Always a pleasure to meet a Jedi

Easy Cheese Cake

2012-01-16T00:08:00.000+13:00

Ingredients

400g Quark cheese

400ml milk cream

200g sugar

6 eggs

8 portions of The Laughing Cow cheese

1 pinch of salt (optional)

Preparation:

1.- Mix everything together

2.- Bake in pre-heated oven at 160°-180°C for about 45 min (until the centre is not fluid anymore)

3.- Cover with fruits marmalade

Doctor Who Experience

2011-10-22T00:08:00.000+12:00

Great Experience !
Really, one of the best things to do in London those days.
The setting is everything you would have expected. The entrance to the show lies on the way of the TARDIS where you are received by the very enthusiastic crew. The waiting is not a big deal as some real size models of events in the Doctor Who universe are around to keep you busy.
One inside the show, you will see a short film before entering the crak in time and space and try to help the Doctor to escape out of the Pandorica.
The experience is really interactive since the very first moment as the Doctor is really talking to you, as part of the audience in your way through time and space, wherein and wherewhen you encounter several iconic moments of the story.
After the show, there are some exhibitions rooms, one dedicated to the Doctor, one to the Companions and one to the Adversaries (they call them Monsters, but I prefer the term adversary as more neutral :D )
In the room dedicated to the Doctor (depicted) you can see all the incarnations of the Doctor as well as read something about his character and mood under such incarnations.
The Companion's room shows all the past Companions of the Doctor as well as reproductions of the TARDIS and some footage from the old TV Series.
The Adversaries section can spoil you some of the more recent episodes (2011) as the accompanying text details the outcome of some episodes.
Here you will find also a projection room where you can watch some of the "how it was done" of the last season episodes.
At the end there is, of course, the shop where you can buy some nice merchandising, including DVDs and books.
A very thrilling experience for all the family.
Enjoy !

Apple?, Maybe not, thanks

2011-10-21T00:49:00.000+12:00

Maybe I am unlucky with their products but so far Apple scores really low in my personal list of useful and reliable things.
First Apple device I got was an iPod Touch 32 GB. Nice thing, still working, no problems at all. 1 point for Apple.
Second product was the iPhone 3G, the same, still working, a bit slow nowadays with the last upgrade of the software but still functional. Another point for Apple.
Third item, a MacBook pro. Nice thing, quite fast at the beginning, quite slow now with the Snow Leopard last upgrade, but already once in the repair service. The Nvidia fatal error. Dead Nvidia graphic card. Luckily it was still on time to enjoy the extended warranty. Quite annoying that a product so expensive and not over used breaks after less than three years. Minus one point for Apple.
Fourth was the Apple TV. One of the worst things I have bought in my life. Continuous problems with the synchronization with the iTunes, specially after ANY update, either of the AppleTV or of the iTunes. Really hate the thing. Minus one point for Apple (actually it should be more minus points, but I try to kept this rating non-emotional).
Time Capsule was the fifth and the last Apple product I got so far. Very nice and useful toy, even if I was having some issues with the connectivity of mac and PC on the same wifi, however two weeks ago it decided to die. One day it was plugged but switched off. According to the apple forums, it seems to be a failure of the power source due to overheating. The problem is well-known and apparently solved in some Time Capsules, but not in others. This time the serial number of mine is not in the "lucky" range for the repair action. The thing was two years old. Again, quite annoying that something so expensive and which supposedly will keep my data safe as backup device, breaks suddenly without any warning nor apparent official repair options (according to the apple forums they usually offer you a discount in a new one and even AppleCare does not cover the Time Capsule). So, another minus point for Apple.
Total score: -1
Sorry Apple,

Breaking the Wall

2011-08-12T00:49:00.000+12:00

AT-43 is officially dead but I am afraid a lot of people have their miniatures still around. I have :)
And I am also trying to learn how to build and paint some terrain for the game (or for other miniature games).
In this endeavour, I try to use anything, specially everything which comes into my hands. This time it was a piece of Styrofoam which was intended to protect the head of my printer during transport.
I gave a first layer of Payne's Grey mixed with some thickening medium and beach sand to obtain some texture and a dark background.
Afterwards, I highlighted it with some dry brush work with three different greys, and a bit of white mixed with the lighter of the greys.
Hope you like it.
Suggestions are welcomed.

Biscuits with chocolate cover

2011-08-09T19:56:00.000+12:00

Preparation time: 45min

Baking time: 15min

around 20 units (but depends on the used biscuit form)

Ingredients:

200g flour

1 enveloppe baking powder

1 enveloppe vanilla sugar

80g sugar

100g butter

1 egg

1 pinch of salt

some chocolate for the decoration

Preparation:

Mix the flour with the baking powder and the vanilla sugar, add the sugar, the egg and the butter after letting it soft a bit.

Mix all the ingredients in the mixture carefully until a homogeneous dough is builded.

If needed add more flour so that the dough does not stick to the fingers or the table.

Let the dough stay for about 30min in the fridge.

Afterwards, roll the dough into a plank of about 0.5cm wide and cut the biscuits with a biscuit form (we use one of the Neuschwanstein castle).

Bake them in the oven for around 11 min. After they cool down, paint them with the molten chocolate and let it solidify again.

Beschwipster chocolate cake

2011-08-06T20:11:00.001+12:00

Preparation time: around 15 min

Baking time: around 40 min at 160C in a modern air oven preheated also at 160C

Ingredients

115g butter

140g dark chocolate (around 70% cacao) in pieces

2 spoons brandy

85g brown sugar

6 eggs (yolks and egg white apart from each other)

50g coconut powder

425g whipped cream to decorate

Preparation:

Warm up the chocolate to melt it and mix it with the brandy. Wait for it to cool down a bit.

In another recipient, mix the butter and the sugar with a spoon or a wooden instrument, cutting the butter previously in small pieces helps. To this mixture and under continuous mixing with a electrical mixer, add the yolks one after each other.

Afterwards, add also the chocolate mixture.

Finally add the coconut.

Whisk the egg whites hard until peaks, then add them slowly to the previous mixture with continuous mixing.

Put the mixture inside of a 23cm round mold (we used a hearth form of the same size). Bake it until the inside is dry (test with a needle or a fork) and let it cold down inside of the form.

As final touch, decorate at will with the whipped cream.

Muffins double chocolate

2011-08-06T00:32:00.000+12:00

This recipe is a modification of one from a cooking book concerning only chocolate recipes :)
We changed a few things and tried it yesterday, here the technical data.
Final units: around 14-15 muffins
Preparation time: around 15 min
Baking time: around 20 min at 175°-200°C in a modern air oven, preheated at 200°C

Ingredients:

200g flour

25g powder cacao

1 little envelope of chemical baking powder

1 little spoon of cinnamon

120g brown sugar

50g black chocolate (around 70% of cacao)

2 eggs

100ml sunflower oil

230ml milk

Preparation:

Recipient A:

mix well the oil with the eggs, then add slowly the milk to the resulting mixture of the eggs and oil, mixing well those ingredients.

Recipient B:

put the flour, the cacao powder, the baking power, the cinnamon and the brown sugar and mix them together with a spoon or wooden instrument. When the powder-like mixture is more or less homogeneous, add the dark chocolate in small pieces and distribute it in the mixture.

Add the liquid mixture of recipient A into the solid powder-like mixture of recipient B, mixing it slightly with the spoon or wooden instrument. Do not mix too much to avoid that the muffins become too hard in the oven.

Distribute the mixture in the muffin forms and put them into the oven.

Back until they are dry inside (puncture one with a long needle or a fork to check it).

Enjoy !

13

2011-07-06T01:24:00.000+12:00

I watched this film last Saturday and I am still thrilled.
I would like to watch also the original one (13 Tzameti) but taking into account that both films were written and directed by the same filmmaker (Géla Babluani) and the info on wikipedia for the plots (beware of total spoiler if you read them in advance), it seems to be that more this time the remake is really a remake (total copy) of the original one.
A dark story, full of psychological violence and tension.
Just awesome.

Unknown

2011-07-02T01:08:00.000+12:00

I watched this film some weeks ago thanks to a friend who liked it.
I have to agree.
The plot is quite decent, well drafted, the actors are credible and even if the story sounds Known the little surprises make it a bit Unknown.
:)

Hope you also like it.

Acer Aspire Revoview RV100

2011-06-18T01:09:00.001+12:00

This is the new guy in the city, or at least at my place.

For our video media needs we were relying in the appleTV 1st generation but without too much general satisfaction. In our home there are Mac and PCs trying to live in mutual peace, something that according to everyone should be very easy but which we never totally managed to organize.
Any way, our appleTV was only able to communicate with the Mac computer as the PCs were not able to see/detect it.
Therefore all our video media was first synchronized to the appleTV by the Mac, then just streamed. The problem was the limited video formats that the appleTV is able to reproduce.
After considering some other possibilities, such as jailbreaking the appleTV or even to install linux on it (a friend, linux freak, managed to boot the dammed thing and we were able to load something called MythTV) we started searching for an alternative.
Two options were into consideration: a new computer, a mini-PC, not a Mac-mini, with HDMI connectivity or a multimedia player.
At the end we decided to look for multimedia player and we found this little friend here on sale for less than 150€ and a very detailed review thereof (RV100 Review), however the webpage of Acer is strangely silent about the device.
Two days ago we got it.
The cited review is 100% true, to every detail. The thing comes with 2Tb and a Wifi adapter.
The disk can be extracted and connected to another Acer computer. I don't know if it will be possible to connect it to any computer, maybe with some adapter or similar.
The Wifi USB stick which comes with the machine seems to be according to the user manual the only one which will work on the device, so if it gets broken, damaged or lost, you will need to buy a new one from Acer (if that is possible).
The interface of the disk is a bit slow and clumsy.
First, when another disk, for example, a portable hard disk, is connected to the Acer, the multimedia player scans totally the connected disk to make the library of its contain. This is nice as the Acer detects all the video, pictures and audio in the connected disk, but painfully slow. Nice thing is that you can watch the videos while the scan is performed, so not such a big deal, but anyway a bit anoying.
The interface has a main menu wherein a Video, a Pictures, a Music and a Devices options are presented. The video option gives you access to all the video in the system but as individual files, so no distribution by movies, TVseries, seasons and so on. The same applies to Pictures and Audio. Everything is mixed there as individual files, but sorted by date or name and with search function. So, it is functional, but not fantastic. Clumsy.
The Devices button takes you to a menu wherein you see a Network, a UPnP, a HDD and the free USB options (the machine has two USB but one is blocked by the Wifi adapter).
The Acer can connected to the network and will integrate with any windows PCs under the Network sub-menu. Only problem we found here was that the PC under Windows 7 was having only one user, which was, of course, the administrator and the Acer did not wanted to recognize it. Just creating a second user, normal one, solved the issue.
The Acer is at the moment not able to see the Mac under the Network sub-menu.
However, the UPnP sub-menu detects automatically the PCs. No problem here, only the headache of trying to understand the Windows media something which runs in the PCs and which is responsible for the UPnP connectivity. The file structure of the library is not evident. However, streaming is as simple as selecting the file on the PC, right click and selecting play on Acer.
The Mac is again invisible under UPnP, but if XBMC (XBoxMediaCenter) is running in the Mac, then the Acer will see and be able to access the Mac library.
So, either under Network or under UPnP, the Acer seems to be able to access (wireless) to the Mac and the PC and read or copy the data on them. This can be done from the Acer interface.
Streaming form the PC to the Acer is easy and simple.
However, neither the PCs nor the Mac seems to be able to access (wireless) to the hard disk of the Acer.
According to the User Manual, this should be possible either by extracting the Acer hard disk and connecting it to the computer or by connecting the computer to the Acer with a USB cable (there is a mini USB port in the back part of the Acer).
In the sub-menu HDD on Devices we can copy the data either from a computer or from a external hard disk by a very crude interface which does not allow to create folders or rename file. Only to move or to copy something. Therefore it can be a good idea either to organize the external hard disk in a way that makes sense for you and copy the file structure into the Acer or access the Acer from a computer with an USB an make the file structure directly in the Acer (we have not tried it yet).
At this moment, it seems to me a good machine, with plenty of storage space, several ways to integrate with a windows environment, a very limited integration with a Mac (wireless), but with the standard wired options to communicate.
Quality of video and Audio is good, however our old HDMI cable was not good enought, the image was shacking. However, a brand new cable is provided with the device which works perfectly.
In general, a very nice, rounded hardware, with a slow and a bit clumsy software, but full of interesting possibilities.
By the way, anyone interested in a 1st generation appleTV ?
(just kidding)
:)

Work in progress

2011-04-11T21:00:00.001+12:00

Xmas jobs

2010-12-21T03:11:00.000+13:00

Evil Zombie Cows of Satan

2010-09-28T19:54:00.000+12:00

(In)famous histamine

2010-09-25T00:15:00.001+12:00

Histamine, called by the chemists 2-(imidazol-4-yl)ethylamine, is located in many tissues of the body and even if its physiological function is too complex to be currently, completely understood, sure is that histamine plays a predominant role in the allergic inflammatory response of the body and in the regulation of the secretion of gastric acid.
Therefore, a huge effort has been done to the development of drugs (medicaments) that antagonize (stop) its effects and therefore reduce the allergic reaction of the body and/or help to the regulation of the gastric acid.
For a compound to have effect in the body, it has to interact in one way or another with the metabolic pathways. Usually this interaction happens between the compound, usually a small molecule (in this case histamine) and a big molecule, a protein (or an enzime, which are just a specialized kind of proteins).
The target protein is called receptor, and associated to the name of the small moleculle which is able to interact with it, therefore the proteins in the metabolic pathways which interact with the histamine moleculle are called histamine receptors.
In general, the receptors, these proteins, are inside of the body, in the cells (or in the body fluids) but no necesarilly everywhereor in the same amount. For example, some receptors are present in the muscle cells but not in the nervous system and so on.
The histamine receptors can be found amongst other in the smooth muscle of the bronchi, gut and uterus, in the central nervous system and in the stomach.
These receptors are proteins, and proteins are very peculiar moleculles. They can be different in respect of the little, small pieces they are made but and the end, they perform the same function due to their final shape (to kept it easy). Also or maybe for this reason they are proteins which are a bit different from each other but that perform more or less the same function, for example histamine receptors, there is not only one unique histamine receptor in the universe. Different living being have different proteins as the proteins are given by the genetic code which is different in every living being, but even inside of the same body, there are histamine receptors which even if they interact with histamine, they are a bit different from each other. They are called receptor types (or even sub-types).
For the family of the histamine receptors only four receptor types are known, called H1, H2, H3 and H4.
This nomenclature is kind of common, some capital letters (H for histamine) and a number which usually denotes the other of discovery of the receptor.
Different receptor types of receptor are present (expressed) in different cells (tisues, parts of the body) and asociated to different metabolic effects (allergic response or secretion of gastric acid).
Histamine will, obviously interact (bind, anchor) with all these receptor types (and subtypes) and therefore histamine is an in-expecific moleculle (sometimes called substrate).
As every receptor type is expressed in different cells and regulates different metabolic effects, for the development of new drugs it is of primordial importance to create moleculles which are able to bind in a specific and selective way only one of the receptor types (or subtypes) so that for example, the allergic reaction can be blocked without disturbing the secretion of gastric acid.
Known Facts about the histamine receptor types are:

H1: to be found in the smooth muscle of the bronchi, wherein it regulates the contraction of the bronchi which leads to restriction of air flow in the lungs (if you have asthma, you know how it feels). Also the permeability of the capillary walls is regulated so that plasma constituents could flow into the extracellular spaces and produce an edema (basically the lungs are flodded with liquid and respiration becomes difficult). This receptor is also in the Central Nervous System wherein it is associated with drowsiness or somnolence. Drugs able to interact with this receptor are useful in the treatment of allergy and inflammation.
H2: plays a minor role in allergic inflammatory processes but in the stomach, parietal cells (the cells in the wall of the stomach) stimulation increases production and secretion of acid. Drugs able to interact with this receptor are useful in the treatment of ulcers.
H3: occurs in the brain, and it activation leads to a decrease in neurotransmiter release which promotes arousal, attention and improves learning (at least in animals). Allergic rhinitis is one condition in which drugs able to interact with this receptor may be useful.
H4: the more obscure, appears to be limited to cells of the hematopoietic (or hematogenesis, formation of blood) system and its stimulation results in a chemotactic response (movement or orientation of an organism or cell along a chemical concentration gradient either toward or away from the chemical stimulus, basically cell migration). The presence of this receptor on these cells suggests that this receptor plays a role in the inflammatory response.

