Start the week @ RD/KA!: Meanwhile... new TV treats?

I finally got round to watching the opening episode of the troubled season 2 of NBC's Heroes on BBC2 last night. I say 'eventually' because I missed both the original broadcast and the first repeat, only finding out at the last moment that there was a 2nd repeat to catch.

Heroes was one of my favourite TV series last year, being the only one apart from Doctor Who that I made an effort to catch each week. The idea of the series appealed to me, and I liked the low-key way that it handled the emergence of superpowers in our own world. And yet at the same time I found the series deeply frustrating, mostly because it was so damn slow. The sprawling narrative with its wide cast plodded on becoming ever more convoluted as it developed and undermining the series' essential premise as it was revealed.

This is something that really bugs me about a lot of modern SF TV. There used to be a time when series like Star Trek (classic and next gen.) were written with no overarching plotlines or continuity so that episodes didn't need to be broadcast in a given order to make sense to viewers. This changed with the success of Babylon 5 (unless my memory fails me), the impact of which can be seen with the adoption of a megaplot in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and in the plethora of more-or-less vaguely SF action/mystery series which have become staple viewing fodder today, eg. Lost, to name the best known.

All of which would be to the good if it wasn't for the lamentable approach to TV storytelling inaugurated by Star Trek: the Next Generation, with its flabby scripts and time-wasting camera work, all of which contrasted poorly with the dynamic pacing of classic Trek. Layer this approach to creating episodes on top of the sprawling multithreaded narrative now favoured and you have the recipie for the frustration I noted.

Compare Heroes with Doctor Who or The Wire to see how limiting this approach is. Whether it is the sheer amount of story in a 45-minute Doctor Who episode, or the richness created by The Wire's multilayered narrative, it is hard to deny that these series demonstrate qualities precisely the opposite of those I find so unappealing.

Ah well, I guess every TV series can't be the best of the best. Heroes will just have to settle for being the best of the rest. Last night's episode was enjoyable enough. I expect I'll be watching as much of season 2 as I can get myself in front of. But it's got some way to go to become 'must-see-TV' like our good Doctor.

Speaking of our good Doctor, Saturday's episode went down a treat. An nice little prologue, then straight into the action, including a dramatic return of Martha from last season. By the end of the episode the Doctor was facing not just armageddon at the hands of an old enemy, but Donna's grandad was about to become a victim of the first wave, and all in less than 45 minutes. Now that's storytelling! ;)

Start the week @ RD/KA!: Microsoft Vista? Gah!

When my old computer was dying on me last year, I decided to hold off buying a new one until the new Windows OS was out. Don't ask me why, it just seemed like a good idea at the time. Oh how I wish I hadn't! Microsoft Vista is quite simply the biggest crock of shit Microsoft has ever sold me.

Off-the-shelf hardware ingenue that I am, I went online and chose a Dell Dimension DM061, powered by a Intel Pentium Duo 2.8GHz, 1014MB RAM chip. I've had no problems with Dell as Dell (expect perhaps they gave me that irritating update checker which reguarly pops up not to allow me to install upgrades?). No, my problems have all been with Windows Vista.

As ever with a Windows OS 'upgrade', the new chrome is nice, eg. the new 'View' and 'Sort' settings in Explorer offer genuine utility in accessing folders full of a large number of different file types, or would if their coding hasn't rendered the entire OS utterly unstable. (And I'm betting that the idea was probably lifted from the Mac in any case, just like so much else of the Vista chrome appears to be.) Here are some of the more minor bugs my Explorer demonstrates:

• Folders in Explorer reset to random view and sort settings each time I enter them, so I have to click about to get the desired view setting I want over and over again.
• The shift- and ctrl- multiselect options have stopped working except in my Open/Save dialogue boxes.

The upshot of this is to make file management incredibly frustrating, and, in the case of the malfunctioning multishift, so laborious that I feel as if my machine has regressed to pre-GUI days.

Serious as these glitches in Explorer are, they are minor compared to the extreme bloat that is Vista's main crippling flaw. The 'blue screen of death' used to be the hallmark of the horror that was an unstable Windows OS, now it's the 'Not Responding' message which appears with depressing frequency and usually for no apparent reason. Defragmenting and virus scans take forever too, sometimes literally 6 or more hours, as if the disc hadn't been defragged or checked in weeks.

So as if Explorer wasn't already bad enough, it can lock up and freeze the whole machine trying to move 2 or 3 PDF's from one folder to another, and it will stay locked for minutes before it clears. That's 1 Meg RAM @ 2.8GHz, freezing over a few Meg's of PDF? WTF?! I've learned, when organising files in Explorer, to hit cancel and try again when this dread box turns up. It's usually quicker than waiting for the box to freeze and lock up explorer.

And on top of all that, Badger told me about a story going round that the latest Vista patches- which naturally enough I've downloaded automatically, as you do- have actually made a bad situation worse. I can vouch for that, particularly over the freezes, which definitely seem to me to be getting worse.

So I've had enough of this shit. I'm fed up spending money on a fancy new computer only to find it performing increasingly below specification. I'm no computer whizz, but I know these machines should be working better than this. I'm moving to a Linux OS as soon as I can. Badger tells me that it's easy to test Ubuntu without making installation decisions which might cause problems. I'm going to investigate this soon. ;)

Start the week @ RD/KA!: Meanwhile... just last week

Badger and my ongoing effort to play all the Combat Commander scenarios continued in a marathon 7-game session which took us into the new Battle Pack scenarios.

Before that though I lazed a day away watching all 13 episodes of The Wire, Season 4, which I'd been given for my birthday last month. Pure unadulterated TV heaven. Watching it, I was made vividly aware of how DVD's radically change the way we consume TV, enabling us to watch the TV we want at our leisure, the way we're familiar with from books. This strikes me as something more than just a matter of convenience, a notion which for me was underlined by the oft-cited 'novelistic' style of The Wire, a feature of the show which I'd warrant works better for the DVD viewer than the weekly TV viewer.

Speaking of TV heaven, I'm keeping up with the new Doctor Who season too, naturally enough. I know some people weren't too happy at the thought of Katherine Tate as the new assistant. No fan of her comedy sketch show myself, I've been reserving my judgement. Three episodes in, I'm quite happy. The essential relationship between the Doctor and Donna follows logically enough from those of Rose and Martha- true love, unrequited love, and now no love at all. This projects a nice line of character development for the Doctor and his assistants (all of whom we know are to appear in this series). The comedy aspect, which would be expected from a writing team playing to Katherine Tate's strength, has been handled well.

Something I'm finding particularly intriguing is the sense that, in the new series, everything is simultaneously familiar and different. Familiar: it's the Doctor we've come to love all over again. Different: I can't really say for sure. I just feel that the new kind of relationship between the Doctor and Donna gives the episodes a dynamic subtly different from those featuring Rose or Martha. Whatever, I'm liking it.

Incidentally, Doctor Who is one of those shows which just has to be watched each week. The eager anticipation, the hook of the prologue, the thrill of the theme, these features of the episodic format are irresistable essentials of the pleasure of Doctor Who for me. There's no substitute for that Saturday moment! ;)

Start the week @ RD/KA!: Meanwhile... elsewhere, at the table, and on the shelf

It's been an eventful few months in the gaming industry since last August. D&D4 had been announced just before that last post and has wreaked its attendant hullaballoo across the net in subsequent months. I haven't played D&D regularly since my teenage years, so I've not been following much of this at all. I daresay I'll end up buying the game just to see what it looks like. The most I can hope for from it is that I'll find it interesting enough to read it from cover-to-cover, unlike D&D3 and 3.5

Black Industries finally releases one of the longest awaited and most hotly anticipated roleplaying products ever, namely the 40K RPG Dark Heresy. It shifts shedloads just in time for GW to announce the closure of their Black Industries subsidiary, the better to concentrate on Black Library's core publishing. Lamentations and woe betide us all! Until Fantasy Flight Games rode to the rescue with a licencing deal for GW's (non-miniature) boardgame, cardgame and RPG licences.

