Saturday, February 29, 2020

Falling short

Thank goodness it's a leap year….

Thursday, February 27, 2020

All-In for Polar Bears

Monday, February 24, 2020

Forza Horizon 4 - Tips & Tricks | Pro-GamersArena.



As we probably are aware that Forza Horizon 4 is out now for the individuals who pre-ordered the upgraded version of the game, and it'll be out in full for everybody on PC and Xbox one week from now. So in this Forza Horizon 4 control, we'll be strolling you through the entire rundown of fundamental tips and tricks which you have to know going into the game. What's more, let me disclose to you Forza Horizon 4 is right now the best open world racer game made in these couple of years.

Forza Horizon 4 Tips & Tricks :

How to Unlock Fast Travel Anywhere in Forza Horizon 4.


Driving anyplace in Forza Horizon 4 is gigantic measures of fun as you get the chance to see the excellent open world, incredible taking care of and lovely autos, at times you simply need to get some place in a moment, deserting all the mission that is going on. 

Ideal from the beginning of the game you can quickly make a trip to occasions and different spots of intrigue you've found for a cost (except if you've discovered the majority of the quick travel sheets, at that point it's free), yet to quick travel totally anyplace, you have got some work to do. 


Picture of location of Fairlawn Manor 
With the end goal to open the capacity to movement quick anyplace in Forza Horizon 4, you have to buy a reasonably costly home that is toward the south of Edinburgh. 

Fairlawn Manor will cost you like 2,000,000 credits, which means you most likely wouldn't get it until you've made a not too bad scratch into the game. Yet at the same time it merits doing , as it empowers you to movement quick completely anyplace on the guide, or, in other words. Particularly once you've discovered all the quick travel sheets so it turns out to be allowed to utilize. Purchasing Fairlawn Manor additionally grants you with 10 Super Wheelspins, or, in other words, and a Silver Top Hat for the individuals who get a kick out of the chance to dress their symbol up in style. 

How to Download DLC Cars in Forza Horizon 4.

In the event that you've acquired a unique release of Forza Horizon 4, or on the off chance that you claim the auto go for game, at that point you may consider how to get your hands on a portion of those superb elite DLC vehicles, similar to the James Bond autos. To get to a rundown of DLC autos in Forza Horizon 4, you'll right off the bat need to make a beeline for either the primary Festival Site amidst the guide, or a House. 


With the end goal to buy the autos, first you need a houses and they are not difficult to establish, you simply need to continue seeking them on maps while driving around, and once you've discovered a House, you'll at that point have the capacity to buy it utilizing CR (despite the fact that they're normally entirely costly, which means you presumably wouldn't purchase until you've made an OK gouge into the game.). Either visit the Festival Site in Forza Horizon 4, or visit a house you've acquired, and you'll have the capacity to see a rundown of all the accessible DLC autos that you can download.


There's one thing you have to remember that while the vast majority of the DLC autos in Forza Horizon 4 are accessible for nothing once you've acquired their comparing development packs, some will cost you CR to get. These are typically the more first class autos, similar to the James Bond Aston Martin DB10, in which case you'll need to get out on the streets and procure some CR through races and different occasions. 

This may be the finish of our initial Forza Horizon 4 guide for the time being, however there's bounty more to cover on the game presently. We'll be refreshing this guide at a later date, when we reveal any extra subtle elements in the game.

Till then keep sharing and tell your friends too, to "ENTER THE PRO-BROS ARENA"

Sunday, February 23, 2020

Testing Esoteric Lists: Gunny & Madrak2


Last night I was able to get an astounding two games in and as I was heading to my FLGS I decided I didn't want to just run the popular pairing of Madrak1 and Borka2, mainly because I've played a ton of Madrak1 already and while Borka2 is fairly new for me I have had a few rounds with him already.  I just wanted to try some lists that were of my own design that I thought were interesting and possibly strong.