Enough for today :)

No one is left behind

2010-09-19T20:46:00.000+12:00

Based in a true story, until yesterday unknown to me, this very decent and elegant (if you allow me) movie remembers me of the "old" war movies about WWII.
It does not portrait the life of the soldier as great and very masculine, nor as heroic unkillable killing machines, does not make too much of propaganda for the U.S. forces and has not a "happy ending".
The movie just relates the odyseey of a group of US soldiers trapped in the middle of hostile territory in the city of Mogadishu (Somalia) during a "failed" operation to arrests the main warlord at the time, Mohamed Farrah Aidi (wiki).
The movie is based on a book of the same title (wiki) and both seem to be a fair account of the disaster.

Shinies

2010-09-19T20:36:00.000+12:00

No gold, no jewels, no funky glass, but Clone Troopers.
They (We) are the best troops of the Galaxy, if full trained.
They (We) have the best genetic potential thanks to our "father" Jango Fett, but without proper training they (we) are like an uncut diamond.
Today I watched the Episode 5 of the 1st Season of the new animated series The Clone Wars where a bunch of shinies (new, non completely trainer Clone Troopers) man a small outpost on the observation line of the Republic. The line is formed by a large number of such outpost with the mission to establish a perimeter of early warning for incoming Separatist attacks.
Not needing to say, a droid commando tries to seize the outpost to allow a Separatist fleet to approach Kamino unnoticed.
The Episode is simple (as all the episodes of this TV Series) but the wakening op the shinies is great. They discover what for a potential they have.
Also, as far as I know, this Episode mentions by the very fist time the existence of the 501st, the elite legion of the Empire, which started as an Elite Clone Trooper group.

Defend the Republic, join the Empire ;)

Mexican Law

2010-09-18T07:27:00.000+12:00

Just back from the cinema and still laughing.
This is movie is just crazy. The whole idea and set up is weird and funny.
I don't know what to tell you about without being a spoiler.
Just go to watch it, and be prepared for some gore, killing not machine, but Machete :D

Now, You know what I do for a living

2010-09-18T07:25:00.000+12:00

Great movie.
True, Stallone looks old, but let's face it, he is old.

But, as far as I know this movie is the first and only one with Stallone, Schwarzeneger and Willis on it.
The scene they play together is just great.
I concede that Arnold only plays less than one minute in the movie, but, on the other hand he is retired from the movie business, maybe too busy being Governator (and being parodied by The Umbilical Brothers [Official Site]).

The plot is very linear ad without many surprises, but that is not the point, this movie is not Casablanca, but more like a burger in a MacDonalds, you know what you are getting for your money.
And in this case, what you get is a bunch of action movie guys beating up a whole army :D :D

Hope you enjoy it !

Bad Evil Distillery

2010-09-02T02:51:00.000+12:00

Last week we were in Scotland for a short holiday. The country is great, full of nice people and beautiful places (also the other way around ;D ).

The idea of the holidays was to spend a long weekend in Edinburgh (Military Tattoo included) and surroundings, therefore our time schedule was a bit tight.

Thursday was the visit to Castle Rock (wiki), an impressive construction and view point of the city. Friday was the free walking tour in Edinburgh (Official Site) and a comedy show (Pappy's All Business).

Until that point in time everything was smoothly according to the plan.

Saturday was a very compact day. The idea was to pick up a rental car in Edinburgh at 0800 and head for Loch Ness to be back in Edinburgh the same day late in the evening (well, night). In the way to Loch Ness we intended to visit Stirling, Callander, Glen Coe, Fort Williams and Fort Augustus (south end of Loch Ness) and back over Perth to the initial city.

Along the trip we wanted to visit the Ben Nevis Distillery (Official Site) which should be open until 1600. So we hurry up to be there with plenty of time to be able to visit the place, taste some whisky and buy some bottles. We were serious about buying as in our group there were two persons who actually love whisky and who actually planned their holiday's luggage letting some extra empty room for the bottles. According to the webpage of the distillery, the place should have been fantastic and the visit to the place should have been one of the nicest moments of the trip.

That was the Theory. Reality was a total disappointment.

We arrived there at 1500 (sharp) but the only lady there promptly informed us that even if it was one hour before closing time, it was not possible to visit the place anymore but that the shop and the visitor centre were, of course, still open.

According to the webpage:

"After your experience with Hector, a conducted tour of the production areas by a trained guide concludes with a complementary 'tasting'.

After your tour around our distillery why not relax with a refreshment or if you are hungry, try some of our delicious home cooking in our coffee shop and restaurant. It will be an unforgettable treat."

However, there was nothing there to drink or to eat. Even the tasting was impossible, because as apparently they do not have a "Pub licence", they are not entitled to serve you alcoholic drinks. I was not aware that you would be punish in the UK by offering alcohol for free inside of a building to an adult person. But, of course, if you were part of a group, then the tasting was included in the visit (?!)

Incidentally I must say that such a group happens to arrive at the same as us, therefore all the attention of the only lady there was focused on this group with total disregard to our small group (only six of us) and a poor couple which was waiting in front of the desk to buy some souvenirs or some bottles, what exactly I don't know.

Briefly said: If you are in Scotland, enjoy the country, but don't waste your time with this distillery. It is not worth of your time. There are more pleasant things to do in Scotland that to be disregarded by a mindless minion.

Obviously, our two whisky lovers were totally sunken by the "unforgettable experience!".

However, the day after we visit The Scotch Whisky Experience (Official Site) which was, by far, a better place.

Swedish Cider !?

2010-08-26T04:12:00.000+12:00

Sail 2010

2010-08-25T23:59:00.001+12:00

The harbour of Amsterdam (Wiki) was the host of the Sail 2010 (Official site) this last weekend.
Some amazing tall ships were there open to visitors and curious. Some of them are currently academy or school ships of the corresponding Navy, as the Russian Sedov (Wiki), a nice ship from the beginning of the XX century with German origins.
In the context of the event there were displays of fireworks and activities for all ages.

I got some more pictures which I will upload to the Visual Archives on picasa as soon as possible.
Currently, the ships are on their way to the Sail 2010 - Bremerhaven (Official site).

Goal !!!!

2010-08-21T06:22:00.000+12:00

Hussar, the new players in the team

2010-08-03T02:02:00.001+12:00

The last (so far) two members of my Red Block army arrived today.

I can not wait to try them in the field :D :D

Varen Corso

2010-08-02T03:52:00.000+12:00

Varen Corso is a flower festival on the road or on the channels. If you consider that Dutch people are crazy about channels and flowers, then the combination of both is just something you should see at least once :D

Here the link to the picasa album ;D (http://picasaweb.google.com/ariano.olvido/VarenCorso#)

Therian Chemical Station (2)

2010-07-13T08:19:00.001+12:00

Here some pictures with a Molot unit and a Krasny soldier for size comparison and a huge OF TOPIC that I think you will indulge me :D :D

OF TOPIC

Therian Chemical Station

2010-07-12T04:06:00.000+12:00

The Therians have a powerful industry. Their factory worlds cross the cosmos transforming entire solar systems. The landscape of those planetary industrial complexes should be full of tanks with different chemicals, fuels and similar.
This could be one of those.

Therian Central Satellite Link

2010-07-04T22:05:00.000+12:00

A few days ago I found an old funnel for salt for the dish-washer which combined with the insides of a soap dispenser and some other pieces of junk I assembled into this Therian Central Satellite Link.

Piece of Landscape

2010-06-29T00:07:00.001+12:00

Yesterday I found something which seems to fit quite well with the size and scale of the AT-43 game. It looks like a volcanic rock from a desolated planetary landscape or like some kind of industrial post-holocaust dervish. Actually it is a piece of pavement, which happens to be very hard but incredibly light due to its porosity.

Nice, isn't it?

Budapest

2010-06-23T23:18:00.000+12:00

The Forest

2010-06-10T19:54:00.000+12:00

This story is the result of a proposal to write a very short story of less than 300 words with the only premise of the title being "The Forest".

Hope you like it.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It is dark now.
I canʼt see them, but I can hear them.
They are close now.
I told them, told them it was not a good idea to come here. Too far away.
But they never listened to me, except maybe Mike.
Yes, Mike. Mike always listened to every one, even me.
Good fellow, Mike. Yes good fellow.
But he was the first one who died.
Actually, he didnʼt die.
He was killed.
Killed by them. They kill him.
Damn forest!
I told them. We are too far away.
Not even the GPS signals reach so deep in the forest.
Anna tried to get some reception to determinate our position. The idea was to find the
river.
You find the river, you find the exit.
But, they didnʼt listen to me.
I told them.
But anyway, she tried to climb up the damn tree.
She broke her legs. Ok, maybe only one of them, but that was bad enough.
We try to help her, to carry her, but she was too heavy.
We let her there.
They got her.
Damn it! I cannot stop hearing her cries.
They got her.
They kill her.
But, they didnʼt stop there.
They kept following us.
They kept getting us.
They kept killing us.
Now it is dark.
I am the only one left. I think. Not sure.
Too dark to be sure of anything.
Only thing sure, they are there.
I canʼt see them, but I can hear them.
The river. I have to find the river. It is close. I know.
I can hear it.
But, it is so dark now...

Chemical Reactor

2010-06-05T01:57:00.000+12:00

I developed a chemical reactor for the AT-43 (or any other sci-fi 28mm wargame) basically from a plastic container for deodorant replacement for toiletry, a bunch of random pieces from my spare parts toolbox and a bit of color.

I hope you like it :D :D

P.S. No UNA-troop was killed, injured, damaged or mistreated in any way during the "shooting" of the photographs.

Groningen

2010-05-29T06:13:00.000+12:00

Thiamat again !

2010-05-22T21:34:00.000+12:00

I know that lately I have not been very active with the AT-43 game but yesterday we finally played again.

My Army List was basically Supra faction, with Urod and 4 infantry units, two Dragonov kommandos with AT-Gauss and two Spetznat kommandos with rocket launchers. In reserve there was a Kossak and another unit of Dragonov kommandos.

The Therian fielded a medical container, a Incubus, Thiamat and Nina-Zero on foot with three heavy infantry.

That was another massacre of Red Block people.

The terrain was basically agreed by us, so we started putting things until we were more or less satisfied with it, three markers for RPs of 200 RP each were placed and two markers for 1 VPs each also.

The RP markers were the elevated platform (controlling the base was enough to get the RP), the red container and the Therian artefact; the VP were on the chemical reactor and in the chemical tank.

The Red Block entered the battlefield from the elevated platform side, which was taken by the Dragonov kommandos.

Therian medical container dropped behind the chemical tank, close to the red container with the RP marker.

Spetznatz kommandos deployed close to the other red container and waited for enemies.

The Incubus entered the field by the dark container and activated the overwatch of both kommando units. I think that the rocket of the spetznatz was a hit which damaged the propulsion and the frame, and that the AT-Gauss was a miss.

The incubus killed several of the Spetznatz with its cannons.

Urod entered the field and walking without running over the medic of the spetznatz forced him to relocate closer to the other two spetznatzs and getting cover from the container opened fire on the incubus and I think to remember that there were two hits to the frame but not sure now. Anyway the incubus was not destroyed.

Thiamat dashed towards the spetznatz and the urod but was two short to engage in melee, so she created a hekcat.

The other infantry units tried to control the central objectives (the spetznatzs) and the dragonov tried to shoot to the Therian AFVs but without too much success.

The deployment of Nina-Zero and the heavy infantry signalled the dead of some of the dragonov kommandos taking cover at the base of the elevated platform.

That was the end of the first round.

Red Block got 400 RPs, Therians 200 RPs and 1 VP.

The second round was very short. Urod moved towards the heavy infantry letting the Spetznatz to die in front of Thiamat and the Hekcat, and managed to kill all the heavy infantry except Nina.

The Spetznatz were killed by both Thiamat and the Hekcat and Urod was destroyed by the heavy infantry which was back on the game thanks to the Therian routines (Therian faction was Cypher).

Red Block was forced to surrender :(

Funniest thing was that when the heavy infantry opened fire on the dragonov, they got 6 hits (on 2+) but the dragonov got the 6 cover rolls (on 3+), but Nina killed two of them with her snipper ability, obviously the medic and the AT-Gauss.

Green Biker

2010-04-16T03:58:00.000+12:00

Bioshock

2010-04-11T00:39:00.000+12:00

Princess of Norway

2010-04-06T08:03:00.000+12:00

The King of Skandinavia (2)

2010-04-02T04:59:00.000+12:00

The King of Skandinavia

2010-04-02T03:08:00.001+12:00

Happy Easter !!!

2010-04-01T00:20:00.000+12:00

Smile !!!

2010-03-30T22:55:00.000+12:00

Minoes

2010-03-25T07:56:00.000+13:00

AT-43, a brief intro

2010-03-24T03:25:00.000+13:00

AT-43 is a game.
AT-43 is a wargame.
AT-43 is a sci-fi wargame.
AT-43 is a miniatures sci-fi wargame.
AT-43 is a French miniatures sci-fi wargame.