Note that Black Industries made their announcement on Jan 28, FFG's was Feb 22. What was the purpose of this three and-a-half week delay I wonder? Was there really so much unfinished business? Or were there just salesmen who couldn't resist the opportunity to sow the seeds of some panic-buying, such as yours truly, who promptly went out and bought the Dark Heresy book which might otherwise've been left lying for some months to come, and who finished off his WFRP collection for good measure, "just to be on the safe side". Also, some readers might remember that BI had procured the licence for the DC RPG. Has this now reverted? Or can we expect something from FFG? Its announcement refers specifically to GW's IP, so I won't be holding my breath.

Elsewhere, Steve Long announced summer 2009 as the release of HERO 6th edition. In a surprising move, he also announced that he'd sold the Champions Universe property- the official setting of the Champions' RPG since the original edition- to Cyptic Studios, who are to use the setting (but not the rules) in their upcoming Champions Online MMORG. Long meanwhile plans to licence the IP back from Cryptic Studios for use in the HERO games line.

Finally, as roleplayers the world over know, Gary Gygax died on March 4th. As people've tried to put his contribution to roleplaying into perspective, we can be sure that roleplaying would've happened without him, but he certainly put his unique stamp on the early days of the hobby with things like his infamously quirky list of polearms in the AD&D DMG. And, whatever his precise contribution at any stage of the creation of D&D was, Gary Gygax became, to all intents and purposes, the founding father of roleplaying. I think the last thing any of those guys were thinking as they dreamed up new ways of playing games with their toy soldiers (when they really ought to've been "far too old for them", remember!) was that they would start anything which would transform the gaming industry, let alonge grant possible 'founding father' status to any of them. So we have to reckon that Gygax's coming to bear this honour was probably as unexpected by Gygax as by anyone else. When all is said and done, he seems to made a tolerably good job of bearing it. And D&D and roleplaying have outived him, which must have pleased him in the end, wouldn't you think?

Gaming stopped completely for a couple of months last year after I went offline, restarting in December in time for the Xmas day Combat Commander bash with Badger. Combat Commander has been at the table a lot since then, but regular sessions with Andy and Donald mean that a lot of other favourites, new and old, have been seeing action. Highlights have included my first victory as the Overlord in Descent, the thrilling tales of my derring duo of ace pilots in Crimson Skies, and my first game in more than 20 years of the old AH game of chariot racing Circus Maximus. Commands and Colours: Ancients and Settlers Cards have also made welcome appearances recently, which I would hope to see again in the future.

Of course, I've bought a few new games, mostly filling out games with expansions: Days of Wonder's Memoir'44 Air Pack and Battlelore Specialist Packs, CC:A expansions #2- Rome & the Barbarians and #3- The Roman Civil War,and the Descent expansions, including the new The Road to Legend campaign expansion. Fast Action Battle: the Bulge and Manoeuvre, both by GMT, are 2 completely new games I've bought recently. Alert readers will already've noticed that I've recently played Manoeuvre (see right...), but it's still too early to report other than to say that it looks like the game delivers what I'd hoped (which was 'what it said on the tin'- check out the link to its page at GMT's site to see what I saw...). I'm still digesting FAB: the Bulge, but I like the look of it quite a lot. Quite a lot indeed.

Start the week @ RD/KA!: Meanwhile... playing catchup

RD/KA! in review
Recent visitors to the RD/KA! homepage will perhaps be less surprised than readers who follow feeds, but I'm back at the keyboard after a 7-month bloglag, the longest since RD/KA! launched back in August 2005. Thanks to those of you who were prompted to contact me because of this long silence. I was gratified and encouraged as ever.

As you'd expect, the longer RD/KA! went untouched the more I shrank from returning to it, to the point where I was telling myself just to give it up. The wish to give the thing in passed along with the worst of my mood downswing (the trough bottomed-out December last), but I still had to endure months' of writer's block which could've left me just giving up on the darn thing if it'd been as simple a matter as just slinking off and leaving RD/KA! another dead blog long forgotten. But of course, I've got RD/KA! as my homepage. It appears every single time I open a new browser window. So I the darn thing won't just slink off and die. No, I've got to put it out of its misery good and proper. Which I just couldn''t face doing, naturally enough.

As the figures on the right show, on the face of it RD/KA! has had a chequered publishing history, with posts in the initial half-year equivalent to those in the 2 subsequent full-years combined. The 200+ total posts average some 6+ posts/month, a figure which, if maintained, would give both an active blog and a healthy schedule of deadlines which has a fair chance of continuing unchecked through moodswings (fingers crossed!). So here's hoping that 2008-09 sees my existing output organised through a proper schedule so that RD/KA! becomes more regular than ever before.

Start the week @ RD/KA! : Got game!

It continues to be games-a-gogo for yours truly this August with a bumper weekend's gaming, most of which was a pleasant surprise (in more ways than one).

Battlelore and more
It all began Friday night with a visit from Ros. I'd been promising to introduce her to Battlelore for some time, and we finally got round to it. So it was back to Agincourt and another chance to save the day for the English in the topsy-turvy world of the Battlelore Uchronia.


This game was an important test of my enthusiasm for Battlelore. Y'see Ros is exactly the sort of person at whom Eurogames are aimed: she likes competition without destruction and prefers player interaction which is about negotiation instead of conflict. So, for example (as regular readers will already know), she really likes Settlers of Catan and Carcassonne, and for all the familiar reasons put forward by fans of those games. (You could check the BGG:Settlers and BGG:Carcassonne forums if you don't already know what these reasons are and you're interested in finding out more.)

Now I really like games like Settlers of Catan and Carcassonne myself. I really do. I enjoy playing them and also appreciate them as designs. But among all the familiar family games I grew up playing were games like Risk and Campaign. Plus I was a teenage tankie who shared with his brother the fun of writing our own wargames rules for our model collections, and I gravitated to professional tabletop rules and then board wargames in my teens. So there is a part of my gaming self which always yearns for the chaos and carnage of all-out battle.

So, after Ros' and my 24-game stint of Carcassonne in recent months, I couldn't help but feel it was time to step up to some butt-kicking dice-rolling for a change of pace. Battlelore struck me as the best battlegame in my collection for this purpose. I felt that Richard Borg's Commands and Colo[u]rs(!) system offers the ideal style of gameplay to appeal to Ros (who is an avid and regular Bridge player) as her introduction to tactical battlegaming. Moreover I suspected that the chivalric fantasy themes of Battlelore would appeal more to Ros than those of Memoir'44 or Commands and Colours: Ancients. On top of that, I hoped that the wide range of options offered by the fully expanded Battlelore will entice Ros into many future games.

And? Well?

I can report we got off to a good start. The limited range of options offered by her hand of Command cards made it easy for Ros to start making decisions from among an otherwise bewildering array of options, the underlying logic of most of which were beyond her understanding as she got her first ever Battlelore army moving. With the minimum of coaching she was able to form her army up nicely as my English archers maintained a steady hail of largely ineffectual fire.

The first moment of contact was indecisive IIRC, and I could see Ros' spirits wilt. But it wasn't long before the dice started going Ros' way. By this time she was standing up to watch every dice land in the dice box. The moment of her first truly decisive attack was telling: instinctively exulting as she swept my little plastic men from the board, Ros was almost as quickly taken somewhat aback. But she could scent victory and would let nothing get in her way, of her rampaging cavalry especially.

