Fortress of Redemption Build 2

Picking up from my previous post, here is the tower coming together.
The main tower assembly comes together very quickly. It is made up of a grand total of 5 pieces. Two walls glue together as I mentioned before. They are large enough to allow for a bit of give but the pieces fit very well so don't be afraid to mash those edges into the corresponding grooves. Then wait for the two tower-halves to dry: they must be solid enough to withstand a bit of rough handling while you fit the two halves together with the roof panel... it's kind of hard to hold while you mess around.
But when it's done, is it ever done!
The plinth is even easier: again 4 walls to make 2 halves. then glue those 2 halves together! From this point on, the tower is almost snap-fit. Feel free to use a lot of glue for this part: those are some big assemblies.The only major assembly for the building left is the walk-way that connects the turret bunker, the tower, and the missile silo. And if you worked on Cities of Death kits before, then you are in familiar territory... but kind of in reverse.
At this particular moment, the commander couldn't help wondering how the assemblies came together. As you can see, I started the walkway but left the missile silo sitting right up against the tower. The walkway starts with the floor and stairs before...
...getting more walls. The stairs go on first, then the walls around it. Each wall squeezes up against the previous to form a solid corner.

This kit features some of the longest and widest single parts I have ever seen from Citadel Miniatures. But impressively, there is no sign of warping and the fit, for pieces large and small, is beautiful. As you build up the walls, each one slots right into the floor and stairs already glued together. But I can't stress enough the basic practice of model kit building: test-fit if you're even unsure. Yes, those stairs do fit in the slots on the wall interiors at an angle. Trust me on that. :-)

Fortress of Redemption Build 1

Here's a look at my latest build. Ever wonder what exactly is in this box? Well... it's this:Stacked neatly and evenly are 8 sprues. Enjoy this for a moment because after clipping the parts off the sprues... this kit will never fit into this box again.Yes, as it turns out, the entire kit is large but in reality very simple. Lots of large panels and the central tower is made up of pretty much 4 solid walls parts. The rest of the bits are for optional decorations like spotlights or heavy-bolter emplacements.
The first hour or so of the build is devoted to the near identical bunkers. In fact, it gets kind of boring when you realize you are essentially doing the same piece 12 times in a row to make their walls. You do get a choice or 3 wall designs and 3 accent pieces to mix and match with. The floors of the bunkers are cleverly molded as the same sprue... upside down. Take care to glue in the 2 different floor cut-outs so that they are flat with the rest of the floor.
If you aren't aligned, you will have trouble fitting the final wall panels. The missile silo is more forgiving since it doesn't form a totally enclosed hemisphere. My turret however needed to have part of its floor shaved down for the last wall to align with the rest of the edges.
Here I got started with the tower... and my commander is eager to check out the new digs. The final tower comes in 4 very large walls. Be careful with the super-glue: less is more. You may need to wiggle the 2 walls around to fit everything and too much glue dripping all over won't help matters. On the up side, the edges wrap around each other. Test fit to see which edge is hidden: the hidden one you can shave and cut as needed. But the other is full of rivet details you need to watch out for when you're shaving your flash.

Next time: tower build mounted on its base, and the walkway...

One Month with a Milestone

Motorola Milestone (aka: Droid) is not only my first Android OS experience, but it's also my first smart-phone.
Android is remarkable in its ability to be entirely unremarkable. At first I was concerned that my new phone did not come with any substantial documentation. But this worry quickly evaporated as I got used to Android's "if you don't see it, it's probably nothing to bother with" attitude.

For example: you never really quit an app. Instead you just leave and do something else. Android will allocate resources on the fly as required.

However, it does lend itself to some unusual quirks. Some of these quirks, I still haven't decided if they're bugs or actual features. The strangest thing that occurs is the auto-resume of media play-back. After a month of seemingly normal operation, this actually happened to me just a few days ago: an MP3 just started playing while I used the phone for something else. I had to switch back the media player, and press the Play button twice: first to reset it to its "play" position, then back to the "pause." This is the foremost irritation of the that "if you don't see it" attitude. You never shut down a function. The MP3 player is never "stopped."

As for the phone's performance, after my first month with the device, I'm fairly pleased with it. Little issues such as unintentional key-presses to the touch-screen, I can blame on myself for being butter-fingered. This is, thankfully, a far-cry from the recent hold-your-iPhone-the-wrong-way-and-lose-signal-strength gaffe. Normal voice is crisp and clear-sounding.
I'm loving the slide-out keypad. It's a nice clicky-feedback for typing a reasonable length email or messaging or tweeting. Overall, it's surprising how comprehensive connected-life with a smart-phone could be. I even got comfortable traveling without my laptop once I had the Facebook and Twitter apps installed. Browsing over wi-fi is great, but 3G is a bit over-rated.

