Doomweaver Color Testing

I took one of the turrets through to completion to see how I liked it. The Doomweaver was intended to be red that fades to bright orange, I'm not sure there's a whole lot a difference when compared to the hull orange though. Thoughts?

A Eulogy For Saturday Morning TV

Image by the autowitch. Some rights reserved. Source: Flickr

So, Saturday morning cartoons are dead.


Last year, The Washington Post reported,

"This past Saturday, the CW became the last broadcast television network to cut Saturday morning cartoons. The CW is replacing its Saturday cartoon programming, called "The Vortexx," with "One Magnificent Morning," a five-hour bloc of non-animated TV geared towards teens and their families.

From the 1960s through the 1980s, Saturday morning time slots were synonymous with cartoons. Broadcast networks and advertisers battled for underage viewers. But that started to change in the 1990s.

In 1992, NBC was the first broadcast network to swap Saturday morning cartoons for teen comedies such as "Saved by the Bell" and a weekend edition of the "Today" show. Soon, CBS and ABC followed suit. In 2008, Fox finally replaced Saturday morning cartoons with infomercials.

In the 1970s and 1980s, a Saturday morning cartoon viewership could grab more than 20 million viewers. In 2003, some top performers got a mere 2 million, according to Animation World Network," (Sullivan).

Well, I suppose it was only a matter of time before this occurred. Saturday morning cartoons have left the public television stations for good. Of course, this isn't a bad thing. Kids can get their shows on demand from a variety of venues, be it Hulu, Netflix, and the wonders of cable. No need to wake up early in the morning with a bowl of sugary cereal, while your eyes sink in the flashing screens. I think this change is for the best, children should be doing more productive things with their weekends, but nevertheless, a eulogy is necessary.

I can't remember when I first started watching Saturday morning TV, but I do know that the earliest I'd get up at would be 7:00. A feat that'd be unthinkable for my more jaded self to do on a day off. 7:00, I'm sure, was when they'd play the classic cartoons, like Popeye. Then there were the principal shows that I followed every week, Pokemon, Digimon, Power Rangers, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation, and Transformers: The Beast Wars. I may have watched more, but I don't remember them. Of course, many of these shows, along with others like X-Men, Beetleborgs, and Spiderman, often played on weekday afternoons. Yet those were reruns. On Saturday morning, you saw things fresh.

Of course, none of these shows was anything particularly intelligent or profound, this was children's entertainment, after all. They just hit on all the right points, reaching those base, animal desires that most children wish to see. Namely, colorful, lively worlds with fantastical characters, be they transforming monsters, super-powered teenagers, or shape-shifting robots. Many of these shows, I imagine, probably introduced a generation of children to science-fiction, fantasy, martial arts, and most importantly for me, anime. That said, reading Calvin and Hobbes has made me reflect and question the wisdom of consuming so much silly television at a young age. While I don't believe television to be quite the scourge of civilization that some Luddites may make it out to be, to say it has no effect on us at all (if even a fleeting one), after habitual viewings, just sounds dishonest.

It's a bit regrettable that Digimon and Pokemon were released around the same time. No doubt, Digimon banked somewhat on the popularity of Pokemon, but it would always be under Pokemon's shadow. The reason I say this, is because Digimon was a smarter show, well, "smarter" by the standards of children's entertainment, but you get the idea.

Pokemon came out in 1998 and Digimon came out in 1999. While I can't speak for the developments of these shows in Japan, I suspect that Fox Kids licensed Digimon to capitalize on Pokemon's success and have an easy cash cow to compete with WB. I mean, as far as they saw it, Pokemon had monsters and that made money. Digimon also had monsters, therefore, it too will make money. While Digimon certainly had its peak, it never became quite the phenomenon that Pokemon was. Not where I lived, anyhow.

If you're too young to remember the Pokemon craze, then you'd best watch the "Chinpokomon" episode of South Park. While being in its own right an entertaining episode, it's a fairly accurate satire of how most children and adults reacted to the fad. So much so, that I'm a little embarrassed of my behavior then. In a nutshell, children became consumerist zombies, begging their parents to buy as much Pokemon-related merchandise as possible. While the adults were gravely confused as to why children found this cartoon so attractive. I recall one adult asking me why the Pokemon only say their own names and nothing else. Although unlike South Park, the Japanese weren't interested in using this franchise to cause another Pearl Harbor (or complement our comparative penis sizes).

