Free Hack issue 1 - September 2008

 In a further effort to reduce my reading backlog, we are looking at Free Hack issue 1 today.

Free Hack is the irregularly published magazine by Ganesha Games (from the Song of... series), and the first issue was a 27 page magazine.

Beginning with the editorial, they introduced us to the magazine and what the goals where of it, bringing FAQ's, experimental and official rules, and more along those lines as company made magazines tended to do.  I as such starts as a first article with a questionnaire about Song of Blades and Heroes.  This is quite a long FAQ article going over all the phases of the game and any ammends and clarifications that might be needed.

Afterwards, we get some cool houserules, like variations on the summoner, necromancer and such, and what if you can't recoil due to lack of space.  

In the following article, they take a look on the release plans for 2009, before going with an article to convert your movement to hex based movement.

In an article about new units, the Frogfolk make their appearance in this issue, complete with a fully fleshed out army list, and their own scenario to face the Silva who raided their homeland and stole their totem.

In Dispatches from the Rad-Zone, we get errata, rulings and FAQ's for MDRG due to their newest released expanion, Assault on Neo Tokyo.

That concludes this very first magazine, which was okay to read (the FAQ's long being outdated, that happens when you read something 16 years after release) but the Frog People where an epic article!

It's freely downloadable from Wargame Vault, so check it out if you like!

Battlefleet Gothic The Book of Nemesis

 Good old Battlefleet Gothic, up there with Mordheim in the summun of classic Games Workshop games that remained alive thanks to the community.

And that community created the Book of Nemesis, an unofficial supplement to the game (that is widely played), edited my Marcin K. Gerkowicz.

The book is a compilation of rules published on the Cypra Probatii fanportal, born from an idea all the way back in 2007.  

It begins with the history of the Nemesis sector, an often unnoticed and not really strategic important sector in space.  The story goes through the rise and fall of the prosperities in the sector, and how it became a bounty field for pirates after a huge battle, the Battle of Consterfield's Nebula, had left the Imperial Navy with to heavy losses to keep the shipping lanes safe.  Hence why today, it is called the Age of Rum in the Nemesis sector.

The greatest conflict as such in the sector in the 41st millenium is called the Pirate War, with rebelling planets, profiteers and renegades abound.  Next to these rebellious rag-tag fleets, the Eldar Pirate-prince Avercenna also operates in the sector, often coming to blows with the weak forces of the Navy of the shamble fleets of the pirates.  Add to that the scattered remains of a liberating crusade and the ever present thread of the greenskins, and this whole sector is a volatile powder keg without any regulations.

The book then moves to the various vessels operating in the Nemesis sector that make up these fleets, starting with the mighty Chaos Blasphemer battleship class, but also light cruisers for the Chaos forces.  These mostly represent the various renegade and traitor vessels, older lighter ships then the regular cruisers of the Gothic sector.

Facing them on the Imperial side are two new Battleship classes and a battlecruiser, together with a light firgate.  But the Inquisition Black Ship is also operating alongside them, the personal vessel of an high ranked inquisitor of the Ordo Xenos, together with the Grey Knights.

We get more vessels for the other races in the sector, the Eldar, T'au, Necron and dark Eldar, before moving to the defense platforms of the sector.

Next up are the fleet lists, mixing the newly presented vessels with some of the original Gothic vessels (no Planet Killer's you Chaos followers!) to represent the pirate fleets of the sector, together with any special rules for those fleets to give them their unique flavour.

There is also a full campaign, the Gehenna campaign, with all the necessary scenarios and tables, as well as a set of historical scenarios based on events from the Nemesis sector.  Another form of scenarios included are Tournament scenarios, for balanced battles in, yup, a competitive setting.

A well executed supplement and a fun to read, bring back old memories of the fantastic game.  Drop by on their website, or do a quick google, and have a look at this book for sure!

Highspeed Etoile

 Sometimes you find an anime series by accident, and this is one such case.

While strolling through my regular viewing service for some series that came out this season, I suddenly bounced upon this one.

I had no idea another racing series was on the horizon, but never the less I sat back and gave it a watch.

