40K Fridays - Building for the Long Term - Crimson Fists

The current Space Marine Battleforce, straight from the GW site

Based on what I read online, a lot of people build 40K armies for a single tournament or maybe a single edition, then sell them off and build another. That's not how I do it. Once I build and paint things I tend to get a little attached to them. Part of this is because it takes a lot of work before I'm satisfied with the look of them, and if I'm happy with it now I'll probably still be happy with it in a year or two or three. Another part is that they build up a history and sometimes take on a personality of their own. Keeping them at hand keeps me connected to that ridiculous game where every other model on the table died but my Chaplain and my friend's Eldar Avatar, so it came down to a one-on-one duel. Finally 40K is one area where I am not susceptible to the Greatness of the New - some of the new stuff is really good, but I don't have to replace my entire army with it right now.

So if you share my feelings on the subject, what are the differences in building and painting a long-term army? Here's how I do it, using my Crimson Fists (started back in 3rd edition circa 1998) as an example. I am reworking them a bit right now so it's an ongoing project.

First: The Origin - I went into the FLGS after 40k 3rd came out and found this in the discount bin

Now this was a special 2nd edition set that was pretty pricey - note that it contains more than the typical battleforce box does today, including custom shoulder pads and arm castings - but for some reason it was marked way down. Now I don't remember if the manager was uninformed or what but all of the 2E stuff was discounted like this but this was just a box of miniatures, rather edition-independent. I jumped on the opportunity and this box is still the core of my army today.

With all of the fist-symbols in the set I really wanted to use them but my Howling Griffons were already yellow and red, a little too close to the Imperial Fist color scheme, so I went with Crimson Fists, partly for inspiration from the Rogue Trader cover, and partly because I knew it would be a fairly simple scheme to paint and thus would be faster.

• So part of going for the long term is picking an army you like. I like space marines in 40K and I knew as long as I was playing the game I would have an army of them one way or another.

• Another consideration is to pick a paint scheme you like - you should really do this for any army, but it's worth mentioning here. If you do want to go long term with it, picking a "known" paint scheme does increase your odds of finding matching units from other players or ebay. I swore I would never use models I didn't paint myself but I've gotten comfortable with the idea since then.

• Also I would recommend picking a "core" army. Marines, Eldar, Orks, and Chaos are the original 4 armies for the game. They are the safest choices in a lot of ways. Sometimes it takes GW a few tries to find the right flavor for an army, like Tau for example. So the thing you like about them this edition may disappear or morph beyond recognition in the next one. Even Marines aren't immune to this as there is speculation out there now that those wonderful Black Templars may be rolled back into the general Marine codex for this edition.  I wouldn't let that be the deciding factor but it is something to think about if you plan on playing the force for more than one season. One good thing: You can always play a specialized marine army as standard marines if you get tired of waiting for a new codex.

• It also helps to decide on a theme, at least at the start. My Fists started out as an infantry gunline with bikers and Predator support. Later I decided to mechanize them and added Rhinos and a Razorback. Now they are my "everything Space Marine" army - they are decidedly non-specialized but they have a lot of options because of all the stuff I have added to them over the years. Having a theme at the beginning helps you focus in on getting a few key units bought, built, and painted and helps focus your list-building as well.

Now with any army there are some universal basics on getting started, and the primary one is "HQ + 2 Troops". You will see it everywhere because it's true. Since the introduction of the force organization system in 3rd edition it has been a good idea to follow this. Look around the web at images and tactics articles if you like but to get started you need those three pieces. For marines this usually means a Captain and two tactical squads, probably with flamer and missile launcher. Get them, build them, play a game or three with them against a friend. Make sure you like the game and the army before you commit to them. For Orks it's at least 20 Orks and a Warboss, though more is better. For Eldar it's a Farseer and some Guardians or Dire Avengers. 

The classic space marine tactical squad from the 2nd edition box. 

