Promises, promises!

The perfect Space Marine army?

Facebook-friends and twitter-fellows will already know about the Liquid Gloat prompted by yesterday's geek grab:

"the 'old' one (and better than ever too!)."

No-prizes (with apologies to Stan 'the man' Lee and the old Marvel Bullpen) to readers who thought... 40K?

Yes I'm hankering after more than just some roleplaying, so yesterday I hit town; there to visit my local GW; where I availed myself of the filthy lucre and finally grabbed myself a copy of the new(ish) 5th edition Codex: Space Marines. I've only skimmed the book so far but I can report that, alongside the astonishing and ever-growing range of plastic Space Marine kits, this codex - fat as an old 2nd edition volume, means that there truly never has been a better time to be a Space Marine fan (and at GW's prices, it's just as well, don't you think?).

I'm so busy with things right now that I've got no idea exactly what I'll do, and how quickly I'll progress, but I have an idea where to start, which is right back at the beginning. So, I should finish rebasing old Terminator Franken. There he is:

Franken Lar
Founding Chapter Master of Chapter Astartes Penumbra's Talons
"Remember each leaf, and every blade of grass. Make them your friends before your foe makes them your enemies."

Then I think I'll try my hand at redoing him, with the newer parts available since he was my first Golden Demon also-ran back in 1999 or 2000 (I can't quite recall). My green stuff skills have improved since I did this piece, and the new plastic terminators should be a delight to work with.

I've also got a present I promised to do for a friend, so many years ago now it's embarrassing! So I'll get to work on part of that alongside redoing the old greenie.

Sweat the small things?
I wrote, on April Fools' Day funnily enough, about the fun I was having playing Zynga's point-and-click strategy/roleplay Mafia Wars @fB. I said at the time that I wasn't really sure why this game, above all the many others I tried thanks to the many invites passed on by fB friends, had taken hold of my imagination.

Those reasons I can now sum up in a short list:

• XP ("we cry!"), levelling up and customised character improvement (never get old those!).
• Exploration: the world of Mafia Wars (your turf) just gets bigger as you get further into it.
• Working with fB friends who're in your mafia - a fun way to hang out on the net.
• Fights, robberies and the hitlist; it's weird just going out to do the dirty on strangers, but fun in this virtual environment; I try not to overdo it.
• Strategising: how can I do this; where does that come from; how do I work my resources more efficiently, etc, etc.
• Setting and achieving goals.

This last is the one I was prompted to write about after an fB-friend and twitter-fellow gave me the impression that I was doing quite well to be a level 72 mogul banking his 2nd $billion so quickly. This flattered me into thinking that I might be able to offer some strategy tips. Here they are:

• Bank your cash: I know you lose an extra 10%, but money in the bank seems to be more secure, even if you can still be robbed with no cash in pocket.
• Invest in lots of land and cheap properties: it takes longer to build up your income initially, but:

1. These properties are easy to buy in large amounts, ie. the hundreds.
2. They won't get robbed so often: some can't be; and I know I always look for the shiny big casinos first when I go out to grab some much-needed readies.

• Buy everything in 10's as soon as you can: it's just much simpler to work that way.
• Buy big when the money's big:

1. Don't fiddle around trying to save piddling amounts by buying then developing to avoid the rising land prices, just buy as much land as you can afford so that you've got sites lying waiting to be built on.
2. Buying land or developing, buy/build as many as possible of the most expensive properties you can afford, then ditto for the cheaper property next down the list, and so on.

• Don't sweat petty attacks and robberies:

1. They're part of the game.
2. You'll get help if you need it because fB is friendly that way it seems.
3. Hitlist the ones who whack you though.

I have no real way of measuring my achievement with those all-too-unreal $billions, and I don't pretend this list is exhaustive. I just hope some readers find these tips useful.

Just plain sweat
UK Games Expo'09 looms on the horizon, and I've got a lot of stuff to get done:

• Get my CC:P ready.
• Prepare inventories for the games I'll be taking down to loan.
• Post, mail, and message to publicise the event more.
• Relax so that I don't end up heading south in a tizz!

Wish me luck dear readers! ;)

PS. 09:45 - Account Balance: $1,002,359,126! :-)

Related@RD/KA!
- My life in the mob