Pokemon was based on a series of Nintendo video games, which are far more enjoyable than the television show. The point of the game was the capture 'pocket monsters' or 'Pokemon', and use them to fight other Pokemon. So yes, the premise of the franchise is essentially glorified cock-fighting (another South Park episode comes to mind), but electric Pikachu and fire-breathing Charizard are a far-cry from actual animals. I'm not aware of anyone who has said that they were drawn to cock-fighting, or even animal cruelty in general, because of Pokemon. So PETA's grotesque claims that Pokemon encourages such behavior, and the degrees of absurdity with which they attack the series, diminishes, if not destroys any credibility they have as an honest animal rights organization. Try the Humane Society instead.

Digimon, on the other hand, is set in real-life Japan, with Japanese children who fall into the digital world. The digital world is inhabited by digital monsters, or "Digimon". These children, dubbed the "Digi-destined" (because it has been prophesied) partner up with Digimon to fight off the threats to both of their realities. Much like the Pokemon, the Digimon can also evolve. Agumon can turn into WarGreymon and Patamon can turn into Angemon, the difference being that Digimon evolutions aren't permanent and didn't always work in a pinch. Digimon also dealt with more mature themes than Pokemon, like divorce, romance, and death. Yes, much of Digimon devolved to monster-of-the-week plots and very cliched characters, but some clever people were able to put their mark on it. One was Mamoru Hosoda, who would later gain fame for the films Summer Wars and The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. He got his debut directing the "Four Years Later" or "Our War Game" section of Digimon: The Movie. Even if you don't like Digimon, you have to appreciate the physical realism that Hosoda brought to the series, and surreal, hypnotic design of the World Wide Web that were a clear influence on Summer Wars. In the English dub, this is all dubbed over with a pop soundtrack that includes The Barenaked Ladies and The Mighty Mighty BossTones. It actually kind of fit, somehow. The other talent to touch Digimon was writer Chiaki J. Konaka, who wrote mind-bending screenplays for Texhnolyze, Rahxephon, and Serial Experiments Lain. His pen went behind the third season, Digimon Tamers, which was also the darkest. The season is rather meta, with the past two seasons being a television show in this universe. The main character creates his own Digimon and has to own up to the responsibilities of that. I can't say I remember much from this season, except that it was pretty gloomy in comparison to the other two. So, to summarize, Pokemon was about fighting for fun, Digimon was about fighting for glory.

As dumb as Pokemon and Digimon were, they're probably the best examples in recent memory of anime becoming mainstream entertainment in the United States. I mean hell, I sang the Pokemon theme song in music class, and not the TV-edited version, either. Yes, Dragonball and Sailor Moon ran close behind, but they were aimed at a slightly older demographic, so they didn't get quite as much accessibility as those whose cerebrums were still wet. That isn't to say that Dragonball and Sailor Moon weren't accessible, or even all that unpopular, but again, I didn't sing the Sailor Moon theme song in music class.

Probably the most significant anime I saw on Saturday morning was The Vision of Escaflowne. It didn't get a long run, I only recall seeing two episodes. Anyone who's seen Escaflowne knows that it's not for kids, so the editors went to work on Disneyfying it. Yet as defanged and bastardized as this version was, those two episodes still left an impact on me. One so strong, in fact, that long after I had forgotten the title of the show, the image of Prince Vaughn sprouting his glowing, white wings haunted the dark corners of my brain. Escaflowne was really weird in comparison to all the Pokemons running around. The characters had detailed and mature designs, while the atmosphere was enigmatic and quiet. Even though I didn't rediscover Escaflowne until over a decade later, it was my first glimpse into the world of adult anime.

There's not much I can say about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation because I can barely, and I mean barely recall it. I can't even reproduce a full episode in my mind. All I know is that they had a female turtle, Venus de Milo, and that's about it. The show has aged terribly, and I doubt if I could stomach a full half hour of the stuff nowadays. Yet, nevertheless, this was the series that introduced my generation to the Turtles. (I think that's a good thing.) I know that the only episode of Ninja Turtles that left something of an impression on me, was their crossover episode with the Power Rangers, who were then, "lost in space." Again, details are fuzzy, but at the time, it was a pretty cool event.

