D. Hunter Phillips's Blog, page 7

Spring Food!

Why is corn on the cob one of the greatest gifts to taste buds everywhere? And so easy to prepare… just boil for 5-7 minutes. Umm… Yum!

My side with work into it was the meddle of roasted vegetables. I like to precook the taters by boiling for a minute and the brussel sprouts were briefly pan fried with the onions to get them nice and crisp. I roasted them at 400 degrees for about 35 minutes with olive oil, salt, pepper, and the always reliable fresh rosemary.

As usual, I sliced the chicken down the middle (butterflied) to get a more even surface to cook and not overcook the outside. This was grillin’ time with the weather being beautiful. I hit the chicken with cayenne pepper, salt, fresh ground pepper, olive oil, balsamic, and a little bit of store bought BBQ sauce. The chicken turned out super juicy, partially thanks to the grill being low on gas, so I had to cook it for longer than I would have if I’d had serious heat to work with.

This was quite easy and delicious for a lazy meal. Cutting up all the vegetables was the only thing that really took any time at all. What a way to celebrate Spring, Corn on the cob and grilled chicken.

Card Based RPG mechanics

Why a card based action system?

The purpose of exploring the route of a card based rpg (rather than just one with character sheets and dice) is to allow for more simultaneous actions.  Rather than having players ask for clarifications on the situation between each person’s turn, there will be a step in the combat round for players to all ask their questions and table talk their tactics.  Then, cards with player actions will be selected and revealed at the same time.  This will allow players to be engaged much more of the time and reduce the amount of time waiting for players to figure out what they would like to do on their turns.

How many times have you sat and waited patiently with other players while you watch a single player agonize over what they will do on their turn?  How many times have you then seen that one player choose an action, roll and fail, causing no end result?  This is what a simultaneous action system can help to deal with.

Why a hand of cards instead of all ability options at once?

4th Edition D&D: did something sort of card oriented.  The problem is, when you get to higher levels, the number of options per turn are very complex.  Having a hand of cards rather than having them all of the time will cut down on the analysis paralysis.

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: Utilized more of a card based system then 4th edition did.  The problem with this system is that you have to have room to lay all the cards out in front of you and when you use them, you have to place recharge counters on them.  This is what prevents you from just having a “hand” of cards.  Again, the options get out of control for a single turn.

How does this make logic in game sense?

Imagine if you had more than a half a dozen options on how to react to a combat situation in real life.  You will never have the ability to think of perfect solutions each time like you would in a table top RPG where you can take virtually as much time as you like to figure out an action.  That is what the hand of cards represents.

 

Possible issues:

Player actions being wasted on “overkill” of an enemy.  This isn’t a huge problem, but more a nature of simultaneous actions.

Things moving along so quickly that players get confused as to what is going on.

Including ways for players to be creative and do cinematic actions that can’t be represented in a card ability.

Goth Clubbing Goodness

After months of absence, I finally decided to go grace the goth clubs of DC with my presence.

As usual, it was a good time, and in fact, I met some really nice new people. I also reconnected with people that I’ve known for years and had more interaction and conversation with them than previously done. I took a goth club virgin with me, and she actually had a fantastic time and did a spectacular job dressing the part.

One thing that I do love about Spellbound is that they are usually pretty darn good about playing requests as long as you are patient and get the requests in early. Also, you might not get the exact song that you request, but they’ll play the band, and really, often times they will end up playing the exact song.

I’m trying to go for the cybergoth thing a lot more these days. I got the baggy pants with lots of straps and reflective white to start in that direction. I got glow in the dark make up, but I need to figure out how it works. I also got white and neon green hair spray, but I’d just dyed my hair that day, so I didn’t want to mess it up. I’d like to get a hair piece to cyber it up more, but I don’t like any of the ones I’m finding. I want something shorter than what is available.

Don’t forget about Goth Prom 2013, coming up on May 23rd! It is usually a good time and should continue to do so. I actually have some co-workers going that should really spice up the experience and make it new for me.

