So, I was going to go to the thousand points doubles tournament at Black Knight Games today. Had my army all set, even managed to get a couple of new battlesuits painted up; a pair of fireknives, rather than the trio of deathrains I'd wanted, but beggars can't be choosers. Got my camera to take a whole bunch of pics for the blog, codex and rulebook, a big water bottle so I wouldn't be going for the sodas all day, and off I went.
And then, about five minutes away, my buddy called me from the store to tell me that, while the website said the tournament started at noon, in fact it'd been going on for two hours before we even got there.
Needless to say, neither of us were exactly impressed by that.
7.30.2011
7.28.2011
This Review Submitted via Difference Engine
Steampunk has always been a bit of a conundrum for science fiction fans. On the one hand, it's clearly set in the past, usually pre-20th century, though there are some who come closer to the current time. On the other hand, however, the worlds of steampunk are significantly more advanced than their historical contemporaries, often far past the point of actual possibility. On balance, then, I'm usually inclined to consider steampunk a form of science fiction. Which means it's appropriate for this blog, being futuristic but not necessarily the future. Which means Steampunk II - Steampunk Reloaded is appropriate for review.
At 428 pages this may not sound like a particularly weighty tome, but the type is rather dense, and packs a surprising amount into this volume. For the most part it's quite worthwhile, too, though there are a few stories that seem to drag rather brutally. And there are just a few flat-out strange choices for inclusion in this work, such as a more raygun gothic/deco story and a tale of Coyote trying to help free a girl from service to Titania, which is just a flat-out fantasy tale. The editors save the worst for last, though, closing out the book with 'A Secret History of Steampunk' by 'The Mecha-Ostrich', over forty pages of disconnected fragments of story jammed together, linked only by the most tenuous of connections. Lacking any real, coherent narrative to carry the reader through, those last forty pages can seem frankly interminable, and certainly don't allow for the fiction section to end on a high note. That's followed by a short non-fiction section, mostly biographies of all the contributors but with a few short essays on steampunk itself, its potential future and its personal impact.
But don't get me wrong, this is an excellent collection, with a variety of strong, compelling short stories. From the intensely personal 'The Steam Dancer (1896)' to the lyrically aesop-like tale of 'The Mechanical Aviary of Jalad-ud-din Muhammad Akbar', from the Victoriana of 'The Strange Case of Mister Salad Monday' to the Western flavour of 'The Cast Iron Kid' to the east Asian 'O One', from the lighthearted romp of 'Balfour and Meriwether in the Adventure of the Emperor's Vengeance' to the class-conscious rabble rousing of 'The Anachronist's Cookbook', Steampunk II has something for every potential fan of the genre. And despite being a fair connoisseur of various genre short fiction pieces, there was only a single story in this collection I'd seen anywhere else, and even that was an interesting alt-hist piece well worth re-reading.
I'm always wary of recommending an anthology for purchase; they're often quite pricey, and the stories can be pretty hit or miss in a lot of them. But this collection, and the anthology that preceded this one, I'm happy to recommend without reservation. Any steampunk fan, no matter what particular form of steampunk story they like, will find something here to enjoy, and enjoy greatly.
Reloaded with coal? Wood? Aetherium? Who can say!
At 428 pages this may not sound like a particularly weighty tome, but the type is rather dense, and packs a surprising amount into this volume. For the most part it's quite worthwhile, too, though there are a few stories that seem to drag rather brutally. And there are just a few flat-out strange choices for inclusion in this work, such as a more raygun gothic/deco story and a tale of Coyote trying to help free a girl from service to Titania, which is just a flat-out fantasy tale. The editors save the worst for last, though, closing out the book with 'A Secret History of Steampunk' by 'The Mecha-Ostrich', over forty pages of disconnected fragments of story jammed together, linked only by the most tenuous of connections. Lacking any real, coherent narrative to carry the reader through, those last forty pages can seem frankly interminable, and certainly don't allow for the fiction section to end on a high note. That's followed by a short non-fiction section, mostly biographies of all the contributors but with a few short essays on steampunk itself, its potential future and its personal impact.
But don't get me wrong, this is an excellent collection, with a variety of strong, compelling short stories. From the intensely personal 'The Steam Dancer (1896)' to the lyrically aesop-like tale of 'The Mechanical Aviary of Jalad-ud-din Muhammad Akbar', from the Victoriana of 'The Strange Case of Mister Salad Monday' to the Western flavour of 'The Cast Iron Kid' to the east Asian 'O One', from the lighthearted romp of 'Balfour and Meriwether in the Adventure of the Emperor's Vengeance' to the class-conscious rabble rousing of 'The Anachronist's Cookbook', Steampunk II has something for every potential fan of the genre. And despite being a fair connoisseur of various genre short fiction pieces, there was only a single story in this collection I'd seen anywhere else, and even that was an interesting alt-hist piece well worth re-reading.
I'm always wary of recommending an anthology for purchase; they're often quite pricey, and the stories can be pretty hit or miss in a lot of them. But this collection, and the anthology that preceded this one, I'm happy to recommend without reservation. Any steampunk fan, no matter what particular form of steampunk story they like, will find something here to enjoy, and enjoy greatly.
7.21.2011
The Fourh Sphere Part 1 - HQ
Codex: Tau Empire is apparently in the offing, coming sometime towards the end of this year or the beginning of the next. Obviously it's not exactly right around the corner, but given the codex update cycle Games Workshop operates on, it's relatively soon. So, with that in mind, I wanted to lay out some of what I'm hoping to see. In particular, there is one unit in each of the force organization slots that simply needs a thorough re-thinking, and on which I'm going to focus.
HQ - The Ethereal
As every Tau Empire player knows, the Ethereal is a complete waste. 50 points gets you a statline that would be moderately impressive for a non-special character Imperial Guard HQ, no armour, no ranged weaponry, no psychic powers, and a pair of non-power weapon close combat weapons. Compared to the other main option, the 1+ battlesuit-wearing Shas'el, there's no contest whatsoever; the Shas'el gets an almost entirely better statline across the board, plus a jetpack, the Acute Sense special rule, and a 3+ save. Oh, and he also gets the ability to carry a gun!
