@sundancer first poster bonus points! Agree LoTR was a nice way to kick off the decade. Although it did sort of spoil us for fantasy movies and set a pretty high benchmark for everything else in the genre, which is probably one of the reasons why everybody is doing superhero films or 880’s remakes instead 🙂 You were into Star Wars pocket models? Well that explains a little 🙂 Nice diverse playlist! Hrm a modular table is a nice approach – how would you manage it? One standard central piece with add-on options for the sides, a series of interlinked 2×2 foot sections? Perhaps there will be some inspiration in the book that @theterraintutor is going live with. I’m busy weighing up the pros and cons of the PDF version (handy and no postage charges to Oz) or the hard copy (would just be really nice 🙂 ). 50 points for responses, first post and bonus pledge 🙂
@dawfydd had forgotten about some of those TV gems – wow, has it been that long? they have really held up well 🙂 You may judge me harshly for this but I still haven’t gotten around to finishing SAC 🙁 I’d personally probably add Macross Frontier to the list – still my favourite from the franchise. I didn’t mind Gasarakai either – OK I know it was late ’99 so missed the cut but I didn’t see it until later on. slower series, but I liked the political and economic aspect as well as the deeper look at the cultural side of things. Oh, and Full Metal Panic for general hilarity in the first few episodes 🙂 Heh, behold indeed! Again a very diverse selection of tunes. Mos Eisley would actually be a good choice as you could always shoehorn it into pretty much any in-scale sci-fi game (that’s the nice thing about the universe being such a big place). Pelennor Fields is an interesting call. Would you include the wall/gates/ramparts of Minas Tirith on the table edge? reminds me, I did see an awesome table build for Osgiliath in y travels – bear with me a moment…
And through the magic of the internet:
Well worth a watch if you have the time 🙂 Just wish I could loan them a water mat for the river is all (no doubt they have remedied by now I’m sure 🙂 ) 40 points for responses and pledge.
@kiranamida don’t worry I think we might all be in agreement on LoTR 🙂 I never had the opportunity to play 4th ed – my gaming circle were pretty much entrenched in 3.5 so missed the boat. I’ve heard various perspectives on it from different people but where the system appears to really shine is it’s accessibility for newer gamers, and by the sounds of things it was your gateway into a much wider reach into the hobbying community. Hope the time it taxed from your Uni studies 🙂 Great tunes 🙂 Napoleonic tabletops would look fantastic. Agree that Waterloo has been done a little, although with the kits available for Hougoumont or La Haye Sainte I might be tempted… But there are so many other interesting battles as you say. I’d personally be leaning towards Borodino but that’s probably a side-effect of having read war and Peace as a teenager… Would you aim for something at small scale, skirmish size at 28mm (noting the Cornwell reference) or larger scale with ‘counts as’ rules in effect to handle the size of the forces involved? Solid pledge 🙂 40 points for responses and pledge.
Ok off for breakfast and coffee, more responses later 🙂
> 1. what books, movies, comics, TV series or anime from the 2000’s surprised you or was most memorable?
I’m really bad at remembering years/decades and the things that fit in that decade.
TV series : the new Doctor Who. I had only seen bits of the classic series and somehow it sounded like a great show.
I saw that first episode and I was hooked. And while not every episode so far has been perfect it’s been a ton of fun.
The new Doctor is a nice change, although I do think that she has too many companions.
The Last Airbender (the cartoon series) was epic. It is a damned shame the movie was such an epic disaster.
It makes the Highlander sequel (the one that doesn’t exist ;-)) look good by comparison.
> 2. What were your favourite hobby or gaming releases of the decade?
To me it’s the era in which I got a pc with internet (cable :-D) and my first console (Dreamcast … yeah, I know bad timing, but great games).
> 3. 5 favourite songs, albums, artists or even genres from the decade – please post links so we can all experience…
It sort of marked the return of classic rock & punk. Didn’t it ?
At least once I looked at release dates of the various cd’s I own
> 4. If you had the time, storage space and resources available, what historical, fantasy or sci-fi locales would you like to create as a gaming table? What games system would you use to utilise said table?
Didn’t we have this one before ?
Anyways … in an ideal world ?
I really want a dedicated table for Dropfleet commander. Preferably one that looks like a map room from the same setting.