Now Power Rangers was a show. To see young people like myself fight monsters in colored spandex and ride in giant robots inspired by prehistorical creatures, was all my hyper-active brain needed. Much like Pokemon, Power Rangers was also very repetitive in form, but unlike Pokemon, Power Rangers is still plenty of fun to watch. The campy aesthetic coupled with MTV style editing, a slapstick Saved By The Bell background, and hard rock soundtrack are all too much to resist. If you don't take it too seriously, which you shouldn't, the Power Rangers is entertainment for entertainment's sake. Kitsch, yes, but if you know what you're going in for, then you might as well have fun with it.

I was introduced to the Transformers through the Beast Wars series. So my understanding of Optimus Prime was not of a semi-truck that could transform into a robot, but of a gorilla that could transform into a robot. Beast Wars tried to do something different with the premise of alien robots who disguise themselves as vehicles, being alien robots who could disguise themselves as giant animals. There were also no annoying humans on the planet, just aliens on an alien planet, so the plot was not restricted by the red tape that previous and later Transformers installments dealt with. Not only was Optimus Prime a gorilla and Megatron a T-Rex, but new characters were also thrown into the mix. My favorite being Cheetor, who, if you couldn't already guess is a cheetah. His personality was very much like Johnny Storm from the Fantastic Four, arrogant, quick-tempered, and fun-loving. Beast Wars was so popular that it got a sequel series, Beast Machines. Things turned darker, with the Autobots on the lam in a futuristic city, and their designs changed to reflect their more robotic predecessors. It was awesome. At my babysitter's house, where I watched much of these shows, we played with Beast Wars toys, and let me tell you, they were as frustrating to transform as all hell. In the commercials, they made it look so easy. I mean, does Hasbro really expect children to be able to successfully transform the Cheetor into assault mode in between commercial breaks?

For what it's worth, I did try watching the original 80's cartoon, but I was older, and so, didn't care for it. I liked the theme song, though. Then there was that movie which had talents like Leonard Nimoy and Orson Welles. An irony that Welles's debut was Charles Foster Kane, and his final performance was Omnicron. The movie is very much a zeitgeist of what was being marketed to boys of the 80's, over-the-top action and loud rock music. How much has changed? While I'm at it, I may as well address the elephant in room, Michael Bay. Yes, his Transformers films are all very bad, but the first one, at least, was watchable. It was a decent action film with neat effects, but held many of the problems that were multiplied over the next couple of movies. What I find more offensive than the bad scripts, however, is the fact that Bay thinks it's appropriate to market towards kids, or any human being, a franchise littered with excessive violence, racial insensitivity, and crude, blatant misogyny. In fact, I'd argue that these terribly unpleasant and immoral films do far more harm to the minds of children than the cheap shows I'm discussing here.

Here's a sidewinder, Spongebob Squarepants. Yes, I distinctly remember watching the series premiere of "Bubblestand", in my mother's bedroom, on a Saturday morning. Now, Spongebob didn't always play new episodes on Saturday mornings, but I watched the series religiously since that first viewing, so I felt the need to reference it. It's hard to defend the ungodly receptacle of garbage that holds the banner of Spongebob today. Ever since Stephen Hillenberg left, the show produced some of the worst writing to ever grace the televised screen, it's real nauseating stuff. I blame Nickelodeon's producers more than I do Spongebob's writers, because a premise can only work for so long before it grows stale. Point of reference, The Simpsons. Though at least Homer still has some dignity left on him and after two decades, no less. Spongebob, on the other hand, is no longer the quirky, nervous, and hopelessly naive character that endeared him to audiences on his first appearance. Now, he's a blubbering twit, a moronic and deranged man-child, whose every action is designed to irritate the living hell of you. The masturbatory excess of Mr. Squarepants, along with his now depraved and unsightly "friends" will not recover from this milking from a long deceased cow.

