tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32775264772408927792024-03-13T02:58:50.961-07:00Deathwing Assault - Mr. Arocena's Gaming BlogMr. Arocena's Hobby BlogMr. Ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09486871718969091784noreply@blogger.comBlogger168125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3277526477240892779.post-48714153162649186782018-06-28T12:35:00.001-07:002018-06-28T12:37:00.035-07:00Final Fantasy XIV - Dungeons with PennyPenny and I have been playing a lot of Final Fantasy XIV over the past few months. It got to the point that my wife decided (on her own with no convincing from either Penny or me) to join us as well. She's a level 50 Bard now and slowly progressing through the post-50 story quests like Penny.<br />
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At some point I decided to record some of my dungeon runs with Penny. What follows below are the first 3 episodes of our YouTube series Dungeons with Penny.<br />
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<u>Episode 1 - Halatali</u></div>
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<iframe allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/k9TxwvYoN7U" width="560"></iframe>
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<u>Episode 2 - Tanking Thousand Maws</u></div>
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<iframe allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_ZnrmmiH0QQ" width="560"></iframe>
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<u>Episode 3 - Haunted Haukke Manor</u></div>
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<iframe allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8iwC5f2uPHI" width="560"></iframe>
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We don't really have a set schedule for when episodes get released simply because it was hard to find time to edit the videos during the school year and the last two months were super busy with end of year stuff. However, with summer coming up I think Penny and I will be able to put out a more regular schedule. Going to try 1 video a week so one Dungeons with Penny episode each week!<br />
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Anyways if you enjoyed any of them, please subscribe to the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_5wA4NCZ59hADD-t7GFZLw">channel</a> and comment on the videos!</div>
Mr. Ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09486871718969091784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3277526477240892779.post-234824076420001922018-02-27T10:02:00.001-08:002018-03-06T15:18:03.145-08:00Final Fantasy XIV - Family AdventuringIn my last post I posted a picture of my character <a href="https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/character/9111918/">Mialee Liadon</a> in her new look as a Miqo'te. Considering how much time and gil I spent trying to find a look I liked for her when she was an Elezen, changing her race was not a snap decision (see <a href="http://deathwing-assault.blogspot.ca/2015/01/final-fantasy-xiv-glamour-system.html">post 1</a>, <a href="http://deathwing-assault.blogspot.ca/2015/02/final-fantasy-xiv-mialees-look-complete.html">post 2</a>, <a href="http://deathwing-assault.blogspot.ca/2015/02/final-fantasy-xiv-end-game-grinding.html">post 3</a>, <a href="http://deathwing-assault.blogspot.ca/2015/03/final-fantasy-xiv-mini-games.html">post 4</a> for the evolution of Mialee's look as an Elezen).<br />
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A few weeks ago Penny watched me play and then asked if she could play too. She had made a character on my account when I first started playing and although she didn't get too far she remembered she had one. The combat mechanics were too complicated for her as she was only 4 I think so she spent all her play time just wandering around looking at things (and dying to high level things when she found them). Now I didn't want to give up my play time so she could play so I made her a trial account. I figured why not since it wouldn't cost me anything and she would have plenty to do while on her way to level 35.<br />
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So she made a new character on my server (Exodus), a Miqo'te named <a href="https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/character/20761060/">Luna Khaleesi</a> (named after our two cats, Luna and Khaleesi). She was annoyed that my character was not a Miqo'te and kept wanting me to change to one. Penny wanted my character to be the same race as hers so that she can pretend our characters were sisters. I didn't think much of it at first but eventually I came to the decision that this might be funner for her so I surprised her during one of our gaming sessions with the new Mialee and she was very happy. I think that simple change made Penny connect with both her character and my character better and as a result she seems to enjoy the game even more than before. And, like me, she likes looking for nice outfits for her character.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Luna (on the left) and Mialee (on the right)</td></tr>
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After trying out the Marauder first (mostly because that was my main class) she eventually settled on the Arcanist because it has pets. She liked the carbuncles and when she made it to 30 she got access to the fairies which really made her like the class. I ended up gettting her a 1 month subscription as a treat for doing well at a recent violin competition she attended and as of this post she's a level 40 Scholar.<br />
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I truly don't know if this was a good decision on my part or not but wow is it ever fun being able to share my Eorzean adventures with her! She loves exploring all of Eorzea and because she's playing on my gaming laptop the scenery looks amazing and the gameplay is smooth (compared to my old bare bones desktop at least). Penny especially loves night time in the La Noscea region as she can see the stars so clearly and often just wanders around at night following the stars.<br />
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One really neat thing is that she is learning how to play in a party and learning the different roles. She's a fairly proficient healer but does spend most of her time DPSing and letting her fairy handle all the healing. I have to remind her for tougher fights to pay attention to the tank's (me) health bar because if the tank (or healer) dies, so does everyone else. It does help that I'm an experienced tank so there's a little more room for error but I am wondering how she'll handle the more mechanically intensive fights as she continues her adventure.<br />
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I guess only time will tell if this is a good thing for her or not. In the meanwhile we get to enjoy a hobby as a father daughter tank-healer team!Mr. Ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09486871718969091784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3277526477240892779.post-69390232251294142612018-02-13T22:52:00.000-08:002018-02-13T22:52:16.084-08:00Final Fantasy XIV - Revisiting EorzeaFirst let me say that Facebook ads work (at least some of them do on me). I think it was a Facebook ad that got me into playing League of Legends for the first time so many years ago (before Season 1) and it was a Facebook ad that rekindled my interest in playing <a href="https://www.finalfantasyxiv.com/">Final Fantasy XIV</a> again. Can't quite remember what exactly was in the ad but it got me all nostalgic about when I used to play the game with my friends a few years back. The last time I played FFXIV was when the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yR6UkK6KIU">Go Go Posing Rangers</a> event was on back in 2016.<br />
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So I started up my subscription at the end of December and have been playing daily since. I hadn't finished the main Heavensward story so that was my first goal. To be honest I'm still not done that part yet. On top of the main story in the original expansion, Square Enix added a few patches worth of additional main story since. I just finished the 3.1 scenario "As goes light, so goes darkness" and now into the 3.2 scenario quests. After the 3.2 scenario quests, I'll move into the 3.3 quests followed by the 3.4 quests and finally the 3.5 quests.<br />
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It's been a little slow as I don't want to outpace my healer friend who I convinced to resub and join me. He's a dungeon or two behind me so while I wait for him to catch up I'm doing a bunch of side things. Mostly crafting. Prior to my return to the game I had 5 of the 8 crafting classes at lv50 so I started power leveling them to 60. That task blew through a tonne of the gil reserves I had. I think close to 3 million after all was said and done! While doing this for my 5 main crafting classes I quickly realized I needed the other crafting classes at lv50+ as well so I could access certain reagents that they could make. I could buy everything off the market board but that was getting too costly as my levels increased. This also led me to pick up the botanist class and to continue leveling my miner so I could access more raw materials for my crafting.<br />
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So that's where I'm at right now in my journey in Eorzea. Waiting for my friend to catch up to me in the story and spending gil leveling my crafting classes and gathering classes.<br />
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P.S. Finally used my Fantasia potion and turned <a href="https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/character/9111918/">Mialee</a> from an Elezen to a Miq'ote. Why did I do that? Stay tuned and find out!<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGcHporRCookg1a3-7xaXsX9QzoZcMUSszw6IevKEgGfFIu1rxsVzrsnpSdbqIO44LcWwDQiqlrnYF9hAlD_fXW1elX-qmewWJHE-8yzsgnfUOohNkHVhmYpTb9FpIERUiSAc2Yk8_SIjg/s1600/FINAL+FANTASY+XIV+09_02_2018+6_04_28+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGcHporRCookg1a3-7xaXsX9QzoZcMUSszw6IevKEgGfFIu1rxsVzrsnpSdbqIO44LcWwDQiqlrnYF9hAlD_fXW1elX-qmewWJHE-8yzsgnfUOohNkHVhmYpTb9FpIERUiSAc2Yk8_SIjg/s400/FINAL+FANTASY+XIV+09_02_2018+6_04_28+AM.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mialee as a Miqo'te (with the Tidal Wave axe from Leviathan)</td></tr>
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<br />Mr. Ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09486871718969091784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3277526477240892779.post-68661999852412702742018-02-04T14:45:00.001-08:002018-02-04T14:45:09.399-08:002016 and 2017 Years in ReviewThe last two years were busy to say the least. I'm going to blame all the other stuff on why I didn't write anything about my gaming those years. It's not that I didn't get a chance to play games or be involved in the gaming communities in town, just didn't have time to write or reflect about it.<br />
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Here's a brief run down of what occured<br />
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<li>Started an Esports club at NVSS.</li>
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<li>Even competed in the <a href="http://play.hsstarleague.com/">High School Starleague</a></li>
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<li>Penny and I played the Pokemon TCG competitively and regularly placed in the top 8 at our local events.</li>
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<li>Once she could read better, the decks we played got more complicated and we started buying singles and building meta/net decks.</li>
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<li>Finally reached Gold rank in League of Legends in Season 6 (2016)</li>
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<li>And got the shiny gold border for all of Season 7 (2017)</li>
<li>Sadly I didn't play much ranked in Season 7 and ended up in Silver again.</li>
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<li>More board games!</li>
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<li>Got into cooperative board games big time.</li>
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<a name='more'></a><u>On the Video-Game Front</u><div>
Aside from League of Legends, I didn't actually play much video games in 2016 and 2017. I only managed to get through <a href="https://www.finalfantasyxv.com/">Final Fantasy XV</a> (in French because Penny is in a French immersion school and it helped her learn vocabulary). I started Mass Effect: Andromeda but haven't finished it yet. And I 'bought' a bunch of games through XBox Live but haven't actually played any of them (with the exception of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WWE_2K16">WWE 2k16</a> and <a href="http://koei.wikia.com/wiki/Warriors_Orochi_3_Ultimate">Warriors Orochi Ultimate</a> because sometimes you just want to piledriver someone through a table or hack and slash through a horde of nameless bad guys)</div>
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The biggest thing I suppose from a video game perspective was that the <a href="http://deathwing-assault.blogspot.ca/2016/01/2015-year-in-review.html#more">Street Fighter Friday club from 2015</a> continued in 2016 and eventually turned into the NVSS Esports club in 2017. I was able to organize a year end Street Fighter 4 tournament in 2017 and crowned the first NVSS Fighting Game Champion. There was also a lot of students who played League of Legends in 2017 so we formed a team and competed in the High School Starleague and managed an over 0.500 record! (4W - 3L)</div>
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The unfortunate thing is that most of the players graduated so at the moment the school does not have a League team but the Esports club still exists. We just end up playing Street Fighter 4/5 and new this year Smash Brothers. But there's a bunch of students who want to form a <a href="http://blog.counter-strike.net/">CS:GO</a> team so that might be what we do in the 2018 spring season.</div>
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One really interesting development is that there is an Esports promotion company in town now, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/VolcanicGaming/?fref=ts">Volcanic Gaming</a>, that is looking into promoting more high school events! This means we can compete at more local events and help promote Esports in the area!</div>
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<u>On the Tabletop Front</u></div>
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Not much actually happened here. We didn't expand our X-Wing collection much in the last two years and haven't played many games at all.</div>
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When 40k 8th edition came out though some of my friends tried it out and as a result dragged me back into it. I even ended up running an event at the local game convention <a href="http://www.npc-con.ca/">NPC-Con</a>. The new edition is really fun surprisingly and pretty smooth as far as rules go. But not every army faction has rules so it still appears that Games Workshop hasn't totally solved power creep. Still, my preliminary thoughts are that the armies without books are balanced against other armies without books while those with books seem balanced against those with books. But when the two are in opposition, one army does clearly have an advantage.</div>
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I still haven't bought any new 40k models though but did pick up the latest Dark Angels codex, because well I have been playing them since 2nd edition and no matter how many times I sell my armies, I always have enough Deathwing and support units for a tournament size army (whether that army is competitive or not is a whole other matter though)</div>
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Board games got bigger with my family too in the past year and a half mostly because Penny is getting better at reading and general thinking. She's graduated from playing <a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/16992/tsuro">Tsuro</a> to <a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/123540/tokaido">Tokaido</a> and now plays <a href="https://www.catan.com/">Settlers of Catan</a> with us. She's actually a better Settlers player than my in-laws and regularly scores higher than they do in our games!</div>
