sits there sobbing with her face in the sink whilst the others laugh. Watching from the other side of the kitchen, Ceinwen has the owner entwined in her arms, draining him off blood...
The 3 guys in the bar look a little uneasy at the show that is going on, or the fact the bar is now on fire. One of them stands up to protest as Evictus draws his sword and cuts him cleanly in two, embedding his blade in the wall.
The other two guys jump onto Dreinell and Egan, who after a moments struggling, kill them with Phantasmal Killers.

A few houses away Joe sneaks into the window of  the living room where the little girl is sitting with a dolly in front of the fire, shaking, whilst her mother sits nearbye in a chair... Joe slips his blade through the back of her chair, killing her instantly as the blade passes through the back of her spine and up into her skull. He then cleaves a gouge out her chest showering the little girl in blood - who just sits there in horror. Joe suggestively whispers "They come in the night"... as he slips out the door, concealed by the shadows. The little girl looses it and starts wandering about muttering "they come in the night, they come in the night..."

Dreinell wanders outside into the square and sits on the bench as the rest of the party start going Door to door and wiping out the town, and driving any children they discover completely insane. By the time they finish, Evictus has pushed over a building, and sniped half a family down with his new bow, Dreinell has cloud killed a family that Ceinwen sent on a wander with a hypnotic light spell, Joe had killed 3 families then stumbled upon a sickly looking abandoned puppy, and killed a mage. They leave the town with a statue of themselves and half a dozen insane children, who are walking around coated in blood and muttering incoherently.

They proceed to do this to another 4 villages on their travel along the sword coast - hoping to create rumors of "The Sword coast massacre" - even if they have to spread them themselves!

When they get to Triel, they leave the path, and head directly east looking for a river that drains down from the mountains by the Well of Dragons. When they reach the river they get ambushed by a Large Dragon-like creature, but quickly slay it, and stop for a rest.

>>End of session<< 

Geeking to the Max. Star Trek - online viewing

I think I have linked this before - but it is worth linking again ^.^

Star Trek - watch all episodes, of all series' over the net. The address will have changed from the last time I linked it, but it redirects.

Go! Go geek it up already! :)

-V

Sgt Robinus - Warhammer 40k Ultramarines Sgt.

Sgt Robinus Pegging it from a 'Nid horde.

Welcome to my page for one of the most decorated - and conflicted characters in my Ultramarines Warhammer 40k battleforce.

I play as Ultramarines (Aka Smurfs, or Space Lunchboxes) and one man has stood out with his acts in numerous battles. I shall reminisce on the top 3 memories of him here today :).

1. Sgt Robinus and the Traitor Guard.
Robinus and his tactical squad were mounted in a Rhino - and made a beeline up the center of the battlefield, parking up behind some wooded swamplands - only to be immobilised by a stray Battlecannon shell. The Squad dismounted by his command, into the swamp to use it as cover on their advance into the Traitor Guard Mech line. By the time he emerged from the treeline his armour was pitted with holes, and sprayed with the blood and entrails of his squad mates from a couple of rounds of heavy bombardment from the Traitor Guard lines. He sought vengeance, and targeting the closest Leman Russ Demolisher, he ran forth, melting the turret with a direct his from his Combi-Melta before charging in and tearing through its thick armour plating with his power fist, killing all the crew in the process. He proceeded to hunker up against a wall for a couple of rounds picking off guardsmen whilst the rest of the Marines battleforce outflanked and dismantled the opposing army around him.

2. Sgt Robinus and the Tyranid combat patrol.
As dawn was breaking, Sgt Robinus, accompanied by 4 marines and backed by a combat squad of tough marines, 2 landspeeders and a Captain went into battle against a Tyranid patrol consisting of a couple of squads of genestealers, a Trygon and a Tervigon, spewing forth Termagants. As the battle unfolded, he found his transport destroyed, as a large horde of fresh Gaunts charged towards his squad. They held out as best as they could, killing almost all of them but he was last man standing, he initiated a tactical retreat towards friendly lines, regrouping once he was at a safe distance. He then charged into 2 genestealers, wielding naught but his Powerfist he survived their attacks and killed them both - but this was not time to celebrate - a Trygon named Jennifer was making its way towards him from accross the field. He scaled to the top of a ruined building, and stood out on its precipice, ready to accept its charge. With a blood curdling battlecry he accepted the charge from the Trygon, and as it scaled the building towards him he pummeled it with that mighty fist - reducing it to a single wound before being cut asunder... As he lay their dying, the speeders finished off Jennifer and he was rescued, and put back to work.

