Weight Loss Tracker

This is for my personal tracking needs. It stems from a desire to not look like a poor mans Kevin Smith.

LARP - Keeping it real: Starting at LVL1

So, as I was looking around the site of a LARP I am interested in, I read a thread where someone was told they couldn't be a member, among the lowest rank, of an knightly order to start the game. The order had nothing to do with conferring in game status, but was a personal part of a proposed character history and it was rejected due to the games rules on beginning limitations and dealing with Knights and monastic orders. I thought it was an interesting idea, and allowed for enough experience to be a swordsman without a history behind them. The GM's decided it was flawed enough to deny.

However, this ties into a problem I now have with my proposed character. For this game, if I play, I have decided to theme my character on the classic Wandering Ronin or Yojimbo archetype seen in many old Samurai films. A stoic individual of few words who is keen on observing but has no qualms doling out what he perceives as justice with his sword arm if it is seen as the only course of action. I figured this would allow me to come in and be an observer as I acclimate to the setting, the players, and a return to LARP in general. The 'foreigner' status would also be beneficial in helping open some early dialogue and allow a means to cover up any mundane quirks I may inadvertently bring into the game as I shake off the rust.
The problem is that my character history, which sets up the basis for a quiet young swordsman who has enough skeletons in his closet to keep him moving into this new territory, is based on events that involve direct servitude to a minor lord in the games equivalent of Japan/China. The history, of which I had established a very rough draft of 4 pages, is based partially on my time in the Amtgard Household of Ravenscaw Manor. It was a group I held some status in (Fluctuating between the fighting second in command and bodyguard manservant over several years) and it eventually collapsed in on itself due to my former master being an ego-obsessed villain at his best; who drove away our followers in repeatedly vain quests for glory, both in and out of game. I thought the idea of a disgraced/failed bodyguard of a wannabe tyrant would be an excellent way to work myself into the game. It provides a treasure trove of background ideas, such as my very real conflicted loyalties from that time, and allowed my PC to have skill, without being a master. I would simply be a favored friend of a minor lord, who was then cast out/rebelled.
Now, I'm worried about whether or not even that would be an acceptable backstory. If the players are just starting their journeys, does it really entail not having any stint of military service or history with elements that would shape their class? Since I tended to play combat oriented games without concrete narrative restrictions, I am having some difficulty thinking of ways to be a 'new' adventurer and keep in step with the fact I'll most likely be mass murdering some sort of aberrations without much hesitation.
I'm trying to piece together how I can maintain the dishonored swordsman on the move angle without having a backstory tied to direct betrayal from higher authority. I was tossing around the idea of shaping the PC as a green militia member who was betrayed by his fellow soldiers or something similar if the "betrayal by the privileged friend" angle is denied.

Any suggestions from wandering souls who find themselves here?

I plan on running my ideas past the GM's, but want to aim for as acceptable as I can off the bat, instead of having to seek revision after revision.

TERA & YGO! Online

So, I've hit a bit of a snag in wanting to do anything non-digital; namely facing an extended period of unemployment, so my roommate turned me back onto TERA. I've got to say that I honestly love TERA, small flaws and all and I really hope they listen to community feedback and give us beneficial updates down the road. I'm also glad I've joined an active in game politics guild; Twilight Brigade.

I've gotten my Human Slayer up to level 27 and it's been an enjoyable ride. Something I really enjoy is the sense of scale in battles. I watch the other PC's in my party engage a Big Ass Monster and I take the initiative to run around the side of it as it rakes my friends, charging into and slashing the back of it while it's distracted. It tumbles and then I go full out with my skill chains. Love it.

The only things I would prefer in the game would be better mounts, new armor skins, and player/guild housing. Being able to craft for a player home would help the social aspect of the game, which I find lacking. I'm really hoping the recently added Battleground and content update draw some new players in, as I am having a bit of trouble tracking down party members for lower level dungeons and instances.

I've also tried the unofficial Yu-Gi-Oh Online game, Dueling Network, recently. I had some fun with it, but the rampant cheating and rule breaking pushed me from pursuing it much further at this time. It isn't even an issue of minor misunderstandings, players will outright do whatever they want when they want and do very stupid things like refuse to concede defeat/admit to cheating until you threaten to file a complaint.

