Tolkien rant

Checking through back posts, I thought that I had posted this one but it looks like I had left it as pending. The rant I have left the way I wrote it back in 2009 – based on the rant I used to use about the book - before all the LOTR movies had been made.

I was a big fan of The Hobbit book and had seen the animated versions of both Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings (and The Return of The King) and liked them enough but always felt the LOTR wasn’t as well written as the Hobbit. I think the achievement of making the movies in a live-action format was a wonderful achievement, and that the movies keep very true to the spirit of the books. I just believe that the book weren't very well written.

To explain - behold my rant.


First they're chased by 1 wraith and it's terrible - but they barely escape. Then they're chased by a few wraiths (in Bree) and it's terrible - but they barely escape. Then they're chased by the wraiths on horseback and it's terrible - and they barely escape.

Then they form a Fellowship that lasts the first encounter until they meet a Balrog - which is terrible - and they barely escape - but lose Gandalf. The fellowship then breaks up - never to join again. Boromir dies, Pippin/Merry are captured, Aragorn/Boromir/Legolas chase after them, and Frodo/Sam go off on their own.

A/B/L chase after the orks who have M/P and almost catch them, but then they need horses so they run into the Rohan who give them horses. They find Gandalf who needs a horse but luckily, he's befriended this great horse who helps them out. There's some minor intrigue with Rohan (Grimer Wormtoungue untrustworthy - what a fortuotous name). And then the big battle at Helm's Deep, followed by the bigger battle at Gondor, followed by the really Big Battle at the gates - where they are defeated and going to lose when - luckily, the ring is dropped and they win.

The hobbits (F/S) get to almost where they need to be, get captured and get taken back, and have to go over again. When it comes time to drop their load, Frodo can't even do it, Gollum has to. Oh, and about that ring, even though Gandalf knew about it, and knew what it did, he only now learns that it's The Ring - they one they've all been looking for all this time. But then he wanders off for months and months, gets trapped in a tower, and finally luckily escapes.

codex update

With ebay and the local Games Workshop, I now have all the regular 6th edition codices except Chaos Daemons, which is the next one on my list to get. I am still missing all of the supplements from that edition – Farsight Enclaves (Tau), Black Legion and Crimson Slaughter (Chaos Space Marines), Sentinels of Terra and Clan Raukaan (Space Marines), and Militarium Tempestus (Astra Militarium). The only one of the supplements I am really looking at getting is the Tempestus book if I can find it for a decent price.

Of the current 7th edition, I am still missing the Dark Eldar, Blood Angels, Khorne Daemonkin, (Eldar) Craftworlds, the updated Imperial Knights, as well as the Space Marine and Dark Angels. Higher on my list are the Space Marine and Craftworld books and lower are Khorne and the new Knights. I’ll eventually get Dark Eldar, and the Angels just to fill the gaps.

The Space Marine and Dark Angels have a new cover design. Usually this means that a new edition is coming out shortly although they didn’t change the design with the change from 6th to 7th. But with only a 2 year gap between those editions they really didn’t have a lot of time. It does mean that, out of the 17 full codices, 13 have been for the 7th edition. It also means that, out of the 17 current codices I have 9 of the them. I also have the Harlequin book – but I’m counting that as a supplement rather than a full codex.

White Dwarf - back to being subscribable

The White Dwarf experiment seems to be mostly over. I’ve been subscribed to Games Workshop’s magazine White Dwarf for several years and buying it monthly before that. I remember when they changed it to be a North American edition, and then the Canadian edition (where they restarted the numbering) which got merged back into the North American edition.

There has been a few hiccups along the way with having to pick up an issue here and there while they processed the renewals. This was brought about as, unlike most magazine companies, they don’t send out renewal reminder notices and it takes two months for a lapsed subscription to renew.

A little over a year ago, just after I renewed my subscription, they cancelled the regular White Dwarf magazine and split it into two new magazines – Visions and White Dwarf weekly. Visions was a smaller format monthly magazine containing all the pictures of the models. White Dwarf weekly was the same size but with a lot fewer pages and had all the rules and writing.

My subscription was changed to a Visions subscription as the weekly White Dwarf wasn’t subscribable. Since I can’t make it to the local Games Workshop every week, I would call in every month and order the issues to be delivered to them for pick up. This worked well until December, when they added cards to two issues and they sold out before I could order them. I was eventually able to track those down without having to pay too much. Then I started calling them every week to place an order and went in every month or so to pick them up.

They recently announced that they would allow subscriptions on the weekly magazine so I jumped at that. I’m still missing an issue that sold out over the weekend before I could order it but I remain hopeful that I will eventually be able to track it down.

I figured that they would go back to a subscription format but had thought that they would go to bi-weekly or even monthly again - the only real difference being the increased cost. The old White Dwarf was about $12 a month and the weekly is $5 each – meaning that it is now $20 to $25 a month. Luckily, they also offered a 6 month subscription as that is a lot to come up with all at once. I did not renew my Visions subscription as I can always get pictures of the models online if I need more inspiration.

The Old West / Realms of Chaos

While at Value Village on the last Friday in May, I circled through the books. I was happy to see a stack of Time Life: The Old West books. They had an End and the Myth but it wasn't in as good a condition as the one I had finally just gotten from ebay. I was able to get the last book I needed to complete my set of the regular books - a nice copy of The Mexican War. I still need the index but I've never found a copy of that so I will have to get that online.