The game follows the line of Warhammer or any other tactical miniature wargame. Therefore and basically, the game is a battle between at least two players, each commands an army represented by plastic miniatures.

However the game has some peculiarities which makes it quite different compared to similar games.

AT-43 is an army based game.

That means that there are several different armies from which the players can choose which one to play. Each army has a different way or approach to technology and war, some are fast but light armoured, other are slow but heavy, one can be more infantry oriented, another will rely more on tanks and so on.

For a battle, both players will agree previously the amount of Army Points (APs) they are going to field. Every single unit on the game has a value on APs and therefore the agreed amount of APs will determine the size and the strength of the combating forces.

A normal game uses 2000 APs, divided in an Assault force and a Reinforcement force. For a total force of 2000 APs there is a maximum of 1500 APs for the Assault force and the rest (at least 500 APs) for the Reinforcements.

The Assault force enters the game directly on the 1st round (usually, there are however exceptions) but the Reinforcement units will have to wait until the Assault units have captured enough secondary objectives to generate enough Reinforcement Points (RPs) to bring the Reinforcement units into the battle field.

Every army has a basic Army build pattern and four factions which offer another four alternative Army build patterns. Those five Army build patterns are use to build up the Army, which means that in order to spend the 2000 APs of our force we are required to field certain type of units as defined in the choosen pattern. For example, the ARC faction of the Red Block is based mainly in infantry units, however the Frontline faction of the Red Block is much more tank based. So 2000 APs of a Red Block ARC will look or field very different units than a Red Block Frontline force.

The four basic Armies of the game are U.N.A., Therians, Red Block and Kharmans. Another two, new Armies are available since some months (Cogs and O.N.I.) and another one (Kriggs) is in the production phase.

AT-43 is an objectives based game.

Every battle has two different classes of objectives. On the battle field there will be different points or positions, for example a bunker, a communication antenna or another Tactical Marker which has to be controlled by the players. By controlling a primary objective the controlling player will get a fix amount of Victory Points (VPs). Usually a battle or scenario is won by the first player able to achieve 20 VPs.

The control of a secondary objective gives Reinforcement Points (RPs) which are used to move units from the Reinsforcements into the Reserve of the assault force and then into the battlefield.

A player controls an objective by placing more soldiers at less than 10cm of the objective than its opponent. Usually only soldiers can control objectives, Armoured Fighting Vehicles (AFVs) can not control objectives.

Therefore an Army should field both, soldiers and AFVs. There are some exceptions to this, however

AT-43 is a sequence based game.

Every battle is played in rounds. A round is divided in three Phases.

The 1st Phase is the planning Phase. Each player decides the sequence in which its units are going to act. This is achieved by the use of cards. Each card represents one of the units of the Army and at the begining of each round, at the planning Phase, each player chooses the sequence of its cards in secret and places the cards face down on the table in the order in which the units have to be activated and played.

Once the Activation Sequence has been done, the players determine which one will act first. This marks the end of the planning Phase.

The next Phase is the Tactical Phase. The 1st player reveals the first card of its sequence, activates the represented unit and resolves the possible movement and actions of the unit. When the first player finishs the activation of its first unit, the second player reveals its first card and proceeds to activate its first unit. This process is repeated until both played have been able to activate all the units in their Assault force.

In this way the activation of the fighting forces alternates between the two players.

The last Phase, the Control Phase, simply consists on checking which units control which objetives, the asignation of the corresponding VPs and RPs and eventually the transfer of units from the Reinforcement into the Assault Force by paying the required amount of RPs. The card representing the Reinforcement unit is added to the activation sequence and enters the battle the next round.

Questions ?

Murcia

2010-03-16T00:40:00.000+13:00

The Castle

2010-03-15T00:13:00.000+13:00

Homer !!!

2010-03-14T23:29:00.000+13:00

Rome rules !

2010-03-14T05:43:00.000+13:00

Good Morning Vietnam

2010-03-12T20:57:00.000+13:00

Sulaco

2010-03-10T11:19:00.000+13:00

Food !!!

2010-03-10T00:26:00.000+13:00

Spring ?

2010-03-03T09:23:00.000+13:00

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I see you

2010-03-02T05:14:00.000+13:00

Newcomer

2010-03-01T04:51:00.000+13:00

DRAKE D7 - UNA APC

2010-02-22T07:25:00.000+13:00

Flashback
Location: Coffee-corner
Time: not relevant
Ariano - Have you seen the topic in the forum about the ARC faction of the Red Block ? It seems to be that not so many people use it. I must say, you already know, that I have never use it neither. Maybe we should give it a try. What do you thing ?
Kobra - Well, maybe...

Flashback 2
Location: Coffee-corner
Time: not relevant
Kobra - Have you seen the suggestions for UNA ? I think my UNA APC could give UNA Shock Troopers and/or UNA in general the needed speed to reach objectives. What do you think? Maybe we could try it.
Ariano - Well, maybe...

Flashback 3
Location: Coffee-corner
Time: not relevant
Ariano - What do you think about the following? I try ARC agains your UNA with the transport, what do you say?
Kobra - Sounds fine to me
Background Very Evil UNA Laughs and Imminent Armageddon UNA Music....

The Armies
Poison Red [ARC] (1500/500)
Assault
Urod (Col. Odin and Manon) [570 AP]
8 Krasny Soldaty (1 Gren. Launcher, 2 Medics, Smoke Gren.) [190 AP]
4 Dragomirov Kolossus + Lit. Dragomira [665 AP]
3 Krasny Groupa G [75 AP]

Reinforcements
4 Strielitz Kolossus [400 RP]
4 Krasny Groupa G [100 RP]

I was very proud of this list as it was exactly 1500/500 with a fair amount of LP (16) to activate all my units and plenty of LP to wager (6 LP max.) as the limitation of 1 combat drill per unit means that I was going to spend a maximum of 4 LP in combat drills and 2 LP in activation of the two units in my Assault force without officer, letting my 10 LP to play with.
However I was not prepared to deal with the Sneaky Kobra ;D ;D (my usual UNA opponent)

Rapid Assault Team // 5th Company (1495/495)
Assault
2 Wing Laser Team [110 AP]
2 Fire Toad (Serg., Light Laser Cannon) [415 AP]
Drake D7 Transport (Serg., 2 Light Laser Cannon, 1 Light Machine Gun) [315 AP]
Surprise Troops inside of the transport [655 AP]

Reinforcements
MedTech [75 RP]
3 Steel TacArm (Serg., Laser Gun) [310 RP]
2 Wing Laser Team [110 RP]

Kobra was even more proud of his list as apparently he has been dreaming with trying it since months (you will read later why)

Battlefield
We tried again the method of generation of battlefield discussed previously and which have been patched recently to include the feature that now you may wager LPs to get some "advantages" during the creation of the battlefield.
We roll for 13 terrain elements by rollin g 4 dices, taking one out and rolling another one. The distribution of the elements was basically a big terrain element as focal central point of the table (the deposit for liquids) and then some containers and low walls around.

Now, we were supposed to wager some LPs to be able to influence the amount of Access Zones / Drop points, Reinforcement and Victory markers. I won by expending 5 LPs as I wanted to try what happens if you win and I was having enough LPs (later the reality probed me wrong on both accounts, the actual system of creation does not seem to give the winner of this LPs wager action too much advantages which justify the expenditure of so many LPs and in the 1st round I actually missed some more LPs).

We rolled four dices and as winner I was able to choose which one was going to determine the amount of Access Zones / Drop points which were placed by my opponent. Not having any further control on this point, I decided to take the maximal amount of them, in our case four. Kobra placed two neutral access zones of 20cm each and 3 drop points. After this he decided which of the three remaining dices was to determine the amount of RP markers, also four, which I placed without him having any control about where I put them and finally I was to choose which of the two dices which were left was to give the amount of Victory points markers. As the two last dices were both a two, there were two Victory points marker which Kobra placed both of them, together on the central deposit.
Therefore, the scenario was basically a "Bridgehead" with a kill-them-all set up. Not the best kind of scenario for the Red Block.

The Battle

1st round

The Red Block gets the initiative by using some more LPs (I think to remember 3 or 4 LPs). Not being really satisfied with my original sequence of cards, I decided to expend another LP to move the first card to another place of the sequence and therefore my first card now was the Krasny unit which enter the battlefield on the left side, taking control of the container.
UNA Wing Laser Team enters the board and hide behind the container in front of the Krasny unit.
Urod enters the field and goes into overwatch. UNA was surprised by this, Kobra was not expecting Urod.

The Fire Toads enter the table in front of Urod which fires on them. The rockets fail to hit but the cannon damages the frame of the Sergeant Fire Toad.
The Fire Toads manage to damage one point of frame of Urod.
The support groupa G takes positions behind the central container and controls the Reinforcement point.
UNA delays to be able to move the transport APC and deploy the surprise inside.
Here I made my very, big mistake. Instead of activating my Dragomirov Kolossus, I delayed them. I should have put them in the table in overwatch waiting for the transport, even without the Take Cover drill as they were 4 Kolossus plus Dragomira.
UNA activate double and the APC enters the field and fires Urod for two point of damage in the rocket launcher.
The unit inside the APC results to be not UNA but ONI, something I was not expecting at all and which Kobra keep secret for the last months, since he came with the idea of the transport.
Now 6 zombies TacArms Alpha plus Daimyo J. Priest were on the board and fired Urod for a total of four frame damage points.
Urod was a big explosion for a moment, and then Odin and Manon were on foot still asking what just happened, when the Zombie gun made them braineaters.

This was the death sentence for the Red Block.

I still put the Kolossus on the table but the rockets failed to hit the APC and the MGauss killed only one TacArm.

End of the round, 400 RPs for each, no VPs.

2nd round

UNA gets initiative as Red Block has suddenly only 7 LPs with a max. wager of 3.
The first unit of UNA is a reinforcement unit, the MedTech which drops in front of the Zombie TacArms.

The Dragomirov managed to destroy the APC but failed to kill any further TacArm or nurse/doctor of the MedTech.
The Zombies fired into the Dragomirov killing only one, but gounding the rest.
The groupa G launched its grenades but without any success.
The Fire Toads failed to hit the Dragomirov.
The Krasny unit was force to pass as there were not enough LPs to activate it, to fire to the zombies (1 extra LP for this) and to activate the reinforcements and make them shot.
The Steel TacArm reinforcement unit enters the game and takes positions behind some low walls in cover and overwatch.
The Strielitz Kolossus move into position behind the deposit, and after firing to the Tac Arms with no result, Red Block concedes the game.

I do not think that the list was so bad from my side, but maybe my tactical decisions were not the best, but of course, suggestions and critics are always welcomed.

The visual archive is of course also available :D

Weatherman

2010-02-17T22:20:00.000+13:00

Solitary Fighter

2010-02-16T22:03:00.001+13:00

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

- Edited on the web because the picture was not uploaded by BlogPress

Snow again

2010-02-14T22:25:00.000+13:00

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Pieces of the Human Body

2010-02-09T23:11:00.007+13:00

A leg, the hip and a knee without rotule.

Dutch Hospitals - First impression

2010-02-08T19:57:00.003+13:00

People say that the very first impression defines the outcome, either success or disaster, of every human relationship or meeting.

If that is true, then I think that our future relationship with the Dutch hospitals will be one of hate and love.

Arriving to the Hospital at 0625 for an appointment at 0630 and find the premises basically closed with only a security guard behind the entry desk does not constitutes a very good beginning of a relationship. Something like arriving to a job interview with paint dirty clothes after spending the night on prison like Will Smith in "The pursuit of happiness".

However after fighting our way against the masses of undeads on the dark corridors, we managed to find a way to talk again with the fataly wounded security guard who was able to indicate us of another desk where the last human survivors were.

From that point onward our path was clear and apparently free of obstacles.

After checking again our weapons we continued our journey...

Trouble in the Tarmac - 2nd Game

2010-02-08T05:19:00.008+13:00

After the Therian massacre on the 1st game, we just pushed the big, red button which says RESET and started again the game.

Obviously the sep up and the Army Lists are the same that in the previous post.

The Battle

1st Round

Again the Therians won the Authority test and therefore the Red Block started.

This time the Dragonov Kommandos were the first to move and they were again taking cover behind the container on the right side of the board and were into Overwatch.

The Assault Goliaths deployed again behind the containers on the right side of the board, but this time a bit more close to the edge, and were in overwatch.

The Sierps entered the field close to the Dragonov Kommandos and were saluted by the fire of the Goliaths, which crippled the Sierp Sergeant destrying its weapons. However, the counter-fire of the Sierps grounded the whole Goliath unit.

The Assault Golem unit deployed taking cover behind and around the container on the left side, overwatching the battlefield.

Cap.Vrachov on KK5 moved into the battle and confronted the Golems, but stayed in Overwatch waiting for the terrible Tiamat.

Again Tiamat made a rush movement over the infantry, this time the Dragonov Kommandos, killing one just by running over him, stopping for a second the Create a Succubus and killing in close combat another one (the officer).

Cap. Vrachov was not able to fire his rockets to Tiamat without risking hitting the Sierps, so he decided to hold his fire.

The Krasny Soldaty under the orders of Serg. Tymofiyeva moved behind the container on the left side of the board and after take cover there decided to overwatch the battle.

Atis and her Grim Golem unit deployed behind the two containers in the middle of the field, on the edge and stayed there to control some vital RPs for the Therians.

End of the round.

Control Phase: Red Block controls 2 containers and 2 nanogenerators for 450 RPs and the Therians control 3 containers, 1 nanogenerators and 2 lannding pads (hope I counted right) for 350 RPs and 4 VPs.

2nd Round

The Therian massacre of the brave Red Block starts.

Dragonov Kommandos try to disengage and fire the AT Gauss to Tiamat which is wounded in the frame (one lucky shoot).

Tiamat bring another Succubus into the game (in the game it was represented by a Red Block Molot as the Therian player still does not have enough AFVs miniatures due to the actual shortage of the AT-43 products) and moves to attack the Sierp Sergeant which is damaged on the legs and can not further move.

The other Sierp moves around the walls, keeping unit cohesion with immobilised Sergeant and fires on the Assault Golems, killing three of them and grounded other three.

The Succubus generated on the previous round opens fire on the Dragonov Kommandos and two are killed, the ATGauss and the Medic survive the attack. The Succubus moves into fire position and destroy the Sierp Sergeant.

Cap. Vrachov looks for a opening and moves towards Tiamat and fires without success.

Later on we were talking that maybe it is not such a good idea to try to destroy Tiamat as she has a lot of armour and that maybe a better tactic could be to target first the Succubus that she is able to spawn and fire the rest of the rockets (if any) to Tiamat.