Not Jennifer.

3. Sgt Robinus and the Great Race.
In his latest venture - him and his tactical squad, along with a small unit of allied scouts held a ruin that was about to become the brunt of a Tyranid Zerg. His unit held out bravely, opening fire for several rounds before enough of the squad was cut asunder, and they opted to make a tactical withdrawal to avoid being charged by a Tervigon, and a large force of surviving DevilGaunts and Termagant Xenos. The unit regrouped and advanced upon a Trygon that was in the midst of the marine force, opening fire - but being caught by the fire from the Tervigon and the gaunts and being the only survivor - he opted to fall back again to save being charged solo by them all.. He then spent the next two rounds legging it across the back of the battlefield, being persued by 7 Termagants, 14 Devilgaunts and a Tervigon, beying for his blood but whom were just not fast enough to keep up with this marine who was determined to survive and regroup with the remainder of his force. He survived the day, and now we are left wondering what the next battle will hold.

I will say one thing... The battles in which I have done my best in have had this guy at the front line with combi-melta and power fist, getting stuck into the enemy with no fear - although it is hilarious to see him in retreat, as the enemy try in vain to gun him down!

-V

First 40k battle in ages! Fun times.

Caught with your pants down?

Last night I had the first game of Warhammer 40k that I have had in ages - I gotta say, I didn't realise just how much I missed it :) I will include a battle report below just for the hell of it. Me and a friend teamed up with marines against another mate bringing some nasty 'nids to the table.

Forces were:
Me:
2 tactical squads, pf, ml, flam
2 dreadnoughts, asscan, hf
2 razorbacks
librarian with avenger and gate of infinity.
Ally:
10 scouts (combat squadded) with sniper rifles and a heavy bolter
10 sternguard, pf
5 vanguard with power weapons lead by a chaplain all piled in a Razorback.

Nids:
3 genestealer broods with broodlords
15 Devilgaunts
Tervigon
Trygon (Jennifer)
Trygon Prime (Reginald)
2 Hiveguard
2 Hiveguard
2 Zoanthropes
1 Big thing with a cannon that I cant remember the name of.

The marines deployed pretty much along the whole of their front line, whilst the tyranids deployed with a heavy right flank, leaving the Zoanthropes and a couple of HiveGuard on the left flank.

Turn 1:
Marines: Marines went first, and ADVANCED towards the enemy... the librarian gated a squad to the flank of the bulk of the nid horde, and the firing for the round took out the Zoanthropes and a couple of genestealers.

'Nids: Nids advanced, the guards shook the Vanguard filled Razorback but the extra armour kept it going, and the Cannon-think peeled a turret off a razorback.

Turn 2: 
Marines: The librarian squad advances on the nids flank, along with the razorback. The marines opened fire with all weapons... quite pitifully. A unit of stealers was wiped out with a single volley from the Sternguard - the rest of the shots put a few holes in the units of stealers roaming the table, and a few wounds on Jennifer..

'Nids:The tervigon pooped out 9 termagants and run out of juice. The rest of the army advanced. The devilgaunts mow down a group of scouts bar the heavy bolter and the hiveguard immobilise a dreadnought. Jennifer then charges forth into the Sternguard, killing 7 of them in exchange for a power fist wound. Reginald charges into the Librarian and Tactical squad, killing 3 and taking a wound in return from the Sarge's power fist.

Turn 3:
Marines: All hell breaks loose - the marines on the tyranid light flank start to make a move to get closer to some action, the remaining Sternguard that were fleeing regrop, and the mobile dreadnought moves up to the two Trygons who are pretty much side by side. The vanguard vets and chaplain dismount and pile in with the Trygon thats fighting the librarian and that squad, and the dreadnought opts to add its firepower to the Trygon that is not in combat since 6 blokes with power weapons charging and rerolling misses is BOUND to take that Trygons 4 wounds off right?... right? The dice decide to defect at this point. The mobile Trygon loses a single wound to the fire from two dreadnoughts and the sternguard, whilst the other one takes out most of the tactical squad save for the librarian and sargeant, and the vanguard vets pile in. 22 power weapon hits on the charge. 1 wound. That is epic fail of epic proportions. :( The chaplain and sgt flee.

