Dungeons and Drawings, session 2

The party was drawn in by the wiles of a snake-oil salesman, and victimized by a thief.

We tracked them down. Some of the party stealthed in, but the ranger and I tried a more groundbreaking method.

Raptor-Ranger distracted the enemy via beheading while I mopped up the rest.

Hypno-toad got scammed into buying a PTSD ostrich, while the normal people chipped in to buy a cart and horses.

The bandits holding a duke hostage were fooled by illusory gold. Too bad for them, our weapons were all too real.

Abigail snuck into the hostage room, and panicked the guards, sending them directly into the path of a warhammer fueled people's elbow.

I was immediately ensorcelled by the bandit's mages, but a combination of missile spam and raw destructive power saved the day!

Boom! And just like that I'm back. I'm going to be uploading some doodles from one of the D&D campaigns I play in so I can link the pictures to a forum, so have fun looking at my dumb drawings!

Here are the first few:

Our party, Moraa the Missile Mage, Baccara the Smashing Sneaker, Abagail the Warty Witch, Gatsu the Whirling Warrior, and Dar the Smelly Shapeshifter.

'

We've done well our first few battles.

A run-in with a horde of zombies and some really bad luck almost ended the streak of victories.

One more of my character, thematically based on Guts from Berserk.

SPRÜKITS Master Chief Review (Transferred from my other blog)

Hello, today I'll be reviewing Bandai's SPRÜKITS Master Chief, a level 2 kit with 109 pieces.

I picked him up at a local K-Mart for $22. 

 

The kit comes on five runners, three grey, one green, and a gold one for his face-shield. Construction is divided into his head, his torso, arms, and hips with legs; all instructions are full color illustration with no words.

The build is relatively simple, not requiring glue or paint. There is battle-damaged detail on his chest that could use some paint, but he looks fine without. All the pieces stay together really well, and the joints hold up to moderate posing without coming out of the sockets.

 

 

 

 

He's decently posable, but has some limits in his hips and forward/upward movement for his head. In order, he has: ball-joint head with a hinge at the collar, Figuarts style shoulders with a hinge forward, ball in cuff with hinge, bicep swivel, single-jointed elbow, and a ball wrist that pulls outward for full range of motion (hands include fists, gun holding hands, and a left splayed open hand). There is a poly-cap waist joint with good forward and back movement and swivel, but it is restricted side-to-side. The hips are Figuarts style as well, with a pull-down hinge-ball-swivel joint. He lacks a thigh swivel, but has nice double knees and somewhat limited ball ankles.

 

 

His assault rifle and pistol are nice, but the holding hands come apart in half then are put back together around the weapon. There is an optional peg on his back for the rifle to mount, and a clip for the pistol on his hip.

 

 

Chief stands about 5 inches tall. Pictured here next to a Marvel Legends, a McFarlane Chief, RevolMini Solid Snake, a Figma, and a Mega Bloks Spartan. The joints on mine are pretty sturdy. Heavier weapons like the sword below are taxing, but he'll hold a pose just fine.

 

Overall, SPRÜKITS Master Chief is a decent, if rather easy model kit, and a fun figure. I think he looks pretty good for a basic kit, but the price is a little steep compared to the McFarlane Spartans, which are much more detailed, but lack a lot of this kit's articulation. Putting him together took me around an hour without sanding down any nubs or doing any painting. Master Chief is a great first entry in this line, and I can't wait to try out Bandai's future releases, and maybe some of those higher grade kits they've shown. Thanks for reading my review; see you next time!

Halo 4 Series 1 Elite Zealot

     Finally getting around to reviewing it, the Elite Zealot from the upcoming Halo 4. What can I say, he's pretty badass. He's taller than your average elite, and sporting some pretty sweet armor. It reminds me of a crab's shell, orange and spiky. He's got pretty good articulation, as well, but can't hold his sword worth a damn.

 He's got four eyes sculpted into his helmet.

And four mandibles on his jaw.

 The arms are articulated at the shoulder, elbow, a swivel and a hinge at the wrist, and his two fingers move. Head moves as well, at the top and bottom of the neck.

 The energy sword is pretty awesome, too bad he can barely hold it. None of the other figures from the first series can hold it either.

His legs have weird articulation, but it works, because this Elite can actually stand on its own.

 His back is covered in plates of armor, adding to the new organic look of the Covenant troops. The Covenant's going green this time around.

 Dat ass.

He's got a peg for his sword on either leg, but it's so big it looks out of place.

 Everything about this figure is finely sculpted, especially the armor pieces.

 Party time!

 Bring it on.

Overall, a really good figure to add to your collection. Look for upcoming reviews of the other three in the series.

If I were a bard in skyrim, ...

Oh Great Dovah!

Who battles 'mongst the sky,

Hot do your fires burn,

Far-reaching are your cries!

Soar from peak to valley,

Marauding as you please,

Destroying any enemy with the utmost of ease!

The son of man, he stands up,

Bolstered by his cause.

As he inhales sharply,

Dearest Dovah, he does  pause;

For this man's peculiar:

He fears no flame or claw.

Dovah's life was forfeit when he shouted, "FUS RO DAH!"

Dragon's Dogma, guys.

Dragon's Dogma, a recent release by Capcom, had me wowed before it even came out. When I first glimpsed the announcement trailer for this bad boy, I had high hopes. And ever single expectation I had was met ten-fold. DD is a free roaming game with standard story-line (with a few plot-twists) and plenty of random baddies to beat up on.

You start of the game with a prologue/training level, where you play the first "Arisen", a chosen one/dragon-slayer of sorts. After that is character creation, which is very in-depth, going so far as to let you change height, weight, posture, and definition/shape of each major body part. You'll also build your main "Pawn", or sidekick a little ways into the game. The pawn mechanic makes up the online part of the game. Whenever you rest at an inn, your pawn is uploaded to be rented out by other players, scoring you rift crystals to spend on new accessories and skin dyes for your character, and to rent other pawns. Your main pawn will also bring back the knowledge they gained while off questing with strangers.

There are 9 classes in the game, two melee, two ranged, two magic, and three that combine the the rest, such as the Assassin, Magic Knight, and Magic Archer. The three special classes are only available to the player. On top of the staggering amount of creation and build customization, there is a massive amount of different armor in the game. 

The main draw of the game is the combat. It's a mix of hack-and-slash and strategy. The game world is full of random small critter, mostly goblins, wolves, harpies, and bandits. In certain areas, however, one is prone to finding larger enemies, bringing to light a interesting mechanic: climbing. The game lets you grab onto larger enemies and shimmy your way to their weak spots, bringing some strategy into these (sometimes excruciatingly) long battles. Unfortunately, when climbing the player has another battle on their hands; the game camera can be very finicky and a lot of the time you'll be trying to figure out which way you're pointing so you can climb up.

Overall, Dragon's Dogma is a really great game with some camera issues and a inclination to destroy players early on. You may have to resort to grinding on little baddies before you can take out your first chimera, and that can get a bit tedious. I recommend the game highly.

 

  

Oh, and the copy I got came with a voucher for early access to the demo for Resident Evil 6. Yeah, it's looking really good.