Yearly Archives: 2013

Wednesday Workbench

No real surprises here. The Librarian is actually done, save for some airbrushing on the weapon (that I probably should have done before painting everything else). Ditto with Sammael.

Getting the kit out is pretty likely today, I think/hope, so I might actually put these dudes in my rear-view.

I found a bunch of un-eBay’d Circle Orboros stuff over the weekend, including a nearly-complete Kromac the Ravenous of which I’m quite proud. I hope to wrap him up and, probably, put him up on eBay. Daddy’s gotta buy more Tau, after all.

Wednesday Workbench

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Knocked out the Rats for the Cure mini over the weekend, of course, but everything else has been… stalled. I just need to focus and wrap up that Librarian. Then, 15 minutes with the airbrush and I’ll be done with Sammael (who will only have taken me two months).

Rats for the Cure 2013

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Somehow, I missed that this year’s Battle for the Cure was scheduled for April 6 until just a few days ago.

It’s something that I look forward to every year, so I signed up and immediately got a bug up my ass about painting something new for it.

I’m a long way away from having a pink unit, much less a pink army, but a new model’s certainly progress, right?

Anyway, I’ve had the BaneLords Blunt-Claw model in my bits tub for a while, so I pulled him out, put him together, stuck a Bloodletter banner on him. Nothing fancy at all.

Hadn’t really thought through that it’d be basically a fat, gross naked mole-rat, but it is what it is.

I’m quite pleased with how the freehand on the banner came out. That’s probably the best freehand I’ve managed yet.

Kickstaller

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Is there anything more depressing than really looking at the state of the Kickstarter campaigns you’ve contributed to?

Look at all that red. Ugh!

Some stuff has gotten closed out but certainly not enough and barely any of it on time. I mean, the results of Swords & Wizardy are great, but dang: they showed up five months late? Zpocalypse turned up a full six months late.

I’ve got high confidence about some stuff: W20 (very surprised to realize it’s several months late), the sundry LotFP campaigns will be worth the wait and will show up eventually. They keep posting stuff to 1650, though Sigmar only knows when I’ll have it in my hands.

Other stuff I’m less confident about: I fully expect the Jorno portable folding keyboard is vaporware at this point, and that Scott Starrett has ripped a bunch of people off. I’ve been pissy about Tectonic Crafts for a while. In fact, mid-post, I realized that we’re fast approaching a full year since the campaign funded without any sign of shipping… so I requested a refund. (I requested a refund for the Jorno as well, but it sounds like people are actually getting them from ArchyDan while Starrett has gone as quiet as Maliszewski but without the tragic context.)

It’s shocking that I still go anywhere near Kickstarter: I threw in for Hell Dorado (which I honestly have low expectations for, given that the only thing I can think of when it comes to Cipher and Hell Dorado is how badly they screwed up in bringing it over), and I’m eyeballing Sails of Glory (which is something I might play with my father, once).

Is it unfair that I really, desperately need Reaper to ship my Bones this week? I very, very much want them to break the cycle. They’re shipping stuff now. If it doesn’t get here this week, it’ll probably be less than a month late. For crowdfunding, “less than a month late” is exemplary punctuality… but man, I want a green row to break up all that red.

Where I’m at with 40K

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(In which your humble author posts something lengthier than a quick picture that doesn’t include railing against Big Google.)

No Wednesday Workbenches for the past couple of weeks due to a confluence work travel, an ongoing pet crisis, and hitting the eject button on Google wherever I can. I’d say “sorry” about that, but really: even if I had done them, they’d look remarkably like the last two.

That’s not surprising, because upkeeping the hobby blog is part of how the hobby shakes out for me.

Things haven’t been totally dead on the non-hobby-blog hobby front, though: progress on Sammael and the Ravenwing Librarian has been steady if slow. I’ve had a couple of kits in my assembly bag for a few weeks now, though I’ve only just started getting to them.

I have to cop to feeling more than a little overwhelmed, though: Dark Angels just came out in January, and I’m only just getting around to them while Daemons dropped what feels like days ago and now it looks certain that new Tau will be shipping before my next paycheck.

Very much too much of a good thing. All of my armies (I don’t count the assembled but generally unpainted Orks) are getting updated all at once is a good problem to have… though I’m sure that in three years, at the bottom of the update cycle, I might feel differently.