The Starter Sets are usually a good deal although the current one (Dark Vengeance) is much more specialized than older sets with chapter-specific markings on the included Dark Angel marines and some odd choices for the included Chaos force. This set is great if you're wanting to play Dark Angel Space Marines. If you can find the 5th edition set, Assault on Black Reach, it's much more generic with Marines and Orks that can be used for a lot of different armies.

I'm not a huge fan of the Battleforces because a lot of them don't give you a great mix of forces. A lot of them are a full squad of something, a half-squad of something else, and a single vehicle. Look carefully at what your set contains and think about how useful that's really going to be. A 5-man scout squad may be fine, especially with sniper rifles. A 5-man marine assault squad is not something you are going to use very much at any point level. Based on that picture at the top I would try to build it out as 2 tactical squads + scout squad, and save the jump packs for later.

Bench players - just because the squad comes with a flamer/missile launcher doesn't mean you always have to play them that way.

Now if you do go online you will see a lot of statements about how troop units are dead weight in some armies - ignore those for now. Troops are the core of your force and you will be taking two of them in every battle you fight. Start with two and you're covered right from the start. Remember, you have to take objectives to win in most current scenarios, so troop choices are actually more important in the current edition than they have been previously. Marines have an advantage here with the combat squad rule that lets you turn 2 tac squads into 4 scoring units - this is a good thing.

Now after fighting a couple of battles this limited force may feel a little too ... limited. Now it's time to pick up some new fun stuff:

•  Another HQ choice is an easy addition - Librarian, chaplain, special character. You can always take two in a normal battle so having at least two to choose from is a good idea. It's only one model so you're not overloading the paint queue either. Picking a Psyker will let you explore the wonders of that sub-system and decide if it's something you want in your army. One word of warning: the psychic system changes in every new army book and in every new edition of the game so don't get too attached to any one power - get attached to the idea of blowing things up with your mind, not the actual power that does it. For Eldar players get an Avatar - they are a lot of fun.

Rogue Trader era tactical squad, again with flamer and missile launcher

• One easy interim acquisition is to pick up some additional heavy and special weapon troopers to swap in and out of your tac squads. Flamer not getting it done for you? Swap them out for plasma or melta guns. Missile launcher a little too normal for you? Plasma cannons are a blast (heh) and multi-meltas are a lot of fun up close. 

...and some RT subs as well. Remember, tac marines are all about flexibility

• Add a Dreadnought and start learning the vehicle rules in general and the walker rules in particular. Dreads are a mix of infantry and vehicle and fit well with a basic infantry force. There's a lot of talk about them being less useful in 6th edition but a) we're building for the long term here and b) not every game is a 2000-point double force-org battle with a dozen lascannons on the table. In smaller battles, dreads are just as good as they ever were and that's what you will be playing for a while now. For Eldar: Wraithlords are still great - get one!

• New squads: For most marine players it's a good idea to add another squad at this point. Maybe an assault squad, maybe a biker squad - something to take the fight to the enemy. Scouts are another troop choice but have a lot of interesting options for infiltration and outflanking. They can also be armed in a variety of ways. If you'd rather sit back and shoot a devastator squad is a solid option. Then there are the termies - everyone likes termies! You're probably going to end up wanting two - one shooty squad and one assault squad. In general it's good to aim for having at least one Elite choice, one Fast Attack choice, and one Heavy Support choice before you start concentrating on any one of them and infantry squads are a good way to do that.

• Transports: One is not that useful, but they come in some sets so go ahead and try that out if you have one. In general though it's better to field 2 or 3 of them if you want your troops to actually get somewhere. If you already have some speedy assault troops these can wait a little bit for most armies. 

• Other Vehicles: Another fun part of 40K, this takes a little more thought. It's tough if you pick up a tank, get it all painted up, put it out on the table, and it gets blown away on turn 1. It's always better to field two. Now they don't have to be the same vehicle - marines can field a Predator and a Vindicator and be just fine. A tank and a dreadnought is fine too. A lot of armies don't have a ton of choices but most have at least that. For Orks Killa Kans are not heavily armored but you get three of them in a box and can field them as a single unit! That's plenty for smaller games. 