So in I went with a "pairing" to put down into whoever I was playing against: Gunnbjorn and Madrak2.

I'll tackle each list and the match up in turn.

Gunny 

Trollblood - Gunny Goes North

Theme: Storm of the North
2 / 2 Free Cards     75 / 75 Army

Captain Gunnbjorn - WB: +28
-    Trollkin Runebearer - PC: 0
-    Dozer & Smigg - PC: 18 (Battlegroup Points Used: 18)
-    Dire Troll Bomber - PC: 19 (Battlegroup Points Used: 10)
-    Dire Troll Mauler - PC: 15

Hearthgut Hooch Hauler - PC: 18

Bog Trog Mist Speaker - PC: 4
Valka Curseborn, Chieftain of the North - PC: 0

Krielstone Bearer & Stone Scribes - Leader & 5 Grunts: 9
-    Stone Scribe Elder - PC: 3
Northkin Raiders - Leader & 9 Grunts: 15
Swamp Gobber Bellows Crew - Leader & 1 Grunt: 2

I was really excited about this list since it seems like it can clear a lot of infantry off the board or shoot a heavy off the table.  I've been dying to find a way to make the module of Hauler + Raiders work, and I feel giving them Snipe via Gunny or Grim2 is the way to really make them shine.

I put this pair up vs. my friend Brian who was coming back to playing Khador after 8 months of playing Circle and a lot of other games.  He had Butcher3 with Jacks Galore and a Zerkova 2 list with lots of Greylords and a smattering of Doom Reavers.  I really wanted to try Gunny and on discussion of the matchup it was clear that Zerkova 2 would get shot down pretty hard on the approach before she could really do any damage, plus most of my army is going to be Cold Immune, meaning he had to drop Butcher.  Madrak is probably the better Butcher3 drop, but I wanted to see how Gunny would match up.

Brian's list from memory was roughly:

Butcher 3
-Wardog
-Berserker
-Berserker
-Ruin
-Grolar

Forgeseer
-Behemoth

Forgeseer

Eliminators
Eliminators
Mechanics 

Brian won the roll off and elected to go first.  Scenario was Outlast.

After running his army into position up the field on turn 1, I replied by feating early to avoid the Behemoth clearing out swathes of my Raiders and running to be just out of Brian's threat ranges.

Thanks to Dozer's animus I was able to get lucky drifts/boosts onto one member of each unit of Eliminators and take their gang bonus off the table.  Still I was being a bit too timid by staying out of his threat ranges and I had blocked up my Hooch Hauler behind my Raiders making the order of activation awkward on this and the following turns.

On Brian's second turn he simply positions to threaten the entire zone and moves Butcher on to the central flag on his side. He moves Ruin into some rough ground for cover and positions both Argus centrally to threaten as well. 


On my second turn I decide that Ruin and both of the Argus must die to take away relentless charge from Butcher so I can use Rockwall to try and control him plus the drags.
 
I'm able to kill both Ruin and the Argus, but it takes literally everything my army has to do it with. I made a mistake and failed to contest Brian's flag and we both go up a point.  I use a Rockwall to prevent Butcher from being able to charge/move+impending doom any of my heavies in, so Brian elects to keep him on the flag for the turn and merely runs or sends in what Jacks he can to jam me up.  He does clear one zone and manages to score it however. Still, far too much of his force is out of threat ranges and his ranged attacks don't do too much work on the Raiders. 

At this point we start doing trades, and I'm able to tie the score on CP's, but I make a mistake with Gunny and move him too far forward to where he is in danger of the Butcher and I forgot to cast my Rockwall. I do end up decently ahead on Attrition, though Butcher can swing things back around had Brian not gone for an assassination. 

Sadly for Brian his dice manage to fail him completely and Butcher is left engaged with a Bomber and Gunny in melee and concedes based on the fact that Butcher has zero camp and will likely get splattered. 

