Rikalonius
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Posts posted by Rikalonius
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Heavy Stormtrooper out of the box... just painted and rebased.
These are hot. I love the heavy stormtroopers.
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I like the armor. I think I'm going to paint one as a Chiss, and the other I'm going to lop of his head and replace it with a Rodian from hired guns pack to make a custom hero.
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If you look at the Star Wars Ring Theory, one of the reasons we get the Gungans, is that they mirror the Ewoks. Primitive vs Technology.
And when it comes to Jar Jar, I still don't like him and find him pretty annoying (though TCW did a teeny bit to make him more tolerable but not much), i've finally come to respect the role he fills.
He and Yoda have a lot in common. At least with the lesson they're supposed to impart when you first meet them.
When Luke meets Yoda he dismisses him as some useless stupid creature that's slowing him down. When in reality Yoda was just what he needed to succeed. Same goes for the Ewoks. Han was ready to just shoot them, but Luke decided that they might be useful even though initially they seemed silly and useless to their cause.
Same with Jar Jar. If Qui Gon had just told Jar Jar to go away, the good guys might not have came out on top without his help and connections.
The lesson is not to dismiss people just because you think they're useless or stupid.
Or something like that. Jar Jar is still super annoying, but at least now I understand the lesson and point of his character.
Ok. I really have to disagree on this point. Let's start with the premise that Lucas was doing anything on purpose. Yes, he did state that the Ewoks were suppose to be an example of a inferior technological culture taking on a more advanced one. Though there were supposed to be Wookiees, but it was changed during the writing of Return. It was, as Lucas had said, and example of Vietnam. Its a failed analogy, however. The Vietnamese didn't fight with sticks and rocks. They fought with battle rifles, and rocket launchers and most of the same tech their enemies had, minus an Air Force. Additionally the kill ratio in Vietnam was like 10 to 1, if not higher.
One of the best moments in the OT, in my opinion, was when Yoda went from giggling to deathly serious when Luke said, "I am not afraid." I was only 11 and his, "you will be...." sent chills right up my spine. It still sort of does. Yes, Yoda was giving Luke a lesson, but behind it lay a deadly serious character who, prior to all this Dave Filoni nonsense, believed the fate of the Jedi resided in this boy's hands and his ability to train him. Jar Jar was court Jester. He existed solely to move a bad plot forward, and, if I may quote Red Letter Media, be the cartoon rabbit who steps in the poopie, comic relief. He presence was completely unnecessary, save bad writing. The Nabooo clearly had no means to resist, so why land your forces on the other side of the planet? Now, I'll give Lucas the benefit of the doubt that these were different forces in charge of different objectives, since the fastest way to the Naboo was the planet core, but the Federation forces were already in Theed by the time the Jedi arrived there. As mentioned before, this was poor writing in order to gather up the cast of character and strand them unconvincingly on Tatooine so they could find the chosen one.
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Ok, it looks like I have been playing several things wrong, then.
1. I have been increasing threat at the end of a round and then doing my optional deployments. This should be reversed, right?
2. I have been starting the game(s) at the threat level that is shown on the back page of the campaign guide. At the end of each round, I have been turning the dial(s) one space each - one on the round counter and one on the threat dial. If what I am reading in the replies, above, is true, I should be adding a whole lot more threat at the end of each round. And if that is the case, I don't see how the rebels can ever win. Honestly, the way I have been doing it has made it challenging for the Imperials to win, though I am still winning about 50% of the time. If I have that much extra threat to spend on more deployments, it is highly improbable that the rebels will ever win any games.
A common problem. Yes, you are supposed to add the threat per turn that is listed on the campaign log, for the mission you are at. That is, if you are on the third mission, it will be 3 threat per turn. Yes, it makes it even more challenging for the Heroes. When I first started playing, I was afraid to get wounded, afraid to move forward until I took out enemies. Not a good idea. A the heroes you have to drive for objectives, still, the game is a challenge for the heroes, no doubt. One or two bad rounds where lady luck is mad at you, and it becomes downright impossible, but at least you get credits, XP and move on. Also if it says double or triple the threat, it is just for the one round. The starting round if the heroes are bringing in an ally. Someone will correct me if I'm wrong about that.
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My problem with this is that it doesn't feel natural to me. It's similar to the Lego "Female Scientist" debacle of a few years ago. My wife is a neuroscience PhD. I know there are scientists that are women. So make the kit a "Scientist" kit. Promoting it as a "Female Scientist" only serves to call attention to the exact thing you are claiming to be fighting...