Even Sergeants can be subbed. Sometimes the basic sgt with a pistol and a chainsword is fine - and sometimes you need a veteran with a combi-flamer and a power fist!

Two things to keep in mind as you expand: 

• It's can be quite tempting to build your army around your usual opponent and it's not a terrible plan but don't let it be the only consideration. Pick up the units you think are cool and try them out. Focusing on a single opposing army can skew yours in odd areas. A marine army that only plays against Orks is going to look a certain way and may have a hard time against Eldar or Necrons. Stay flexible.
• Take full squads. Marines have come in 10-man squads since the beginning. Stick with that. In 3rd edition you could take a 6-man tac squad and still get the special and the heavy weapon and that's how I originally built the Fists. Come next edition and that was no longer allowed and I suddenly had to rebuild the core of my force, and getting everything to come together (including scraping up some more RT beakie marines to fill out the squads) was work I didn't need. You can always take less - so make full squads! 
• Tac and assault marines should always be built as a squad of 10. Even if you're going to put them in a Razorback build 10 - plans change, editions change. 
• Termies are fine at 5. If you end up with 10 I would build them as two squads of 5.
• Devastators are OK at 5 but better at 10, plus you can always split them up down the road if needed as you add some additional heavy weapons. Then you have 2 squads!
• For bike squads I wouldn't build fewer than 5 - pricey, but a lot more flexible down the road. 
•  In contrast, Chaos Terminators have been coming in units of 3-10 for a long time now and 3 of them is perfectly viable. 

That's all for now, more to come as I progress with the updating of the Fists!

Online Inspirations: Star Trek Online

As a follow up to yesterday's post I thought I would point out that there are options and resources out there beyond just fantasy and superheroes. I've been getting back into Star Trek Online, working my way back up through the levels, and there is a ton of useful material there.

In contrast to some of yesterday's examples where the setting was the attraction, that is not the case here - it's Trek! Even a casual fan of the movies or shows is already going to know a lot about the setting. Now the era of the game specifically is interesting - it's about 30 years after Nemesis - but it's not terribly different from any other Trek era. It's basically a Next generation era game with Ferengi, Borg, Klingon Honor, and the Tal Shiar all running around.

The best material here is the missions themselves. A lot of fantasy games focus on dungeons and combat, MMO or tabletop, so the "things you do" are largely familiar activities. Star Trek can be quite different in the details - space encounters, ground combat, diplomacy, exploration, first contact - any of these could be the focus of an adventure and many will involve several of them. STO's basic mission structure tends to be:

• Travel to an area
• Deal with issues in space
• Beam to surface/ship/station, deal with issues there
• Interact with some NPC's along the way
• Return to space for final thanks or a climactic space battle
• Arrive at satisfying conclusion

Now there are missions that deviate from this outline but that's a pretty good summary of some of the TV episodes too. This kind of structure can be useful if you're running or planning a Trek session and need an idea of how to "build" it. Start with this, then as you become more comfortable, you can start making changes as you see fit. There are also longer story arcs in STO that take multiple missions to play through, also a good guide for a new Trek GM. They usually look something like this:

• A problem is discovered with some deeper mystery behind it
• Several missions involve investigating clues or tracking down NPC's that can shed light on the problem
• Eventually the source of the problem or the truth behind the mystery is revealed
• The Big Finale: epic confrontation or battle to solve the mystery or remove the threat of the Federation/reality/Earth/the universe/etc.

Some of it is more routine star fleet stuff but there is also the more exotic stuff: time travel, aliens from other dimensions, secret genetic manipulation - and the STO missions can give you an idea on how to introduce and structure those as well.

FInally, even if you have a head (or a notebook) full of ideas and know how you want to run them, it is a nice source of images. We do have many hours of TV and many hours of movies to draw on, but another, more customizable source of images is a nice thing to have when running your own game. There is some Original Series stuff, from ships to races to uniforms, but a TNG era game will find the most utility here. The space stuff is particularly good. It does have a character creator with uniform options and very customizable body and facial details. That part is a little bit cartoony but it's not terrible. Beyond screenshots one could also make some nice "opening sequences" with a demo record to kick off new adventures too. Add your own music and you have a pretty slick production of your own.

