Some more screenshots from Templar Battleforce.  The first is flamer fun from a Hydra and the others are to show bugs, mainly cosmetic.  Best thing about the Trese Brothers, the support and fix their games quickly.

This is a great little game like all the ones from the Trese Brothers.  I've bought all of them just to support these guys for the ones I really like.  They have gotten more and more polished in their games as time goes on and add new content and continue to balance and bug fix the old ones.  These are really mainly bug pictures with a few fun ones mixed in, but look up their games on Steam, Google apps, Apple store and Amazon.

Little minor thought occurred to me after watching Three Days of the Condor again.  I've heard since my time in the First Gulf War the liberal/progressive chant of "No Blood For Oil" and simply put it down to their usual brainless silliness.  However, here we have a post-Watergate movie that specifically portrays a "rogue" operation inside the government that is all about destabilizing parts of the Middle East so the USA can invade to secure the oil fields.  The guy who discovers the plot gives it all to the NY Times to keep himself safe from retaliation, hopefully. BTW it is a GREAT spy flick.

Reading multiple comments from various movie sites, a common thread comes through about "how believable this was, especially after Watergate.", and I simply started to wonder, since along with the No Blood for Oil comes the idea that the wars in the Middle East are caused by some kind of conspiracy of insiders who are beyond the government.  Just a thought.

First episode.  Confrontation at the High Lords of Terra.

This has been building up for a while now.  It isn't sure what the actual issue Palladium Books is having, but they obviously aren't making the marks.  The nickname coined for what is currently going on: Gencon Suicide Pact.  Which means: Kevin Siembieda of Palladium decreed that RTT starter kits will be available by Gencon 2014.  Which was really no big deal with a December 2013 Kickstarter fulfilment date, even with a bit of slippage.  After all, this is what Palladium said during the Kickstarter: "  Risks and challenges
A project of this scope requires the successful collaboration of artists, sculptors, writers, game designers, and manufacturers. Managing this complex process and minimizing delays are the largest challenges we face in bringing Robotech® RPG Tactics™ to market. We have learned from past experience that success requires careful planning and a full understanding of the scope of the project. In order to facilitate the timely delivery of Robotech® RPG Tactics™, Palladium Books and Ninja Division have brought in a host of new talent to work on the project.

To help ensure realistic deadlines, we have completed the vast majority of our development before launching the Kickstarter. Sculpts for the game pieces are almost entirely complete. The rulebook and game components are deep in development and will be ready for layout soon. Our manufacturers are also ready and have reserved factory time for the project. This means that as soon as the project is funded, we can lock down a timeline with our manufacturers to get the game produced.

It is our commitment to you, the Kickstarter backers, that we will maintain consistent communication throughout the process. This means regular updates, product photos, and plenty of behind the scenes insight as we complete the creation of Robotech® RPG Tactics™." (Emphasis added)

They are still doing sculpts of pieces, getting approval and finalizing sprues.  Not "almost entirely complete".  Not "vast majority of development". 

I've been holding out for the sight of the Valkyries, since they are what will make or break the game.  Palladium cannot manage to assemble (or even get) the models and the heat got hot enough that they started throwing Ninja Division under the bus.  Ninja Division has retaliated by putting the models together competently....but they still partially assembled the models to make it seem there were now less parts than previously shown.  Add into this, each sculpt evidently has its own little connection to a flight stand, so each sculpt needs its own flight stand instead of generic ones for all sculpts....which means opaque flight stands instead of clear.....so flying Zentraedi Battlepods look like they either are losing something out their...or have something shoved up their....  Bad design choice. 

Enough, I've seen the Valks, they are crap, I'm getting out.

This is the link to the first one in the series.
If the Emperor had a Text to Talk device

GW might have had some logic from their point of view for eliminating the Black Templars.  I was bored for a bit this morning and had a little time so I was typing up my designer notes that I use to justify my logic for how I was going to treat the Black Templars in a codex.  Then I started realizing...here was a "Chapter" that was as big as a Legion, more secretive than the Dark Angels, at least as good at CC as Blood Angels, at least as non-compliant as Wolves, potentially with as widespread an intelligence network as the Inquistion, still true to the Emperor's decrees & mission, with possibly the most powerful fleet in existence (certainly one of the top three Imperial starships), apparently totally independent of support requirements from anywhere in the Imperium (can you say generations and generations of workers on the support ships?!), Techmarines who wll put up with Mechanicus' rituals & secrecy...until in interferes with the success of a Crusade and thereby the Emperor's will, AND finally beyond all oversight of any official Imperial body.  Not just technically, but literally.

