This Geek's Week...

- Played 2 games of the Star Wars LCG.  In the 1st, I was playing as my Imperial Navy deck, vs a mix of Rebel/Jedi.  The game was close, I ended up losing due the Red Five getting shielded just prior to me killing him off, which would have saved the game for me.  I ended with 10 points, 2 or 3 destroyed objectives, with the Death Star's laser in my hand, so literally next turn would have equaled a win for me.  The next game was just as close!  I played my Jedi vs a Navy/Sith mixed deck.   I had out one of the objectives that gave me a point for totaling up who control the force, and I dropped Obi-wan 1st turn against 2 ties.  I wouldn't see another unit for many turns, all the while forcing Obi-Wan to defend as best he could!  The force stayed on the light side the whole time, which helped, considering I wasn't able to attack.  Eventually, I managed to swarm the board in a single turn, with a couple Jedi in Hiding, and the 1 cost twi'lek.  I ended up keeping the enemy TIES heavily focused, allowing me to swarm the objectives, unopposed.  Still, the game ended with the empire at 10 or 11 points.... another close one!

- Played 2 games of Netrunner.  1st was Criminals vs my Hass-Bioroid.  I ended up winning, mostly due to a suicidal run by the Criminal player.  My deck ended up stalling out.  I ended with 6 points, the criminals had 2.  We switched it up, and I played my Criminal vs Jinteki.  It was pretty rough!  I never saw a single Icebreaker all game, despite running more than what the internets considers the norm. (I like to have a backup plan if a program gets trashed)  Needles to say, I ended up scoring 6 points, to Jinteki's 0 before getting double scorched earth for the loss.

- Worked a bit more on painting my Retribution stuff.  Finished painting the Warcaster, Kaelyssa.  I'm having a hard time getting excited for Warmachine at the moment, which I think is contributing to my slow pace in the painting department.  

- Played some Dead Space.... man, that game is CREEPY!

- Downloaded Neverwinter to give it a try until Elder Scrolls Online comes out.  It seems just "ok", but it is free to play.  I rolled an Elf control mage named "WuhSawBe"  and a halfling great-weapon warrior named "Failbo Laggins" on the Mindflayer server.

- Painted a bit on an Alaitoc Warlock.  Nothing to really write about, as it was literally just a coat of yellow on the helmet.

This Geek's Week...

Free Comic Book Day at Elite Comics in Overland Park, KS!

- Built a Criminal Deck for Netrunner.

- Played some Injustice on the PS3... Man, some of those S.T.A.R. Labs mission are tough!

- Made it up to the shop this Wednesday.  Played 2 games of the Lord of the Rings Deck Builder.  Once normal, and once are the hard mode.  The funny thing was that Lurtz on hard mode killed all but myself and 1 other player.  I thought I had that game, but still ended up losing.  We also played an ultra-quick game of the DC deck builder, from start to finish in about 20 minutes, just managed to squeeze a full game in before they booted us out of the shop!  Both LotR and DC deck builders are on my "to buy" list for sure!

- My Star Wars LCG stuff arrived.  I built an Imperial Navy deck for the Darkside, and a Jedi deck for the Lightside.  Not real clue what I was doing, I just knew I wanted my Navy deck to be built around TIEs, trying to get them shielded, and to start some bombing runs! 

- After reinstalling MWO, I noticed they messed up the user.cfg file.  That meant MWO reverted to smashing my face up against the windshield as my old field of view tweak was gone, and without any way to adjust the mouse sensitivity, my aiming went into the toilet!  Good news, I managed to set up my mouse for on-the-fly sensitivity adjusting, but there's nothing i can do about the FoV.

- While nerd-raging about MWO, I downloaded Hawken.  It's actually pretty fun, and radically different from MWO.  It is a total tweakfest, totally Call of Duty with Mechs, but fun to play solo!

- Went to the local comic book shop for "Free Comic Book Day" with the family.  My daughter dressed up as Buzz Lightyear, and she got to meet several other dressed up heroes/villains including: Iron Man, Warmachine, Doctor Doom, and Supergirl.  I picked up "Crimson Empire" in honor of the unofficial Star Wars "May the 4th be with you" day.

This Geek's Week...

- Been in an A Game of Thrones mood this week.  I picked up the "Lions of the Rock" expansion, and built the "power behind the throne" deck listed as a starting off point.

- Painting some more on some of the figures from Battles of Westeros, mainly my Lannister Spearmen.  Reread the BoW rules, I wanna give it a try at some point!

- Played a couple of matches of MWO.

- Still working on painting my Retribution stuff.

- Hung out at the shop for awhile on Wednesday.  I didn't get a chance to play anything (I wanted and tried to), but ended up chatting with friends up there.  I think I managed to get a few people interested in playing Game of Thrones, Netrunner, and Star Wars.

- Picked up all the Data Packs for Netrunner. I hadn't really been playing, thus no point in picking them up until now.

- Ordered 2x copies of the Star wars LCG and both of the current battle packs out.