That's about all I have to say on this, but I will note that a)  it's another useful tool in the DM toolkit and b) it's free! If you're at all interested and if you've considered running a Trek game but weren't sure how you would sustain it past that initial idea in your head, well, take a look. It may open that right up for you.

Online Inspirations

It's been six months now since City of Heroes was shut down, and I've started exploring some of the other MMO RPG's out there, old and new. I doubt any of them will have as big an impact on me as that game did but I thought I ought to take a look at them at least. I found CoH great both as a game itself and as inspiration for some of my tabletop RPG's, and diving back in has me thinking about the idea in general.

Now when it came to cross-pollination CoH was more about setting: the individual missions were fairly simple most of the time, but the setting was great. A big sprawling city full of heroes and villains with its own history and enemy groups and internal problems - there's a lot there to mine for ideas for my own home game. Some of the group-oriented task forces could make for a good adventure idea, but most of the inspiration was less tactical and more strategic. After all, part of the fun is posing the problem and then seeing what your own group of players does to resolve it - quite often MMO type games have an assumed solution and the trick is to find it. With a tabletop game you can allow for far more diversity in approach and in solutions.

Beyond this particular game there are a bunch of fantasy MMO RPG's out there that could serve as inspiration too. I talked about using the Ultima (offline) games as inspiration here and I'd still like to give that a try sometime. Everquest and World of Warcraft are the big dogs here. There were tabletop RPG's published for both a few years ago. I don't own them but I assume they have some value if you're looking for RPG inspiration, even if you don't run the actual game. I would probably pick a game I already liked though and use the MMO material as inspiration rather than hard mechanics.

I do like the idea of mining them for material though, especially if you're stuck for a campaign idea. There's a ton of lore, NPC's, monsters, and geography just waiting to be used. Now this assumes that the DM is probably a dedicated player of the game, or was at some point, but if you are/were why not put that knowledge to good use? Plus, a tabletop game gives you the chance to explore outside the constraints of the game engine, which could give familiar material a brand new feel once you dig in.

Now I'm not a WoW or EQ player but I do have some recently-gained knowledge of Neverwinter which is a special case: It was an online game that became an offline game that became a 4th edition supplement and then became an online game again.

• The quests in the game could easily be used as inspiration for some adventures in a tabletop game
• The locations and NPC's could easily be used as well
• One angle that could be big: Visualizations! If you're looking for pictures of people and places in neverwinter for your tabletop game it's pretty easy to take screenshots in-game of those places. Save them, load them to a tablet and you have a Neverwinter photo guide! I have done this at times with other pics - I load them into an iPad and use Airplay to throw them up on the TV so everyone can see them. If your table is like mine there are a bunch of electronics floating around anyway so why not steer them back towards the game at hand with something like this?

With so many online RPG's going free to play I think they are worth a look, both as games themselves and as inspiration and resources to fuel your "real" game. Take a look - you may find yet another tool to add to your DM toolbox.

Motivational Monday

Placeholder Wednesday

It's going to be a slow week for updates. Despite the holiday weekend I didn't have a lot of extra time. Kid stuff Friday night, outings with Lady B Saturday, organizing and cleaning on Sunday, and finally prepping then running a big confrontation in the D&D campaign on Monday ate up most of the weekend. There's more kid stuff this week too. Plus I've been trying to get some miniatures progress underway and taking some time to play some online games with kids and friends and the blog-relevant material is a little scarce this week. We'll see what I can get together for Thursday - Friday. In the mean time: some potentially inspirational material:

40K Friday Returns!