Believe it or not, my interest in Saturday morning cartoons extended into middle school. Why? Perhaps it was out of a desire to relive the nostalgia of my former years, even though I knew what I watched was garbage. At the time, I was very much addicted to television. I watched it because I was bored, and terribly lazy. I not only lament the fact that I wasted much of my youth consuming television, but that it was bad television. Surely, I could've benefited from some Star Trek or The Twilight Zone episodes. That said, there was one show I watched religiously every Saturday morning with great fondness, about as much as Pokemon, Spongebob, or Beast Wars, and that was Yu-Gi-Oh!

Yu-Gi-Oh! was more than just an anime to me, it was also a trading card game, and a very fun one, might I add. A game in which one could summon monsters, cast spells, or spring traps against your opponent. Some monsters had special abilities, while others could fuse to create greater monsters. It was a lot of fun.

However, Yu-Gi-Oh! initially began as a tribute to tabletop games in general. The protagonist, Yugi Moto, is a shy high-schooler with multicolored spiky hair (it's an anime, remember?). He solves an Egyptian artifact known as the Millennium Puzzle. Inside of this puzzle is trapped the soul of a 2000 year old pharaoh known as "The King of Games." Whenever Yugi finds himself in life-threatening trouble, the spirit of the pharaoh possesses him, and challenges his opponent to a deadly game. A variety of different ones were played, like one inspired by Dungeons and Dragons. The card game, was one among many, but it stuck, being the most popular. So the anime focused on this aspect for the story.

That said, the anime is about as corny as most Saturday morning television, and the 4Kids chop-up didn't help. Yu-Gi-Oh! was very formulaic, featuring Yugi dueling an opponent in a game of cards and almost always winning (unless blackmailed by threats of suicide). Yet, we didn't watch to Yu-Gi-Oh! to see who would win, we watched the show to see the different strategies employed by the cards. Be it the destructive blowback from Mirror Force, or the dreaded one turn kill of Exodia. The simplicity of the game when it first began is now enviable, a time when summoning a high powered Dark Magician or Blue Eyes White Dragon could win you the game. The game has since mutated into a convoluted speed contest, with nonsense terminology, conflicting rules, embarrassingly high prices, and a rapidly growing roster of cards that may very well lead to an implosion. If there was one good thing to come out of Yu-Gi-Oh!, it's Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Abridged Series by Martin Billany (aka LittleKuriboh). An abridged series is when someone makes an edited version of a show and overdubs it with humorous and often meta voiceovers. Some of the best moments are when Billany constantly notes the borderline hyperbole of seriousness with which people take a children's card game (who's rules are often broken for plot convenience). This isn't even touching the many lines that are popular amongst the otaku fandom, like "Screw the rules, I have money!"

On a side note, don't you find it a bit bizarre that we define our fading childhood memories by the films, television, and music that we consumed then? Nostalgia has never been so openly fetishized in America as it has now. The culprit behind this is, of course, the Internet. Music critic Simon Reynolds, who wrote Retromania: Pop Culture's Addiction To Its Own Past, has said,

"It was gradual, but with the arrival of the Internet, and broadband access, and the rise of this kind of strange collective archiving thing, [looking backward] became irresistible. Now people put stuff on YouTube because it feels like they're doing something worthwhile and this enormous archive has developed. You're young, but I try to remember what it was like when it was actually really hard to get hold of information. If you wanted to look at old magazines, you had to go to the library and look at microfilms. Now all the records in the known universe are basically accessible at the click of a mouse. Don't you think that's weird? I think it's weird — but I have something to compare it to. I remember living in a culture of cultural scarcity," (Salon).

I agree with Reynolds here. Nostalgia is popular because it's so accessible. I probably wouldn't have been able to find Escaflowne were it not for the Internet. I also think that this nostalgia hunt comes from the effects that 9/11 had, and still does have on the American psyche. The War on Terror, and all that came after it, in the context of the Information Age, no less, made the world a complex and ambiguous place. The truth, however, is that it was always like this, we just want to believe that there was a magical, Reaganesque America where the mornings never ended. It's worse yet when one was a child, and could've hardly comprehended events grander than the events on your television screen. Now, a sort of cult has developed that puts the cartoons of the past on a pedestal, with entitled fans claiming that newer versions can never be as good as the older ones. The worst of it comes when Hollywood taps into this nostalgia for money, and is answered with cries that Hollywood "ruined my childhood." Yet this nostalgia that people hopelessly flee to is only fueling the film industries to make more adaptations. A Catch-22. Reynolds articulated some of these issues,

