Blog
Modifying Shadowrun for Sword-n-Sorcery
Our gaming group’s been trying an experiment for the last year or so. There’s a home-brew sword-n-sorcery-ish setting I made up back in 2002 that we’ve been playing on and off since, using a couple of different D20 variants (ugh), and a stint of GURPS. But d20 stops working after about 4th or 5th level, and GURPS was too complicated. Meanwhile, we interspersed that with quite... [Read more]
Macs are great until something goes wrong
<grumble gripe groan> Not sure if I should blame Airport Extreme, or Snow Leopard. But I can’t print. Not from my Mac, anyway. I can, from my Windows machines, if I set the port to be the IP address of the Airport Extreme (where the printer’s plugged in). But not from the mac. Read More →
Home Made Granola
Here’s my first attempt at home made granola Ingredients 1 cup dates 2 tsp corn starch + a dash of water to dissolve it in 1 cup water 3 tbsp cocoa powder 3 cups oatmeal 1/4 cup almonds, chopped 1/3 cup flax seeds Method Pre-heat oven to 300 F Chop the dates into itty bitty pieces Put the dates and water in a saucepan and bring to boil Reduce the mixture Add dissolved corn starch and cocoa powder Thicken... [Read more]
Using Exchange with my iPhone
I configured my iPhone to use my work email, which is Exchange (of course). The iPhone mail client is nothing special, and generally works just fine. I have it syncing mail and calendars, but not contacts (since I haven’t typed those into Outlook yet, and it’ll probably be a while, if ever, before I do). iPhone Exchange Mail Settings I have it “pushing” the inbox. I was worried... [Read more]
Have some Wraithguard
Here’s some more 40k stuff. I accumulated a pile of Eldar over the last decade, basically because of their retro 80′s sci-fi cartoon look. The wraithguard are tricky to paint, because they’re all smooth surfaces with round knobs. Basically, 12-foot-high robot zombies without any corners, leaving little opportunity for shading. Wraith Guard You can see the warlock snuggled... [Read more]
Ditching Ubuntu for XP on my Mini 9
I have a Dell Mini 9 netbook that’s been collecting dust since I got it. It’s a neat little laptop for the price, but Ubuntu just wasn’t as nice to use as Windows or OS X, which I have running on my other computers (I have XP, Vista, Snow Leopard and Win 7 machines, all of which are preferable). I’d love to put Windows 7 onto it, but the disk drive (actually a solid-state... [Read more]
Doctor Who, Daleks & Donkey Kong
Oh, here was another nice find when rummaging through old boxes of books at Mum & Dad’s house. When I was twelve I spent a good chunk of the Summer recovering from a broken collar bone. No bike riding, tree climbing or, let’s face it, pretty much anything very active. One of the books I remember reading was “Doctor Who and the Day of the Daleks”. When I was rummaging... [Read more]
Splinter of the Mind’s Eye
I found my ancient copy of “Splinter of the Mind’s Eye” while rummaging through boxes of my old stuff at Mum & Dad’s house. It made for a fun read over xmas. This novel was published in 1978, a few years before anybody had seen Empire Strikes Back (1980), and the concept of the universe is based entirely on what we saw in the first Star Wars movie (1977). For starters,... [Read more]
Sanctioned Psykers
Somebody over at GW must have felt sorry for the Imperial Guard when they put the latest codex together. With Harker, Marbo, tank squads, orders, and Valkyries, the army list has definitely been pimped up. But the unit that takes the prize for the best new/revamped unit is the Sanctioned Psykers. A squad of 9 psykers have a S9 36″ large pie plate mind blast – it’s like scanners... [Read more]
Marbo & his Catachan friends
If you can see Sly Marbo it’s already too late. Sly Marbo (ahem "guardsman" Marbo) This guy took out a half dozen sisters of battle when I used him for the first time, last month. They said some cheaty prayer to get invulnerable saves vs. his demo charge. So he just went in and took care of them with his knife. Half a dozen bolter-wielding zealots in power armor are no match for... [Read more]
Good Old Fashioned I.G. “Egg” Sentinels
A friend gave me a couple of the old egg-shaped sentinels. They were unpainted, and he figured he’d never use them. So I spent a few months on Ebay getting another 8. Then I painted up all 10 of them, made 3 squads of 3, and gave one painted up one back to my buddy – I figured even if he wasn’t going to use it, it would look nice in his collection. Three Squads of "Egg"... [Read more]
IG Rough Riders – Who Needs Horses When You Have Lizards!?
Rough Riders are actually pretty good on paper. They have good mobility, can charge 12″ into assault with a S5 I5 one-shot power weapon, and can carry a flamer or melta for versatility. The only problem is that the Attilan miniatures look really out of place. So I did this instead: Rough Rider The lizard is a “Cold One” from Warhammer Fantasy. The GW site used to have the option... [Read more]
It wouldn’t be IG without Tanks!
Conventional wisdom / tradition holds that a 40k Imperial Guard army has to field about a zillion tanks. With the standard force organization chart, it’s technically possible to field 3 squads of 3 heavy tanks (Leman Russ variants), 3 squads of fast assault tanks (Hell Hound variants), for a total of 18 tanks, plus oodles of armored transports (Chimeras). But I want more of an infantry feel... [Read more]
Imperial Guard Rapiers
Following on from the Thudd Gun post, here’s another heavy weapon from the Rogue Trader era: the Imperial Guard “Rapier”. Imperial Guard Rapier This one was apparently called a “Rapier 2″, for some reason unknown to me. Anyways, I’m going to put it on a large base and treat is as an Autocannon heavy weapons team. I won’t bother putting a second guardsman... [Read more]
Thudd Gun
Here’s some fun. My friend Jeremy gave me a bunch of his old Rogue Trader era minis. Yeah, he gave them to me. What a guy. Here’s one of my favourites. It’s a Thudd Gun, which was part of the Squat army (i.e. space dwarves). I don’t have any squats. The crewman is is a Ratling named “Shorty” (http://www.solegends.com/citrt/rt7mercenaries.htm), from... [Read more]
40k Imperial Guard Infantry
This is the core of my IG army. The original idea was to field lots of infantry. With the 4th edition codex I could use doctrines to customize them, although I’ve had to re-factor a lot of my army list with the new codex (e.g. storm troopers have to be elites, veterans are troops, HQ doesn’t have its own heavy weapons and sentinel squads, etc). I liked the idea of gas masks, so decided... [Read more]
How Did I Miss Stargate?
I’ve been watching SG-1 on Hulu, and just watched the first few episodes of Stargate Universe, and realized I missed something big in the last decade. You see, I really liked the original Stargate movie when it came out, and the DVD version is cool because it shows the deleted scene where they find alien-looking bodies embedded in the rock under the buried stargate, hence explaining the precaution... [Read more]
Hail the Tripod!
So apparently they’re making a Tripods movie. Done right, it could be very cool. A month ago I wouldn’t have even noticed. But just by coincidence, I happened to have just read the books for the first time. I’ll definitely keep my eye on that movie. One of my kids is into the Harry Potter and Percy Jackson books, and tends to read them really quickly. So I figured I’d... [Read more]