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2016 and 2017 was busy and slowed my gaming down a bit but it laid the foundation for more games in the future with milestone events such as Penny being able to read and the NVSS Esports club continuing its existence. Here's to a good year of gaming in 2018!</div>
Mr. Ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09486871718969091784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3277526477240892779.post-11022944816398098042018-01-29T13:44:00.002-08:002018-01-29T13:44:19.228-08:00Back From the VoidI have not paid much attention to this for a year and a half now. I did not die and I did not stop gaming. Just got busy and fell into a rut with regards to chronicling my journey as a gamer and geek dad.<br />
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Anyways, I neglected to do a Year in Review post of 2016 like I did the years prior, so I will post a Years in Review 2016-2017 later this week.<br />
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Lots of cool things happened in the last year and a half, the most significant of which being that Penny learned to read! That opened a lot of opportunities to show her various games and what not.<br />
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So stay tuned as I chronicle my continuing journey as a gamer and geek dad.Mr. Ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09486871718969091784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3277526477240892779.post-78583073055909887942016-07-08T08:03:00.002-07:002016-07-08T08:03:38.030-07:00Pokemon - Re-Learning the Card Game with PennySummer has arrived and with it a bunch of free time (when I'm not doing housework at least). This summer Penny is a lot more cognizant of her surroundings and after a year of kindergarten is eager to learn how to read and do math and other stuff. I've already started on teaching her the basics of game play with games like <a href="https://www.amazon.ca/Calliope-Games-CLP-021-Tsuro/dp/B002SQBB3O">Tsuro</a> and <a href="https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/products/x-wing/">X-Wing</a> so following a set of rules is getting easier for her. She does have occasional bouts of why can't I do this but those are getting lesser and lesser.<br />
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Anyways, she started watching Pokemon on Netflix a few months back and out of the blue I asked her if she wanted to learn to play the Pokemon card game. From my perspective this accomplished a few things. First, she would learn to play a game that I used to play when I was younger. Second she would learn to count by 10s since for some inexplicable reason Pokemon hitpoints and damage are in 10s and third she would learn to read some words like Cut or Tackle or other simple words that are Pokemon attacks.<br />
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So to start the road to learning the game we picked up the new Trainer Kit from <a href="https://www.facebook.com/GameQuestPrinceGeorge/">Game Quest</a>.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">And so it begins...</td></tr>
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The set contains two 30 card decks with fairly simple Pokemon, a playmat and all other necessary components for playing the game. I thought Penny would want to play with the Pikachu deck as Pikachu is so prominent in the series but she opted for the Suicune deck as she liked the look of that Pokemon better.</div>
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The first game we followed the scripted game plan. By scripted I mean that the decks were already pre-ordered and the instructions told each player how to play each turn for the first 8 turns or so. This pre-scripted game ends up with the Pikachu deck winning. Needless to say Penny was not happy so wanted to play again.</div>
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This time we shuffled up the decks and went at it again. I kind of got a little unlucky in the second game as I did not draw enough energy cards to fully power my Pokemon (especially my <a href="http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Electivire_(BREAKpoint_43)">Electrivire</a>) and Penny eventually knocked out enough of mine to win. She even made good use of Retreat to save her <a href="http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Suicune_(Suicune_Half_Deck_14)">Suicune</a> from my <a href="http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Electivire_(BREAKpoint_43)">Electrivire</a> and then brought it back the next round (after letting one of her <a href="http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Seaking_(BREAKthrough_28)">Seakings</a> eat an attack) to finish off my Electrivire for the win.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Penny laying the beats down.</td></tr>
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As for the objectives I set out when teaching her the game, all were met save for the reading one. We will have to work on that a bit more.<div>
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The rules for the game were really simple and haven't changed much at all when I first learned them back in 2000. Penny picked up the rules really easily and she seemed to enjoy the imagery of the cards as well as imagining the two Pokemon fighting each other. The only hangup we had was when we used attacks that had additional conditions like coin flipping. She couldn't read the whole sentence so I had to explain to her that some attacks did extra stuff or only hurt under certain conditions.</div>
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Penny picked up counting by 10s pretty easily especially with the counters available. She was even able to do some elementary algebra by figuring out how much more damage was needed to knock out (though she used the term kill) a Pokemon. Interestingly she understood weakness easily enough (she referred to it as the Pokemon being allergic to certain types) though her math skills were not enough to multiply by 2 yet (admittedly I have not taken the time to show her what doubling means).<div>
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I need to figure out how to play the game for 3 players so that my wife can join us too. My biggest concern is it would end up becoming gang-up on whoever was winning as is my experience in most other card games.</div>
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Teaching her the Pokemon card game coincides perfectly with the recent release of Pokemon Go too. Just gotta wait for it to come to Canada now.</div>
Mr. Ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09486871718969091784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3277526477240892779.post-72006519476623184582016-05-25T23:46:00.001-07:002016-05-25T23:46:29.093-07:00Video Games - League of Legends Highlights SwayThis past Tuesday was a Professional Development Day (Pro-D Day) for my district and rather than drive 2 hours to the town where the various Pro-D sessions were held, I instead opted to submit a self-directed Pro-D application to learn how to make a <a href="https://sway.com/">Sway</a>. Sway is a new presentation app that Microsoft developed as (I guess) an answer to <a href="https://www.google.ca/slides/about/">Google Slides</a> and <a href="https://prezi.com/">Prezi</a> (both are presentation apps that are natively online).<br />
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I originally wanted to learn the program at another Pro-D day but that session was full. The app did interest me so I briefly looked into what it actually was and initially dismissed it until now. Neat little program and in my mind, the biggest advantage over PowerPoint is the native online presence Sway has.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
However, since I'm not supposed to be making lesson plans or other lesson related activities during my Pro-D day I instead learned how to use Sway and created <a href="https://sway.com/4mkuF7gOScbTCdtl">Mr. Arocena's League of Legends Highlights.</a></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="500px" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" scrolling="no" src="https://sway.com/s/4mkuF7gOScbTCdtl/embed" style="border: none; max-height: 100vh; max-width: 100%;" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="760px"></iframe>
<br />
In the process of learning Sway I also inadvertently ran across <a href="https://hitfilm.com/express">HitFilm Express</a> which is an amazingly powerful free video editing software package. I'll end up using it for all my education videos as well as it can do things that Movie Maker cannot.<br />
<br />
The only flaw I found (and it's a major one in my mind) is that for some inexplicable reason Sways cannot be grouped into folders. So for example if I make a bunch of League of Legends Sway presentations, they will just be sitting there ungrouped and unorganized in the My Sways tab of the website. Huge flaw and the only reason I'm not going all-in on this new tool.<br />
<br />
In the meanwhile though, Sway is great for special projects like the one I made.</div>
Mr. Ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09486871718969091784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3277526477240892779.post-1323045428099622902016-05-11T21:44:00.003-07:002016-05-11T21:44:25.361-07:00Video Games - New Gaming PC Built!My birthday came and went and with it an opportunity to build a new gaming PC. I hadn't actually built a new PC from scratch since my university days, instead relying on pre-built systems and just upgrading the video card from it. <br />
<br />
That sufficed for the most part but recently I've been experimenting with streaming and recording my gameplay and the pre-built systems I had been buying just weren't up to the task (part of the reason I haven't posted many video game related things or even streamed any game play). With the opportunity to build my own PC again I spent a few days researching parts and finally decided on the following build<br /><a href="http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/p/md3sHx">http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/p/md3sHx</a><br />
<br />
I scavenged the case and HDD from the existing computer so that saved me a bit of money. Although in hindsight I should have picked up a new case anyways as I could then have a 2nd PC. What I would do with the 2nd PC I have no idea but it would at least be working. Maybe sell it or give it away to someone I guess.<br />
<br />
Anyways, the new system was arrived last week and was fairly easy to put together compared to when I last built a computer. Installing Windows 10 wasn't too bad either and I managed to activate it with an old Windows 7 key I had from an ancient laptop we had kicking around. The computer operates much quieter than the previous one and is ridiculously fast in comparison as well.<br />
<br />
My old system (running on an AMD A8-6500 with a Radeon R7 240 graphics card and 6gb of RAM) struggled to play Final Fantasy 14 at 1080p resolution on ultra low settings with an average of 20 FPS. My new system runs it on maximum at 1080p while averaging 60 FPS. There is no noticeable drop in FPS during gameplay while recording or streaming either so I think I'm going to be more inclined to stream/record my games now.<br />
<br />
Obviously the PC is nowhere near top end but man is it ever a huge improvement over what I had before. I have a potential significant upgrade path as the 7th generation Intel processors will use the same socket and I have a power supply large enough to power a beefier graphics card if I need to upgrade that later. Given the current benchmarks though, my system should last a few years before needing any major upgrades (so says every PC builder).Mr. Ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09486871718969091784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3277526477240892779.post-64850364638503402192016-04-01T19:43:00.000-07:002016-04-07T05:21:39.528-07:00X-Wing - First Tournament ReportFirst X-Wing tournament under my belt and I went a respectable 2-2 with 2 blowout wins and 2 losses. Not bad for my first go around against opponents who can read and use the full rules. The tournament took place the weekend before Wave 8 released so no one had any of those ships.<br />
<br />
The list I took on the day ended up being<br />
<br />
Colonel Vessery - Veteran Instincts, Heavy Laser Cannon<br />
Omega Leader - Juke, Comm Relay<br />
Carnor Jax - Push the Limit, Targeting Computer, Royal Guard TIE (for flavour)<br />
<br />
I like flying the Defender and the Interceptor and Omega Leader is just too good not to use. The list has good synergy and when Carnor gets close, enemies can't help but eat the heavy laser cannon shots from Vessery. Omega Leader does a good job cleaning up as well and his damage is pretty consistent.<br />
<br />
Anyways on to the matches!<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><u>Round 1</u><br />
My opponent brought the following<br />
Dash Rendar - Outrider, Heavy Laser Cannon, Kyle Katarn, Push the Limit, Engine Upgrade<br />
2 Blue Squadron B-Wings<br />
<br />
This game was fairly easy as my opponent was new to the game and didn't quite get the hang of his completely. He didn't use the synergy between Push the Limit and Kyle Katarn very well so I was able to hit the Outrider with Vessery a few times without the benefit of his focus token for defense. Carnor and Omega Leader made short work of the B-Wings (but not before the B-Wings shot down Carnor).<br />
<br />
No pictures for this game as they all turned out blurry unfortunately. Been a while since I took pictures of my games but they got better as the day went on.<br />
<br />
Won the game 100-31<br />
<br />
<u>Round 2</u><br />
My opponent was flying a TIE Swarm consisting of<br />
4 Obsidian Squadron Pilots<br />
3 Zeta Squadron Pilots<br />
<br />
This was a long grindy game that went the full length. I deployed my obstacles as centrally as I could so I could disrupt his formations (which they did in the early game) and allowed me to fight part of his force with the entirety of mine. <br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-Saf7Z2m50QTdUzYnPImzM-Z-V-gCcimnJI4b2g7-X2xooUHDe_3enOpxyEE-kNw5kBKEuAuDGfVjWJZqTjC_Z04BzGHXQsWrTv5V5NGjZZNNhEIqHdWQifhvhYjyR-1T9NATXE5hqnvV/s1600/20160312_150308.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-Saf7Z2m50QTdUzYnPImzM-Z-V-gCcimnJI4b2g7-X2xooUHDe_3enOpxyEE-kNw5kBKEuAuDGfVjWJZqTjC_Z04BzGHXQsWrTv5V5NGjZZNNhEIqHdWQifhvhYjyR-1T9NATXE5hqnvV/s400/20160312_150308.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Broke up the Swarm but Omega Leader has a bunch chasing him.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Unfortunately Omega Leader fell earlier than I wanted him to (he was being chased by 3 TIEs) but I was still in a good position with Vessery and Carnor facing off against 2 F/Os and 2 TIEs.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY73Sk39tuHa0g9HxkxYUXnKGFfQEOT61Q-Rkmq8b3fxHYpOH3U5EiDDcuXIh7Ansh12Yvpg6H0dSdyVvc7iegQVfVEjPufdE1SekucDHHzu7h7J9H2WiB94d0dAbKf2D_NLgJRmMVZBA8/s1600/20160312_150934.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY73Sk39tuHa0g9HxkxYUXnKGFfQEOT61Q-Rkmq8b3fxHYpOH3U5EiDDcuXIh7Ansh12Yvpg6H0dSdyVvc7iegQVfVEjPufdE1SekucDHHzu7h7J9H2WiB94d0dAbKf2D_NLgJRmMVZBA8/s400/20160312_150934.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Omega Leader shot down but Vessery and Carnor look to even things up.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
But a bad round of shooting for me left me with just Carnor facing off against the 4 and eventually he blew up too.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTm93P2hV_uI4oevXrH0ixQ9wb0UZisiVA72rg_hLwhlvbP9HKav_zr70AUOYzQ1JkxgKFgA-zEDLpf1v7pOeowPTlSRDAvFeLctDSr09GQnO8_Q_oIWSrfXBPmT_pfebvvhrEzlQDQ8po/s1600/20160312_151850.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTm93P2hV_uI4oevXrH0ixQ9wb0UZisiVA72rg_hLwhlvbP9HKav_zr70AUOYzQ1JkxgKFgA-zEDLpf1v7pOeowPTlSRDAvFeLctDSr09GQnO8_Q_oIWSrfXBPmT_pfebvvhrEzlQDQ8po/s400/20160312_151850.jpg" width="225" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Carnor trying to escape the swarm.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Lost game 42-100<br />