"This endless regurgitation of the familiar is dulling and vaguely depressing. It's nice to think there's a future for music, for example, and that people will do things that later generations can work with and take somewhere. I think if the preponderance of the music scene is based around recycling and revivalism, then it's like bad farming. Basic common sense in farming is that you sow as well as reap. If you're just reaping from the past, you're not really giving anything back. Of course, music and culture don't necessarily work in the way farming does, and ideas don't get exhausted in the same way natural resources do, but I think it's important for the ongoing project of music to at least try to come up with things that have never been done before. Young musicians, in particular, seem to be way more fascinated by the past than the future. That's my main worry: Where is it going? Is this a practice that is infinitely sustainable? At this point, we're well into the '90s revival, and then it will be time for the naughties revival. It just seems a bit boring that that's just how it's going to proceed," (Salon).

Our culture is in a feedback loop, stuck in the 80's and 90's, where twenty-somethings complain about how old they've gotten and indulge in listicles on the Internet that seem to confirm this bias. It's time that we stopped defining ourselves and our memories solely on the basis of the crappy shows that we were too dumb to turn off. Yes, some of them were fun, but let's not kid ourselves here, these programs weren't masterpieces. I had a good childhood, not because I had the privilege of eating soggy marshmallow cereals too close to a television screen, but because I had loving friends, teachers, and family. In any case, childhood is overrated. Some of us had terrible ones. I, for one, am glad to be older. Isn't it grand to be able to tell the difference between pearls and swine? It's easier to look back than it is to look forward. So unless you want Hollywood to reboot Spiderman every three years, I suggest we admit that the 80's and 90's were just as mundane as any other decade, and start looking ahead.

I wrote this eulogy happily.


Bibliography

Reynolds, Simon. Interviewed by Thomas Rogers. "Will nostalgia destroy pop culture." Salon, August 5, 2011. Web. http://www.salon.com/2011/08/05/retromania_simon_reynolds_interview/

Sullivan, Gail. "Saturday morning cartoons are no more." The Washington Post, September 30, 2014. Web. http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/09/30/saturday-morning-cartoons-are-no-more/

Download Batman Arkham City On PC With Proof In Hindi (Black Box) [All E...

Favourite Games -V- Most Re-Played Games

I have been recently thinking about the games I usually say are my favourite, as in my "top 5 RPGs" or whatever, and thinking about how this list overlaps with the games that I have played again and again.

What I have noticed is the lists don't really overlap.

So, my favourite game and RPG is probably FFVII, but in actual fact, I actually haven't played this game through in maybe 15 years now. Is it really the game that I should say is the "greatest"? Is that really what I think, or am I really saying "the game I have the greatest nostalgia for is FFVII"?

I don't think it is all about nostalgia though, because I only played MGS through for the first time 5 years ago, and I honestly think that that game ranks right up there in my top list of games, and in fact, I have only played it through once.

Is this honest? Do we need to have played a game many times for it to be in our top list? When it comes to films, all the films I like the most will be films I have chosen to watch quite a number of times... but with games, maybe it isn't the case.

Perhaps this is down to the amount of time it takes to complete a game, the investment, compared to a film. But even with my favourite books, I have read them a number of times, though probably not all of them....

And then there is the really weird case of games that sucked hours and hours away from my life, but don't even appear on my tops lists. RPGs that I put way down the list but which I played every last bit of juice from them, and at the time must have really enjoyed them or got something from them.... FFVIII for example- I played that to death over a full year, or Age of Empires, or Street Fighter Alpha 3, or Fifa 97, or Altered Beast, all of these I played loads, more certainly than MGS yet MGS ranks above them for sure in my estimation.

AK-046, Tomcat The F-14 Fighter Simulator!

