Friday, January 20, 2012

Total Party Kill 1/20/12: Necromancing the Bones


Ahhh, the old banner. Thanks to Elliot (I think) for this one.


Happy Friday, you glorious band of brother, sister and brother/sister nerds.

Look, I have no idea if I will do this every Friday, but I did want to do two things concerning this blog:

1) Have an end-of-the-week roundup post, compiling my posts throughout the week, complete with short descriptors so you can peruse at your leisure.
2) Bring back Total Party Kill, an occasional column I did in the past some people seemed to dig.

So. Here I am, wondering what to do... Ah! I know: I'll make Total Party Kill (TPK) the roundup with some new material.

Genius.

Yup. GENIUS.

More after ze jump!! Comics, minis (well A mini), games and links, oh my! /takeivoice





Here's the rundown of what has gone on in the last week or so, basically covering the necromancing this blog... in... order:


Flashback Montage with Your Mom Time


And We're Back. Sort of.
This is a very quick announcement about coming back to Diary of a Grognerd. Dunno why you would want to read it... but there you go.

Midnight Mini pr0n: Back for the Space S****n Attack!
Getting back into the swing of things real proper-like, I throw y'all a new chunky-style installment of the beloved* Midnight Mini pr0n! Featured is Mega Miniatures from the USA.
(*beloved by 34.3 people!)


ULTRAMARINES: Well, it coulda been Dragonlance
In which I "review" Ultramarines: A Warhammer 40,000 Movie. I also mention the almost indescribable horror that is the Dragonlance movie, which I plan to review soon. I hope. Or don't hope.

Midnight Mini pr0n: Crudely Cute Crooked Corn Dolls
In which I do a quickie-showy of Crooked Dice's Cord Doll minis. Corn Dolls in this case are like Scarecrows. Just so you know.

Midnight Mini pr0n: Sexy Sexy Shock Troopers
Bam! Greatcoat Shock Troopers, who look like Future Space Germans from the awesome folks over at Wargames Factory. These plastic-sprue minis are totally worth the look!

Retro Game Safari: Fallout Tactics
I dive right into my RGS idea and tackle one of the least liked games of the Fallout franchise-- but I love it! Not so much a review as more of a ramble.

My Dream Car
Yup. My dream car. In a motivational poster. Yaaaaay!

And now for the Party Killing...


Some Stuff Real Quick...

Here's the Unofficial HackMaster Quick Start Guide. (RPG)
HackMaster. It's an awesome game you should play with your friends and stuff. Especially if you love old school AD&D (and if you have friends), but want something a little more beefed up than the usual retro-clone-- but also don't want to relive their Chartmaster days. Remember Chartmaster? If you don't, you are a lucky bastard. Then again, I miss playing it. Sigh.

(I don't need to tell anyone what things like "(RPG)" after them implies, right? Good.)

Here's a good write-up asking "Is Immersion a Core Game Virtue?" (Videogames)
Seriously. Check it out. Several people I know linked to this. Totally worth a read!

I spent way too much time at this site the last couple of weeks (Fallout / Videogames)
The New Vegas Nexus... ah, what a great place to get mods as well as read and participate in a lot of shop talk regarding Fallout New Vegas.

"Shut up, dude! I know that contact is here somewhere..."

Get this for your iThingy (Judge Dredd / Videogames)
I hear good things about it... Judge Dredd AND killing zombies? Sign me up. I don't have an iPad or iPhone, but... I do hear good things about this. Maybe you have something Apple to play it on, perhaps? If you do, let me know how it is. Please?


I would give my funting left nut to play this on my drokking devices.


***

...annnd Comic Fists of Fury and Doom!

What we got here are some comics I've read I'd like to briefly mention. Naturally, my age old lethality scale for rating still applies. Don't worry, it's easy to figure out. I wish I could cover all the comics I read, but I hope these do for now. I'll be covering comics here and there anyway in blog posts, and then collating said mini-review (or, if I'm feeling crazy, full reviews) in the TPK posts. As for these sorta-reviews, don't expect a lot of detail. Click on those links and see what details are to be had, kids.