<br />
<u>Round 3</u><br />
My opponent was flying a fat Chewie with Corran Horn.<br />
Chewbacca - C-3PO, Predator. Millenium Falcon, Luke Skywalker<br />
Corran Horn - Push the Limit, R2-D2, Fire Control System<br />
<br />
I made a mistake in trying to shoot down Corran Horn first in this matchup. I thought I could do it reasonably quick as the deployment had my 3 aces on one side against Corran with Chewbacca on the other side of the map. Turns out Corran Horn is pretty slippery (or the dice were rolling against me) and avoided any serious injury. Chewbacca showed up to the fight and was able to easily pick off Carnor (I made the mistake of dodging everything two rounds in a row instead of letting one hit through)<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTlWs5SWcF7X458odyXSotHm0pc9GFjfAHA_PKFILwTPkOFHOBecNFx4AvxJozozXv9My4OeGml1wJ3PjnJoEqkLXauOSmj7WRMmaBdLZiNTVzegeorgjrKw2mWPd3iVFPLYcsh-InCnI_/s1600/20160312_155749.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTlWs5SWcF7X458odyXSotHm0pc9GFjfAHA_PKFILwTPkOFHOBecNFx4AvxJozozXv9My4OeGml1wJ3PjnJoEqkLXauOSmj7WRMmaBdLZiNTVzegeorgjrKw2mWPd3iVFPLYcsh-InCnI_/s400/20160312_155749.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My aces trying to shoot down Corran Horn. Didn't work and then Chewie showed up.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
I also messed up Omega Leader's ability a lot as I forgot the defensive aspect of it. Would have prevented a lot of Predator re-rolls and Luke Skywalker dice modifications and Omega Leader may have been able to shoot down Chewie before Corran got him.<br />
<br />
Overall a mistake ridden game by me but still managed to score some points<br />
<br />
Loss 26-100<br />
<br />
<u>Round 4</u><br />
Against someone I played with a few times prior to the tournament. His list was<br />
Soontir Fel - Push the Limit, Autothrusters<br />
Kath Scarlet - Mangler Cannon, Rebel Captive, Veteran Instincts<br />
Zeta Leader - Wired<br />
<br />
I deployed my squadron in the center of my edge and as expected he put Soontir on one side, and the rest on the other side. My first round of movement I turned everyone towards Soontir then rocketed forward towards him. <br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimt9-NLbEqiX2cIH0vnkUckeCdALhfOFv3XL52Ft8_blcfUnxd-zL11hPXNln1e9s0Zwx1M28Sy4C6Po_c1O0GXPyYr8BYK0iVWWhPosFJATofXmBJQW_aoisWtDwkZ_j4W9ymVpStv0sA/s1600/20160312_171901.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimt9-NLbEqiX2cIH0vnkUckeCdALhfOFv3XL52Ft8_blcfUnxd-zL11hPXNln1e9s0Zwx1M28Sy4C6Po_c1O0GXPyYr8BYK0iVWWhPosFJATofXmBJQW_aoisWtDwkZ_j4W9ymVpStv0sA/s400/20160312_171901.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Trying to catch Soontir out.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
This scared him a bit I think and he turned Soontir around which allowed my ships to do a sharp turn in towards Zeta Leader and Kath. Zeta Leader met the guns of Omega Leader and Vessery and promptly exploded while Carnor chased Soontir further away before turning to fight Kath. <br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJFWpzwMr18gzm3RwT0wPwVbN0-LXHrQcwEB1TTWcNAX9TIkd0TcyVToVgE8-UFm6eU_ocVyoflDzAuiJqpodg2me4-M11g6vuO_2fF-A1rAAdVJKqmDGzETp4yYvrvxVCpkyynPZ0bX-M/s1600/20160312_172914.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJFWpzwMr18gzm3RwT0wPwVbN0-LXHrQcwEB1TTWcNAX9TIkd0TcyVToVgE8-UFm6eU_ocVyoflDzAuiJqpodg2me4-M11g6vuO_2fF-A1rAAdVJKqmDGzETp4yYvrvxVCpkyynPZ0bX-M/s400/20160312_172914.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Soontir chased away.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
With Soontir needing a few turns to turn around and get back in the fight, Carnor, Vessery and Omega Leader pummeled Kath into space dust and then completed the rout by chasing Soontir off the field (my opponent flew him off seeing as he could not face down my 3 ships who were all at near full health)<br />
<br />
Win 100-0<br />
<br />
I was quite happy with my record as again I had very little practice against actual opponents. It showed especially in Round 3. I felt I could have won my 2 losses if I flew just a bit better so there's hope for me in future tournaments.<br />
<br />
Game Quest didn't get any spring tournament kits but I do believe they will be getting the summer tournament kits so this summer should see more tournaments. I might even try to organize a regular league night/day/afternoon too as I am really enjoying the game. In the meanwhile I'm looking forward to adding the Inquisitor to my squadron as I think he might be better than Carnor in this list.<br />
<br />
Full results of the tournament are here (<a href="http://lists.starwarsclubhouse.com/get_tourney_details?tourney_id=1325">http://lists.starwarsclubhouse.com/get_tourney_details?tourney_id=1325</a>) and I placed middle of the pack (you can probably guess my call sign).Mr. Ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09486871718969091784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3277526477240892779.post-12571449814947948612016-03-03T12:48:00.002-08:002016-03-03T12:52:53.361-08:00X-Wing - Getting Closer to TournamentTournament is less than two weeks away and I've gotten a grand total of 3 games in against opponents who can read the pilot cards. For context, the majority of X-Wing games I've played were with my 5 year old daughter where we just played with basic rules and were mostly to get her to think and plan, basically to just help her develop intellectually and she is learning to really like Star Wars as a by-product. Not that she needed any nudging she took to the Star Wars universe like a moth to a flame and is often the reason we get new ships ("Daddy I think I need a Y-Wing for my Rebel alliance." "Ok Penny, let's pick one up, but I need a new TIE fighter to fight it." "Ok")<br />
<br />
Anyways, on Saturday I played 2 games with a list similar to what I used the week before.<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Colonel Vessery - Heavy Laser Cannon, Stealth Device</li>
<li>Darth Vader - TIE X1 title (borrowed for the day), Fire Control System</li>
<li>Omega Leader - Juke, Comm Relay</li>
</ul>
First game was against a Scum list packing<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Trandoshan Slaver - Gunner, Bossk, Tactician</li>
<li>Laetin - Heavy Laser Cannon, Heavy Scyk, Stealth Device</li>
<li>Kavil - Autoblaster Turret, Engine Upgrade, Veteran Instincts</li>
</ul>
I played pretty badly mostly because I didn't quite know what his list did. Quickly found out that getting into range 1 of autoblaster turret is bad and range 2 of the Slaver was also equally bad. His list had good shots at all ranges so was hard for me to decide how to engage. It was also the first time I played against a stress list and that totally messed up my aces. With no one able to paint targets for Vessery or get tokens it made getting hits through a little more difficult.<br />
<br />
In hindsight, should have stayed at range 2-3 and picked off the Autoblaster first, then closed on the Slaver and finally the Scyk. I probably should have also danced around a bit more and tried to get behind the slaver or the Scyk instead of closing in as soon as I could.<br />
<br />
The second game was against a Rebel aces list<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Keyan - Push the Limit, Stealth Device, Advanced Sensors, Mangler Cannon?</li>
<li>Jake Farrel - Push the Limit, Autothrusters</li>
<li>Gemmer - A-Wing Test Pilot, Push the Limit, Autothrusters</li>
</ul>
I played this one better. Vessery ended up jousting Keyan on one end of the map (everyone else was on the other side) and won off of a bump. I planned on Keyan slow moving towards Vessery so instead of doing the same, I just rocketed Vessery forward with a 5 straight, then the following turn a 2 straight which put him right in the path of Keyan who did indeed bump him. A k-turn after that bump and Vessery was stuck to Keyan like glue and finished him off in short order (rolling 4 dice at all ranges is huge even without a target lock to help)<br />
<br />
On the other side of the map, Omega and Darth danced around Jake and Gemmer. My opponent made a few bad mistakes which put Vader behind Gemmer which quickly resulted in a dead A-Wing. Jake couldn't fight off the entirety of my squadron and was caught in the crosshairs of all 3 at one point which ended him pretty quick.<br />
<br />
After those 2 games, I definitely need to get more practice. The list was also not quite doing it for me so back to the drawing board. Omega Leader did well and I'm thinking of bringing Omega Ace with Push the Limit instead of Vader for more guaranteed hits. Vessery was good, but not great, but that could be because of how I flew.<br />
<br />
For now I am thinking of the following<br />
<ul>
<li>Krassis Trelix - Heavy Laser Cannon, Agent Kallus</li>
<li>Omega Ace - Push the Limit, Hull Upgrade</li>
<li>Omega Leader - Juke, Comm Relay, Hull Upgrade</li>
</ul>
Krassis basically replaces Vessery and is pretty action independent so stress lists like the Scum list I played won't hurt as much. The Firespray has a pretty stress-friendly dial with no red turns.<br />
The TIE F/O aces should also be pretty reliable for plinking away at any range which should hopefully let Krassis just blast away at hull points.<br />
<br />
The other list I was thinking of using is<br />
<ul>
<li>Krassis Trelix - Heavy Laser Cannon, Agent Kallus, Hull Upgrade</li>
<li>Mauler Mithel - Veteran Instincts</li>
<li>Scourge - Veteran Instincts</li>
<li>Wampa - Targeting Computer</li>
</ul>
A pair of high pilot skill TIEs to hopefully pick off a weak target or strip some shields. Wampa to get some guaranteed damage and Krassis as a big target capable of putting the hurt at different ranges. This list is also pretty action independent and has some good maneuverability (plus more bodies to fight against swarms)<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I'll have to get a few games in this weekend to test both lists and if I can't, I'll try out the <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.grumpy_old_jon.j9_b6&hl=en">Mark 13 AI</a> program I ran into a few days ago. Practice is always good before a tournament.</div>
Mr. Ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09486871718969091784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3277526477240892779.post-58912320928618595192016-02-22T12:02:00.000-08:002016-02-22T12:46:29.569-08:00X-Wing - First Game Against a non-5yr oldIn preparing for the upcoming <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/1627307507491784/">X-Wing tournament</a> I went out on a limb and asked for a game against one of the locals through our local <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/xwingprincegeorge/">X-Wing group</a>. My schedule never let me go to the gatherings that happen every two weeks so I had yet to actually play against an opponent who knew the full rules.<br />
<br />
It was quite a different experience as one would expect.<br />
<br />
Anyways, I only had time to play one game because I think we actually played longer than regulation would normally allow but we didn't care as it was quite fun and intense.<br />
<br />
The list I used was as follows<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Colonel Vessery - Lone Wolf, Heavy Laser Cannon (HLC), Stealth Device</li>
<li>Zeta Leader - Wired</li>
<li>Zeta Squadron Pilot</li>
<li>Zeta Squadron Pilot</li>
</ul>
and the list he used was<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Soontir Fel - Push the Limit, Royal Guard TIE, Autothrusters, Stealth Device</li>
<li>Zeta Squadron Pilot</li>
<li>Zeta Squadron Pilot</li>
<li>Zeta Squadron Pilot</li>
<li>Zeta Squadron Pilot</li>
</ul>
Lots of evade dice on both sides but the I figured the HLC on my side should give me the advantage when shooting at his TIE F/Os.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
We both brought asteroids to the field and deployed them in a cluster in the center. My Zeta Squadron and Zeta Leader were deployed in the center with Vessery off to the left. His Zeta Squadron was deployed as a group of 4 opposite of my Zeta Squadron and Soontir was deployed in to my right away from everyone.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The game escalated very quickly as by my turn 2 my forces had engaged his 4 TIE F/Os in the asteroid with Soontir hanging out on the wings. First blood came to me as the Zeta Leader and Vessery concentrated fire on one of the TIE F/Os. After that it became a tense game of cat and mouse between everyone as I tried to get Soontir in Vessery's sights while he tried to avoid that. All the while our F/Os were circling each other in the asteroids trying to get shots at whoever they could.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I actually had two good rounds of shooting against Soontir scoring 4 hits with Vessery in both rounds but he rolled really well (a lot of focus results both times and flipped them to evades) but after that I couldn't get him back in my sights. Zeta Leader unfortunately crashed into an asteroid as I misjudged one of his turns (one of my opponent's TIEs did the same earlier). Soontir eventually took over and was able to arc-dodge and blow up Vessery (he could have survived that particular round of shooting but he suffered a Direct Hit critical) and then my last TIE. By the end though he had only Soontir and one TIE F/O sitting on 1 hull point.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Fun game and really showcased my need to get some more games in before I am tournament ready.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Things I learned</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>It's easier to predict where an older player will go with their ships. I had a few turns where I was able to block some of his ships and avoid getting blocked myself. Very important for Vessery so he can get his focus action in combination with the target locks everyone else was providing.</li>
<li>Soontir Fel is really hard to target and when you do, you better hope he doesn't get focus results. The interceptor's maneuverability is insane and I kind of want to buy a pair for my own fleet (next to the Defender it's my other favourite Imperial fighter to fly in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars:_TIE_Fighter">TIE Fighter</a>)</li>
<li>Vessery's HLC was quite good and with target lock and focus he basically guarantees 3-4 hits on whoever he is shooting at. No crits, but that's ok against most things not on a large base.</li>
<li>Lone Wolf was hard to trigger with 3 extra ships around. Might drop it for Veteran Instincts instead or I just need to learn to fly Vessery on the outside more. I took it for the defensive re-roll more than the offensive re-roll.</li>
<li>Wired didn't work too well this game but that's because I didn't roll many focus results with Zeta Leader. For 1 point it does synergize really well with Zeta Leader and I'm not sure any other 1 point Elite Pilot talent would be as worthwhile.</li>
</ul>
I don't think I'd change anything in the list aside from maybe changing the Zeta Squadron pilots for Darth Vader with Juke (and if I get a TIE x1 title I can add Fire Control System) and replacing Lone Wolf on Vessery with something else. So the new list might become</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>Colonel Vessery - Veteran Instincts, Heavy Laser Cannon (HLC), Stealth Device</li>
<li>Darth Vader - Juke (possibly with TIE x1, Fire Control System)</li>
<li>Zeta Leader - Wired, Weapons Guidance</li>
</ul>
I could also replace Zeta Leader with Omega Ace - Push the Limit or Omega Leader - Juke (and give Darth Vader Lone Wolf as I only have 1 Juke card). Only 3 ships but if they are the right 3, that's all I should need.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
One thing I have to keep in mind when building my lists is that I probably wont' have to face a large ship and 4 or 5 small ships. When Penny and I play it's usually 5-8 ships a side as she likes using as many of her Rebels as she can so I'm always expecting to have to fight huge squadrons. Making a list with less than 4 ships never seems enough.</div>