Ros' well-earned triumph followed shortly thereafter: 4-1. I decided I could live with that. I knew there'd be another day. ;)

Score
0-1 :b

Usurpers dethroned!
The pleasant surprises began on Saturday with a call from Bill inviting us to a family boardgames night. I accepted with alacrity.

First, I regain my kingdom
The evening began with a 5-player game of Settlers of Catan (in which we all made sure to play the proper expanded board, unlike the last time we'd played- d'oh!). Facing each other across the island of Catan we had:

• Radka, the unchallenged queen of Catan at our table.
• Bill and I, both smarting from Martin's recent romps to victory.
• Daniel, chomping at the bit to reassert himself after winning at his first ever game many moons ago.
• Ros, keen to establish her winning credentials among a new group of players.

As cut-throat a bunch of colonising desperadoes as you could expect to encounter in virgin lands in other words!

The distinguishing features of that night's isle of Catan were, IIRC, a relative paucity of 6-point, 8-point and brick regions. And the gameplay? Looking back I would say that Development cards were one of the key features of the game. The particular nature of the resource base meant that lots of Development cards were being bought- we all often had both the resources and the time to spend them. The inter-turn building rule of the 5-6 player game meant that many of us were buying these Development cards in other players' turns, so that we could play them immediately in our own next turn. The net result of this was these cards were bought and played more often than is typical in an average 3 or 4-player game.

The upshot of this was that we entered the midgame with Bill in front thanks to his Largest Army while the rest of us were developing our own colonies quite nicely. For my part I was in a desperate life-or-death race based on a potentially fatal flaw in my initial setup. That flaw was the absence of Ore in my initial resource base. Without city-building resources I would be doomed.

I had only 1 way out- a 5-road build towards the centre of the board from my coastal fastness. A Road Building Development card helped me on my way, as did some careful use of the Robber to deny road-building resources to Radka and Daniel, who might've chosen to develop their own colonies towards my strategic target. I achieved my goal, but it was a close-run thing.

My road-building efforts drew attention to me thanks to the Longest Road, thus putting me in pole position for potential spoiler play via the Robber. And Ros started to build her own roads towards precisely the nexus I was aiming at just as I was collecting my resources for my final build. One or two different resource rolls or more favourable trading agreements were all it would've taken to pip me at the post to give Ros the endgame position I was aiming at, and Ros' excoriations when I finally got that settlement built (thanks again to inter-turn building) was sufficient proof that she knew this as well as I did!

And so I entered the endgame in front, with Bill a close second. This was a very dangerous position to be in. Y'see, among the many gaming skills Bill enjoys is that of being a silver-tongued devil. Last Saturday this came into play to distract the other players from his own potentially winning position while he was (with some legitimacy it must be said) rallying everyone to pick on the person in front- namely me.

On Saturday night this almost worked too: it turned out that Bill was a mere single Sheep card from gaining the resources he needed to build sufficient roads to steal the Longest Road from me for the win. In the end though the dice failed him where they didn't me, and I was able to play Year of Plenty to build my winning city.

I won by 2 points over Bill, with everyone else on 7 points. But it could easily've been very different: Bill could've lost his Largest Army but taken the Longest Road off of me. This could easily've kept the game open long enough for everyone to reach 8 or 9 points thus being in with a real shout in a whole different denouement.

Score
1-0 :)

Then I establish my kinghood
We then moved on to play 3 games of a favourite of Radka and Daniel's: Ivanhoe. I won all 3, even after Bill decided to join the last game after having sat out the previous 2 (his Ivanhoe record against me is at least as good as his recent Up Front record!). Perhaps Bill sought to intervene to stave off the terrible fate he saw looming? I don't know, but it was to no avail in any event.

I'd love to be able to put all this down to skill, but I can't. I did play my cards well for sure, but there was also at least one time when I took a great risk in playing out most of my hand, so that I was liable to get shut out of the rest of the game while everyone else raced ahead of me. I also enjoyed some luck with the other players confounding each other so that they couldn't get ahead of me while I sat rebuilding my hand.

No matter. Be it luck or judgement, the night was mine. You can be sure that my fellow players (some at least!) were as despondent as I was delighted, although I must tell you that I was modest enough to forbear a victory dance... ;)

Score
4-0 :b

Finally I show those French a thing or two
Returning from chez King, Ros and I rounded off our own evening with a rematch at Agincourt.

Looking back at our first game, I had concluded that my main mistake was that I hadn't been aggressive enough, ie. that I'd spent too long sitting back firing with my archers, so that my army wasn't well prepared for the moment when the French made contact. For the rematch, I was determined to change this. I did.

Dealt a Foot Onslaught card in my starting hand, I set out to form up my medium and heavy foot to exploit this to attack the French with an unexpected 2-hex charge into melee. This didn't go entirely to plan because I split my forces thanks to misreading the Foot Onslaught card, but I was still able to launch 2 medium and 1 heavy foot units right into the the French lines, then to push them further forward with the other Foot Onslaught.

Ros gamely tried to retrieve the situation, but the cards and dice were against her. I won 4-1.

Revenge aside, what was interesting about this game was the ideas it prompted about how to deal with the knotty problem of teaching basic battlefield tactics to a player to whom this kind of gameplay is utterly new. This problem is amplified by the very nature of card-driven games like Battlelore, where you simply can't separate your knowledge of your own cards from the advice you give your opponent. I hope to return to this another time.

Score
1-0 :)

Curse you Biggles, curse you!
The weekend's (pleasant) surprises were rounded off with a call from Andy, who had some unexpected time on his hands, and was angling for some games of Wings of War. A quick visit to Static Games- our FLGS- later, we sat down to Dawn of War: Wings of War, featuring Andy's 2 Spitfires against my 2 Me109's.

Maybe it was the fact that I was too caught up in the weekend's existing medieval mindset to play my 20th century aerial steeds to their best advantage; maybe it was just that I played really badly (and I have to confess that my first game demonstrated the worst wingman play I've yet shown, with my 2 planes ending up halfway across the table from each other); or maybe it was just sheer dumb luck (and I'm sure that even Andy would admit that- short of outright one-shot kills- some of his shooting was superb beyond reasonable expectations... Hmm?).

Whatever the cause, I lost 1 plane then exited my other with just 1 damage point remaining in our first dogfight. In the second I feared my first plane's days were numbered thanks to its taking an initial 13 damage (out of 19) in our first pass. That'll be the last time I play chicken with 1 plane against 2 then I guess. My fears proved correct, although I did manage to down 1 of Andy's Spitfires in the same (IIRC) deadly pass which saw my own plane crash and burn.

The hopes thus raised were not realised. Luck was with Andy and my remaining Me109 was lost while his last surviving Spitfire flew home on spit and polish (2 damage left out of 17!). My 2 pilots parachuted into the drink quietly adding Goering's name to Biggles' as the object of their curses.

Score
0-2 :(

Weekend's tally
5-3
Grins

Start the week @ RD/KA! : Ho hum, another Claymore

It's been nearly a fortnight since I posted last. This was because I've been particularly busy lately, not because my mood has swung so low I can't face the keyboard. Just thought I'd let my regular readers know the good news. Anyhoo, onwards.

A couple of weekends ago saw the first Saturday in August, meaning that it was Claymore Saturday. Run by the South East Scotland Wargames Club, Claymore is probably Scotland's largest and certainly Scotland's longest-running wargames convention. It is also caught in something of a timewarp, being essentially a hardcore miniatures games convention.