Dark Angels

I’m pushing ahead with the Dark Angels. I’ve already got the models, after all. This is what I’m building towards:

Ravenwing – 1850 points

HQ
Sammael – Corvex
Librarian – Bike, Level 2, Force Axe

Elites
Terminators x5 – Power Fist/Stormbolter x5, Cyclone Missile Launcher
Terminators x5 – Power Fist/Stormbolter x5, Cyclone Missile Launcher

Troops
Ravenwing Bikers x3 – Veteran, Plasmagun x2
– Attack Bike – Heavy Bolter
Ravenwing Bikers x3 – Veteran, Plasmagun x2
– Attack Bike – Heavy Bolter
Ravenwing Bikers x3 – Veteran, Plasmagun x2

Fast Attack
Black Knights x5 – Huntsmaster, Grenade Launcher x1
Ravenwing Darkshroud

Heavy Support
Whirlwind
Whirlwind
Vindicator

I’m not certain about the list or anything; this is just what I’m building towards. We’ll see how it shakes out if I ever get out to the store.

Chaos Daemons

I’m skipping Daemons. For now. I haven’t gotten halfway through the book, even. I think they’ll be a lot of fun, and when I do come back to updating my list to a renewed Maximum Khornination, I’ll enjoy it… but I just can’t get caught up in it now. TOO MUCH GOING ON.

Tau Empire

Tau, on the otherhand…

The Tau Empire was my first 40K army. I won’t claim that I ever knew what the hell I was doing with it but it’s definitely got a place in my heart. For the past what, year? two? I’ve said that I want to come back to them and have been waiting for a new book.

Well, it’s here, so it’s go time.

No clue what I’ll do with it beyond start from scratch with a paint scheme very much like my original one (which I think had some really good choices in it) but updated. I’ve learned a lot since I returned to the hobby (was it seven?) years ago, and I’m looking forward to applying it.

Orks

The Orks aren’t going anywhere. I’d be really excited to get back to painting them, except Games Workshop seems pretty determined to drown me in new stuff I need to play around with.

I do have a list for them that I’m pretty happy with. It’s seen some play, but not nearly as much as I’d like. Since this post turned into a my-state-of-40K, I probably should vomit it out.

Orks, 1750

HQ
Warboss – Warbike, Power Klaw, Attack Squig
Big Mek – Kustom Force Field

Elites
Lootas x7
Lootas x7

Troops
Shoota Boyz x30 – Stikkbombs, Nob w/ Power Klaw, ‘Eavy Armour, Bosspole
Shoota Boyz x30 – Stikkbombs, Nob w/ Power Klaw, ‘Eavy Armour, Bosspole
Nob Bikers x5 – [Power Klaw x1], [Big Choppa, Bosspole], [Big Choppa, Waagh! Banner], [Big Choppa] x2

Fast Attack
Dakkajet – TL Supa Shoota x3
Dakkajet – TL Supa Shoota x3
Warbuggies x3 – TL Rokki Launcha x3

Heavy Support
Killa Kans x3 – Grotzooka x3

(Finally, it’s a good thing to start doing actual posts; it’s a great way to shake out how direly I need to update the CSS on this sucker.)

If you see something, save something!

Switched to WordPress!

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So, obviously, the move from Blogger to WordPress has gone very smoothly.

Content was pulled over without a hitch.

I’ve clearly got a lot of layout & look-and-feel stuff that I still need to do, but that’s just a matter of sitting down and powering through tweaking the CSS.

Need to find a good slideshow plugin. Also, a good blogroll plugin.

In a perfect world, I’d love to find a utility that would parse through all of my posts, download the images from Picasa Web, then upload them to my blog, updating the image references. Such a thing should be technically feasible, but I certainly don’t know enough about WP (yet) to know how to do something like it. Am I the first person to want to do this? Does such a tool exist?

Also, I’ll have to ping out to blogrolls to make sure they have my updated feed.

Then: Blogger goes down and gets a redirect to here.

Responding to Google Reader’s Immanent Shut-Down

Wednesday Workbench

Complicating the Simple: Replacing the WFRP 2E Career Progression

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One of the things that came up last session was that the WFRP 2E career system doesn’t really jive with what I’m doing with the game.