The Assault Goliaths come to their feet but can do anything as they were grounded.

Tymofiyeva activates the overwatch of the Assautl Golems on the left container and as consequence of this, one Krasny Soldaty plays with fire and dies. However the movement allows the Krasny unit to gain line of sight to fire the grenade launcher.

The Assault Golems like their big brothers, the goliaths, also do nothing except to come back to their feet.

The Strielitz Kolossus are dropped close to the Krasny unit as they have smoke grenades to allow the dropping of other units close to them. With the assisted propulsion, the kollosus are able to act and to fire with their flamers to the Assault Golems, killing all of them except one.

The grenade launchers were wasted on the too far away Assault Goliaths (only one was grounded), maybe it could have been better to finish the job with the Assault Golems instead of trying to ground the Goliaths.

Atis and her Grim Golems stays behind the containers in cover, with overwatch and Knee to the Ground just in case.

End of the round.

Control Phase: we did not bother counting the RPs as it was clear that every one got more than enough to bring the reinforcements in the game, so the Therians got another 4 VPs for the landing pads for a total of 8 VPs.

3rd and last Round

The first Succubus kills the remaining Dragonov Kommandos, fires for 1 damage point to Cap. Vrachov KK5 and goes into Shield Formation.

Cap. Vrachov fires again to Tiamat and manages to inflict two damage points.

The second Succubus kills some Krasny Soldaty and damages the propulsion of Cap. Vrachov KK5 and takes Shield Formation.

The Sierp fires and kills one Assault Goliath.

Tiamat attacks Cap. Vrachov KK5 and destroy one of the rocket launchers and one frame point.

The last reinforcements of the Red Block, one Molot (the one with the little blue label on the base) enters the battlefield close to the Succubus and try to burn one down, but without too much success.

The Therians reinforcements, a Wraith Golgoth, moves into the landing pad.

The Kollossus decide to finish the job with the Assault Golems.

And the Assautl Goliaths destroy the last Sierp.

End of the round and end of the game.

Defender (Therians) win.

The game was very funny and there were great moments, specially the comments of Jag, our Therian player. I think he really enjoyed the game :D

There are some more pictures of the battle in the Visual Archives.

Trouble in the Tarmac - 1st Game

2010-02-07T07:57:00.023+13:00

This is the first scenario of the Phase I of the Campaign Book Damocles of AT-43. The scenario is not really well balanced as some of the people already commented in the relevant AT-43 forums. However, I was having the intention to play the Damocles campaign and my intention was to try the scenario. But, as someone pointed to me, the scenario only has some meaning if you play the whole book as the Phase I is clearly design with the worst tactical positions for the Therians and too high advantages for the other Armies, like the Red Block. However, as our Therian player is newer to the game than us and as the real outcome of the game is totally irrelevant for us, we just played it and tried to enjoy as much as possible :D

Army Lists

Red Advanced ReCon Force (Red Block - Frontline) [1430/550]

Assault [1430 AP]

Cap. Vrachov on KK5 [545 AP]

8 Krasny Soldaty with Serg. Tymofiyeva (1 Grenade launcher, 2 Medics, Smoke Grenades) [230 AP]

6 Dragonov Kommandos (Sergeant, 1 ATGauss, Medics, Elect. Warfare, Smoke Grenades) [240 AP]

2 Sierps (Sergeant) [415 AP]

Reinforcements [550 RP]

3 Strielitz Kolossus (Sergeant) [310 RP]

1 Molot (Sergeant) [240 RP]

Therians Cyphers [1498/371]

Assault

Omega Tiamat (Space Suit) [446 AP]

3 Assault Goliaths (Space Suit) [378 AP]

7 Assault Golems (1 Flamer, 1 Alpha overseer, Space Suit) [362 AP]

6 Grim Golems (1 Flamer, Atis-Astarate, Space Suit) [312 AP]

Reinforcements
1 Wraith Golgoth (Space Suit) [371 RP]

The Game

Actually we played twice. The first time, the Therian player tried a very aggressive tactic which leads to the annihilation of the Therian forces. The second time, the Red Block was kicked out of the planet.

We rolled for the role of defender or attacker and the Therians were the defenders, which actually seems to be accepted as a disadvantage for this scenario.

The layout of the battlefield was a bit improvised as due to a mistake we were lacking the second Damocles map and some nanogenerators. So, we solved the issue by painting the needed landing pad on the table and using some low walls in upright position as nanogenerators. Also the Therian player is lacking some miniatures, namely level 1 AFVs, so in some moment of the game we just use some of the Red Block Molots as proxies for the Therians Succubus.

1st Round

The Therians win the authority check and let the Red Block start. The Krasny Soldaty move bravely behind the container on the left of the battlefield and prepare themselves for combat (Take Cover, Overwatch).

The Therians Assault Goliaths deploy also behind of the containers on the right of the battlefield (the side with the nice AT-43 poster ;D ).

The Dragonov Kommandos enter the battlefield on the right side and take position behind the container close to the nanogenerator.

As you can see the first three movements were more or less passive movements, however, now Tiamat gets deployed on the battlefield, on the border of the Therian deployment zone and Dashs around the container were the Krasny unit was hiding and run over them.

She killed three of the soldiers just by moving over them and after that she engaged the other five Soldaty in close combat and killed all of them, also the engagement in close combat removed the Combat Drills of the unit.

From my point of view, the idea could have been great. The Therians wipe out in one movement a full infantry unit, except for Tymofiyeva, but she was lucky with the dice for avoiding being killed by the moving Tiamat. However, the movement left Tiamat in my Access Zone and vulnerable to the attack of Cap. Vrachov on his KK5.

Cap. Vrachov enter the battlefield and fire every single rocket on Tiamat a close range. The result was a molten metal inferno. But, of course, Tiamat tried to hack the body of the closest overseer. Here we made a mistake, the only other Therian unit were the Assault Goliaths, but they were not having an overseer (or at least I can not see it on the Army List) and therefore Tiamat should have been removed form the game.

Also the Therian player forgot to make the routine Creation before engaging in clocse combat, which close the Therian activation of Tiamat and gives the floor to the Red Block for the activation of Cap. Vrachov.

The Therians deploy the Assault Golems behind the container and take cover there.

The Red Block Sierps enter the field and having line of sight on the Assault Golem fire a little inferno on them which manage to kill four of them.

Atis and her Grim Golems unit deploy on the left side of the board, on the border of the deployment zone and get visual of the Dragonov Kommandos behind the container and teleports there killing three of then.
In the control phase we got the reinforcement points for the containers and the nanogenerators. The Red Block got 375 RP and the Therians got 200 RP and 4 VP for the landing pads.

2st Round

On the second round the Red Block got the authority and as first movement, the Sierps run over Atis and her Grim Golems. Here we got a question regarding the running over infantry rules as actually two Sierps run over the same fighters, therefore we consider that they should have rolled twice to avoid being killed by the Sierps as the rule speaks about "an AFV" and not about "an AFV unit". The Sierps killed all the Grim Golems except one and also Atis was killed.

As the Therians were clearly destroyed as fighting force we decided to play it again and see if it was possible to get the scenario turned around.

The funniest part was that Jag, the Therian player, was all the time saying something which could be translated as "I don't care about the outcome, I came here to do it this way" (textually he kept saying "I came here to speak about my book", which actually is a reference to Paco Umbral who was once interviewed on Spanish TV by a very aggressive journalist who apparently told him that he was invited to the program to talk about his last book but as it turned out, the journalist was asking him about everything else except about the book :D :D )

There is a Visual Archive of the battle with some more pictures.

DAMOCLES system versus Red Block - UNA

2010-02-04T03:16:00.013+13:00

Battle Report !

As already mentioned in the previous post, we are now trying to play test the DAMOCLES system for the easy generation of general scenarios for AT-43.
Last Friday I was confronted with a double task. First I should try a battlefield designed with the new system and second I was going to do that with some-one who has never played AT-43 before.

For the layout of the battlefield we roll 3 dices each and after pick up two of the three we added the four dices for a total of 15 terrain elements categories. One terrain element category can be:

1 large terrain element (bunker, hill)
2 medium terrain elements (container, high wall)
4 small terrain elements (low wall)

We also rolled for the amount of tactical markers (Neutral Access Points, Drop Points, VPs and RPs) in the same way (3 dices, picking up 2, adding the four chosen) for a total of 8 tactical markers:

2 neutral access points (one on each side of the battlefield, 20cm long)
1 drop point (in front of the ONI container on the right of the table)
2 VPs markers (one in front of a low wall, the other one associated to the drop point)
3 RPs markers (one inside of the bunker on the right side, one on the ONI container, one on the Red Block container in front of the ruins)

Armies

Red Block

Red Cross (GenCol) [1430/570]

Assault
6 Dragonov Kommandos (Sergeant, 1 AT Gauss Gun, 2 Medics) [210 AP]
8 Krasnye Soldaty (Captain P. Vrachov, 1 Grenade Launcher, 2 Medics) [240 AP]
8 Krasnye Soldaty (Captain P. Vrachov, 1 Grenade Launcher, 2 Medics) [240 AP]
Lieutenant Dragomira + 3 Dragomirov Kolossus [540 AP]
3 Dragonov Groupa S (Snipers) [125 AP]
3 MedTech [75 AP]

Reinforcements
Urod (Colonels Odin & Manon) [570 RP]

UNA

Assault Platoon Ember (M.IND) [1500/500]

Assault
11 Steel Troopers + Col. Stark (2 Laser Guns, 2 Medics) [425 AP]
3 Death Dealer TacArm + Lt. Epstone [425 aP]
2 Fire Toad + Serg. Borz (Light Laser Canon) [650 AP]

Reinforcements
12 Star Troopers (Sergeant, 2 Missile launchers, Medic, Combat eng.) [285 RP]
1 Iron Rain (Sergeant) [215 RP]

The Battle

1st Round
After explaining more or less the game and part of the mechanic we put our activation sequence and of course I forgot to tell my opponent about the "Promise" of Col. Stark.
UNA (12 LPs, max wager of 6) does not spend any LPs for the Authority check, Red Block (14 LPs, max wager of 5) uses 4 LPs and wins easily. The UNA player was concern about not having enough LPs for the first round even in view that a quick calculations about number of UNA units (3) and amount of LPs (12) indicates 4 LPs per unit, but being new to the game maybe is better to discover by oneself how the things work or can work.

Red Block 1st Krasny unit moves on the right of the battlefield just behind of the bunker and searches cover there and enemies to kill (Take cover, Overwatch).
UNA activates the Fire Toad squad and moves then in the center of the table, between the two containers from where they dominate the board (Overwatch).
Dragonov Kommandos take positions to the left of the ONI container and the AT Gauss fires and hit the leader Fire Toad. (UNA does not use the Overwatch after movement, Dragonov Take cover).
UNA brings the Death Dealers into play and fires and kills 4 Dragonov Kommandos, one of the Medics manages to save the life of the ATGauss bearer but the other Medic dies together with the Sergeant).
Red Block finests (Dragonov Snipers) move in front of the decimated Dragonov Kommandos unit and manage to kill one of the TacArms. (Take cover)
UNA Col. Stark unit enters the game and I realise my error about the Promise, I explain the issue to the new player and we keep playing. The UNA troopers move behind the bunker, out of any LoS.
Red Block second Krasny unit moves in front of the Fire Toads, but still they keep waiting, so the revolucionary soldiers take cover and look for enemies to kill (Overwatch)
UNA has no more troups, therefore Red Block Kolossus enter the battlefield to the left of the ONI container and in the open but with the cover provided by the low walls (5+). The Fire Toads wake up and open fire on the Kollossus. A good day to die shines in the lasers of the UNA as the three Kolossus are destroyed in a rain of metallic pieces, but Lt. Dragomira keeps the ground, fires on Serg. Borz and takes cover.
Here I am not really sure about the result. I think that Dragomira got him with a rocket and a MGauss impact, so it would amount 3 points of damage, which together with the point fo damage from the ATGauss gives 4 points of damage to Serg. Borz. However I am 100% sure that at the end of the 1st round, Serg. Borz was having only 3 points of damage on his Fire Toad. So either i counted wrong the damage of the rocket or the MGauss missed the target...
With 5 units of the Red Block on the battlefield and due to an error putting my activation sequence I never realised until much later that I have forgotten the MedTech. That is a pity as I have still did not tried it.

Control Phase:
Red Block controls the ONI container with the RPs tactical marker, so Red Block gets 100 RPs.
Also one of the two objective cards was "Get Visual (LoS) of all VPs and RPs tactical markers on the battlefield for 2 VPs", which Red Block manages this round, so 2 VPs for the Red Block.
UNA does not control anything, so no RPs for UNA in the first round.

2nd Round

Now UNA wagers for the Authority test but Red Block gets it.
Dragomira fires its weapons to the Fire Toads without any succes and gets cover behind the ONI container.
UNA Fire Toads fire on Dragomira but she survives. The Fire Toads divided their attack in two salvos. The 1st one did one point of damage and Dragomira just ignored it. The second one did again a point of damage, but Dragomira ignored it also. (To kill Dragomira with 1 point of damage weapons it is needed to cause at least 2 points of damage in the same salvo by succesfully hitting her with at least 2 impacts which manage to penetrate her armour).
Red Block Snipers take down Lt. Epstone with a magic bullet shot (Take cover).
UNA Death Dealers fire on the Dragomirov Kommandos or the Snipers (I can not remember it properly) but without any success (very nice cover saves :D )
Dragonov Kommandos move in front of the Snipers and get a nice shot on one of them sending him to a better place (Take cover)
UNA Col. Stark troopers move inside of the bunker to control the RPs tactical marker, but in doing so the activate the Overwatch of the two Krasny units. Even with the Improved Cover given by the bunker some of them (also the two special weapon beares) join the Death Dealer in that better place.
Red Block Krasny unit behind the bunker fires again on its activation on the troopers inside of the bunker and moves away (Take cover)
The other Krasny unit does not move but fires inside of the bunker.

Control Phase:
Another 100 RPs for the Red Block for controling the ONI container and 100 RPs for the UNA for controlling the bunker.

3rd Round (and final)

We played this round just for the fun of it as the result of the game was irrelevant. As said, the idea was to try the DAMOCLES system and to show the new player how the game goes.
Basically, the UNA Fire Toads destroyed and killed the clone of Lt. Dragomira by firing a full salvo of 6 Laser Canons.
The Dragonov Kommandos failed to kill the Death Dealer TacArm which was left and moved to the side of the Snipers.
The Death Dealer fired on the Snipers killing all of them.
The Krasny fired on the Troopers inside of the bunker and they fired on the Kommandos.
There were some more casualities but, in general terms that was the end of the game.

