Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Updates from the Matrix Games/Slitherine Press Event

On to a wargaming note.

Matrix Games, one of the premiere PC wargaming companies, is tweeting away about the slew of upcoming titles they are releasing during the year. The wargamer nerd in me is all excited about some of these especially Pandora.


High Command orders in Decisive Campaigns: Case Blue will improve gameplay and keep players interested and active in their long campaigns.

Friday, April 13, 2012

MoP Beta

Why do they call it a beta invite when no one does any beta testing. Just call it "early preview invite" and get it over with. Also why so excited? It's an expansion that adds a new starting zone (yippee) and some new dungeons. Relax people. It's more of the same. Yes I am in, but no I dont really care. Although I haven't played WoW in weeks it is still the most polished MMO out there with the best feature sets. However I think my days of get over excited about a beta invite for something like this are way behind me.

I logged in and saw this:

 And I immediately logged out.

Sure I can get in and take a look...only to have to do this shit all over again in a few weeks. If you want to give me a "beta" invite do it when the fucking thing is starting not when it is basically a free public preview. Beta my ass...

Sunday, April 8, 2012

Unseen Lerker calls it quits...for now

It was a good magazine I liked it. But after a while I knew it was in trouble because you could see they were just not getting the word out enough about the publication.

At any rate, as a subscriber, I hope I will get some sort of refund. My efforts to help out by actually subscribing failed I guess as did the hopes of others

Here is the announcement:

Hello, Lerkerites.

Of course, most of you are expecting a bunch of shiny pages in the post. If you've been on the Unseen Lerker site, you will have seen a recent announcement about the ups and downs of magazine-making that have brought more than a few nights of gut-churning and sweaty eyeballs. To complete that message, I've jotted down my latest news ...

The first words I ever wrote for Unseen Lerker magazine were scrawled in a notebook on a rattly train ride from Sweden to Denmark, in late 2009. I remember the excitement I felt as the idea for an independent wargaming magazine bloomed in my mind, excitement which was reflected in those that I brainstormed the concept with.

Unseen Lerker has been a very rewarding, interesting, fun and challenging experience. I believe deeply that there is a very valuable product within the brand – not just a magazine – and that once fleshed out and developed will be a truly unique and special experience for anyone involved or exposed to it.

It’s been a fairly rocky road for me and for Unseen Lerker in the past 12 months, and due to ongoing circumstances (both related to the magazine and personal reasons) I feel that at this juncture the best course of action is to press the big “Pause” button on Unseen Lerker for a little while. Everyone who has subscribed to the magazine has demonstrated a great amount of faith and I believe that needs to be rewarded with a quality, timely, consistent product – which we are simply not in a position to produce at the moment.

I want to thank everyone who has written in with encouragement and ideas for tailoring this mag into an even better product. Your comments and input are much appreciated.

I’ve got big plans for Unseen Lerker, and a big vision for what the brand will eventually accomplish. But right now the distance between where we are and where I want it to be feels like light years, and I regret to say that my own circumstances don’t currently allow for space travel! 
Little Lergy has stepped into a big pair of boots, and I hope (after these growing pains) that he will be striding forward bringing plenty to delight you on the page and the Web. 

Commencing in the third week of April we will be refunding our subscribers as much as we can physically afford to. Our advertisers too will be repaid what they are still owed.  Some people have already received specific messages, and we will be following up on those communications during the Easter weekend.


Issue 11 of the magazine, I am afraid, has not made it to print and is not likely to. 
On a slightly brighter note, we will be uploading the content created for Issue 11, as well as all of our past issues to our website as complimentary downloads – in case you missed an issue, or never got a chance to see what the early days were like, you can now peruse them for free. The website will remain active indefinitely to continue hosting these issues. We will keep you updated on the availability and presence of these issues, so please look forward to progressive announcements regarding this.

I’d like to extend my personal thanks to everyone who has supported the Unseen Lerker project over the past two years: friends, family, subscribers, contributors, advertisers, sponsors. I greatly appreciate the belief and understanding that everyone has shown. During the next six months time I will sit down to revise and revisit the concept of Unseen Lerker – what it is, where it needs to go, what YOU really want, and how to deliver it in Lerker Style – but for now I feel it is in everyone’s best interest for the magazine to go to sleep for a while.

I understand that this decision will sit better with some than with others. I have been battling with it for quite some time and it’s certainly one of the more difficult crossroads I have encountered in my life. Please speak up if you have concerns, questions or otherwise – I’ll still be on hand to answer emails. Drop me a line at bobo@unseenlerker.com
With too many (cannon) balls in the air, my replies have taken over a week, but I assure you I read and respond to every one, and I'll do my best to avoid keeping you waiting.

I look forward to seeing what the future brings. Thank you again for you time and support.
Hoping life's adventures are have less bump and more bounce for you ...

Friday, April 6, 2012

Terrible 1500 point game vs Skaven

Ok. Still learning our armies. I made probably the worst list ever for a 1500 point battle against our clubs Skaven player.

I still have refused to use the conventional Tomb King units. No chariots and no warsphinx this game either. I want to see how bad these normal units are and they are damn bad. Tomb Kings have near zero offensive magic. I passed up a Vortex spell to take my healing spell this time around (the signature one)

I am still not sure how my units work, but tonight I still forgot army rules

a) horse archers get SCOUTING and VANGUARD. I have yet to remember this shit
b) forgot my fear AGAIN
c) I remembered the other rules and got to test them all...INCLUDING UNSTABLE!
d) I really think we need more terrain in our games

Ok so real quick

This game was over in 3 turns as I conceded and gave up the Skaven player smoked my ass

Highlights:


1) My general died in turn 1. I tried something new and brought cheap character to lead my army and skimped on leadership and took more core. Guess what doesn't work. When a TK general dies the army slowly disintegrates

2) Don hit every artillery shot but one

3) After my general died I had to start rolling to see if my units turn to dust. You make a LD test if you fail you lose models according to difference in the roll and the LD. I lost an entire unit of Skeleton Archers that failed the LD save with a roll of 12 killing 7

4) Bone Giant had cracks call cast on it, he has a one initiative, he fell in a hole and died instantly. Never took one swing at the enemy. Fuck you Cracks Call

5) Skaven player had a brass orb he tossed at me and killed like 9 dudes

6) At one point the poison wind mortar MISSED my screaming skull catapult and scattered perfectly onto my full unit of skeleton warriors, killing 9

7) Screaming skull catapult missed once, so I placed it between his units expecting a scatter on my second shot. Instead I rolled a direct hit...ON EMPTY FUCKING GROUND

8) Ushabti fought well almost killed the Abomination outright in one round of combat but they were outmatched by Rat Ogre flank charge near end of game

9) Liche Priests suck but are not flammable. Taking one level 2 Lord and General with 2 wounds...not a good idea to lead your army

10) I suck at every facet of this game including deployment

Thursday, April 5, 2012

GW making things easy with new paints

I do like this:

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/paintChart.jsp?catId=cat820002a

I like the new paint line. It is clear, concise and they have added paints for each stage of modeling.

I also like that you can use the above link, find what you are painting and dump all those paints into a shopping cart and go to town. Overall GW is doing a few things right and the new releases are pretty slick