Don’t get me wrong: I love the flavor the career system brings to the table and, were we doing a more urban or sandbox-style game, it would probably fit like a glove. Instead, we’re doing a more traditional murderhobo (or, rather, “We’d be murderhobos except we’re so terrified of being killed by other murderhobos”) style game (which is by design).

Now, I know that the career system is part of the whole point of WFRP, but I don’t really care. We’re using the WFRP 2E system because I’m extremely comfortable with the system, having played in a Dark Heresy (its descendant) game for probably longer than any other game at this point. (Exalted might be a close second, but I doubt anyone would claim that it has a system one would describe as “salvageable”. Ideas, absolutely, but the not system as a whole.) So, I’m comfortable with it. It’s flexible, does what I need it to do, and gets out of the way. That’s what we want, right?

But when the PCs are sprinting away from danger and trying to find a safe place to not be murdered or eaten by bears… none of those careers really matter. They’re all Vagabonds. Before that, they were Militiamen and Camp Followers. Before that they had lives doing stuff for which the Career System was useful.

There are a couple of fixes for this:

Just roll with it. Stick to the RAW, let everyone switch into the Vagabond (or similar career) if they’re so inclined. One PC (the Noble!) did that a few sessions ago.
Fiat them all to be Vagabond (or similar career). “Guys, all of you have just exited your careers to one of the following careers. For free. Am I not merciful? Am I not merciful!?“
Do something complex and strange but more open-ended that’s a riff on how Only War handles advances. What?

(Because the first two options are negligibly easy and probably advisable: let’s put them aside. I’m going to talk about what I cooked up in terms of the more complex approach. What follows is probably a terrible idea, but sometimes it’s fun to just overcomplicate things.)

Only War came out a few months ago, and I’m really digging its approach to the 40K RPG system. Instead of the weird class-based but also pseudo-level, pseduo-skill buy system that works but is awkward and initially kind of confusing, it makes things very open-ended.

Players still pick a career. Instead of coming with a list of advances open to that career (or a list of lists of advances, as with the other 40K RPGs), they come with some special abilities (not germane) and a list of aptitudes. Aptitudes are meta-abilities; what a career is good at. A Medic’s Aptitudes, for example, are BS, Int, Per, WP, Fieldcraft, and Knowledge. Every advance is associated with two aptitudes: how many of those Aptitudes character has determines what the advance costs the character. Medicae is Int and Fieldcraft; a Medic who has both Int and Fieldcraft pays less for Medicae advances than, say, a Weapons Specialist who has the Fieldcraft Aptitude but not the Int Aptitude.

Characters can (generally) take whatever advances they want… but XP costs encourage them to take advances in things that the character at which they should be good and not things at which they shouldn’t be good. So… sorta like the WFRP career system, but less of a straight-jacket (“You’re a Fisherman, you are incapable of knowing Etiquette.”)

Of course, the 40K Skills and Talents aren’t quite the same as the WFRP Skills and Talents, and mapping those WFRP careers to the Aptitude list… Fortunately, the day after the session I needed to be mentally pseudo-active while vegging. Doing that sort of thing was exactly what I needed that afternoon. Here are the results.

At a high level: characters still roll their starting careers. They get their skills and free advance as per the core book. Based on their career, they receive a total of six Aptitudes (some of which are automatic, some of which may be selected from a list) that determine how my XP different advances cost from that point going forward.

If you’re interested, all of my work in assembling this can be found in this spreadsheet. This is basically the scratch paper I used to make sure stuff looked reasonably like what the career system promoted.

For starters: the Aptitudes

Aptitudes
WS	T	WP
BS	Ag	Fel
S	Int
Offense	Defense	Finesse
Engineering	Larceny	Perception
Animals	Leadership	Social
Knowledge	Magic	Wilderness
General

Each of the Characteristics gets an Aptitude. Then, there are broad Offense, Defense, and Finesse Aptitudes; these should, I think, be self-explanatory. I tweak the other OW Aptitudes to make them more WFRP-appropriate. Psyker becomes Magic, Fieldcraft gets split up quite a bit, Tech becomes Engineering, for example. General is a catch-all; everyone automatically has General.

