Hot Heart

I didn't find the humour particularly great in that Deadpool trailer (Posh Spice and Rosie O'Donnell references? How long has the script been in development?) but it did look entertaining.

Congrats! I swear I've not got 100 wins in crucible, but I did get a bunch more from Iron Banner last week. Either way, the emblem is miiiine. Our fireteam managed to do the 35 pretty well this week (beat Skolas on the first run), considering none of us were using our mains. The week before was a goddamn nightmare because my cousin kinda sucks and has really bad ideas. "There's not enough cover, we should go over here..." *runs off to a worse spot and dies, team gets overwhelmed and wipes* Key thing is communication though, really. Keeping everyone up to speed on the poison timers, calling out new enemy waves and majors. I guess I kinda assume the leader role. Definitely helps to have the small arms modifier on Skolas himself, really; which we didn't have last week. Toughest round is usually Fallen - Eliminate Target, but as long as you have a Titan with Helm of Saint-14, you can pop a blinding bubble outside the spawn door and just shotgun that bastard. I only died 9 times throughout the whole session (and one of them was a lag issue where I killed a minotaur and then got hit by two more shots, while another was a sort of self-sacrifice to destroy a mine). I think you only really need 2 Elder Ciphers, since the sidearm is pretty rubbish or at least not worth an exotic slot. If you haven't finished them, then you'll still need to run PoE to get the points from bosses. The 28 takes ages because it doesn't award many points, so I think you need to do two or three 34s and or a couple of 35s. What sucks is the really low chance of getting an elemental primary from Skolas. Three completions and not a single drop now.

P cool.

In case you missed it. This is pretty funny. "Inverted people are weird."

The only thing that has me concerned is the immediate impact of untethering gear light levels from character level. As in, everyone gets put back to level 20. It sounds plausible in that the start of "Year One" was 0-20, so Year Two would begin with 20-40 but how that relates to the current endgame stuff is what makes or breaks it. Will no one be able to tackle the Nightfalls and things right away or will they change that so potentially everyone can?

Good summary of all the new stuff. Sounds pretty positive.

I am confused. I could've sworn I already collected a Judgment's Package from Variks the other day (since I haven't done anything to earn rep with him since two weeks ago) but there was another one waiting for me that straight up gave me an etheric light...

And you called the Zoolander film trailer a waste of a minute and a half...

Actually put some time into Iron Banner this week and got the things I wanted (shader and chestpiece) so now I'm happy with how badass I look. I was actually doing pretty well, considering I hardly touch PvP. Sure, I'm using Thorn for most games but then so is 90% of the playerbase, it seems. Just helps when it's so friggin' laggy. I am torn between PvP exotic pieces though. I used to use voidfang vestments because spawning with a seeking grenade usually guarantees a kill, even if it is post-mortem. However, I am really digging The Ram, because that extra bit of armour plus having life steal on all melees can really tip things over the edge when it gets chaotic. The number of times I've survived hardcore scraps, where I'm clinging to a bit of health but took out 3-4 guys is awesome. You can even see me survive a Titan getting in the first punch just past the two minute mark here:

http://imgur.com/US93Vea

I don't think it was a particularly great trailer, but Zoolander has a special place in my heart. Lots of great lines and simple gags; I guess it's more caught up in being able to reference it among people you know.

Love it! I never seem to get clear shots like that, but then I'm never really intercepting in the middle; I'm always at the sides and corners. Like the overtime clincher in that other clip I posted, I don't think I'll ever be able to top this.

A few sound like general midlands/northern things. I heard a few of those while I was in Leicester. It was funny hearing the kid who lived next door greet you with, "'Ey up" I never use any of those terms you just mentioned, although I know "a gander" = "a look" I know bog, flippin' 'eck, flummox, mardy (bum), nowt (wi' out), 'ow do?, and reight (as "reet") though only ever use a couple myself. Flaggin' and courtin' are just those words said with an accent though. Funny that "chuddy" is chewing gum, because my dad calls it that, but I'm sure he got it from Goodness Gracious Me ("kiss ma chuddy!"). Which reminds me that I bought my dad some "ras malai" recently, because he used to copy that from the show as well.