Hiking: Manassas battlefield

The start of the hike, next to the visitor center. This statue of Stonewall Jackson looked like he was crafted to be in Fist of the North Star. It really gave me a chuckle.

Me blowing this cannon off toward Cassie’s face (Good thing she matrix dodged). So… wrong…

There were lots of horses out on this slightly rainy day. As we saw them in formation, off in the distance, I couldn’t help but imagine being in the 1860′s and seeing a confederate cavalry column trotting along.

Deep into the hike was this cemetery. It just looked like a stone wall from a distance and in this picture. There were mounds just filling the place.

It wouldn’t be a civil war battlefield or a hike in such a place without a few shots of some of the cannons. So, without further ado…

That building in the background is perhaps the only one still standing around the battlefields from the 1860′s. I wanted to prop it up on my back, but couldn’t get the angle just right on the photo. I guess it’ll have to stand up on its own.

And… the end of the hike outside the visitor center!

Painting Adventures!

There is a group of boyz mobbin’ up on my bed! My latest painting extravaganza is just a normal group of slugga boyz from the Black Reach set. Yep, I waited a long time to finally get to painting these bad boys.

This is the first time I have really delved into painting since asking for a bunch of advice from my expert painting friends and watching a metric crap ton of painting tutorial videos on youtube.

I didn’t dry brush them in the end as is my usual craft. I thought it was more or less a requirement, but now I am seeing how what I was doing was just a poor man’s highlight.

I’ve now actually taken to layering my paints and highlighting using varying shades of the paints that I did as the base coats.

I keep forgetting to take pictures of each stage in the painting process (darn it!). I started with a base coat of what each area would be in the end. Then I dove into using a shade, in this case Seraphim Sepia by Games Workshop. Then I started with mixing Waaggh! Flesh with a little white. I switched that out for grey after the first batch of four. It looked a lot better, but after the fact, I realized that I should have gone with mixing in yellow to make it a lighter green instead of a grey green.

I did these boys up as Evil Sunz orkz so I did yellow pants and reddish orange tops. The pants worked really well with the black primer. The lower sections of pant are almost blackish yellow and then the knees and up on top are pure yellow. The shirts are red in the recesses going up to a nice orangish red. I did about 3 highlight layers on each area of skin.

Evening Star Cafe: Brunch barbarism

I went to brunch here with Mary Beth on Saturday around 11:30am and beat the brunch rush somehow. The staff is so nice and we didn’t fall into the pit that is an inattentive staff when things are slow. As in, they were still on top of everything, but not overly so.

The bloody mary here is excellent, I mean, heck, it even comes with a section of grilled cheese sandwich and bacon to dip in your drink! The spice of it was totally on point. I got them to bring out some extra hot sauce (which they make in house), and I didn’t even need much of it. The bloody mary had bits of horseradish in it, which is a sign to me of a well made, fancy bloody mary.

Mary Beth got the Chicken and Waffles (which she had never had before). I’d tasted the chicken and waffles here before and so I didn’t tell her to shy away. The chicken is really delicious and boneless, so it is quite easy to eat with the waffles. It really comes stacked high with goodness (including several pieces of BACON!). The chicken is dark meat, but it isn’t overly greasy. In fact, I would not have even guessed that some of it was dark meat, except for the great flavor.

I got the Huevos Rancheros, kind of a crunchy tortilla topped with sunny side up eggs and veggies and beans. I enjoyed it. The crunch of the tortilla went really well, especially when the egginess ran off onto it. I did miss the fact that there wasn’t any meat. I think it would have really benefited from some bacon bits or diced sausage.

In the end, I think the Duck Confit Hash is the best thing on the menu that I have had thus far.

This place is awesome, GO THERE! And while in Del Ray, check out the quirky shops and antique stores.