Yes I'm trying to drive some 40K action again here at home. I want to plant the seed before summer vacation hits for the Apprentices and they get wrapped up in everything else. With the "year long campaign" sitting idle since February my grand plans are in tatters but there is still hope. Playing 40K seems to drive interest in painting 40K so I'm hoping some regular games will spur that a little bit. Also, Apprentice Blaster will be on a different schedule with us this summer, a more evenly-spaced schedule, which should give us time to get in more games, whether it's 40K or anything else. The current state of 40K on our home planet:

Apprentice Red has Orks and Necrons

• His Orks are about 90% built and about 50% painted so he's not in bad shape. He was running mostly footsloggers but I gave him some custom battlewagons (that I replaced with some even more custom battlewagons) and with those and his trukks now he could run Mechanized Death if he wanted too. His main support choices are deff koptas and kannons with a new batch of lootas built now as well. What he really needs now are more boyz, plus we have plans to make some custom meganobz and some more of my scratchbuilt killa kans to really build out his options. 
• His Necrons are still developing. he has plenty of warriors, all painted, plus one of the newer HQ's plus some destroyers (painted) and a monolith (painted) and he picked up a ghost ark back at Christmas but has not finished it yet. Oh and wraiths. He has 3, built but not painted, and I already hate them. Definitely the most annoying unit in his army. Ghost arks seem to be pretty popular right now so he could use more of them and some of the other vehicles, but those are the priciest things to add so it will take some time.

Apprentice Blaster has Space Wolves and Eldar

• His Space Wolves are pretty solid. His core is Grey Hunters(footsloggers) and a big mob of Blood Claws that ride to battle in a Land Raider Crusader led by a Wolf Priest and it's a pretty strong force when it hits. He also has the obligatory long fangs, who usually park next to a Razorback (painted) with long range guns for extra shooting power. He also has two dreads that sometime make an appearance (painted) and one predator that shows up sometimes too. He has added another predator and a vindicator but they are not even built yet,. He has recently added some bikes (painted) too. He has a pretty solid standard tactic worked out where the Fangs+RB park at the back, the Hunters + Dreads (if any) + Termies (if any) footslog forward, and the LR full of Blood Claws and the bikes and the Thunderwolves (if any) surge flat-out towards the other side. I've only seen it fail when I hit them with the Deathwing army and I'm not sure I could pull it off again with his added forces. His biggest need is to finish painting his marines.
• The Eldar are still pretty new to him and he's only played them once in a small battle. He has the basics: Avatar, Farseer, Dire Avengers, Guardians, some jet bikes, Harlequins, a Wraithlord, a full complement of Dark Reapers, and just added a pair of Falcons and a Wave Serpent. So what was a footdar force just got fairly mobile. I've been hearing bad thins about Eldar vehicles with 6th edition, but with a new codex on the way later this year I suspect that will all get resolved. Most of it is built, but not much of it is painted so he has his brushwork cut out for him.

Apprentice Who has played a few times but does not have his own army yet. He did participate in a figure painting contest up at the FLGS and did pretty well for never having done it before so it may be time to get him started. He has shown a strong interest in the Chaos armies, but I'm still a little reluctant to set him up with those as it's tough to explain to grandma what he means when he says he likes "Chaos Demons" and he is not shy about telling anyone and everyone all about his latest obsession.  About the only army we do not have represented in the house is Tyranids, so I'm considering a push towards those since he likes big monsters. I have a pretty nice Dark Angel force with a lot of bikes but he just does not seem interested in space marines - unless they're Chaos marines, which brings the thing full circle. More to come on this. 

As for me? I have too many damn armies even after shedding a whole bunch to get the boys set up - but they are mostly painted!

• Howling Griffons - Drop Pod army - the oldest, veterans of 1st-5th edition battles, not yet tried in 6th
• Crimson Fists - Mechanized army - started in 3rd edition, still adding on here and there. I started thes guys originally because the quartered paint scheme of the griffs was a pain to paint and I wanted to get them done faster. 15 years later I'm still adding to it.
• Imperial Fists - Deatwing all-temrinator army - acquired last year already painted, thank god. It was a nice big army but I've still felt the need to add some pieces to it.
• Dark Angel Ravenwing army - so did I decide to paint them all yellow to match up with the Fists I got? NO! Because the guys in the new starter box have a bunch of feathers and wings and robes all over them and wouldn't look right as Fists - so that meant yet another marine army!  I justified it by making it almost all bikers of some kind. Only used in small battles so far but they will see more action later this year.

