BattleTech: Broken

[Part of the BattleTech Story.]

With the bank debts cleared thanks to Lady Arano's funding, the Marauders manage to get in some little jobs of cleaning up brigands and damaged straggler lances before being summoned once more by Lady Kamea to aid in a prison break. The plan is for her forces to engage the majority of the defenses, leaving the back door open for Master's Marauders to breach the prison. Gabriel, Behemoth, Glitch and Dekker (now in a Panther mech) deploy once more and have an easy time taking out the few tanks and defense turrets left to defend the prison exterior wall.

They are in for a nasty surprise when they jump over it though, finding a heavy lance had been left as rear guard. The fighting is furious, and Behemoth gets "cored" by the enemy Jagermech, killing her through internal explosions. Soon after, Dekker is tripped up and screams like a bitch as a Centurion frame stops down hard on the cockpit crushing him like a bug. It's at this time Lady Kamea arrives in her own Kintaro robot, busting through another wall to offer support.

Size advantage is a thing.

Gabriel and Glitch jump up to the high walls where they have an easier time scoring critical hits against the enemies, but it is truly Lady Kamea that saves the day with her rockets and martial arts. While Glitch manages to make it through with minor injury, Gabriel is severely wounded and near comatose as his mech had already lost a leg and both arms by the end of combat. As compensation, Lady Kamea gives the Marauders the now semi-repaired ancient spaceship that the team secured from the pirate moon. It is named "the Argo".

BattleTech: Master's Marauders

[Part of the BattleTech Story.]

Gabriel somehow escaped capture that day, and found himself joining a rag tag mercenary group called the Marauders. It didn't take long for them to realize he was the best of them and after sometime they decided to make him their leader, earning him the moniker of "Master".  It was after getting double crossed by some contractors (again) that he really sat down to look at the company finances. With the debts to the bank on top of all the other repairs, roster salaries and space ship expenses, things did not look good for Master's Marauders.

He decided to start negotiating contracts with better salvage rights, since selling recovered gear seemed to be more lucrative than getting a flat fee. Not that the tactic worked very well since it was mech parts that sold well, and his lance was mostly going up against various vehicles of pirate factions. Fortunately a mysterious contract came out of the blue, requesting his team to retrieve an old, crashed spaceship from a pirate moon base. The pay was huge, so regardless of the risks his second in command - a smelly guy named Medusa convinced Gabriel to deploy the squad.

With covering fire from Glitch's vindicator, Dekker in his agile spider mech was quick to reach and disable the turret generators protecting the pirate base. Once there it became more a brawl against the numerous but poorly maintained enemy forces. This is where Behemoth showed off her martial arts skills in the Shadowhawk, engaging in robot-fu against the pirate queen and her cohorts.

Melee is a great attack alternative for overheating mechs!

With the day won and the pirates cleared out the mysterious contact reveals herself to be none other than Lady Kamea herself, and expresses her desire for Gabriel's team to aid in her restoration movement.

BattleTech: Rebellion

[Part of the BattleTech Story.]

"We're on," barked Raju's grumpy voice over the comms. "On my way," replied Gabriel as he throttled his Blackjack mech into a jog. He had worked for Raju ever since arriving from the Deep Periphery, and was now escorting the future queen - Lady Kamea Arano to her coronation. As was tradition, Lady Kamea piloted her own mech as the trio advanced through the woods to the ceremony grounds.

It wasn't a long hike before they were meant to be joined by the rest of the royal guard, but instead of finding a parade of vehicles waiting to join the entourage they instead found ... gunfire! The rebels, piloting light mechs and tanks sure picked a good day for it but were totally out gunned by their targets. "What's going on?" demanded Kamea over the radio as she noticed her own house insignia on the vehicles of her fallen foes.

"Mi'lady!" came back a distressed voice, one of her closest friends. "You need to get out of here, your uncle's troops have taken control of..." A loud explosion followed by static ended the transmission. "We're not far from the Beta Dropship," grumbled Raju. "We can make our escape from there." Kamea thought twice about arguing with the man her recently deceased father appointed as Captain of the Guard. "Very well," was all she could muster.

