CWF Game Cast

Like everyone who subscribes to the Webway, GW’s online e-newsletter, I was alerted to the opening of a new store in Oak Park, Illinois. The announcement declared the grand opening wouldn’t occur when GW originally promised. I won’t get into the irony of a GW store grand opening not happening when promised right now.

I also won’t get into my surprise at GW opening a store in Oak Park. I’ve never heard of Oak Park before and I don’t keep abreast of GW’s growth of retail stores. I was, however, amazed on reading that GW is opening another store.

Back in January, the Guardian Unlimited (a newspaper from the U.K.) had a story about GW’s profit warning. In that article it is stated that GW opened 15 new retail stores in the first half (of the fiscal year) and closed 8 of those. This means that Games Workshop is able to only keep less than 50% of new stores open. With odds like this the store in Oak Park has a 1 in 2 chance of closing even before its grand opening, which will be June 21st, and what kind of business model is that for a company?

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written by ^Raven^

Tags

40k, Board/Card Games, Collectible Cards, Collectible Minis, Lord of the Rings, People, Warhammer Fantasy.

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Games Workshop has a number of new releases and sneak peeks coming at us. One of the biggest is the latest issue of White Dwarf, which features the first half of the brand NEW Blood Angels Codex.

Blood Angels Codex

The first half of this, sans points cost, appears in US White Dwarf #329 (June 2007) and is enticing. On the light-hearted side are the models, the old ones (no new ones shown) of characters. A friend of mine pointed out that models in articifer armor have their nipples and toes/feet modeled into the armor. But, models in power armor do not. When you first notice this on the masculine models you get an idea of how cold it must be wearing that.

Limited Edition White Dwarf Model

Today was the last day to purchase the limited edition model of the White Dwarf being carried on a shield by Bugman and Gotrek. Make sure you head over to the 30th Anniversary White Dwarf Model page and I’m sure you can buy your’s on eBay but it’ll probably cost more than its original $25.

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written by ^Raven^

Tags

40k, Lord of the Rings, Warhammer Fantasy.

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Battleground Games in Abington is the FLGS where I have the pleasure to play War at Sea with a small but friendly crowd.

John, the guy who has been pushing War at Sea from the start, has also been trying to get a league going. I’m the new guy but on the official forums for Battleground I came up with a bunch of suggestions on potential league play that I will share with you. I’d love to get feedback on your thoughts.

Right now we meet each Wednesday and play against each other in casual play without any official or strict standings like in a league or weekly events. It is great to get out and play the game with others and have fun. It could be better to add a little competetive spirit and perhaps some prize support to help others get into the game.

There are two ways a standardized setting for War at Sea can be handled. The first is a league and the second is a weekly event.

Both of these can be implemented with relative ease. They each have their benefits and disadvantages. The weekly event doesn’t tie anyone into a lengthy committment and maintains a spirit of casual play.

The league gives each person more time to try and win thus evening the playing field. It could be a bad night but in a league that’s 1 bad night out of 6 weeks instead of having bad luck at the only day of the event. It also provides a more formal setting for gaming and increases the competitive nature.

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written by ^Raven^

Tags

Axis and Allies Minis, Battleground Games, Collectible Minis, DnD Minis, Heroclix, Historical Gaming, New England Game Stores, War at Sea.

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Recently in the podcast I’ve been talking about the War at Sea Collectible Mini game. I thought I’d take this opportunity to spend a little more time on the game. I’m going to discuss a 100pt Axis fleet I made and also the scarcity of the game.

The fleet I made is a combined force of German and Italian forces. This past Wednesday I was at Battleground Games in Abington for War at Sea night. I played an intro game, to get the feel for the rules, with Rick using an Allied fleet. I won by 6 points although it was more of a draw.

For the same game I used my German/Italian fleet. The fleet is composed of:

1 Duca D’Aosta

1 Bolzano

1 Nordmark

1 Koln

3 U510

2 FW 200 Kondor

1 JU 87B Stuka

The primary strategy is to use my U-boats to control the seas and prevent my opponent from getting near objectives or any of my surface vessels. They are helped with the Wolfpack special ability (+1 Attack Dice for Torpedo attacks if other subs in the fleet have the Wolfpack ability). Additionally, the Kondors could use their Pinpointer special ability to confer another +1 Attack Dice to each U-boat attacking the designated target. This means at 2 spaces away each U-boat would get 4 torpedo dice with a maximum of 5 dice for 0 and 1 square away.

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written by ^Raven^

Tags

Axis and Allies Minis, Battleground Games, Collectible Minis, Historical Gaming, New England Game Stores, War at Sea.

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I’m still saving up for a new computer, and once I get a new job I’ll be able to afford it. For the time being my laptop won’t serve for podcasting. I am looking into other options and will have something for everyone soon. While the podcast is on this forced hiatus I will be working to have more activity in the blog for readers.

This post serves as a discussion point, and my thoughts, on the new computer. Originally I wanted a new machine to run Windows XP. Any new machine, except custom built, would come from a manufacturer with Vista pre-installed and that’s a mess. Instead I’m aiming for an Apple.

I want a 17inch iMac with 2.0GHz processor, 1GB of memory, 160GB hard drive, 8x DL Superdrive (plays CD-ROMs, DVDs, etc), and ATI Radeon X1600 graphics card. I’ll also install Parallels and a copy of Windows XP Pro. This will let me boot into either OS X or XP depending on my needs.

I’ll use this to game (Dawn of War, SW Galaxies, Warcraft III, Age of Empires 2, etc) in XP. The superior dual core processor will be ablel to handle the stress of podcasting (recording, editing, publishing) plus other tasks. The large memory will be able to play modern software and the extensive HD will give me lots of room to use.

I’ll use GarageBand, once I get used to it, to record the podcasts thereby booted Audacity (I’ll still use that in the meantime). The Apple won’t suffer from meltdowns like a PC and it also is more secure than a PC. I won’t have to worry, as much, about losing files such as when my computer just died.

All told the machine should cost $1,300 or so.

What do you think I should get for a new computer? I’ll mainly use it for podcasting, gaming, surfing the net, running the website, and listening to music. When I get into grad school I’ll use it for that too.

written by ^Raven^

Tags

Announcements, Podcasts.

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