Now nobody really needs 4 marine armies. It is a product of how things have evolved over the last 20+ years and not a conscious plan, but still - it's overkill. If I had planned it from the start I would have picked an easy paint scheme and just added to the original force over the years. Lesson for the future, kids!

Besides marines I also own:

• Chaos Marines! Because I can! I had one back in 2nd & 3rd, traded most of it to bump up my Ork force, and the survivors of that purge kept whispering to me ... then they went and put Chaos in the starter set for 6th edition ... what the heck was I supposed to do? Clearly it was time to build another marine army! This one is the current obsession and while I don't have a set theme yet I am actively working on turning my collection of parts into a useable coherent force. 
• Chaos Demons - because I had them for fantasy and we never play fantasy anymore - so they started getting rebased in 5th and will be on the table fighting this summer in 6th! It's pretty evenly spread amongst all 4 chaos powers so I don't have a theme here either.
• Eldar! Actually I gave most of my Eldar to Blaster to start his army, but I kept a few of my oldest units in their weird paint scheme. It's a small force but I could run them if the mood struck. That's actually the second time I've downsized my Eldar. I am not actively adding to these guys right now, just keeping them around. That new codex might inspire me to finish painting some of the units so we will see. 
• Imperial Guard - had an army started years ago, traded it for Orks, then a friend found a bunch of stuff at a garage sale and look - I have a mostly-painted guard army again! I keep an eye out for add-ons for this one but I really haven't played them much. I need to work on organizing the infantry better and getting in some playing time. 
• Orks Orks Orks! I didn't really care for Orks back in the RT days, but then we started playing them in Epic and they were a blast so I started picking them up in the 40K 2nd Edition days and they've done nothing but grow ever since. I gave Red a selection of stuff to build his force up but I still have a lot of greenskins. They're mostly Goffs with a side order of Evil Sunz. I can run them as footsloggers, mechanized, whatever. I am still painting what I have and still add stuff to them at times. Lots of opportunities for "going different" with these guys, and I do.

At some point I will probably do a post on each of these with points and pictures and notes and plans for the future but for now there's the overview. My goal is to get the boys painting again as part of their summer off-time, scheduling some games, and maybe inviting some friends over to play too.

Overreaction Wednesday

For the latest in the Next Design Wars, I think these two articles pretty much sum it up:


Against the Nostalgia Fetish in Fantasy Roleplaying


1,000-Word Rebuttal: Against the Fetish of Progressive Design


The funny thing is that when I saw the titles of each I expected to feel more aligned with the second article. After reading them I was much more sympathetic with the first. I'm not sure what that says about me or how I feel about these games we play, but it's an interesting feeling. 

I do tend to consider myself more old-school than new-school, but I have seen exactly what the first  article describes: lots of the comments on Next have been pushing for changes based on how D&D used to do it. Using that as one consideration is fine IMO but it shouldn't be the only consideration, and I'm not sure it needs to be the primary consideration. Anyway, the primary focus of the article was specifically D&D Next.

In contrast the second article seems to be about old school gaming and nostalgia in general, which is really not anything that was addressed in the first, so it's not much of a rebuttal, specifically, to that first article. I completely agree that "newer" doesn't automatically mean "better" and that people should play what they want.

My personal take on Next is this: They don't need to republish Prior Edition X or some combination of Prior Editions X-Y-Z. They're already selling those again, in PDF form and in reprinted hard copy form. A new edition needs to have some "new" in it or there's no point to it. So show us something interesting. 

To WOTC, specifically: This is your job! You're supposed to be the trained professionals, the experts, with more resources than anyone else making RPG's. I've been hearing for years about how much better something is when "professional game designers" handle it as opposed to part-timers and hobbyists - mostly by people who happen to be or aspire to be - professional game designers! So show us how this is supposed to be done! Don't farm it out to the internet and then tell us "well this is what people want". I don't need a designer for that! That's acting as a project manager, not designing a game! No one has asked for a return to the completely closed "Hey ya'll here it is" approach leading up to 4th Edition but I suspect there's something between it and the "warring internet tribes" approach we're seeing now.