The squad made good time to the spaceport, and slaughtered the enemy mechs stationed there who attempted to block their passage. Just as Kamea made it on board, Lady Victoria, Kamea's cousin, arrived in with her own kill squad to stop the escape. While Gabriel and Raju turned to face the pursuers, Gabriel's Blackjack suddenly ejected him without warning. "You taught me well Raju," came Victoria's snide voice. "I had some alterations done to your friends mech there. You know how I hate fighting fair."

Those are terrible odds.

"You traitor!" bellowed Raju as he charged headlong into the enemy squad. Gabriel could only watch Raju's bot was beaten down into a trash heap while Kamea's escape ship lifted off behind him.

BattleTech

Part of the Mech Warrior universe, BattleTech is currently the latest in the long line of games featuring greatly customizable giant robots blasting the heck out of other giant robots. This particular game is of a tactical, turn based variety and makes a good base for the next story set!

Chapter 01 - Rebellion
Chapter 02 - Master's Marauders
Chapter 03 - Broken
Chapter 04 - Rookie Trials
Chapter 05 - Run Faster
Chapter 06 - The Wise Man
Chapter 07 - Perfect Practice makes Perfect
Chapter 08 - High Morale
Chapter 09 - Surprise Encounter
Chapter 10 - Castle Nautilus
Chapter 11 - Ostergaard's Rage
Chapter 12 - Federated Suns
Chapter 13 - The Front Lines
Chapter 14 - Kick Starter
Chapter 15 - Royal Guard
Chapter 16 - Skill beats Gear
Chapter 17 - Broadcasting Victory 
Chapter 18 - A Final Duel

This story has concluded. Thank you for reading!

The Princess Bride

Review this movie? As you wish!

The majority of this movie is a tale told by a grandfather to his grandson, which is a nice blend of fantasy romance comedy. It tells a tale of true love and more importantly, is highly entertaining to watch!

Especially this fantastic duel!

This is in the era before computer generated effects, so it resorts to the more relatable stunt and prop methods which really work for it. A good story, good acting, good comedy bits, good cinematography... this film a complete package. Yes, there are some parts that make no sense but just enjoy the ride. The low body count makes it suitable for kids too!

Highly recommended and one I'd definitely watch again. I give the Princess Bride 4.5 fencing duels out of 5.

November 2018 Status

So much for being productive! Instead, I've been hammering Neverwinter Online as of late, trying to get as much out of the salvage system before the next module: Heart of Fire, removes it - something I'm not very happy with. I am quite digging the broom rewards from the current Masquerade event though. :P

    End the year with less weight (0 kg from last month, running total still: -3.9 kg)
    Draw 12 drawings of anything (11/12)
    Make board game prototype (no progress)
    Complete web comic chapter 1 (no progress)
    Clean out wardrobe (no progress)

Backlog Update:

FROM GIFTS (or freebies)
Sims 3

Board games:
Witcher board game redemption trial (done)
Mice and Mystics Campaign (6/11)
Zombicide: Black Plague Campaign (3/11)
Play Zombie in my Pocket (done)
London Dread Campaign (0/4)
Play Adamastor (0/2 modes)

Zombie in my Pocket (Single Player Version)

Small enough to travel with you!

This is my first foray into Print and Play games, which I imagine is as close as you can get to Free to Play in the board game variety. It's free to download, you just have to do some scissoring prep work afterwards before you can play. :)

Note: As alluded to in the title, this review is for the 1 player free version. Apparently there's a paid 1-8 player version available.

Designed to literally fit in your pocket, this is clever little solitaire type card game where in you must explore a house and its grounds to stop a zombie uprising. Exploration is done by flipping over little tiles and a cycling event deck that tells you what you encounter.

Obviously I only printed in black and white.

Combat is a simple math equation, and if you run out of health or run out of time (via the event deck running out 3 times), you lose. If you find the doohickey in the secret temple and manage to bury it in the graveyard you win!

While there's a tiny modicum of choice here (mainly in resting gives you HP but kills time), most of your games will boil down to luck. Just like Solitaire, but more fun. Pretty cool if you are into that sort of thing, but obviously no match for a game with multiplayer. I give it 2 femurs out of 5.