Conclusion:
The DAMOCLES system seems to work, but some adjusment about the amount and distribution of the tactical markers are needed (working in progress) as it was clear that there were not enough RPs to bring any Reinforcements into the game.
The new player seemed to like the game, so maybe we just managed to convert a former ToW player into an AT-43 player :D :D :D

DAMOCLES system and Red Block Army Lists

2010-02-04T00:48:00.005+13:00

Last Friday we started testing the 1st draft of the DAMOCLES system. The idea behind this system is to allow for a fast and elegant way to set up a battlefield for the AT-43 game. At this moment is limited to a battle between two players, but in the future it could be that it could accommodate more players.
The two corner stones of the system are:

the deployment of terrain elements and tactical markers (access zones, VPs and RPs)
the implementation of a random system for victory conditions and game objectives based on cards.

For the play testing of the system I was feeling a bit more open minded about the composition of the Army List and I prepared the following four. Note that the system requires for each player to prepare three Army List in advance and to select one of them after the setting up of the game.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Heavy Red (Frontline) [1500/435]

Assault
Captain P. Vrachov in KK5 [545 AP]
Lieutenant Dragomira + 3 Dragomirov Kolossus [540 AP]
2 Sierp (Sergeant) [415 AP]

Reinforcements
3 RPG Kolossus (Sergeant) [435 RP]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Red Children (Frontline) [1470/530]

Assault
3 Sierp (Sergeant) [615 AP]
Urod (Colonels Odin & Manon) [570 AP]
9 Dragonov Kommandos (Sergeant, 3 Sniper Gun, 2 Medic) [285 AP]

Reinforcements
11 Krasnye Soldaty (Sergeant, 1 Grenade Launcher, 2 Mechanic) [220 RP]
9 Spetsnatz Kommandos (Sergeant, 3 Flamer, Medic, Combat engineer) [310 RP]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Red Swarm (ARC) [1500/490]

Assault
16 Krasnye Soldaty (Captain, 3 Grenade Launcher, 2 Medic) [390 AP]
15 RPG Soldaty (Lieutenant, 3 MGauss, 2 Medic) [340 AP]
12 Dragonov Kommandos (Lieutenant, 3 Sniper Gun, 2 Medic) [395 AP]
3 Dragomirov Kolossus [375 AP]

Reinforcements
2 Sierp (Sergeant) [415 RP]
3 Krasnye Groupa G (Grenade launchers) [75 RP]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Red Cross (GenCol) [1430/570]

Assault
6 Dragonov Kommandos (Sergeant, 1 AT Gauss Gun, 2 Medics) [210 AP]
8 Krasnye Soldaty (Captain P. Vrachov, 1 Grenade Launcher, 2 Medics) [240 AP]
8 Krasnye Soldaty (Captain P. Vrachov, 1 Grenade Launcher, 2 Medics) [240 AP]
Lieutenant Dragomira + 3 Dragomirov Kolossus [540 AP]
3 Dragonov Groupa S (Snipers) [125 AP]
3 MedTech [75 AP]

Reinforcements
Urod (Colonels Odin & Manon) [570 RP]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

At the end Red Swarm was randomly removed from the selection and I took Red Cross for the play testing against UNA.
Battle report coming soon...

First Contact with the Therians

2010-01-23T23:49:00.008+13:00

Yesterday we played for the first time with Therians.
I was with my Red Block and was the attacker on the Mission 6 of the Rule Book - Extraction.
The Red Block Army List was Frontline 995/930:
Assault [995 AP]
6 Dragonov Kommandos (1 Lieutenant, 1 ATGauss, 2 Elect. warfare, 2 rifles) [230 AP]
8 RPG Soldaty (1 Leader, 1 MGauss, 2 Medics, 4 SM Gauss) [150 AP]
3 Sierps (1 Sergeant) [615 AP]
Reinforcement [930 AP]
3 Dragomirov Kolossi [385 AP]
Cap. Vrachov on KK5 [545 AP]

Therian Army List was Cyphers 725/1275:
Assault [725]
Omega Tiamat [445 AP]
6 assault Golems (1 Relay, 1 Nucleus Gun, 4 Rifles) [280 AP]
Reinforcement [1275 AP]
1 Wraith Golgoth [355 AP]
6 assault Golems (1 Relay, 1 Nucleus Gun, 4 Rifles) [280 AP]
1 Wraith Golgoth (including 1 Alpha) [365 AP]

I was taking a lot of pictures for the game but for unknown reasons, this morning the synchronisation between my mobile phone and my computer decided to deleted all of them except six :(
Have no idea where or how to rescue them. Sorry about that.

There is a picasa album with the surviving pictures.

The Therian list is not exactly as required by the scenario but as it was modified on the spot we did not care too much about it, anyway the excess in APs is not so big and it is in the reinforcement list.

The layout of the battlefield you already know.

1st Round
Red Block waggers 1LP and win the initiative and decides that the Therians can start their deployment.
The Assault Golems appear behind the three low walls on its deployment zone and move behind the container to control the Wreck.
The Dragonov Kommandos make a rush movement on the left of the battlefield and take positions between the container and the border of the terrain, controlling the container and looking into the open ready to shoot.
The Therian player loses 2 LPs due to the 2 Elect. Warfare specialists.
Tiamat enters the game, on the border of the deployment zone, in front of the Dragoniv Kommandos. With 4 LPs she creates a Succubus and with 2 LPs more she Dash towards the Dragonov Kommandos and lands on top of them killing two. Other two manage to scape from below of the monster. Still one of them is in the engagement 2.5mm limit. Tiamat attacks and he is gone, as he was one of the Elect. Warfare guys, the Therian recovers 1 LP.
The lieutenant is one of the dead. He was the company commander, now the Sierp sergeant takes this position. The Red Block loses 2 LP for this reason (actually we forgot this point but as I never used all my LPs it was not a big mistake, we were both a bit shock by the fury of Tiamat, it was really impressive. Unluckily the picture is gone).
The Sierp unit enters the battle and makes a rush movement on the right side of the field, between the four low walls and the border of the terrain and go into overwatch. Three LPs less for the Therians.
The RPG Soldaty move close to the first of those 4 low walls.
End of the round.
Control Phase:
Therians get the control of the Wreck (2 VPs) and the capture and control of the container behind the Wreck (250 RPs).
Red Block gets the container and the nanogenerator close to the four lower walls (400 RPs).
Therian does not get any unit as Reinforcement. Red Block calls in the Dragomirov Kolossi.

2nd Round
Red Block wagers and get the initiative.
Dragomirov Kolossi enter the field by the access point on the left, just behind Tiamat and launch a salvo of rockets to her which damages her legs let her immobilised. The MGauss salvo goes to the Assault Golems behind the container as three are visible but unsuccessfully.

The Assault Golems move to its right, from behind the container in the direction of the two low walls to take control of the nanogenerator and the access zone but they were making a normal move and it is not enought for them to get close enough to try to control the access zone, so they rethink their movement and try to hide around the container from the approaching Sierps and open fire on the Dragomirov Kolossi, but their armour is too hard for the aliens to penetrate it.

Sierps move close to the container where the Wreck is and having line of vision to the Golems, they fire all its weapons (3 hits, 3 misses). The mortar deviates 3cm (for the 3 misses) away from the Golems but the radius is 10cm and double number of impacts (for the 3 hits) and all the Golems are reduced to molten metal and little incandescent bits.

Tiamat uses the repair routine and get one leg operative and makes a Dash movement over the Dragonov Kommandos and the RPG Soldaty. The Dragonov ATGauss and the last Rifleman die, only one Electronic warfare specialist survives to keep control of the container. Two RPG Soldaty also were killed by Tiamat, but one of the Medics save one. Tiamat attacks on close combat 4 RPG Soldaty more (3 SM Gauss and the medic which has just saved the live of the other soldaty). She kills all the four, but the other medic saves the life of the attacked medic.

RPG Soldaty try to move away from Tiamat but one of the medics is engaged with her, so the unit only get to move 7 cm not being able to rush (only free units can rush and they are engaged) [This part was edited].

The Succubus moves between the Sierp and the Wreck to try to block the way (The Sierps were just a few millimetres too far away from the Wreck to be able to control it)
The Electronic Warfare specialist fails the Morale check and falls to Disorganised but the menace of martial court from the Sierp Sergeant rallies him back into Valiant for only 2LPs ;)
End of the Round.
Control Phase:
Therians have no infantry, They can not control any objectives. They consider conceding the game but we decided to play until the end.
Red Block controls the first container with the elect. specialist (150 RPs), has captured a second one with the Sierps (250 RPs), keeps control of a nanogenerator with the Sierps (100 RPs) and captured a second nanogenerator with the Dragomirov Kolossi (150 RPs). Together with the 15 RPs left from the previous round, the Red Block has 665 RPs, more than enough to bring Cap. Vrachov (545 RP) into the battle.

3rd Round
We forgot to recalculate the LPs of the Red Block as Cap. Vrachov has 5 LPs but the game was almost over, therefore it was also not critical for the outcome, also for the fact that the Red Block never used all its LPs, not even half of them.
Therians wins the initiative.
Tiamat make a rush movement over the RPG Soldaty in the direction of the Sierp. All the RPG soldaty survive !!!
Tiamat attacks the Sierp on the back which get damaged on one mortar, one leg and one in the frame. He is still there :D
Cap. Vrachov enters the fight and enclosed Tiamat between himself and the Sierps and opens fire on the Succubus. The first salvo of rockets get home and destroy the Succubus.
The second salvo was intended for Tiamat but it was already point less as the game was more that over.
Without infantry to get more RPs the Therians were not able to bring more forces into the fight except for the creation routine.
With the Succubus gone, Tiamat was not able to bring more AFVs as the space between she and the border of the battlefield was not big enough.
Therefore we considered that the trapped hero in the Wreck (Serg. Tymofiyeva) just eject after the front Sierp moved a bit closer to the Wreck to control it and that she run out of the battlefield.
Two pictures of the final round.

The conclusions of the battle were similar to the time we played it Red Block versus UNA.
Frontline is devastating in small maps were control of objectives is critical to achieve victory. The small amount of APs for the defender makes this scenario quite difficult because it is not possible for him to field enough anti-AFV power to take down the Red Block AFVs which are controlling the objectives and as the level one Red Block AFVs are anti-infantry specialist. it should not be too much complicated for the Red Block to kill the infantry units of the opponent to deny him/her the acquisition of the so much needed RPs.
In the case that we play this scenario another time, I think I will not field Frontline but Supra or even ARC. I liked the way my Sierps and Kossak blocked Tiamat in a narrow corridor making impossible for her to create more AFVs and to attack my infantry. I am playing with the idea of use multiple level 1 AFVs and screen for several minimum size Krasny units with 2 mechanics as a way to manoeuvre close to the Wreck, control it with the infantry, eject Tymofiyeva and make that she joins one of the Krasny units.
This tactic could work very good if Tymofiyeva could be able to switch from one unit to another. There is nothing in the rules which goes against this idea, but I need to check it more carefully.

What do you think?
Ideas, critics, suggestions are as always more than welcomed.

Visual Archives

2010-01-19T20:04:00.004+13:00

As from today onwards it will be also possible to see some pictures on the picasa server.

The first ones are from the Antenna for AT-43.

More arriving soon...

Quick Fingers !!!!

2010-01-11T23:59:00.005+13:00

Madrid (Spain).

Xmas time.

Metro (aka Subway).

A couple goes into a crowded train, close to the end of the wagon, on the corner. Later a girl enters the train and moves directly between the two of them, blocking the way.
The train is packed, so it could be seen as unavoidable. The girl blocking the couple does not moves to much, but lingers over the female member of the couple. Both start thinking that something is going on but still are not really sure.
Anyway, the first girl, suspicious of the girl interposed between them, try to keep the grip on her handbag solid, however she think to feel something estrange as the other girl makes a controlled move around her.
Alarmed she start to check her handbag, but as suspected, the purse is gone. Just on that moment the train stops on the next station, the people start moving, including the estrange girl, who just before leaving point to the ground of the subway where the purse lies.
Obviously, the money was gone, with the girl, but at least the cards (IDs and bank) where left behind.
Total time of the action, less than 30 seconds.

Be aware. They are faster than you can think and they are in every subway system of the big cities.

Merry Xmas

2009-12-26T02:34:00.003+13:00

Antenna for AT-43. Final Version

2009-12-22T07:13:00.007+13:00

Some time ago I posted about a small project for AT-43, a communication antenna for satellite broad casting.

The original idea was to use the antenna for civilian use, mainly the Ava Frontline News Network (AFNN), a News Agency of the Frontline conceived by me, but I was (I am) having problems with the logo.

In the other post, there were two antennas, one was for me, as Red Block player and the second one was for a friend of me which usually plays UNA and who upon seeing the antenna suggested to use a camouflage pattern to paint it.

This Final Version of my antenna is based on his idea.

Hope you like it :D

UNA wiped out

2009-12-19T09:32:00.011+13:00

Today we play the mission 5 of the Rule Book of AT-43, called Landing !

This picture is not from our game, but from the net. I put it here only to be able to show you the sep up of the game.

The defender gets to deploy in the blue indicated zone and the attacker arrives to the battlefield by the opposite side which constitutes the access zone.

The Victory Points for the attacker are 2 VPs for every AFV unit which cross the battlefield and 5 VPs for every infantry unit.

The defender gets 1 VP for controlling the points A, B, D, E and 2 VPs by controlling the points C, F, G.

There are also two neutral access zones on the side of the defender, just on the border of the battlefield behind points F and G. Also two drop points are present, one between the points A and B and the other one between the points D and E, both of them on the deployment zone of the defender.

The attacker gets 1500 APs as assault force and 500 APs as reinforcement and the defender 1000 APs assault and 1000 APs reinforcement.

The reinforcement points are given by controlling the containers and nano generators (both players) and to the attacker also for capturing them.

This mission can be played in the context of the Damocles campaign as secondary mission for the Phase 1 of the operation. In that case, the Karmans and the Red Block are the attacker and the UNA and the Therians are the defender.

It was our first contact with Damocles and the results were a bit disappointing as my UNA opponent was not really able to prepare the game in advance due to professional obligations and his army list was not suited for the battle.

The Red Block Army List was Frontline:

Assault (1500 APs)

8 RPG Soldaty (Colonel, Medic, Engineer, MGauss) [225 APS]

3 RPG Kolossus (Sergeant) [435 APs]

1 Molot (Sergeant) [240 APS]

1 Sierp [200 APS]

Propaganda

Reinforcement (500 RPs)

6 Spetsnatz Kommandos (2 Medics, Rocket launcher) [175 RPs]

3 Dragonov Groupa A (3 ATGauss Gun) [125 RPS]

1 Sierp [200 APS]

I do not have the UNA list but it was M.Ind, with Stark as Colonel in an infantry unit of Steel Troopers, a Lancelot, a Defender Kobra, 2 Snippers and a support unit with 2 Volcano MG in the assault force.