In this situation... sorry, it is unrealistic for a 5'3" wastrel to beat up armored men in droves. If children look up to this then you are giving them an empowering unrealistic expectation no worse than the mis-proportioned Barbie. Give kids real role models. Ellen Ripley didn't need to beat people up to be strong or a leader. Neither did Han Solo, Leia, or Mon Mothma.
Ellen Ripley in Alien is a great example of a great woman character. She didn't ever go toe-toe with the Xenomorph. She stayed alive through wits and courage, but she never fought it, and she saved her cat.
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If you listen to the The Flannel One in an interview on The Phantom Menace extras you'll hear him describe how he was looking for a War and Peace kind of motif. Space aged technology and Napoleonic tactics do not make good bedfellows.
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I know a few. Ronda Rousey could be me up. Ronda spends every waking moment training to fight. I do not. Ronda could not beat up Jon Jones. If fact, the most elite female fighters in the world would be hard pressed to beat even the lowest ranked professional male fighters. There are a lot of woman that play hockey better than me too, but that doesn't mean they could compete in the NHL. Your argument is fallacious. Of the 29 hand-selected women of elite fitness who attempted to pass the Marine Infantry Officers course, not one of them made it. This is a course with about a 25% attrition rate among men. If you get into the more elite units like SEAL, there is a 75% attrition rate. As a BUDS candidate in 1990 who developed bronchopneumonia, as a result of hypothermia, and was rendered medically disqualified from diving due to scar tissue in my lungs, I can assure you that no woman will every pass BUDs without it being severely gimped in their favor.
As said on the page before by Sam, these are abnormal circumstances. If Disney makes a movie about a woman who is the strongest wrestler in the world or the best marine in the army, I'll say they are putting diversity before story. Right now, it's a woman as a fighter/soldier in a rebel faction and a girl scavenger who turns into a space wizard. So, I think they are equally as capable as men for these roles and it effects the story in no way.
The subject became a discussion on women being physically equal to men. I don't have a problem with women being soldiers in a combat unit in the movies. I very much like Vasquez in Aliens. What I have a problem with is that stealing the plans to the death star is left to some street urchin, petty criminal, and not professional commandos. If the woman was a professional commando, like one of my favorite characters, Kerrigan from StarCraft Lore, I wouldn't have been as annoyed with the trailer.
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I lived in Hawaii for four and a half years. Somoan women are in no way as strong as Somoan men. I hate to keep laboring the point, but it is biology. Once men hit puberty they develop 40% more upper body muscle mass and 30% more lower body mass. If a man and a woman train for an equal amount of time in anything that requires muscular output, men will increase faster than women. Again I go back to my previous post. The women of the most elite fitness in the world could not compete against males who have trained equally as much. If you look at the Bench Press records for certified life-time drug free competitors, the top woman, weighing 198 lbs, is 363 lbs. The top man at her weight class is 595 lbs. The top man period was 699 lbs.
I'll return to my point yet again. Of 29 hand-selected for the purpose of passing, women of elite fitness levels, who attempted to pass the Marine Infantry Officers Course, not one of them made it. That is a course that is a 25% attrition rate for men. So clearly, women cannot do "whatever a man can do".
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Not me. I didn't hate everything in the prequel era, but once the OT stuff is done, I'll probably remain stagnant. I may collect some minis here and there though. I'll give FFG that, the vast majority of their miniatures have been fantastic, and I love to see the good painters bringing them to life. It seems the plastic is almost as good as the old metal ones, which were really good as well.
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As I said, I'm not trying to insult women. I dated a woman Marine for a bit. I've met plenty of women in my 2 years of Army and 20 years of Navy that I thought were dutiful professionals I was proud to serve with, but as Sam said, there are things women are better suited too, and combat arms is not among them. For all this talk about giving women bigger roles, the only thing that filmmakers ever make is action gurl movies. Not very creative.
Sam Tomahawk reacted to this -
I know a few. Ronda Rousey could be me up. Ronda spends every waking moment training to fight. I do not. Ronda could not beat up Jon Jones. If fact, the most elite female fighters in the world would be hard pressed to beat even the lowest ranked professional male fighters. There are a lot of woman that play hockey better than me too, but that doesn't mean they could compete in the NHL. Your argument is fallacious. Of the 29 hand-selected women of elite fitness who attempted to pass the Marine Infantry Officers course, not one of them made it. This is a course with about a 25% attrition rate among men. If you get into the more elite units like SEAL, there is a 75% attrition rate. As a BUDS candidate in 1990 who developed bronchopneumonia, as a result of hypothermia, and was rendered medically disqualified from diving due to scar tissue in my lungs, I can assure you that no woman will every pass BUDs without it being severely gimped in their favor.
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Sorry Sam, but I'm with CheapCreep on this one. I don't see the problem with having 'another' female lead. Women are just as capable of being strong as men are.