And to make it perfect it would have to be matched with the landingzone of a planet for Dropzone commander.
What’s the point of having the option to link two games without a matching table pair, am I right ?
Same thing I’d like to do for Blood&Plunder and Oak&Iron game.
I’m definitely going to have a room with a dedicated (war)gametable once I find a house I can afford.
Work will continue on my minions.
I think the troggoths will be next on my list.
@mage don;t worry, you can talk to me about Dreamwaves TF comimcs and War Within if no one else. I think I’m one of the few people who actually brought all their stuff individually and then in trades (props to IDW though for re-releasing War Within as an omnibus…)
And you’ve just made me feel incredibly old as me and my university housemates went to see both AOTC and ROTS as they came out after (or just before) those years exams….
@woldenspoons good shout on TSCC. Very under-rated show and a shame the story it was telling never got concluded.
@evilstu I was going to mention FMP but I know I’ve harped on a fair bit about it in the past. Gasaraki is one I’ve only seen bits of but did dig what I was seeing. Still havn’t seen Macross Frontier, or Delta, or any of the post Plus shows other than a pirated copy of Zero. A shame as it should be huge except for Harmony Gold’s deathgrip on the rights, that thankfully looks to be going away in 2021 when the rights revert back to the studios, and I don’t think anyone will be looking to do business with HG again given their rep….
So, I went into a toyshop today with my son near home. Got him some pokemon cards, a pikachua plushie, a very basic kiddies transformer, and something else. Oh yeah I bike helmet with a spiky mohawk. One of the things I got was a Dinobot from Power of the Primes, I think. Twenty euro, scanned in at a fiver. Cha ching! Which is slightly less than five pounds.
@robert best of luck with the sorting. I know from recent experience how easy it is to get distracted when you find long-forgotten treasures in old shoe or postage boxes… Hrm don’t really know much about the Battle of Benburb but from a quick research it looks like it would make a great game of Pike & Shotte. One of the inherent dangers I find with Warlord Games is that they always have fantastic looking interesting themed army deals available with free global postage. So I’m going to make a point of trying not to look until I have a few more of my current projects knocked off 😉 Great tunes! 40 points for pledges and responses.
@woldenspoons I liked what I saw of Smallville, but I tended to be out the nights it was on so didn’t catch that much of it. Similar story with the Sarah Connor Chronicles, which I suppose given the short number of episodes would be easy to track down and watch… WoW didn’t grab me personally ( I was entrenched in DDO…) but a lot of my friends were really invested in it. Ah yes, Inquisitor. GW were really hitting some high notes in the early 2000’s (Mordheim, Inquisitor, Warmaster) but as in-store support for the games waned other companies stepped in to fill the gap in the gaming markets (skirmish, narrative or massed battles) and ended up carving out market share. Interesting to consider how different the strategy would have been (if at all?) had they known then what the now have visibility over… ha! Nakatomi Plaza for TWD would be awesome! Complete with magnetised and separable levels I’m assuming? 🙂 40 points for detailed responses on a phone 🙂
@blinky465 laser cutter and a 3DP? So you actually do have capacity to make any gaming table you desire 😛 Seriously, best of luck in getting the 3DP up and running. It is a rewarding and challenging process. Although given the skills you have shown off with previous projects hopefully shouldn’t be too onerous for you. Thingiverse is a great starting point for some practice models. After that I’d enthusiastically recommend Printable Scenery. For software I started off with slic3r then switched across to Cura, as Cura is less sensitive with regard to how the models slice (had backed a few KS’s where I couldn’t get the models to slice with slic3r). Not sure I can be much help but if you have any questions I’m happy to help out if and where I can 🙂 Had completely forgotten about the Batman reboot. Shame on me, those films were all great. Again, nice choice of tunes. Industrial is a solid choice for a tabletop – While I really like the aesthetic and hi-tech look of cyberpunk there is less scape to shoehorn it into as many gaming systems. And we’re all about replayability round here 🙂 40 points for pledge and detailed responses.