Then, I match each Skill and Talent with a pair of Aptitude. This was easier than I’d have expected: Characteristics were a straight-pull over while every Skill is already associated with a Characteristic (and, therefore its Aptitude), and the second Aptitude was, for the most part, obvious. Talents were a little trickier, but worked themselves out.

Characteristics
WS	WS	Offense
BS	BS	Finesse
S	S	Offense
T	T	Defense
Ag	Ag	Finesse
Int	Int	Knowledge
WP	WP	Magic
Fel	Fel	Social
Attacks	WS	Offense
Wounds	T	General

Skills
Animal Care	Int	Animals	Animal Training	Fel	Animals
Charm	Fel	Social	Blather	Fel	Social
Command	Fel	Leadership	Chanelling	WP	Magic
Concealment	Ag	Wilderness	Charm Animal	Fel	Animals
Consume Alcohol	T	General	Dodge Blow	Ag	Defense
Disguise	Fel	Larceny	Follow Trail	Int	Perception
Drive	S	Animals	Heal	Int	Knowledge
Evaluate	Int	Perception	Hypnotism	WP	Finesse
Gamble	Int	Social	Knowledge (*)	Int	Knowledge
Gossip	Fel	Social	Lip Reading	Int	Perception
Haggle	Fel	Social	Magical Sense	WP	Magic
Intimidate	S	Leadership	Navigation	Int	Wilderness
Outdoor Survival	Int	Wilderness	Performer (*)	Fel	Finesse
Perception	Int	Perception	Pick Lock	Ag	Engineering
Ride	Ag	Animals	Prepare Poison	Int	Knowledge
Row	S	General	Read/Write	Int	Knowledge
Scale Sheer Surface	S	Finesse	Sail	Ag	Wilderness
Search	Int	Perception	Set Trap	Ag	Engineering
Silent Move	Ag	Larceny	Secret Signs (*)	Int	Knowledge
Swim	S	General	Shadowing	Ag	Larceny
			Sleight of Hand	Ag	Larceny
			Speak Language (*)	Int	Knowledge
			Trade (*)	*	General
			Torture	Fel	Finesse
			Ventriloquism	Fel	Larceny

Talents
Acute Hearing	General	Perception	Quick Draw	Ag	Finesse
Aethyric Attunement	WP	Magic	Rapid Reload	Ag	BS
Alley Cat	General	Larceny	Resist Chaos	Wp	Defense
Ambidextrous	WS	BS	Resist Disease	T	Defense
Lore (*)	Int	Knowledge	Resist Magic	WP	Defense
Armoured Casting	WP	Magic	Resist Poison	T	Defense
Artistic	Int	Finesse	Rover	General	Wilderness
Contortionist	Ag	Finesse	Schemer	Fel	Social
Dealmaker	Fel	Leadership	Seasoned Traveller	Int	Social
Disarm	WS	Offense	Sharpshooter	BS	Finesse
Etiquette	Fel	Social	Sixth Sense	WP	Perception
Excellent Vision	General	Perception	Specialist Weapon Group	Int	Finesse
Fast Hands	WS	Magic	Stout-Hearted	WP	Defense
Fearless	WP	Defense	Street Fighting	WS	Finesse
Flee!	Ag	Defense	Streetwise	Fel	Larceny
Frenzy	S	Offense	Strike Mighty Blow	WS	Offense
Keen Senses	General	Perception	Strike to Injure	WS	Offense
Lightning Parry	WS	Defense	Strike to Stun	WS	Offense
Linguistics	Int	General	Strong-Minded	T	WP
Magic	WP	Magic	Sturdy	S	Defense
Master Gunner	BS	Engineering	Sure Shot	BS	Offense
Master Orator	Fel	Leadership	Surgery	Int	Knowledge
Meditation	T	Magic	Super Numerate	Int	Engineering
Menacing	S	Leadership	Swashbuckler	Ag	Finesse
Mighty Shot	BS	Offense	Trapfinder	Ag	Perception
Mimic	Fel	Social	Trick Riding	Finesse	Animal
Orientation	Int	Wilderness	Tunnel Rat	Ag	Finesse
Public Speaking	Fel	Leadership	Wrestling	S	Offense

A couple of notes here:

