Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

I saw Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them the same day I saw Star Wars, and they are such different movies. While Rogue One is a war movie, FB is much more an adventure story, even if it has similar dark undertones.

1920's New York is beautifully recreated beautifully, though we mostly see it being destroyed by Newt's escaped beasts and then rebuilt by Newt and the other wizards of the movie. The magic is just as magical as the first time I sat down to watch Sorcerers Stone, and the years since that movie came out mean that the beasts look even better. The time spent inside Newt's magical suitcase is... well, I think it may have been my favorite part of the movie.

There is little time given over to explain much of anything in the movie, or even to give much room for character introduction, let alone development. We're just tossed into the middle of the action, and then spend the rest of the movie mostly rushing about. In this way it's very much like Rogue One. At least here we've got an entire series of movies coming that will let us (hopefully) explore the characters more. And thank goodness for that. I don't think I realized how much I missed having something new in the Potterverse to look forward to!

Merry Christmas!

I hope the Santa beast brought you all that you deserve!



Via Tesh Samuel

Assassin's Creed

Well that was a waste of 2 hours.

And it wasn't like I went into the movie with high expectations. But with an actor of Michael Fassbender's caliber, not to mention Jeremy Irons who can chew scenery on a level unmatched by any other actor I can think of (see the first D&D movie for a prime example) I had hoped I would at least enjoy it.

I didn't. It was dark, and grim, and boring, and oh so serious. They seem to have forgotten the fun. They never let anyone crack a smile, and kept Jeremy Irons mostly standing around silently looking down on the action. What a shame...

Now, it was pretty, and seeing people doing medieval parkour in cool looking costumes was great.... And that's the only good thing I have to say about the movie.

It really wasn't terrible, but it never held my attention, but inless you've got a thing for seeing Fassbender topless, or really love the game, I recommend skipping this. There are so many much better ways of spending your time this Christmas weekend.

Rogue One

I finally got to go and see Rogue One: A Star Wars Story last night. As a warning to those few other poor souls who haven't seen it, there are spoilers below.

...

Seriously, spoilers! 



First off, this is a war movie. There is death and destruction, not just of extras, or some scenery. Massive scale death, and the Empire at it's most evil. Seriously just destroying whole cities, rebels, civilians, and Imperial forces alike without a second thought. Rogue One really shows you just how bad the Empire was, and how little those in power cared.

Lets talk about the ships. You get lots of X-Wings, Y-Wings, Star Destroyers and of course the Death Star. But you also get several of these fun little transports. The U-Wing! Clearly an Incom design that fits in very well with the aesthetic of the other rebel ships. I especially like how stripped down it is. Clearly not designed for long flights.



There we're also a bunch of Tie variants that we haven't seen (in the movies) before, and a few other ships from the TV shows that made their way to the big screen like the hammerhead. I also really liked seeing the AT-AT and AT-ST doing their thing. And when the AT-AT was hit by the missile, and shrugged it off? Awesome!



While Jyn Erso (above) was the 'main character' of the movie, it really was a rather diverse ensemble cast. I wish we had gotten more time to get to know them. As it was, everything was a bit rushed, and there wasn't a whole lot of time for character development.What we got though? A great cast. Diego Luna as Captain Cassian Andor pulled off a character that could easily have come off as a total ass. Alan Tudyk as K-2S0, the droid without a filter for his mouth, was not only perfect, but absolutely accurate to any droid character I've had played at my table. Donnie Yen and Wen Jiang as Chirrut Îmwe and Blaze showed exactly how non-jedi force sensitives should work in Star Wars.

Seeing all the female pilots fighting in the main battle was great, but I wish that some more of the main cast had been female. Same with the squad in the beach scenes. Seems like a missed opportunity. 

What was really interesting character-wise was Grand Moff Tarkin, as played by Peter Cushing's CGI doppelganger. As far as the uncanny valley goes, I think we've reached the point where we're heading out of it. It was a little weird at first, but my brain quickly accepted it. The brief appearance of Princess Leia wasn't on screen long enough for my brain to accept it, but by that point Jar Jar could have popped up and it wouldn't have thrown me out of the movie.

Darth Vader... Holy hell, so that's what a Sith Lord looks like in the prime of his badassery! Throughout Episodes 4-6 Vader was always a presence, and impressive, but never did I feel terrified by him. This? This was scary, tossing rebel troops around like dolls, and not even breaking a sweat doing it.

I very much appreciate how this wasn't a story of the Skywalker family. It's a really big universe, and there are lots of tales to tell. 



It was a really good movie, and the ending... uff... I mean, I guessed that's how it would end, but even still, I felt it. Still feeling it, really. I think I need to see it again though to solidify my thoughts on it. 

Only 357 days till Episode 8... not that I'm counting or anything.