Mr. Ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09486871718969091784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3277526477240892779.post-63854449133973728142016-02-16T21:46:00.002-08:002016-02-16T21:51:24.477-08:00X-Wing - Tournament time!The local X-Wing group convinced the Game Quest management to hold a tournament in early March. Great news as I haven't been able to play much X-Wing lately and haven't really had the motivation to go out to the local X-Wing game days.<br />
<br />
From what I gather, there is no real meta in the area yet so I don't expect any super-competitive lists or super-competitive people so the list I bring can be pretty much what I want it to be. This is great as I really have no idea what will work great and what will not. I can obviously pull up what lists won what tournaments but my game knowledge is pretty limited having only played against Penny and even then without full rules.<br />
<br />
I used my knowledge from other wargames I've played and my basic understanding of the rules to come up with a few prospective lists to take to the tournament. I have a few weeks still and I might try to hook up with a few of the other people to test out some lists.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
So the first list uses the 2 TIE Defenders I picked up early in my foray into X-Wing. I really like the look of the Defender and I loved flying them in the TIE Fighter game from way back.<br />
<ul>
<li>Colonel Vessery - Lone Wolf, Heavy Laser Cannon, Stealth Device, Ion Pulse Missile</li>
<li>Rexler Brath - Predator, Heavy Laser Cannon, Stealth Device</li>
</ul>
This is what I guess the community calls an ace list. Two very elite pilots that hit really hard having 4 attack dice at all ranges. Additionally at range 3 they deny the range defense bonus since they will use their cannons instead of their primary weapon.. They are also really hard to hit having 4 defense dice initially.<br />
Since most lists only have 2-4 ships, having only 2 ships doesn't seem that big a deal.<br />
<br />
The second list still has a Defender (the models look really cool) but this time backed by some TIE fighters.<br />
<ul>
<li>Colonel Vessery - Lone Wolf, Heavy Laser Cannon, Stealth Device</li>
<li>Omega Ace - Push the Limit</li>
<li>Zeta Squadron Pilot</li>
<li>"Wampa"</li>
</ul>
In this list, I've traded Rexler for the two auto-hit pilots in Omega Ace and Wampa. With Push the Limit, Omega Ace can use his ability every turn unless he gets stressed out by someone. Wampa is there to provide some additional insurance (and since he's just a TIE will probably fly under the radar)<br />
Zeta pilot is there to provide a Target Lock for Vessery so he can keep doing his thing from range.<br />
<br />
The third list is another ace list.<br />
<ul>
<li>Colonel Vessery - Veteran Instinct, Heavy Laser Cannon, Stealth Device</li>
<li>Omega Ace - Push the Limit</li>
<li>Darth Vader - Lone Wolf</li>
</ul>
Similar idea to the previous one but the addition of Vader means there are 3 high priority targets that need to be taken out. If one gets focused, the other two will get you. I opted for Veteran Instinct on Vessery in this list as otherwise he would shoot after Omega Ace and probably wouldn't have a target lock for his pilot ability.<br />
<br />
And finally this last list is totally different.<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Krassis Trelix - Heavy Laser Cannon, Agent Kallus, Stealth Device</li>
<li>Captain Oicunn - Intimidation, Tactical Jammer, Mara Jade, Moff Jerjerrod, Dauntless</li>
</ul>
<br />
The idea here is to have Oicunn ram ships, hopefully prevent their movement and reduce their agility, and then Krassis can hit them from range with his Heavy Laser Cannon. Any attacks against Krassis will hopefully be done at a disadvantage because of Tactical Jammer and Stealth Device adds a little more insurance.<br />
<br />
Looking forward to trying out some of these lists in the next few weeks to see which one I like flying the best.Mr. Ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09486871718969091784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3277526477240892779.post-42710246935362259952016-01-03T23:38:00.002-08:002016-01-03T23:49:46.986-08:002015 Year in ReviewThis year has been a busy one. Both in terms of gaming and life in general. A lot of highs and one gigantic low at the end of the year.<br />
<br />
Here's a brief run down of what occurred this year.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<ul>
<li>Still Silver in League but at least ended at Silver 3 instead of Silver 4 like last year.</li>
<li>Started a Street Fighter 4 club in the school I teach at.</li>
<li>Finally got into the X-Wing Miniatures game</li>
<li>Brother got married so we took a trip to Japan to be at his wedding.</li>
<li>Father passed away just before Christmas.</li>
</ul>
Except for that last point, year went well.<br />
<u><br /></u>
<u>On the Video-Game Front</u><br />
Played lots of X-Box One games (Finished Tomb Raider and Arkham Knight but still working through Assassin's Creed Unity and Dragon Age Inquisition). Penny loves playing on the X-Box as well mostly because of Disney Infinity. She has a lot of the Marvel characters and we picked up a bunch of Star Wars characters when they were launched earlier this year. Her ability to build things in the Toy Box is very impressive. We also picked up Star Wars: Battlefront on Boxing Day and it has further fueled our Star Wars filled holiday season. Penny likes having hero battles on Hoth against me especially when she gets to be Darth Vader.<br />
<br />
Still Silver in League of Legends but at least I ended at Silver 3 instead of Silver 4 like last season. Been practicing a lot of top lane in the off-season so I can take on more of a carry role if need be. This has also helped me with my CS ability and I think that will be key in helping me climb out of Silver. Whenever I got stuck in a laning role this season, I kinda sucked it up and lost it for our team. With better CSing I should be able to at least keep up and not be a liability even if I can't kill my lane opponent.<br />
<br />
Didn't play much of FF14 after Heavensward came out. Didn't feel like paying the price for the expansion when it was released and just let my subscription run out. I did end up buying Heavensward over Christmas though so will be playing through it in the new year. Looks like lots of cool content to go through with my friends. I feel kind of embarrassed to say that the reason I wanted to start playing again was because of the outfit from the <a href="http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/special/2015/The_Maidens_Rhapsody/">Maiden's Rhapsody</a> event, but if you've read my other FF14 posts, I like having a cool looking character and that outfit is pretty darn cool.<br />
<br />
Speaking of MMOs, SWTOR got a new expansion that looks really cool too and I've been wanting to get in on that as well. I even managed to get my wife to make a character. Haven't played yet though but making a character is the first step. The release of The Force Awakens got my whole family in a Star Wars kind of mood this holiday.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
I also inadvertently started a Street Fighter 4 club/group at the school I work at. It all started last school year when I started doing Street Fighter Fridays for one of my classes. The way the schedule worked, one of my classes was always last class of the day on Friday. That particular block is always very lazy no matter who the students are so rather than fight them to work, I opted to use the last 15 minutes as a Street Fighter 4 competition. The team that won the small tournament would earn points for the Arocena Cup (my own version of the <a href="http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/House_Cup">House Cup</a> seen in Harry Potter).<br />
<br />
As a result, this year some students from that class asked if they could continue this tradition which I obliged though not on Fridays. Instead it would be during our 'study' block every other Wednesday (the study block was meant to have students come to teachers for help but no one ever did that so students just used the block to wander around the halls, fill the library or do some other non-productive activity). Since then, the Wednesday morning tournament has gotten quite competitive with many of the students trying to get better so they can beat me on my Zangief (my best character so far). If any of my students read this, it won't take that much to get better than me, haha!<br />
<div>
<br />
<u>On the Tabletop Front</u><br />
<br />
Completely ditched Games Workshop and headed over to Fantasy Flight Games and their X-Wing miniatures space combat game. An absolutely awesome game that I've written about <a href="http://deathwing-assault.blogspot.ca/search/label/x-wing">previously</a>. In the past 2 months Penny and I have accumulated the following<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Penny's Rebels</b><br />
<ul>
<li>1 Millenium Falcon</li>
<li>1 YT-2400 Freighter</li>
<li>1 HWK-290</li>
<li>1 Y-Wing</li>
<li>2 X-Wings</li>
<li>1 T70 X-Wing</li>
<li>1 A-Wing</li>
<li>1 E-Wing</li>
<li>1 K-Wing</li>
<li>1 B-Wing</li>
</ul>
<b>My Imperials</b><br />
<ul>
<li>4 TIE Fighters</li>
<li>2 TIE/FO Fighters</li>
<li>2 TIE Defenders</li>
<li>1 TIE Advanced</li>
<li>1 TIE Bomber</li>
<li>1 Firespray-31</li>
<li>1 VT-49 Decimator</li>
<li>1 Gozanti Assault Carrier</li>
</ul>
Quite a large amount spent and I feel it's worth every penny. The great thing about all those purchases is that I don't need all of them to play. Most 100 point standard games require 4 ships or less so the lists we can make can be quite different each game. I probably could have built an army for one faction in Warhammer or Warhammer 40k with what I spent buying both fleets but I'd have fewer options, I'd have to paint everything and the rules just suck for both systems compared to X-Wing. Plus Penny can understand the rules for X-Wing and she loves the universe.<br />
<br />
Penny has also gotten old enough to play board games. We started with the traditional games like Snakes and Ladders, Candyland and Trouble but I got so frustrated/annoyed by the lack of skill and general mindlessness of those games (all those games are so random, just dice rolls) that I showed Penny other games that I thought she could understand and required more thought to boot.<br />
<br />
First was <a href="http://www.calliopegames.com/read/45/tsuro">Tsuro</a>. Very fun game and first time I saw it played was on <a href="http://geekandsundry.com/shows/tabletop/">Tabletop</a> back in Season 1. Penny loved it and we play it fairly often. The rules are so simple and it teaches her forethought and spacial awareness as she needs to be able to visualize the path that her dragon will take as well as mine in order to successfully win.<br />
<br />
Second was <a href="http://passportgamestudios.com/game/tokaido/">Tokaido</a>. This game we actually played at <a href="https://www.facebook.com/GameQuestPrinceGeorge/?fref=ts">Game Quest</a> one afternoon (Game Quest has board games they let people try in store) and Penny understood the rules well enough that we bought it. Since then it's become one of her favourites. The only tweak we make in the game is let her always be the little girl character.<br />
<br />
Third game I introduced to her this year was <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxG_ahmF1uM">Forbidden Island</a>. I found this game randomly in some kids store and looked it up on Tabletop. The rules were simple enough and after a few hiccups, Penny and I were able to beat the game. We did lose a lot though as Penny kept sandbagging one of the not so useful pieces of land because it looked like the Tree of Harmony from My Little Pony,<br />
<br />
All in all a good year for gaming in our family although we didn't get a chance to cross anything from the Civ 5 World Wonder tour despite being in Japan in the spring (not enough time to see Himeji Castle)<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Mr. Ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09486871718969091784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3277526477240892779.post-69809571472674923232015-12-07T20:14:00.001-08:002015-12-07T20:14:03.002-08:00X-Wing - Introducing List Building to a 5 year oldWe just got Penny's report card back earlier this week and she appears to be doing well. Her social skills are also meeting expectations which is great as my wife and I were worried because she's an only child and has not had much interaction with peers outside of pre-school and kindergarten. She can count fairly high in both French and English which is great and her addition skills seem to be on par with everyone else.<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
As a math teacher I'm ok with that but I'd like her to be better at math than her peers. Call it pride if you will. So in that regard I've decided that I'm going to introduce proper X-Wing list building to her soon. Not sure how far I'll get though but from what I have seen her do and the report card comments she should be able to add tens (so add like 20 + 10) and she can already do ones addition (things like 1 + 4, and 5 + 2). Shouldn't be too far of a stretch to do something like 12 + 23 (a Bandit Z-95 + Red Squadron X-Wing) or 16 + 5 (HWK-290 with Ion Turret).</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
My plan is basically to give her the points value for one of her ships and have her add upgrades to it and see what the new total is. If that goes well, we can move on to adding the costs of ships together and hopefully get to a point where she can pick ships that add up to something close to 100 or whatever points total we decide to play at that day.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
So the next game we play will be with a list that Penny makes herself!</div>
Mr. Ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09486871718969091784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3277526477240892779.post-43232369071266250912015-12-05T02:01:00.001-08:002015-12-05T17:56:44.618-08:00X-Wing - Things are Escalating Rather QuicklyExciting day today! A little over a week ago I had asked <a href="https://www.facebook.com/GameQuestPrinceGeorge/">Game Quest</a> if they did special orders as I was looking for a 10th anniversary edition of <a href="http://www.daysofwonder.com/tickettoride/en/anniversary/">Ticket to Ride</a> that didn't cost an arm and a leg (the other game store in town had a few copies of it but they were selling them for $160 + tax!). I knew I could order it via Amazon for way cheaper but I liked Game Quest and wanted to support a local business. Turns out they were able to order it for me and at a price comparable to Amazon.<br />
<br />
Not content with ordering just the board game I asked if they could order a few X-Wing ships as well so with my board game order came the <a href="http://xwing-miniatures.wikia.com/wiki/Millennium_Falcon_Expansion_Pack">Millennium Falcon</a> and a pair of <a href="http://xwing-miniatures.wikia.com/wiki/TIE_Defender_Expansion_Pack">TIE Defenders</a>. Game Quest also got a restock of other ships so I will probably add more things to both Penny's Rebel Alliance and my Imperial Squadron in the near future (as it stands I have 6 ships to her 5 ships and she thinks it's unfair despite her having two large ships). The influx of reinforcements for both sides coincided perfectly with us having <a href="http://deathwing-assault.blogspot.ca/2015/11/x-wing-playing-among-stars.html">finished our starfield battle mat</a>!<br />
<br />
Before we played with the new ships though I took some time to rearrange the ships and pilots so that both sides were roughly even in points and came up with the following squadron lists. I also added some ordnance because in the last game we played, Penny had asked what the "alphabet tokens" were for. I explained to her that they were called Target Lock tokens and next time we played I'd show her how to use them.<br />
<br />
<b>Penny's Rebel Alliance -</b> 160 points<br />
<ul>
<li>Han Solo in the Millennium Falcon - 47 pts</li>