@mage look after yourself! best of luck progressing the Minotaurs, have fun having your son for the weekend and stay safe on the return journey 🙂 Will confess to not having read ASOIAF – sort of holding out to see if GRRM can finish the series. I’ve been burned too often with short investment comic book runs getting canned halfway through an interesting story arc to commit to something on that scale without knowing there is a meaningful conclusion at the end of it all. Trust me though, I’m waaaay too old to be a hipster 😉 Plus my current reading pile has blown out to embarrassing proportions. I really do need to get my eyes checked (I know I’m due for an upgrade in my prescription on my glasses – I get really fatigued reading at night so that’s a bit of a giveaway) so hopefully once I do that and clear the backlog in my book pile we’ll have closure on the ASOIAF series. Interesting point on the Two Towers since I’d imagine the WTC buildings were named or at least referred to that way as a hat tip to the books. I’ll join you in saying I enjoyed the prequels for what they were. Yep, they weren’t great masterpieces, the actors had no sets to refer to (mostly bluescreen) hence they obviously struggle with that hindrance in their acting, but my inner eight year old was doing cartwheels with 50 Jedi fighting in the arena of death or the Battle of Coruscant at the start of Episode 3 looking like a game of Wing Commander on sci-fi steroids. And Star Trek was a nice surprise too – a reboot with enough of a hat tip to the original to give it cred but definitely moving in it’s own direction. Dipped in and out of comics and manga during this decade so missed the ones you referenced. Who is this Deadpool gentleman to whom you refer? For I have not seen his likeness or name anywhere on the internet in the last few years… 😛 Sorry. Always makes me feel a little sorry for poor Deathstroke… Congrats on the score with the Dinobot! 70 points for pledge and super-detailed responses.
@sundancer given how good your english is could you just get the english edition and go with that? Or is it more enjoyable/relaxing for you to work with the German edition. Strange that they’d split the volume slike that regardless… Wait! I think I see footprints! We may be able to track the At-AT back to it’s lair… 😛 20 points for great looking hobby progress.
@limburger Ouch. Haven’t seen the Last Airbender film but based on your comparison to the Highlander sequel which i haven’t seen because they never made it it must be pretty average. I did quite like what I saw of the series though, despite being way outside the target demographic for it. Again, a nice selection of varied tunes, I’m seeing on reflection how diverse songs were during the decade. I think from memory my previous question on gaming tables was more ‘if money was no obstacle’ rather than ‘what could you actually do if there was somewhere to store it once done’ but your point is well made 🙂 Combining B&P with Oak & Iron is a good call. The sea mats would scale pretty well too so all you’d really need to worry about is the size of trees and terrain features on any islands. 40 points for pledge @ responses.
@dawfydd picked up a few of those comics back when they first rolled out (see what I did there?…) but never got around to adding to my standing order. Should go fishing around in some old storage boxes and see what I actually have. I found FMP to be hilarious up until the reveal of the secret identity, after which it turns into a good but somewhat more generic giant robot anime. Yes looking forward to HG’s tight grip on the macross licence slipping through it’s fingers. I enjoyed Frontier more than Delta – characters were much more rounded and well developed. Not to say Delta wasn’t worth a watch but Frontier was always going to be a hard act to follow. 20 points for feedback/responses.
Ok, think I’m all caught up?… Off to see about this empty coffee cup and get a start made on some hobby (Back to Middenheim for me…).
My pledge:
I solemnly pledge to continue the long slog in working on the Epic army. I do not care for it but I will finish it before I leave my current home. In that vein, before all you lot reading this, I will devote my painting to the task at hand of smaller scale torture *sob weep whine moan*
Inspirational stuff from the time:
Anime I would sat The Irresponsible Captain Tylor, Excel Saga and Last Exile. All of them had great stories which hold up with time. The animation has gotten better with time but they still hold their own in the way good stuff from earlier still can as well with digging in. For comics I would go to the work produced by Guy Davis with “The Marquis”. A great bit of dark fantasy where a perceived agent of his faith turns out to have been in the wrong the entire time and, in order to save himself from suffering damnation, act in the interests of the other side. Definitely a fine short run series for the style and solid story. I give nothing away because it is better to be walked into blindly.
Gaming/hobby releases of the era:
Deus Ex! A change in the way storytelling was done for FPS with multiroute puzzle solving that incorporated RPG leveling for skills. A major shift in how mature narratives could be delivered for what was seen as kids entertainment.