Return to Yu-Gi-Oh! - Samurai Style

I wasn't lying when I said this would be a blog dedicated to my hobbies, and now an old flame has been rekindled. I remember playing the earlier YuGiOh versions in Highschool, before classes and during lunch. Back then it was essentially a game to see how many generic high attack point based monsters you could smash into a deck with support cards. Nowadays, the game seems to be changed, with more time given to Effect Monsters and less to things like Equip Cards.

Being perfectly honest, this isn't my first return to YuGiOh. More than a year ago a friend got me to play casually and function as an extra to fight as he trained for tournaments. He abruptly quit after being insanely dedicated and getting me to buy an outrageous amount of cards(I think he was trying to impress his current girlfriend by dropping all nerdy hobbies. LAME). It was fun, but he put me off of any sort of dedicated serious play when he would just bash casuals at area Anime Conventions and brag about how he destroyed them. 

So I took a break after that and then got back into it briefly to play one of my roommates at my old apartment. He was a fan of the anime and themed his decks on what looked cool and what was featured on old episodes of the YGO! TV series, which I was fine with. We hit a problem down the road as he didn't like the fact my decks beat his rather easily. This was a little irritating because while I didn't make tiered tournament decks; I did employ some synergy and always offered tips or aid in anyway I could. Still, he would just get angry like a child when he would lose and I didn't even gear my decks to be competitive, with the two I played being easy enough to counter with some foresight. One was a Warrior themed beatdown deck with a few Synchro monsters thrown in because I thought they looked cool and they came with the the 5Ds Toolbox and some of the tins, and then a Fairy themed deck due to the release of the Hyperion structure deck. He started getting whinier, eventually going into little screaming tangents and making me wait around as he double checked my plays on his PC because he didn't like his 'plans' being interrupted. Eventually he told me he "phased out" of the game, but turned around to one of our shared friends and bitched about how he got tired of losing, so he just decided to quit the hobby instead of take any advice or work on making his primary deck a bit more playable. This was especially irritating because he would tell me he was going to play later and I kept updating my decks and wasting money on cards.

So after I recovered from that fiasco, I picked up the new Samurai Warlords structure deck this weekend. I've always loved the Six Samurai themed cards, but I don't care enough to pay for single cards for decks online. So my Samurai were just gathering dust until this release and a desire to want to play at upcoming conventions. I also grabbed one of those snazzy playmats and sealed play boxes. So, I'll probably spend some time working on my YGO skills and half-ass my way into the scene at Youmacon, possibly joining any tournaments that may have just for the fun of it.

So without further rambling on a blog no one cares about, here is my current deck;
Monsters: 19
2 x Great Shogun Shiend
1 x Enishi, Shien's Chancellor
2 x Grandmaster Of The Six Samurai
2 x The Six Samurai - Irou
2 x The Six Samurai - Nisashi
2 x Legendary Six Samurai - Enishi
2 x Legendary Six Samurai - Kizan
2 x The Six Samurai - Yaichi
2 x Legendary Six Samurai - Kageki
2 x Hand Of The Six Samurai
Spells: 11
3 x Solidarity
2 x Temple Of The Six
2 x Cunning Of The Six Samurai
1 x Gateway Of The Six
1 x Asceticism Of The Six Samurai
1 x Burden Of The Mighty
1 x Reinforcements Of The Army
Traps: 10
3 x Musakani Magatama
2 x Sakuretsu Armor
2 x Double-Edged Sword Technique
2 x Shien's Scheme
1 x Mirror Force
Extra: 4
2 x Shadow Of The Six Samurai - Shien
2 x Number 39: Utopia

The strategy is fairly straight forward. I want to spam as many Samurai as I can and sacrifice a few to get any number of Solidarity into play. Yaichi will hopefully help stall my opponents set Spell and Traps and Temple of The Six paired with Burden of the Mighty could help control monsters effectiveness.

40k 6th Edition - Space Marines vs. Eldar

So, So I met up with Brandon today and ran my first battle under the 6th edition rule set. I feel like things have been missed, and feel like Assault was unnecessary complicated at times. It came down to IC's attached to units essentially tanking the heaviest hits due to being in advantageous direct contact base-to-base. Can all wounds really be allocated vs. the model in direct contact, instead of spread to the rest of the group?

Outside of that, I think shooting was pretty intuitive with wound allocation, and Hull Points didn't end up being as crippling as I believed it to be.

So, what I recall from the battle is going to be presented as a battle report below. The points level ended up being around 1090 or so, since Brandon was recreating his Eldar tactica based on the changes to the rules.
While I didn't record things on a turn by turn basis, I can give a general rundown. In the future, I think I'm going to attempt to record events as they happen in order to report here.