<li>Dash Rendar in the Outrider with a Heavy Laser Cannon - 48 pts</li>
<li>Rebel Operative HWK-290 with Ion Cannon Turret - 21 pts (I opted for the ion cannon turret as it doesn't require focus to be used and I can try and introduce ion tokens to our games)</li>
<li>Bandit Squadron Z-95 with Concussion Missiles - 16 pts</li>
<li>Blue Squadron Novice T-70 X-Wing with Proton Torpedoes - 28 pts</li>
</ul>
<b>Mr. Arocena's Imperial Squadron</b> - 160 points<br />
<ul>
<li>Gamma Squadron TIE Bomber with Homing Missiles, Proximity Mines - 28 pts</li>
<li>Bounty Hunter in a Firespray with Heavy Laser Cannon, Seismic Charge - 42 pts</li>
<li>2x Zeta Squadron TIE/fo - 32 pts</li>
<li>2x Delta Squadron TIE Defenders - 60 pts</li>
</ul>
So a quick recap of what rules we have played with so far:<br />
<ul>
<li>All the basic rules from the Learn to Play guide except for stress tokens</li>
<li>Focus Tokens</li>
<li>Evade Tokens</li>
<li>Secondary Weapon cards (just Cannons and Turrets so far)</li>
</ul>
We still don't play with pilot special abilities as her reading comprehension is not at the level necessary to understand the abilities. I could just tell her what each pilot does and I think she'd remember that but I'll hold off until she can read better. We also don't play with critical hits for the same reason. Interestingly enough, Penny tried to make a case for dealing two damage with the big explosion because it's a bigger explosion.<br />
<br />
In this game we learned about target locks, how to use ordnance and ion tokens.<br />
<a name='more'></a><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0ZpF8htfkEtGuFRlCALlhVBEOMc3Gh0V5k-rAeOVkPSxkQ-bLmblESeNc86BO9Kyur1EjLoDhXPzu6gLZjvJTMPvFUYM7HUOqS4N0S1CeU3baTSQGb-VL9XUprj71l-WfuwPhr5CWpln3/s1600/20151204_173353.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0ZpF8htfkEtGuFRlCALlhVBEOMc3Gh0V5k-rAeOVkPSxkQ-bLmblESeNc86BO9Kyur1EjLoDhXPzu6gLZjvJTMPvFUYM7HUOqS4N0S1CeU3baTSQGb-VL9XUprj71l-WfuwPhr5CWpln3/s400/20151204_173353.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Initial set up</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Penny set up her fighters in front of her large ships. I tried explaining to her that they can't do that but she insisted despite the HWK-290 heading straight towards an asteroid.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFE0HGtNA7Mfa6BueZLfqp2Zrw-hdri2ILhNZ0tih4sRoIufugraATjeKgqDEdCOA0K9yx8J2fD2lmUmFZfxIiUUqU6EmP6TXkVqjOx3I7DmvjgzJkQyIV9iRBx1egQ4ENC-fECdTJR1UJ/s1600/20151204_175503.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFE0HGtNA7Mfa6BueZLfqp2Zrw-hdri2ILhNZ0tih4sRoIufugraATjeKgqDEdCOA0K9yx8J2fD2lmUmFZfxIiUUqU6EmP6TXkVqjOx3I7DmvjgzJkQyIV9iRBx1egQ4ENC-fECdTJR1UJ/s400/20151204_175503.jpg" width="225" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Finally in range of each other.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: left;">
The Outrider immediately went for a flank move. Penny remembered that the Outrider with Heavy Laser Cannon upgrade can't shoot at close targets so did her best to keep it far enough away from all of my ships.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9oWz3ublnBT476YL8jnfAfWqPsso-qYQccgpI71rexaxQKdmoKec5nD0ETiydkymMe7Qj8vzwS_ckN9yCAqbaq35B0pIlc22gzX7UVsavOqHTShuSGU2vmPJ8LcDynVH5Q5RUu9JtjeFR/s1600/20151204_201043.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9oWz3ublnBT476YL8jnfAfWqPsso-qYQccgpI71rexaxQKdmoKec5nD0ETiydkymMe7Qj8vzwS_ckN9yCAqbaq35B0pIlc22gzX7UVsavOqHTShuSGU2vmPJ8LcDynVH5Q5RUu9JtjeFR/s400/20151204_201043.jpg" width="225" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dropping a Proximity Mine in front of the Falcon.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
First blood went to Penny as she downed one of my First Order TIE fighters with concentrated fire from the Outrider, Falcon and the T-70. She almost downed the TIE bomber as well but it escaped the gauntlet with 1 hull point left and left a surprise for the Falcon. Unfortunately for me, the bomber ran into an asteroid later on in the game.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfp8eK5TDNWlrWIrkyqxfJQGcaVJ7RmEN4-phc9vSbgwxeKCZwOJyuQxsj4iRR-dBr0SUwbcmCfMoZQoWp16j0T1l24sLm3OOekbcZlPupQMgCOnmrqVnPK_cm8oD2wrhL443G6fZi7R9m/s1600/20151204_201950.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfp8eK5TDNWlrWIrkyqxfJQGcaVJ7RmEN4-phc9vSbgwxeKCZwOJyuQxsj4iRR-dBr0SUwbcmCfMoZQoWp16j0T1l24sLm3OOekbcZlPupQMgCOnmrqVnPK_cm8oD2wrhL443G6fZi7R9m/s400/20151204_201950.jpg" width="225" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">TIE Defender running into an asteroid because of ion damage.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Elsewhere on the battlefield, the HWK-290 had put this TIE defender under an ion-lock for a few turns. It ended up drifting into that asteroid twice but thankfully did not suffer any damage.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjesKo_NfVguHxX-TPiAfnEoRvjn9oET5ryOlmBuaWTAKzHk55zH2-TpnXFEUjnMT2G7I8aN4heEL6hFIxVsdcnLQL924Gbj5tcIFrx4_B_xDqu6MiIp7Ecthdln4VOMzEz-c5TwGh9lRFh/s1600/20151204_204721.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjesKo_NfVguHxX-TPiAfnEoRvjn9oET5ryOlmBuaWTAKzHk55zH2-TpnXFEUjnMT2G7I8aN4heEL6hFIxVsdcnLQL924Gbj5tcIFrx4_B_xDqu6MiIp7Ecthdln4VOMzEz-c5TwGh9lRFh/s400/20151204_204721.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The TIE Defenders getting into range of the Outrider and Falcon finally.</td></tr>
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<div style="text-align: left;">
The game was close here, both sides suffered lost shields and one craft each (Penny lost a Z-95 and I had lost a First Order TIE). However after movement and combat the bomber crashed into an asteroid, the last First Order TIE was blown up by the X-Wing and Outrider and the Falcon destroyed the Firespray a few turns later. Penny had an amazing set of rolls, rolling triple hits with the X-Wing, Outrider and Falcon!</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The TIE Defenders try to salvage the battle.</td></tr>
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I sort of managed to come back the turn after as the TIE defenders successfully destroyed the X-Wing and the Falcon and put a few hits on the Outrider. My maneuvers also put me in a great position to chase both the Outrider and the HWK.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">We have them now!</td></tr>
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I thought I had the win at this point despite having no shields on any of my fighters, but I underestimated the firepower of the Outrider a little bit (or Penny just has insane luck). In the exchange that followed the Outrider managed to score 4 hits on the defender in front of it and despite having a focus token, I only dodged 1 of them. The HWK did nothing but take fire from the remaining TIE defender but I could not kill it leaving it at 1 hull point (I needed and rolled two hits but Penny dodged one). At this point though it was Penny's bed time so we had to call it quits. I declared Penny the winner as she had more ships than me and it would have only been a matter of time before the Outrider blasted the last TIE defender.</div>
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Penny made good use of her target locks, focus tokens and even learned the barrel roll action of the Outrider (she asked about it after looking at the card). Her first volley of torpedoes absolutely wrecked my TIE bomber early. However, she wasn't able to use the Z-95's concussion missiles as it died too quickly. Penny also particularly enjoyed shooting my defenders with her ion cannon turret on the HWK and took great joy in watching it fly into an asteroid (though thankfully it never suffered any damage from it). She doesn't want me using ion cannons on my own ships because of it.</div>
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So far so good in teaching my 5 year old daughter how to play the game. She seems to really enjoy it and loves moving the ships around. It's quite fun watching her especially when she makes sound effects for moving and shooting. I'll have to introduce her to list building at some point (probably when she can add better) because playing with all our available ships might get to be too much once our collection grows.</div>
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For our next few games I don't think I'll add anything new so that Penny can absorb all the stuff we've learned so far. Next learning goal will be stress tokens, proper deployment and maybe reading some new words.</div>
Mr. Ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09486871718969091784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3277526477240892779.post-90947964255438239602015-11-30T20:30:00.000-08:002015-11-30T20:30:03.744-08:00X-Wing - Playing among the starsThe last two weeks were a little busy so Penny and I didn't get to play much X-Wing together. She still asked on a daily basis though so I think she's quite interested in the game. That didn't stop us from doing other X-Wing related things together though. Like making a starfield battle mat.<br />
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I was tired of having the ships slide around so much on the dining room table so spent a few days looking how other people made their DIY starfield battle maps. Lots of things came up on the internet ranging from <a href="http://www.themetalbikini.com/2013/04/arts-and-spacecrafts-cheap-and-easy-diy.html">felt cloth</a> (decided against this as it would just slide off the table) to <a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/943766/yoga-x-wing-win">yoga mats</a> (lots of pros but relatively expensive compared to other DIY solutions). So armed with this knowledge of what others had done, I spent an afternoon (while doing other errands) looking for some materials and pricing them out. I ended up picking up two black anti-slip shelf liners (something like <a href="http://www.rona.ca/en/anti-slip-shelf-liner-0180188--1">this</a> but 18" wide and shorter) from the dollar store for $6 and taping them together underneath to make a 36" wide field. The mat looked good, gripped the dining room table well and the ships didn't slide so much when placed on the mat.<br />
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To make the mat even better, Penny and I looked up various star fields on the internet as references and spent an evening painting the mat. She had a lot of fun flicking the toothbrush of white paint on to the mat and adding some large pink gas clouds/planets/stars to one of the quarters. The following was our end result<br />
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We were happy with it, but I might try and find a way to make her pink celestial bodies blend better with the rest of the star field at some point in the future.Mr. Ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09486871718969091784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3277526477240892779.post-32617108431683802752015-11-15T01:23:00.003-08:002015-11-15T01:27:49.298-08:00X-Wing - Adapting for a 5 year oldSince picking up the Force Awakens Core Set for X-Wing last Sunday, Penny has asked to play the "Star Wars game with ships"' almost every day this week. Sadly I could not oblige every day because of work but we did play a few more games.<br />
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Having a second ship certainly helped even things out since we weren't playing with Actions or pilot skills. The game at this level was basically just ships moving and shooting at each other so a lot of our games came down to who could point their ship at the enemy and roll better. With only 1 ship, Penny had quite a disadvantage despite the added shielding, but with 2 ships she was able to hold her own much better.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My TIE Fighters chasing down a Z-95. Penny's X-Wing coming in fast to help the Z-95.</td></tr>
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Earlier today we went back to <a href="https://www.facebook.com/GameQuestPrinceGeorge/?fref=ts">Game Quest</a> and added a bit to each of our respective forces (pay day!). Penny wanted the <a href="http://xwing-miniatures.wikia.com/wiki/YT-2400_Freighter_Expansion_Pack">YT-2400</a> but she didn't have enough money for it. She was going to settle for just the <a href="http://xwing-miniatures.wikia.com/wiki/HWK-290_Expansion_Pack">HWK-290</a> and another Z-95 but I mentioned to her that we could look through our old video games and trade in any games that we didn't play anymore to see if we could get the extra money to get the freighter. She was quite happy I suggested it and we ended up getting a fair amount for the games we traded in.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">HWK-290 and YT-2400</td></tr>
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After pooling all of our money together, we got enough to get the YT-2400 and a HWK-290 for her, and <a href="http://xwing-miniatures.wikia.com/wiki/Slave_1_Expansion_Pack">Slave I</a> and a <a href="http://xwing-miniatures.wikia.com/wiki/TIE_Bomber_Expansion_Pack">TIE Bomber</a> for me. I had a hard time deciding between Slave I or the <a href="http://xwing-miniatures.wikia.com/wiki/Imperial_Aces_Expansion_Pack">Imperial Aces</a> expansion (both the same price at Game Quest) but finally decided on Slave I as it was the only one they had and I needed a big ship too.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">TIE Bomber and Slave I</td></tr>
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Anyways, what I really wanted to write about was how to modify the game a little (and it really is just a little) so that someone as young as 5 years old can play.<br />
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The basic rules presented in the Learn to Play scenario are actually perfect with the minor exception of ignoring stress tokens. At 5 years old, a child will have plenty of things to keep track of on the ship card without having to worry about red moves adding stress, then needing green moves to remove stress. Knowing and referencing the pilot skill, attack dice, defense dice, hull points and shield value is about as much as a typical 5 year old can handle when playing a game. Even the simple act of counting damage cards and referencing the hull value to see if the ship blows up is quite a feat for kids that age.<br />
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There are a few things that are easy for them though. Fire arcs are easy enough for a 5 year old to understand. Just need to tell them the ship needs to point at the enemy to shoot. Obstacles are also quite fun and easy to add in as a lot of 5 year old's understand that if you hit something you might get hurt. Penny lost one of our games because her X-Wing crashed into an asteroid while trying to perform a loop to get a clear shot at my last TIE.<br />
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The biggest thing a young child might need help with is how to use the maneuver dial properly. By that I mean the actual physical act of rotating the dial and planning ahead a bit. Surprisingly a lot of 5 year old's lack the fine motor skill necessary to do this so they will require some (or a lot depending) of assistance. Not to mention they have to think about the moves their ships will make by using the maneuver dial which could be difficult depending on how much spatial awareness the child has developed by that age (i.e. how much LEGO or other block toy did they play with up to this point?). Some of the more complicated maneuvers like the Tallon roll might also require explanation so that the kid is aware the maneuver exists and when to use it. I often suggested to Penny when a Tallon roll would be useful as she just hasn't quite gotten the grasp of how that particular maneuver works yet. Along this same line, it is sometimes helpful to remind them that all of the ships move (well in our case all of our ships move, none of them have a 0 move maneuver) and what may seem like a good idea now might not be once all the ships move. There have been one or two times I showed Penny a better move which she did not realize because she forgot that my ships move too.<br />