Albums of the decade that I enjoyed… hmmm
Speaking of The Matrix series… look at who did quite a bit of the music
To create a location on a table without restriction of time/resources? I think that something like the ruins of Angkor Wat or Machu Pichu with all the overgrown trees and moulering stonework would be cool. Its been a longstanding idea to build a Blood Bowl arena for a lizardman team using those elements and have detail stonework for demarcation of end zones and wings. Along the sides you could have inset dugouts for your team reserves, Kos and injuries/dead. For last there could be a great temple “scoreboard” for trackers of points/rerolls/rounds. With the advancement in 3D printing this might be a reality I’d just need to work with somebody to get the designing down and then produce it. Definitely a setting for the Atzlan Cup as a convention tournament.
@dawfydd Agreed on Ghost in the Shell as a great choice. The music for that was spectacular for the atmosphere.
@robert I see more metal making its way through the lists. I’ll get to this after running about in the evening.
@woldenspoons Cash covering Hurt was great. I’ll add that Kermit the Frog video as an alternative was disturbing to see how it was plausible from the lyrics.
@blinky465 A time of ska/punk for you? Huh. I was introduced to some of that only at the tail end of ‘99 and hit over the head with things from The Dwarves, The Aquabats and NOFX from a guy in my military unit. Good listening to break the genres.
@mage*blink blink* Right. So we now know what gives with the Mechanicus avatar. All hail the Machine God and long shall we live by embracing the Word of New Flesh by transhumanism.
Speaking of which Laibach just put this out
Dammit.. missed this one for last decade. I heard it a year after it came out.
@limburger yeah, Highalnder 2 is high art compared to the Last Airbender film. Hell, Highlander: The Source (aka the one that couldn’t afford to use the actual Queen music so got a cover) is high cinema compared to TLA. At least Legend of Korra proved a more than worthy sequel, and Dark horse have been putting out quality material with the creators to continue where both shows ended and fill in some gaps….
@mage There’s a reason I normally use Kup as my online Avvatar 😉 Which of the Dinos did you get? I did dig the POTP take on them quite lot, but Volcanicus really does need one of the 3rd Party upgrade kits badly. In fact POTP did some stirling work on the Combiner front – Starscream & Elita-1 make fun bodies, but the Terrorcons are the lines real MVP, with each bot being pretty rad and their Abominus form being just plain sexy. just a shame the distribution of the 5 bots was utter garbage. And in the TF theme, last week i did get some surprises through the post, War for Cybertron Siege 2-packs of Redhot & Stakeout (the Rescue Patrol) and Ravage & Lazerbeak (the Spy Patrol), part of this lines Micromasters range 😀
@horati0nosebl0wer yeah, Yoko Kanno hit it out the park – again with the GITS:SAC soundtrack. If she had just done GITS:SAC, Cowboy Bebop, Macross Plus and Escaflowne’s music she would have been a bona fide legend, but she’s still arguably the most in demand, multi-talented composer in the biz (read an interview where the conductor who worked on her first orchestral work couldn’t believe it was her first time composing for that scale…).
Good shout outs there for shows as well – Last Exile was a fascinating work, and worth a watch for anyone who is planning games with a sky-pirates vibe. Excel Saga is just ****ing nuts though, and you have to respect ADV’s commitment to ensuring the shows jokes got through by giving you an option on the DVD for pop-up info boxes as part of the sub-titles menu…
@evilstu Have you tried the SAC compilation films instead? They cut out all the side-stories to just give you each series main story-arc in a nice chunk. And I get what you are saying about FMP, but they did try to keep some of the humour going until the story intruded – 2nd Raid and Invisible War get positively brutal. FOMOFFU! was a nice way to condense that majority of the comedy into one side show though….
The only ‘bad’ thing about Avatar was that I’ve seen it using Dutch voice overs and the scheduling was all over the place.
I think I’ve seen the first few episodes of Korra. I’m not sure if they ever did broadcast the entire series.
Definitely a worthy sequel that dared to ask good questions and introduce new conflict.
I’d say that the awesomeness of Aang is why I never liked the Cameron Avatar movie (aka ‘pocahontas in space’). The latter was sooo predictable. A frikking kiddy cartoon about a reincarnating avatar casually introduced the fact that the Avatar had been a woman in one of his past lives.
Heck the thing that annoyed me the most is that for some reason tv channels think that kids don’t deserve to have shows shown in order that makes sense.