In this episode I cover the only plane flying simulator on the 2600 that I am aware of, Tomcat F-14. It certainly was an adventure! Up next is the CBS Electronics game Mountain King, so if you have thoughts on that game, send it to me at 2600gamebygame@gmail.com by November 17. My Extra Life half marathons are coming up this weekend on the 8th and 9th starting at 6 pm. Thanks to all who have donated so far, I'm still trying to reach my goal! You can donate at the link below, thanks for that and thanks as always for listening.

My Extra Life donation page, thank you!
Tomcat F-14 on Random Terrain
Dan Kitchen's web site
Interview with Dan by Classic Gamer 74
Interview with Dan by ZeroPage Homebrew
No Swear Gamer 374 - Tomcat F-14
No Swear Gamer Tomcat F-14 full mission
Eugenio's PRGE 2019 photo album
Arcade Blogger - Atari Bradley Trainer
Hugues Johnson's Console Timeline

Let's Play Batman Arkham Origins Walkthrough Part-2- Penguin's Dealer [1...

Blue Dwarf Group

The wood and white have now been finished up and I started in on the blue on the dwarves. This is going to be a long one, I think. There's a lot of small areas that I'll need to be careful on. After that it's leathers, flesh and hair. Fourish weeks left before Fall In, still hoping to make it.

Big Suzy Cube News: Gear And Google Play Pass!

#SuzyCube #gamedev #indiedev #madewithunity @NoodlecakeGames

It's been a while but I've got some big news for fans of Suzy Cube and stuff! Oh! And a whole new way to enjoy Suzy Cube on Android! Hit the link for the detail!

Read more »

Louard's game design sounding board and home of the Pro's and Con's reviews.

The "Not" Jutland Ship Collection

Some people have drug or alcohol addictions I have model ships ! Not satisfied with all the ships at Jutland (250 for the uneducated) I could only stand withdrawal symptoms for so long before embarking on the lesser "Not" at Jutland collection.

All ships are 1/2400 scale GHQ and a handy guide on how I paint them is avaliable on the link below.

https://yarkshiregamer.blogspot.com/2015/11/12400-ww1-wtj-naval-from-box-to-table.html

So let's have a run down of the new ships starting with Team Britain.

HMS Queen Elizabeth 

The lead ship of a class of Super Dreadnoughts, 3 knots faster than the standard 21 knot Dreadnought, she and her sisters were designed to form a Fast Squadron. With 8 15" guns and 13" armour QE was a formidable force.

Whilst undergoing trials in the Mediterranean she was called up for the Dardanelles Campaign where she served as a flag ship. After that ill fated action QE returned to the Grand Fleet at Scapa, however she missed the big day as the ship was in dock for maintenance.

Later in the 1st World War QE became the flagship of the Grand Fleet and went on to see extensive service in WW2, being badly damaged at Alexandria by Italian Frogmen.

HMS Dreadnought

The ship that started a revolution in Naval Warfare, launched in 1906 she was the first Ship to have a single calibre main armament (12" guns) and steam turbine engines which gave a top speed of 21 knots. Both of which made the existing Battleships or the now Pre Dreadnoughts, obsolete.

Despite the fanfare of Dreadnoughts launch her active career was less auspicious. The ship rammed and sank a U Boat in 1915 but missed Jutland whilst in dock being refitted. After that there was a stint in the home fleet before being scrapped in 1921.

HMAS Australia 

One of three Indefatigable Class Battlecruisers and the only Capital ship in the Australian Navy, she began the war searching for the German East India Squadron before being transferred to the North Sea.

Australia missed Jutland as she was in dock for repair following a collision with her sister ship New Zealand. The Battlecruiser returned to Australia after the war but was scuttled as a result of the Washington Naval Treaty.

HMS Glorious 

A strange beast, the second of three Courageous Class Battlecruisers, armed with 4 15" guns, with a top speed of 32 knots but very thin armour (3" belt).

One thing immediately obvious is the decks, rather than the standard teak decking of the time this class of ship had bare metal decks to save weight and therefore increase speed.

The ship took part in the second Battle of Heligoland Bight but after the war she was converted into an aircraft carrier, the model itself is huge and only just fits on the 120mm base.

The four new British "Capital" Ships 

HMS Drake

The next two ships fall firmly in the "why and when did I buy that" category.