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Depending on how much patience the 5 year old has, adding in advanced rules may or may not work. I purposely left them out of our games because I didn't want to overwhelm Penny with too many things. She is learning so much at school, violin lessons, skating lessons and at home that adding in additional rules to a game might be too much. Admittedly that isn't going to stop me from trying if the moment is right.<br />
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For example our game today had a moment where Penny's YT-2400 was going to get blown up (had 1 hull point left) and she ended up rolling a pair of eyes on her dodge against my two explosions. She followed this roll with an excited/devastated "Oh no! My ship is going to explode!". At that moment I asked her if her pilot card had an eye on it to which she replied yes. Here was a good moment to introduce the concept of focus.<br />
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Since she hadn't done any actions in the round (let alone the game) I told her she could turn all her eyes on the dice into dodges if her ship had an eye on the card. She was quite happy flipping those eyes to dodges to allow her YT-2400 to keep flying. After that, she kept reminding me she could turn her eyes to dodges for the rest of the game and even said her X-Wing could do the same because it had an eye on it. Shortly after that I mentioned she could use the eye to turn eyes into explosions on an attack as well. When she tried to change both an attack and a defense in the same turn I told her she couldn't do the dodge modification if she did the attack modification (and vice versa). She seemed to understand and used her focus to dodge my attacks and hit my ships depending on the situation. In case anyone was wondering, yes I did use my own focus as well during the game after I mentioned the rule to her (but not before). We didn't use the focus tokens but next game we will so that she knows how the exact rule works (I'll probably remind her so she doesn't forget)<br />
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I always intended to introduce my daughter to wargaming via Warhammer but sadly this will never happen (for context about why I will never do this see <a href="http://deathwing-assault.blogspot.ca/2015/01/2014-year-in-review.html#more">here</a>). So instead I will do it via X-Wing as the game is way more affordable (only needing 2+ ships to play, but inevitably everyone will get a lot more), Penny loves the universe (especially with all the Episode 7 hype) and the rules are so simple and easy to understand she can play without getting bogged down in the rules. Now I just need to get the wife interested (she already said we need to add the Millenium Falcon to our collection) and maybe get some Scum & Villainy ships so we can have everyone in the family playing!Mr. Ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09486871718969091784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3277526477240892779.post-8588258177877260112015-11-09T22:19:00.004-08:002015-11-10T06:38:37.492-08:00X-Wing - Getting into the game<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Last night I found out that they released a new trailer for The Force Awakens so I decided to watch it before dinner. While I was doing this, Penny asked what I was watching and jumped into my lap and watched the trailer with me. Afterwards she asked to watch the other Force Awaken trailers on the playlist so we did. She's really excited by the new movie and I really want to take her so to help prep her for the new movie I decided to take her to <a href="https://www.facebook.com/GameQuestPrinceGeorge/">Game Quest</a> after dinner to see what Star Wars X-Wing stuff they had.</div>
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We ended up buying the <a href="https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/products/x-wing/products/force-awakens-core-set/">X-Wing Force Awakens</a> box set and proceeded to learn the game as soon as we got home. The game officially has an age limit of 14+ but ever since Penny was a baby, I've been pushing the envelope so to say with her toys and entertainment. While taking out all the tokens and templates she ended up choosing the X-Wing as her ship. So I ended up with the Imperial TIE Fighters (well I guess First Order) as mine.</div>
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We played through the tutorial mission easily enough. She understood how to use the maneuver dial and what dice to roll and what the symbols meant except for the Eye as it's not described in the tutorial mission and took me a while to find out what it actually does. It took her a few turns to realize she shouldn't tell me her plans as it would allow me to plan my own moves better. Unfortunately for her, the dice just did not go her way and my TIE fighters finished off the X-Wing at the end. There was a moment mid-game where she annihilated one of the TIE fighters in one volley though and that made her happy.</div>
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While we were cleaning up all the tokens she declared that she needed another ship. I did not dispute this because the two TIE fighters had a slightly higher point value than the lone X-Wing. Using just the basic ships with no actions or pilot abilities heavily favours the side with more ships I think. As we play more games I might introduce actions but I don't want to overload her as she just turned 5.</div>
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So today, after her skating lessons, we went back to Game Quest and picked up a <a href="http://xwing-miniatures.wikia.com/wiki/Z-95_Headhunter_Expansion_Pack">Z-95 Headhunter</a> for her. That should even the playing field against my two TIE fighters. Haven't had a chance to play another game but we will no doubt get a few games in on Remembrance Day which we, with me being a teacher and her just starting school, both have off.</div>
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I don't think my wife has seen this comic yet, but I think I'll send it to her soon.</div>
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<a href="http://direman.com/direman/comic.php?comicID=1066"><img border="0" src="http://www.direman.com/direman/comics/00001066.png" height="640" width="525" /></a></div>
<br />Mr. Ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09486871718969091784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3277526477240892779.post-27882640902346989522015-06-22T12:19:00.000-07:002015-06-22T12:19:03.720-07:00Video Games - Fantasy eSports and Alpha DraftWhile watching some League of Legends videos on YouTube an ad popped up for the fantasy esports site <a href="https://alphadraft.com/">Alpha Draft</a>. The ad basically said, if you like esports come make a fantasy team and see if you can win money. I clicked on it to check it out thinking I'm a fan of esports (League mostly) and maybe I can generate some free money out of this much like I did with <a href="http://deathwing-assault.blogspot.ca/2013/05/video-games-things-i-bought-with-diablo.html">Diablo 3</a> a few years back.<br />
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I've been playing on Alpha Draft for about 2 weeks now and so far after an initial investment of $15, have been making money each week. Not an appreciable amount mind you as I messed up the first week and used the second week to make back what I had lost and initially invested. However, much like selling stuff on Diablo 3, small gains eventually lead to larger gains and as long as I am growing my funds each week, I'll be happy.<br />
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So far the experiment is working and I'm curious to see just how much I can make by the end of the summer. Might post my thoughts on how I pick a team later as I get more experienced with each game.Mr. Ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09486871718969091784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3277526477240892779.post-78260198879270974352015-05-25T22:52:00.000-07:002015-05-25T23:00:20.471-07:00Travel - Visiting Japan is Bad for the WalletSpring break this year was way different than previous years. In previous years all I really did was stay at home and watch Penny while my wife works. This year though we went to Japan for my brother's wedding.<br />
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We were there for 10 days and spent it split between Tokyo and where my brother lives in Kofu. We also managed to get to Kyoto for a day trip and see the bamboo groves and the <a href="http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3913.html">Tenryuji </a>temple in Arashiyama. Didn't get around to visiting Himeji castle (too far for a day trip) so couldn't cross that off the list (see <a href="http://deathwing-assault.blogspot.ca/2014/04/travel-civilization-5-world-wonder-tour.html">World Wonder Tour</a>). Just means that I'll have to go back in the future. Japan will be a lot more fun when Penny is older I think.<br />
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Anyways, while in Tokyo we visited the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akihabara">Akihabara</a> district which in the past was known as a big electronics shopping area but now is kind of a hotbed for otaku culture. Lots of shops catering to fans of video games, anime and manga. So many arcades and toy shops. We visited a few shops over 3 days and I ended up walking away with 3 Gundam plastic (aka Gunpla) model kits; a high grade <a href="http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10307212">Wing Gundam Zero Honoo</a>, a <a href="http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10118993">Master Grade Deathscythe</a> and a <a href="http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10009228">Master Grade RX-78</a>.<br />
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I like mecha anime and although I have yet to watch the original Gundam series, I am a fan of a few of the other Gundam series (namely Gundam Wing and recently Gundam Build Fighters). Buying the model kits also helped sate my model building appetite. With Games Workshop being out of my price range I figured getting back into Gunpla would be just fine.<br />
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Once we got home I decided to start with the Wing Gundam kit. The last time I built a Gundam model was back in high school and it had been a while since I last put any kind of model together. It was only a high grade kit therefore easier to put together than the master grade kits.<br />
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I spent more time than I usually do being a lot more careful about cutting the pieces out and filing pieces down to make them smooth. After the break are some WiP shots as well as the finished product.<br />
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Body and head complete. This kit seems way more complicated and detailed than the ones I put together in high school. <a href="http://t.co/hZQQOShNOm">pic.twitter.com/hZQQOShNOm</a></div>
— Mr. Arocena (@MrArocena) <a href="https://twitter.com/MrArocena/status/586615740712652800">April 10, 2015</a></blockquote>
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Arms attached. Definitely more articulate than the previous kits I've made. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/gunpla?src=hash">#gunpla</a> <a href="http://t.co/cn8WxT10yu">pic.twitter.com/cn8WxT10yu</a></div>
— Mr. Arocena (@MrArocena) <a href="https://twitter.com/MrArocena/status/586627551411355648">April 10, 2015</a></blockquote>
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Arms and legs attached. Slow going but it's looking good so far. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/gunpla?src=hash">#gunpla</a> <a href="http://t.co/r79ZMvLdGZ">pic.twitter.com/r79ZMvLdGZ</a></div>
— Mr. Arocena (@MrArocena) <a href="https://twitter.com/MrArocena/status/586994791583350784">April 11, 2015</a></blockquote>
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Wing Gundam Zero Honoo complete. I should have bought more action bases for the other 2 kits I picked up. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/gunpla?src=hash">#gunpla</a> <a href="http://t.co/S9vJbOq7LP">pic.twitter.com/S9vJbOq7LP</a></div>
— Mr. Arocena (@MrArocena) <a href="https://twitter.com/MrArocena/status/587042057773957120">April 11, 2015</a></blockquote>
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The model took a weekend to put together and although I could have probably done it in a day, it would have been rushed and probably not look as good. Even though I built the model, I still want to touch it up. At the very least I will attempt to do some panel lining to add some depth to the model. Unlike my Warhammer models, gunpla don't really need to be painted but I have the option later if I decide I don't like the current colour scheme.<br />
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My next goal, start and finish the RX-78, then on to my favourite Gundam, Deathscythe!Mr. Ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09486871718969091784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3277526477240892779.post-7198539529468178392015-05-20T23:23:00.002-07:002015-05-20T23:27:25.580-07:00Northern Fancon 2015!The weekend of May 8th-10th saw the first ever Comic Con style event near my home, <a href="http://fancon.ca/">Northern Fancon 2015</a>!<br />
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I was a pretty excited about the event and my parents ended up buying me a ticket for Christmas. The event itself didn't seem to have that much for the first few months as it took forever for them to post a schedule for events and things (their guest line up kept growing as time went on as well). I think it was about a month or so before the event took place that they started scheduling panels and about 2 weeks before the event that they had a schedule for the guest panel/interview and some workshops.<br />
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It didn't feel like there was a whole lot this first year. I felt like I was in a trade show with lots of booths for vendors, artists and even some other events coming up later in the year. Maybe that's what these things are like? I was hoping for a few more gaming related events like tournaments or demos or what not. The venue has a lot of space and closed rooms so I could see doing a wargaming tournament or card game tournament or something. There was a (seemingly hastily put together) Settler's of Catan tournament as well as a Smash Bros. tournament but that was only for one day and I think they could have easily done something like a Warhammer tournament or Magic: The Gathering draft or what not. I mean Northern BC has a large community of wargamers and Magic players they could have easily tapped in to (no pun intended) for either logistical support or participants.<br />
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There were some cool guests though; most notably <a href="https://twitter.com/WilliamShatner">William Shatner</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/JewelStaite">Jewel Staite</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/TiaCarrere">Tia Carrere</a>. My family was totally stoked that <a href="https://twitter.com/johndelancie">John de Lancie</a> was there as he appears in one of my favourite fandoms (Star Trek) and also one of my daughter's favourite shows (My Little Pony).<br />
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Speaking of Mr. de Lancie, when we went to get his autograph he noticed Penny and asked her if she was a fan of My Little Pony, to which she replied yes. He then continued to talk with her and told her that he suspected daddy (me) actually wanted his signature on one of the prints featuring Q and proceeded to pick one and sign it for me. Mr. de Lancie then told Penny that he would give her one too as a present and signed a print of Discord (his character in My Little Pony) to which she said thank you. He made the event quite worth it for both Penny and I. Kind of regretting not getting a photo with him, but c'est la vie.<br />
