Perfect Timing

Last night I finished up Temple of Elemental Evil. It was kind of a lame finish because Zuggtmoy and her fungal friends spent the entire battle attacking my cleric's spiritual weapon rather than the party, so the characters just stood back and whittled her down with spells and wands. Anyway, it turned out to be perfect timing -- Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition has just been released!

Elemental Mayhem

In my quickie replay of Temple of Elemental Evil, I'm at that stage of the game where I've completed all the quests for the four sub-temple high priests (Earth, Air, Water, and Fire) and now I'm just wiping out their organizations one by one. The party's alignment is Neutral Evil, so that works, right?

Time for Some Jammin'?

I'd be cool with it.

The Horus Heresy: Legions

Sigh! Looks like Nathaniel and I will be playing yet another 40k game on our tablets...

ToEE

Maybe it's because I'm keenly awaiting the release of Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition, I'm playing through Temple of Elemental Evil again. Warts, bugs, and all, it's still a great game and a great D&D experience -- and this guy agrees with me!

Alternity

Don't ask what I think about Bill Slavicsek (seriously, don't ask!), but he helped bring the cool but short-lived Alternity RPG to life in the '90s. I learned today that Alternity is coming back, and you can even download the playtest rules for the new edition!

D&D Director

Pleasepleaseplease let this movie be good!

"I'm 'Bad Ash'..."

The boys have been doing some low-level free-to-play World of Warcraft while I've been sick, and Matthew created a character named Bad Ash. That, my friends, is a parenting win! Anyway, whenever he gets killed and respawns, Matthew ought to say, "I...live...again!" Of course, Bad Ash is not as quotable as Good Ash (i.e., "the guy with the gun"), but he does have a couple of good lines.

Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes

I would've expected something a bit more original or creative from the wizard who brought us delightful spells like Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion. This new book seems like been-there-done-that territory.

Warhammer Cafe

Yes, please! But where the Hellblasters is it? Last time I checked, "North America" is a pretty big place...

History (Sort of) Repeats Itself

Although we were unable to connect with Matt and his daughter for our transcontinental Shattered Realm campaign over the weekend, the boys were keen on getting back to their high-level Shattered Realm characters. After managing only one or two game sessions over the four months we've lived in our new house, I was eager to accommodate their interest. We ended up spending most of the day getting into the early stages of a massive dungeon crawl that focuses on stealth and creativity rather than combat. It involves the heroes infiltrating the main stronghold of the dark elves and stealing a magical item from them.

The adventure has some narrative parallels with "The Raid of Naxxia", which surely ranks among the top two or three adventures in the history of the Druid Cycle campaign world. In that storyline from way back in 1995, longtime Porch players Scott and Jason each selected two of their PCs -- as Matthew and Nathaniel have done for this Shattered Realm adventure -- to engage in a clandestine assault on the dark elf city of Naxxia. It's hard to believe that we played through "Raid" over 22 years ago -- I hope this new adventure has as much of an impact on the Shattered Realm world as "Raid" did on the Druid Cycle.

Victory Is Not Her Destiny

Turns out that Captain Phasma doesn't have any better luck in games than she does in the films. Nathaniel and I were trying out Star Wars: Destiny this afternoon -- he was Rey and Poe, and I was Kylo and Phasma. Rey and Kylo killed each other pretty quickly, leaving us with a one-on-one between the two supporting characters. I was one turn away from finishing off Poe when Nathaniel played a card that allowed him to reroll my damage dice, turning a certain kill shot into a glancing blow. Then Poe was able to call in a strike team and...well...it was curtains for poor Captain Phasma! At least she went down in a blaze of glory, unlike her rather unceremonious defeats in the two most recent Star Wars films.

Finally!

Working on and off for the last couple of months, I've finally finished painting our starter armies for the Ultramarines and Death Guard. First up, the Ultramarines, consisting primarily of the new Primaris units...

And now the Death Guard, in all their grody glory!

Temple of Mithras

Hey, Druid Cycle players, the next time you're in London, you can check out a real Temple of Mithras...

Happy New Year!

The boys stayed up until midnight for the first time this year. We played a family game of Pandemic and then I painted Nathaniel's new 40k vehicles while Nathaniel worked on Legos and Matthew got back into Knights of the Old Republic. We didn't get around to playing Star Wars: Destiny -- another gift from Santa -- during our holiday vacation, but we'll put it on the to-do list along with painting...lots of painting. Here's to a 2018 filled with gaming fun!

A Warhammer Christmas!

Santa brought Nathaniel some reinforcements for his Ultramarines army...

Bloaty Fun

I'm making slow but steady progress on painting the Primaris Space Marines and Death Guard units from the Know No Fear 40k boxed set. I'm especially fond of the Foetid Bloat Drone...

I've decided that his name will be Bloaty McBloatface. Merry Christmas, everyone!

Mark Your Calendars!

The release date for the official Dungeons & Dragons movie is July 23, 2021. Damn, that's a long wait!

Oh no...

Beamdog, you f#<&!^* bastards! There goes all my free time. Get ready for Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition.

Holiday Hellblasters

Nathaniel is the board game guru of the family, and he delights in games of all types. This year, Santa is bringing him a variety of gaming treats (including Pandemic, which, somehow, we don't already own yet), but he's mainly excited about a couple of vehicles to add to his Ultramarines army. I can't imagine there are too many seven-year-olds who put Warhammer 40k models at the top of their Christmas lists!