OTOH … this pretty much happens to anything these days. It’s why I rarely get into tv-series, because even if they have more than one season you can’t be sure if the damned thing won’t change time slots or suddenly restart from episode 1 again.
It’s the reason I stopped watching ‘the big bang theory’, because the repeats highlighted how the show devolved from the geeky sitcom devolve into a yet another generic Friends-clone style sitcom.
/rant
Comics is a medium I never understood TBH. Why read a thing that barely covers five pages of text ?
The episodic nature of the medium is another thing I don’t like. What if there is an author existence failure ?
Got a good hour in the shed this morning, found a serious amount of resin scatter terrain that I assume I bought for Frostgrave. Didn’t find the sand I need to base my Arabs though.
@sundancer was never a big fan of 00s Slayer until I heard the songs live. Also that Halford album is awesome as well.
@dawfydd had forgotten about Spartacus. Started off great but never held my attention.
@kiranamida I’d still listen to a bit of Amon Amarth and Blind Guardian, they have great back catalogues. Never really listened to Sabaton but I like that song.
@woldenspoons I like the idea of a moving train! What game would you play?
@blinky465 I like that Wildhearts song. They are a band that I never got into but always noticed they had quite a few fanatical fans.
@mage I have a beard and like coffee. Apart from work shirts, I only own checked shirts… perhaps I am a hipster 🙂 I have read the first couple of books in the GoT series though.
@limburger I totally agree about the new Doctor having too many companions. Haven’t enjoyed this season as much as I thought I would.
@evilstu Agreed, the Warlord Webstore is a dangerous place for the credit card. Their army deals and starter boxes are amazing value.
@horati0nosebl0wer I do like a wee bit of Tiamat every now and again! Good luck with the epic!
So a few songs from 2000 (Nevermore), 2001 (Iced Earth) and 2002 (Immortal)
@robert The Walking Dead springs to mind as my default choice but 40k, Warpath and Deadzone would be good. I don’t play the Batman game but that sounds like it would be great.
@mage I read GOT when it first came out before it went really popular just as a book. Read them all since. @sundancer in the UK the trade versions were one book but the retail versions got split into two, at least for the later ones.
I’ve got the same problems with the Mantic Webstore as they are having a clearance sale and there is so much stuff I’d want. Sadly I’m all out of money for the month. And I got paid yesterday
@robert I do like Sabaton in the background when I’m hobbying/writing for RPGs. The almost exclusively historical content makes for some good inspiration.
@evilstu Naturally, I will always default to 28mm as I actually do more roleplaying on the table top than war gaming at the moment so I tend to always look at terrain with half my mind on “how could I use this for roleplay?” Knowing the walls of a great historical fortress could double as a the castle of an [insert villain of you choice] would be a massive bonus for me. Though I do look at some of the 15 mil historical stuff from the Peninsula Wars that’s around and wonder how long before I give in…
Worst afternoon of rugby I have watched Ireland play in a long time. If I was drinking, I would be drowning my sorrows heavily. Well, there is always the World Cup in September/October.
@woldenspoons the Mantic sale looks good, wouldn’t mind a few of the Mars Attack things but I am not buying anything at the moment apart from my Conquest subscription.
@kiranamida did you see the thread about the History of Sabaton youtube channel? Two of my favourite things, history and heavy metal music.
Anyway some music to cheer me up. 03 (Masterplan), 04 (Orphaned Land) and 05 (Reverend Bizarre)
So I sort-of made good on my pledge.
And also remember now why I printed a couple of little cubes then didn’t bother with the 3d printer again. I got my calibration cube printed, loaded up the Castle Grayskull models from Thingiverse…
…. and hit print:
The raft layer came free from the bed so my friend recommended hairspray to keep it stuck to the bed. In the meantime, the nozzle clogged and I had to soak it (again) an acetone to clear the blockage. My nozzle clogs a lot, really easily.
So after a couple of hours, I was finally printing again, so I loaded up the skull-face part of the castle and after watching it print the first four layers, figured everything was going to be just fine. I went for a cafe breakfast, as Up Studio said I was in for a three and a half hour wait.
I think next time I’ll have to uncheck the “screw it just print a load of scribble” box before printing…..
woldenspoons 5 years, 8 months ago.
