Peter Cushing: Actor-Slash-Miniature Gamer
19 Jan 12
Found on the blog Hammer and Beyond, this surprisingly and fascinating insight into the off-hours of screen legend Peter Cushing.
Universal Head on The Hatchet Job
30 Nov 11
Apologies for the long break in updates, I’ve been swamped with personal and professional matters, with no time left over for blogging. I did, however, have the honour of being interviewed recently for The Hatchet Job, a fascinating video and board games podcast. Enjoy!
Hang on after the music for a last bit about Not the Nine O’Clock News, TISM and taking the piss.
R.I.P. Steve Jobs
07 Oct 11
One of the very few free thinkers in our time of conformity and fear, he understood that design is not making something look great—design is making something great.
“In most people’s vocabularies, design means veneer. It’s interior decorating. It’s the fabric of the curtains and the sofa. But to me, nothing could be further from the meaning of design. Design is the fundamental soul of a man-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product or service.” Steve Jobs, interview with Fortune Magazine, 2000
For the Love of .. WHY?
22 Sep 11
People just blow me away with their complete lack of grey matter sometimes. I’m sitting here trying to work when two vans pull up outside my house and proceed to sit there for ten minutes, with their engines running, while the two drivers have a loud conversation over the noise. I mean … splutter … why? Is it really so difficult to turn your engine off, then turn it on again when you leave? This seems to be some epidemic amongst tradies, who often stop in our cul-de-sac to have lunch or a chat. For some inexplicable reason they seem unable to do without the soothing sound of their own car engines for five minutes. The noise … the pollution … the waste … the complete pointlessness and thoughtlessness…
Whhhyyyyyyy???!!!!
You’re Not From Around Here Are You?
18 Sep 11
Talking about Games Workshop … my girlfriend was is in town today and rang me to ask if I needed anything; I asked her to get me a tub of basing sand from the Games Workshop store (I very rarely darken the door of a GW store as I don’t play their miniatures games, but I do paint miniatures for boardgames).
She squared her shoulders against the sensory onslaught of heavy metal music and smelly pubescent boys, walked in and asked for a tub of sand. The guy behind the counter looked at her and said:
“He sent you on a mission didn’t he?”
Games Workshop Announce Dreadfleet
17 Sep 11
Back in my day (he says, putting his feet up by the fire and drawing back on his pipe), Games Workshop made fantastic, over-the top, ‘big box’ games in addition to their core tabletop miniatures systems. Games like Necromunda, Space Hulk, Blood Bowl, Dark Future and my personal favourite, a fantasy naval combat game called Man O’ War. These games are long, long gone, and if, for example, you want to get a few fleets of Man O’War miniatures together these days it will cost you a pretty penny on Ebay. Luckily, I bought these games when they were first released, and have built up a nice collection of miniatures for them over the years.
Although these games did have expansions and decent ranges of miniatures, they weren’t big money spinners like Warhammer Fantasy Battle and Warhammer 40,000, so they were dropped from the GW product line. Gamers like me waited in vain for them to return until suddenly, in 2009, a impressive new ‘limited edition’ of Space Hulk was released. Chock full of components and unique miniatures of incredibly high quality, and folding in some of the rules from expansions to make a stand-alone game, it showed that GW really could still pull out the stops and make an amazing miniatures-based boardgame if it wanted to. Space Hulk sold out of its print run pretty quickly, and it seemed thereafter that GW were content to leave Fantasy Flight Games to make money from their licences.
But to everyone’s surprise, it seems they aren’t done mining their old glory days yet. Dreadfleet has just been quietly announced, a truly excessive and wonderfully extravagant-looking production with a huge gaming mat, 10 fantastically detailed ship models, over 130 cards, and numerous other bits. And all I can say, frankly, despite the crazy price (AUD$190) is … gimme!
I don’t see any sign of ship template cards, so it’s possible this is a completely different system than the original Man O’ War, or at least a simplified version; and certainly that game has entire fleets for each of the races and offers much more in the way of variety and large naval battle action than this new incarnation. It does seem a little strange for there to be only ten ships, each from a different race. But in any case, this really does look spectacular, and will probably be another short-run sellout for the company. It’s just a shame these revamped re-releases are one-offs—but then that’s probably a good thing for gamer bank accounts.
Man O’War will always be a firm favourite of my game collection (and Uncharted Seas from Spartan Games also gets good reviews) but Dreadfleet still looks to be an impressive indulgence—and perhaps a reminder that there’s still a bit of life in the old GW yet.
Click here to watch a video overview of Dreadfleet (and reflect on how much more professional the Fantasy Flight preview videos are).
Also check out this preview, which talks about the artwork and development of Dreadfleet. It’s great to see John Blanche’s eclectic art style—which I personally think has much more character than a lot of contemporary fantasy art—dominate this new game.
Tommy Dean on The Collectors
25 Jul 11
Tommy Dean, An American born and Sydney-based comedian who also happens to be an avid boardgamer, recently appeared on the ABC show The Collectors to talk about his boardgame collection. He does a great job of explaining the myriad delights of collecting—and more importantly playing—boardgames!
Some Tommy Dean comedy highlights: Smoking, Precise Weapons, and Profiteering (bottom of page).
More Money Than God
23 Jul 11
NYT review of two books on the repulsive rapaciousness of organised religion: Render Unto Rome The Secret Life of Money in the Catholic Church By Jason Berry and Inside Scientology The Story of America’s Most Secretive Religion By Janet Reitman.
The old and the new scams, continually feeding off the limitless legions of the gullible.
Insert Tedious Snow White Reference Here
22 Jul 11
The first image of all the dwarves from the upcoming two-part film adaptation of The Hobbit has just been released. Click on the link to see close-up portraits of your favourite dwarves.
Upgrading to Lion
21 Jul 11
Here’s a handy place where you can check to see if your applications are compatible with Apple’s brand new system upgrade, Lion: Roaring Apps. Remember, PowerPC-based software will not run in Lion!
You might also need this Migration Assistant Update. And be sure to read the Ars Technica review and examine the known issues with Adobe products (thanks Guy!).
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