Mechwarrior: Dark Age

Wow, I'm listening to an awful lot of Skinny Puppy these days.

This entry is entirely about the Mechwarrior Dark Age miniatures game, with a few thoughts on games in general. It's probably best ignored if you have no interest in the game.

Mechwarrior was fun today. This is somewhat unusual, which is very sad, since it is a game, after all, and the point of games should be to have fun. I don't get to play just for fun very often - just tournaments. Tournaments add pressure, because I want to do well and win the prize that's at stake. I mean, I take all games seriously, in that I try to do my best and win, but a tournament discourages wacky tactics that might be fun but could go horribly wrong. Anyway, I played in two seperate events today. The first was for something that I really wanted, so there was that pressure aspect to things, but I got to play an army that's fun as well. I was playing entirely Spirit Cats, my favorite faction, including Etan Nova Cat, a unit that has some sentimental value since it was my first unique and my first Spirit Cat, and I won it due to popular vote for good sportsmanship at the event. There are other units that are probably more effective, but it's fun, and it's a favorite of mine. Anyway, things went well and I got the prize that I wanted, which was, ironically, unique Spirit Cat infantry. That was cool.

Then came the scenario game for the week, fighting for the Dekker Nova Cat tank. However, I was fortunate enough to get one of those already on Wednesday, since I sort of 'won' by default when no one else showed up, so the pressure was off. I mean, it would have been nice to get a second one to use for trade if I miss getting a future prize, but at least I've got one to play with already. Anyway, since it wasn't as important that I win I fielded an unusual army for me, with a pair of large, powerful units instead of my usual armies of several smaller units. I really wanted to try out Sgt. Lee Riordan, and give the Veteran Centurion another shot as well, so I went nutty and fielded them together with 4 infantry to fill out the rest of the 300 points. Both units performed well, and I was particularly pleased with Riordan. One of the things that appealed to me about Riordan was his speed of 12, and I was afraid that it wouldn't turn out to be that useful. However, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that it allows him to zoom around the board and position himself for some vicious attacks. It can even escape completely from Hoverbikes in some cases - moving far enough away that they can't move to base him again in one move. In particular, they can't catch him if they have to push the bike to follow him once. I think I'll field him more often in the future.

After the game I was talking to some people about sportsmanship and whatnot, and lamenting the fact that there isn't more of it present sometimes, and that it will likely be totally absent for the Marquee tournaments in a couple of weeks. Bleagh. I'm not really looking forward to those, though I am excited about getting some more of the expansion, and I still hope to get the Fellowship prize, the Stefani Ehli Zeus mech. I'm just getting the impression that play will be very cutthroat and not much fun.

Stuff!

Groovy! Looks like AEG is starting previews for the next L5R expansion, Heaven and Earth. In some ways it feels like Fall of Otosan Uchi came out just a short time ago, but I guess it has actually been a few months. Eeep.

I've been looking forward to this for a while, since it's going to have a new Shadowlands stronghold, and I'm really hoping for a Tsuno stronghold. Right now Shadowlands is sort of boring to play, and there's little reason to play much of anything besides The Spawning Ground. Tsuno are neat, but if you're running Spawning Ground you may as well go for Oni, Goblins, Trolls, and such. Of course, the new stronghold may suck for Tsuno, but I have hope. Slight hope, at least.

It had been a while since I listened to Skinny Puppy very much, so I've been listening to it a lot again these last few days. Still, I decided that I needed a break for a while, so I've changed styles completely and gone back to Conjure One for a while. I'm addicted to "Center of the Sun." I've been wishing that I could hide from the world like that a lot, lately.

It grows late. Well, it's around 3:00 AM anyway, which is sort of late. My frame of reference for late is all thrown off because I usually stay up at least this late working on art or RPG stuff because no one else in the house is awake at this time of day, and I can work without distraction. Sometimes, when I lose track of time, I'm up until 5:00 or 5:30. That's risky, though, because if I go too late the sun starts to come up and it's hard to fall asleep. Plus, with Spring coming, birds will be chirping, and that makes it almost impossible to fall asleep, so I should try to shift things back to going to sleep by 3:00. So, off I go...well, once I've unburied my bed, at least. It's still covered in plastic things from me putting my armies for Mechwarrior together earlier today.