I'm less convinced now that crowd-sourcing was a good idea at the early stage in which it entered this project, because the game mechanics have gone all over the place since it started.  Having a solid base and the letting the crowd refine it, an "Open Beta" approach, still has value I think. This one feels like it started with no real set design and that everything was on the table. The lack of direction and consistency makes me wonder if we have a game of game design musical chairs going on now and whatever mechanics we have when it's time to publish are what we will be playing as part of D&D 5. I hope I'm wrong.

Neverwinter!

I allowed myself to get sucked in to the new Neverwinter game over the weekend. Since it pretty much filled our RPG time - Apprentices Who and Blaster joined me -I thought I would discuss it a little bit. The high points:

• It's free to play, full access to current classes and races except for Drow - they're tied up in some kind of early spending deal right now but are supposed to free up 60 days from launch. If that's a big deal for you, now you know.
• It has a good tutorial, running through the basics of characters and controls without being ridiculously tedious, repetitive, or boring. Everyone ends the tutorial at 4th, the games goes to 60th right now.
• It looks very pretty. I thought it looked more like LOTRO than some of the more cartoony fantasy games out there. The lighting is nicely done
• It's based on 4E D&D but in practice it works more like an MMO than any particular tabletop edition of D&D, including 4th

The setting is the ruined city of Neverwinter (Forgotten Realms), pretty much right out of the 4th edition D&D Neverwinter sourcebook. Having read the book I don't think there's any mechanical advantage but it is cool to recognize the names of characters and factions and locations and have an idea of what/who/where they are. If you liked that book you will probably be more inclined to like the game.
.
The character options are somewhat limited right now in that there are only 5 classes and there doesn't seem to be a ton of variety within a single class. So once I've created and played my Great Weapon Fighter I'm probably not going to create another one anytime soon, but I will probably create a Wizard.

They did have some problems over the weekend with some auction house exploit and rolled things back a little bit. I lost a few levels. It's annoying but it is a very new game and I would expect a few bumps - I'm not paying anything for it so I can't complain a much.

I'd say if you're at all interested in D&D themed videogames it's worth a look - it's free and you can play 24/7 so the flexibility is certainly there. If you dislike online games I don't think there's anything here that's going to change your mind about them.

Motivational Monday

Super Saturday: The Iron Man Movies

Since 3 has been out for a few weeks I thought I would go ahead and indulge myself with a  recounting of why I love these movies so much. You really need to see all 3 before reading this as I'm not going spoiler free here.I will issue a "Shameless Gushing Alert" though. You have been warned.

There are 3 comic book boxes in my house:

• One is a grab-bag of stuff I've had forever, mostly Marvel, from Secret Wars to some Spider-Man to a bunch of X-Men I was sent by mistake in an Ebay deal. I have them mostly because I've had them.
• One is a bunch of Avengers, including a nearly complete run of West Coast Avengers, which I really liked for a while, and its successor, Force Works
• The most-packed is a box of Iron Man, from around issue 100 up to a little over 300, almost complete, and also a nearly full run of War Machine's first solo series.

Iron Man was my favorite from about the time I discovered him (in the single digits) onward. I liked plenty of other super hero types but he was a lesser-known guy (snobbery at an early age? most kids knew who he was, even if the grown-ups did not) that I thought was really cool.

So I heard they were doing a movie and I cringed - they'll change up something or the special effects will suck or the acting will be terrible. Remember, Superman and Batman had movies before I was born and were on TV all the time, cartoon and live action. Spiderman and Hulk and even Captain America were on TV too, again with cartoons and even some live action (70's live action - it wasn't great but it was there). Iron Man couldn't even get on Saturday morning when I was a kid. Now they're going to make a movie of him? I was afraid that besides being bad it would turn the character into a joke for the next 20 years.