The event is held in the indoor athletics track at Meadowbank stadium in Edinburgh. When you go in you are confronted by 3 rows of exhibits: a central row of gaming tables flanked on each side by trade stands. There is a real sense of bustle for sure, but the area is cramped and gloomy. And that's all there is to it. There are no other rooms. There is no space for other activities, let alone for gamers to come along and do their own thing.

On top of all that, when you look at what's laid on, well, to be honest, it leaves me pretty cold. The gaming tables are given over to a mixture of demonstration and participation games. I really don't get this demonstration games thing. I mean to say: why should I want to watch other people play their games instead of playing games myself? I simply cannot get my head around the mentality which thinks that this is a worthwhile activity to lay on at a public event.

And the participation games are by and large little better. Why do I say that? Because most of the participation games are ongoing games which the public can join in with. That is to say: they are not games designed to be run to completion over a short period. This would seem to me to reduce any members of the public who decide to join such a game to the level of a place-filler in someone else's game.

Now maybe I'm being unfair here. There are a lot of nice models on the tables at Claymore each year, and I can well understand their appeal. I'm even faintly envious of people who have some of the miniatures collections on show. So maybe the visual spectacle itself is indeed an attraction which will help grow the hobby. And likewise not all the participation games look like demonstration games with room for a few people to join in. So maybe they too are an attraction whose power is lost on me.

But year after year I go to Claymore, and I end up feeling the same way: for all its charms, this is a backwater of the wider hobby, a timewarp in which D&D, Warhammer and Mt:G might never have happened. More and more too I find myself wondering if this is exactly what the organisers prefer. Whatever: it's their club and their event, so they can run it as they please. I just think it's a shame that our Scottish gaming community continues to lack the sort of event which represents all aspects of the hobby, which presents them attractively and comfortably, and which- above all- offers people as much time as they'd wish to play as many games as they can fit in.

If Claymore is as unattractive as I'm painting it here, why do I bother going at all? I mean, I typically pay my money at the door and only hang around for an hour or so before finding something else to do. There are several reasons. First is sheer nostalgia. I did my student drop-out days in Edinburgh 20-odd years ago. So the sheer beauty of the city is overlaid with poignant memory. On top of that there is the chance to spend some money, which I did this year naturally enough. Finally- and most importantly- there is the Claymore games bash, where I meet my old buddies, drink beer, and while away the hours playing boardgames until we drop. I wouldn't miss this for the world. This year's session was particularly spectacular. More on that anon.

Start the week @ RD/KA! : 4-colour friends

Off the shelves of my local library
One of the great thing about public lending libraries these days is that they offer a much wider range of services than just the familiar book-lending. Some people like to complain about this. Me, I like it, especially when I can pick up a batch of TPB's for my enjoyment. Here's what a recent trip to my local library netted me.

**********

Black Widow: Homecoming

Writer: Richard K. Morgan
Art: Bill Sienkiewicz and Goran Parlov
Colours: Dan Brown
Letters: Cory Petit

Apart from the cover picture of a leather-clad woman with a big gun, this book caught my interest because of the name of Bill Sienkiewicz on the art credits. Sienkiewicz was responsible for Elektra Assassin, simply one of the most visually stunning comics I have ever read. I was also interested to notice that this was written by Richard K. Morgan. I have an autographed copy of Morgan's Altered Carbon, which I bought when he sat on a panel here in Glasgow a few years ago.

To my initial disappointment Sienkiewicz's work on the book was limited, with Goran Parlov doing most of the art. This wasn't too bad, because Parlov is a good artist, and his style is close enough to that of Sienkiewicz so that there is no visual clash to irritate the eye. Overall, the art in this book is in a rangy, naturalistic style, which works nicely to take you out of the 4-colour world, and into the shadow world of intrigue in which the story is set.

As for the rest of the book? Richard Morgan delivers a taut thriller, featuring rogue agents and post-Cold War intrigue, all mixed in with a nicely executed re-imagining of the Black Widow character complete with the obligatory retconning. The story moves along at a brisk pace, the dialogue is tight, and the book's hard edge is to be found as much in the socio-political asides as in the violence you'd expect to find in a post-Iron Age treatment of an assassin.

I enjoyed this a lot. It's good enough to make me want to seek out the sequel- Black Widow: The Things They Say About Her- to see if Morgan can maintain his high standards.

**********

Vimanarama

Writer: Grant Morrison
Art: Philip Bond
Colours: Brian Miller
Letters: Todd Klein

I first became aware of Grant Morrison as a comic writer when I was visiting a friend, where I read Imperial, the TPB collecting #118-26 of New X-Men. Of course, it turned out that I'd already been a big fan of Morrison's Zenith, from 2000AD, but that's another story. In any event, I began collecting the New X-Men TPB's, and soon became enough of a fan of Morrison's work to pick up anything and everything with his name on it.

It was easy therefore to add this title to my pile when I was checking these TPB's out of my local library. It is a mark of Morrison's standing that Vimanarama was reviewed at the Guardian Unlimited, where it was called "a ripping yarn." I heartily agree with this sentiment.

At its heart Vimanarama is a simple tale of romance and adventure. It fuses the visionary cosmic adventure which Morrison does so well with an acute eye for soap-opera melodrama of the sort familiar to millions of TV viewers. The story involves young Ali, worried about the woman to whom he is about to be introduced for the purposes of an arranged marriage: first, because he is afraid she'll be ugly and stupid; and then because he's afraid the smart and beautiful Sofia will prefer a god to him. While Ali worries about this, everyone else is worried about the impending end of the world unwittingly unleashed by Ali and Sofia. Just another day in Bradford then.

Here again we have a story which zips along at a cracking pace, with twists and turns aplenty, and good jokes and some nice touching moments on the way. In other words: this is what we'd expect from Grant Morrison.

The artwork is also excellent. Bond's style reminds me of Cam Kennedy- high praise indeed IMO. His pages are clean, dynamic and expressive. Miller's naturalistic colours are lovely to look at too, and they work well when constrasted with the classic 4-colour stylings of the Ultrahadeen, the divine heroes who come to save humanity. Klein's lettering deserves mention too, for the sake of the 2 special styles he works up for the villains and the Ultrahedeen.

All-in-all then, Vimanarama is a little cracker. This could prove very useful for GM's looking for a new twist on Armageddon with which to challenge their PC's.

As an aside: I met Grant Morrison when he was on that same panel as Richard Morgan. In traditional Glasgow fashion we decamped to the pub afterwards, where I had a chance to talk with him. He's a very snappy dresser and a charming man who is a very interesting conversationalist. As a believer in magic and mysticism he is also barking mad, but in a good way!

**********

Superman: For Tomorrow, Vol.1

Writer: Brian Azzarello
Art: Jim Lee and Scott Williams
Colours: Alex Sinclair
Letters: Rob Leigh and Nick J. Napolitano

Superman is a troublesome character for me. Mostly he's just dull, too powerful and squeaky clean for my liking. In the 1980's Alan Moore and Frank Miller delivered a Superman I enjoyed reading. Since then I have read the odd TPB which I enjoyed. My hopes for this volume were raised by Brian Azzarello's name on the writing credits. Azzarello writes the wonderful 100 Bullets, which I am collecting in TPB. Jim Lee's name on the art credits was just a bonus.

My expectations weren't confounded. Framing the story around Superman's seeking out a father confessor, Azzarello delivers a tale which draws inspiration from The Authority to present the Man of Steel facing up to the moral and practical consequences of his decision to intervene directly in human politics. As you might expect from a Superman comic published in 2004 and featuring these themes, this gives Superman: For Tomorrow, Vol.1 a powerful subtext relating to the war in Iraq, a theme Azzarello plants and leaves to germinate in the reader's mind without labouring the point.