- Built a Haas-Bioroid deck for Netrunner.  I originally tried playing HB back when I first started, but without any success.  I didn't care much for HB then, I'm not sure how much I'm gonna like them now.  I guess I'm just more of a loyal Weyland employee.

This Geek's Week...

- Got everything assemble and started painting my Retribution of Scyrah starter box.

- Picked up Injustice for the PS3, and have been playing the crap out of it!  I'm pretty impressed with it.  I like the overall story of it, and even though I beat the story mode rather quickly, there's still a ton left to do as far as unlocks, side missions, and online play.  (My PSN name is "WuhSawBe", feel free to add me on there!)

- Made it up to the shop, and got in a game of X-Wing.  NMy buddy had brought two of coworkers in to try it out, so we ended up playing a 125 point team game.  It was Wedge, Luke, and 3 or 4 A-Wings vs Vader, 3 Academy pilots, backstabber, howlrunner, and Mithel.  The shop ended up closing before we could finish, but we ended up ahead on points, making it the first win for my 181st (one-eighty-worst).  Not pretty, but I'll take it!  Hard to say who would have won had we been able to finish, it was honestly pretty close.  (i'd give the edge to the rebels I think)

The state of my Eldar,,,

I've got a unit of 5 of these guys painted so far...

I wonder what the new book will
hold for this guy?

The current state of my Eldar army is a bit of a sad one.  I've got about 800 points so far, but that's all.  My main reason for not picking up more along the way is that I'm finding a lot of the Eldar models pretty dated imo, and pretty uninspiring (or just non-fun) to paint.

But, the new codex in the works gives me a lot to look forward to!  First and foremost, I'm looking forward to finally being able to play an Alaitoc-specific force again, something I have not been able to do since the old Craftworld book.  I've also got my fingers crossed for a few updated models, namely some new jetbikes, or perhaps some new HQ options as far as characters go.  I also hope/expect there to be a general buff to psychic powers.  That's one thing that has always kind fo bugged me.  IMO, Eldrad should be the STANDARD for what a Farseer should be, Eldar are supposed to be master psykers, and outside of Eldrad, they don't truly feel like it.

I'm really hoping I never have to use this guy
once the new book drops!

So, on the upside, with a new book looming, maybe only having a 800 points worth of Eldar is not a bad thing.  Afterall, should there be an influx of new and updated models, I wont need to replace a ton of models.  Second, I also wont have a large chunk of an army become obsolete practically overnight.  I'll pretty much be starting a fresh, new Eldar army.  

Thankfully, I already have an Eldar tattoo on my forearm to help separate me from the inevitable "flavor of the month" players...

What are your thoughts/hopes/plans for the new Eldar codex?

This Geek's Week...

- Played my 1st games of Dust Tactics.  Fun game.  I wouldn't mind playing Dust Warfare at some point if I could find an opponent.

- Managed to make it up to the LGS this Wednesday.  I played a couple of games: Tokaido, Love Letter, and Evil Baby Orphanage.  Tokaido was ok.  It was fun, but pretty simple, with not a lot of strategy.  It would be a good one for non-gamers to try.  I didn't expect much from Love Letter, but it was actually pretty fun!  Another simple one.  Finally, Evil Baby Orphanage was a bit "meh".  The evil babies they used were pretty funny, and I chuckled a bit, but the gameplay just wasn't the greatest.

- Managed a breakthrough on Elder Scrolls.  Finished lots of dungeon areas, and finally was able to get past the named dragons I was stuck on.

- Finally got around to watching the Ultramarines movie.  My wife called it "the nerdiest thing I've ever watched..."

- Hung out at the shop Saturday night.  I only got to play a single game of the DC Deckbuilder, so mostly hung out, chatted, went out to dinner with some friends, and actually watched a goofy 80's B movie at the shop, "TerrorVision".

- Traded some Khador jacks I had laying around for a Retribution starter.  I haven't play WM in probably a year or so.  I started putting the box together, and I'm pretty amazed by the speed in which PP's plastic jacks come together.  I should start painting them in a day or so.

- After finishing "Wolf Pack", I picked up "Know No Fear".  I think I'll save starting it for when we (the family) go on vacation in a few weeks.  In the meantime, I'm reading a collection of H.P. Lovecraft stories...

What is Arena Rex?

As I mentioned earlier, I decided to back Arena Rex on Kickstarter.  I'm a huge nut for anything related to Ancient Rome.  Add to it that Arena Rex is a gladiatorial skirmish game (so low model count), coupled with some of the best gladiator sculpts I have ever seen, and well, I'm SOLD!  There's still just under a month left to support project as of the time I'm writing this.  Just as I have done with Kingdom Death: Monster, my goal here is to show you exactly why I decided to make the jump into supporting this game, why I'm excited about, and perhaps get the game "on your radar" at the very least.  I should also point out, all of below is based off what I've read online.  The rules are in playtesting, so everything is subject to change.  For more official info on the game, head over to Arena Rex.com...

So, without further delay, I'll dive into what little bit I know...