Characteristic advances are limited to 8, except Additional Attacks, which are limited to 2. This is, more or less, how WFRP 2E caps advances: across all of the careers, you’ll never get more than 8 advances to WS, for example. Where it’s a bit lower (Int, Fel), it seems arbitrary to cap one at 7 and another at 8.
I tried really hard to keep the distribution of Skills and Talents fairly even. I didn’t shoot for totally even, but I did try to get everything close.
Sailing and such are associated with Wilderness. That’s imperfect, but it was necessary to keep things even close. Otherwise, Wilderness and a hypothetical Sailing Aptitude would be woefully underutilized.
Talents like Lightning Reflexes and Hardy that are really-out-of progression Characteristic advances only make sense within the context of the Career System, and don’t make any sense here. They’ve been moved into the Aptitude table
I’m not interested in running a game with fantastic races right now. Just Humans. So, I’ve ignored anything Dwarf/Elf/Halfling specific. If any of this makes sense outside of my head, it should be negligible to apply to demihuman stuff.

Speaking of Careers & Aptitudes: this was the tricky part. I ran down the list of careers and built up the list of which Aptitudes were clearly appropriate, which were maybe appropriate, and which had no place. I literally cut-and-pasted stuff into the above spreadsheet and just ticked down Yes/No/Maybe if the Advance Scheme indicated that the Characteristics, Skills, and Talents associated with an aptitude was something that was strongly present, not present at all, or present but not strongly so, respectively.

Career	Mandatory	Optional
Agitator	Int, Fel, Leadership, Social	BS, Ag, WP, Knowledge, Larceny, Perception
Apprentice Wizard	Int, WP, Magic, Social	T, Ag, Fel, Knowledge, Perception
Bailiff	Int, Fel, Knowledge, Leadership, Social	BS, S, WP, Perception
Barber-Surgeon	Ag, Int, WP, Knowledge	T, Fel, Finesse
Boatman	WS, Ag, Wilderness	BS, S, T, Int, Social
Bodyguard	WS, Offense, Defense, Finesse	S, T, Ag, Perception
Bone Picker	T, Larceny, Perception, Social	S, Ag, WP, Fel, Animals
Bounty Hunter	BS, Ag, Offense, Perception, Wilderness	S, WP, Finesse, Larceny
Burgher	Int, Knowledge, Perception, Social	Ag, WP, Fel
Camp Follower	Ag, Fel	T, Int, WP, Finesse, Animals, Larceny, Social
Charcoal-Burner	Perception, Wilderness	S, T, Ag, Int, WP, Fel
Coachman	BS, Ag, Animals, Wilderness	WP, Fel, Perception, Social
Entertainer	BS, Ag, Fel, Social	S, WP, Finesse, Animals, Larceny, Perception
Estalian Diestro	WS, Ag, Offense, Finesse	S, T, Int, Defense, Engineering
Ferryman	BS, S, Perception, Social	T, Ag, Int, Fel, Defense
Fisherman	S, Ag, Perception, Wilderness	BS, T, Int, Finesse, Social
Grave Robber	Ag, WP, Larceny, Perception	BS, S, Finesse
Hedge Wizard	WP, Fel, Magic, Perception	T, Ag, Int, Animals, Social
Hunter	BS, Ag, Perception, Wilderness	T, Int, Engineering, Larceny
Initiate	Int, WP, Fel, Knowledge	BS, S, T, Leadership, Social
Jailer	WS, S, T, Defense	WP, Larceny, Leadership, Perception
Kislevite Kossar	WS, BS, T, WP	Defense, Leadership, Perception, Social, Wilderness
Marine	WS, BS, S, Offense	Ag, WP, Defense, Social
Mercenary	WS, BS, Offense, Social	S, T, Ag, WP, Defense, Finesse, Animals, Perception
Messenger	Ag, Animals, Perception, Wilderness	BS, T, Int, WP
Militiaman	WS, Ag, Defense, Perception	BS, S, T, Animals
Miner	S, T, Perception, Wilderness	BS, Int, WP, Animals
Noble	WS, Fel, Leadership, Social	BS, Ag, Int, WP, Defense, Animals, Knowledge
Norse Berserker	WS, S, T, WP, Offense	Leadership, Wilderness
Outlaw	WS, BS, Ag, Offense, Larceny	Int, Defense, Finesse, Animals, Perception, Social, Wilderness
Outrider	BS, Ag, Int, Animals, Wilderness	S, WP, Perception
Peasant	T	BS, S, Ag, WP, Animals, Social, Wilderness
Pit Fighter	WS, T, Ag, WP, Offense	S, Defense
Protagonist	WS, S, Ag, WP, Offense	Defense, Social
Rat Catcher	Ag, WP, Animals, Larceny, Perception	BS, T, Engineering
Roadwarden	WS, BS, Ag, Animals, Wilderness	S, Int, WP, Perception, Social
Rogue	Ag, Fel, Perception, Social	BS, Int, WP, Larceny, Leadership
Scribe	Ag, Int, WP, Knowledge	Fel, Engineering
Seaman	WS, S, Ag, Offense, Wilderness	BS, Defense, Perception
Servant	Ag, WP, Perception, Social	S, T, Int, Fel, Defense, Animals
Smuggler	Ag, Int, Fel, Larceny	BS, Animals, Perception, Social, Wilderness
Soldier	WS, BS, Ag, Offense	WP, Defense, Animals, Perception, Social
Squire	WS, Offense, Knowledge, Leadership	BS, S, T, Ag, Fel, Defense, Animals, Social
Student	Ag, Int, Fel, Knowledge	Engineering, Perception, Social
Thief	Ag, Fel, Larceny, Perception	BS, Int, Finesse, Engineering, Social
Thug	WS, Offense, Larceny, Social	S, T, Ag, WP, Fel, Defense
Toll Keeper	WS, T, Perception, Wilderness	BS, S, Ag, WP, Social
Tomb Robber	WS, Ag, Int, WP, Engineering, Perception	Fel, Knowledge, Larceny
Tradesman	Ag, WP	S, T, Int, Fel, Animals, Engineering, Perception, Social
Vagabond	BS, Ag, Larceny, Wilderness	Int, Fel, Perception, Social
Valet	Ag, Int, Fel, Knowledge, Social	WP, Perception
Watchman	WS, Int, Defense, Perception	BS, S, Ag, WP, Fel
Woodsman	WS, S, WP, Wilderness	T, Ag, Perception
Zealot	WS, T, WP, Knowledge, Leadership	S, Fel, Social