Add in Jim Lee's lovely artwork and you have a very interesting Superman story indeed. I really want to find out what happens next.

**********

Usagi Yojimbo, Vol.18: Travels with Jotaro

Writer/Art/Letters: Stan Sakai

Stan Sakai's anthropomorphic animal tale of the bunny-ronin Usagi Yojimbo is a comic whose high reputation prededed it. Although I have no special interest in samurai stories per se, I do like Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima's Lone Wolf and Cub. And, of course, there is Katana. So I was interested to see what I made of this highly popular comic.

And what did I make of it? Simple: I'm another fan for whom a complete collection of the TPB's is a goal.

Usagi Yojimbo has it all. The anthropomorphic device works really well, with the different animals giving an immediate persona to each character portrayed. Sakai's B&W line artwork is lovely to look at, with all the dynamism and expressiveness you could ask for. The stories are wonderful, with interesting plots which any GM could use for inspiration. The dialogue is good too, advancing the plot, expressing character and character relationships, and giving a real feel for the setting so smoothly that you can't see the joins. This is quality stuff exemplifying the unique qualities the comics medium can bring to storytelling.

**********

Aliens: Nightmare Asylum

Writer: Mark Verheiden
Art: Denis Beauvais
Letters: Willie Schubert

Oh those bugs! Alien was the first X-rated movie I ever saw. Aliens is one of the greatest movie sequels ever made IMO. And I've always loved GW's take on the implacable all-consuming alien horde- the Tyranids. So I was happy to pick up this comic to give it a go.

What Verheiden and Beauvais deliver in Aliens: Nightmare Asylum is piece of hard-boiled military SF in which a group of survivors of the aliens' onslaught on planet Earth find themselves at the mercy of an utterly insane General Spears who has his own plans on how to deal with the aliens.

There is nothing fancy in this story. It develops themes familiar from the best movies in the Alien franchise. But Verheiden knows how to tell a good story, and Beauvais can certainly draw and paint. The chances are if you're a fan of this franchise you'll like this book. These chances probably increase if you're a GM who runs (or fancies running) military SF in the bughunting genre.

**********

So I got some good reading out of this pile of TPB's from my local library. I would recommend them all to my readers. If I had to pick one to dispense with, it'd be Aliens: Nightmare Asylum. There is nothing wrong with this as such; it's just that it's the least original of the bunch. And if I had to pick one and only one? That'd have to be Usagi Yojimbo, Vol.18: Travels with Jotaro, because this is a whole new world of adventure for yours truly.

Happy reading.

Start the week @ RD/KA! : Doctor Who season concludes

WARNING!

-Eccleston and Tennant seasons spoilers ahead-
WARNING!

So Saturday there saw the final episode of the current Doctor Who season (I'd call it the 3rd season but it's not really, and I'm enough of a Doctor Who geek to respect that, even if I'm not enough of one to remember exactly how many seasons there have been). Andy suggested we should have a wee party for the occasion, with DVD's for after the season finalé. So Gav and Tony joined us for an evening of Doctor Who, curry, and bevvy.

'Last of the Time Lords', episode 13 of David Tennant's 2nd season as the good Doctor had a lot to live up to. After all, Rose's elevation to goddesshood via the Tardis so that she could save the Earth from the Dalek invasion had been absolutely stupendous. It set the bar high for Tennant's 1st season finalé. And that bar was duly raised by the Dalek-Cyberman war and the utter heartbreak of Rose's departure.

So Tennant's 2nd season had to do 2 things: establish a new assistant to take the place of Rose; and to continue to raise the game in the season finalé. The first was outstandingly achieved by the character of Martha Jones, ably played by the beautiful and charming Freema Agyeman.

The choice of such a strong contrast with Rose was astute and quite brave (is Martha the Doctor's first ever non-white assistant?- I missed 3 entire Doctors after Tom Baker, so I really don't know). This contrast was developed in fine fashion with the unrequited love theme, while at the same time the way in which Martha was established as more than just a substitute for Rose as the season advanced was a fine piece of plotting.

The pivotal importance of Martha as another assistant in the new style was underscored by the frankly magnificent 2-parter featuring the The Family of Blood ('Human Nature' and 'The Family of Blood'), surely up there in the Top 10 of all-time great Doctor Who stories. The story which followed- 'Blink'- was another great, with its bravura treatment of time-travel paradox. And so, not content with having to live up to the challenges posed by the previous season finalé, this year's episode had to top those 3 to boot.

The result was a triumph! John Simm may not have the Master's traditional goatee, but he reminded us all that an insane criminal genius can be every bit as dangerous as genocidal would-be universe-conqueroring alien hordes. I was particularly struck by the way that the handling of the Doctor-Master relationship seemed to echo that of the Batman and the Joker in the years since Frank Miller's seminal The Dark Knight Returns.

Anyway, I'm not going to go into any detail about the episode, because I don't want to spoil it for any of my reader who haven't seen it yet. I will just tell you all to make sure that you watch David Tennant's 2nd season as the Doctor. You won't be disappointed, because you'll be watching one of the best TV programmes on the planet right now.

-Current Doctor Who season spoiler warning ends-

If that's all I have to say about Saturday's episode of Doctor Who, it's not my last word here on the series itself. Y'see, like I said, we watched some classic series on DVD after the season finalé. We watched Genesis of the Daleks and The Curse of Fenric.

I watched Genesis of the Daleks when it was originally broadcast back in 1975. I absolutely loved it. I really enjoyed watching it again, not least because of Sarah Jane Smith, played by Elizabeth Sladen. Sarah Jane was the first Doctor's assistant I had a serious crush on, because her stint in the series just happened to coincide with the onset of my adolescence (and because she is a classic English rose).

Sarah Jane aside, Genesis of the Daleks was notable for its grim scenario: a world torn by endless war in which a scientific elite are engaged in secret research under the guidance of a shrieking megalomaniac. Ultimately the products of that research destroy their creators, but not before a brutal power-struggle leaves most of the scientists dead at the hands of their leader's henchmen. The parallels with Nazi Germany were obvious to me even at the age of 12, but I was struck on Saturday night by other references which went over my head at the time; eg. to Dr. Strangelove.

The Curse of Fenric was great too. It's one of Andy's favourite series from the Sylvester McCoy period and he has been singing its praises to me since Ecclestone's appearance. I was pleasantly surprised to find my low estimation of this period of Doctor Who being utterly revised. I saw all the familiar features of the much-loved Doctors of my childhood on full display.

This extended to McCoy's assistant Ace, played by Sophie Aldred, who'd made a mixed impression on me during the brief fragment I remember seeing back in the late 80's.

More interesting than all of that though was what watching these classic series taught me about the new series, namely how much of what is so good now was always there, and exactly what it is about what is so good which is new, and why. This can be summed-up in a single word: Buffy.

I don't think I'm being terribly original here, but I believe that Joss Whedon's acclaimed Buffy the Vampire Slayer was a landmark of modern action-adventure TV. As he went on to show again with the sadly short-lived Firefly, Whedon is the visionary of the genre today. So what was most striking about watching those classic Doctor Who series was that they were so clearly pre-Buffy. I believe that this is more important even than the oft-discussed importance of Star Wars in relation to raising people's expections of visual effects beyond what the 80's BBC budget could afford.

Y'see- as Andy is wont to repeat- Doctor Who was always about the story, not the effects, even back in the days when the BBC visual effects department led the world (which is why Lucas came to Britain for Star Wars). This can be seen in the classic episodes. So when that classic storytelling is revamped in the post-Buffy period, and with all that modern CGI can provide, the result is a thing of beauty.

