The Force Nods Off

by SandWyrm

Just got back from seeing Rogue One tonight, and I'm sad to say that it's not nearly as good as it could have been. While it beats any of the Prequels, I'm having a hard time deciding whether it beats out Return of the Jedi or not. Especially when it progresses so slowly that I was actually imagining a much better ending during the actual ending... never a good sign.

I Don't Like Playing Games for Fun, Apparently

By CaulynDarr

I basically want to destroy you with my brain while pretending to be someone else 

It's a quick little survey.  Interesting discussion fodder if nothing else.  Hasn't been much of that going on lately.

I'm not dead by the way, I just have a one year old...

Watch These Guys Build A Working Chain Sword!

by SandWyrm

How much does that thing weigh? No wonder they're not swinging it around!

Oh Yeah... GW's Financials Are Out...

by SandWyrm

With all of my preparations for Gencon, and general busy-ness elsewhere, I completely missed when GW released its financials for the year. If you were expecting any sort of big surprise on the financial end, you'll be disappointed. Sales & profits are down a bit (like each of the last few years), and dividends were cut. So you know... Same old same old. Nothing has changed in the long-term trends. Sales are up a little bit in North America & Asia, and down everywhere else. Royalties are back up (covering some for weak sales), and they've somehow found more operational expenses to cut to slightly increase their Operating Profit. Yawn...

The most entertaining bits though, as always, are in the chairman's introductions.

NuTrek 3 is Good Trek and Suicide Squad is a Bad Movie

By CaulynDarr

Sometimes a movies makes the whole series better, other times it makes everything worse.  Some minor spoilers may or may not follow.  You have been warned.

Oopsie! Posted Those To The Wrong Blog...

by SandWyrm

Oh well, I'll let them stay here and link over from the WarStrike Blog.

Preliminary WarStrike Test Units

Here's the Fallen/Republic units that I've worked up for testing. There's no points value for balancing yet, and you can pretty much just pick what you want (and even double up if you wish). For our demo game on Saturday each side took 5 units including their officers (those entries have rank insignias in the upper-right).

New Quick Reference Guide

It's been a month of craziness, what with Cub Scout camps, a family wedding, and my 3rd Sinus surgery just this past week. But I did get to meet (thanks to Farmpunk) a cool guy named Stephen McCormick who's just moved to Indy, and who's already started a miniature game company with some of his friends from various parts of Indiana and Illinois.

CBS & Paramount Finally Release Their Fan-Film Guidelines

by SandWyrm

I have no idea where the Axanar settlement talks are going right now, but CBS and Paramount have collectively released a new set of fan-film guidelines. Many of them are reasonable, some are a bit irksome, and a few are downright awful.

So I'll just go ahead and list them here, while I snowmobile my comments in. If you want to look at the original page of rules without my comments, follow this link.

Anyway, on with the snowmobiling...

Rock On Hydra! Rock On!

by SandWyrm

Now I have a 3D Printer.... Ho, Ho, Ho...

3D Printing Is About To Hit Mainstream Gaming

by SandWyrm

Several weeks ago, I got into a conversation with Hight, the owner of Sinclair Games (our FLGS), about 3D printing. Which included showing him my previous post on the female ganger minis that I'd bought from Shapeways. He was pretty impressed and wanted to find out more about it.

Cue a couple of Wednesdays ago, when I walked into the store to see him playing with a brand new filament printer (The Robo 3d above) which cost him around $800 on Amazon. He was downloading terrain models from Thingverse and trying to figure out how best to print them. With mixed results, but much enthusiasm. He's fully on board now with the idea of 3D printing replacing traditional metal/resin miniature production. He's just frustrated at the lack of usable models out there. 

But that's getting ready to change in some interesting ways...

Metal-Jet 3D Printing

by SandWyrm

Ran across this one today. Check out the tiny miniatures at the end.

A Priceless Axanar Lawsuit Parody

by SandWyrm

It's just too good not to share.

Legal Briefs are Much Better in the Original Klingon (Axanar Update)

By CaulynDarr

doink, doink

Paramount thinks they own the Klingon Language.  The Language Creation Society begs to differ. They have enlisted the help of First Amendment bad-ass Mark Randazza.

Rogue One Trailer

By CaulynDarr

I have few words.  Mostly just wow, wow, wow, freaking, and awesome.  Is it December yet?  

Batman vs Superman, Seriously Guys, It's Not That Bad

By CaulynDarr

I mean, yeah, it's kind of a mess.  But is is it Green Lantern levels of awfulness?  Despite what the meta scores are saying; it's more solid than the critics would have you think.

Is Trek a Dying Enterprise? (UPDATED)

by SandWyrm

With the recent brouhaha over Axanar, I got to wondering how the Trek franchise is actually doing from a financial standpoint. I mean... The 2009 reboot supposedly revitalized the franchise in a big way, right? Or is the truth, after looking at the historical budgets and gross returns, more disturbing?

Axanar: Round 2, FIGHT! (UPDATED)

by SandWyrm

Anyone remember this classic 1992 3DO/PC game? Clearly infringing!

In our last episode, CBS/Paramount had decided to sue Axanar Productions over their clearly infringing (to some extent) fan-kickstarted movie project to tell a story about a Trek-Universe battle that was mentioned once in passing by Captain Kirk during TOS. Even though there are over a dozen OTHER fan projects out there, from movies to episodic series, that infringe on Trek copyrights and trademarks at least as much, if not more than Axanar does.

But then Axanar countered with the assertions that CBS/Paramount's lawsuit wasn't specific enough in its claims (which it wasn't), that the ownership of certain IP elements is uncertain due to the split of CBS from Viacom (which owns Paramount), and that they can't be sued for an infringing work that they haven't even completed, much less published yet. Fair Enough.

Well, CBS/Paramount has pressed on, and has filed an amended lawsuit (thanks to David Heagney Jr. for the link) that includes much more specific copyright claims. While at least a third of them seem reasonable enough, most wander into GW vs. Chapterhouse territory by ridiculously claiming ownership of ideas, instead of specific expressions of those ideas.

Let's take a look at a selection of CBS/Paramount claims, and talk about what is, and is not defensible under copyright.

Star Trek: Axanar Fan-Film Sued?

by SandWyrm

I'm not sure how I missed this happening over a month ago, but it seems that CBS and Paramount have decided to sue Axanar Productions for the Star Trek: Axanar fan film they've been producing.

"The Axanar Works infringe Plaintiffs’ works by using innumerable copyrighted elements of Star Trek, including its settings, characters, species, and themes," states the complaint.

Well, yeah. Duh. We all knew that. But there's a problem for CBS/Paramount, because they've allowed a legal gray area to form around these fan productions for some time.

Team Yankee Russian T-72s and More

By CaulynDarr

I finished painting up my first batch of T-72.  I thought I'd show off some of the new Team Yankee models.  Sorry the pictures are a little dark.  I got a new camera for Christmas, and I'm still figuring out the settings.

Napoleon Versus Gandalf Versus Math (or Why Games Workshop Keeps Failing)

By CaulynDarr

Short Dead Dude

Sandwyrm and I have been using the Nottingham Style as short hand for everything we don't like coming out of, well, the game designers in Nottingham.  After Sandwyrm's recent critique of Gates of Antares and a run through of my copy of Warmaster: Ancients. I think I've finally quantified what it is about these game systems that often leave me unsatisfied.  And it all has to do with History.

GW Financials: Half-Year 2015

by SandWyrm

Still Treading Water

Well it's that time of year again. GW's half-year financials are out, and as usual it's a somewhat boring decline.