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My father in law also got something out of it as we shelled out the money to get him an autograph and photo with William Shatner. He grew up watching the original Star Trek and is a big fan. He also had a great time perusing the comic book vendors looking at old comics he used to read as a kid.<br />
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One of our favourite parts about Fancon was all the cosplay going on. Penny decided to participate when we told her she could dress up.<br />
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Her first day she went as Dr. Anna (this was her Halloween costume as well)<br />
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She eventually traded her sonic screw driver for a light saber when she saw the <a href="http://www.501st.com/">501st Legion</a> booth.<br />
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On the second day she dressed as Princess Elsa and again took the opportunity to get a photo with the 501st. She really likes them.<br />
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She also found a cool Batman cosplayer as well and insisted on taking a picture with him. She originally didn't want the Joker to be in it, but being the Joker he photo-bombed anyways. Penny is giving her best serious face along with Batman.<br />
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On the third day she dressed as the 11th doctor. We were originally going to dress her as the 10th doctor, but she really wanted to be the 11th as he was her favourite. This costume got the most comments and everyone addressed her as the Doctor when they saw her.<br />
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She was happy she got to go inside the TARDIS as the one in London was locked when she visited it last summer.<br />
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We also found a really good Cloud Strife cosplayer (I believe this guy won 2nd place in the Novice division that day)<br />
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Aside from the cosplay, the panel interviews were also great. Really gives a lot of insight into the lives of these celebrities and makes them seem a whole lot more normal than their jobs would suggest.</div>
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I am looking forward to next year's Northern Fancon 2016 and hoping it will be more fun and exciting than this year's was. I am even considering putting together a costume for next year as well so Penny doesn't have to dress up alone (not that she cares if she's the only one in the family dressing up).</div>
Mr. Ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09486871718969091784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3277526477240892779.post-68574989545279656862015-04-29T14:54:00.002-07:002015-04-29T15:02:43.435-07:00MTG - Constructed Pauper and UR FiendFor the first time in a long time I participated in a paper constructed event. I usually participate in pre-release tournaments and maybe a draft once in a blue moon but not constructed. Playing competitive constructed Magic just takes too much time and effort, at least in the Standard format. I could try an eternal format like Modern but the meta-game is rather large and would require a large initial investment (both time and money) to be competitive.<br />
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Thankfully, the friendly local game store (Great White Entertainment) hosted a legacy Pauper tournament. And fortunately for me I had built a legacy Pauper deck a while back to mirror one I played a lot on MTGO. It's a ridiculously fun deck and can win out of nowhere while also rewarding skillful play as some match-ups require it. I wasn't running the most optimal version but I had no idea what the competition would be so didn't think a fully optimized version was necessary. Unfortunately I was wrong. Still had fun and now I know what to expect for next time.<br />
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The deck I played is as follows and the event only ran 3 rounds due to time constraints and having only 10 people participating.<br />
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<a name='more'></a>UR Fiend 1.0<br />
Creatures<br />
4x <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/ddj/2.jpg">Kiln Fiend</a><br />
4x <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dgm/87.jpg">Nivix Cyclops</a><br />
3x <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/53.jpg">Elusive Spellfist</a><br />
1x <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/ddj/6.jpg">Wee Dragonauts</a><br />
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Instants<br />
4x <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/pd2/17.jpg">Lightning Bolt</a><br />
2x <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/wwk/26.jpg">Dispel</a><br />
3x <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/frf/116.jpg">Temur Battle Rage</a><br />
2x <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/nph/116.jpg">Mutagenic Growth</a><br />
4x <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/nph/2.jpg">Apostle's Blessing</a><br />
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Sorceries<br />
4x <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/m12/73.jpg">Ponder</a><br />
4x <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/m11/70.jpg">Preordain</a><br />
4x <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/nph/35.jpg">Gitaxian Probe</a><br />
3x <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/roe/60.jpg">Distortion Strike</a><br />
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Land<br />
3x <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/248.jpg">Evolving Wilds</a><br />
3x <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/frf/172.jpg">Swiftwater Cliffs</a><br />
7x Island<br />
5x Mountain<br />
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Sideboard<br />
2x <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/wwk/26.jpg">Dispel</a><br />
3x <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/zen/67.jpg">Spell Pierce</a><br />
2x <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/zen/147.jpg">Seismic Shudder</a><br />
3x <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/ddk/60.jpg">Flame Slash</a><br />
1x <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dka/51.jpg">Stormbound Geist</a><br />
1x <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/ju/89.jpg">Flaring Pain</a><br />
3x <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/ddh/58.jpg">Vapor Snag</a><br />
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The matches were all very close except for the last match which I just kind of stomped.<br />
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Match 1 - vs. Mono Black Control<br />
Game 1 - I was able to combo off on turn 3 or 4 I think. He did not show a lot of removal and tapped out early.<br />
Game 2 - I fully expected a tonne of removal so I sided in <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dka/51.jpg">Stormbound Geist</a>, <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/wwk/26.jpg">Dispel</a> and <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/zen/67.jpg">Spell Pierce</a> and took out <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/ddj/6.jpg">Wee Dragonauts</a>, <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/nph/116.jpg">Mutagenic Growth</a> and <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/roe/60.jpg">Distortion Strike</a>. Didn't see any counters though and his removal took care of all my threats.<br />
Game 3 - A little closer and I was almost able to fight through almost all the removal and <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/vma/122.jpg">Hymn to Tourach</a> (that card makes paper Mono Black Control pauper so freaking powerful) but a very timely <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/ds/41.jpg">Echoing Decay</a> foiled my plans after I dropped double <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/ddj/2.jpg">Kiln Fiend</a> with enough spells to kill the turn after.<br />
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Match 2 - vs. Mono Blue Control<br />
Game 1 - Couldn't fight through his counter and bounce suite. Got to a point where I thought I might be able to fight through his counters but he had a <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/jvc/23.jpg">Daze</a> in hand and I wouldn't have enough mana open to counter it because I forgot to activate an <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/248.jpg">Evolving Wilds</a> the turn before. <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/nph/35.jpg">Gitaxian Probe</a> is really useful in this match up.<br />
Game 2 - Sided in my own counters but didn't see any of them. Outlasted all his counters and got the combo off late in the match. Again <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/nph/35.jpg">Gitaxian Probe</a> was king.<br />
Game 3 - He drew a lot of counters and bounce and I couldn't keep a threat on the board. A <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/nph/35.jpg">Gitaxian Probe</a> revealed a handful of counters but I got beat down by <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/jvc/16.jpg">Spire Golem</a>s before I could get a chance to draw my own counters and more threats.<br />
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Match 3 - vs. RW Heroic<br />
Game 1 - He had no removal and was looking to beat me down with a 5/5 <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/jou/110.jpg">Satyr Hoplite</a> but double <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/pd2/17.jpg">Lightning Bolt</a> took care of it and he had no other threats. He had a lot of <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/29.jpg">Pacifism</a>s but I was eventually able to stick a threat and kill him with it.<br />
Game 2 - He pacified my early <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/ddj/2.jpg">Kiln Fiend</a>, but later on I was able to <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/m12/73.jpg">Ponder</a> -> <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/m11/70.jpg">Preordain</a> x2 -> <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/nph/35.jpg">Gitaxian Probe</a> x2 -> <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/nph/2.jpg">Apostle's Blessing</a> -> <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/pd2/17.jpg">Lightning Bolt</a> and just stomp him with a 22/2 <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/ddj/2.jpg">Kiln Fiend</a>.<br />
<br />
After playing in that tournament I now understand some of the card choices in the recent Pauper Daily Events. I really need to get a set of <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/isd/51a.jpg">Delver of Secrets</a> as that is such a powerful turn 1 play against any kind of control deck (only have 1 and it's in my cube). <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/53.jpg">Elusive Spellfist</a> does make a decent substitute though as you can poke for damage every time a dig card is cast. I also need more <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dka/51.jpg">Stormbound Geist</a> especially against removal heavy matchups like MBC.<br />
<br />
The deck that ended up going 3-0 was a UG Hexproof Aura deck so I think I'm also going to have to find some <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/ul/27.jpg">Aura Flux</a> and/or <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/rtr/93.jpg">Electrickery</a> cards (I used <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/zen/147.jpg">Seismic Shudder</a> simply because I had no idea where I put my <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/rtr/93.jpg">Electrickery</a> cards)<br />
<br />
There were 10 people playing so hopefully Pauper magic becomes a thing with the local community. Excited to play more and continue tuning my UR Fiend (or the more modern name, Izzet Blitz).Mr. Ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09486871718969091784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3277526477240892779.post-78344732009517252842015-03-22T18:04:00.002-07:002015-03-22T23:17:10.944-07:00MTG - Dragons of Tarkir Pre-ReleaseNew set out for Magic meaning another pre-release!<br />
<br />
I was really excited to play in this pre-release because of all the dragons that were going to be in the set. And my pool did not disappoint (more about my pool later). Penny had to come with me for the first bit though as my wife had to work and the in-laws couldn't babysit for her right away due to church commitments. Penny did a good job helping me sort the cards into their colours and even picked out the sleeves she thought I should use. The selection turned some heads and I'm not sure whether my opponents thought I was a scrub or not because of it.<br />
<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcYOuJ68VmyQBqjQBhtZ_DrFefqolOVaUUsnkRu1RC-aZp2N_ug2SErDU8uXZ_UaO0NrsWU6prLResOdwHwnvVCl9yAYo0Uo0DdJ7dw38eRHvuJQJMk7mdFAWA8L3jbY4NZNspUOReZ_v0/s1600/Trixie.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcYOuJ68VmyQBqjQBhtZ_DrFefqolOVaUUsnkRu1RC-aZp2N_ug2SErDU8uXZ_UaO0NrsWU6prLResOdwHwnvVCl9yAYo0Uo0DdJ7dw38eRHvuJQJMk7mdFAWA8L3jbY4NZNspUOReZ_v0/s1600/Trixie.jpg" height="320" title="The Great and Powerful Trixie!" width="247" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The great and powerful Trixie will help smite my opponents!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
I picked Atarka because I liked the Red and Green pool in the set. Lots of big power creatures who gained additional abilities for being big (thanks to the new rule Formidable). Sealed deck in my experience comes down to whoever has the biggest creatures or the most evasive creatures. Rarely do you encounter a deck with a ton of answers to all your big creatures so eventually you can just run your opponent over.<br />
<br />
Notable cards in my pool were<br />
<br />
Gold<br />
<a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/218.jpg">Dragonlord Kolaghan</a><br />
<a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/frf/155.jpg">Kolaghan, the Storm's Fury</a><br />
<a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/224.jpg">Kolaghan's Command</a><br />
<br />
Red<br />
<a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/164.jpg">Twin Bolt</a><br />
<a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/161.jpg">Tail Lash</a><br />
<a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/151.jpg">Roast</a> x2<br />
<a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/129.jpg">Atarka Pummeler</a><br />
<a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/128.jpg">Atarka Efreet</a><br />
<a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/135.jpg">Dragon Fodder</a> x2<br />
<a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/frf/112.jpg">Rageform</a><br />
<a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/147.jpg">Lose Calm</a><br />
<a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/138.jpg">Dragonlord's Servant</a><br />
<a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/154.jpg">Sarkahn's Triumph</a><br />
<a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/167.jpg">Volcanic Vision</a><br />
<a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/163.jpg">Tormenting Voice</a> x2<br />
<a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/frf/107.jpg">Mardu Warmark</a><br />
<a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/157.jpg">Sprinting Warbrute</a><br />
<a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/160.jpg">Summit Prowler</a> x2<br />
<a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/149.jpg">Qal Sisma Behemoth</a><br />
<br />
<br />
Green<br />
<a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/195.jpg">Pinion Feast</a><br />
<a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/208.jpg">Stampeding Elk Herd</a> x2<br />
<a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/174.jpg">Atarka Beastbreaker</a><br />
<a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/188.jpg">Glade Watcher</a><br />
<a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/172.jpg">Ainok Survivalist</a> x2<br />
<a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/206.jpg">Sheltered Aerie</a><br />
<a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/198.jpg">Salt Road Ambushers</a><br />