So, what does the Ethereal have that the Shas'el doesn't? Special rules. Ethereals have two of them that really matter; Inspiring Presence, which allows Tau (not Kroot, Vespid or Drones) with line of sight to them to re-roll a Morale check. Not a leadership test, mind, just a morale check. And they can't do it if the Ethereal is in a transport. And having an open line of sight to him usually means that he's out in the open to begin with, making him an exceedingly squishy target, particularly in light of special rule number two, Price of Failure. This rule states that, when the Ethereal dies, every Tau unit, not just those with line of sight, have to take a leadership test and get Preferred Enemy. Preferred Enemy is largely useless, since Tau are so bad in close combat that small benefits simply can't make up the difference, but the morale check is brutal. Elite Tau Empire units have the same leadership values as basic Space Marines; they make Orks look well-disciplined! The loss of a single model, who remember wears no armour and has a very weak statline, can theoretically send whole units running for the board edge, and given the number of jetpack-equipped units in a Tau cadre they'll run very fast, indeed.
So, it's obvious why nobody takes the Ethereal. The question is, how do you make him viable? And the answer basically depends on what the role of the Ethereal is. It'd be easy enough just to stick him in a battlesuit, or even a stealth suit, and treat him like every other character in every other codex. But the Ethereals are unique amongst the leaders of the forty-first millenia in their effect on their troops, and that should be represented on the tabletop, as well. An Ethereal shouldn't just be a Shas'el with some CC potential and a couple special rules, it should be a unique and characterful thing in and of itself.
The most obvious fix, of course, is to give the Ethereal armour. The only other things running around without armour in this codex are the Kroot, and you have to field them in minimum squads of 10. And they have guns! Sorry, I just can't get over that. Anyway, if the Ethereal is meant to be that important, it should be reasonably well protected. A 4+ save, or even a 5+ invulnerable, are the minimum this unit should have. After that, if you actually want to play up the CC element (and the only weapons you can currently give Ethereals are two regular CC weapons or one weapon that gives +2 strength), then for the love of all that's holy, give them power weapons. They're just not going to accomplish anything, otherwise. And another point of initiative wouldn't hurt, either, since as it stands the most storied and deadly close combat warriors in the Tau Empire will hit second after just about every other unit out there.
The special rules are the other place where this unit really needs fixing, and again, it comes down to what this unit is supposed to do. If they're only going to be armed for CC, that means they're expected to get up close and personal to contribute. However, as it stands now the cost-benefit ratio is hugely out of sync; Ethereals provide little real combat power, at the risk of army-wide devastation should they be killed, which they almost certainly will be if they're rushing out into the front like that. Inspiring Presence and Price of Failure aren't bad ideas in an of themselves, but they are poorly executed. Inspiring Presence should affect all Tau models on the board, including Drones but excluding Kroot and Vespid, and rather than just allowing re-rolled morale checks, it should allow a re-roll for all LD-based tests. Tau leadership is weak pretty much across the board, relative to cost and comparisons with other armies' equivalent units, and this would provide a very real way to address that. For that same reason, Price of Failure shouldn't break units when the Ethereal dies, because then you're demanding a LD test just when the army is least capable of making one. Instead, what about something like forcing units that fail the test to go to ground for a turn, a sort of moment of shock, after which they get back up. A single turn forced to go to ground may not sound like much, but that could be debilitating given that it's a full turn in which you do no shooting or maneuvering. After that, give them a useful Universal Special Rule, like Counter-Attack or Fearless or Furious Charge, something that really will make a difference and show just how damned mad they are at the death of their Ethereal. Or just don't provide a 'benefit' afterwards, and tone down the effect of Price of Failure. Either way, the Ethereal's special rules are way out of whack, and if Games Workshop plans to sell any more of them, they'd best get around to fixing up the gulf between the model's costs and its actual value.
So, those are my suggestions for fixing the Ethereal; armour, power weapons, a better I and more balanced special rules. It also wouldn't hurt if the Honor Guard counted as a Troops, and therefore scoring, unit, because who needs more expensive Fire Warriors who can't score? I'm not exactly lacking St 5 AP 5 guns as-is, guys, and one better BS isn't that impressive in a codex that contains Pathfinders.
Next up, the Elites!
HQ - The Ethereal
As every Tau Empire player knows, the Ethereal is a complete waste. 50 points gets you a statline that would be moderately impressive for a non-special character Imperial Guard HQ, no armour, no ranged weaponry, no psychic powers, and a pair of non-power weapon close combat weapons. Compared to the other main option, the 1+ battlesuit-wearing Shas'el, there's no contest whatsoever; the Shas'el gets an almost entirely better statline across the board, plus a jetpack, the Acute Sense special rule, and a 3+ save. Oh, and he also gets the ability to carry a gun!
So, what does the Ethereal have that the Shas'el doesn't? Special rules. Ethereals have two of them that really matter; Inspiring Presence, which allows Tau (not Kroot, Vespid or Drones) with line of sight to them to re-roll a Morale check. Not a leadership test, mind, just a morale check. And they can't do it if the Ethereal is in a transport. And having an open line of sight to him usually means that he's out in the open to begin with, making him an exceedingly squishy target, particularly in light of special rule number two, Price of Failure. This rule states that, when the Ethereal dies, every Tau unit, not just those with line of sight, have to take a leadership test and get Preferred Enemy. Preferred Enemy is largely useless, since Tau are so bad in close combat that small benefits simply can't make up the difference, but the morale check is brutal. Elite Tau Empire units have the same leadership values as basic Space Marines; they make Orks look well-disciplined! The loss of a single model, who remember wears no armour and has a very weak statline, can theoretically send whole units running for the board edge, and given the number of jetpack-equipped units in a Tau cadre they'll run very fast, indeed.
So, it's obvious why nobody takes the Ethereal. The question is, how do you make him viable? And the answer basically depends on what the role of the Ethereal is. It'd be easy enough just to stick him in a battlesuit, or even a stealth suit, and treat him like every other character in every other codex. But the Ethereals are unique amongst the leaders of the forty-first millenia in their effect on their troops, and that should be represented on the tabletop, as well. An Ethereal shouldn't just be a Shas'el with some CC potential and a couple special rules, it should be a unique and characterful thing in and of itself.
The most obvious fix, of course, is to give the Ethereal armour. The only other things running around without armour in this codex are the Kroot, and you have to field them in minimum squads of 10. And they have guns! Sorry, I just can't get over that. Anyway, if the Ethereal is meant to be that important, it should be reasonably well protected. A 4+ save, or even a 5+ invulnerable, are the minimum this unit should have. After that, if you actually want to play up the CC element (and the only weapons you can currently give Ethereals are two regular CC weapons or one weapon that gives +2 strength), then for the love of all that's holy, give them power weapons. They're just not going to accomplish anything, otherwise. And another point of initiative wouldn't hurt, either, since as it stands the most storied and deadly close combat warriors in the Tau Empire will hit second after just about every other unit out there.
