The Washington Gamestore Alliance page (aka the nice folks who are putting on the Battle in Seattle) is up. It is kinda light on content, but there...

The Chainmail Page has a complete set of stats for the next Chainmail release, Fire and Ice. Scroll down a bit to find the info... I want a Paladin of Stratis.

Hooboy, my shoulders are sore. Got Stephen all moved in to his new place, and along the way had a fun look into his gaming collection. All sorts of old Call of Cthulhu stuff, old D&D (Ravenloft!), The Morrow Project, Champions (1st and 2nd Ed. stuff), etc etc. A real trip down memory lane... almost makes me sory I routinely sell my old stuff off on eBay -- I'll not have anything to reminisce over in my dotage.

It is official. The new 40K Assault Rules are here to stay. Personally, I'm going to start playing with them ASAP.

Sean & Kendra got the new Rhino in today, and it looks great. Sean popped a box open and everything you'd expect was in there. Even Space Puppy decals. Go figure...

Recently, I decided to put my new 40K Dark Eldar army on hold, and instead put together a WHFB Chaos army. Just prior to making that decision, I bid on a few sprues of DE Warriors (sorry Sean & Kendra, they are just so cheap at ebay). My tactic at ebay is to find a just-listed auction, then put in a lowball bid. I then ignore the auction -- the strategy has never worked, someone always comes in with a normal, non-lowball bid. Of course, this time my strategy paid off. Figures. So, I've got 40 DE Warriors en route. Looks like I'll be working on my DE force after all :-D And my Chaos Marauder command. And my Chainmail figs. And my Deathwatch squad. And touchup my Imperial Fist. And... and.. and...

Man this hobby is a time sink.

Seems that yet another company is taking a stab at a ST:TOS roleplaying game. Direct from Steve Jackson Games' Daily Illuminator, I give you GURPS Prime Directive

I took a bit of time to learn more about the BloggerPro template system and figured out how to do my index.html page directly from there -- doing it that way has allowed me to ditch the nasty frameset I was using. Much better all around

OMG, this is the funniest geek video I've seen in forever. Realmedia format.

Some fine gentleman has gone ahead and collected all the available pix of the new WHFB Chaos models in one place, and that place is here: pbase Photo Gallery: hordes_of_chaos

More rumors on the Chainmail front. Evidently WotC is looking for a new Chainmail Brand Manager. This, of course, is radically different news from the other rumor I found yesterday: WotC expected Chainmail to fail from the get-go, and was never 100% behind it. Gaming industry rumors are almost as salacious as HP/Compaq Merger News

Woo-hoo! I just got my Elder Sign Discussion Forums up and running! Check 'em out here, or just navigate over from the link in the left-hand side of the site. Yabbse is sooooo cool! Anyways, sign on in!

Ahhh, Chainmail. There are so many rumors floating around the 'net about this game right now. "It's cancelled" "No, WotC stores are just going out of business" "WotC fired the Brand Manager for the line so it's toast" "We'll see all the '02 stuff, but nothing that'll be it" "Cynic!" "Wimp!"

I dunno... I've got a feeling we should enjoy Chainmail right now, 'cause it ain't gonna be with us in the long term.

I'm not normally one for funky javascripting, but I have to admit that this is pretty darned cool.

Here are the pix from the upcoming WFB Chaos armybook:

Archaon:

Daemonettes:

Horrors:



I think they just look so sweet. Those Daemonettes are completely cool, and look amazingly convertible -- Dark Eldar Wyches anyone?

I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna build a Warhammer Fantasy army -- the new Chaos models are sooooo sweet that I can't resist. Zina and I are psyched about painting up these nasty fantasy guys. The new army book and figures aren't due for another six weeks or so -- that'll give me a few weeks to pick up a regiment box or two of Chaos Warriors and get in the groove. Now, should I do a faction or go Chaos Undivided? Don't hate me 'cause I'm a figures slut ;-)

Now, this isn't going to get in the way of the Dark Eldar project exactly... I'm still going to do another 40K army, just more slowly. One thing I've found is that I need variety or I get bored. Almost a year of working strictly on Imperial Fist space marines was just too much.

Played a game and a half of Chainmail yesterday lunch. Lost the first one against Aaron's stunties -- he couldn't miss and I couldn't hit. Chainmail does seem to be pretty luck-based; the smaller number of models per side really makes you vulnerable to runs of bad dice. The half a game was a 4-on-4 with Sean's Naresh, my Thalos, Aaron's Mordenguard and Dave's (?) Ravilla. We were playing a cool version of Take and Hold. The objective was ZGames' Blood FOuntain terrain piece. Any model that got into base contact with the fountain got +1 to hit and +1 damage -- from drinking the magical blood. Bwahahahaha. Anyways, we got a few turns in, but I had to bail to go back to work before things really got rolling. Bummer.

Fantasy Chaos Pics (big!) THinkin that it is time for me to try Fantasy.