Flying Fish: Alexandria sushi scarf down

On Sunday, I had completely forgotten that it was Cinco de Mayo. I didn’t remember until I showed up at The Flying Fish in Old Town Alexandria… to have sushi! Yeah, so appropriate right? I did have a Corona in honor of the day that, for most Americans, is the day/holiday of drinking Mexican beers and eating tacos. We’ll just really look for any reason to party won’t we? We are a melting pot of cultures and societies, so why not celebrate them all!

At any rate, I’m here to tell you about my experience with service and food. It wasn’t busy in there, but I did find the service a little bit slow to start with. Our waitress was very friendly and helpful, especially when it came to getting orders in at the end of happy hour. She was great after that first few minutes and was on top of us whenever we needed something, but not overly on top of us.

The Sushi was quite delicious overall. I also tried a little ceviche for the first time. I found it to be too limey for me, but I’d try it again. I never would have eaten something like that or hell… like raw fish sushi either. It is a time of life to experiment and learn new things, though.

The Sushi:

Mackerel- This was actually some of the best Mackerel I have yet had.

Salmon Roe- I just tried a tiny piece and I couldn’t handle it, yuck ocean taste, but to those that like it, it was enjoyable.

White Tuna- I found the texture pleasant and the flavor light.

Shrimp Tempura- This was not the best shrimp tempura I’ve had, I found it lacking in flavor that I am used to such things having.

Salmon roll- I’m not a huge salmon fan, so I am starting at a disadvantage with this roll. The avocado was a nice mix to the salmon, but I wouldn’t get it on my own.

Unagi- The sauce was a little stronger than I’m used to and it wasn’t quite as awesome tasting as other places, but not bad.

Finally, I would gladly go again and order more yummy sushi. Otani in Chantilly has better deals on Sushi and you get a free salad and soup too, so I think it probably has the better offer in the end.

40k Battle report: Tau vs. Space Wolves

I met up with my good friend Casey’s wife, Ashley for a throw down against an army that I have literally never played against. This was probably my 3rd battle using Tau since the new codex.

I got the setup first and spread my units out quite a bit to get the benefits of overwatch if any of my units were assaulted. A hammerhead flanking on each side gave me a good deal of firepower to defend both sides.

I got the first turn and managed to annihilate a complete squad of long fangs and blow away the dreadnought. I was feeling pretty confident about my position at this point.

The wolves moved up cavalry and wolves on both flanks and I prepared for a huge volley of fire with my Cadre Fireblade.

The drop pods dumping marines out right in the middle of my lines was a little unnerving.

While my stealth suits with the stimulant injectors jumped into the ruins to secure the solitary objective, I focus fired my army on all the enemy units that had penetrated my lines in the first two turns. It was a close call, with my fire being just barely enough to take out the squads.

At this point, I inadvertently cheated as I outflanked with my kroots and used sniper rounds as if they were rapid fire weapons to take out her HQ cavalry. (whoops) Though I do think the different wouldn’t have been that much because of what my dice actually rolled.

My lines of guns remained pretty well in tact and her focus fire on my kroots really gave me that extra turn to breath easy and have all my guys to fire with. She did manage to assault some of my marker drones as well, and even though every single unit I had was within six inches, I only killed one of her marines.

The cavalry on the right flank took out my firewarriors there, and then they took out my hammerhead on that side, and they were preparing to move on my other units. That squad is frighteningly good.

What I learned:

Kroot suck at close combat and also their sniper rounds are heavy and not rapid fire (Whoops I cheated, sorry).

The Cadre Fireblade is an incredibly powerful HQ choice, especially for the 60 point cost. Attaching him to a full strength firewarrior squad with gun drones is pretty darned powerful amount of shots.

Hammerheads with submunitions are not as good against Space Marines as I would have expected.

Stealth battlesuits have a lot of firepower, but they are darned expensive for what they give you.

Stimulant Injectors seem nice but for 15 points, they are really too expensive.

Marker drone squads are pretty weak, but you need to get markerlights in some way.

Broadsides with missile drones are pretty powerful, especially with target locks on each broadside.