The special rules are the other place where this unit really needs fixing, and again, it comes down to what this unit is supposed to do. If they're only going to be armed for CC, that means they're expected to get up close and personal to contribute. However, as it stands now the cost-benefit ratio is hugely out of sync; Ethereals provide little real combat power, at the risk of army-wide devastation should they be killed, which they almost certainly will be if they're rushing out into the front like that. Inspiring Presence and Price of Failure aren't bad ideas in an of themselves, but they are poorly executed. Inspiring Presence should affect all Tau models on the board, including Drones but excluding Kroot and Vespid, and rather than just allowing re-rolled morale checks, it should allow a re-roll for all LD-based tests. Tau leadership is weak pretty much across the board, relative to cost and comparisons with other armies' equivalent units, and this would provide a very real way to address that. For that same reason, Price of Failure shouldn't break units when the Ethereal dies, because then you're demanding a LD test just when the army is least capable of making one. Instead, what about something like forcing units that fail the test to go to ground for a turn, a sort of moment of shock, after which they get back up. A single turn forced to go to ground may not sound like much, but that could be debilitating given that it's a full turn in which you do no shooting or maneuvering. After that, give them a useful Universal Special Rule, like Counter-Attack or Fearless or Furious Charge, something that really will make a difference and show just how damned mad they are at the death of their Ethereal. Or just don't provide a 'benefit' afterwards, and tone down the effect of Price of Failure. Either way, the Ethereal's special rules are way out of whack, and if Games Workshop plans to sell any more of them, they'd best get around to fixing up the gulf between the model's costs and its actual value.
So, those are my suggestions for fixing the Ethereal; armour, power weapons, a better I and more balanced special rules. It also wouldn't hurt if the Honor Guard counted as a Troops, and therefore scoring, unit, because who needs more expensive Fire Warriors who can't score? I'm not exactly lacking St 5 AP 5 guns as-is, guys, and one better BS isn't that impressive in a codex that contains Pathfinders.
Next up, the Elites!
On Why The Market Can Never Be Truly Transformative
In an expanded 'Spark in the Summer' interview with Tim Wu the issue of the cycle of monopolization was raised. Wu made the argument that technologically based business cycles have a reliably predictable progression, from outsider innovation to a dominant market share, to beneficial 'golden age' monopoly, and finally to the kind of suppressive, exploitative monopoly more commonly understood by the term. The interview is quite interesting, not least for bringing a few little tidbits to the attention that people might not otherwise know about. For instance, the reason Bell initially tried to suppress the tape recorder and the answering machine; it's not for the reason you might think.
But what really caught my ear were Wu's comments about the non-profit and public sectors' roles in innovation and creation. While acknowledging that 'golden age' monopolies have a great deal of money to spend on R&D, potentially making their service faster/cheaper/more efficient/smell like new car/etc., he also points out that universities and government-funded non-profit groups can do that sort of research just as well, and that those groups aren't limited by the overarching identity of their employer. Businesses have their own market share to worry about, and little interest in introducing transformative technologies, because those are exactly the kinds of technologies that disrupt that very market share. If a petrochemical company researcher discovered, by accident, a way to power an engine purely on potato peelings and dryer lint that company would sit on that technology until doomsday if it could. Not because it's nefarious, but simply because it's entirely outside the scope of their business plan. It would be silly to expect them to want to publicize that sort of research, as silly as expecting politicians to volunteer information about the 'other women' they've been seeing or the military to start handing out pamphlets outlining the strong and weak points on their APCs. It's just fundamentally contrary to their purpose.
Which is not to say, however, that the only other answer is to somehow abolish capitalism, Star Trek-style. Given that some resources must always be finite, even if it's just time and interest, there simply has to be a mechanism in place to direct the most efficient possible distribution of those resources. You can usually tell a rather lazy science fiction writer by the absence of either the private sector (in a post-scarcity utopian system) or the government (in a grim and commercialized dystopian system). To fully function, modern human society requires both of these things; heck, anything past basic hunter-gatherer society requires both these things, and even there you might need a kind of private sector to have someone making spears and arrowheads and flint knives and the like.
The market is a strange beast. It's impossible to argue, with any kind of intellectual honesty, that it hasn't done an amazing job of introducing, streamlining, perfecting and then replacing all manner of technologies and services. To have gone from a steam engine so inefficient it was only worthwhile sitting at the mouth of a coal mine to nuclear technology, from the hand-delivered 'pony express' to email and FedEx, from computers that were just people with adding machines to computers that let a single person create an entire film on their own, from horses to electric cars, all in such an unbelievably short amount of time, societally speaking, is nothing less than a tribute to the sheer power and ingenuity a free market makes available. At the same time, however, many of the most fundamentally transformative technologies were either first invented by the non-profit sector or made possible only by government grants and guarantees, simply because nobody else would fund things with so little obvious potential pay-off. The market has a great eye for tomorrow, as it were, but can't for the life of it see next week.
Did they see him coming? Listen, and find out!
But what really caught my ear were Wu's comments about the non-profit and public sectors' roles in innovation and creation. While acknowledging that 'golden age' monopolies have a great deal of money to spend on R&D, potentially making their service faster/cheaper/more efficient/smell like new car/etc., he also points out that universities and government-funded non-profit groups can do that sort of research just as well, and that those groups aren't limited by the overarching identity of their employer. Businesses have their own market share to worry about, and little interest in introducing transformative technologies, because those are exactly the kinds of technologies that disrupt that very market share. If a petrochemical company researcher discovered, by accident, a way to power an engine purely on potato peelings and dryer lint that company would sit on that technology until doomsday if it could. Not because it's nefarious, but simply because it's entirely outside the scope of their business plan. It would be silly to expect them to want to publicize that sort of research, as silly as expecting politicians to volunteer information about the 'other women' they've been seeing or the military to start handing out pamphlets outlining the strong and weak points on their APCs. It's just fundamentally contrary to their purpose.
