A dear friend and brother, the esteemed author of brasslaurels blog has been spending some time visiting with me and my family this week. It's been a barrel-of-monkeys level of non-stop fun, I can assure you. But as I review my week, I realize that I have learned several things.
1.) Clancy Brown is The Kurgen's secret identity. I absolutely adore The Highlander franchise, always have, always will. And I will readily admit that it is far from perfect, a fact driven home by my recent watching of the 1st Highlander movie last night. Love the movie, it's fun and the progenitor of the whole franchise. And yet I cannot get over the re-revilation of how mack-truck in proportion the movie is riddled with plot-holes. A surprising trait still yet to be completely recovered from in any Highlander product to date. But perhaps it's one of the franchises endearing qualities, eh?
2.) Space Marine Assault troops will melt your face of if you don't cut them down in their rabid blitz-like approach. As mentioned in my last post, I have recently taken up an old hobby that I never did dive fully into. After an unfortunate circumstance that ended my Warhammer Fantasy playing I picked up a small start to try to explore the 40k sci-fi line that had caught my geekly whim with curiosity. I tried for awhile to find the opportunity to learn the complex rules and fully understand things before furthering my army's roster with more purchases and painting it with a chosen chapter's colors and designation of a specific sub-group of Space Marines. The flavor and atmosphere immediately was one of my key interesting features to the game. But as things are always want to do with life, plans fell through, life happened and I shelved what miniatures I had always meaning to come back to it later down the road. When my dear battle-brother and fellow Space Marine popped in for a visit we had already been discussing my old Warhammer days, as he himself had always been interested as well. Virtually, I was struck by a wave of recollection that spawned a simple thought: I still had a small force of about 20 miniatures still safely stashed away in my closet. Initially I dug them out just to look over and see for certain that they were still there(and that I wasn't imagining their presumed presence). However, it didn't take us but a moment to decide to finish assembling them and tinker around to try our hand at self-learning the rules and/or refreshing our memories of any we used to know from our days of witnessing massive battles at a now extinct local hobby-store. It has honestly been a blast, I have learned a lot piecing these little highly detailed bits of plastic together. In fact, I lament the fact we have completed all of them. I do so wish I had more to continue taking my time on to pose and glue into neat little poses, or adorn with custom arms. We have even stumbled on a fitting chapter among the Space Marines that at once seizes on our love of flavor, story elements, unique strategy, and ties them together with a simply paint scheme that should prove beautiful and easy enough even I can manage. The Raven Guard are the 19th chapter of the Space Marines, almost completed devastated during a campaign and unable to be extracted they continued a guerrilla war of lightning raids and precision hit and run strikes that has marked them as specialists ever since. Not to mention the fact that surviving such an event has left them undermanned and short on resources. Marking them as a chapter with little high-cost, and high-tech vehicles and relying on older gear and high-mobility vehicles that lend itself to their particular combat style. Couple that with their penchant for autonomy among captains and you have a smaller chapter that doesn't require expensive miniatures, excels at fielding smaller forces, and has enough grey-area to allow for some interesting creativity on our part that we can craft ourselves some interesting opportunities to partner up and weave some of our own fluff. It really promises to be awesome, even if we just keep tinkering with my small force. However, like I began this particular point, Assault troops(Space Marines sporting a Jump pack capable of powering them over a battle field or flying down to it from an aerial drop, bolt pistols and vicious chain-swords) have proven to us that if they get in close will shred an enemy force to pieces. So I must always make a note to cautiously keep an eye on them and cut them down before they can close in, if able.
3.) Sometimes, it seems like things name themselves. Upon assembling the first Space Marine miniature, I let slip a crack that introduced him as 'Wasabi Jones.' A point that then lead to the next becoming 'Tabasco Johnson.' Before long my entire first 5 man squad of Space Marines all had a name. The roster for said squad now stands at: Wasabi Jones, Tabasco Johnson, Worcestershire Jimmy, Sage Jackson, and Cayenne Jorgensen. Don't ask me how it happened or why. The first two just popped out, the rest were formulated to follow the perceived pattern my impromptu naming seemed to be taking. I can proudly confess that Wasabi Jones has proven to be almost superhuman at surviving and adept at Rambo-like one man winning. Tabasco has been worth some glory on his own too!
4.) And, clearly, I can spark wondrous concepts for amazingly bizarre yet entertaining campaigns with but a random comment. We still aren't sure what lead to or triggered a statement from me, but for some reason I mentioned the phrase: "Tranny Dwarf." A fact which has lead to the gears already being set in motion for a completely "Unconventional Party." I believe, thus far, we have a proposed Dwarf Tranny, A Tiefling/Asimar brother & sister (who really love each other more than your average siblings) and an elf shemale(I think) who reportedly may end up as a druid with an unusual animal companion or devotion there to. In short, think of it as a party of adventures who, while drawing on the curiosity of LGBT interaction within the game's setting, will easily have some interesting role-playing just entering a standard bar. It may end up a mature game with various tones not normally present, but it looks to be a great adult game with elements not normally found. The focus may end up on the various interactions and unconventional way in which such a unusual party approaches challenges or deals with locals. Just think, if a gorgeous and shapely dwarf receives some affectionate comments only to be discovered to also be endowed in both gender's unspoken traits, reactions should prove amusing in and of themselves. We'll see how it works out.
Well, I suppose that's enough retrospection for now. Way too much fun has been had to try and mention every bit of it. Hope everyone has had a great week and a safe/enjoyable weekend.
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