Ghost Rider #8
I am HIGHLY enjoying Rob Williams' run on Ghost Rider so far. After Jason Aaron's amazing run, I was worried good ol' GR would start to suck again. But hey, all things comic book can be approved by throwing a great 2000 AD writer at 'em, right? This seems to be the case. It's just the right balance of silly, spooky and downright screwed up that I enjoy. Some other people out there may say "The new Ghost Rider is a rip-roaring ride etc etc" and throw in "rollicking kick-ass adventure", too-- which would be completely on the mark. But to me? To me my pullquote that will never be pulled it: "Rob's new Ghost Rider will make you cry 'FUCKNOODLES' and beg for more. It's always at fever pitch, even when there's an advertisement-- Ghost Rider even make those better! After yer done readin' you'll immolate yourself just trying to get over the good time you just had and you may never have again if you read his Low Life or other such materials. The artists have varied, and I was happy to see Matthew Clark on a few issues... but this latest issue doesn't have him on it. **I should probably talk a little about the latest issue, eh?** Well, the new Ghost Rider-- who's a woman who's 18-- is adventure-questing around and in this issue she faces Hawkeye. Two things spring immediately to mind: Primus) I like this Hawkeye. And there I thought I was stuck only liking Ultimate Hawkeye. Yay! and Secundus) If Ghost Rider is basically fiery bones with clothes on, does this mean the new Ghost Rider has flame breasts? Seriously, I want to know. I mean, you can see that she has boobs, looking at her from the outside. Unless she's hiding cute little Hedgehogs of Vengeance under there. Completely possible, I suppose. What? Oh, right. So Johnny Blaze and Hawkeye team up-- this is where I should mention that Ghost Rider isn't Johnny Blaze anymore and in the process of the story, girl GR is captured while adventure is being had. Look, it isn't going to cure cancer, but new Ghost Rider run might be just the thing people with cancer need in order to get a very good and very needed laugh. I laughed quite a bit reading this. It's also rather corny. And there's lots of THOOOOOM!!!s and fire happening. Hey, it's Ghost Rider, what did you expect? Uh, you probably still don't know what the issue is about. Tell you what: Go pick it up. Pick up the previous issues. Sit down with a nice cold beverage of your choice. Starting reading and prepare to ruin the shit outta your comics because your going to be spitting that beverage everywhere. Then again, I may have a spitting problem. YMMV.
Lethality: Five brave adventurers left to fight Asmodeus and his dread Nightmare. Now Asmodeus wears two of them as capes, one as a codpiece, and another as a fancy scarf. One of the party returned. She's pretty torn up and still has a sucking chest wound.


Deadlands: Black Water
Like westerns? Like weird westerns? Like horror? Like steamcthulhuetcpunk-type stuff? Like the occult, in the west, with trains and ghosts? If you answered " yellow toaster" to any of these questions, you may have had a stroke recently. If your answered "yes" to any of 'em, then you should pick this one-shot badboy up. I guess this is the "final of four one-shots". Huh. No one telegraphed me about the other three, and I saw this and picked it up. I was just stoked to see the RPG Deadlands in comic book format! For some reason, the story that plays out reminds me of The Shadow of Chikara (aka The Curse of Demon Mountain) which scared the shit out of me when I was five. I mean, their not the same story, but my inner five year-old squeed a little bit. He also peed his pants a little, too. Overall, a fun ghost story with monsters that doesn't beat you over the head with tentacles (but there is a giant eel!). The Dime-Store Back-Up story was great, too. This book, overall, is fast-paced, eerie, creepy and exciting-- which is like just saying eerie and exciting, but anyway-- which is a a hard combination to pull off. The writing is strong, dialog excellent and the art more than passable. It's actually quite nice, in fact. My only beef are the word balloons. They're square. Call that a personal peeve... It shouldn't detract from the wonderful art and stories. Oh, and you can probably guess what the "black water" is. Yeah, it's what you're thinking but much, much darker and spookier. I'll have to pick the other 3 one-shots up now. Thanks "Black Water", you just made me spend 12 more bucks. Which in Canada comes with 16 million dollars in taxes.If you want even more information on the Deadlands comics, please visit the people behind them at Visionary Comics. Click, goddamn you--CLICK.
Lethality: Those adventuring pardners saddle up and mosied out to some kinda labyrinth out on the plains, I reckon. Seems that there were six of them, and one came back with the headless corpse of the gunslinger.