Red Block authority was 7, UNA authority was 5.

Before we determined anything, we rolled a dice for cosmic hazards but neither Magnetic Disturbances nor Meteor Shower. Damocles started without Special Effects :D

UNA decides to use 6 LPs to increase his roll for initiative, but gets twice a 1, wherein Red Block gets a 5, and therefore it is a tie. As far as we know the situation is not defined in the rules, but we always ruled that the higher authority wins, in this case the Red Block which decides to let UNA move first.

Round 1

1.- The 8 Steel Troopers with Colonel Stark leading them deploy close to the central nanogenerator, controlling it, together with the container and the victory point C, taking cover and over watching the movements of the enemy.

1.- A Red Block Molot enters the battlefield and fires its flamers on Stark and his boys. The quick intervention of the Medics is not enough to avoid the dead of one soldier. Its presence contests the control of victory point C.

2.- A UNA Lancelot deploys and moves between points B and C to try to avoid the future movement of the Red Block AFVs into the UNA controlled area and over watch the Red Block further movements.

2.- Another Molot enters the fight and moving close to its brother calls dead on the Steel Troopers, only 3 of the original imperialist fighters survive; one of them, Colonel Stark.

3.- UNA decides to mobilise its biggest AFV of the evening and a Kobra Defender try to block the other access to the UNA side of the battle and fires its missiles on the Molots, without any effect.

3.- The RPG Kolossus blitz into the action and the Lancelot decides to fire its grenade launchers on them. Their thick armour protects them from the salvo but the lack of gyroscopes send them to the ground. However the two salvos of their RPGs manage to destroy the Defender in a big explosion of fire and molten metal.

4.- Two snipers take position on the victory point G and shoot the Sergeant of the RPG Kolossus dead !

4.- The Molot Sergeant calls an Artillery Strike over the Lancelot which does not seems to do any damage to the enemy AFV. Upon arrival, a Sierp opens fire and kills the two snipers. Together with the two Molots, they deny the defender the control of the victory point C.

5.- The two Star Troopers of the Volcano MG support team are deployed on victory point F.

5.- The Red Block Propaganda helps the RPG Kolossus to come back to their feet.

6.- The RPG Soldaty move behind the container, on the further side of the battlefield.

UNA concedes the game and we spent the next half hour discussing the game ;D

My opponent was of the opinion that the scenario is a bit unfair for the defender, specially as the UNA is not able to control objectives with its AFVs and therefore they need infantry, a lot of infantry, which on the other side is expensive and quite weak. 1000 APs as assault force for the defender is maybe not enough for the UNA to have anything really good on the board.

The true is that the Red Block was having the supremacy directly since the beginning of the battle, maybe due to a good Army List (I hope so) and the lack of preparation of the UNA, but also maybe to those 500 APs point difference as after the destruction of the Defender, there was nothing on the board able to stop my RPG Kolossus and my AFVs.

Next time I would like to play the defender, I think the Red Block cloud probably do better than the UNA as Frontline allows the AFVs to control objectives and even if some Red Block infantry units are not so expensive but also very week, the Kolossus have a very good armour and are still affordable.

Note on Artillery Strike: before the battle we got the impression that Artillery Strikes in Damocles were quite powerful, but as it was called only once and targeted not into an infantry unit but into a AFV, I can not give a honest opinion about the particular. Maybe next time.

Easy tokens for AT-43

2009-12-18T19:53:00.010+13:00

For AT-43 there are some tokens needed to indicate either the special status of your units (disorganised) or the fact that they are performing a "combat drill" (for example, take cover). Also the Leadership Points (LPs), Victory Points (VPs) and Reinforcement Points (RPs) are represented by tokens.

As far as I know the only company which produces tokens with the "official" symbols of the game to represent this situations is GF9.
However, the list of tokens provided with one box is quite limited as some tokens are barely present and others can be over expressed:

AT-43 Token Set
1 – “Knee to the ground!” drill marker
2 – “Take cover!” drill markers
2 - “Overwatch!” drill markers
2 - “Split fire!” drill markers
1 - “Disorganized” status marker
10 - Leadership point markers
1 - Reinforcement points marker “25”
1 - Reinforcement points marker “50”
1 - Reinforcement points marker “100”
1 - Victory point marker “1”
1 - Victory points marker “3”
1 - Victory points marker “5”

For this reason, a lot of people are producing their own tokens.

This is the way I did it.

First I printed the official tokens on white paper with a colour printer.

Then I cut 2.1 cm squares of hard plastic sheet, the one which is used as first hard cover in office bounded reports or memoranda.

Then I glued the squares on the white paper sheet on the printed tokens with normal transparent glue (on the centre of the picture).

Then I just cut the circles with scissors and for the base I used this self adhesive black protectors for the bottom part of the legs of chairs and sofas (on the right side of the picture). They are 2 cm big, soft in one side and adhesive on the other.

The tricky part was to cut the circles with the scissor as any deviation is very easy to spot and ruins the effect.

The final tokens are on the left side of the picture.

They look great, oder?

Communication Antenna for AT-43

2009-12-15T22:48:00.007+13:00

My first experiment of creating some element for our AT-43 games :D

The idea came to my thinking about the civil engineers introduced with the Frostbite Campaign. I was thinking that those guys needed for sure a way to transmit information to the base station when they were there, outside, exploring that frozen planet.

The materials I used are very simple:

A bottle of Evian water (will the surface of the antenna), a pair of plastic spoons for coffee, and an office clip.

The clip will become the supporting legs of the antenna, the coffee spoons the tip of the antenna and that is pretty much everything.

From the lower part of the plastic bottle and with the help of a cutter, we remove the oval shape. The ergonomic profile looks very nice once you take it out of context as antenna shape.

We also cut the lower part of the two coffee spoons to make out the tip of the antenna.

Now we glue the two white plastic pieces together and to the oval shape and the antenna is becoming more evident.

After removing the black metallic piece of the office clip, we glue the two silver pieces together with a bunch of liquid hot glue, the kind you easily burn your fingers with ;D

And finally, we glue the antenna on top of the supporting legs with more liquid hot glue.

In the picture you can see one example without black primer and another one already with it.

The final painting is not yet available as I still did not decide how to do it ;)
Mi actual options are some Red Block emblems, or just military camouflage pattern.

Blitz !

2009-11-26T01:52:00.004+12:00

Just a few lines to let you know about the Segway (wiki) as I have tried this great invention last weekend in Paris.
There is company in Paris which offers several tours, one of those is with a Segway. The tour is around four hours and you get to see the more relevant parts of the city (Eiffel tower, Les invalides, Louvre on so on).
Obviously, the city itself is worth the visit but the Segway is just amazing :D
The machine is really easy to drive. After a short explanation and a few minutes of practice, you can start "riding" the city :D
To speed up you just need to bend forwards, to break or go backwards just bend that way and to turn around just move or best say, push the handle to the right or to the left. This will make that one wheel will move slower than the other an the machine will turn around that wheel.
Only drawback is that every one is looking (or even making pictures) in your direction as you pass by ;D

Planet of Appes

2009-11-18T09:37:00.003+12:00

Big blue monkeys with laser guns ?

Not a joke :D

There are the Karmans and they try to probe that they are also a force to take into account in the AT-43 universe.

They just arrived last week from their home world and joined the UNA first and then the Red Block in a "King of the Hill" scenario.

First impression, they are hard, really hard, but not indestructible. In both fights, the faction which with the Karmans were allied lost.

However, the last report from the front states that the UNA just got beaten up by those blue hairy guys :D

We will keep you posted...

The Time Traveler's Wife

2009-11-18T09:33:00.004+12:00

Based on a book which was recommended to me some time ago by a friend, I must say that I did not get the time to read the book, however I just saw the movie and it is great.

Very well done, nice dialogues, good actors, incredible situations and a lot of time traveling :D

As usual no spoilers here, so nothing about how it ends or something like that.

Go to the cinema and enjoy it !

As soon as I read the book, I will tell you about ;D

Federations

2009-11-10T10:06:00.005+12:00

Federations is a great anthology of short SciFi stories edited by John Joseph Adams. The same editor of some other anthologies, like the one which first called my attention upon its books, The Living Dead, an anthology of zombie short stories.

I have been fan of SciFi stories since quite a long time. This gender is one of my recurrent topics of interests. I must say, I have the tendency to read a lot of about a subject for a while and then changing to a sometimes very different subject for some time and so on. I can not recall when was the last time that I really enjoyed reading SciFi before getting this book as lately I was quite fix with Fantasy books and more recently with zombie stories.

The book has very good short stories from some of the best SciFi author of the moment. After reading some of them, I searched their names on the web for further reference as some of the stories were part of a more vast universe created by the corresponding. For example, the opening story is "Maze in prison" from Orson Scott Card and takes place in the universe of Ender, the main character of the book, Ender's game, also a great story on its own.

Take a look to the table of contents and try to get a copy :D

Sirens in the Aegean

2009-11-09T23:09:00.003+12:00

Sirens in the Aegean is a film by Nico Perakis from 2005 which was projected last week during the Greek Film Festival in Delft (Wiki).
The plot is quite simple, a bunch of soldiers decide to scene a joke for one of the members of the platoon who was supposed to have three free days to meet his new girlfriend. Instead of that, his "friends" (including his sergeant) make him believe that they have be mobilized and send in status of maximal alert to the island of Pitta (a piece of stone barely visible above the sea level just in front of Turkey).
The situation gives place to weird situations and escalates when a turkish boat approach the island and some of the crew members try to disembark on the little island.
A lot of funny dialogues and remarks about the rivality between Greek and Turkey are present and will manage to get you into the mood even if you can not speak Greek or turkish and need to rely on the English subtitles.
If you have the chance, watch it and hope you enjoy it.

First Blood

2009-11-09T08:40:00.017+12:00

The Red block Army Box.

A nice way to get an army for the Red block of 2000 army points (AP) for not so much money. The box contains a lot of things, but the interesting is the army itself:

• 1 unit of 12 Krasnye Soldaty: regular infantry containing three grenade launchers, two medics and an officer

• 1 unit of 8 Krasnye Soldaty: regular infantry containing one grenade launcher, two mechanics and an officer

• 6 Dragonov Kommandos: elite infantry with one sniper rifle, an electronic warfare specialist, a medic and an officer

• Odin O-1 and Manon O-2: the Red Blok’s two greatest heroes

• 1 Urod: Odin O-1’s and Manon O-2’s combat strider

• 1 Dotch Yaga: the most heavily armored combat strider to ever grace the battlefield

Before getting this box I was already having some Krasnye and some Spetsnatz Kommandos but I wanted to try the army box so I decided not to use any other unit for my very first game of AT-43.

My opponent was also a 2000 points army form the U.N.A. Mind (actually only 1990 AP)

1 Copperhead (470)

1 Fire Toad + Bad Dog (450)

3 Death Dealer Tac Arms + Lieutenant G. Epstone (440)

2 Wing Sniper Team (95)

2 Wing Laser Team (120)

1 Cobra M8 with a sergeant (415)

We used a quite big table, around 2 x 2 meters (7' x 7') and we decided to run a "King of the Hill" scenario. The hill was actually a system of trenches slightly above the general level of the table. There were some containers and other scenography maybe no so much as it would have be needed, but taking into account that it was also the first game of my opponent, we were (we are) still trying out things :D

The trenches system was open, without any roof and turned out to be a deadly trap for my infantry as the U.N.A. army was having several indirect fire arms which fired unopposed on my Krasnye, massacring them.

For the starting positions of deployment we rolled a dice but we considered also the corners of the table for the roll and sure enough we got that outcome. So we started the game on opposite corners of a big table without so much cover and a lot of AFVs around. The heavy vehicles dominated the field and the infantry was a mere spectator of the battle.

Impress by the heavy armour of the Dotch Yaga I decided to deploy it on my right flank with a unit of Krasnye to try to go for the souther side of the hill, whereas the Urod was deployed on the left flank with the other Krasnye unit and the Dragonovs.

The Urod managed to get cover behind a container and open fire on the AFVs of the imperialists. At the same time, the Dotch Yaga was able to see them over the low elevation of the trenches and also opened fire on them. Unluckily for my side, the U.N.A. AFVs were all of them having the ability of mechanic and therefore able to repair themselves. Obviously this made the destruction or serious damage of these units very difficult even for the Dotch Yaga. Some attempts of concentrating the fire on one unit were also not so fruitful.

However, the Tac Arms tried to approach the trenches from the East side and were deadly close to the heavy mortar of the Dotch Yaga, only the hero (Lt. Epstone) managed to survive the round :D

Nevertheless, she managed to manoeuvre and outflank the Krasnye on cover behind the Dotch Yaga and to shoot them on a very short range, killing the last mechanic. A lucky salvo from the imperialist AFVs landed on the frame of the Dotch Yaga and destroyed it !!!.

In the mean time, the Urod was shooting the U.N.A. forces from behind the trenches, but without too much success. The Wing Sniper Team was behind a fortified wall and able to target almost any point of the battle field. Something not very good for the survival chances of the Krasnye Soldaty.

The Urod charged against the U.N.A. forces on an attempt to short the range and destroy the leading AFV, but the destruction of the Dotch Yaga focused all the fire on it.

The second unit of Krasny had managed to reach the trenches but the position was so exposed that the mortars of the U.N.A. and the snipers were able to almost wipe them out.

The destruction of the Dotch Yaga was also the end of the game. The time we were having for the whole game was over and the final outcome was more or less clear. A sounded defeat for the Red Block :(

Our posterior analysis of the battle in the light of the forums and related webs pointed out to an excessive size of the table and a lack of cover for the battle. The tactical error of letting the Dotch Yaga alone on one flank with only one mechanic was also something to learn for the future.

But, the game was incredible funny, fast paced (more or less, we are still mastering the rules after all) and with glorious moments.

After this first battle we decided to go on with the game and order some more miniatures and plan the second round, but with more cover and a better hill; a bit higher, so that no unit should be able to see over it ;D (the first one was very low and allowed the AFVs to see the other side, which kind of hill does it?)

Even having being defeated, I really enjoyed the battle as well as my opponent did.

We were both of us looking forward for a second go !

Not Funny

2009-11-09T08:07:00.003+12:00

Not funny at all !

According to my DVD magazine review this movie was supposed to be very funny but actually Paul Blart*Mall Cop is not a funny movie.