Then given Sigismund, their founder, close to both Dorn and the Emperor, selected by Dorn and approved by the Emperor to be the first, and only while the Emperor was active, Emperor's Champion as the paragon of what a Space Marine should be.  Which probably means that the Black Templars have inherited the Imperial Fists original mission and Dorn's original role.

Think about how much of a nightmare that would be if they had kept developing it instead of eliminating it.  So, roll the suckers up and turn them into whiny little candy arses who wish the Emperor would let them have their own psykers again so they could worship them or some such.

Battlefront (Flames of War) have taken over Dust Tactics, yes, I know, old news, but the trivia I've heard is that part of the divorce with FFG limits Battlefront from "reducing the value" of the Dust Warfare product they still have on hand....which means Battlefront with their Flames of War mentality cannot touch the actual game they'd love to fiddle with.  Instead, Tactics is getting "warfarized" a bit.  BF has been doing a lot of good, they now have multiple specific battle boxes for each faction, consisting (so far at least) of a hero, vehicle(s) and a squad or three.  They have also rationalized and consolidated the various rules (which were spread over a half dozen books) in a new rulebook...but then the meddling comes in.  First they got rid of the simple & clear LOS rules for ones that are a bit muddier and arguable; as in over the table top arguable.... 

Next, and most stupid, they started introducing firing arcs for vehicles, which I consider a good idea in a number of cases, but then they make the exception for turreted vehicles.  Well, okay, that works too.  Then they decided that the Axis walkers that turn at the waist (making the entire upper torso a turret) are "fixed gun" vehicles too.  Hello <knock, knock> anyone home?  The justification for walkers was their extreme (compared to tracked AFVs) agility in urban and close environments, but now Battlefront decides not only to kill that but make them fixed forward tank destroyers that are easier to see & easier to kill than a real tank destroyer...dumbasses.

However, I did pick up Osprey's little skirmish game, Ronin.  It looks like a lot of fun and thanks to some stuff I snagged for free at NOVA and a couple of other places, I can build up a Buntai or two for some quick and easy fun.

Oh, I still expect it to work out and everyone get their stuff, but after the new plan to release by "maybe May but definitely June" for the new "First Wave" release, the guys at PB/ND choose to reveal that they are just finishing up doing the Pods and hoping on getting 3D prototypes of Valkyries "soon".  Core units, two of the three most common First Wave models and they aren't to molds yet?  Oh well....someday.

So, you have a little trouble with your internet connection, then you get a new laptop with a new OS, continuing to have a little trouble with your internet connection.  So, you get the new laptop mostly setup, but have to stop because your internet connection is going to crap every few minutes.  Not only that, but instead of just hitting your laptop, it is hammering your entire network.  So, you call the cable company and they ping your modem and see everything is fine.  Next, you replace your router and all the cables, but the problem still persists.  Back to the cable company, who sends out a real nice cable guy, who goes over your troubleshooting with you, agrees that the problem must be with the cable....but all testing shows that the cable modem and cable are 100%.   Now two of you are scratching your heads and you think...what if I shut down the new laptop?  TADA!  The problem is the brand new laptop has a wireless on the fritz, that when it "fritzes" decides to actively jam your wifi signals.  Back to the drawing board...

Anyway, if nobody is keeping up, Robotech RPG Tactics Kickstarter is delayed and now being split into two waves.  So, it will be a while before I see those minis.  Hopefully, Palladium Books and Ninja Division have gotten a clue about how to deal with the Chinese for minis.  Their screwups are fairly obvious to me, they tried to do all the preproduction work for the entire line before talking to the Chinese, when they actually could have been tooling, scheduling and running blocks of minis off if they had started talking to the factory as soon as the Kickstarter too off like a rocket. 

Why Robotech?  Well, it was fairly easy to see that if the FLGS doesn't stock a game, drumming up interest in it is an uphill battle, especially in the current economy.  Which kills Dust Tactics and Dropzone Commander, but makes it interesting because the FLGS owner is planning on stocking and supporting Robotech.  Now all that is needed is a good enough game to keep some interest up. 

But, now that I have some time to kill, I think I might have a bit of fun and perform the silly time waster of writing a real Codex:Black Templar for my own amusement.  I've already roughed it out, it took a couple of days, I just need to check some details, get it formatted like I like it and polish some of my notes about why I chose certain things.  I'll get to that if I get bored with everything else and feel the urge to type.  The saddest thing...this was seriously so easy to do, including looking and considering choices between "mainstream" and "fluffy" rules choices, that there is really no other reason for GW to have not produced an actual codex except for a desire to streamline their product and do away with the Black Templars as an independent group of loyalist Space Marines.