I was reminded of this when I saw a repeat of 'Doomsday' (Tennant's 1st season finalé) only yesterday morning. I cried. I just couldn't help myself. The story, the visuals, the affect: it was all just so wonderful. Thirteen weeks a year, 45 minutes each week, I know I'll have these transports of delight. What a life, eh?

And so again: we wait...

Start the week @ RD/KA! : Got game!

Doom
Yesterday was another boardgames day with Andy and Tony. It was a no-brainer that the day was going to start with something by Fantasy Flight Games hitting the table. In the end, Andy stepped-up to play the Invader in Doom: the Boardgame, giving Tony and I the hope that we might progress further than we did the last time- anywhere at all that is!

Donald and Tony's heroic first victory notwithstanding, Tony and I were still a losing team. So we got the easiest mod available, giving us extra wounds and ammo, plus an additional marine card. This was encouraging, and our marine cards raised our moods all the more.

My marine- quickly christened Private Kozlowzki- ended up a Tough Medic with the Killer Instinct who was also a Tactician. This gave him the ability to heal wounds; more armour; that bonus attack after a kill which Donald had used to such deadly effect in the game linked to above; and (most important of all it turned out) the ability to move, fire and place an order in the same turn. This meant I could move up to 8 squares with 2 attacks, plus get an additional attack in the Invaders' turn with the use of overwatch (called 'Guard' in D: tB).

Tony got Alert, Front Guard, Ground Assault and Officer. The latter gave him- and me when I was within 3 squares- extra accuracy and damage in attacks, and led to Tony's marine being named Lieutenant Gorman(!). The other cards meant that Gorman could either move 2 squares and attack 3 times; or move 4 squares, attack twice, then go into overwatch.

So we had a good team: Gorman did the officer thing, and led from behind; while Kozlowski went point and got stuck in with his shotgun, chainsaw and grenades. This worked really well, especially when it was coupled with our knowledge of the board after so many previous games! In fact, by the endgame, Andy was virtually pleading with us to hurry up and win, because he was getting bored with running the Invaders in this mission.

Andy paid for his defeatism. Yes, Kozlowzki and Gorman might not've been the first marine team to get out of that complex, but regular readers might remember that Donald and Tony escaped by the skin of their teeth. Kozlowzki and Gorman on the other hand managed to clear and seal the objective room, loot it thoroughly, and heal themselves back up to full wounds before making their exit. And all this without suffering a single frag. So OK, not first, but definitely best! (We've had enough practice mind you.)

Tony and I are looking forward to taking Kozlowzki and Gorman into the next mission. Tony especially will be wanting Gorman to get some more kills to boost his meagre experience total. But then, that's what you get when you lead from behind! And I'm sure Andy is relieved not to have to return to the first mission again for some time to come!

Score
Andy: 0
Tony: 1
Me: 1

Grins

Settlers of Catan
After this we were all quite keen on another game of Doom, or perhaps a game of Descent: Journeys in the Dark. Unfortunately time was against us, what with getting dinner, and with the need to finish in time for the evening's episode of season 2 of the cracking Rome, which both Andy and I were determined not to miss. So I promised to run Descent next time, and we plumped for a game of Settlers of Catan.

Set-up gave us a very rich board, and we expected a quick game. This expectation proved unfounded, largely due to my fiendishness in keeping the robber on Andy and Tony's shared 8-lumber region for as long as possible in the opening game. Andy especially was hampered by this.

As the midgame opened Tony was in front, with at least 2 cities. I was 2nd, with 4 settlements and a solid resource base. Although he was lagging behind, Andy too had a good resource base, so he was by no means out of the game.

As more and more cities began to appear the rich board began to tell, as huge hands of resources were collected, spent, and lost to the robber. Tony managed to build a settlement and make it a city with a single build. I held my breath against a deadly 7, which didn't appear, and so I built my first 2 cities in a single turn. I was later able to build 4 roads and a city in a single turn.

The endgame began with Tony stealing the longest road from Andy to put himself on 8 points. I too was on 8 points with a victory point card up my sleeve. It was at this moment that I made what, with hindsight, I now believe to be a strategic mistake. Those 4 roads I put down were an attempt to halt Tony's advance to victory by stealing the longest road from him, and then throwing up another city (I was gaining cities on each roll of 8 by this point). But Tony was alert to this, so he dropped the robber on my 8-ore region.

At this point I should've ignored the longest road contest, and just gone for a city and a settlement, something which would've been easy with my well-developed resource base, but especially with my 6-ore region and my ore port. (I think I'm missing something in that account, but I've got the gist of it.) But I didn't, as noted. And so Tony was able to steal the game with a 2nd settlement-straight-into-a-city build. That left me 2nd on 9, and Andy last on 7.

So, although not as quick as we'd thought, this game certainly picked up speed, becoming a truly titanic struggle in the end. Well played Tony!

Score
Andy: 0
Tony: 2
Me: 1

Ah well.

Start the week @ RD/KA! : Meanwhile...

Extraordinary good fortune!
So there I was the other day, heading off up to my GP's to collect a new prescription for Chlorpromazine (a.k.a. Largactil), which is my discretionary tranq of choice when I need a little bit extra to help me manage my hypomanic cycle. Passing Caledonia Books (my former friendly neighbourhood 2nd-hand bookstore) on my way, I decided to pop in in search of some cheap graphic novels. I did well, picking up: Essential Doctor Strange, Vol. 1 (the Dread Dormammu!- memories, sigh), and The Ultimates, Vol. 1 for easy reading; completing my Joe Sacco collection with Safe Area Gorazde; and getting another major nostalgia hit with a battered old copy of Michael Moorcock and Howard Chaykin's Eternal Champion collaboration The Swords of Heaven, the Flowers of Hell, which was the first graphic novel I ever read, some 30 years ago.

Well satisfied with my finds, I was heading for the cash desk when I spied something I could barely believe I was seeing. It was a copy of the official 1945 The Story of the 79th Armoured Division. And that's not the facsimile reprint linked to there, but the original edition, with the label inside saying:

RESTRICTED
The information given in this document is not to be communicated, either directly or indirectly, to the Press, or to any person not authorised to receive it.

I last saw this book when I was still at school. A friend I used to roleplay and wargame with had got a copy through a relative. I borrowed it, and just couldn't get enough of the cornucopia of riches contained within its pages. I pleaded with my friend to let me have it, but he was wisely having none of it. I was deeply saddened, but I got over it.

I picked up the copy I found in Caledonia books to check price- £15! What a find! A quick double-take and I saw it was actually £45- steep, but by no means excessive (just check out these prices). I just had to have this book! For some reason I swithered- those graphic novels were dear to me already! But the owner of the bookstore came to my rescue, offering me a deal effectively giving me £5 off the book and £3 off the comics if I took the whole lot on the spot. I accepted with alacrity and a second trip to the ATM.

I may come back another time to show off some of the amazing contents of this splendid book. In the meantime: let joy be unconfined!

Start the week @ RD/KA! : DiceConWest 2007 #1. A gathering of friends

It's been a busy week for your humble scribe since I posted my 'Last call for DiceConWest 2007' last Monday. Doing the rounds by phone I managed to get a few friends to attend. Hugh, a gaming buddy from the old Edinburgh crew made the trip for a short weekend; Gav (already known to regular readers) made an appearance; and Donald (best known as the young dwarf Mordrin in my little Old World) turned up with his daughter Natasha, both eager to try their hands in the Settlers tournament. In addition to all this, I arranged to borrow Ros' digicam so's I could take some pictures, so I had to master that too (not difficult really, but you never really know about these things when you find yourself becoming an aging technophobe as contemporary developments increasingly outstrip your capacity to keep up!).