Which is not to say, however, that the only other answer is to somehow abolish capitalism, Star Trek-style. Given that some resources must always be finite, even if it's just time and interest, there simply has to be a mechanism in place to direct the most efficient possible distribution of those resources. You can usually tell a rather lazy science fiction writer by the absence of either the private sector (in a post-scarcity utopian system) or the government (in a grim and commercialized dystopian system). To fully function, modern human society requires both of these things; heck, anything past basic hunter-gatherer society requires both these things, and even there you might need a kind of private sector to have someone making spears and arrowheads and flint knives and the like.
The world's first entrepreneur? Or just a really bored caveman? You decide!
The market is a strange beast. It's impossible to argue, with any kind of intellectual honesty, that it hasn't done an amazing job of introducing, streamlining, perfecting and then replacing all manner of technologies and services. To have gone from a steam engine so inefficient it was only worthwhile sitting at the mouth of a coal mine to nuclear technology, from the hand-delivered 'pony express' to email and FedEx, from computers that were just people with adding machines to computers that let a single person create an entire film on their own, from horses to electric cars, all in such an unbelievably short amount of time, societally speaking, is nothing less than a tribute to the sheer power and ingenuity a free market makes available. At the same time, however, many of the most fundamentally transformative technologies were either first invented by the non-profit sector or made possible only by government grants and guarantees, simply because nobody else would fund things with so little obvious potential pay-off. The market has a great eye for tomorrow, as it were, but can't for the life of it see next week.
7.15.2011
Always Dragging Practicality Into It
This is 'Fleet Commander', the work of Arthur Nishimoto, a student at the Electronic Visualization Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Built mostly around the RTS Star Wars: Empire at War, it's certainly a technically impressive feat, particularly the starfighters drawn in Paint and the Death Star done up in Photoshop. The video's been making the rounds on the great nerd blog circles, but rather than gush about its awesomeness (which it has) or complain that it'll never be commercially released (which does suck), I thought I'd try and introduce a slightly broader focus to my comments.
'Fleet Commander' looks good, there's no question about it. And with four players working simultaneously on the screen, it's clearly got the sophistication to be a satisfyingly complex and rewarding play experience. But unlike the rest of the nerd blogosphere, I can't say I'm especially interested in actually playing this thing, and that has a great deal indeed to do with the ergonomics of the system itself.
Despite the fact that sitting is apparently killing us, I just can't see standing and holding my arms out long enough to play an even moderately detailed RTS to be that comfortable. Such games can easily eat up an hour or two of time at any one go, and I can't imagine my arms being in any kind of non-jellied state at the end of such a time, nor can I imagine myself doing anything other than shifting from foot to foot in an attempt to get comfortable. And of course, the screen is both extremely large and extremely close; at one point in the video, one of the players actually has to take a step back to see the full extent of a blast from the Death Star. Going blind from sitting too close to a television may be a myth, but sitting that close isn't likely to do anything particularly good for your vision, either.
It's certainly an impressive display, don't get me wrong. But as a game in and of itself, I don't think it's quite the barn burner the nerd community believes it to be.
7.10.2011
A Defence of Good Writing - How Sad It Needs One
Transformers: Dark of the Moon came out recently, fulfilling two predictions I made earlier. First, that the movie would make ludicrous amounts of money. And second, that it would be a bad movie.
The Transformers franchise hasn't usually been known for its challenging and thought-provoking storytelling skills, but relative to their contemporaries the Michael Bay Transformers films are lucky to rank with the poor dub and extremely lazy animation of the Unicron Trilogy. And frankly, its sexuality is so juvenile and shameless that they're barely more credible than that great shame of the Transformers franchise, Kiss Players. These films are terrible from any objective standpoint, varying between the lazy but largely satisfying summer blockbuster Transformers to the utterly inexcusable Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, which was so bad even the film's star, Shia LaBoeuf, and director Michael Bay admitted it after the fact. Plot, characterization, internal and inter-film continuity, none of them appear to have been any kind of a concern for those behind these movies. And the only thing more frustrating than that is that a large subset of the nerd community seems to have no problem whatsoever with that.
The response has often been that of course they're bad movies, they're 'turn off your brain' summer blockbusters, or they're based on a stupid cartoon from the eighties. And while the Transformers films have been somewhat more notable for this kind of response, it's not uncommon for nerd-friendly genre properties. Ghost Rider, Green Lantern, the Fantastic Four, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, et cetera, et cetera; all pretty poorly constructed movies from any particularly objective measure, and all possessed of fierce defenders who either downplay or excuse their lack of quality. And while these films, and those like them, all have their own unique defenders with their own unique defenses, the more I hear the more it seems that they're all saying the same thing; sure, maybe these movies aren't great, but at least we got to see [X] on the big screen, and hey, that's great.
Does this betray a certain sense of inferiority? I can't help but wonder. The argument seems to be predicated entirely on the idea that fans should be grateful for any scrap tossed their way, and that's not a mindset I can agree with. If a nerd-friendly property has become big enough to attract the funding of a major studio, then it should be big enough to get a little respect. And nerd properties are getting very big, indeed. Iron Man, Thor, Batman, The Walking Dead, A Game of Thrones, The Sword of Truth, all respectful adaptations of nerd-friendly properties that went on to be both critical and commercial successes. Marvel is building at least a six-picture deal around The Avengers, both individually and as a whole! The Dark Knight made a billion dollars when it was released to the home market! There's literally no reason not to put the extra effort into a nerd-friendly property, given the tremendous rewards already demonstrated, and yet time and again we get, not a Dark Knight or Iron Man, but a Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, or an I, Robot, or a Jonah Hex. Or, heck, anything ever made by Uwe Boll.
Or Transformers: Dark of the Moon.
Not the most difficult of predictions, admittedly.
The Transformers franchise hasn't usually been known for its challenging and thought-provoking storytelling skills, but relative to their contemporaries the Michael Bay Transformers films are lucky to rank with the poor dub and extremely lazy animation of the Unicron Trilogy. And frankly, its sexuality is so juvenile and shameless that they're barely more credible than that great shame of the Transformers franchise, Kiss Players. These films are terrible from any objective standpoint, varying between the lazy but largely satisfying summer blockbuster Transformers to the utterly inexcusable Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, which was so bad even the film's star, Shia LaBoeuf, and director Michael Bay admitted it after the fact. Plot, characterization, internal and inter-film continuity, none of them appear to have been any kind of a concern for those behind these movies. And the only thing more frustrating than that is that a large subset of the nerd community seems to have no problem whatsoever with that.
