[Colonol Dekker]

Just got reminded of my cat 3 status.

[An4ximandros]

YES

[General Battuta]

YES

(won't be as good as smac but still)

[Hades]

nothing can beat the power of rose tinting

[General Battuta]

nothing can beat the power of rose tinting

Except playing the game for the first time in 2011, making it pretty ****ing hard to wear any kind of goggles

[headdie]

nothing can beat the power of rose tinting

Except playing the game for the first time in 2011, making it pretty ****ing hard to wear any kind of goggles

There is a reason the game was considered and arguably still is the best 4X made

[General Battuta]

Yeah, much like FreeSpace it carries itself on its own excellent design and writing.

It has the broad Civ problem of really obnoxious endgame if you let your empire sprawl, though.

[Colonol Dekker]

I've only just got the Gog version plus expansion. Can you elaborate on obnoxious please?

[General Battuta]

It's not super complicated: if you have a lot of cities (say, because you're rolling over another faction and taking all their cities) you need to give a lot of orders. Exactly the same as any other Civ game.

Fortunately you don't need to have more than a couple cities to do exceptionally well.

[X3N0-Life-Form]

nothing can beat the power of rose tinting

Except playing the game for the first time in 2011, making it pretty ****ing hard to wear any kind of goggles

Second that. I play that game for the first time 7 months ago, and found it amazingly awesome.

[Scotty]

Played two games of BattleTech at a demo event at my FLGS today.  First game was a grinder that was waaaaaay too much fun.  Out of 14 'Mechs that eventually took the field, four died to headshots, most of them pristine before that.  Plus my Commando won a duel with a Jenner to start the game, which should never ever happen.  I won, and took home a brand new intro box set for my victory.  New minis in the set are fantastic quality compared to the old stuff, so this is a very good thing.

The second game was of Alpha Strike, essentially the new quick strike rules.  It was a blast, and we got through an entire company versus company game in less than two hours.  It was definitely easier and more intuitive than the regular game.  In that game, the impossible moment of the match was my Jagermech going toe to toe with a Dire Wolf A - and winning.

[headdie]

Played two games of BattleTech at a demo event at my FLGS today.  First game was a grinder that was waaaaaay too much fun.  Out of 14 'Mechs that eventually took the field, four died to headshots, most of them pristine before that.  Plus my Commando won a duel with a Jenner to start the game, which should never ever happen.  I won, and took home a brand new intro box set for my victory.  New minis in the set are fantastic quality compared to the old stuff, so this is a very good thing.

The second game was of Alpha Strike, essentially the new quick strike rules.  It was a blast, and we got through an entire company versus company game in less than two hours.  It was definitely easier and more intuitive than the regular game.  In that game, the impossible moment of the match was my Jagermech going toe to toe with a Dire Wolf A - and winning.

the light battle, that was pretty cool

the Jager/Dire fight, how the hell did you beat an apex Clan assault mech with that pea shooting thing????

[Scotty]

It was played in Alpha Strike, which means turns are 30 seconds, and you either hit with everything or you miss with everything.  The Dire Wolf has something like 10 armor and 6 structure, and shoots for 6 damage at short range, 7 damage at medium range, and 5 damage at long range.  My Jager had 7 armor and 5 structure, but shot 4/4/4.

It took four turns.  He missed twice.  I didn't.

By the end of it my Jager had half MP and was missing half of its firepower, but by God it limped away and left the Dire Wolf a smoking pile of wreckage.

EDIT:  The shot that took it down was the last shot taken on the last turn of the game, and the kill was enough points (by two, out of 500) to give us the win for the scenario.  Go, mighty Jagermech.  Go and prosper.

[Colonol Dekker]

What is FLGS?

[General Battuta]

Friendly Local Game Store

[Colonol Dekker]

I feel like I should know that, especially as I was best man to a riend who used to manage a Games Workshop in croydon :\

[Klaustrophobia]

why the hell does the act of paying taxes cost extra money?  just got charged nearly $80 for the privilege copying numbers from a few forms and having a program slap the standard deduction on.

[z64555]

why the hell does the act of paying taxes cost extra money?  just got charged nearly $80 for the privilege copying numbers from a few forms and having a program slap the standard deduction on.

Let me guess, you went to a company such as H&R block?

[Colonol Dekker]

If you're paying a firm to do it, make sure they're doing it right.

[Klaustrophobia]

apparently i paid $40 a pop for 'preparing' federal (FREE efile!  what a deal!) and state file (FREE prep!  WHAT A DEAL!)  and by prepare, i mean the online copy/paste tool.  yes, it was HR block, but extensive searching failed to yield any free options. 

still, what i'm most pissed about is the underhanded pricing advertised on the website.  here, get started on this free prep.  and if you have to upgrade to the non-free, it's just $30 to file.  hey, look at that!  your state is in the list of no additional cost states.
.....oops looks like you didn't qualify for that.  that'll be $80.  yeah, we're charging you for the state too.