Wednesday, 1 June 2022

Movieweek 8 - The Batman

The Batman (2022) - 7/10

I grew up on the caped crusader, not the brooding Dark Knight but the spandex wearing Adam West style Batman.  In the 80s he had a bit of an identity crisis and along came Alan Moore (The Killing Joke) and Frank Miller (The Dark Knight Returns) and rejuvinated him.

This latest outing follows the excellent Gotham TV series and the Ben Affleck movies recasting the bat with Robert Pattinson.  Pattison does his best and excels in the titular role but as Bruce Wayne he fails to be a convincing troubled young man.  Note to Hollywood, stop writing moody men roles, they aren't appealing and frankly I'm bored of them.

The rest of the cast are utterly convincing and there is some great talent on offer with the likes of John Turturro (Carmine Falcone), Jeffrey Wright (James Gordon) and Colin Farrell who is unrecognizeable as the Penguin.  Zoe Kravitz is a very sultry Catwoman but I couldn't help feel that the story failed her character.  Paul Dano had a good turn but the whole mask thing was a total mistake and is far more appropriate to the Joker.

Overall I can see what they were trying to do and I want to like it, I honestly do, but I feel like this was a misstep rather than a triumph.  How this fits into the DCEU (if that is even a thing anymore) or a trilogy of films heavens knows.  I think that they should go back to the Animated Universe archives and mine the Batman Beyond or Batman of the Future stories.  These I would love to see in live action.

Tuesday, 31 May 2022

Free RPG Day 2022

Free RPG Day
The dates are confirmed for Free RPG Day 2022 as...

  • USA - 25th June 
  • Worldwide - 23rd July


You can check your local participating FLGS store on the website https://www.freerpgday.com/   

Freebies Announced


Monday, 30 May 2022

Jessie's Prints - Episode 17 - Resin is the new Black!

 

This week, I are mostly been printing in resin thanks to me finally summing up the courage to dive deeply into this new technology and buy a resin 3D Printer.  My weapon of choice an Anycubic Photon Mono 4K

Anycubic Photon Cube - Thingiverse 213031

The first print should always be the supplied test print (or perhaps a Benchy) and it took 3 attempts to get this model to print.  Bed levelling or more accurately the distance between the bed and the FEP film appears to be critical when it comes to getting your print to stick to the bed and not the FEP.  I also found an article which recommends that you sand your bed to ensure that it is actually level in the first place.  The center of mine is slightly concave which must have been having an impact on the peelability.

Anycubic Photon Test Print Cube

This was actually the first resin model I ever saw printed, many years ago, and thought wow I will have to get me one of those someday...
Cute Mini Articulated Octopus

I have tried to print one of these before (much larger of course) on my FDM printer with little success.  I guess it has to do with the tolerances involved in squirting hot melted plastic out of a nozzle at 200 degrees celsius.  This one came out bloody lovely and is small enough that he fits on the end of a pencil. 

Sadly, the other models I had on the bed failed to print entirely.  I think this was down to the supports I added in the supplied Photon Workstation not having a thick enough platform to ensure that they made a solid connection to the bed and so they just stuck to the FEP.  I have subsequently read that you can spray your FEP with Teflon PTFE Dry Lubricant to make it slippery.  I will have to get some of that.  

Space Adventurer - Loot Studios Free Miniature

The whole reason for me buying this printer is to print high quality miniatures for tabletop roleplaying games and so I went in search of some presupported miniatures thinking that these would fare much better.  I found Loot Studios who do an excellent bundle for $15 a month.  As this was my first stab at this I plumped for their freebie Space Adventurer who is almost as cool as Oswald the Overladen.

Loot Studios - Space Adventurer

I downloaded the 32mm but scaled him down by 10% as I hate the GW scale and he only came out bloody lovely!!

Down loading this mini convinced me that the problem I am having with my unsupported minis is the crappy supports in the slicer software.  In the same way that I learned the tips and tricks of FDM printing, it will take time to master this new medium and its idiosyncracies.

I'll say this though.  Props to all the guys and girls out there that are busy modelling their own minis and going through the laborious task of adding supports.  They are an absolute must.
 
Next Mission is to paint this little chap and all his little gadgets.

Sunday, 29 May 2022

Pimp My Game - Curse of the Mummy's Tomb

Back in the midst of the Corona Curse, I went about restoring one of my favourite Games Workshop boardgames from the 1980s, Curse of the Mummy's Tomb.  