On the shelf below them, an orange book caught my eye. It was the Warhammer/Warhammer 40,000 Realms of Chaos – Slaves to Darkness. It had a small bit of wear on the front top corner but otherwise was in really nice shape, with none of the cover-falling-off issues that used to be standard GW HD fare. I spent a few more moments searching the shelves for its companion - The Lost and the Damned. But it was nowhere to be found. In fact, there was no other Warhammer or 40,000 books – which I found odd.

The price, either $2.99 less 30% - so $2.09, or possibly even free as it was one of the three books at that price I got for free for buying 5 books, the Old West book being one of the others. This was much less than the over $100 it usually goes for online. The Lost and the Damned usually goes for twice that. This is why I hadn’t really expected to check either of them off my list.

I am glad to find it since the two original Chaos books are the only ones I am missing from the first edition Rogue Trader set. This one has rules for Khorne and Slaanesh as well as what looks like the first Grey Knights. The other book has Nurgle and Tzeentch.

Diplomacy – plastic – wood – metal

Back in the day, I remember watching some friends at a drop-in center playing with a risk board but not using any dice. They were playing using a variation of the Diplomacy rules. This was my first exposure to the elegance of Diplomacy.

In the back of Computer Science class, they played Diplomacy in spare time with the teacher. It often got to the point where David Fyfe would have so many units that he didn’t have to write down his moves like the rest of the players so would have an advantage in that he wouldn’t forget to schedule orders for units. This was the first place that I got to play Diplomacy with wooden pieces.

I played it at GenCon a few times and had some great experiences there. I picked up a set that contained plastic pieces and was later able to find an older version that had the wooden pieces. Having two sets actually made it easier to discuss strategy on some of the games.

At Keycon this year, the Dandy Lion con suite was holding a raffle. Some of the items were dvds, cds, and games. When I saw that they had a copy of the Hasbro/Wizards of the Coast/Avalon Hill version of Diplomacy with the metal pieces, I was quite excited. I didn’t get it when it came out due to the cost plus the fact that, even though I love the game, I really don’t get to play it all that much. I bought 20 tickets for $10 and put 1 in for a cd set, 5 in for a set of 3 CheapAss games, and 15 in for this. I would have bought another 20 tickets for it but there didn’t seem to be more than a handful in already.

I wasn't at the draw - having confirmed that I didn't need to be - but popped in on Sunday to find out that my tickets had won two prizes - both of the game packs. The Diplomacy game had been opened but when I checked it out, it was unpunched. I could not see any metal figures at first but, checking under the insert, found all of them still individually sealed in the plastic.

I'm very excited to cross this grail version off of my list. I'm just torn about opening it to play, or keeping it sealed. Unfortunately, it's a choice I will probably have to wait quite a while to have to decide.

Books Read - January to April 2015

Jan
Codex Grey Knights (5th edition) by Matthew Ward
World War II Collectibles by Harry Rinker Jr. and Robert Heistand
TIME: 100 ideas that Changed the World: History’s Greatest Breakthroughs, Inventions, and Theories by Time Books
The Chris Farley Show: a biography in three Acts by Tom Farley Jr and Tanner Colby

Feb
Mafiaboy: how i cracked the internet and why it’s still broken by Michael Calce with Craig Silverman
The Martian by Andy Weir
You Are Here: around the world in 92 minutes by Chris Hadfield
Time Life Books: The Old West – The Alaskans by Keith Wheeler
Junk Foodie: 51 Delicious Recipes for the Lowbrow Gourmand by Emilie Baltz
The Barbarians: Warriors & Wars of the Dark Ages by Tim Newark
Batman Returns – The Official Movie Book by Michael Singer

Mar
The Art of Walt Disney (From Mickey Mouse to the Magic Kingdoms) by Christopher Finch (1973 edition)
Heroes Revealed featuring Seasons 1, 2, and 3 by Michael Goldman
The Art of Walt Disney (From Mickey Mouse to the Magic Kingdoms) by Christopher Finch (1995 edition)
Bringing Down the House: The inside story of six M.I.T. Students who took Vegas for Millions by Ben Mezrich
Star Wars the Clone Wars The Visual Guide by Jason Fry
Kennel Club Books: German Shepherd Dog by Susan Samms
Celebrate Our Faith by Papal Rose Publishing

Apr
The Science of Interstellar by Kip Thorne
The Town by Chuck Hogan
Babylon 5: A Call to Arms: Sky Full of Stars by Matthew Sprange
Brick Flicks – A comprehensive guide to making your own Stop-Motion Lego Movies by Sarah Herman

Cerebus committed

While out on Free Comic Book Day, in addition to our free comics, we always buy stuff at each of the stores. I managed to pick up three more of the Cerebus phone books for about $15 each. Even though I didn’t find any of the 4 books in the next arc, I did get Guys, Rick’s Story, and Going Home, which are the next three books in the series after that arc.
That means I need the 4 books before that set (Flight, Women, Reads, Minds), and the last 3 books (Form and Void, Latter Days, and The Last Day) to have the entire series. So I suppose that pushes me over the edge into getting the back half.