Besides, I doubt there is any ulterior motive... its most likely just coincidental timing that we have 2 new female leads in 2 new Star Wars movies back to back.
I'm sorry but this is a ridiculous assertion if your definition of strong = physical strength. They are biologically incapable "of being strong as men are." I'm sure it will be taken as such, but this is not an attack against women. Simply an acknowledgement of biological fact. It isn't insulting to say a leopard doesn't swim as well as a shark.
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"Many Bothans died to bring us this information," Mon Montha softly spoke, her heart heavy with sorrow. She turns away from the assembled combatants for a moment, and thought, "To bad little precocious little street urchin we used to steal the first Death Star plans wasn't available."
So should I pick up my guitar and play taps for the Kyle Katarn. Is this the official notification that he's been wiped away by the mouse?
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I wasn't a fan. We didn't need a polished armor standout. It reeked of gimmick-y to me.
Sam Tomahawk reacted to this -
We don't know what happened to the Gungans. Naboo is Palpatine's home planet. They may have been purged for setting back Palpatine's power play and forcing him to push it back 10 years. As soon as he became Emperor, messa a thinking Stormtroopers be visitin' Ota Gunga.
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I know this is supposed to be Captain Phasma esque, but all it screams to me is "By your command." You just need a red dot.
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"Attribute Tests"
RRG pg 7
Third bullet point, starting with "Each (surge) rolled is a success."
Doggone. Right in front of my eyes. Thank you for indulging me.
Sam Tomahawk reacted to this -
Ok, I've been playing under the assumption that if an interact says (2) successes for a particular attribute test, that the player must roll both successes in the same roll. That is, if a hero only has 1 dice in their pool for that attribute, then they cannot every pass a (2) test for that attribute. Recently though I've seen the dice just not favor the player and wondered if they might actually stack, like damage, and I've been doing it wrong. Can someone just clarify this, and point me to the rule I'm missing? Thank you.
EDIT: Ok, I finally found a thread that had dealt with this subject, which confirmed I was doing it wrong, but could someone show me in the rules, because it is very confusing. There aren't any tokens for surge successes like there are damage, but some else said put strain tokens.
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My basic understanding of economics tells me when you're dealing with *faddish luxury items* like these, sustainability is *not a concern. You get in, get your money, and get out before you end up holding the bag on a pile of inventory nobody wants anymore. Star Wars has remained popular even though the last prequel film was released over ten years ago and the original film came out almost 40 years ago. When folks move on to the next miniatures game, you dont want thousands of dollars in plastic bits tying up your capital. Sell low and sell fast, before the wave breaks and people move on.
My basic sense of economics is that if you sell all your products at a loss, you won't be in business long.
That's not necessarily true, but you have to have something to balance it out. The game store near my house has tons of tables, a very small stock of inventory, all products at MSRP and about 20 drink coolers and bins full fatty snacks. Like a movie theater, I think that is where the store makes its money. I've talked to the owner before. I too like to support my local stores, even though I don't play IA with strangers, just like I didn't with SWM. I have a small group of gaming friends. So I have bought a few ally and villain packs there, but I'm not going to, and didn't, buy the core game for $99. I got it on Amazon for $67. And then I got Twin Shadows too. Frankly I just wasn't going to get into IA for $100. I think the Star Wars licensing costs hurt Star Wars branded products. HOw much is the core game for Descent? I've never looked.
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I'm sure this has been asked. And I'm sorry for duplicate thread, but what is up with the "Not Available" on every product? I can't even tell the status, like at the printer or on the boat, etc. What happened? Usually when a company doesn't sell directly they just put links to where you can buy it. I'm just curious.
Edit: Ok, I'm reading the thread below, but I'm not sure I understand what started it. It has something do do with FFG merging with Asmodee Editions, I can see, but what does it all mean? They are not allowing online stores to get stuff?
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In Padme's defense, Sandpeople aren't really *people people. My wife probably wouldn't care either.
"Honey! I'm home!"
"Did you get the milk?"
"Sorry, had to kill a mess of Tusken Raiders on the way home."
"...But did you get the milk?"
A: I killed them. I slaughtered them like animals!
P: So, like, what, a thousand?
A: Maybe a dozen.
P: Lame.
Sam Tomahawk reacted to this -
And why we are at hit, however, Snoke has to be one of the stupidest villains I've seen in a film recently. Even over the top, campy, Ronan in Guardians of the Galaxy was better. I left the Force Awakens with "yeah, that wasn't that good" to now, when I think, "that really was a sh** movie."
Snoke is pretty bad. Horrible name, way too Gollum for my liking, and I don't know... just lame? I wouldn't have minded the other stuff if he'd done anything other than just sit around and derp.