I've only had a few glitches (which will blame on Android rather than the phone itself).

First: there's the weird misfire resume-media I described above. I'm told it's a feature that's supposed to kick in when you hang-up a phone call (because an incoming call automatically pauses currently-playing media).

Second: I don't know why typing a "hyphen" on the keypad doesn't always advance my cursor. I end up putting a hyphen at the end of two joined words instead of between them.
Third: Too many photos on the phone seems to give the media gallery trouble indexing the photos. I reached about 50 pictures taken with the camera (which by the way is a respectable 5.0Mpx) when I noticed I had trouble browsing them. I have since transferred them to my laptop through the Micro-USB cable.

Which brings me to a final and out-of-the-way side observation before I end this post. Motorola got clever with their included cable: their version of the micro-USB plug includes a couple of extra nubs to make it snug to the port on the phone. I only noticed this after getting a spare cable from monoprice which turned out to be slightly too loose causing an unreliable connection (a drop of super-glue to add just a touch of thickness to the plug fixed that problem).

Overall, I've been very pleased with my first smart-phone experience. Now to simply wait for Android to mature a bit and hopefully solved these glitches.

Magic "Archenemy" released

Just wanted to post my observations on Magic the Gathering's new offering, “Archenemy.”

The game format introduces a new card set called the “Scheme” deck. Each of the four themed sets comes with 20 oversized cards. These are not unique but actually a semi-random collection built to best suit the theme of the pre-constructed 60-card play deck that comes with the set. Each card, similar to the Planechase cards triggers at the start of the Archenemy's turn (specifically, sandwiched between the draw step and the first main phase) to give him/her an edge against a team of opponents working together.

Here's an image of a typical Archenemy card:What you are looking at is a single-use “scheme” (it will be replaced next turn). But as you can see when it triggers, its effects will help the Archenemy immensely. It will certainly put a damper on Lilliana Vess, for example.

I chose this to card to make a point: the Archenemy is not all-powerful. In my play-tests on Friday night, we learned a couple of lessons. The first lesson off the bat was this: the wrong scheme at the wrong time can be a disaster. This very card for example, while extremely powerful late in the game, is completely useless when it is drawn early. We had several situations when the Archenemies schemes were simply wasted because there were no valid targets on the battlefield at the time, reducing the Archenemy to a normal solitary player facing a team of players alone.
Another observation we made was that the games are geared towards at most 4 on 1 but no more than that. The fact remains that the Archenemy starts with 40 life points while the team players start with the usual 20. This means the schemes are meant to give just enough boost to the Archenemy that they should be able to deal 60 or 80 life damage and have a reasonable chance for winning.

Finally, I want to remark that any alternate variations suggested by Wizards of the Coast simply don't work without some amount of customization. Most of the schemes are focussed on handling multiple opponents and some even causing dissension between them in particular. So variations like combining Emperor with Archenemies, don't work too well with those if you are a small team playing a single opposing team.

Okay, I lied. There's actually one last observation. Wizards has managed yet again to package an under-powered pre-constructed deck with their sets. Just something to keep in mind if you want to hold a “Magic Party” like I did: everyone should play with other out-of-the-box “virgin” decks. Or else everyone play customized theme decks including the Archenemy player.

Macross Messenger Bag

This is a story of serendipity, coincidence, and a touch of irony.

I just spent 3 days in Toronto to attend Anime North 2010. It's biggest anime convention in Canada. I've sort of outgrown being an anime otaku (I have my favourite titles and have very little room for new ones). As for the merchandise, I try my best to support the local shop (which manages to sell at every convention I've been to in the last few years from Toronto to Montreal), but I also get the latest unlicensed stuff over the Internet too.

And this the story of one such bit of merchandise... I present the Macross-themed messenger bag pre-ordered months ago. if you don't reserve, then the international retailer won't be able to keep such intended-for-Japan product in stock for long.

Unfortunately, I didn't have this to show off at the convention in time, but...

Here's what was in my communal super-box when I got home today:I haven't had much luck with SAL from Japan but thankfully, this shipment contained crushable good: a soft messenger-bag won't suffer much. And of course, when I opened it...
It's kind of small, but there's no hard rule on what size a messenger bag should be, I guess. It is however, coincidentally also the first time I've owned a messenger bag that is actually functional as a bike-messenger bag (it has the shorter under-arm strap to keep the bag against one's back). Unfortunately, I'm still not sure how useful that will be since the main compartment doesn't zip up, so smaller items may still slip out when it's worn across my back.