Played our first game of Legendary with five players. I should point out that we've been using a suggested variant, after many highlighted how much tougher the game is when there are more than four players. Put simply, for every player over 3, replace one of the starter SHIELD agents with a SHIELD officer (aka. Maria Hill). So, a standard starter hand gives you 4 fight, and 8 recruit across 12 cards, while in a five-player game you'll have 4 fight and 10 recruit across 12 cards. Not a major change, but helps get you going. And it was definitely needed, because it can be brutal. I used a smart randomiser from the Play store, and it seems to work pretty well. It has generally selected masterminds, schemes and heroes that play off each other in interesting ways. In this one, we had shenanigans with bystanders while a couple of the heroes worked well with that, we had Nick Fury who could chain off SHIELD cards and a few covert hero options for tackling the potential penalties. Star-Lord - who I'd just got in the GotG expansion - seemed pretty useless without the rest of the team, but he had some benefits. Mr. Sinister built up a massive attacking rating thanks to nabbing bystanders, but I snagged the rare Black Widow card which allowed an automatic KO on him for having bystanders which helped us fight back after a crushing start with lots of discards and villain-with-bystander escapes. It was close in the end, and the game went on a bit too long, but we won. The new player pipped me for victory with his last turn (before we did the showdown that I won), but had built a pretty solid deck, considering. I liked how we sort of had to work together among the total chaos, and the deckbuilding and strategic choices shone through. Then we moved onto Small World. I played as nice as I could, which meant others left me alone quite a bit. Some Beserker Ratmen and Sea-faring Pixies (on a wave of mutilation...) saw me to a comfortable 93 point victory. Yay.

The aforementioned amazing comeback. Nearly three minutes of overtime did my nerves in. Watch for the most epic Epic Save at 4:30 (and some pretty great goalkeeping from my teammates... after the early blunders)

Will have to share a replay of this amazing game I played last night. One friend has played it quite a bit and makes for a great goalie (but can also make a good break and score) while the other friend is relatively new. Our session started off a bit crappy as the newer friend and I could not coordinate; we kept going for the same thing, crashing into each other, not having anyone centre when it gets played across goal. I knew my strength was interference, winning the ball and getting it to the goal (I think I have more assists than anything else) so I essentially nominated myself as midfielder/winger and the other friend as centre forward. After that, we had proper teamwork down pat. Amazing goalie, and some pretty well coordinated goal-scoring. In-between that, we worked well at covering each other and were making some pretty good saves/clear balls. Then we ran into this team who were just a little better than the rest; they didn't fumble when the ball reached their corners like many do, and they could really press the attack. We went 3-0 down fairly early on. However, I noticed it was the same guy scoring every time (hard to miss that) and so made it my duty to fuck. his. shit. up every chance I got. Whenever there was an awkward air ball or some scuffle in the corner, I diverted focus to bashing our opponents around. Not demolishing them, especially not while defending, because that actually tends to give them a decent perspective on things and a chance to build up momentum when they respawn, but nudging them here and there (although, I literally drove one guy up the wall). And it worked! We clawed it back to 3-3 and it went into overtime. That went on for ages and was the most tense part of the whole affair, especially since I completely missed a sitter right after kick-off (when it happens unexpectedly and you can't quite get around the ball enough to get it on target...) The ball went back and forth, with some great saves until I managed to hop the ball along the back-right corner and follow it up as it dropped in front of the goal, edging it over the two guys there. Totally fist-pumped afterwards. It really was an awesome team effort. tl;dr Never underestimate the value of blocking/nudging your opponents instead of going after the ball.

Finally got around to finishing this 100%. I loved it for the most part, though I'd be hesitant to say it's my favourite of the series. It reaches the highest highs but also possibly the lowest lows. You get the "full" Batman experience, and the ways in which you get to feel like a total badass are immense (particularly when facing the more challenging militia watchtowers and checkpoints). While at the same time, the batmobile stuff is a little too overused and they fucking recycle the worst boss battle in the game. It sounds like I actually enjoyed the batmobile stuff more than most people, though. Managed to do all the Riddler challenges without help (I thought the colour-word sequence memory thing was going to break my brain, but I actually did it on the first try) and the one I actually got stuck on the longest was... realising I had to fly through the middle of a giant doughnut. p.s. Thanks, TCP, for the tip about using first-person batmobile on that last Riddler course (much needed for nailing the wall ride part on lap 3). One big gripe was how the upgrades were sorted (or not kept active after City). There wasn't really any logic to it, and I spent pretty much the whole game without that upgrade where special moves become available after x5 combo rather than x8 which makes a huge difference and really would've helped towards the end. The ending was a little... eh, and I guess it's thematic more than anything. I'm interested to see what Rocksteady do next (I really wish they got to make a ninja turtles game).