I was never truly satisfied with the result and the ultimate goal was to have a pimped out copy of this vintage classic.

A prayer to the eBay Gods and an incomplete copy of the game was soon in my hands for the princely sum of £20.  Why, you might ask, would I part with good money for an incomplete game?  Well this one had all 5 of the original minis.  

Curse of the Mummy's Tomb Minis

These are much sought after "oldhammer" minis from the Night Horrors set and bought individually carry a hefty price tag of between £15 and £20 each.  All 5 minis for the price of 1 is what I call a bargain! If only I could find my originl minis...

The Pyramid of Khonsu    

Both my original and this copy had horribly warped boards and an even worse central column.  I therefore took it upon myself to model and print a new sturdier version on my 3D printer.  I modelled this in Sketchup including all the important game elements such as the start arrows, encounter numbers, pharoahs heads, ankhs and compass, leaving the way too complicated hieroglyphic frescos to someone with better modelling skills than myself.

The Pyramid of Khonsu

The goal here was to balance printability (must fit on my print bed), functionality (must fit together and store in the original box) and playability (must have all the major functions of the original).  The middle and top floor plates all fit on the bed of my printer but the ground floor needed to be cut up into 4 segments and printed in batches.  I've seperated these out as individual models so you can play around

With a bit of trimming on the tabs it goes together easy enough.  

In order to print it on my FDM printer I split the central column into 3 pieces and magnetized each piece (16 Magnets in total) with readily available 5mm neodynium magnets. 

Curse of the Mummys Tomb Pyramid 3D Print - 1
Pyramid of Khonsu - The Floors

Curse of the Mummys Tomb Pyramid 3D Print - 2
The Floors and Columns click together

Curse of the Mummys Tomb Pyramid 3D Print - 3
Floors stacked with the help of magnets

Curse of the Mummys Tomb Pyramid 3D Print - 4
It all fits neatly back inside the original box

If you want to print your own Pyramid of Khonsu you can download the STL files for free from thingiverse

Tana Leaves

The quality of card stock in these 80s GW games would give the team at Fantasy Flight nightmares. It is so shockingly thin (10 thousands of an inch thick), I imagine you could use it to accurately set the tappets on a vintage car or level the bed of your 3D printer.  The tana leaves get a lot of handling during the game and so were another candidate for the 3D printer.  Given their size and relatively low number it was not too much of a chore to design and print 55 of the little blighters. 

Tana Leaf Tokens
Download your own replacement tokens for free from Thingiverse - Tana Leaf Tokens.

Attribute Cones

This new copy came with a few cones missing.  I could have purchased some replacements from eBay, or tried to find some replacements from boardgamemaker.com, but a pretty good alternative is available on thingiverse - Cone Game Piece (Games Workshop style)  They are the ubiquitous game tracker pawn used in many GW games of this era such as Cosmic Encounter which used them to represent the ship tokens.

Attribute Cones - Classic GW Style


The first outing for the game was as a special finale finale to my recent Judge Dredd campaign.  I'll write up the rules for this in a seperate article


Saturday, 12 March 2022

Meanwhile in Mega City 1 - Prog 5: A Cloning Conundrum

 Meanwhile in Mega City 1

Meanwhile in Mega City One is a roleplaying game which takes place every Friday Night at Dragons Keep Roleplay Club in Chislehurst, South East London. 

Cast

  • Judge Cully - A no-nonsense female street judge with a penchant for heavy weapons - Kat
  • Judge Krush - A hard as nails street judge who goes by the book - Steve
  • Judge Swiss - A rookie street Judge - Alex
  • Psi Judge Pike - A Psi Division rookie Judge - Conor

Seven Young Problems

Confronted by seven vulnerable young girls Judge Cully does not call it in.  She tells the kids to be quiet and stay hidden.  She then returns to the patrol and tells them that the stairs led to a lab whihc was destroyed.

Pike calls in a meatwagon to bag the perp and they head off to follow up on their other cloning lead Dr Steve Ein.

The Ein Residence - Stallone Block

At 1800 hrs they find themselves outside the door of apartment 118-1.  Swiss knocks on the door and Dr Ein lets them in.  Krush immediately starts scanning the apartment for drugs and guns.  Pike checks out the nearest door which opens into a walkin closet.  Swiss and Cully interrogate Ein.