In any event, I dragged myself from my slumbers at the appointed hour of 8am yesterday to get ready to arrive promptly for this, the 5th annual DiceConWest. Donald arrived at the appointed time and drove Hugh and I there with Natasha, which was much appreciated by yours truly, bent as I was under the weight of my big bag of games. We met Badger at the entrance to the venue- the Quality Central Hotel- and we were in! We met Andy (of Berthold, the mincing scribe notoriety) inside. Andy's interest yesterday was to have another game of Descent: Journeys in the Dark, so I claimed a table and got setup underway while he went off to sort out mundane stuff elsewhere.

It was barely 10am by this time; gamers were arriving in steady dribs and drabs; and games were already under way as people took their pick from the wide choice made available by the SBGA.

Just a part of the DiceCon gaming library.

By this time Andy had returned, so I left him to be the Overlord in Descent, which handily freed me from setup chores, and let me wander around, soak up the early-day atmosphere, and look for some suitable targets for the digicam I was so eager to try out.

I couldn't resist taking a pic of this game underway- it just looks so neat. If anyone out there can tell me what it's called and what it's about I'd love to hear from you.

In no time at all, the Settlers tournament was under way.

Donald and Natasha at the outset of their attempts at this year's Scottish Title.

Meanwhile, among the welter of familiar faces I was saying hello to and trying to put names to was Barry, who'd taught me such a harsh lesson in lore management in my first Lore game of BL at DiceConEast 2006. He and another friend of his were interested in joining the Descent game Andy was getting moving, so after a hiccup about keeping places open for other friends whose arrival was expected any time, this pair sat down to set to some serious dungeon-delving.

Swords and sandals once more
And so it was that I finally managed to get into my own first game, which turned out to be introducing Hugh to Commands and Colours: Ancients, which meant yours truly enjoyed another chance to see what can be done with the Carthaginian army at Akragas (the beating of which I'd already undertaken).

Hugh and I getting ready to start play once we'd found a table with suitable lighting.

Here's the setup which will be familiar to anyone who's played this great game even just a few times.

The game started well for Hugh: he grasped the rules quickly and moved his units confidently forward, positioning them well. I helped by making a foolish swing forward and left with Himilco's force. I really don't know what I was thinking- I could do nothing with them except beat a hasty retreat from the heavies who were soon bearing down upon them.

There was nothing for to do but turn this to my advantage. I promptly marched Himilco and his lads right across the gap between the 2 armies. The Syracusans hit them in the centre, naturally enough. All those heavies dished out some serious punishment you can be sure, but they didn't get off scot free. When the dust settled we pursued our plans. Hugh used a Line Command and Leadership cards to close in on my centre-right. I combined Himilco and Mago's best frontline infantry, formed into a column, and tried to punch a hole in the Syracusan line.

The dice flew thick and fast and I was able to win through 5-3 in the end. Hugh was a bit stunned that my crazy manoeuvres had pulled the win out for me after his good start, but I'd managed to achieve my primary tactical aim, which was to achieve a local superiority so that his heavies couldn't just smack me down. It also has to be noted that Hugh suffered from his lack of knowledge of the Command deck, and of the pace of the gameplay. This last point was particularly important with his Line Command, which was under-utilised because he didn't take the time to dress his lines first (he still enjoyed playing it mind you!). There really is no way round this in C&C:A- the only way to learn what your armies are capable of is to send them into the fray as you will and find out the hard way. And then try again.

Score
1-0

Meanwhile, Bill and his family had arrived while Hugh and I were playing C&C:A. Late thanks to the wonders of the railway service and Saturday morning traffic, Bill and Daniel took the places which were being kept for them in the Descent game.

Andy demonstrating the cheerful insouciance typical of all the best Evil Overlords as Barry, Daniel, Radka and Bill look on in... in... well, in what exactly? I think that is best left for you to figure out for yourselves dear readers.

Settlers Cards
Not resting long content with merely sitting as an onlooker to others' gaming, Radka readily agreed to my suggestion to try a game of the Catan Card Game. I was keen to play this yesterday because I'd just upgraded my old set to the new edition, passing my old set on to the King family at Saturday night's family games session (3 games of Bill's newly acquired copy of the nice GW edition of the peerless Cosmic Encounter, a game much enjoyed in days of yore; and much enjoyed by yours truly Saturday, what with 3 wins, 1 of which was all my very own!).

Radka is a fan of the boardgame (regular readers will already be aware of her reputation there), so she was very interested in finding out how the cardgame worked.

Radka and I early in the opening phase of the game.

Radka grasped the rules very quickly and played very well. Just like Hugh in our C&C:A game, she was hampered by her lack of knowledge of the deck. And she did begin to wonder at her fate when her development stalled as we entered the midgame, while mine seemed to be roaring ahead. But as I knew would happen, her strategy paid off eventually, while her play became more assured to boot. She was able to pull back to level-pegging at one point, and was certainly in with a shout as the endgame approached the finale. Most important of all: Radka enjoyed the game, and is already looking forward to trying it again. Job done!

For my part, I like the new edition. The rules tweaks make sense of a few old anomalies, while other upgrades just make the new rules all the more playable. Well worth the £28 price of admission IMO.

Score
2-0 :)

Elsewhere, the Descent game over, Daniel got the chance to play what I'm sure is his favourite game right now: Ivanhoe. Published by GMT, this most excellent Knizia design has sadly been out of print for some time, although a honcho from GMT has announced that it will be reprinted soon, probably this year. I know that I read this on the ConsimWorld forums somewhere- probably on the GMT games forum, but I can't for the life of me find it again. Anyhoo...

Daniel exercising his Ivanhoe skills. Did he win any games I wonder? I never found out (or I did, and forgot).

Elsewhere:

Gordon Lamont enjoying a cardgame (a Knizia I expect) at the registration desk.

It's been a good time for Gordon and his brother Fraser at Fragor Games, with their games being snapped-up by publishers all round the world. The German edition of their last Essen hit Shear Panic was on display yesterday, while Mayfair Games have an English edition in print now. The world is now waiting to see what sort of storm the Lamont brothers' new game- Hameln- will kick up at Essen later this year. Have fun guys!

Elsewhere still:

Two Up Front veterans deep in concentration as they ponder the next moves that their cards offer them.

Meanwhile, I also had the chance to say hello to an old DiceCon acquaintance- John Poulter, webmaster at Web-Grognards, who I'd first met at DiceConWest 2004. He and a friend were playing another GMT hit...

John and Richard with GMT's Twilight Struggle.

This is another card-driven game which is on my 'must-buy' list. I was amazed at how attractive it looked. Antony (yes, that's Antony of librarian-thwacking blunderbuss-toting psycho-dwarf infamy- he'd arrived earlier in the afternoon) was interested in what the game was all about. And John, for his part, was surprised that it wasn't already in my collection! It will be sooner or later John, I can assure you! ;)

Start the week @ RD/KA! : Last call for DiceConWest 2007

The Scottish Boardgame Association's latest annual boardgames convention DiceConWest takes place this coming Sunday (full details here). As I noted before, DiceConWest's official Scottish Settlers of Catan tournament will offer you your chance to play for a subsided trip to the world's biggest games fair in Essen, there to compete for the title of Settlers World Champion. There'll also be a Kniziathon, a tournament based on playing as many games as possible by famously prolific games designer Reiner Knizia.

That's what I can assure you will be taking place this Sunday at DiceConWest 2007. What I must sadly tell you won't be taking place is any kind of Commands and Colours tournament (at least, not as organised by yours truly). I've just been unable to put in the preparation needed. But I can assure you that I'll be there with my C&C games and other boardgame goodies to boot. I expect I'll lay on a game of Epic BL to attract some attention to this latest DoW offering. Games of M44, C&C:A, CC:E, and Up Front might also be on the cards... Bwah hah ha ha!

