Hey all!

After a week’s hiatus to deal with some real world stuff, this week I need some hobby time to chill.

The pledge for this week will be working on the Dark Angels. I had time on Friday to do a little work on them. I’m looking forward to getting them done though. ?

Hmm let’s see…

1.
There was a time… I was playing chess with my mate David. He was much better at the game than I. He was better at most of the games we played, 40k, Necromunda… etc etc. (Actually I was usually better at Blood Bowl) Anyway!

We’re playing chess, and both of us have almost nothing left on the board. I was down to my King and one other piece. A bishop or a rook, maybe a knight. He was similar, his King, another one and his Queen. My queen had long since been taken.

I really should have conceded hehehe… but I wanted him to get a proper check-mate. I was probably going to concede in a turn or two anyway.

You see, the game had turned into to some kind of Benny Hill chase around scenario…

Both of our Kings had been drawn to near the middle of the board, and David was chasing my King down with his Queen. He’d make a move, check. I’d move my King. He’d move the Queen, check. I’d move my King. My King was in the process of doing a lap around his King. It was only a matter of a few turns until I’d run into the other piece he still had and I was done. I was having fun annoying David (since he nearly always won) and knowing I was done soon.

Until!

I looked at he state of the board, the positions of the five remaining pieces we had between us…

With each single turn step I had accidentally drawn David’s defence away from his King, then moved my own King out of the path of attack of my own remaining piece. My knight/rook/bishop was free to attack David’s King next turn, was safe from attack from his Queen and his other piece. Not only that, but the positioning of the remaining pieces meant that David couldn’t move his own King to a safe location…

I had accidentally manoeuvred a check-mate!!! ???

David was at first incredulous, then disbelieving, then disgusted! ??? I knew it for what it was straight away: a cheesy, unearned win hahaha! We never did play chess again, and he continued to kick my arse in 40k ?

To this day, I do believe it is the Only time I have won a game of chess…

2.

There’s a few I’d say…

Kingdom Death as a whole: the minis are great, it’s a tough challenging game, it was the first tabletop game I came across that really facilitated solo play.

Twisted have done some fantastic work too. Taking known characters and putting a new spin on them isn’t that ground breaking, but the minis they’ve commissioned! Amazing! The spin they put on those characters is what wows me. Especially the preview recently of the Tin Man!

3.

I was thinking about Transformers recently-ish… how would it go on to tabletop? Dual minis is one option, but I kind of feel like that takes the most fun part of the Transformer toy out of the equation: the transforming!

What about transforming minis? Using the sizing of the mini-bots of old, (I’m thinking original Bumblebee/Warpath/ Rumble/ Ravage size) or maybe a little bigger. Using roughly consistent scale, so that vehicles look right next to each other, perhaps around Matchbox/Hot wheel scale, perhaps using a system like Gaslands?

By transforming  to Bot mode the stats change to move slower, but they’re more accurate with weapons, can scale buildings, can grapple in combat or throw nearby scenery/cars etc?

With the potential launch of the Transformers/Mask/ GI Joe etc cinematic universe, there’s potential to open up other factions/ allies etc. Autobots with MASK allies vs a Cobra incursion could be fun…

He-man, Thundercats etc can definitely work, but again limited factions. Unless it’s a coop game against an AI or scenarios? I feel that would be more fun.

Ah, I may have rambled a bit there… your combination of questions really got the grey matter going tonight @evilstu

Sunday night I’ll probably pick up the brush, bring in some tunes, and respond to my fellow participants! Have fun all!