118-1 Stallone Block

Dr Ein is a very cooperative citizen and tells them that since being released from the isocubes he has not been contacted by anyone to undertake any cloning work.  He has done some freelancing for Prof. Ose over at the Felix labs where his knowledge of the Quantum Recombinator 3000 was useful in synthesising some Pineapple DNA but other than that he has been largely unemployed.  He offers up a couple of names Dr Hideki Pho and Danish Tokopi who would have been able to clone a cat.  Pho died a few months back when he cloned a wooly mammoth which then stepped on him.  His assistant Tokopi was arrested and is currently in the isocubes doing a long stretch.  Funny thing is that the mammoth was only supposed to be 8 inches tall not 8 metres tall.  It survives in the Alien Zoo and is apparently quite the attraction.

He asks who gave you his name and proceeds to go on quite the rant about Dr Rank's abilities in the field and how he would clone his own grandmother if there was a cred in it.  

Satisfied that there is nothing of interest in the closet Pike proceeds to mind read Dr Ein and confirms that he knows nothing about Miss Wildenstein or Mr Blofeldt.  His story checks out.

On the Balcony Judge Krush spots a perp liberally dousing an aprtment in Chan Block opposite with CHOO2 from a jerry-can.  The punk is wearing Cobra colours (a Stallone Block gang) and clearly this is a prescursor to a full scale Block War, so he calls it in. 

Pike proceeds to check out the upstairs rooms.  As he enters the bedroom he sees a figure dressed similarly to Dr Ein wearing a leather flying helmet clamber over the balcony balustrade and fall with a scream.

On the lower floor Krush, Cully and Swiss see a black shape fall from balcony above and dissapear out of sight.  Moments later with a woosh the figure opens his arms revealing bat wings and he floats away gracefully.  A batter.

Dr Ein comments "that that was my brother Dave, he doesn't like people and so he often goes batting when I have guests round."

Swiss checks with MAC and confirms that the residence houses two Ein Brothers. 

An H-Wagon turns up outside Chan Block.

"Put the can down punk and put your hands in the air, you are under arrest for attempted arson"

"Loose the shooter scum and we'll take you in alive"  

BANG 

"Wrong move punk"

The H-Wagon strafes the CHOO2 soaked appartment with it's cannon and it promptly explodes.  In moments it is reduced to a smouldering ruin.  Floating over to the balcony where Judge Krush stands surveying the scene, a head pops out of the commanders cupola, Judge Luminum exchanges words with Krush.  

"Good call Krush, we are seeing more activity from these gangers and expect things to get real drokkin dicey in the next couple of days."

As they wrap up their investigation and head back to the sector house a passing advertising train blares out an advertisement.

SUNDAY, SUNDAY, SUNDAY, LIVE AT THE BERLUSCONI COLLISEUM, KAT KITTEN & THE POWER CONVERTERS FREE CONCERT, LAUNCHING THEIR DEBUT SINGLE --- DONT STOP BY ME NOW --- DOORS OPEN AT 3PM --- BROUGHT TO YOU BY SIMON POWERS ENTERTAINMENT

Back to the Sector House

As they roll into the motorpool Judge Belloch greets them and asks Cully and Krush how the new recruits are doing.  He also asks if they found any evidence of other people living at the Rank residence as the Forensics team suspects there were 6 or 7 people living there.  Cully says no just the one perp who they put on ice.  Belloch tells Pike that Judge Quincy is expecting them in the morgue.

Down in the morgue Judge Quincy leads a team of dedicated pathology lab full of Med Teks who are skilled in Foresensic Science.  He claims that the Wildenstein woman was attacked.  She had signs of mild strangulation possibly by a pearl necklace and that under her fingernails were skin fragments which suggest she may have scratched the face of her attacker.  It's definitely murder.

Swiss opines that maybe Wildenstein had an agent and proceeds to scour through her email records.  He comes up with a name Jerry MacGuire and the address 483-26 Trump Tower.

Cully suggests that tomorrow they go back and see what Slute and Flute have uncovered.  She retires to her dorm room and looks for possible orphanages to turn over the seven girls to.  Miss Hannigan's Home for Waifs and Stray's looks promising and is nearby in Ozzy Apts.  

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