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Week 1 - Dubious Honour

Submitted by Badman on 5 October 2006 - 1:19pm. |

In many ways I consider Lucy to be the perfect minion. Polite, has an opinion, is interested in the world and is short enough to fit in a cabin bag. As such I’m usually predisposed to helping her when she has a request. This latest one revolved around me coming up with an (ir)regular column on well, nothing. She gave me free reign... oh my...

Being asked to write a column for a friend’s site is a lot like being asked to sleep with Princess Margaret. It's a great honour but will likely have significant repercussions to all involved. There’s also the same concern about stamina, but thankfully less of a need to think about dead puppies and nuns.

So where to begin? With the bad news I suppose

This week saw the departure of a long time regular from the shop. I'm speaking of course of Big Straight Paul. He's headed home for some much needed R&R and I have to say that Sonya and I are gutted to see him go. The jokes, the laughs, the inappropriate touching and ... oh god... the dancing. It was great to see him at the leaving bash. I think I'll need some more time to recover though.

As mentioned elsewhere Black lion is 8 today. And it was on the event of the 7th birthday that I first met B.S.P. and Lucy. A very fine event is was too. It you don’t believe me then ask to see the pictures… ALL of the pictures… I also got to spend time with Wikket the Ewok and made her cry by describing the filming of a drowning elephant. A night of highs and lows for all.

8 years is no mean feat in the world of commerce. 95% of small businesses fail in their first 5 years. What then is the secret? Sound financial advice? Clever trading practices? Masonic assistance? Voodoo? Certainly they all played a part but I think the success can be attributed to the Buddha like interaction with the world spirit that Liam and the Murlocs have. Luck seems to surround them like a whirlwind. If you don’t believe me rub their bellies the next time you’re in the shop. I guarantee a portion of the luck will transfer to you. Being and Irishman doesn’t hurt Liam either. We are after all the chosen race. Stay away from his lucky charms though.

The one trait that has always impressed me about the staff at Black Lion is they know what the hell they’re talking about. This can be evidenced by the lack of hard sell tactics as used in other stores together with their easy confidence and pine fresh smell. When they recommend a game it’s because they’ve played it and liked it. They view these various hobbies as their hobbies and feel responsible for ensuring people have a good experience. This type of responsibility is rare enough these days and I think it’s that rather than anything else which has brought longevity to the shop.

Anyway I’m happy to be write something for these guys and it’ll include mostly my own, slightly odd, views of stuff together with misc info on me that no-one is really interesed in... such as the following

Just bought:

  • Penny-arcade UFS cardgame: Sonya and I played it last night and let me tell you after a few beers it's one of the funniest card games around. Son' won, as usual, with ingenious application of the fruit fu@#er asset card. Check out both the web comic here and the Game site here

  • WFRP-Tome of Corupption: based largley on the 2 GW Realm o' Chaos books fron the late 80s/early 90s. Black industries have done an exellent job in both merging new backstories and game content with snappy editing of existing content. Simply a great read.

    Currently Playing: Arkham Horror(Sonya's fave), Dragonriders (simple and a great game to play with non-gamers). War of the Ring. Heavy Gear RPG. Exalted 2nd Ed - we need more Exalted players!

    Currently Painting: Eldar Titan from Forgeworld, I've had it for over a year and only just started on it. Cadwe warband for Confrontation. Putting finishing touched to my Skorne Horde. Oh and I’ve just basecoated Lucy's Mystery Christmas Pressie.

    Looking forward to:

    1. New version of Changeling by WW,
    2. Dark-age: Exodus by DA games
    3. New imaging of the Rezolution DT wargame from Aberrant, seriously check out the new sculpts.
    4. Infinity from Corvus Belli. The figures rival that of Rackham
    5. The WarGods World Campaign from Crocodile games.
    6. Metropolis and Iskandria from Urban-mammoth. Despite the personal commentary that seems to follow this company and its owners the game is solid and the miniatures, for the most part, are outstanding.
    7. AT-43 collectible miniature game from Rackham, the makers of Confrontation.
    8. Soul Calibur UFS card game from Sabretooth
    9. Learning to play V:tes 3Ed
    10. Finally getting a copy of Coldcity.
      As I get this stuff from Black Lion I’ll let you know how it fares...

    Blessed event: To important to include in a mere list of things i’m looking forward to is the return of Mutant Chronicles. Those in the know or old enough to have bought some of it are waist deep in a pool of their own joy. More on this and the 2 companies involved next week.

    Music: having a bit of a Radiohead/Muse revival in the flat though Son' find them depressing, which is the point. A Finnish friend has switched me on to a S/SW by the name of Astrid Swan who seems to go well quite well with painting. It doesn't hurt that shes a fox.

    Watching over and over: Kingdom of Heaven directors cut and the new, infinitely better, version of Battlestar Galactica.

    and of course Best news article of the week

    Until next week.

    HAPPY BIRTHDAY BLACK LION GAMES!!!!!

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