'Nids:The tyranids open fire again - the immobilised dreadnought gets popped, and take out the two typhoons that have been hovering about the back doing bugger all, and the squad of marines on the nid-heavy flank take multiple casualties to the Devilgaunts fire and opt to fall back rather than take on the juiced up termagaunts and the Tervigon. Jennifer charges and kills the remaining Sternguard whilst Reginald eats the squad of Vanguard vets and the chaplain. Nom. Crunchy.

Turn 4:
Marines: Things are looking grim by this point. The librarian and Sgt keep running from Reginald, popping off an ineffective bolt-pistol shot and the intact marine squad sets up a firing line in front of Reginald - if he doesnt drop - they will. The retreating marines on the other flank regroup 3" and advance on Jennifer, setting up a firing line aswell. The dreadnought positions himself to flame them both and let loose with the assault cannon. The intact squad manage to take out Reginald who had 1 wound left, the other squad fail to hurt Jennifer, but the dreadnought lands two lucky rending shots on her, blasting her Niddy Tataas off. A chance?

'Nids:The 3rd Stealer brood finally arrives from reserve - coming onto the left flank - but they forget to run, effectively nullifying them for the battle. The hiveguard blast the remaining dreadnought to oblivion, and the Devilgaunts, and Termagaunts lay into the depleated tactical squad thats now stood in the middle of the board causing them to take a moral test: The Sgt remains and opts for a strategic retreats instead of getting charged by the blob of Xenos heading his way. (forever now known as Sgt Robenus for his Benny Hill ending to the game.).

Turn 5:
Marines: There is little the space marines can do now but try to score a crucial kill point or two whilst maintaining their own. My force consists of 1 sgt, 1 turretless razorback, and a librarian accompanied by a sgt. My ally has a full tac squad, and 5 scouts. The nids force consists of 2x2 hiveguard, 14 devilgaunts, 7 termagants, 10 Genestealers, a Pooped out Tervigon and that big bastard with the cannon who has done nadda save take a razorbacks turret. We have lost about 5 more KP than the nids put on the table at this point but have not counted them up. In an epic feat of bravery - the intact tactical squad advance on a nearby unit of hiveguard whilst the librarian and sgt Gate of Infinity right beside them (to pistol them. woot.) whilst Sgt Robenus pegs it 14" along my board edge (3" regroup, 6" move 5" run) away from the zerg of nids that want to make him have their babies. One hiveguard dies to the volley of bolter fire, the other to a fist on the charge.

'Nids:The nids cant do much but advance. They advance and attempt to mow down Sgt Robenus who takes about 15 s4 shots and a s10 template to the face, and manages to save or be tough enough to take every shot without dying (I think the back Armour on my marines is stronger than the front... tailoring to my tactics?)

Turn 6:
We take this moment to tally up the points left on the table. There is nothing within charging distance in this round for either side, and the marines cannot break even even if they were to table the remaining nids so we bow down to the might of the nids, and teleport the hell out.

Awesome battle. May have only been 2k, but it took 4 hours.

Star Trek 2, or Star Trek: The Second. Some musings.

I thought I would do a little digging on the sequel to the Star Trek reboot movie that came out in 2009. 

In my opinion, the reboot was an awesome film. I watched it at a fairly tough time in my life at the cinema on my own, so I think it had a bigger impact on me than most films I go see, but I really liked it! The news articles I read about the upcoming sequel are making it sound like it should be pretty entertaining.

I like all the Star Trek movies (with perhaps the exception of the very first one, but it was not terrible - I happily watch it whenever its on or if I go on a ST binge!) and there are some themes that tend to run that I like, and some that I don't. The reboot basically threw these themes away and gave us a fun action movie, that was at the same time quite moving. The second film sounds like it is going to be a bit different again.

The Screenwriter Robert Orci mentions in an interview that the new movie will be themed more around "family". As I understand it, this means that it will be centered around the crew interactions, and how they are going to respond to various goings on in the main plot line - as opposed to being a band of merry men (and woman) thrown together at a critical time to deal with the BBEG (Big bad enemy guy) and his evil schemes. I have no idea what will be involved, but I imagine it is going to be pretty humorous. My fingers are crossed that it is as action packed as the first and isn't an episode of The Waltons in space. I don't think they would do that to themselves though... would they?

Anyway, it is set to be released in 2012. There was some concerns with production as far as I understand it due to Pine working on other movies - but due to them being put on hold the filming is set to start after Summer ^.^

Giggety, cant wait. Expect more ^.^

-V

D&D Campaign: The seal of Akatiel: 3rd March 2011. (Pt 1.)

Map of this sessions adventure. Click to embiggen!