In hindsight I should have lost this game on two fronts: First the assassination should have worked as a punish for my mistake, and second if Brian was simply more aggressive just running literally every Jack at my list, I don't think I'm able to effectively trade pieces and take what is necessary before the Butcher can come in and remove all threats to himself and then just seal the game from there. I'm sure if this wasn't his first game with Khador in 8 months I'd have been splattered pretty handily.

While I think the list seemed great on paper, it doesn't bring a lot of bodies to the game. Perhaps my feelings are colored by the matchup being bad overall and with better placement of the Raiders and Hauler I would have more game against other lists on the same scenario, but this will require testing and a skeptical eye to see how things are.


Madrak2
 
Trollblood - Madrak2 Toughallo

Theme: Band of Heroes
3 / 3 Free Cards     74 / 75 Army

Madrak Ironhide, World Ender - WB: +28
-    Trollkin Runebearer - PC: 0
-    Dire Troll Mauler - PC: 15 (Battlegroup Points Used: 15)
-    Dire Troll Bomber - PC: 19 (Battlegroup Points Used: 13)

Fell Caller Hero - PC: 0
Fell Caller Hero - PC: 0
Eilish Garrity, the Occultist - PC: 5

Krielstone Bearer & Stone Scribes - Leader & 5 Grunts: 9
-    Stone Scribe Elder - PC: 3
Trollkin Long Riders - Leader & 4 Grunts: 20
Trollkin Long Riders - Leader & 4 Grunts: 20
Kriel Warriors - Leader & 9 Grunts: 11

I was/am really excited about this Madrak2 list. My initial thoughts with the caster is to pretend I'm a MK2 Cryx player and jam in 2x Fennblades + 2x Kriel Warriors + solos and run screaming at my opponent.

Then I got to thinking about how while other warlocks can deliver units like the Long Riders, a unit I absolutely adore, no one really makes them hit any harder and while they're very strong, they're not going to just blow up a heavy without any buffs.  Plus the problem with a 40+ dude infantry swarm with Madrak2 is it lacks basically any relevant guns and it's not very hard for enemy shooting to continually clear off my infantry. Once the Fennblades have been hit, the Kriel Warriors will get out paced and likely shot up pretty hard.  This would turn things into a game of "Who won to go first".

With the Long Riders I should still be able to chew through enemy models and also withstand enough shooting to do serious damage once the lines meet.  Initially the list had two units of Kriel Warriors to back up the Long Riders, but I decided the list was susceptible to control and I threw Ellish in. With the extra points I upgraded my Earthborn to a Bomber to get some ranged presence which I really found to be helpful. 

I played this list into Sean, someone who I've met but haven't played against.  He dropped Skarre1 Dark Host into me:

Skarre1
-Scarlock
-Inflictor
-Stalker
-Stalker

Wraith Engine

Bane Riders
Bane Knights
Min Bane Warriors + CA

Darragh
Necrotech
Tartarus

Scenario was Standoff and Sean won the roll to go first.

This game ended up being a bit of a back and forth with some key positioning elements due to equivalent threat ranges on our Cav and my spacing models out properly to avoid a Stalker being able to kill multiple Long Riders without issue.

I won the game in the end, but part of that could have been due to the fact that Sean had deployed Darragh with the infantry units on the flank opposite the Bane Riders, so we shared a threat range rather than him having an advantage.  He also apparently didn't know that Long Riders could slam models, and so I was able to eliminate all of his Bane Riders in exchange for sacrificing only one of my Long Riders.  It should be noted that Blood Fury'd Bull Rush slams, when knocking the slam target into another model or terrain is very strong.   Still Sean was very careful to only feed me feated on Bane Knights for my feat turn, and spaced appropriately with his other units in reserve to prevent me from getting too far ahead on attrition. I suspect if we played again this game would be much tougher and far more favored to the player who wins the roll to go first based on how each of our lists were designed.