The response has often been that of course they're bad movies, they're 'turn off your brain' summer blockbusters, or they're based on a stupid cartoon from the eighties. And while the Transformers films have been somewhat more notable for this kind of response, it's not uncommon for nerd-friendly genre properties. Ghost Rider, Green Lantern, the Fantastic Four, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, et cetera, et cetera; all pretty poorly constructed movies from any particularly objective measure, and all possessed of fierce defenders who either downplay or excuse their lack of quality. And while these films, and those like them, all have their own unique defenders with their own unique defenses, the more I hear the more it seems that they're all saying the same thing; sure, maybe these movies aren't great, but at least we got to see [X] on the big screen, and hey, that's great.
This man, at least, would agree with that.
Does this betray a certain sense of inferiority? I can't help but wonder. The argument seems to be predicated entirely on the idea that fans should be grateful for any scrap tossed their way, and that's not a mindset I can agree with. If a nerd-friendly property has become big enough to attract the funding of a major studio, then it should be big enough to get a little respect. And nerd properties are getting very big, indeed. Iron Man, Thor, Batman, The Walking Dead, A Game of Thrones, The Sword of Truth, all respectful adaptations of nerd-friendly properties that went on to be both critical and commercial successes. Marvel is building at least a six-picture deal around The Avengers, both individually and as a whole! The Dark Knight made a billion dollars when it was released to the home market! There's literally no reason not to put the extra effort into a nerd-friendly property, given the tremendous rewards already demonstrated, and yet time and again we get, not a Dark Knight or Iron Man, but a Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, or an I, Robot, or a Jonah Hex. Or, heck, anything ever made by Uwe Boll.
Or Transformers: Dark of the Moon.
AKA - Transformers: It's Mostly About Humans.
7.07.2011
Torchwood? Too busy torching everything else
Torchwood, for those who don't know, was a spin-off of the latest Dr Who. Launched in 2006, just a year after the return of the good Doctor himself, the series was planned as a 'darkier and edgier' foray into the Dr Who universe, contrasted with the middle ground of the parent series and the children-friendly Sarah Jane Adventures. Russel T. Davies, the driving force between the early nu-Who and Torchwood, claimed that "[w]e can be a bit more visceral, more violent, and more sexual, if we want to. Though bear in mind that it's very teenage to indulge yourself in blood and gore, and Torchwood is going to be smarter than that," and the series lived up to its promise, including heroes who slip girls alien-based mickeys, lesbian succubi, a long-term homosexual relationship and all the swearing and violence you could ask for. It wavered between the camp of Dr Who and its own 'gritty' styling, and for me, at least, it was a pleasant enough way to spend forty-some-odd minutes, plus commercials.
The series did well enough for a few years; it didn't set the ratings world on fire, but it pulled in solid numbers week after week, eventually moving up from BBC 3 to BBC 2. Unfortunately, it seems like someone wanted to make a bigger splash, so the third season was launched; Children of Earth.
The second season had already done away with two of the five principals, and Children of Earth ramped it up, killing off the last possible expendable character and basically making the other two hideously miserable. I know there are plenty of people who think Children of Earth is the greatest thing since sliced bread, but frankly, I found it unwatchable. The plot is a mess, with actions taken that can have no possible benefit relative to their cost and a dreary picture of a humanity that would fit right at home in the grimmest of dystopias. Nobody's particularly likeable, the whole miniseries is suffused with teenage angst, and the ending is as unsatisfying as it unhappy. Sadly, it was also a critical blockbuster for the series, bringing in not just audiences in the UK but in the States as well. So, with the nihilistic Children of Earth proving to be such a smash, what's next?
Torchwood; Miracle Day, that's what. And as much as I love nu-Who, and enjoyed the first two seasons of Torchwood, I can't say I'm at all excited by this. It's set in America, focused primarily on two CIA operatives at first, meaning 'Torchwood' is something of a guest in its own show. Not that there's much 'Torchwood' left; the series progressively killed off its characters and refused to introduce new ones, then blew up Torchwood's base and had Jack leave Earth entirely in Children of Earth. It's hardly Torchwood anymore, now it's 'The Gwen and Jack show', at best, and between the lack of characters I still care about and the promise of more of the same I didn't like the first time around, it'll be morbid curiousity that draws me to Miracle Day. I mean sure, it could be good; maybe, in spite of vowing to stick with arc-super-heavy miniseries', Davies will manage to inject some of the fun and energy of those first two years, and possibly get around to introducing a new bloody regular or three while he's at it. It's not impossible, after all.
Though it may well take a miracle...
So young. So sexy. So almost-completely dead.
The series did well enough for a few years; it didn't set the ratings world on fire, but it pulled in solid numbers week after week, eventually moving up from BBC 3 to BBC 2. Unfortunately, it seems like someone wanted to make a bigger splash, so the third season was launched; Children of Earth.
Team's a little smaller now, isn't it?
The second season had already done away with two of the five principals, and Children of Earth ramped it up, killing off the last possible expendable character and basically making the other two hideously miserable. I know there are plenty of people who think Children of Earth is the greatest thing since sliced bread, but frankly, I found it unwatchable. The plot is a mess, with actions taken that can have no possible benefit relative to their cost and a dreary picture of a humanity that would fit right at home in the grimmest of dystopias. Nobody's particularly likeable, the whole miniseries is suffused with teenage angst, and the ending is as unsatisfying as it unhappy. Sadly, it was also a critical blockbuster for the series, bringing in not just audiences in the UK but in the States as well. So, with the nihilistic Children of Earth proving to be such a smash, what's next?
Seriously, guys. Put out a 'Help Wanted' sign or something!
Torchwood; Miracle Day, that's what. And as much as I love nu-Who, and enjoyed the first two seasons of Torchwood, I can't say I'm at all excited by this. It's set in America, focused primarily on two CIA operatives at first, meaning 'Torchwood' is something of a guest in its own show. Not that there's much 'Torchwood' left; the series progressively killed off its characters and refused to introduce new ones, then blew up Torchwood's base and had Jack leave Earth entirely in Children of Earth. It's hardly Torchwood anymore, now it's 'The Gwen and Jack show', at best, and between the lack of characters I still care about and the promise of more of the same I didn't like the first time around, it'll be morbid curiousity that draws me to Miracle Day. I mean sure, it could be good; maybe, in spite of vowing to stick with arc-super-heavy miniseries', Davies will manage to inject some of the fun and energy of those first two years, and possibly get around to introducing a new bloody regular or three while he's at it. It's not impossible, after all.