Frost Titans vs. Eldar

Mission: Purge The Alien

Outcome: Space Marine Victory (4VP vs. 2VP)

Rundown of units:

SM: Terminator Librarian, Biomancy, F. Stave, 5 x Terminators, Land Raider Crusader, 2 x 10-Man Tactical Squads, 2 x Multi-Melta Attack Bikes.

Eldar: Farseer with Warlocks, Dire Avengers, Guardians, Swooping Hawks, Falcon, Warwalker, Wave Serpent, Vyper.

There were ruins placed in the center of the table, so close they ended up forming the entirety of a buildings base, but it allowed for a good block to Line of Sight. Scattered across the board were various bits of difficult terrain represented by pieces of paper, which when rolled for when they were first encountered turned out to be Brainleaf Fronds. I've got to say that I enjoy the random rolling for terrain effects as it really creates a unique experience. If we would have gotten a more beneficial terrain setting, it would have been interesting to see how it played out.

As far as combat went, I divided my Marines, sending the Land Raider and an Attack Bike on one side of the ruins, dodging the deadly terrain as I went. On the other side, I sent my remaining Attack Bike on a lonesome drive, Opting to keep the Marine Squads and Rhinos (which were glanced by the end of turn 2) hidden in the rear of the ruins, safely tucked behind large walls. The Eldar played up in much the same way and sent forces to attempt to shoot down the LRC and Attack Bike. The Bike bit the dust fairly early, and several turns later an Eldar Falcon sent the Land Raider off in an spectacular fire show. Luckily, the Terminator cargo was already out and engaging the enemy when the Land Raider exploded, and it managed to cripple several Eldar vehicles on it's way out thanks to the Multi-Melta  and TL Assault Cannons equipped on it.

As the battle progressed, one squad of Marines began footslogging around the ruins on the side opposite the action, slowly moving to provide support to the remaining Bike, which didn't need or receive it. The other squad moved into the ruins, biding their time and remaining largely unnoticed. 

The Terminator squad, down 3 plus the Librarian, carried the bulk of the game on their shoulders. They moved in after unrelenting Storm Bolter fire and the Force Staff of the Librarian provided some great hits on the enemy. The benefits it conferred came in handy, especially the slight bonus to strength.
As the battle continued, the Wave Serpent was left standing, but both the Avengers and Guardians were bested by the slow advancement of the Terminators. They began to fall back, only saving themselves from the cusp of running off the field to be hit by more melta and storm bolter shots. The battle largely changed to being everything vs. the Terminators gathered around the husk of a destroyed Warwalker, which provided some benefits in disrupting shooting attacks.

After another round that would see my Tactical Squads going on the offensive, the Eldar called it quits and the battle was over.

What I learned from this battle was that I need to reconsider using Psyker abilities around the Eldar, as my Smite blew up in my face. Also, Jink saves can really come in handy. You wouldn't think they would be as efficient as they were, but they saved my Attack Bike. Otherwise, I was happy with how the battle shook down. I ended up with the Warlord trait that forced enemies to use their lower leadership within 12" of my Librarian, so that was great when resolving actions.

Warhammer 40k so far.

So far, I've only played several games of 40k, all of them under the 5th edition rulebook. I play a custom Space Marines Chapter called the Frost Titans. I've been lucky enough to encounter other new players and my only recorded loss came from a game where I played against someone with a far deal more experience. With the change to 6th edition, I'm finding I want to change my army around to become more shooting oriented, which was the original plan until I found out how much I enjoyed Dreadnought close combat weapons and Assault Terminators paired with tanks. So as the meta evolves, I hope to find a sweet spot that keeps with my love of vehicles and still keeps me somewhat competitive despite my preference for rule of cool and fluff.

Introduction

Hello everyone, I'm going to attempt to keep this updated on my various hobbies and opinions of events I see within those hobbies. Also various nerdy and non-nerdy musings.
Right now, I'm a relative newcomer to Warhammer 40k, having only played a handful of games as my DiY Space Marines Chapter. I'm also working on a small force of Orcs & Goblins in Warhammer Fantasy.
Also; I'm looking to get back into Live Action Role Playing (LARP) and a potential return to Cosplaying.
I attend Anime Conventions, and have been since 2002. I've seen a lot of changes in the scene, but I still go out of a sense of loyalty.