I'm mixed on TFA. I don't know that its a good movie in of itself. But it did wash the prequel taste out of my mouth and at least it tried to be fun. Star Wars was fun, Return of the Jedi was probably too fun for its own good but at least it tried, and hell, even frigging Empire had some fun in it. The Prequels just flopped between the terrible slapstick of Jar Jar to the completely soulless angst of Anakin in RotS and seemed to forget that people might want to have a good time when they're glued to a seat for two hours.
And I know I'm probably alone in this, but I frigging love Kylo Ren. Love. Him. He's everything I thought Anakin should have been in the prequels. Very powerful but overly confident in a way that exposes his limitations. Bounces back and forth between challenging authority but also needing the validation of his mentor. Has outbursts of immaturity that manifest themselves in some way other than slaughtering a village of Sandpeople (I still can't believe Padme just kind of... sat there when Anakin told her he did that. Awful.). He wants to be like the guy he's emulating so badly that he wears an unnecessary mask with a voice modulator and gets called out on it constantly. I think they really nailed the "young adult angst coupled with great power" with him.
So if too much rehash, supposedly inconsistent Force aptitude, and an ego character I can actually get behind are the prices I have to pay for a Star Wars flick that has some fun, rompy action in it... I'll pay.
Yes, it would have been better to have a ROTS Anakin by like Kylo. A huge problem with the prequels was Anakins arc. Lucas simply didn't plan out the whole trilogy, and it shows, because 2 hours are wasted on this Force Jesus story that has really zero relevance. Had he started off as a pilot for the Republic, a young upstart that met Obi Wan on the mission to Naboo, they would have much more time to build the two main characters. Obi Wan and Anakin. I had thought this out once.
The whole film would be about Anakin slowly building his relationship with the young Queen, whose 2 years his junior in my idea, but whom he still thinks is just a handmaiden. He also bonds with Obi Wan. Qui Gonn sends them off to find parts because Anakin is from Tatooine, but Anakin finds out there is still a gangster looking for him whom Anakin beat i a swoop race and he didn't like it. So we still have a race. Obi Wan sees all this potential in Anakin, but Qui Gonn is the one playing the negative Nelly. When they return to Naboo to launch their plan, Anakin joins the other pilots. Much of it still happens the way it did, except without the accidental destruction of the droid control ship, and no Gungans. Darth Maul still kills Qui Gon, but escapes.
This leads up to Obi Wan secretly training Anakin in the second film, while also getting him a job working with the Jedi as a test pilot. This allows Obi Wan to take Anakin with him on missions. I've thought a lot more about it, but I don't want to write a wall of text describing everything. I've digressed enough. Suffice it to say Anakins fall should have been 6 or so hours, not 5 minutes.
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That's a lot of work on that Excel spread sheet. I totally would have gone the other way on that, putting the paint types at the top. I don't know, it would have just read easier to me that way, but you do have that easy to read # of minis using this color. Anyway, good job on it.
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JJ missed the whole point of RotJ and then essentially erased it as if it had never happened!
RotJ has some of the best individual scenes in the OT... but I don't think it's a good movie. Most of it being ignored isn't a bad thing. Force ghosts are silly and the less that's said about them, the better. With any luck we'll get a throwaway line in Episode VIII that Snoke killed all Force ghosts and the possibility of more Force ghosts. I mean... Yoda can't help a brother out when Luke is about to give into the Dark Side vs. Vader? Or you know... Anakin frigging Skywalker can't show up in front of Kylo Ren and tell him to chill the hell out?
Force ghosts are horrible and stupid and I never want to see another one ever again.
Here *my secret. I didn't think Natalie Portman did a bad job. Had she been cast opposite something other than the cardboard cutout of Hayden Christenson, she would have been able to do more.
Let us also be fair to Hayden for a moment and acknowledge that Daniel Day Lewis couldn't have done anything interesting with Anakin's character arc as written in the PT.
I'm not to big on the force ghosts either. I liked that Ben was able to communicate with Luke in Star Wars, but he foreshadowed that by telling Vader he'd become more powerful than he could possible imagine. So, it was like a short term possession to help him destroy the Death Star. He should have been gone after that. I don't know how you get Luke to Yoda, but it could have been something like how Donner got young Clark into the arctic. Dreams would have worked.
And why we are at hit, however, Snoke has to be one of the stupidest villains I've seen in a film recently. Even over the top, campy, Ronan in Guardians of the Galaxy was better. I left the Force Awakens with "yeah, that wasn't that good" to now, when I think, "that really was a sh** movie."
Viper's Den: How does a figure 'escape', Exactly?
in Star Wars: Imperial Assault
Posted
Going through the garbage chute.