Though it may well take a miracle...
7.03.2011
The Stars, Our (Eventual) Destination
The Economist has a rather interesting question up on its website at the moment; 'Is this the end of the space age?' It's a reasonable question to ask, given NASA's retiring of its space shuttle fleet, with the last launch scheduled for just a few days from now, July 8th. Governments, caught in the grip of a perfect storm of weak economic performance, high levels of public debt and a widespread conservative culture that views tax increases as fundamentally unacceptable, just don't have the capital necessary to go boldly, to un-split that popular infinitive.
But does that mean the end of the Space Age? If so, it would be a sad little age indeed, like asking if the Age of Sail was over before the first ship had crossed the Atlantic, or if the Computer Age was over before the bugs had been worked out of Windows 3.1. But the difference between the Space Age and those other ages is that they showed a steady trend towards continuation. There was no reason to assume the Age of Sail would end, because there was little evidence that the opportunities, and more importantly the rewards, of that technological revolution had yet been fully exploited. With the Space Age, however, there are plenty of people who think that space exploration is at best abstracted science, and at worst just a waste of money that could be better spent elsewhere.
But I'm not ready to throw in the towel just yet. It's true that manned space exploration is no longer the driving force behind our ventures beyond the atmosphere, but that doesn't mean the Space Age itself is dead. In a world increasingly dependent on satellites to maintain the web of connections that make every aspect of advanced Western-style society possible, the ability to launch space vehicles will continue to be a necessity; the ability won't be lost, merely redirected. And so long as our ability exists, the potential that was the real draw of the so-called Space Age, which occupied the same spans as the Computer and Information Ages and had far less of a noticeable impact on those living through them, remains. Perhaps governments will once more find the vision, and the funding, to venture into space. Or perhaps corporate interests will find something in the void that calls to them; that, frankly, would be what is truly necessary to launch a meaningful Space Age. It may be that we move outwards in only the tiniest and most incremental of steps, from the ISS to the Moon to Mars over the span of too many decades for those dreaming of setting foot on the soil of another world, but there is no compelling reason not to go to space, eventually. And humanity has a history of doing anything there isn't a compelling reason not to do, sooner or later, and a fair few number of things there is a compelling reason not to do.
So no, I won't throw in my towel just yet. I may still get the chance to thumb a ride on a passing starship, and if I'd already thrown my towel away, well, what kind of hitchhiker would I be?
But does that mean the end of the Space Age? If so, it would be a sad little age indeed, like asking if the Age of Sail was over before the first ship had crossed the Atlantic, or if the Computer Age was over before the bugs had been worked out of Windows 3.1. But the difference between the Space Age and those other ages is that they showed a steady trend towards continuation. There was no reason to assume the Age of Sail would end, because there was little evidence that the opportunities, and more importantly the rewards, of that technological revolution had yet been fully exploited. With the Space Age, however, there are plenty of people who think that space exploration is at best abstracted science, and at worst just a waste of money that could be better spent elsewhere.
But I'm not ready to throw in the towel just yet. It's true that manned space exploration is no longer the driving force behind our ventures beyond the atmosphere, but that doesn't mean the Space Age itself is dead. In a world increasingly dependent on satellites to maintain the web of connections that make every aspect of advanced Western-style society possible, the ability to launch space vehicles will continue to be a necessity; the ability won't be lost, merely redirected. And so long as our ability exists, the potential that was the real draw of the so-called Space Age, which occupied the same spans as the Computer and Information Ages and had far less of a noticeable impact on those living through them, remains. Perhaps governments will once more find the vision, and the funding, to venture into space. Or perhaps corporate interests will find something in the void that calls to them; that, frankly, would be what is truly necessary to launch a meaningful Space Age. It may be that we move outwards in only the tiniest and most incremental of steps, from the ISS to the Moon to Mars over the span of too many decades for those dreaming of setting foot on the soil of another world, but there is no compelling reason not to go to space, eventually. And humanity has a history of doing anything there isn't a compelling reason not to do, sooner or later, and a fair few number of things there is a compelling reason not to do.
So no, I won't throw in my towel just yet. I may still get the chance to thumb a ride on a passing starship, and if I'd already thrown my towel away, well, what kind of hitchhiker would I be?
6.30.2011
'Art is the New Steel'? Perhaps
Wonder of wonders, National Geographic has written a piece about my own fair city. The article focuses on the James St. North area, a small section of the downtown core that's become quite a successful little arts district. With the monthly Art Crawl to draw attention and a plethora of galleries both small and less-than-big, along with a pleasant little hodgepodge of internationally-flavoured restaurants and curio shops, the area attracts enough attention to get by, but not so much that there seems any particular reason to fear imminent gentrification.
The discussion of James St. North, and Hamilton as a whole, carries a more interesting undertone as far as this blog is concerned. Hamilton, after all, isn't known as 'Steeltown' for nothing; for decades, the city's economic engine ran on the good, high-paying, unionized jobs to be found in the steel mills down by the bay. When those mills fell on hard times, however, along with pretty much all the other steel mills in the 'Rust Belt' around the Great Lakes, Hamilton found itself faced with something of a problem.
It's not that advancement is a bad thing. I would no more have us go back to the days before robots built cars than I would to the days when clothing was bespoke or hand-made, and food was something you didn't just make, but grew, harvested or slaughtered yourself. I'm an unabashed techno-utopian, and I really do believe that, so long as we can refrain from stuffing it all up, advancements in technology will solve those fundamental problems that have plagued our species for as long as there's been a human species. But advancement causes dislocation, and as the rate of advance has increased over the last several decades the resulting dislocation has in turn become more severe. It's wonderful that you can now get a laptop for three hundred dollars that you can make your own feature-length film on, but if everyone is making minimum wage at a part-time service industry job, that three hundred dollars can be just as out of reach as high-end luxury items have always been. Too many of the jobs that sustain the Canadian and American middle classes are based on services that are in various stages of being rendered at best most superfluous, and at worst completely obsolete, by technological and socio-political advancements world wide. And you can't have a viable advanced Western democracy without a middle class; ask any political theorist, and they'll tell you the same. I know, I've been associating with them for entirely too long already.