Meanwhile I'm hoping that I'll be able to start to shape up towards making a serious stab at a C&C tournament of some kind at a future DiceCon. Fingers crossed I guess. ;)

Start the week @ RD/KA! : An Anniversary of Note

It's been a long time since I last visited my local GW. Exactly how long I'm not sure, but I'm certain that the last gaming product I bought from my local GW was the new plastic Assault Terminators I reviewed way back in November 2005. In the meantime my miniatures hobby gave way to a revival of my interest in rpg's and boardgaming. A rapid result of this change in habits was that I stopped buying GW's White Dwarf, because it no longer served me any purpose.

Last week though, I paid a quick visit to my local GW to buy a copy of William King's Gotrek and Felix: the First Omnibus as a gift for a friend. On entering the store I was pleasantly surprised to see the friendly face of a familiar old staffer. Hearty greetings out of the way, I made a beeline for the bookshelves and grabbed what I was after. Paying, I saw a copy of the new 30th Anniversary White Dwarf. Picking up a copy of this too was a cinch- I may not be the avid GW hobbyist anymore, but I just had to have this particular issue of the old stunty on my shelves.

Thirty years of White Dwarf? Holy heck, but that makes me feel old, which of course would normally prompt some nostalgia after an Old Fart Alert. Fortunately for my readers, I've already said all I need to say on that subject: here, when I posted a link to this page chez my pal the gnome, where he'd posted a link to a downloadable PDF of White Dwarf #1.

All I need to say? Really? Well OK. I can add that the earliest issue of WD I remember owning was #16. It wasn't the first I bought, nor did I actually buy it on its initial release, but I did buy it from regular shelf stock at my first FLGS in Edinburgh, and this back in the days when WD was still bimonthly. Back then, WD only had one serious competitor for my attention, and that was Steve Jackson's The Space Gamer. The Dragon was easily available and good for D&D gamers too for sure, but that magazine simply never captured my imagination in the way that White Dwarf and The Space Gamer did.

Editorial reorganisations driven by GW's reponse to the profit slump consequent on the tailing-off of their highly lucrative The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game once Jackson's movies had passed through the cinemas; these reorganisations have in the past year led to a clamour from GW fans across the net about the declining quality of White Dwarf. Although no longer a WD reader, I would check these discussions out now and again: eg. on the Warseer and the Bolter and Chainsword forums (you'll have to do forum searches if you're interested); and here (#327) and here (#328), again at the random Gnomes' random Lair. What was most striking to me about these discussions was that- amidst the sadly all-too-familiar internet feeding frenzy- there was an authentic and startling note of anger and despair from the hardest of hardcore fans, a note that was novel to me in my 15 years as a money-spending GW space marine fanboy. That this was taking place among GW's loyal customer base at a time when the company accounts were creating rumbles amongst investors; well, this just gave many of us watching from the sidelines the distinct impression that the GW behemoth was actually teetering...

All of which leads to the point that this 30th Anniversary edition of the magazine (a mere 2 issues- mark you- after the #328 which, according to gnome's review, barely merited a meh); that this commemorative issue would have a lot of hurdles to cross if it was to live up the landmark it would purport to celebrate.

So, how did it do then?

I must be frank here: there is no way I can seriously enter into the debate about the widely recognised decline in WD editorial content which adds to players' games instead of just advertising GW product, because I just haven't seen the issues which provoked the ire of the fans. For similar reasons- but also because of the impact of sheer nostalgia- nor can I pretend that I'm here going to offer a serious review of #330. All I can do is offer a brief overview and point out a few personal highlights.

Looked at as a whole, I would have to say that WD#330 is a dazzling introduction to GW's product lines today. And this is not just the magnificent photographs of beautifully painted miniatures which are so familiar to GW customers that they can become a bit boring when you've seen them for the nth time. It is also the new product lines being advertised. Of particular interest to me was the new wargames terrain, the new Warhammer buildings and the Arcane ruins especially; and also the new dwarf miners. Beautiful to look at as completed by the 'Eavy Metal team, it was the pictures of the parts from these kits' sprues which had me positively drooling.

Y'see, let me explain a pet theory here. I am of the same age as the GW design veterans. I was making the same kits as they were in the same teenage years (or, to be more precise: kits from the same landmark ranges). For me, the sublime joys of modelling and kit-bashing in those teenage tankie days can be summed-up in 2 phrases: Tamiya and Airfix Multipose. Taken together, what these 2 ranges offered was fine detail, easy convertibility, and numerous extras giving modellers an instant spares box. If that's not a definition of the trajectory of GW plastics development since the justly legendary RTB01 beakies, then I don't know what could be.

Believing this, and watching the advances in GW plastics down the years, I have convinced myself of something else, something which is too easily forgotten amidst the- often utterly justified- customer complaints about the company's corporate policies: at its core, GW remains the dream of a bunch of gaming geeks just like any of the rest of us. Their dream was to get paid for playing games. More than that: they wanted to create a company which would more than just pay their wages- if not make them rich; they also wanted the company to provide for them absolutely the best wargames kit in the world; which they would get for free because they would work for (or own) the company. Their chosen route to realising this dream became GW, warts, suppurating buboes, and all.

If WD#330 is proof that this dream is still alive and well and living in Lenton- even if at prices putting the GW experience at the top end of the miniatures gaming hobby market; it also strikes me as proof that the harassed staffers working to respond to customer demands are showing that they can bring- to the ad copy the company's marketing strategy requires- the sort of editorial content which can give players of GW's games the added value they have a right to expect from their £4 investment in a copy of the house magazine of their chosen hobby. What I'm talking about here are the various sidebars and so on appended to the glossy picture spreads. There is no reason why these could not be as informative across any given issue of the magazine as would be full length articles. Will this develop to its fullest potential? I don't know. Only time will tell.

Meanwhile, I have to continue by saying that the content of the 30th Anniversary issue is often better even than that. Which brings me naturally enough to my personal highlights. These will be presented in reverse order as per tradition.

In third place: 'White Dwarf XXX, 1977-2007', the obligatory history article. I've always enjoyed reading these pieces. And I enjoy them more as I get older (it'll happen to you all, my dear readers if it hasn't started already!). As ever, I read this article with my past looking over my shoulder, whispering to me, every WD landmark a memory of my own.

In second place: 'Sons of Sanguinius', part 1 of the new Blood Angels Codex. Believe it or not, I'll be buying WD#331 to get part 2 of this. Why? Because I just love jump-packers. They're my single most favourite troop type as a diehard space marine player. They just look so cool. And although my very own Penumbra's Talons have always been a Codex chapter, I've long nurtured the idea of fielding them under their 'Blood Angels aspect', so that I could deploy jump-packing Honour Guard, Veterans, and- naturally enough- Death Company (a.k.a. 'the Verifiers' in Penumbra's Talons). And I still hope that one of these days, I will.

In first place: 'Standard Bearer', Jervis' article on the genesis of 'Sons of Sanguinius', complete with his own nostalgic take on his years at GW. There are many things I enjoyed about this article, but one above all won it its place as my ultimate highlight of this issue: the fact that Jervis could include- in the house magazine of the good business sense of chaos, death and spikey bits on a hitherto unimagined scale; that in these pages, Jervis could include a quote from E.F. Schumacher, reknowned as the author of Small is Beautiful among other works. My dad got me into Schmacher as a teenager, one of just many of my old man's deeds for which I am truly grateful. So good on yer Jervis!

And there you have it. I missed the official party, so I had to have a celebration of my own. ;)