Home again, home again...

Hey folks,

Thanks to the those that have been sending positive vibes and/or well wishes. It is always nice to know folks care!

Here is the latest. On Friday, my hemoglobin dropped down to 7.7, which is bad. The Doc thought most of it was dilution since the IV was pumping in massive liquids into my system. By 4 pm it was up to 9.2, which is better, but still a bit low. I snuck out of the transfusion, which is good, but the Doc couldn't find the source of the bleeding, which is bad.

After four test, two with nasty probes, and an arm that looks like a heroin addict's, the Doc decided that not much else we can do at this time. So he sent me home with instructions to go to the ER if it gets bad again. Modern medicine at its finest!

Friday night The Other Half got me home OK, took it easy and crashed pretty early. Saturday we finished putting the house back, with me not lifting anything over 25 lbs, just in case, but I was pretty light headed from time to time, especially if I bent over. Sunday, today, I am feeling better, not as light headed and the old BM wasn't bloody... Which, is a good thing, except I'll have to go back to work. :)

On gaming news, I am really, really bummed that I got sick because I missed the War of the Ring tournament down at the Shoppe. They only had three show up, which is a bummer. If I could have made it then we would have at least had a full round robin.

Tonight The Other Half and I played Rummicube and listened to Pandora. It was nice to sit around the table and have some blues guitar followed by symphonic metal. A nice evening. The Other Half took the evening 2-1.

On my other down time, I've been working on the super secret "Space Attack!" rule set and bouncing them off Steve. I think the general mechanics are in place, need to start looking at the Espionage and Research Cards next. If anyone is interested in a little open source development on this project (Read, Proof Read, Development, Art, Blabber, What Ever), let me know and I'll add you to distro. Doing it all in google docs at the moment, so you will need a google account I think.

That is about it, big update, not a lot of exciting news. Garage Sale next Friday. I know Rob is running a big Mega Battle for Flames of War on Saturday so no D&D. I'm hoping to put a marker on the table for the evening of the 11th. We can hope! :)

jp

Jiggity Jig

The one where I play a miniature game...

On Tuesday, I went to The Game Shoppe and played a game of Warmachine with Dan because he had the day off. We threw down a 1000 point game that was really fun and swayed back and forth.

Dan played Khador with Irusk and Sorscha as his casters. Going from memory, he had Beast-09, Fenrris, Dragoon, Yuri and two buddies, a unit of Doom Reavers, Widowmakers, Kell Bailock, full unit of Demo Corp, Kuldon Lord w/ Maruder jack, War Dog w/ Sorscha, and the Grey Lords.

I played Mangus the Warlord and Gorten Grundback. Magnus had a bonded Mangler and 2 Renegades, one with a bond, and Gorten had Wroughthammer Rockram. Once again from memory, I also had Dirty Meg w/ a Mule, Thor Stienhammer w/ a Blaster, MacDougle, Alyana and Holt, Piper of Ord, a minimum unit of Steelheads and Hammerfall High Shields, Eiyrss and Kell Bailock.

I had the first turn and risked an obliterator on the perched Widowmakers but it missed horribly and otherwise advanced forward with Eiyrss swinging wide to the right. Dan took the opportunity to ping some Jacks, but no real damage as his forces began to swing around my left. Dan's Manhunter took an opportunity to beat up on the Blaster.

My second turn, I charged the Manhunter with the Steelheads and had Kell come out of the woods to shoot the second Manhunter in the face. That was satisfying. I spent the second obliterator shot at Fenrris, but it missed, only clipping him to knock him down. I moved up all of Magnus' battlegroup and popped 'Kill Box' to trap his Doom Reavers and his Beast09 (with Superiority on it!) and a few others. Meg's Mule shot and missed again, a theme that would repeat often. Gorten's little legs continued to move forward with the rest of the miniatures. Eiyrss continued her sprint down the right side of the board. Dan sent the Koldon Lord and Maurader and Grey Lords to the left to deal with Kell and Eiyrss, killing Eiyrss with the Grey Lords. The trapped Doom Reavers were still able to charge in on the Mangler and the Demo Corp that were not trapped had a boundless charge on one that charged the Wroghthammer and the rest attacked some Steelheads. I lost several (all but one) steelhead and a few Gun Shields to sniper fire.

Turn Three wasn't looking too good at the start, but it worked out well, to bad Dan's turn three was better. I used Gorten's Land Slide feat to move the Doom Reavers and some of the Demo Corp into better positions. With what is left of my Jacks and solos, we dropped a Mule shot on the Demo Corp with no crit. The loan Steelhead took out a damaged Demo due to the Def lost from Landslide. At the end of the turn I had taken the Widowmakers down to one, who passed the test, finished the Demo Corp, but only did one to the Doom Reavers. On Dan's turn, he used the Doom Reavers to clear a path for the Beast-09 which used boundless charge and the Supremacy speed boost to charge Magnus. It did a good job of finishing off Magnus and a few other things. By the end of the turn, Sorscha had moved around the woods and Icy Gazed everything I had left, which wasn't much.

My turn four consisted of a fleeing Holt and having him being chopped down by Doom Reaver. On the bottom of the fourth, Dan used Beast-09 and Sorsha to finally chop Gorton down to size... Even smaller size.

It was a great game, some epic struggles, but a good back into the game. Thanks Dan, tons of fun.

On other news I picked up the Attack! and Attack! Expansion at the Shoppe. Having played once and looking at the rules, I think a few house rules may be in order. First is to lower the Technology cost from 10 start to a 9 start so we can get some of those cool things into effect. Also the Technology stealing action card should allow the original owner to keep the tech... How do you forget to do something? Finally I think we need to look at some of the minor mods to the Democratic player. It just seems really hard/tough to pull off a win with the current constraints.

jp
Beast-09 is poop!