When going through the "to do" box I found this Drake Class Armoured Cruiser but for the life of me I can't figure out where it came from. Coronel I hear you call, but alas no; I already own HMS Good Hope.

But never mind whilst the ship yards are open...... painted up as the lead ship of the Class it adds to my Armoured Cruiser collection. Before WW1 she was stationed in Australia before returning to the UK to be part of the 7th Cruiser Sqn. She was torpedoed in shallow water in 1917.

I love the detail on this ship, a hint of black wash in the recesses works nicely.

HMS Kent 

Lying in the box next to Drake was a Monmouth Class Armoured Cruiser, clearly there has been some sort of Coronel mix up going on as the Class name of that group, famously lost in the South Atlantic battle.

So rather than leave the model unpainted she has been finished and named HMS Kent.

Kent was refitting at the start of the war and spent time in the South Atlantic after Coronel playing a part in sinking the German Light Cruisers Nurnberg (Falklands) and Dresden. She was on the West African coast at the time of Jutland.

That concludes the new additions to Team GB, all I have planned to add are Repulse, Renown, Furious and the mysteriously missing HMS Audacious which I am sure I bought but can't find !

Team German

SMS König Albert

The fourth ship of the Kaiser Class Dreadnoughts she was in dry dock for maintenance at the time of Jutland, a big miss for the High Seas Fleet.

SMS Goeben

I previewed this ship a couple of weeks back, I had been suffering a spot of Painters Block after the rush of the Italian Wars Project but finally managed to drag myself forward and get this model finished to hopefully get the Vallejo flowing again.

Another lovely GHQ model. Goeben was in the Mediterranean at the start of the war and was transferred to Turkey. Our Naval Campaign has historically taken a different route and the ship has been recalled to the 1st Scouting Group, hence the need for the ship.

It's going to be great seeing her go into action alongside her sister Moltke. The German Capital Ships are all done now and I have some early Pre Dreadnoughts and Armoured Cruisers on the go (from Tumbling Dice) so look out for a review on those soon.

Konig Albert firing it's front turrets

Out of interest I took a picture is Queen Elizabeth next to Dreadnought, it's amazing to see the two ships side by side in the same scale, Dreadnought as we know was a revolution but look how far things moved between 1906 and 1914. The sheer size of QE paints a real picture.

Watch Out! Hedgewars Releases Long-Awaited V1.0.0

Have you heard of Hedgewars? What began as a simple attempt to clone Team 17's Worms Armageddon has evolved into one of the most polished and community driven libre game projects on the scene. After more than ten years of continuous development the project is finally celebrating the release of version 1.0.0.

Boasting full campaign support, several online multiplayer modes, full customization, and mod support, Hedgewars is without a doubt an impressive endeavor that rivals its source of inspiration in many levels. So whether you are a Worms Armageddon fan or if you are just looking for some online turn-based fun, we definitely recommend a download.

Code license: GPLv2
Art license: GFDLv1.2 and GPLv2

Comments about this article? Post them here.

This post was retrieved from freegamer.blogspot.com.

Storium Theory: A Shadow In The Light

I've written a bit about this before, but today I'd like to discuss one of the most fun things that I've found to do on Storium - ending a challenge with a Strong ending by playing a Weakness card.

Sometimes, you find yourself with a really fascinating opportunity on Storium. You're writing the final move on a challenge, and it is definitely going Strong - there's only one card slot left, for instance, and at least 2 more Strong cards have been played than Weakness cards, so even if you play a Weakness card, it's still going to be 1 up on Strong.

These are amazingly fun writing opportunities, and I encourage you to make the most of them.

Play a Weakness card...and make it just as Weak as you normally would! Your character screws up, or stumbles, or otherwise expresses his Weakness. It's just that in the end, the challenge succeeds despite him.

Don't have his Weakness lead him to victory - instead, have victory happen despite his weakness.

The other characters' efforts succeed. They win the day. He almost screws things up for everybody...but they'd done well enough before that point that it didn't end up mattering.

This is one of your best possible opportunities to make someone else...or everybody else...awesome.

You can take the time to build up how well someone else did. You can show how the situation is set up perfectly to go to the Strong outcome. Then, you take it one step farther - you show how you make a mistake, how you screw things up...but because things were set up so well to begin with, or because someone else is doing what they're doing and doing it so well, things go right anyway.