Deadpool MAX II #4
Continuing on with yet another fucking fuckballs fun-crazy run of Deadpool MAX, writer David Lapham and artist Kyle Baker create the anti-shit sandwich and make vulgar, borderline psychotic freaks like myself weep tears of joy. If you've been living in the trunk of a heavily abused Kia sedan for the past few years, the Marvel MAX line is for the comics they make for grownups. Kinda like Marvel's version of Vertigo. Well, there's no "kinda" about it. One company is "latte" and the other is "mocha" (no, no chai, hippies); but in the end they're both just goddamned coffee drinks for whiny overpriv-- well, poop, sorry, I was going off on a tear there. So, yup, this shit is awesome. Deadpool is still on the run with Hydra Bob, who is trying to keep his weight up. Hilarious hijinx ensue and Lapham and Baker get to show off what kind of twisted humans they really are. Now, I must admit, baker's art is hit and miss for me, and I don't always dig it. But when he's on, he's on. And he's doodling one of my favorite comic series I have ever read, so I'm not giving him shit. I do like another artist who has popped up, but I'm too damned lazy to look him-- fine-- Shawn Crystal. He kicked ass on #3. But some part of me can't imagine Baker NOT on Deadpool MAX, sooooo... I'm gonna stop digging that hole. Regardless of all that, if you have a sense of humor that ought to land you in jail half the time, you need to read this title. Like, now. Oh, and what else happens in issue #4? Stuff. And boobies.And Bob lost some weight. But not too much.
Lethality: Five adventurers delved deep into the caves of Kia, and they would have made if it hadn't been for those clockwork dire weasels armed with Pliers +7. What came back was part of a torso of what we think is/was the cleric. Four and a half out of five party members: DEAD.


2000 AD: Prog 2012
EEEEeeee! Pure zarjaz! I was excited to get my eyes on this... Judge Dredd, Nikolai Dante, Absalom, Grey Area, Dandridge, Sinister Dexter and Strontium Dog comics pack this annual issue. A new one, Aquila, is a comic set in ancient Rome and written by one of my fave writers ever, Gordon Rennie. Another Steve-Fave crawling throughout this issue is Dan Abnett. Also: Strontium Dog by John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra. Sweet. Reading through the thrills (comics), I would say this is not only a treat for lifelong 2000 AD fans but is also a great prog (issue) to make a newbie's starting point. While this whole thing is a delicious treat of nerdsylvania, the stand-outs to me were: Sinister Dexter; because everything is better if you just cross Dredd, Johnny Alpha and Wulf Sternhammer over into it and ensure it's done well, and, of course, Aquila: because I've been waiting for an awesome Roman-era comic (Caligula notwithstanding), and it has fun writing and great "doomgritty" and "grimdark" art. Why go into it any further? It's a bunch of awesome violent British sci-fi/fantasy/weird comics you have to read-- in one affordable volume. And there's Xmas stories. How could it be bad? Science says it can't. Plus it's ONE HUNDRED PAGES.
Lethality: 9 out of 10 party member perish in a gruesome yet amusing manner. That's it, really.


I'll be writing more comic book mini-reviews/takes/blabs throughout the week.

***

Also: Mini pr0n!


And what would this blog if I didn't unleash some Mini pr0n?? Probably nothing, that's what. Or whatever the hell it is now...

Please feat your eyes on Fallout Girl from RAFM Miniatures:

When she tells you she's washing her hair, don't argue with her.

30mm of pure gaming awesomeness right there. Not only does she appeal to Fallout fans in general, but she'll work in just about any post-apoc and/or sci-fi minis game or roleplaying game. I can see her in a zombie apocalypse game, as well. Hell, I can see her in a Star Wars game.Very nice mini, RAFM.
Lethality: Four of the five party members are killed. The fifth is left gibbering for the rest of his life.

***

Und Finally: The Vorpal Wrap-Up

Holy crap, I've written a nice amount of stuff. I planned on writing more, and from the looks of it, a lot more. Well, here's to being inconsistent, then, because I think I'll call it a night (it's last night when I'm writing this-- and knowing is half the battle). You know, one of the things that kept me from doing TPKs more often before was me trying to have a format... which would lead to me trying to fill too much space... which led to me getting stressed. Too stressed. But this is for fun, and I like having fun. Let's say, for now anyway, that every TPK will be different but will include something about games and comics. Cool? It's a deal then.

Besides, we don't want huuuuge posts you have to read through. Best much of the Grognerd content is broken up into various posts.

Throughout the next week I'll be playing Judge Dredd: Dredd vs. Death and then talking about it for the next installment of Retro Game Safari. Big ups and zarjaz high-fives go out to reader Kelvin Green for insisting I re-play that game.

Your comments are always welcome, as are you emails. I always need links to new stuff and such sights to be shown to me. I'll even give credit where credit is due, if yer alright with it.

My ninja-colored d20 has rolled a 19! Critical exiting success.


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Please Note: Many of the images I've lifted belong to their respective owners. They're from the sites of the products discussed. If any owner of an image has a problem with me posting them to this blog, please drop me a line to let me know. Thanks!

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