I know I could play this list in Storm of the North to get extra speed on my units, but I think having Band of Heroes for the extra 2" and Takedown/RFP is absolutely crucial in the meta ATM.  Right now Trolls are balanced in that we can either speed up our Long Riders or we can buff their damage, but we can't do both. I do think the unit has a lot of untapped potential, and since I own two units of them now, I want to experiment a lot with them.

Conclusions

After both games I am more optimistic about Madrak2's list than I am about Gunny.  I am not sure how I feel about leading with my Cav up front, but I do know that making Long Riders weapon masters makes it so that they can easily kill any heavy on the charge with the usual amount that can get into one via positioning rather than not.  They also are fairly well positioned to be able to handle infantry due to Bull Rush.

As for Gunny, I think he just needs more testing. It may well be that what I have is sufficient, but man does it ever feel like having just more units to be able to throw into zones is the way to go.  Melee also just feels much stronger than guns at being able to do what is necessary: Jam up and piece trade, so as to allow Trolls the ability to play the Attrition game we're supposed to be very good at.  Guns still have a lot of value, but it's more about being able to snipe out a key model in a zone or scalpel out an important support solo or CA/WA/etc.

Still, I really want to find a way to make the Hauler + Raider package work well, it just seems like it should be so good on paper. I believe Grim2 is the next place to look with them, but I'm having trouble rounding out a SotN list that I like that includes that module.

Friday, February 21, 2020

Suzy Cube Update: April 20, 2018

#SuzyCube #gamedev #indiedev #madewithunity @NoodlecakeGames 
Finishing touches were the name of the game this week. As we begin to firm up dates internally, it's time to start locking things down. As such, this week was my last chance to fix niggling issues in levels.
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I need to be open with you

Thursday, February 20, 2020

TOP 10 MOVIES OF 2019


The new year is here, and so Top 10 season is upon us. The tradition is to rank media in a seemingly arbitrary fashion so here's my oh-so personal list of moves faves that came out 2019. What will be number 1? Read on to find out...

Read more »

WHERE TO GO FROM HERE - PART 2


As I eluded to in the last post, I am working through the numbers trying to decide if an episodic production and release through Kickstarter is a viable option.

So, we now have a course and a destination… Which honestly is a very welcome and refreshing change.



Why use Kickstarter?
As a marketing platform it allows to reach a wider audience, not just my current customers but those new to the hobby and those who never knew DreamForge was even a 'thing'. I think we all know that the train has stalled, and its going to take a lot of effort and lots of attention to get it rolling again. Perhaps there will be a time that I can move off the Kickstarter platform, but for now… The broader exposure is required. This exposure comes at a price, Between the Kickstarter fees, the currency transaction fees and the backer support fees in the form of a post Kickstarter service to collect shipping and allow backers to add items or options, we are looking at near 10% in fees alone.

Expectations:
Not every Kickstarter campaign will succeed, that's OK. If the demand for a particular kit is not there, then its not… No harm no foul, we move on to the next product offering. I completely expect for there to be unfunded projects that never make it to plastic and possibly (if there was enough interest) may see a resin release instead. There will be changes to how DreamForge approaches on hand inventory and even they type of products offered, not all offerings need to be Iron Core specific, it provides far more flexibility in product development than making sure each product fits neatly into the project I have already started. If I get an itch to do…well anything, it gives a platform to see if all of you are also interested.

How will that work? And what does that look like from the customers side?
The plan is to have a very focused Kickstarter for a single product, its actual production costs and any profits expected will need to be folded into the funding goal. This is a strong departure from the retail model, where revenues are gained over time and the investment/debt is front loaded.

Product availability outside the initial Kickstarter will be limited, 10% to 20% beyond the total needed to fulfill the Kickstarter will be run, some of that will be soaked up by the inevitable issues, damaged kits, mispacked or missing items from a kit and kits that never make it to the backer and get lost in transit. 