Lord of the Rings LCG: Reflections

I have spent several months away from the Lord of the Rings LCG. When I first started to review this game and discuss it with people, I often threw around the title “Date Night has a whole new meaning” in reference to how nice it was to play this game with a lady friend.

Once my last relationship ended, my playing of LOTR dropped off the face of Middle Earth. As far as the game’s release schedule goes, it was probably the best time for such a thing. We’d played all the quests to completion at least once and no big cycles were coming out.

Now comes the difficult part of trying to dive back in to a collectible game. Remembering and picking up the rules isn’t so bad, but finding a new dynamic, time, and group to play with can be a real challenge. It is just so easy to regularly play a game when to do so you just say to someone you are living with, “Hey, want to throw down with Mordor this evening?”

The ease of creating decks in Star Wars LCG has already spoiled me when compared to other card games with its objective set strategy.

So, after saying all this, where am I going exactly?

Well, how about a strategy to pick back up with a game after dropping it for so long? I’ve been play testing this game for a while, so fortunately I am familiar with all the newer cards even though I have not used them in “legit” non-playtest decks yet.

One thing I am going to do to make it easy on myself is to use an old deck of trusty fella’s, short stout stunties that wreck shop against almost any type of quest.

All DWARVES

Hero (3) Dain Ironfoot (RtM) x1 Gimli (Core) x1 Ori (OHaUH) x1

Ally (27) Veteran of Nanduhirion (KD) x2 Erebor Battle Master (TLD) x3 Longbeard Elder (FoS) x3 Longbeard Orc Slayer (Core) x2 Veteran Axehand (Core) x3 Dori (OHaUH) x2 Erebor Hammersmith (Core) x3 Erebor Record Keeper (KD) x3 Longbeard Map-Maker (CatC) x3 Miner of the Iron Hills (Core) x3

Attachment (8) Steward of Gondor (Core) x1 Hardy Leadership (SaF) x2 Legacy of Durin (TWitW) x2 Horn of Gondor (Core) x1 Dunedain Warning (CatC) x1 Dunedain Mark (THfG) x1

Event (11) Khazad! Khazad! (KD) x3 Lure of Moria (RtR) x3 Feint (Core) x2 A Very Good Tale (OHaUH) x3

The strategy for this deck is pretty simple. Allies are so versatile in that they can quest big, stack attacks, and block as a sacrifice to save heroes early on. Dwarves are durable enough that a lot of Treachery cards that might wipe out a portion of your force will be of no concern, especially if you can get out a Hardy Leadership. Dain lets you quest with a good value starting pretty early on with just a couple of characters and then if you can get out an Erebor Battle Master, even the toughest and biggest baddies will be no problem to you at all. The deck might benefit from an extra Steward of Gondor, but I just don’t like the feel of having more than one, thematically. I’d like to have no SoGs in there, its just so darn powerful!

Next time: I’ll dive into Allies and what makes them so great. Which allies should I send, EVERYONE!

Book Review: Biohazard by Ken Alibek

I recently finished Biohazard, a book on a truly frightening topic from someone that knows the facts intimately.

The book has more or less two segments throughout that parallel each other. The first is a narrative about the author, Ken Alibek. He was a prominent scientist and later assistant director of Biopreparat, the Soviet agency in charge of Biological weapons production.

The second aspect of segment of the book is more of a history and overall outlook on what was going on throughout the life span of the Biological weapons program in Russia.

I would recommend this book to anyone that likes a politically unbiased, historical view of the Soviet Biological weapons program. The book also gives an outsider of the USSR an interesting perspective on how the bureaucracy and politics of government agencies in a communist country work.

Understand the way the book was going to move along in parallel with the two narratives is pretty important to getting into the book. If you don’t understand that, it might not make sense the way the book jumps around.

The end of the book is light on personal details and jumps around in some strange ways. I found the discussion on Iraq’s WMDs interesting in light of the fact that the book came out before September 11th and the ensuing invasion.

Thanks to my buddy Conrad for giving this book to me and opening my eyes to the insanity of the Soviet bio weapons stockpile.