Friday Night Internet Fight: Round 31

As you know, I'm pressed for time, but since I completely forgot to arrange for somebody else to do FNIF for me this week, I came up with something slightly different- a one sided fight with nobody representing the opposition.  Unless you're living under a rock you probably already know that the Dark Eldar are getting a new codex soon and probably don't smell like rocks.  If you're extra savvy and cutting edge, you may also have heard some rumors that the DA might be able to fit poison ranged weapons on just about every unit.  This has erupted in the inevitable shitstorm of morons running around claiming that 'nids are screwed, DA have broken the game (before they're even fucking released), and the sky is falling. 

Rock and roll diary: Tetris

After a rousing game of irl tetris all my gear is packed for the morning and day 1 of recording.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Testing

Suck my balls blogger

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

How I Got Hooked on Warhammer and Why I'm Glad Island of Blood Wasn't Out Then Part 2

To refresh your memories, in part one of this two part series, I discussed my humble beginnings in wargaming, growing up in a medium sized city with few resources to offer the novice gamer.  Without the help of my dad's model railroad experience and learning with friends, I would have been screwed. 

Fast forward to today and we'll see if things have gotten better for the community.  My hometown had at least one dedicated, still solvent game store with GW support, last I knew.  That's an improvement over what I had.  FLGSs are a great resource for novice players, giving an environment where staff and patrons can teach game systems, show you assembly, and give painting tips.  In a brief and completely unscientific survey, it looks like most moderate sized towns have some kind of game store within a reasonable distance.  That's pretty good considering the average FLGS is hell bent on running itself out of business. 

Rock and Roll Diary Part II

Had a fairly  boring day on the music front.  Due to my getting ahead yesterday, there wasn't a lot to be done.  I got my drums tuned where I want them.  Thanks to recording the head tensions prior to changing heads yesterday, though, it took me longer to set everything up than it did to tune the drums.  My Premier kit has always been exceptionally good at holding its tuning, so I'm not worried about them slipping out of tune between now and Friday, when we start recording, or even after I start playing them.  Just in case, though I have a printout of my head tensions stowed in my snare drum case.  Additionally, I have a spare head for every drum now, because of yesterday's almost unwarranted change.  I've never broken a tom head in 20 years of playing, but I do periodically blow out snare heads, so it's nice to have a good extra handy.  I hit fairly hard, but mostly use my wrists and fingers, like you should, so it's not so much the power of my playing that busts heads as it is the fact that I crank my snare way the fuck up to get the sound I like. 

Finally, you may have noticed the bad ass artwork up top.  That is going to be the EP cover.  We commissioned an artist to paint that for us about a month ago and he brought that to us in record time.  I almost got sex wee all over my leg the first time I saw it.  This is probably the first time that I've been truly happy with album artwork on any of the 5 or so albums I've been involved with in the past. 

PS, to clarify some questions/statements from yesterday regarding the demo backing track I put up.

1. Sounds Symphonic- what I posted was just strings and a couple of odds and ends (chimes and a filtered synth).  This will be low in the final mix, adding depth to the 2 guitars, bass, drums, and vocals.
2. Doesn't sound metal- see above, but also note that we have a far more classic sound than what's big with the kids today.  I like a lot of the more modern stuff just fine myself, but I'm becoming increasingly disillusioned with the studio magic that goes into producing a lot of that stuff.  Faking drum parts, over producing everything, and pitch correcting vocals is not only unimaginative, but takes away the human element of the songs.  In short, we're less Dragonforce/Dimmu Borgir and more Iron Maiden/Judas Priest/Motorhead/Bolt Thrower/Cathedral

Rock and Roll Diary Part I

This week is going to be crazy busy for me.  As such I'm not going to have a whole lot of time to talk about 40k or WFB.  That doesn't mean that I won't be posting though, but that I've got something different on my mind.  I will still finish part II of my IoB rant, though.  As I've alluded to in the past, I'm in a new metal band, Crusader, hot on the heels of dissolving the Psychobilly band that I was in, the Massacres.  This weekend we're going to be in the studio recording 4 tracks for our first EP entitled Rise of the Templars, which has been inspired by the mythology of the Knights Templar as well as the Blind Dead films.  I won't go on, but I'm sure my singer, Hoagy, can go into more detail in the comments if he cares to. 

Friday Night Internet Fight: Round 30

What up bitches?  It's Friday again, let's have us an Internet fight.  Comcast came out and replaced all my cable wiring outside the house, so hopefully I'll be able to write this shit without my modem resetting every ten minutes.  That would be totally tits. 

For today we turn our attention to the home of snarky comments and mega trolling (all in good fun and taste, of course), The Warhammer Forum for some tactical discussion.  Now who would ever expect a conversation about using pivoting to gain extra vehicle movement would turn into an argument?  Well I never....

FNIF: Round 29 Results Show

Looks like we've solved your quandary Brent: it is not ok to use the name of a brutal, genocidal maniac for a screen name.  A scientific poll has now proved it.

This week we had a near record voter turnout with 93 votes.  Brent being Brent, he had links out several places asking for people to vote for him.  It wasn't quite as crazy as the first time Brent got a poll, but it still amuses me to no end.  I think we also got more readers because I kept the fight short too.  Let me know how you guys feel on that.  I know the FNIFcan get kind of long. 

It was a complete fucking blowout in Brent's favor, with he and his faux-hawk receiving a bone-crushing 72% of the vote.  How did the lovable, charming Warboss_Stalin fare, you ask?  Well he didn't get a single vote at all.  Justice.  He did get a 7% share if you count the "not Brent" votes for him, though- a fact that 11% of you guys realized.

GW Acknowledges WAAC Gamers; The First Rule Can Suck My Balls

Yesterday GW's What's New Today Blog, home of a daily dose of pretty pictures and no useful hobby information, acknowledged and possibly defined what a WAAC gamer is.  If you read far enough into the 9/22/10 Throne of Skulls Survival Guide, you would have run into the following after being bored to tears by the most obnoxious survival guide ever:

the temptation to play to win at all cost can overtake the best of us. However, any unscrupulous play will not earn you many friends and may eventually lead to retribution. If you can't swim I'd be extra friendly just to be on the safe side

There you have it, a WAAC player, according to a published GW contributor, is unscrupulous (a cheater) and acts like a dick. There is no mention whatsoever of bringing a good list, playing by the rules as written, or playing a tight, hard game (no homo, not that there's anything wrong with that). So everyone that I've argued with in comments threads, forums, FNIF's, my mind, in person, or whatever can officially fuck off. Invoking the first rule (have fun, or some bullshit) is likely to earn you a swift kick (or maybe a kwik kick) to your shriveled little testicles. Playing a good game with a good list does not make you a WAAC gamer; being a jerkoff and ruining somebody's "fun" does.

How I Got Hooked on Warhammer and Why I'm Glad Island of Blood Wasn't Out Then Part 1

My copy of Island of Blood just arrived, and as I expected, it is chock full of sweet sweet miniatures and has a rulebook that is actually functional.  This is a welcome departure from the 9,000 page monstrosity that I have been using.  Be that as it may, something doesn't sit right for me, and maybe never has.  How do you prevent a novice player from being overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of the hobby and rules aspects of the set and game in general?