<a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/170.jpg">Aerie Bowmasters</a><br />
<a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/frf/144.jpg">Whisperer of the Wilds</a><br />
<a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/183.jpg">Dragon-Scarred Bear</a> x2<br />
<a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/193.jpg">Naturalize</a><br />
<a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/frf/136.jpg">Ruthless Instincts</a><br />
<a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/211.jpg">Tread Upon</a><br />
<a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/frf/122.jpg">Ambush Krotiq</a><br />
<a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/197.jpg">Revealing Wind</a><br />
<a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/191.jpg">Inspiring Call</a><br />
<a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/202.jpg">Segmented Krotiq</a><br />
<br />
Black<br />
<a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/96.jpg">Deathbringer Regent</a><br />
<a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/125.jpg">Virulent Plague</a><br />
<a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/102.jpg">Foul-Tongue Invocation</a><br />
<a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/117.jpg">Self-Inflicted Wound</a><br />
<a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/122.jpg">Silumgar Butcher</a><br />
<a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/frf/82.jpg">Sibsig Host</a><br />
<a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/110.jpg">Mind Rot</a> x2<br />
<a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/115.jpg">Reckless Imp</a><br />
<a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/113.jpg">Qarsi Sadist</a><br />
<a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/104.jpg">Gravepurge</a><br />
<a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/105.jpg">Hand of Silumgar</a><br />
<br />
There wasn't anything super exciting in White or Blue that would have made me want to switch. Especially after opening those Red and Black cards. It's a shame I didn't get enough good black to run straight RB. Would have made the mana base way more stable.<br />
<br />
My final deck ended up being<br />
<a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/218.jpg">Dragonlord Kolaghan</a><br />
<a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/frf/155.jpg">Kolaghan, the Storm's Fury</a><br />
<a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/224.jpg">Kolaghan's Command</a><br />
<a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/164.jpg">Twin Bolt</a><br />
<a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/161.jpg">Tail Lash</a><br />
<a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/151.jpg">Roast</a> x2<br />
<a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/129.jpg">Atarka Pummeler</a><br />
<a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/128.jpg">Atarka Efreet</a><br />
<a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/135.jpg">Dragon Fodder</a> x2<br />
<a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/frf/112.jpg">Rageform</a><br />
<a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/154.jpg">Sarkahn's Triumph</a> (though this was often sided out for <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/195.jpg">Pinion Feast</a>)<br />
<a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/208.jpg">Stampeding Elk Herd</a> x2<br />
<a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/174.jpg">Atarka Beastbreaker</a><br />
<a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/172.jpg">Ainok Survivalist</a><br />
<a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/206.jpg">Sheltered Aerie</a><br />
<a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/198.jpg">Salt Road Ambushers</a><br />
<a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/170.jpg">Aerie Bowmasters</a><br />
<a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/frf/144.jpg">Whisperer of the Wilds</a><br />
<a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/183.jpg">Dragon-Scarred Bear</a> x2<br />
<a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/frf/169.jpg">Jungle Hollow</a><br />
Swamp x2<br />
Forest x8<br />
Mountain x7<br />
<br />
Match breakdowns after the break.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>Match 1 vs. UW - Draw<br />
Game 1 - Long grindy affair. I managed to stall his flying attack with <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/170.jpg">Aerie Bowmasters</a> and then I started beating down with <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/218.jpg">Dragonlord Kolaghan</a> and <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/frf/155.jpg">Kolaghan, the Storm's Fury</a> but the latter got tapped down and the former got pacified. He was eventually able to overcome me with an army of Djinn tokens and other flyers.<br />
<br />
Game 2 - I beat him down on the backs of the <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/208.jpg">Stampeding Elk Herd</a> and some megamorphs. A clutch Jungle Hollow allowed me to survive the flying assault of his two megamorphed <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/25.jpg">Misthoof Kirin</a>.<br />
<br />
Game 3 - Had 5 turns, so match ended in a draw.<br />
<br />
Match 2 vs. UB - Win<br />
Game 1 - Opponent mulliganned to 5 and then got flooded. No answers to my creatures so was over quickly.<br />
<br />
Game 2 - Pretty even and I would have lost but my opponent played <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/115.jpg">Reckless Imp</a> normally instead of with dash. It was the last 2 power needed to finish me off as I did not have enough fliers to block everything going my way. My counter-attack on my subsequent turn won me the match.<br />
<br />
Match 3 vs. UB - Loss<br />
Game 1 - Opponent curved out perfectly with a bunch of death touch creatures going from <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/105.jpg">Hand of Silumgar</a> to <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/123.jpg">Ukud Cobra</a> to <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/120.jpg">Sidisi, Undead Vizier</a> to <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/220.jpg">Dragonlord Silumgar</a>.<br />
<br />
Game 2 - Got stuck on 3 forests and drew lots of red cards.<br />
<br />
This guy would go on to eventually win.<br />
<br />
Match 4 vs. RB - Win<br />
Game 1 - Got to 4 lands but drew all 5 drops afterwards and didn't see the 5th land.<br />
<br />
Game 2 - I curved out nicely and got a bunch of high powered trampling attackers that he couldn't deal with.<br />
<br />
Game 3 - Much more interaction this game. Game changing moment came when he cast his <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/218.jpg">Dragonlord Kolaghan</a> after I cast mine but I had a <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/161.jpg">Tail Lash</a> in hand so mine killed his and eventually swung for the win.<br />
<br />
Match 5 vs UW - Loss<br />
Game 1 - Opponent got stuck on 3 lands.<br />
<br />
Game 2 - Almost won this game but I misplayed an attack terribly. I was at 3 life but had a vastly superior board position. My mistake was when I played <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/161.jpg">Tail Lash</a> in response to a hexproof instant to clear away a blocker. What I forgot was that <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/81.jpg">Taigam's Strike</a> was just cast and waiting to be rebounded. If I used Tail Lash in response to Taigam's Strike the following turn I could have weathered the ensuing attack and struck back for lethal (I had <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/frf/155.jpg">Kolaghan, the Storm's Fury</a> in hand with three other 4+ power creatures and he would have had to alpha strike for the win)<br />
<br />
Game 3 - I got flooded and did not draw any spells beyond the first 4 in my opening hand.<br />
<br />
The game 2 misplay here still irks me even more as I write this. It was the only loss that I felt I could have prevented with smarter play. Oh well, I suppose that's what I get for playing MTG only at pre-releases and the occasional cube nights. I used to do a lot better when I played more often on MTGO or at FNMs. I would usually a top 8 pre-releases. Not so much these last few events. I miss too many little things (like the Rebound on <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/81.jpg">Taigam's Strike</a>) that I think can be avoided simply by playing more.<br />
<br />
The day wasn't a total waste though. I rolled a 22 on the Dragonfury game so got all the promo cards. Sadly the <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/187.jpg">Foe-Razer Regent</a> wasn't foil so I ended up trading it to someone who had the pre-release foil version. Also picked up <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/137.jpg">Dragon Whisperer</a> and a pre-release <a href="http://magiccards.info/scans/en/dtk/226.jpg">Necromancer Dragon</a>. More things to add to my cube!Mr. Ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09486871718969091784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3277526477240892779.post-64313185864485692432015-03-17T15:02:00.000-07:002015-03-17T15:25:10.501-07:00Final Fantasy XIV - Mini-Games!The <a href="http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Manderville_Gold_Saucer">Golden Saucer</a> was recently added to the game and boy is it ever fun.<br />
<br />
For those unfamiliar with the original <a href="http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Gold_Saucer_(Final_Fantasy_VII)">Golden Saucer</a>, it was introduced way back in <a href="http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Final_Fantasy_VII">Final Fantasy 7</a> (and to my knowledge was never re-introduced in any other Final Fantasy game). It was a giant amusement park and acted like one in the game with all manner of mini-games. It also had some interesting rewards like Cloud's final limit break, Omnislash, in the <a href="http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Battle_Square">Battle Square</a> mini-game (fun fact, my brother managed to obtain <a href="http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Omnislash">Omnislash </a>on the first disc of the game by grinding out 50+ levels in random encounters and then taking his super powered Cloud to the Battle Square to win the Omnislash manual).<br />
<br />
Many of the mini-games recreated some of the sequences in the game like the bike battle (my favourite) or the submarine battle (also a favourite of mine) while others were more traditional carnival/amusement park games like basketball toss or strong man games. And don't get me started on <a href="http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Chocobo_Square">Chocobo Racing</a> and breeding.<br />
<br />
In FF14 the Saucer pretty much does the same thing. It has lots of mini-games, a bunch of random events, chocobo racing and <a href="http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Triple_Triad">Triple Triad</a>! I never played Final Fantasy 8 so I had no idea what Triple Triad was other than it was a game within FF8, It's fun and you get to collect cards and use your cards to win more Golden Saucer points (the currency within the Golden Saucer).<br />
<br />
At the moment the rewards at the Golden Saucer are cosmetic items, chocobo racing items or Triple Triad cards. I got lucky and managed to win 10,000 golden saucer points from a mini-lottery and bought a new hair style (only available at the golden saucer).<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwm91NyyhPsH7em_sysytkjkgoajhRsV0Lr5E8JuC0Vkrn2QZJzGB_YLPqaQc1LLWeHDhYcGHOupIH10sWA7esISxBmjtZ3zehoxohQYpoD0OtFlr7ff5LHTYSsuUf9xMOBOv_dz_sxxCA/s1600/ffxiv_03142015_175123.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwm91NyyhPsH7em_sysytkjkgoajhRsV0Lr5E8JuC0Vkrn2QZJzGB_YLPqaQc1LLWeHDhYcGHOupIH10sWA7esISxBmjtZ3zehoxohQYpoD0OtFlr7ff5LHTYSsuUf9xMOBOv_dz_sxxCA/s1600/ffxiv_03142015_175123.png" height="225" title="Mialee's New Hair" width="400" /></a></div>
<picture hair="" new="" of=""></picture><br />
<br />
Then I spent the leftover points on racing feed (though I still have to actually race my chocobo). I won another mini-lottery and will probably save the points for some of the cosmetic weapons for my other classes when/if I get them to 50.<br />
<br />
Little things like this definitely make this game nicer than other MMOs I've played.Mr. Ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09486871718969091784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3277526477240892779.post-83582365560115212462015-02-18T15:15:00.002-08:002015-02-18T15:45:27.274-08:00League of Legends - Awesome Plays vol. 1Despite what my previous posts might suggest, I do still play other games aside from Final Fantasy 14. And to prove it I'm going to start by showcasing some nice plays from a recent League of Legends night I had with some friends.<br />
<br />
I still play a lot of League but mostly with friends in recent weeks. Haven't played much ranked despite season 5 starting a few weeks ago. I'm only 2 placement matches in. So far 0-2 because I am out of practice and I really should play a bunch of normal games to get the hang of the new patch. I probably won't though and at some point in the future i'm going to just dive right into my remaining 8 placement matches.<br />
<br />
Anyways on to some highlights of a recent game! Two warnings though: one of my friends uses some colorful language. Also I think I need to adjust my mic settings to tone down some of the higher pitches/volume from my voice.<br />
<a name='more'></a>This first one showcases the power of level 5-6 Jarvan I (J4).<br />
I had just ganked top, and mid and was headed to bot lane after securing my red buff. Graves had gone back but was on his way and Urgot was pretty low and pushing. Since neither bot laner had gone back yet, their trinket wards probably ran out and were still on cool down so it was a good time to gank. Urgot noticed me a little late and I was able to cut him off but he burned his flash. I went back to the lower bush to recall and was surprised Urgot stuck around.<br />
Since I was very close to 6 I waited a bit to leech some XP, and once the lower bush was warded I jumped him (Graves was very close so this was a good time to start the fight). Unfortunately I messed up my ult and hit Taric instead (I have no idea how as I was sure I clicked on Urgot) but Urgot messed up just as bad and ulted himself into my ring of death. Graves showed up and kills both Urgot and Taric.<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/tyVDNAXeTig" width="560"></iframe><br />
This second one was very weird and I have no idea how we pulled it off. <br />
Same game. Dragon had respawned and we went to take it. Unfortuanely the other team knew also and I was worried they would jump us which they did, but it was a little late. Irelia and I burned dragon down and then Zed jumped in with Ryze and Urgot very close. We, however, were able to CC Zed and kill him, then Urgot backed out for some reason and left Ryze to fight us 1v2 which did not go his way. Taric showed up at the end but by then Irelia and I had disengaged happy with our 2 kills and dragon.<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/f85zCI6VwYQ" width="560"></iframe><br />
<br />
And last highlight is a text book top lane gank from the river. Sion didn't ward the river (actually I think I timed it so that his ward would be done and still on cool down) so it was easy to just walk in behind him as he pushed the lane (not a good idea against a Gnar I think). I lead off with the shield to slow him and I intended to knock him up as he walks away but I miss the flag toss combo (I think I missed that flag toss combo on my next 2 or 3 gank attempts, was a bad night I guess). He flashes, then I flash but he's just a little but too far. Thankfully Gnar throws a box at him and secures the kill. That basically won the lane for Gnar and he bullied Sion the entire game and made him rage quit at some point.<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5Ezsvzbfios" width="560"></iframe><br />
<br />
<br />Mr. Ahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09486871718969091784noreply@blogger.com0