Oh it started so well… And now my motivation’s dropped.
Since I last posted around four weeks ago, work’s been really busy again meaning there’s been less hobby time this month. And to top it all off I managed to get a really bad cold last week. In the middle of a record breaking heatwave. Go figure…
Oh and things got even better. my Google Pixel 7 decided to metamorphose into a paper weight. So there won’t be many photo’s for a while as my stand in phone’s camera needs to go to SpecSavers.
Reading: Eisenhorn Omnibus – Xenos – Malleus
SPOILERS!
I managed to make a good start on the Eisenhorn omnibus and finished the first novel, Xenos. I’m currently a short way into Malleus as I write this.
So far I feel like this series is a far cry from some of Dan Abnetts other work. I think his choice to write it in the first person really limits his ability to make readers fall in love with the characters like we do in the Gaunts Ghosts books. It’s further exacerbated by the big time jump between the first and second books. So when, at the start of Malleus, we discover that Midas Betancore died between the books, I barely batted an eyelid. Whereas the loss of Colm Corbec and the brutal murder of Bragg in the Gaunts Ghosts novels had me cursing the name of Dan Abnett (he should take pride in that. Excellent writing. R.I.P. men of Tanith).
That being said, the plot itself is solid and enjoyable, which keeps me reading, even though there are constant spelling and grammatical mistakes through out. From what I can tell, I think the books were a rush job to get out alongside the Inquisitor role playing game that released around the same time.
Gaming: Aeronautica Imperialis
My winning streak in the ongoing battle between Astartes forces and Craftworld Fiannaid-Baharr now extends to 4 in 4, despite my best efforts to even out the odds.
I mentioned in my first hobby update that the areas of engagement were too small for Aeldari players to take full advantage of their speed and manoeuvrability, so this week I doubled the size of the map by placing down a second area of engagement. I’m glad to say that even though I won, my opponent made it to turn four this time. Additionally, the larger playing surface did make the game a lot more interesting and forced me to think more about my movement choices. For an Astartes player, a larger area of engagement means you can’t just hug the corners and edges of the map and guarantee something will be in your line of fire. The direction you’re facing starts to play a bigger role and the risk of tailing fire is considerably higher.
I’ll be honest, I think I was again helped by the fact the dice rolled slightly more in my favour in this game. Although I started with rolling a few consecutive ones in turn one and early turn two, my luck changed when my opponent landed three damage on one of my Xiphon interceptors, and I proceeded to roll three sixes to deflect all the damage. I then went on to land shot after shot with lascannons, meaning even when the Aeldari craft got into tailing positions, I was able to wipe them out in the same turn before they could take advantage of the extra shooting phase.
Whilst it’s nice to win a game, winning them as comfortably as I have been doing does detract from the fun. And I think being on the other end of that equation is starting to irk my opponent. I think next time I’ll put the Astartes aside and use my Divisio Aeronautica force instead.
Anyway, here’s the two lists and a picture after the movement phase of turn 4:
Astartes:
- 2x Storm Eagles
- 3x Xiphon Interceptors
- All with Armoured Cockpits
Aeldari:
- 3x Nightwings with Twin Scatter Lasers
- 3x Phoenix bombers With Twin Missile Launchers
Gaming and Game Development
I found myself at a loose end earlier in the month and didn’t really have the energy to build or paint at the time. I also couldn’t be bothered with any games that required any real commitment to play, which ruled out most of my modern collection, so I pulled out the real oldies, the ones in the jewel cases with release dates in the 90s.
I started with Road Rash and played through a few levels. The game’s still as fun today as it was in the 90s and the soundtrack is one of the best I’ve come across in a video game. After that I tried Allied General, but couldn’t get that to install using Wine. Admittedly, I’ve no idea how to properly configure and use Wine as I’ve only blundered around rather than reading up on it.
Failing that, I managed to get Conquer, an obscure Windows 95 game by CrystalVision, to run and managed to spend a few hours playing what is, at it’s heart, a very simple strategy game. If I recall correctly, my dad and I picked this up in a bargain bin in a shopping centre for a quid or two after my weekly visit to the Games Workshop there. Well worth a quid in my opinion. Even back then when you could buy a space marine bike for a fiver. Anyway, I digress.
I also stumbled across my copy of Fin Fin on Teo the Magic Planet which came with a PC my dad bought in the 90s. It installed perfectly well via Wine, but took a bit of faffing around with screen resolution to make it usable. After showing this to my offspring, they asked if I could install it on their laptop which runs Linux Mint. Considering the faff I had to go through to launch it I decided no. They’re too young to do it themselves and I don’t want to be pestered every day to set it up. Instead, I thought it would be much easier to learn how to develop a game that runs native on Linux and install that.
So I spent a few evenings early this month learning Godot and built a very basic prototype of a pet game that’s inspired by the principals behind Fin Fin, Tamagotchi and the Petz games I had as a youngling.
It’s still very early stages, but so far I’ve built in various meters that indicate the needs of the pet and affect its behaviour and how you interact with it. The game currently has three locations that you navigate to via doors. The graphics are none existent and the pet is currently a red square, but I’m actually happy with this considering I have no game development experience. Oh, and it’s linked to actual time, so if you don’t log in regularly and let it outside, it poos or wees on the floor, forcing the player to clean up (or, you know, leave a steaming pile on the floor indefinitely) when they log back in. Eventually the pet will also starve if you leave it too long. Who said kids games should be all sunshine and rainbows?
After getting this far, I’ve had to put the game to one side to focus on actual work and the never ending list of DIY. And thus concludes this hobby update.
Oh, and why not leave me a comment to let me know someone’s actually read this!