It isn't luck. It isn't happenstance. It's the efforts of the other characters involved, acting along the lines they've acted in prior to your move, using the Strengths they've put down before. You nearly mess everything up...but they either save the day, or have already put things in such a good state that your screw-up is a drop in the bucket.

Some of my favorite moves on Storium have been the points where I've had the opportunity to write this way: Where I could show just how good the other characters have been in a challenge by having my character seriously screw up...but letting the group win the day anyway. The other players feel great because you gave them recognition and made them look like a million bucks...and you? You get a really, really powerful character moment out of it.

You can hit your character hard from a moment like this - a moment where everyone else looks good, and he looks bad. You can use it to push him to change. You can inspire a difference in attitude. Maybe it's negative - feelings of inferiority or questioning of his skills. But maybe it's positive - a new respect for other characters, or the discovery of a mentor who can help him exceed his current limits.

So when a moment like this comes up in a story, don't just toss out a Weakness card just to get rid of one. Don't look at it that way. Look at it as a great opportunity to really make other people look good, and to really draw comparisons between your character's failings and someone else's strengths. This is an excellent, amazing chance to develop your character and make other people look their best at the same time. Take advantage of it!

Martins Living Room

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Gaming At Little Wars In April!

Little Wars is the annual wargaming convention produced by the Historical Miniatures Gaming Society of the Midwest (HMGS-Midwest). It's a great time and very inexpensive too. $40.00USD for three days of great miniatures games of all types - can't beat that!

I'm the guy who usually runs fantasy games in the middle of a lot of historical gaming (Heh) and this year is no different. I'm running a game a day, starting at 11am each day. Here's what's on tap.

Rescue of Hommlet - Friday, 11am - Grand Ballroom Space 7

If you've been reading my blog for the past few weeks, you've seen the preparation I'm making for my GaryCon debut of this Greyhawk-related scenario. Set at the beginning of the venerable module T1 - Village of Hommlet, it sets up an RPG/wargame hybrid scenario. The picture to the left there is the model I've made of the Moathouse. I'm doing this same game at Little Wars

The blurb reads: A discrete summons has reached your ears, for the good people of Hommlet are in fear for their lives! A militia of foul brigands from Nulb have been spotted near the old Moathouse of ill reputation! What evil lurks there and beyond? Find out, brave heroes, using Chainmail (and a bit of Original D&D)

Chaos War in the Dungeon! - Saturday, 11am - Grand Ballroom Space 9

For the fourth year in a row, I'm running Chaos Wars at Little Wars! This year, I'm bringing some fun terrain and an interesting scenario - fighting a desperate battle underground! This isn't your usual dungeon crawl, this a dungeon BRAWL!

The blurb reads: Go underground in dark tunnels and chambers filled with horrors or treasures! Brave Lawful allies fight against foul Bestials! Who will emerge victorious? Fight in a unique terrain setup using Chaos Wars fantasy miniature wargaming rules and all genuine Ral Partha armies!

HOTT Times in Etinerra - Sunday, 11am - Grand Ballroom Space 19

I've paid attention to the games being played at Little Wars and surprisingly, DBA and HOTT are not usually on the event list. This year, I believe that I'm the ONLY DBA/HOTT game there. Which will be great! I'll be bringing my 15mm Human and Orc/Goblin armies and letting players bash each other to pieces!

Here's the blurb: As the Orc and Goblin forces assembled on the horizon, the Human commander gazed nervously from the roof of her castle Stronghold. Would the forces of Weal prevail against the army of Woe? Find out with a fun game of Hordes of the Things set in the Etinerra campaign world. Wizards! Monsters! Oh my!

There's plenty of other great gaming to be had - some SciFi, a lot of historicals. This convention is usually how I scratch my historical itches, so that I don't go and buy a bunch of games and armies and end up never having time for anything else! This year, I'm playing in an American War of Independence game, An Axis & Allies Global game, and a Third Crusades game. And the dealer hall usually vacuums a load of cash from my wallet and credit cards as well.

Can't wait! I hope I'll see you there, come say Hi!

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.