Sunday Inspirational Image: Christmas Snail

Feris slammed the book shut in disgust.

"What?" Nimble asked, jumping from the chair he'd been perched on, watching the door.

"There are instructions for creating some of the most foul abominations... "

"Two months ago we took on the Ghoul Lord. We've seen our share of abominable things. How bad can it be?"

"Fruitcake snail golem with gingerbread shell?"

"Nimble shuddered. Okay, that's just wrong..."

Gingerbread Monsters

#3MMRPC: Bones Animal Companions & Barrow Rats

My number of minis painted this year is pretty miserable. Sure, I've been focusing a lot on terrain, but still... I can do better. So to pad my numbers some, I decided to paint up the wolf, wolverine, and bear from the Animal Companions set from Reaper, as well as a couple of Barrow Rats to round out both the year and the 3 Month Mountain Reduction Painting Challenge.

After washing them with soapy water and scrubbing them down with a toothbrush, I glued them to a craft stick with a drop of superglue each. I then slathered them with Brown Liner.


I looked up pictures of wolves, and decided I'd try a timber wolf color scheme. It didn't work out, but the results are still kind of interesting. I started with a base of bone, and then used very thinned down tanned leather and walnut brown for the markings.



Rich Leather was used to paint the wolf's eyes, finishing it off.

The bear and the wolverine were base coated with walnut brown, and then got some ruddy flesh details.

I then gave both a light dry brush of Rich Leather to bring out a bit of the fur texture.




I then gave them a light drybrush of dirty bone to really give that final touch to the tips of the fur.

The barrow rats really vexed me. After lining them, I went with moldy flesh figuring that their disease infected skin would be looking pretty unhealthy. I brought it up with a mix of spectral white and the moldy flesh. I then went over the fur that was still on them with the same browns I used on the bear above. Their eyes and mouths are fresh blood red, whiles the tails, ears, and boils were painted with brains pink and breast cancer awareness pink.

At this point I thought that this was one of the ugliest sloppiest paint jobs I'd ever done. I hated it, and the mini, and myself for doing such a terrible job.  Because of this, there are no work in progress shots.

I then gave the whole mini a wash of Bloodhowl's Heavy Sepia wash, and like magic it all came together. I'm trying to get away from using washes like this, but sometimes it really works better than it should, and makes my efforts look way better then they deserve.

Also, these are seriously large ROUS...

Frostgrave Review

This is probably coming a bit late, and the fact that I've been playing Frostgrave for over a year now probably already tells you that this is going to be a positive review, and it is, but I wanted to take a post or two to share what it is about the game that I really like.

First off, a bit about the game itself. Frostgrave is a fantasy skirmish game, where each player controls a warband of about 10 minis, lead by a wizard. The focus of the game is on collecting treasures from the board, and/or achieving whatever goal is determined by the scenario. It is entirely possible to play in such a way that the warbands never have to actually fight each other. It's not really likely, but it's possible...

As it's a wizard-centric game, only the wizard gains XP. All the rest of your soldiers just continue to hang around as they were, unless you upgrade them with magic items, or replace them with better troop types. The wizard's apprentice is a little different, as she gains in skill as her wizard goes up in power.

One of the things I like about Frostgrave is that while there is a setting and story that goes with the game, it's entirely possible to run your game in basically any fantasy type setting you want. Mordheim? No problem. Heck, it even works with some more fantastical sci-fi settings like Star Wars (jedi instead of wizards) or Doctor Who. Of course you can always play in the frozen city too!

In addition to that, while there is an official range of miniatures for Frostgrave there is absolutely ZERO requirement or even suggestion that you must or even should use them. For those of use with extensive collections of minis, this is a key selling point for anyone who's considering getting in on the game. Heck, it doesn't even have to be that extensive a collection. A single core set of miniatures from one of Reaper's Bones kickstarters is easily enough minis to fill out 2 warbands!

Additionally because the game is designed to be played on a small area (3' x 3' is the recommended size) it doesn't take a huge investment in terrain or space. If you've been following my blog, you've seen the terrain I've built over the last year for a really minimum investment in money (less than $25!).

The rules themselves are very lite, and can be condensed easily to a single page (not counting spells, stat lines, etc.). It isn't a game designed for tournament play, but rather for a more casual campaign. While I have at times enjoyed highly complex rules sets, having something so player friendly makes it so much easier to find people to play with who can actually find time to play. It also helps that the author is pretty active online to answer questions for those situations where something can be interpreted in a couple of different ways.

And speaking of time to play, I've been routinely playing in 6-8 player games (it's designed for 2 players) and even with the added number of people, we still manage to finish a 6-7+ turn game in about 3.5 hours. 2 player games, from what I've seen, usually wrap up in under 2 hours.

All in all, there is a lot to recommend this rules set, which is why I've been playing it for over a year now.