The plot seemed fine. A guy with some problems due to hypoglycemia tries to be a cop but due this issue does not manage to pass the physical test and just goes on with his job as mall cop. There is daughter for a previous marriage and a nice girl on the mall which the main character finds very attractive and you learn almost at the beginning that she also likes him. There is also a bunch of bad guys who try to take over the mall to steal all the money from the shop just before they close thanks to some computer thing.

At first approach, the movie has a bit of everything: romance, not so common disease, action, bad guys, and so on; but the movie just falls into common easy jokes.

The guy is quite fat due to his problem and a lot of situations arise where this issue is used to try to make fun by the easy method of ridiculing him or best to say to try to make fun but the jokes are so bad that you almost have to cry.

The secondary characters are also very easy and the plot just does not add. The bad guys are bad, very bad but just as characters not as opponent. They are a useless bunch of idiots without any substance. They are just there because they are needed for the plot but they are so bad portrait that no one can believe on the characters.

The romantic part of the movie is more or less fine, but that is not so difficult, isn't it?

Conclusion: A movie that maybe you should avoid wasting your time with.

By the power of Grayskull !

2009-11-06T02:12:00.006+12:00

Last night we watched the film Hot Fuzz (Wiki) and we really enjoyed it.

The film is about a kind of fantastic good police officer in the UK which is transferred to a little nothing in the middle of nowhere and how he (not)connect with the new surroundings.
The film is from the same team as the fabulous "Shaun of the dead" and very hilarious.

Plenty of great moments and ironic dialogues together with excellent actors, habitual from English movies. Two of the secondary characters, for example, were part of the team of "Love Actually", namely the old rock star and the guy making the poses for the porno movies.

But no spoilers and no more words here.

Just Watch It !!

AT-43

2009-11-05T04:28:00.007+12:00

AT-43 is a miniature sci-fi wargame from the company Rackham in which several factions fight for their lives.

Actually there are six factions: U.N.A., Red Block, Therians, Karman and the new factions Cogs and O.N.I.

As usual in this kind of games, each faction has its own "philosophy", that means, each faction follows a different approach to war and to technology (better accuracy but lower damage, slow fire-rate but high armour, and so on).

U.N.A. and Red Block are human-like, Therians are a kind of hybrid between humans and machines, Karmans are big intelligent apes, Cogs are giant high evolved creatures and O.N.I. is a human corporation with access to a kind of "zombie" virus. Those two (Cogs and O.N.I.) are new additions to the game universe, so there is no so much information about them, however, there are initiation army boxes for both of them (the one for Cogs is already on the market since some months and the one for O.N.I. was presented last month and will be released this November).

I discovered the game some time ago, in 2007, in the GenCon in Paris and it was probably the only good thing about that GenCon (how can you call it "the European GenCon" with barely 20 stands in a ridiculously small hall which was still half empty and no parking possibility??? go to SpielMesse in Essen to see what a REAL games convention looks like).

But coming back to the game, at last year SpielMesse in Essen we found some of the miniatures at a very reasonable price (actually it was a very low price) and we decided to buy a few. The offer was not so big, basically some U.N.A. soldiers, some Red Block Kommandos and some Therians. Biassed by the bizarre look of the Therians we decided to buy the U.N.A. and Red block guys but afterwards we never found the time to try the game, until last month...

After the initial adquisition of troups, we got some more U.N.A. and then the Red Block army box (great deal, really) and we try our first battle with this army box of Red Block against a U.N.A. army of also 2000 AP (more on that on further post).

The outcome is that we are waiting now for not one, but two quite big deliveries of more miniatures, including Therians and Karmans and that we are trying (with quite a success) to mutate more people into players :D

Inglourious Basterd

2009-09-25T19:21:00.003+12:00

No spoilers here.

Just go to the cinema and watch it if you didn't yet.

Great movie, sometimes a bit too slow, but clearly a Tarantino's film.

The Gourdiaan Route

2009-08-09T07:40:00.009+12:00

This route (http://www.gpsies.com/map.do?fileId=yduwhezfehzivcva) is a walking route which should start on the little town of Gourdiaan and be a round trip of 23 km around some beautiful Dutch landscape (channels, windmills and similar).

However, the indications are almost missing, the road is sometimes just disappearing right in front of your nose and there is no place to eat anything along the planned route.

Once you arrive to Gourdiaan you will find a place called Het Raadhuis cafe. The place looks fine and the parking area is empty early in the morning, at least it was empty this morning around 1140 local time.

Directly there you will see one of the markers of the route, look carefully to it because is one of the few you will be able to see :(

To begin with the walking you should go over the bridge and to the left, there you will see one marker. After a few meters you will see another marker like the one in the picture. The direction of the arrows is supposed to be followed. We didn't and skip around 3 km going directly to Ottoland.

This little place has nothing except some very nice houses and a church with a nest. Even if you miss this marker and follow straight ahead to Ottoland as we did, you will eventually connect again with the route way, but you will be at the wrong side of the channel without a bridge to cross it...

One you manage to arrive again to the N214 you will be back in business.

The road will take you to Giesen. A nothing in the middle of nowhere, without any place to buy food or water, at least as far as we were concerned today, maybe you have more luck...

The surroundings are very quiet and not so crowded. Around only fields with cows, sheep, and horses. A lot of cows.

After Giesen the planned route will lead you into a dead end or best said to the garden of a private property. A huge garden, that is true, but still a private and closed property.

The shortest way that we found to come back to Gourdiaan was heading to Hoornaar and then turning direction Noordeloos.

Good news are in Hoornaar there is a kind of cafe, bad news the food is not so good even if you are already quite hungry.

The way to Noordeloos is very pleasant and full with channels and shadows.

From Noordeloos to Gourdiaan there are still some kilometers. This is not really the route indicated in the book or on the internet, but as the markers where more or less never there and the road was not really following this, we didn't care too much at all.

It was anyway a nice trip, even the weather was great, sunny but not too hot.

If you try this route, good luck with the indications ;)

Today

2009-08-03T06:50:00.006+12:00

Today I wake up quite late, around 1100 and I found warm chocolate waiting for me for breakfast. A fantastic way to start a day.

Sadly today was bye-bye day. After several months in duty at the tower, keeping my tachyonic transmitter in position only with the help of his special genetic markers and adhesive tape, Gato was leaving.

His trainer, an agent of the FPF needed him back for different duties. From today Gato will be protecting the life of a new born, a future agent of the FDF maybe. If we are lucky maybe even an author. We don't get so many those days...

Today was also cleaning day. The hideout in the city center needed some material and some repairs. After the activity of the last months on the docks, some ammo was too short and more explosive traps is always a good idea.

The new agent will arrive in time minus 13 days and will probably fancy some extra toys.

Afterwards beach-duty. I like beach-duty. Usually there is nothing wrong going there. People are used to the presence of FPF forces patrolling the area. They know what happens to other worlds when the Tedio took them. No papal agent will survive here if detected.

In some ways this planet remembers me from my home one, little bit less mountains, but you can not have everything.

Now I just re-invented a kind of liquor. The recipe is not too difficult, some milk (better cold), some (quite a lot) spoons of chocolate powder and a bit of cachaca rum. I think we deserved it, well only I am actually drinking it, but was a team work. After beach-duty it was obvious that it was a moment as good as any other one to fix minor problems at the light house. Basically the tachyonic antenna needed a new disguise and some bullet holes in the walls are now not visible anymore. My base looks again as unremarcable as it should look.

Alpha is now running a total check up of hers systems and will be down for a while.

The sun is setting course to the other side of the planet and the sea is about to explode in red.

End of a nice weekend.

But, Tomorrow Will Be Another Day

The Game

2009-07-17T06:19:00.009+12:00

Last night was again a night without sleep. My excuse was the dinner, too much cheese I said to them. But the true is different, worse. The kids are partially guilty, but actually I am the only one to blame. Looks like a game, but it is not funny, not for me at least, not anymore since I was eight.

But it is becoming too complicated. I will try to put it much more simple.

Yesterday we were at the school. The kids are in a baseball team and there was a match against another school. A lot of people were there. Maybe forty to fifty families. Well, I must say, there were sixty seven cars in the parking lot. I know. I counted them. Only seven were red, but all of them were even.

We were going to the school. As usual at the highway there were more cars than space, the same nice traffic jam of every day.

The kids don't like the jams. To be fair, no one likes them.

They were busy looking to the other cars and talking about the people inside. I thought they were searching for some other kids, some of their friends. They caught me by surprise. They were playing the game, that silly game. I was not able to believe it. They didn't play it in years.

I was able to hear them. First, they started looking for any one, then they were going more to the specific ones. I was afraid, I mean, really afraid. I don't want for them to know. Not now at least. Better, they should never know. Actually no one should know. I don't know why I am writing it down here...

But again, I am becoming too complicated. They, the kids, they were playing "just a game". I am sure everyone knows the game. I used to liked it when I was a boy, so long ago. Rules are very easy. You just suggest a plate number detail, like for example that the last cipher is 8 and the first one who sees a car with the corresponding plate number wins and choose the next victory condition.

As I said, I really liked the game until one day. We were back from the zoo. There was an accident on the highway, it was the worst traffic jump I have seen in my life. At the beginning everything was fine. I won a few rounds, my little sister and my mother the others.

That was the last time I played...

Well to be honest, it is not totally true.

I am still playing and that is the reason of my fears, of my sleepless nights.

That last game as I was eight, I won the previous round and I chose the victory condition.

It seemed as normal as any other one.

Red car with odd plate number.

That was more than forty years ago.

I am still searching for it...

iPhone battery vs. Tiwtter

2009-05-26T20:57:00.002+12:00

The battery life of an iPhone which uses applications for the management of twitter accounts such as Twitterrific (http://iconfactory.com/software/twitterrific) or TwitterFon (http://twitterfon.net/) can get exhausted much sooner as expected.
Personal experience says that the battery will allow only for about 8 to 10 hours in Stand By, in comparison with the more than 30 hours in Stand By which can be achieved on the same iPhone after the removal of those applications.
The reasons for such a high energy consume by those applications I don't know, but let's hope that the next versions of those twitter clients solve this problem.
More about iPhone battery life, applications and settings of the iPhone can be found at How to Change the World.

Origin

2009-05-15T01:06:00.004+12:00

In few words: Great Movie.

For those of you who have already read the comics (Wolverine Origin), tell you that the movie summarised the comics in more or less 2 minutes and then goes on with its own argument and plot.
But there is nothing wrong with this. The first X-Men movie was already not following the comics 100%, a trend which was continued by the second and also the last part.
The characters in those movies were already known by every Marvel fan, but the story behind was a bit different.
With Wolverine Origin is again the case. The main characters are already known, namely Logan and Striker and for everyone who has watched the second movie, it is clear that there has to be a connecting point between both of them and the adamantium.
A lot of questions are solved by this film, but of course, a lot more arise.

The best part is to try to recognize all the mutants who are in the movie, some are obvious (no names, no spoilers here), other maybe not.

Also a good deal of special effects and some plot twists which maybe are not the taste of everyone, but which make the film version of the Marvel universe astonishing also for comic readers.

My advise: go to the cinema and enjoy it !

May the Xmas be with you

2008-12-26T07:13:00.001+12:00

Imperial City

2008-11-30T22:01:00.015+12:00

Last recovery time after duty as diplomatic escort was four free days in the Imperial City. You know what I mean, that part of the planet were the Emperor resides. Not so off borders as you can think but crowded with people from every corner of the galaxy, even some people from my habitual duty planet. But much more people, far more, from my planet of origin,. They were everywhere and, as usual, impossible to miss as they always talk to each other shouting :D

The first stop after reporting at the local clone trooper post was the Arena, aka Colosseum (Wikipedia). Quite impresive, but also very well known, always have been in pictures, movies...

The guided visit was done by a very funny native who was all the time quoting the word "crazy" as a kind of Mantra to explain everything about the Colosseum and, of course, with several references to the movie "Gladiator". The actual tour does not allow to visit the underground part of the Arena as seen in the film "Jumper" but it seems to be plans for allowing it in the future.

Nevertheless is interesting to know that the ground of the Arena was hollow, just a wooden floor covered with sand to absorb the blood of the gladiators to avoid accidents due to a slippery floor. This kind of construction allowed the use of the underground area for keeping the slaves, gladiators, animals and other paraphernalia used in the shows. The whole Arena was equipped with a system of hidden holes on the wooden floor for special effects, like lifting up a hungry tiger just to the ground space right on your back. Surprise !

Just in front of the Colosseum is the Arch of Constantine (Wikipedia), also well known and emblematic. Also there you can find the Roman Forum (Wikipedia), very nice even if it looks only like a pile of stones lying around ;)

From there you can walk down to the Column of Trajan (Wikipedia), present in every history book and kind of monumental history book itself as the whole column is covered with a relief which relates Trajan's victory in the Dacian Wars, somewhere in todays Romania, which seems to be the only country in that area which still uses a latin-based language.

The walk along this part of the city can be crowded with more visitors than desired but is still a very nice way to spend a sunny afternoon.

Close to the Column of Trajan there are some small places where it is possible to enjoy a very tasty pizza. But, in general, there is not need to worry about the food, it is usually great :)

Another nice spot of the city is the Piazza di Spagna (Wikipedia), at the bottom of the Spanish Steps which lead the way to the church Trinità dei Monti.

In the surrounding streets it is possible to found some shops, mainly for clothes and complements, but also several nice restaurants and wine bars. The last are specially recommended as the offer on starters or finger food to have with the wine is fantastic.

This was day one. Second day, meeting the Emperor.....

Forever

2008-10-21T10:08:00.003+12:00

I stand alone in the darkness
The winter of my life came so fast
Memories go back to my childhood
To days I still recall

Oh, how happy I was then
There was no sorrow, there was no pain
Walking through the green fields
Sunshine in my eyes

I'm still there everywhere
I'm the dust in the wind
I'm the star in the northern sky
I never stayed anywhere
I'm the wind in the trees
would you wait for me forever?

This is probably my favourite song, the one I usually listen when my heart is sinking and I'm feeling a bit under the weather. Today I'm pretty OK, but don't you think it's a nice song?

Capital City

2008-09-29T06:38:00.011+12:00

This weekend some aliens ambassadors were here for the Galactic Senate session. As part of our duty, a clone trooper detachment was deployed for their protection. The following is a brief report of the ambassadors tour across Capital City...

On of the main features of Capital City (a.k.a. Amsterdam) is the neuralgic point of Dam Square, just at the end of the main street heading from Centraal Station. A Royal Palace presides the square, which is flanked by the Nieuwe Kerk on the right. The spot is usually crowed with tourist as several street performers use to be here. They wear different outfits and just stay there, on top of a small pedestal, like statues, so that the people can make pictures with them. Of course some money is expected to be offer in advance.

Just behind the Royal Palace it is possible to find an incredible departament store, the Magna Plaza.

