THQ Delivers!!! Just doesn't ship very well.

Just got my copy of Dawn of War II: Retribution last night. It was a little frustrating having to wait an extra 3 days to play when I could of downloaded on steam at launch, especially since I am such a fan that I paid extra for the collectors edition. If you are going to offer a digital download and a boxed collectors edition, IMO you had better make sure that your die-hard fans get their copy first. Of course RC had a different opinion:

"Screwing die-hard fans should be part of their business model. What are you going to do, quit? No your not, that's what makes you a die-hard fan."

Guess I gotta give you that one.

Games great. Campaign mode really shines through. For people who were ho-hum because of the beta, try out the single-player. It is really a lot of fun. One thing of note, I am a little concerned about the implications this game has for the 40k MMO. They seem to have separated the characters from the squads, which was something I really enjoyed about the last two iterations of DoW. I really want the 40k MMO to be truly squad based and not a character with some pets.

The last two games in my mind were the model for what the character selection for an awesome squad based RPG should be. You can have one kick ass character (chapter master, librarian, etc.) or a squad of marines (a tac, devastator, assault, or command squad). Then for squads, abilities are based on how you kit out the squad members. In my head here is how a 40k MMO should play:

• You select a marine squad and you get your main SGT and 4 other dudes.
• You then have a chance to select your specialization.
• If you pick a tactical specialization you get one heavy weapon, one assault weapon, and a wide range of SGT wargear
• If you pick a devastator specialization you get 4 heavy weapons but limited SGT wargear and you move slower (or something)
• If you pick an assault specialization you get jump packs, an assault weapon, and some assault focused SGT wargear.
• If you pick a command squad specialization you get an apothecary (healer), a banner bearer (buff/debuff), and some SGT wargear

It offers so many possibilities. But the biggest is that you truly play as a squad. Instead of having a character with a bunch of abilities and some pets shooting at things every once in a while you get a full squad. Your spell bar (a la wow) is the tasks your whole squad can do. So if your a dev squad, button 1 might be Brother Barius firing his lascannon, and button 2 is Brother Gothor firing his missile launcher...so on and so forth. Also imagine that individuality in your squad for aesthetics. Imagine a chaos squad (working the same way) where you can give each squad member unique grisly trophies.

Anyway, rant off I guess.

The new DoW is great.

Rix

Shoutouts and scolding

Check out my response from 3++ is the New Black on my email submission. I was curious to see what Kirby thought about my troop choices. He and Chumbalaya got together and called me an idiot....

Not really, they make good sound tactical advise. It is a reminder though of how much I resist conforming a list to the tides of the internets. I find that I am always make lists that buck the meta. I don't really like making excuses for it except that I am a underdog whore, or better yet a gaming hipster. In the end, if I take my army to a tournament I'll probably do exactly what they say.

Rix

Skirting around the perimeter of a hobby

It's not very typical that I get bored at home. Not because of the normal reasons: kids, chores, family obligations. No, it's because I'm a man of many hobbies. I switch between like a (insert funny analogy). I just normally have a game that I am crazy addicted to and a list of reserve games that I really want to get to. I'm in a weird lull right now.

I have Dawn of War 2: Retribution coming out in the next couple of weeks. Flop the Riviatzee I'm all in. I have been playing the beta, but that's just the multi-player, which to me is the least fun portion of the game (I almost didn't play the original Dawn of War 2 because of the multi-player beta, before I realized that it has very little to do with the real game mode).

I am pretty much done with my Imperial Fists for a while. I made a Master of the Forge, since a bunch of my lists use him. I have a spare Vindicator around that I will probably throw some yellow on. The problem is that I don't play enough to get my list settled down.

Other than that I don't know what to occupy myself with. I have thought about undertaking some serious expansions on the Imperial Fists (going for the full company) or reworking my other armies.... Meh. I need more inspiration before I do that. There isn't any pc or ps3 games that have me excited.

So here I sit..bored.....bored.....BORED.

Rix

Banners

Just to kill some time, I decided to photoshop a banner for my imperial fist army.

Added bonus: I can post them here to in order to use them as Avatars on forums.

Rix

something, something, something....Complete

Apparently all it takes is calling myself out on my own blog. I present to you, my completed Imperial Fist Army.

Rix

ONE MODEL!!! (or how I learned to stop worrying and snipe noobs)

I am one model.....ONE MODEL! from finishing up my Imperial Fists. Do I buckle down and complete it...no. Instead I take the crack that is COD Black Ops and proceed to get all kinds of addicted. I don't even really like the game, seriously I like Modern Warfare 2 better!

So I get to max level, because I like leveling things. I guess its the recovering WOW addict in me. Do I turn my attention back to my yellow army men? Meh, I'll find wager matches, or go hunt some zombies.

One droppod! It's almost completely painted!

Rix

OK to be honest I do want to also add a Techmarine and two Vindicators, but I would still be content if I stopped painting once I finished the droppod.

My Imperial Fist List: Aggressive Shooting

For the past year+ I have been focused mostly on painting my Imperial Fists. I play whenever I get a chance, but to be honest I have made more changes to my list than I have played games. Recently I think I have found a sweet spot. I have spent a lot of hours investigated how to improve on my current list, and right now I think it is pretty much pitch perfect. So I present to you my Aggressive Shooting Imperial Fist list:

Captain Marcus Decius Regulus (Lysander) 200

Command Squad w/ 210

4x Plasma Gun

Drop Pod

Ironclad Dreadnought 180

Seismic Hammer/Dread CC Weapon

Drop Pod w/Locator Beacon

Dreadnought 165

Multi-melta/Dread CC Weapon

Extra Armor

Drop Pod w/ Locator Beacon

Terminator Assault Squad 200

5xTH/SS

2nd Squad (Tactical) (10 Man) 250

Meltagun/Missle Launcher

Power Fist

Teleport Homer

Rhino
6th Squad (Tactical) (10 Man) 285

Lascannon/Plasmagun

Power Weapon/Meltabomb

Razorback w/ TL Las

Scout Squad (5 Man) 115

2xCombat Blade/1xSniper

Camo Cloaks
Combi-melta/Meltabomb

Land Speeder Typhoon 90

Land Speeder Typhoon 90

Land Speeder Storm 65

Total = 1850

[Interesting Note: Do you know how freaking hard it is to get text to line up after publishing a post.......damn you blogspot]

Generally the dreads get the aggro. They get in my opponents face with scary melta weapons and depending on the squad can engage and wreck some shop. Then I can focus on killing transports with the Typhoons, Tacticals, and the Razorback. The Terminators and Command Squad come in to lend their support in the middle of the field. The command squad can decimate an armored squad with the rapid firring plasma and the terminators wade into the battle to take out a squad or two. At this point I can focus on objective taking with the Tacticals and Scouts or if in a kill point game then focus on the easy kills (errant transports are a good one)

I'm still working on refining some of the ways I play the army. A good example was that I always deployed my Lysander with the terminators but I noticed my command squad was getting stalked and dying in CC. I now am experimenting with keeping my Lysander with the command squad to deter assaults or at the very least lock an assaulting unit for a while.

It is really hard to resist the urge to tweek and swap out units, but I think I need to really focusing on how to deploy, maneuver, and ultimately win battles.

Rix