In the near future, NEX Race is a new racing series that allows safe racing at over 500 km/hr.  Rin Rindou, who recently gave up her dream of becoming a ballet dancer, became a NEET who accidentally is thrown into this world of next generation racing.  These races are a whole spectacle, where young upcommers try to defeat the undisputed champion that emerged within the 5 years the racing class exists, with only Alice, aka Queen, being able to compete with him.

 

Rin makes her debut, getting through qualifying for her first race.   Forced by the memories of her past, she makes a great impression on her debut to prevent ending up in last place on her debut race.  But when she is lapped, she mistakingly thinks someone is still behind her.  As "King" laps her, she goes all out to overtake him again, As a result she is disqualified though as she didn't know the fundamental rules of clearing away when lapped.

 

Rin is contacted by Alice, who wants to help her out with simulator training and all, but Rin has no idea who she actually is.  Thinking she is a racing fan gamer that beats her on the simulator, she learns some tricks to control her heartrate and focus.  Alice wants to know though how Rin passed the King in the race she got disqualified.  Rin keeps struggling though, but in the park she unknowingly meets King who is looking to visit a vintage toy store, as he ran from a fundraiser event.  They end up at the restaurant her grandma runs, letting him taste her signature dish to his great enjoyment.  They manage to find the kaiju toy, as he confides in her he misses his son due to work.  He knows who she is, then introduces himself causing her to blush as hell for not recognizing him.

Then at last she starts putting on a strong performance, thanks in no small part due to their AI.  She gets in the fight for the podium, ending fifth.  But in her next race, she returned to her regular spot of finishing last.  Together with her friends, she starts training harder and learn more about the personalities and skills of the top drivers in the competition.

Using an unorthodox tactic, Sophia takes the lead as Rin's mechanic predicted a downpour that comes unexpected, and had the rain tires already prepared, giving her a strong advantage to the others that still needed to pits and saving the timeloss of and extra stop.  But Rin, now in second behind Sofia, wants to take the risk of overtaking her.  But she misses her corner and crashes out as Sofia takes the unexpected win.

There is a nice feature about the legendary Toyata 2000GT, as Rin needs to drive it for training.  Her mentors have noticed something with her driving style, and particularly how she uses her left leg.  In the meantime, they are building her a brand new car.  Rin actually knows how to work the sublte old clutch, compared to all her friends only driving the AI assisted cars of the current day.  It turns out she still driving with her heart like in the old days.

Driving her new car, Rin starts putting in better performances, qualifying 4th for the next race.  But something goes wrong at the start as her mechanic has changed the settings, causing the AI to not start the car.  With the King also not in the race as he doesn't like racing in the night, the others smell their chance and Kanata actually challenges the Queen for the win together with Youran.  The Queen is beaten by latter by mere centimetres as Kanata spins of in her last effort to pass them.  

At the next race, on the brandnew Osaka track, everyone is struggling with set-up except King.  She smashes the King's time after he gave some pointers, but is totally demotivated when the AI took over for a part as she faded due to high G forces of missing a turn.  She gets additional training in her favorite racing game as the AI is seemingly on of her friends in there.  She comes to term with "Ami-chan" and why she did what she had to do.

At the new track of Osaka, the final race of the season takes place.  Thanks to King's pointers, she qualifies highly and soon finds herself battling Queen.  She finds herself in the lead, but the King comes up to her, making a pass.  She overtakes him, but then suddenly the power on the circuit fails, bringing all cars to a stop.  This causes her AI to short out, and she needs to drive on on her own when power returns and they restart with a rolling start, which has taken her and King's lead away.

King reclaims his first place, and they have to stop for manual pit stops.  Rin is out first, as her pit crew does an amazing job.  With King on her tail they are getting back towards the front, having only Queen still in front of them on her older tires.  This proves to be a downfall as one of her tires break and she sportingly clears the track for the duel between Rin and the King.  He blocks her at every opportunity to use her revolburst boost, as they pass the line nearly at the same time, Rin beating it with the point of her car's nose!

Yep, this was a bad series, and one that ends up on the bottom of my MAL ratings.  The main character is uncredible, as she seemingly doesn't even know basic rules yet competes at the highest level of the sport.  Other characters are bland or even 'unknown' to the viewers, and the computer animated style just makes it look like a large, to long cutscene from the PS4.  Avoid this for sure!