The mad mental evilness that is the evil actions of an evil party at a hamlet they get bored at...

My intent for this entry is to try to give a better representation of the party's adventure for the evening so: que pictures! :)

Present last night were:

Egan - Human Sorcerer

Dreinell - Human Lich/Dread Necromancer

Evictis - Human Warrior (Werewolf.)

Ceinwen - Half-Elven Beguiler (Vampire)

Joe Kerr - Human Rogue/Assassin

The party started off meeting up outside the Palace at Veloth on the isle of Ruathym.

It had been an eventful night. Most of Veloth had been hit with Drow raiders - the bulk of which hit the Palace where most of the party was staying. A scattering of other scouts hit throughout the town, many drow, guards and civilians lay dead in the streets, blood flowing along the roadside like rainwater. It can be assumed that this was another group chasing the Orbs that the party holds. Joe bumped into one of them when scouting out a house to commit some unspeakable horrors in, Ceinwen who was resting in the bowels of the Tushieclaw Manor whilst turning to a Vampire nearly got attacked but the others at the coven protected her in her weakened state. 

During the fight outside the palace an underground cavern with a treasure horde within was discovered when the Umberhulks tunneled up to the fight, and Dreinell, Evictus and Egan were counting out the loot on the lawn  as Joe wanders up and joins in, and Ceinwen trundles up in a Black Coach that she was gifted from her friend Sally who runs the Tushieclaw Manor when she chose to become a vampire and part of the coven.

The party take great interest in the Black Coach, inspecting its steeds and the cavernous interior with its one-way windows that keep out sunlight and the level IV Bag-of-holding-storage-locker. Whilst they are doing this, Percy the Piemaker is stuffing the bag of holding full of Pies, and Ceinwen starts to recieve a message... it is Willow. She is wanting to know why they have not returned with the Silver Orb yet, and needs them to return ASAP as the next phase of the Orb retrieval process is about to go into effect.

The party agree to go ahead, even though they are not sure if they want to work with the "good guys", and use the rod of recall.

When they use the rod they appear in a large circular chamber lined with windows. Outside, it is dusk, but they can still see most of the island that is not blocked off by hills – they are at the top of Willows tower. Myrengrad sits peacefully down below, and the keep is looking in better shape than ever – bristling with armaments on the roof. A second tower is now visible south of Myrengrad against the coastline.

Willow thanks the party for returning, and asks for the Silver Dragon orb - which Joe reluctantly hands over. Willow takes a moment to place this orb an alter and mutter a brief incantation, causing the orb to loose its sheen, and appears simply like a crystal ball. She puts this on the shelf at the back of the room. Whilst she is doing this a tall beautiful human female with silvery blonde hair walks in, smiling at them. She curtseys before them and thanks them for looking after her in her weakened state. It is Cassie.

Willow turns round then mutters *oh.. no...* And start to wobble and lose her balance. The entire building seems to phase in and out of reality, exposing the long fall to the ground below them as it becomes transparent. Cassie reaches her arms round the entire party and willow, forming into giant scaley clawed limbs before the building phases out entirely and the party starts to feel gravity take hold as they accelerate towards the ground. Cassie morphs into a large silver dragon and her wings unfold stopping the descent as she then gracefully swoops upwards into the air, and flies the party over to the keep, perching on the roof. The workers and guards get a shock at the sight, and the guards train the ballistas on the dragon before they spot the party. Cassie places them down, and returns to human form, but this time she has a scared looking red/gold furred squirrel perched on her shoulder.

She looks at the party... "The next ritual is beginning..."

Web page setup: Using Footers.

I have spent half the day trying to figure out how to get fixed-footers on web-pages I am making. I have something that works - up until the resolution is larger than my setup... if I fix it, I will update this. The general concensus for getting fixed position footers is to use the following CSS and HTML code for setting up your page template. Best done at the start in my opinion (You ARE planning your websites before you start coding aren't you? :) )

Some notes: no "margin x" commands can be used on the vertical axis as I understand it as it pushes the position of the following <div's> down so you end up with a scrollbar.

-----CSS-----
* {
     margin: 0px;
}
html, body {
     height: 100% ;
}
.mainwapper {
     min-height: 100%;
     height: auto ;
     height: 100%; /*These two set the containing div to the height of the browser window. All displayed div's are contained within.*/
     margin: 0 auto -2em; /*the 2em is height reserved for the footer. The footer is indented by this much to make it sit at the bottom of the page.*/
}
.footer, .push {
     height: 2em;
}

-----HTML-----
Div structure would be:

<html>
<head></head>
<body>
     <div id="mainwrapper">
          <div id="push"></div>
     </div>
     <div ="footer">
     </div>
</body>
</html>

Silly me - after writing this I now see where I went wrong setting mine up. Push is a div, hopefully when I tackle this again tomorrow I will get it working as expected. Im not much of a planner at the moment...