There may be re-runs offered on popular kits in future Kickstarter's, but there will be minimums that need to be met, typically a 500 unit run will be needed. If I feel that the kit will sell, I may assist with purchasing some of that re-run myself, to provide stock on hand. The best way for a customer to approach this is to buy what you want and what you think you will need at the time of the offering, I cannot make a promise that there will be a second run if the overall interest is not there.

Customers will need to pay for the actual shipping costs for the products they back.
Shipping, as we all know is stuuupid expensive from the US to anywhere outside its borders. Each Kickstarter will be shipped directly from China to mitigate the expense to the customer as much as possible, this means most of the world will likely see a drastic cost reduction, but the US will see an increase. Why don't I just ship the US from the US? Well, because it's a hidden cost, one that would need to be calculated into the Kickstarter… Someone has to pay to get it to the US before it could be sent out from our warehouse, add to this the staffing costs, the shipping package costs and overhead, and it becomes a real issue that has not been factored into the per kit price… We are running as lean as possible, to provide a per kit price that is as low as possible, there will be no room for uncalculated expenses.

How are the Kickstarter's structured?
This is open for revision, but the plan is to absorb the costs and required profits into a 1000 minimum unit run. If it costs $40,000 for the molds, production, boxes and services, then the cost of each unit would be $40.00. 

What happens if a Kickstarter goes nuts and the total funding far outstrips the required funding goal? Do you get a discount? Discounts will be offered when you pick up multiple kits, not by the overall success of a product. Those are profits that get re-invested to make DreamForge healthy, to pay for game development, to pay for additional stock, to help pay for re-release of the current line of kits, as those tools will need to be re-cut at some point. I am not pulling the discount off the table, but for the foreseeable future, I have a lot of catching up to do and core development that needs to happen for DreamForge to grow and thrive.

I want to be clear, this is not going to be a song and dance Kickstarter model, there 'may' be extras offered if there is room on the sprues, ( I will try to pack them the best that I can) but anything extra in the form of products adds to the costs and I am not bulking the costs to deal with that. I am trying to keep the price per kit to you as low as I possibly can.

Longer term with the releases and stock on hand.
Obviously, this model does is not ideal for some aspects of brand development, limited supply concerns may not be ideal but it's not unusual when we look around the industry and other companies that made their way on Kickstarter. I am not GW, I do not have their sales volume or the resources available to behave like GW. Please understand that expecting a small manufacture in plastic to be able to behave and function as one of the top two or three in the industry, may not really be a reasonable expectation. I will strive to get there, but until the financial aspect of that shift make sense, I will be doing what is best for the growth of the company with the resources available. 

I think we can all agree, that Iron Core needs at least two to three full factions, terrain and a rules set, so as we move through these requirements, I will try to weight when it becomes viable as its own free standing IP. The goal is to grow the brand, expand the product offering, make available some of the older kits and even start to offer some options for those not interested in Iron Core. Fantasy, Cyberpunk and a myriad of other avenues are available and the wider the base of offerings, the more stable the base.
All of this is dependent on me, making what you want, delivered at a reasonable price within a reasonable time.

I am very excited about the prospect and the future. I am really looking forward to exploring your 'needful things' and if they can be created and successfully funded in an episodic, backer driven environment. I hope that you join be on this new course and help guide my had in future releases.

Soooo many itches to scratch, so little time :P



I will be reaching out in a few locations looking for honest feedback and direction from all of you.


  • Through surveys sent to my mailing list… So please sign up on the DreamForge-Games website if you have not.

  • Through my Facebook group DreamForge-GamesArtist Retreat  (please do not try to message me here) For whatever reason FB and I do not sync well…. I must be an old fart, not a huge fan of FB or twitter :P

  • On Dakka Dakka (I could start my own forum but it's a waste of energy, at least at this stage)

  • And, well...here but its not very good for two way conversations.