Sarah Jane

Elisabeth Sladen: 1948-2011. The first time I caught Doctor Who in 1982 it was a monster movie blitz: the Wirrn, the Sontarans, the Daleks and the Cybermen, and there was Sarah Jane Smith at the Doctor's side. She's gone now. But like the Doctor, we can go back in time and see her adventures on DVD and listen to her commentaries and remember.



From digital spy:

Tom Baker's Tribute

4E Superheroes

4th Edition D&D is reversed engineered WoW, there's no getting around that. But the same system heavily modified for Gamma World THEN applied to a Superhero game? We'll see! Tales of Lakefront City Heroes here we come! Meet the Real Life Superheroes League: Using Heromachine 2.5 and some kit bashed minatures (That the kids painted mostly ;))



Grey Matter! He'll make you think twice about committing a crime, literally!


The Kitchen! Serving up Justice with a knuckle sandwich on the side!


Kitchenette! This flying waitress has a TIP for you! Stay out of trouble!


The Woods Girl! With an affinity for nature and monkey rage This park ranger will keep you on the path...of good!


Zoo Pal Girl! Able to shapeshift into animals AND become invisible, evil-doers had better hope she also needs to sleep sometime!

Quality Cadian 412th Time

I thought when my son put down his Warhammer 40K Imperial Guard army last year, after building half of it, he was done with 40K completely. He'd collected a decent sized Chaos Marine army and attached them narratively and physically with their paint scheme to my own Space Marines, saying his army was born of my fallen-from-grace Marines. I was flattered enough as a dad not to be pissed off at the thought of MY Space Marines turning from the Emperor of Mankind and the Golden Throne! (He was irritated when I decided to convert those same Marines from vanilla codex to Slamanders Chapter; understandably. He can thank Vulkan He'stan for that move).

It's February 2011 and I suddenly find myself with time in the post World of Warcraft world in which I now live. So I picked up his lone sentinel, primed it and set about painting it in the scheme of his beloved 412th Cadian regiment as introduced in the Dawn of War videogame series. Out of nowhere, my son's interest is back and he sits down with me, putting together the rest of the models at a furious pace.

Why? He doesn't have to paint them ofcourse! How did I not see that months ago?

So the nerd cave in the basement was remade into our Guard rallying depo and the PS2 found post PS3 relevance acting as our DVD player as we indulged in:

...all the while building and painting like crazy. Then we got to kit bashing and the boy got to thinking and threw this tasty group of hardcore veterans together: One flamer, 2 grenade launchers and seven shotguns! Yes, I know it might make more sense to take a heavy flamer, but he's making them grenadiers so the point costs are better served on a squad-wide 4+ save. With a Chimera that has a heavy bolter turret, hull mounted heavy bolter and heavy stubber up top, this could be a beautiful anti troop unit, dice rolls permitting ;) Time well spent all around. Can't wait to see them painted and fighting!

Quadragesima

Quadragesima, 40 Days, Lent. Today is Ash Wednesday the beginning of the season of Lent that leads up to Easter. As it began, I've had one friend accosted by a Bible Thumper online and my wife made fun of at work for having ashes on her forehead. Interesting.

No one would fault a Yogi for meditating for months at a time, no one dares say a word against Muslims praying 5 times a day, the neopagans and wiccans celebrate the spring equinox freely, nothing much is made out of Jews celebrating Passover, but smear some ash on your Catholic forehead and offer to give a little something up for 40 days and suddenly the Earth spins off it's axis. Curious.

Lent as we know it began early in Church history as adults fasted and went through the rituals to become full members of the Church. By the 4th century, the practices began attracting particiption from people already baptized alongside those waiting for admittance. Between the 6th and 8th century, "Confession" or Reconciliation became the focus of absolution for personal sins and the 6 week period of Lent began to take serious shape into traditions we'd recognize today in the 11th century. Though some of the severity of the fasting and abstinence were gradually removed, it wasn't until 1966 that modern guidelines governing the Season made them less stringent.

Why do it? So many people from Baby Boomers on down make the statement that it's all ritual and no spirituality in the Church. Yet here's a tailormade spiritual season of 40 days leading up to Christians' most important holiday and the very tools that in any other religion would be seen as key to kick off and/or enhance the physical and mental process of embarking on a spiritual journey are ignored, mocked or generally disregarded as outdated practices with no modern application.

For whom is there a spiritual vacuum?

40K Traitor Guard part 2

I'm WAY past due addressing this and I need to thank Jay from: Jay's Workshop for giving me a swift proverbial kick in the ass. Since November, I haven't just been complaining about how I've been priced out of a hobby I've been at for 24 years, I've actually been working on things and stuff that have been sitting on the shelf from the time when I bought and purchased and horded like a Democrat with someone else's blank checkbook.

While this isn't the comprehensive Traitor Guard List, this is everything that will appear in it! Because this isn't simply misled, misguided or otherwise foolish regular Guard, but full blown renegade traitors who have embraced Chaos and turned from the Emperor I use the colorful, "in-Universe" names and titles,and provide tailoring for all 5 styles of Chaos army. (Undivided, Slaanesh, Nurgle etc etc.) But when I post the full list, it will become clear what stat lines I am using for whom and I'll try to list which codex or article each entry was pulled from. Also, I'm not including point values here.

HQ:
Company Command Squad
-Arch Renegade or
-Beastman Champion or
-Herald of Slaanesh or
-Chaos Magus or
-Plague Disciple
--Heretic Veteran
--Heretic Veteran Weapons Team

HQ Independants:
-Dark Mechanicum Enginseer
-Alcolyte
-Chaos Magus Master
-Demagogue

ELITES:
-Big Mutants
-Demon Packs
-Rogue Psykers
-Heretic Veteran Squad

TROOPS:
-Heretic Infantry Platoon (Same as IG)
-Cultists
-Mutants
-Gibbering Hordes

FAST ATTACK:
-RoughRider Squadron
-Scout Sentinel Squadron
-Armored Sentinel Squadron
-Hellhound Squadron
-Chaos Hounds
-Valkyrie

HEAVY SUPPORT
-Defilers
-Chaos Spawn
-Leman Russ Squadron (Some type restrictions)
-Hydra Flak Tank Battery
-Ordinance Battery

This has come together nicely, providing a guide to build a tough tabletop 40K army that could go toe-to-toe with a loyalist Imperial Guard army without either side having an outrageous advantage or disability in the face of the other. I'm confident it accomplishes this while stylistically remaining true to the 40K universe and frankly would be fun to hobby as well! (Which is good because since I really can't buy new models, I have to turn inward on my stock!)