Link: A career from Wow? yes you can!

I put a post up this morning on my old World of Warcraft blog. (It still had a fair amount of traffic so I figured I would start putting some posts up even though I am not currently playing.)

A while back for an irrelevant university class we were asked to do a 2 minute presentation on anything we wanted - and I decided to talk about the skills gained when playing MMORPGs that can be transferred to jobs.

Here is a >linky< to the article on my other blog: The Eccentric Hobo Wow blog. (yeah, I really couldn't think of a decent name :p )

Hope it proves useful,

-V

The RSS feeder. What is it, and how do you use it! **TUTORIAL*

An RSS feed is in its simplest form a lazy data gathering method. It is free to use, and after you read through this - you will see it is also easy too. It is used most commonly for blogs, news sites and various other sites that get content updated regularly. I only know a handful of people who have bothered to work out how to set them up - but for the most part, they swear by them. In this article, I shall endeavor to educate you to set up an RSS feeder for use in your daily web-life :)

Step the 1st: Set up a feed reader.
A feed reader is a site that you update with the feeds you wish to follow, and it will automatically gather the data for you to view within the reader interface. The advantage of this is that you can have a large number of articles that highlight themselves for your attention, to read at your discretion - instead of you having to search the web, type URL's or go to bookmarks. (The only real downside to the whole thing is the site you are visiting may rely on ad-revenue and at about 30p a connection - potential customers never actually visit the site - but this is not your concern!)

I recommend Google Reader as your first port of call to get your hands on a feed reader. If you already have a Gmail account - then you already have a feed reader, you just have to populate it! I have my homepage set to iGoogle so that I have everything organised in the one area when I open a browser window. Calendar, new items to the feed reader, news items, weather, etc etc.

Step the 2nd: Add feeds.
Blogs, web pages, news articles and various other places that have their content updated frequently often have a link to an XML document that contains the code for the reader to parse the information into your feed reader. Usually they are represented with the following:

RSS Feed icon.

or

 "Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)"

When you click these links you will either be taken to a page where you are asked to select the feed reader you use from a list OR you are provided with a confusingly long wall of text. The former is easy. The latter requires you to copy the URL in the address bar and manually add the address into your Feed Reader. This is simply a case of selecting the "Add a subscription" icon at the upper left section of the page (at least for Google Reader) and pasting the URL into the address bar.

Step the 3rd: Enjoy.

That is it! You will now have your subscriptions in the sidebar and can click on them whenever you see them flag up with a number e.g "number(3)" instead of "number".

Go out, and enjoy the extra tool in your Geeky arsenal :) I use mine for blogs, podcasts and comics. It rocks.

Just dont ask me how to MAKE an RSS feed... Kinda know how... Never wanna try!

-V

April Fools jokes 2011 - online sources.

Figured on the 1st of April - you have two choices regarding the web: Hide or Embrace... So here is a list of  April Fools jokes I stumbled upon that may be giggleworthy.

Arnie and Boris Johnstone out cycling? I THOUGHT this was a Joke but it was submitted 11 hours ago... but mebbi. Made me giggle regardless. http://imgur.com/VJsxA

Blizzard:
Blizzard always comes up with some good Aprils fools jokes - this year they seem to have some entertaining items.
Crabby the dungeon helper. A luminous crab that behaves much like Microsoft Office's old paperclip. Watch as he stalks you around the blizzard website after viewing the page ^.^
Tomb of Immortal Darkness. (Omgsogoth, dark lord of Twilight? lol.)
Horadric Cube app. Note: read the disclaimer :p
Starcraft Motion Overdrive. Just... What? Lol!

IKEA:
Hundstol High chair. A high chair for your hound.

Ill edit in any others I find, or get linked to :)

Google:

Gmail Motion. Interesting concept at least.

Helvetica. I don't really get the "joke" in this one - but if you type it in the page font changes as well as performing the search.

Games Workshop:
Brought out a new book: How to roll dice. (Hint: Click the pictures!)

YouTube:

100th Birthday. Congrats to YouTube for their time travel capabilities :)

Edit: Heres a good list that I happened across :)

-V