If all of Groot's cards do not say "I am Groot" then I will be disappointed.

Played Legendary again, this time with a randomly generated scheme involving Kingpin and a Skrull Invasion. Much more enjoyable and interesting than the first/intro session, especially since it made use of the Bribe mechanic. This added extra layers with regards to whether you recruit a high value hero to stop them potentially becoming a tough to defeat Skrull, but also risk running the hero deck down completely. I also got a Thing card, which meant recruiting could be turned into fighting. Definitely looking forward to trying all the crazy combinations the game has. We followed that up with DC Deckbuilding Game. Heh. As before, I don't think this does as much new, but way more enjoyable than Dominion. Heroes were randomly dealt, and I was mocked for receiving Aquaman... but he actually seems a little overpowered. Because any cards of value 5 or lower I purchased got to go on top of my deck, I was managing to buy a bunch of cards and then utilise them the next turn. Works really well when you get a location that will get to be deployed and utilised straight away. The others managed to stifle me with some attack cards against which I only really had (or could've bought) one, but some other buys saw me able to eliminate some and the weaker elements of my deck. For the first time, I think I actually built a decent deck, and I won. Then we tried out the new ships for Firefly, along with the new setup and story cards. These are actually pretty cool, because one involves starting with $12k and actually having to buy your ship, plus choosing how much starting fuel and parts you want. The new ships are very expensive, but they start with some decent upgrades and have some cool abilities. The story card also played pretty quick because you don't deal with the contacts, or have a hand of jobs, but instead everyone can work the one face-up job each contact gets. The first person to get 5 solid reputations with different contacts (Blue Sun means there are 7 potential) wins. That way, everyone's racing around, trying to beat people to jobs and there's a bit of tension when a piracy job shows up or someone risks attaching a Mr. Universe challenge to a job. A lot of fun, and it does make me think that Meridian is actually a pretty strong starting place (after I did well there last game). Ended pretty close, with some of us maybe 2-3 turns behind the winner (who got lucky with an easy one-stop job precisely where he started.. Meridian). Then we played a Loot Crate version of Superfight, but that hardly bears mentioning. Then we went for Shadows Over Camelot, which I'd never played before. Very pretty game, but it just feels like a heap of window-dressing. I mean, it sells the tension really well but the actual gameplay is very dry and slow. We didn't have a traitor and were close to losing, but instead just held out until enough stuff failed, in order to fill the round table in our favour. I think Homeland achieves almost the same thing in a neater package. Also surprised that the friends who hate Dead of Winter, like this...

Roll for the Galaxy By and large, I find every game I've played where the main mechanic is dice-rolling to be complete garbage, e.g. Elder Sign, Ninja Dice. Thankfully, this actually has some depth and flexibility. You have your pool of dice, and some starting worlds and tech which provide extra dice, abilities, benefits then you're simply rolling certain symbols that align with different actions to accrue the most points. It took me about half the game to actually learn the rhythm of it, so I was doing pretty crap overall. I hadn't quite understood all the actions or the importance of getting money (and you get 1 free each turn/round anyway) to regain your dice to roll again, so I think most dice I ever got to roll were 5 while others were getting about 7-8. I think I had a bit of bad luck with some of the techs/worlds I drew; which were just kinda lame and no real combos. I mean, look at this... I settled freaking Spice World... I also thing some of the language for abilities is misleading. It says can "reassign" workers when, technically, it's more like treating them as "wild" dice since you can't actually reassign them once they've been assigned. Overall though, not bad. I appreciate how the different dice offer different strengths, but then you don't exactly have full control over what you get. I'd be interested in trying it again now I've got a better handle on the rules (it should definitely move quicker), but it'll never quite be my sort of game.

Are you interested? Yep What Platform are you on? PS4 When can you do this? Most evenings (except Tuesdays because that's Destiny Reset Day) should be fine. Similar sort of time to Dean. 7pm GMT onwards. Format? No preference.