So the question is, what do we do about it? And it's not a minor issue, either; this will be the issue of the generation. The Boomers are setting out to retire, and it looks like they're going to take most of their jobs with them. My own generation is looking at a pretty grim picture, and the one to follow is probably in just as much trouble. Technologically advanced capitalist societies are going to have to grapple with some fundamental changes to the way they operate, because it doesn't appear that business as usual is going to be an option. Like my own fair Hamilton, the nations of the West are suddenly finding all those good blue collar jobs just aren't there anymore, and that's a problem because the model for societal success is rather heavily based on them. States can't tax the poor, and don't seem to want to tax the rich, but if the middle class disappears there's not really anyone to tax left. And all you have to do is look at Greece to see why that won't work.
I don't know what the answer is, myself. Economists swear up and down that you can't just pay people more money, and there doesn't appear to be an antonym to 'downsizing' in the business lexicon. We're going to have to change, but there aren't any options some entrenched group or another won't claim will bring nothing but ruin and recession down on our heads.
But who knows? If James St North, and Hamilton, can manage a change, maybe the rest of the Western world can, too?
6.26.2011
I Came Home On My Shield
Munitorum Series: Lasgun did not, exactly, go as I had hoped.
Round 1:
Primary Objective: Capture and Control
Secondary Objective: Headhunter (extra points for killing in close combat)
Enemy Forces:
2 x Chimera with 10 Imperial Guard Vetereans (3 Melta)
Chimera with 10 Imperial Guard Veterans (3 Plasma)
Chimera with 5 Imperial Guard Veterans (3 Flamer)
Hellhound
2 x Vendettas with 3 x Twin-Linked Lascannon
This was my first time facing off against the forces of the Imperial Guard, and I must say, they were every bit the problem the internet has led me to believe. Things started well enough, with me shooting down both Vendettas and blasting apart the Chimera with the flamer troops inside, killing must of them and sending them running for their table edge, in exchange for just the loss of a single XV88. Unfortunately, the Guard's whole bag is 'quantity has a quality all its own', so despite my initial good shooting I was soon surrounded by extremely hostile Guardsman toting extremely deadly special weapons. The Hellhound roasted my Piranha and barbecued my foot troops unit (who stubbornly refused to wait in reserve past turn 2), while the two melta-vet Chimeras advanced up the side, angling straight for my objective. My Devilfish came in on turn 3, bringing the rest of my troops into the line of fire just in time for the first squad of meltaVets to emerge and turn their flying bunker into a piece of difficult terrain, and exposing them to the fire of the Hellhound as well. Although my 3-man Deathrain team managed to barbecue the entirety of the plasmaVet unit off the board once I'd de-meched them, neither my commander nor my Hammerhead managed to contribute their own blast markers to the so-inviting targets that dismounted Guardsmen represent. In the end, I had my Hammerhead and one XV88 left on the board, with the Guard solidly in control of my objective
Result: Major Loss (3 pts)
Round 2:
Primary Objective: Annihilation
Secondary Objective: Falling Debris (each player turn an objective falls onto the board, scattering 2D6 and hitting like a Marine frag missile if it connects with a unit)
Enemy Forces:
2 x 10 Assault Marines with 2 Meltaguns and Sanguinary Priest
Librarian
2 x Demolisher
Two tournaments, two annihilation matches against Space Marines. Once more I had a good start, with my 88 managing to blast one of the Demolishers to pieces and my commander actually managing to pin an assault squad with his AFP, but between 12" jump pack moves, 3+ armour, 4+ FNP rolls and the support of the surviving Demolisher, the battle quickly became a route. Though I whittled one squad down to 4 models I could not destroy it, and the other kill point I recieved came courtesy of the enemy librarian failing two Perils of the Warp tests. The assault marines slaughtered everything they caught, from firewarriors to Deathrains to my Hammerhead, and I simply could not get through two saves for every wound with any kind of regularity. In the end the only Tau unit on the board was my commander, and with a nearly-intact 10-man assault squad crawling all over him it would have been only a matter of time before he was dragged down, as well.
Result: Major Loss (3 points)
Round 3:
Primary Objective: Seize Ground (3 objectives)
Secondary Objective: Thin the Herd (bonus points for taking enemy units below half strength)
Enemy Forces:2 x Tervigons
3 x Zoanthropes
3 Biovores
2 x 6 Genestealers with Broolord
And another first, this time my first time going up against Tyranids. The forces of the Great Devourer were less than impressive, here, although I certainly learned to respect the sheer resiliency of Tervigons. Deployment was Dawn of War, so the first turn of shooting accomplished nothing. I left my troops in reserve and so did my opponent, with everything else walking on, and the swarm of Tyranids began to grow almost immediately. The Tervigons' gaunt squads were prodigious, and with the Zoanthropes and their mental-railguns to worry about, I didn't have much attention to spare for them, though when I did I quickly gave up; T6, W6 is just ludicrously difficult to put down, and there were rarely spare units I could task with them. The gun drones off my Piranha, which again annoyingly turned up as soon as possible, managed to make a strong case for MVP this round, gunning down one of the Zoanthropes and managing to decimate a squad of Genestealers who outflanked, though sadly not until after they'd eat my Deathrains. Ultimately, however, the real MVP was my Hammerhead, which managed to drop large blast templates on guants nearly the whole game, and with the assistance of its burst cannons earned me a whopping 4 bonus points on its own. My 88s did well enough, blasting the other two Zoanthropes to pieces, but one was eaten by the other squad of Genestealers and the other soon found itself out of meaningful targets, resorting to its SMS to pick off guants around the edges of the swarm. With both my troops units consumed (if only they could turn up past turn 3!) and the Tervigons continually spawning scoring enemies, it was no surprise to me that I lost the major objective; by the same toke, all those squishy squads were entirely too tempting for my Hammerhead and my commander's AFP, and I took the secondary objectives a convincing 10 to 4.
Result: Minor Loss (6 points)
Overall, although I did come runner-up for best presentation, I ranked a disappointing third-last, one point ahead of my buddy Dave (who lost points for not having his models painted yet) and just 7 points ahead of one of the fellows who turned up two hours late and had to settle for a Major Loss on his theoretical first game. And annoyingly, it's difficult to see where I could have improved my standing much. I might have sent my Devilfish around the far side of the table against the Guard, keeping it alive and potentially seizing their objective, but I was still rapidly bleeding units against their special weapon-heavy Veterans and anti-infantry Hellhound. Against the Marines, there was really nothing for it; Annihilation against a small force of close combat-oriented Marines with FNP and S10 AP1 blast weapons will never be in the cards for Tau. And against Tyranids I was simply overwhelmed by targets, who were often either in cover or had FNP themselves, with any units caught by the enemy rapidly devoured. I'm just not sure how else I could have handled things, really.