Boy was I wrong.

I will say when I learned Robert Downey Jr. was going to play Tony Stark I thought he was an excellent choice within about 30 seconds of hearing it. So, why is the first movie so awesome?

• They get the origin story right. Eve the update from 'Nam to Afghanistan is perfect
• The villain is right out of IM200, one of the signature moments in the 80's Iron Man books, and they didn't screw him up

• The supporting characters are right out of the comics as well, and handled just perfectly
• They got the suit right. This is a huge deal.
• They got the right actor for the main part. Christopher Reeve fit like this. Hugh Jackman was basically an unknown before Wolverine, befitting the mysterious past of the character and slipped right into it. Downey was all too well known, mostly for being a brilliant failure on some level, and this carried into the part perfectly. It seems like this would be the #1 concern but it isn't always - remember the first time you heard about who was going to be Batman in that big new movie? Michael Keaton? I think there's still a faint question mark hovering over my head from that. They got it right this time.
• Little nods to the fans count for something too: Ten Rings, "Next Time", etc.
• Changing things up at the end with "I am Iron Man" - now you've managed to show respect for the original material AND open things up completely for the future. The closest thing I can think of to how this was handled was the Trek reboot of 2009 and I liked that too.

Iron Man 2 - some people don't like it. I like it just fine. Why?

• We open with natural consequences of the unmasking at the end of the first movie with Congressional hearings and a Russian named Vanko building a rival technology.
• Lots of nods to history - Vanko (the original Crimson Dynamo), Rhodes finally getting into the action, Justin Hammer showing up - lots of that kind of thing.
• They worked in Iron Man's Briefcase AND the Silver and Red armor in one scene! It's so far beyond my expectations at that point that right there in the theater I was ready to anoint it greatest super-movie ever!
• Nods to the camera: "I'm here, deal with it" for the recast Rhodey's first scene.
• Black Widow shows up, much like she did in the comics: pretty face first, action heroine later.
• Finally, that big finale with IM and WM back to back - when the masks clang shut the second peak of the film hits for me - it looks like a comic book cover, then it looks like a two-page spread as they take down a horde of robots together. Yeah!

No, not that one!

No, not that one either!

Yeah, that one!

Iron Man 3 - the Big Finish

• We open with consequences again - this time from that other movie, and more personal than public at first
• Usually introducing a kid into a movie series is a terrible ting - see that last Zorro sequel for all the franchise-wrecking evidence you should need - but it worked in this one. And it was temporary.
• Not a huge fan of the overheated armor-ripping badguys but it worked OK for the story and it is a comic-book movie.
• Thought the house-wrecking scene was really well done, better than I expected from all of those trailers.

Sniff .. it brings a tear to my eye! Why can't all comic book movies be like this?

• The Mandarin thing ... yeah I was pretty shocked as I thought the whole terrorist angle was going to be epic and very modern. Guess not in some ways, a little too "modern" in others, but I appreciate the ability to be shocked by a movie - it doesn't happen much anymore. So I'll call it a draw.
• Tony Stark investigates a mystery and solves it! How very much like the comic character, especially the early years of the comic books! There's more detective work here than in some of the recent Batman movies!

• Our nod to history here is to Iron Man #300 where Ultimo resurfaces and Tony gets his crew together - Pepper, Happy, Rhodey, everybody - and has them suit up to fight it. So in the movie it's just the suits (well, Pepper does get to use one) but the visuals are the same. That kind of thing doesn't happen by accident.
• It ends as appropriately as any superhero movie I've ever seen, especially for a trilogy. It finishes the story and as a side effect pretty much brings the movie character up to date with the comic character in most ways.

Iron Patriot - Beta version

So yes, I liked them. The feeling that somebody gets it and then does it right is a good one to have, and it's all over these movies. The combination of actors, characters, stories, villains, effects, and a general paying of attention to the source material puts them at the pinnacle of the comic book movie pile for me. The Avengers is just the cherry on top. It might not go on forever but it's incredibly good right now.