Had a fun though interrupted game of Chainmail with Sean today at lunch. My Ogre-fortified Thalos warband versus his stunties. Things were going pretty well for me, but unfortunately I had to return to work for a meeting (ptui). My Ogre got pretty badly cut up when his cleric cast a Fear spell on him and he fled (AoO's aplenty), but my Paladin calmed him down and cured him up. The return of my Ogre, combined with Sean's inability to roll anything higher than a 9 made things look pretty good.

I'm looking forward to this weekend's festivities...

Well, isn't that clever. Images in the 'blog aaaaaand it works just like you'd think it would. Wow.

<== should be an image of my Elder Sign button.

This site is very cool! It can actually read your mind! This is no tricky internet gimmick, it can Really read your mind... or at least, it read mine...

The US Patent Office is out of control. Need proof? Here it is.

Such good news! A company is making a PC version of the old Atari 400/800 and C64 game M.U.L.E. I never had it for my C64, but a friend who had an Atari 800 did. We played it a lot, and man was it a blast. Read about it here: GameSpot: PC News: Shrapnel Games picks up Space HoRSE

While at Clackamas Mall yesterday, I dropped by the WotC store... They're having a big sale, and all Chainmail boxes are on sale for 25% off. I managed to find a Limited Ed. Ogre Mercenary, which I snapped up. He should replace the Hammerer in my Thalos Warband quite nicely. Kinda ironic though: the Hammerer (unreliable) is being replaced by a Difficult Troop.

Search Engine Results

From the "That's-really-gotta-suck dept.": Yahoo! News - Dutch Doctor Identifies Post-Orgasmic Syndrome

I went on a archeological dig this morning... I dug through a bunch of old Jaz carts, Zip disks and CD-Rs and found a lot of my old web sites (mostly from Pacifier and IO) and gaming material. Most of the gaming stuff is, not suprisingly, Ars Magica. I plan on posting the old web sites here in a little while. If you want to check out the old gaming stuff let me know.

This is me typing in a new 'blog entry to show my friend Charles how it works...

The site is starting to get it's "look." I kinda like it, though I'm not sure about the font in the logo -- it looks a bit fuzzy...

Well, the blog has migrated to eldersign.org.

CNN.com - Soldiers snack on 3-year sandwich - April 11, 2002 Mmmmmmmmmm.

Yahoo mail seems to be down again. I'm so sick of this. I'm gonna migrate over to an @eldersign.org address ASAP.

Salon Arts & Entertainment | "Star Wars" despots vs. "Star Trek" populists is another look.

Salon.com Arts & Entertainment | Galactic gasbag Oh man, you have got to read this!

HomeLan Fed : Exclusives : Delta Green Interview : More info on the upcoming Delta Green computer game, with a new screenshot.

DigitalConsumer.org is a grass-roots organization that is seeking to protect our fair-use rights. Check 'em out.

I just registered my own domain. In a few short days, I'll be migrating all my stuff over to http://www.eldersign.org. I'll be combining my Imperial Fist sites, this blog, archives of past web sites of mine, etc into one big site. I decided to go with Winsocket for the hosting. For $14.95 a month, I get 150MB of storage, a bunch of popmail accounts, shell access, RealAudio and Video, mySQL, my own cgi-bin directory, etc etc. I'm pleased... and to top it all off, I got a cool domain name. Joy!

Yahoo! News - Photo is creepy.

The Musketeer sucks. Thank god I only rented it.

I woke up this morning, took a shower and headed downstairs to get some clean clothes from the top of the dryer. On the way, I stopped to check out the work I did last night on my new Manor House. 45 minutes later, I had textured all the walls... before work... before breakfast... before getting dressed... My name is Andy, and I have terrainophilia. I am a sick puppy. But at least I'm not a parent in Italy.

Fun time last night at Zgames' Speed Painting competition. Turn out the mystery figure to be painted was a... you guessed it... Space Marine! I painted mine as an Ultramarine, Zina did hers as an Imperial Fist guy. As it turns out, an hour is a startlingly short amount of time. Ryan Mirchel (tall, Tau Ryan not small, Ork/Nid Ryan) took the top spot with a really good job on a Black Templar. I came in third. Much fun was had by all -- particularly Scott Shoemaker, who started off with a try at a Howling Griffon, but ended up with a Nurgle Space Marine :-)

I also indulged my Chainmail habit again, picking up a blister of the Set 2 Human Warriors. I can now run a 65 point Warband. Gotta get painting! Bugs, too...

My Manor House is shaping up nicely, I'm so pleased I've started thinking about doing a big inn with lift off roof & top floor, playable for D&D etc. Here is a concept sketch.

I started painting up my Chainmail figs last night. I got my Paladin almost finished. In the same amount of time, Zina finished the Gnome Infiltrator and the Human Glaiver... and they look really good, too. This afternoon she did the Gnoll Trooper. I'm jealous on several levels.

We just got home from a quick trip out to Zgames. I picked up the Chainmail Blood & Darkness expansion book, an Abyssal Ravager for my Naresh warband, and a Hammerer for my Thalos warband. I'm such a slut.