Remember, you get a total of six aptitudes. You get what’s in the Mandatory list automatically, and can then choose from the Optional list until you’ve got your six.

Now, actually pricing advances is tough. In WFRP, everything is basically 100 XP / advance. In the 40K RPGs, they’re all over the place: Characteristics (which are generally more broadly useful) cost more than Skills and Talents. The more advances you take in a Characteristic or Skill, the more expensive it is.

This makes quite a bit of sense, but dang: I like the simplicity of a common cost. It does allow a character to rocket up to +40% WS with their first 800 XP, though. Furthermore, there’s probably an argument to be made that Additional Attacks should cost more or be spaced out more as well. So, flat costs are problematic… but after a point, I think you just have to let go.

My inclination runs strongly towards doing 100/200/300 XP for advances that share 2/1/0 Aptitudes with the character. This is substantially less than what things cost in Only War, but is about what things cost in WFRP 2E, as I’ve got Careers & Aptitudes mapped.

Near-term, I’ll probably collapse all of this into a Google doc (minus thought-process stuff), which will vastly help its readability.

So: that was a big f’ing chunk of something. I’m curious as to what other people think. I both have and haven’t put a lot of thought into this. In terms of complexity, it looks like it might be needlessly complex, but I expect that after character creation, it fades into the background. I’m not entirely sure if I’m going to adopt it in my game; the other two options are certainly simpler, if less interesting.

Very interested in any and all thoughts and opinions. Let me know what you think.

Warpstone Pile

The TIGER-FORCE at the core of all things!

Yearly Archives: 2013

Wednesday Workbench

Wednesday Workbench

Rats for the Cure 2013

Kickstaller

Where I’m at with 40K

Dark Angels

Chaos Daemons

Tau Empire

Orks

If you see something, save something!

Switched to WordPress!

Responding to Google Reader’s Immanent Shut-Down

Wednesday Workbench

Complicating the Simple: Replacing the WFRP 2E Career Progression

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Dark Angels

Chaos Daemons

Tau Empire

Orks

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