This place is the former main post office of the city and was built between 1895-1899.

Today is one of the nicest shopping facilities of the city. Inside of the building there are several mechanical stairs which allow a nice view of the walls and columns which conform the interior. The capitals or ornamental heads of the column represent people from different countries from all around the world since the neighbour Belgium to the exotic Brazil.

But the main feature of the city are the canals. Starting form Centraal Station, the canals build a semi-circular net which connects and covers the city. They total more than 100km and are cross by more than 1500 bridges. On sunny days, the local population and the tourists take the canals. A good amount of locals are able to drive a boat and own one or known someone who does. Therefore it is not strange to see bunches of people just passing by on a boat, with some friends, maybe some (loud) music, drinks and food.

Another possibility is to rent a boat and participate on the river party. The people use to wave their hands and greet the pedestrian on their festive trip across the city and are frequently taken in pictures by the wondered tourists.

A very nice option is to make a canal cruise with one of the several companies which offer this service. Some of them are located direct in front of Centraal Station, other on the street which connect it with Dam Square.

The price is more or less the same and the tour takes around one hour. So, it is not worth to wait more than 15 min for a tour to start but just go to one of the other companies and check if their tour starts earlier.

The boat will navigate the main canals and pass close to several of the main landmarks of the city. Herengracht (Gentelman's channel) is one of the more beautiful ones as the houses along its side were the property of the more powerful and rich families of the city on the Dutch Golden Century. Today those houses are owned by banks, advocates and insurance companies.

Also the official residence of the city mayor is on this street.

The ground in Amsterdam is not solid enough for supporting buildings and the houses were usually edified on wooden poles. The stability of the foundation was not always the optimal and for this reason a lot of houses are not able to keep the vertical and have to bend onto the surrounding ones, laying on them. The effect is quite weird.

Not part of the cruise on the canals, but for sure the main point of tourism of the city is the (in)famous Red Light District. Very different during daylight hours than at night, the place is always crowed with people walking around. The major part of the tourist just pass by, look to the sex shops, scape from the door-keepers of the numerous live sex shows and watch the few girls who are inside the windows. At night or at least after it gets dark, the presence of police is quite obvious as well as the recurrent approach of people offering all kind of drugs to the visitor. Once I even saw a guy being guided out of the district hand-shelled by a younger one, who was not wearing any police uniform but civil clothes. No idea about the possible offense or the outcome....

The lack of space to build houses in Amsterdam is an endemic problem since decades. For this reason some people just made their houses not along the canals but on the canals, on boat-houses. They are anchored on the sides of the canals and in several degrees of wellness / decadence. Some of them are registered as houses by the local government of the city and enjoy legal status, which also allows them to have access to running water, electricity, telephone and gas lines. Obviously there are also an undetermined amount of illegal boat-houses, which obviously lack those services.

Amsterdam is also a very important harbor since centuries, for sure not so huge as the one form Rotterdam, but still big enough for the Artemis to dock in. The feeling passing close to it on the much smaller tourist canal cruiser was like watching an Imperial Destroyer from the Millennium Falcon, just amazing.

Last part of the trip is the NEMO and the replica of a Dutch ship of the Dutch West Indian Company (yes, the same from Pirates of the Caribbean). Btw, some of the characters of the movies are to see inside of Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum.

Wake me up when September ends

2008-09-21T21:57:00.003+12:00

A very long summer, plenty of problems. So please...

Don't want "Excluses", want results !!!

2008-09-21T07:01:00.023+12:00

Sorry for the bad joke as I don't think that any english speaker would be able to understand it, actually even not a native Spanish speaker will understand it at all, which was the language the joke came out first.

The weird title refers to a failed trip we did in The Netherlands to visit the famous "Storm surge barrier" a.k.a. as The Maeslant Barrier (http://www.keringhuis.nl/).

The route to get there is not so easy, according to our knowledge at the time, the barrier should had been in a place called Hoek van Holland, which is almost the right place, but alas, almost...

The real way to arrive there should be:

From Rotterdam:
A20 to Hoek van Holland. After Maassluis, take the Hoek van Holland exit. Follow the N220 to Hoek van Holland, take the exit on the left to the Maeslantkering. Follow the signs ‘Maeslantkering’.

From The Hague:

Follow the signs for Hoek van Holland. At the Hoek van Holland - Maassluis (N220), take the ‘Maeslantkering’ turn. Follow the signs ‘Maeslantkering’.

Once you follow the signs to Maeslantkering, you will find a building of the company DSM, after crossing the rails of the train, just turn left and you will see a long road, crowded with cyclists enjoying the nice weather (there are ALWAYS people on bikes around in The Netherlands). At the end of that road you will see the Barrier.

Inside of the visitors center it is possible to see a model of the Barrier.

The model not only explains how the barrier works, also moves to show it.

Basically the idea is that the two moving parts (called gates or retaining walls) rest on the dock, close to the ground (down position). When the situation requires it (test drill or heavy storm), the gates rise form the ground and impulsed by the locomobile (the red box close to the water) they move into the channel.

Once the gates are in the middle of the channel, they are open, so that water fill their inside and lower them onto the channel ground. On this position the gates are only 2 meters above the water level, but this is enough to stop the storm.

They close off a wide of 360 meters, are 22 meters high and 210 meters long. The point of movement (ball joint) weights 680 tons and it is on a base which weights 52000 tons and is able to move with a 2 millimeters accuracy.

As you can see the weather was great, maybe the last good day of the Dutch summer, and the view from the elevated observation point was pretty nice.

In the last two pictures you can see the arm of the gate and also the joint. On the background a little boat is pulling one of the harbor's towers.

No Cheese Inside ???

2008-09-15T07:36:00.007+12:00

A recipe I tried last week at a Chinese photo session.

Background info: A Polish friend of mine was in China for the Olympic Games, enjoyed a very nice time there, was having a couple of pictures to share with us an, of course, a bunch of stories and anecdotes to amuse us.

Mission: The requested task was to provide with some food for the evening, namely the (in)famous Bode Cheese Cake (I will post another date about it) but as it needs to be prepare one day in advance and to stay inside the fridge for a night I decided to try a different one.

Code: Quesada Ester which should be something like Esther's Cheese Pudding.

INGREDIENTS

75g butter
2 eggs
125ml Yoghurt (use the container for the measurement of the other ingredients)
250ml Sugar
250ml Flour
500ml Milk
a grated lemon's peel
powder cinnamon

Preparation

Warm up the butter a few minutes to liquify it a bit
Mix afterward with the rest of the ingredients except the cinnamon (the two eggs, the yoghurt, the sugar, the milk, the flour and the lemon's peel).
Once the mixture is ready, transfer it into a mold and bake it in the oven.

Temperature and time inside of the oven depends on the actual technical specs of the oven used. A medium temperature (around 180° - 200° C in a traditional European oven) should give the best results.

There is not need to open the oven and poke into the pudding to see if is already done. Just look to it through the window of the oven.

The pudding should start to rise up until it gets a uniform golden colour. Just take out of the oven at this point and let it cold down. The pudding sink down again.

It should be keep inside of the fridge as it should be cold at the moment of bringing it to the table.

Just take it out of the fridge, add some cinnamon powder onto the surface of the pudding, and... Ready !

Ohrwurm

2008-08-20T09:37:00.002+12:00

I don't love you
My chemical romance

Well when you go
Don't ever think I'll make you try to stay
And maybe when you get back
I'll be off to find another way

When after all this time that you still owe
You're still, the good-for-nothing I don't know
So take your gloves and get out
Better get out
While you can

When you go
Would you even turn to say
"I don't love you
Like I did
Yesterday"

Sometimes I cry so hard from pleading
So sick and tired of all the needless beating
But baby when they knock you
Down and out
It's where you oughta stay

And after all the blood that you still owe
Another dollar's just another blow

So fix your eyes and get up
Better get up
While you can
Whoa, whooa

When you go
Would you even turn to say
"I don't love you
Like I did
Yesterday"

Well come on, come on

When you go
Would you have the guts to say
"I don't love you
Like I loved you
Yesterday"

I don't love you
Like I loved you
Yesterday

I don't love you
Like I loved you
Yesterday

X-Ray

2008-06-17T03:48:00.008+12:00

Today I want to share some interesting photos. The quality is not very good, because they were taken with my mobile phone some months ago, but the "subject" can be clearly seen.

In the first one we can see a human chest (male, 93 years more or less) but, what's the bright point just in the middle?

In the second one, we have a lateral view of the same grandpa. The bright thing is also visible here.

And finally, the last photo. I think that in this one is clear what the object really is. This man has a bullet in his mediastinum since the spanish civil war. It's awesome, isn't it?

Modal verbs

2008-06-17T03:42:00.005+12:00

I will follow you into the dark

2008-06-03T01:27:00.005+12:00

Love of mine some day you will die
But I'll be close behind
I'll follow you into the dark

No blinding light or tunnels to gates of white
Just our hands clasped so tight
Waiting for the hint of a spark
If Heaven and Hell decide
That they both are satisfied
Illuminate the NOs on their vacancy signs

If there's no one beside you
When your soul embarks
Then I'll follow you into the dark

In Catholic school as vicious as Roman rule
I got my knuckles bruised by a lady in black
And I held my tongue as she told me
"Son fear is the heart of love"
So I never went back

If Heaven and Hell decide
That they both are satisfied
Illuminate the NOs on their vacancy signs

If there's no one beside you
When your soul embarks
Then I'll follow you into the dark

You and me have seen everything to see
From Bangkok to Calgary
And the soles of your shoes are all worn down
The time for sleep is now
It's nothing to cry about
Cause we'll hold each other soon
The blackest of rooms

If Heaven and Hell decide
That they both are satisfied
Illuminate the NOs on their vacancy signs

If there's no one beside you
When your soul embarks
Then I'll follow you into the dark
Then I'll follow you into the dark

Dexter

2008-06-01T09:59:00.010+12:00

not Morgan but Jettster.

Probably the most famous cook and dinner proprietor of Coruscant, Dexter will take over this space to share with us some of the more exquisites recipes of the Galaxy, tailored to all tastes, or so we hope...

Every journey has a first step, every saga has a beginning.

The saga is called in this occasion "Ulrich Chococake" also just Ulrich and the first step is the list of ingredients.

INGREDIENTS

200g Chocolate 50% cocoa (at least)
100g butter
100g sugar
4 eggs
3 big spoons flour

Preparation

Melt the chocolate together with the butter by gentle heating (microwave 50% power, around 3 minutes or a few moments on the flame)
Separate the egg whites from the egg yolks or yellow portions.
Beat the egg whites to produce a buoyant foam (remember the century we are, use electrical tools)
Add the egg yolks (and don't stop the stirring)
Add the sugar (keep stirring until you don't feel the sugar grains anymore)
Add the melted chocolate-butter mixture (don't need to be cold)
Add the three normal size spoons flour

When the mixture is ready, transfer it into a circular mold and then bake it into the oven.

Temperature and time inside of the oven depends on the actual configuration and technical specs of the oven used.

In a classic or traditional european oven 20 minutes at 200°C (pre-heated oven) should be fine. However with an induction powered oven, 5 minutes at 170°C (pre-heated oven) followed by 15 minutes at 150°C should yield a nice result.

Just take your cooking notebook (If you don't have a cooking log book, out of my kitchen ! ) and make sure you take good notes about the results and the time/temperature.

Enjoy !

Fuera de carta

2008-05-13T09:35:00.002+12:00

The human beings who boast of knowing me well may be surprised to read this comment in which, for once in my life, I’m going to write (good) about a Spanish film. Please, don’t misunderstand me. I’m not telling that all the movies “made in Spain” are bad, I’m only trying to clarify that very often I have difficulties to connect with its humour o its plots and at the end I usually find them quite stupid or boring.
When some weeks ago I saw the trailer in the cinema I supposed that, as seems be usual in this kind of films, they had shown all the good jokes in order to attract audience, but it made me laugh and I though “come on, maybe this one is good”, hopping that this wasn’t another sad case of ninety minutes of crap and only five of amusement. Two weeks later, more or less, we went to see “Fuera de carta” and when the lights were turned off we enjoyed one of the funniest Spanish comedies which we’ve ever seen.
The main character, Maxi (performed by Javier Camara, a well-know name into the Spanish comedy), is a brilliant chef, who dreams of achieve his first Michelin star and who lives perfectly happy with his homosexuality. But life is always full of surprises and his past slap him in the face when he has to take care of his little daughter and his teenager son (that he has not seen since ages), after the sudden death of their mother. As if it wasn’t enough, an Argentinean ex-football player enters in Maxi’s life. Unfortunately, his forever-single friend Alexandra also goes for the handsome Argentinean who, in turn, is not very sure about if he should come out of the closet or not…
Don’t worry; I’m not going to spoil the movie for you by telling what happens at the end. I would prefer to read some other opinions, if you have the chance to see it…

New Amsterdam

2008-04-11T09:04:00.007+12:00

What means being immortal? Is it a curse or a gift? That’s probably what John Amsterdam must be thinking all the longest minutes of his eternal life. Born 400 years ago, his life changed completely when he saved the life of a young American native girl. His generous action was rewarded with a sword through his chest and a new immortal existence courtesy of a bunch of native women and a shaman. It’s supposed that an eternal life is time more than enough to find the true love but, what happens meanwhile? How can someone wait calmly for “the one” while his sons and daughters die one by one and the world he has once known disappears?
This is more or less the plot of New Amsterdam, a new TV series which mixes the search of this immortal man for the only woman in the world who can make him mortal and the problems of his current personality as a detective for the police department. Chapter after chapter, we find out how a man, who has committed all the mistakes a human being can make during hundreds of “lives”, faces the worse that mankind can offer in a city like New York, full of crime and sorrow.
Armed with the cynicism and the self-confidence that only have seen everything can give, John Amsterdam spends his time between murderers, corpses and memories of past times, not necessary happier. Out there, in the same place where all began (the old dutch colony of New Amsterdam, today called Manhattan), waits the woman of his dreams. Will he be able to find her?
More information in http://www.fox.com/newamsterdam/.

Light at the end of the tunnel

2008-04-11T06:01:00.010+12:00

Some people say they saw it, we have seen it in multiple occasions in the movies, but everyone sees it every time that HOPE is around.

HOPE is a little sister of FATE and those days she walks around here, where the streets have no name.

Everything started a few days ago. It was something in the air, something like "micro-changes in the air density", something like "feeling a disturbance in the Force".

At the very beginning some of the more perceptive psis in my community were not able to sleep and were singing for their owns all the time.

The next day, they were birds flying all over the place, making funny noises and raising into the sky...

A blue sky...

No more "donde el cielo es siempre gris"...

No more "donde la lluvia es arte"...

No more winter...

Summer is coming....