I'm not discouraged, though. Next month is a 1000 pt doubles tournament, in which Dave and I will be participating. Perhaps the protective Kan Wall of the Orks will help give the big tuns of the Tau Empire the kind of staying power they need to show my opponents who should rule the Eastern Fringes...
Round 1:
Primary Objective: Capture and Control
Secondary Objective: Headhunter (extra points for killing in close combat)
Enemy Forces:
2 x Chimera with 10 Imperial Guard Vetereans (3 Melta)
Chimera with 10 Imperial Guard Veterans (3 Plasma)
Chimera with 5 Imperial Guard Veterans (3 Flamer)
Hellhound
2 x Vendettas with 3 x Twin-Linked Lascannon
This was my first time facing off against the forces of the Imperial Guard, and I must say, they were every bit the problem the internet has led me to believe. Things started well enough, with me shooting down both Vendettas and blasting apart the Chimera with the flamer troops inside, killing must of them and sending them running for their table edge, in exchange for just the loss of a single XV88. Unfortunately, the Guard's whole bag is 'quantity has a quality all its own', so despite my initial good shooting I was soon surrounded by extremely hostile Guardsman toting extremely deadly special weapons. The Hellhound roasted my Piranha and barbecued my foot troops unit (who stubbornly refused to wait in reserve past turn 2), while the two melta-vet Chimeras advanced up the side, angling straight for my objective. My Devilfish came in on turn 3, bringing the rest of my troops into the line of fire just in time for the first squad of meltaVets to emerge and turn their flying bunker into a piece of difficult terrain, and exposing them to the fire of the Hellhound as well. Although my 3-man Deathrain team managed to barbecue the entirety of the plasmaVet unit off the board once I'd de-meched them, neither my commander nor my Hammerhead managed to contribute their own blast markers to the so-inviting targets that dismounted Guardsmen represent. In the end, I had my Hammerhead and one XV88 left on the board, with the Guard solidly in control of my objective
Result: Major Loss (3 pts)
Round 2:
Primary Objective: Annihilation
Secondary Objective: Falling Debris (each player turn an objective falls onto the board, scattering 2D6 and hitting like a Marine frag missile if it connects with a unit)
Enemy Forces:
2 x 10 Assault Marines with 2 Meltaguns and Sanguinary Priest
Librarian
2 x Demolisher
Two tournaments, two annihilation matches against Space Marines. Once more I had a good start, with my 88 managing to blast one of the Demolishers to pieces and my commander actually managing to pin an assault squad with his AFP, but between 12" jump pack moves, 3+ armour, 4+ FNP rolls and the support of the surviving Demolisher, the battle quickly became a route. Though I whittled one squad down to 4 models I could not destroy it, and the other kill point I recieved came courtesy of the enemy librarian failing two Perils of the Warp tests. The assault marines slaughtered everything they caught, from firewarriors to Deathrains to my Hammerhead, and I simply could not get through two saves for every wound with any kind of regularity. In the end the only Tau unit on the board was my commander, and with a nearly-intact 10-man assault squad crawling all over him it would have been only a matter of time before he was dragged down, as well.
Result: Major Loss (3 points)
Round 3:
Primary Objective: Seize Ground (3 objectives)
Secondary Objective: Thin the Herd (bonus points for taking enemy units below half strength)
Enemy Forces:2 x Tervigons
3 x Zoanthropes
3 Biovores
2 x 6 Genestealers with Broolord
And another first, this time my first time going up against Tyranids. The forces of the Great Devourer were less than impressive, here, although I certainly learned to respect the sheer resiliency of Tervigons. Deployment was Dawn of War, so the first turn of shooting accomplished nothing. I left my troops in reserve and so did my opponent, with everything else walking on, and the swarm of Tyranids began to grow almost immediately. The Tervigons' gaunt squads were prodigious, and with the Zoanthropes and their mental-railguns to worry about, I didn't have much attention to spare for them, though when I did I quickly gave up; T6, W6 is just ludicrously difficult to put down, and there were rarely spare units I could task with them. The gun drones off my Piranha, which again annoyingly turned up as soon as possible, managed to make a strong case for MVP this round, gunning down one of the Zoanthropes and managing to decimate a squad of Genestealers who outflanked, though sadly not until after they'd eat my Deathrains. Ultimately, however, the real MVP was my Hammerhead, which managed to drop large blast templates on guants nearly the whole game, and with the assistance of its burst cannons earned me a whopping 4 bonus points on its own. My 88s did well enough, blasting the other two Zoanthropes to pieces, but one was eaten by the other squad of Genestealers and the other soon found itself out of meaningful targets, resorting to its SMS to pick off guants around the edges of the swarm. With both my troops units consumed (if only they could turn up past turn 3!) and the Tervigons continually spawning scoring enemies, it was no surprise to me that I lost the major objective; by the same toke, all those squishy squads were entirely too tempting for my Hammerhead and my commander's AFP, and I took the secondary objectives a convincing 10 to 4.
Result: Minor Loss (6 points)
Overall, although I did come runner-up for best presentation, I ranked a disappointing third-last, one point ahead of my buddy Dave (who lost points for not having his models painted yet) and just 7 points ahead of one of the fellows who turned up two hours late and had to settle for a Major Loss on his theoretical first game. And annoyingly, it's difficult to see where I could have improved my standing much. I might have sent my Devilfish around the far side of the table against the Guard, keeping it alive and potentially seizing their objective, but I was still rapidly bleeding units against their special weapon-heavy Veterans and anti-infantry Hellhound. Against the Marines, there was really nothing for it; Annihilation against a small force of close combat-oriented Marines with FNP and S10 AP1 blast weapons will never be in the cards for Tau. And against Tyranids I was simply overwhelmed by targets, who were often either in cover or had FNP themselves, with any units caught by the enemy rapidly devoured. I'm just not sure how else I could have handled things, really.
I'm not discouraged, though. Next month is a 1000 pt doubles tournament, in which Dave and I will be participating. Perhaps the protective Kan Wall of the Orks will help give the big tuns of the Tau Empire the kind of staying power they need to show my opponents who should rule the Eastern Fringes...
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