About My Blog

Ave Omnissiah!

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My blog is primarily my own personal fluff in the Warhammer 40,000 universe regarding the Draconis system such as the Knight House Yato in Ryusei, their Household Militia, the Draconian Defenders, and the Forge World of Draconis IV with its Adeptus Mechanicus priesthood, Cybernetica cohorts and Skitarii legions, and the Titan Legion, Legio Draconis, known as the Dark Dragons.

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Retrospective: Imperial Knights

Today, we're going to a Retrospective on...Imperial Knights! I mean, this is primarily an Imperial Knight blog, so obviously if I'm ...

Saturday, January 31, 2015

Revising the Draconis Regiments

I really hate to do this, just one day after establishing the lore of the Draconis Armored Dragons, but I have no choice. Thanks to budget restraints, I cannot afford to waste money buying the Hammer of Cadia bundle if I end up with 3 useless Hellhounds. Not to mention, I don't need one of the Leman Russ tanks, and I prefer having a super-heavy tank that isn't limited to only Baneblades and Hellhammers. I need to save the money for Vendettas, after all. Sigh.

As such, I will be making slight changes to the lore. Rather than Baneblades and Hellhammers, Draconis IV is famous for producing Stormswords, Shadowswords and Doomhammers. Additionally, thanks to the latent psychic potential present in the Draconis system, the Draconian Armored Dragons employ psykers in their armies (yeah, Prescience helps a lot with the Shadowswords and Doomhammers, so why not incoprorate that into the lore?). Once again, they make liberal use of Vendettas and Imperial Knights to escort their super-heavy tanks such as Stormswords, Shadowswords and Doomhammers, the latter two staying back and bombarding their foes with sheer firepower from long range and the former escorted to the front by a couple of Imperial Knights in order to blow whatever dudes out of cover.

There's not much change to the Leman Russ tanks - the Draconis system is still famous for their cheaper but more risky Leman Russ Executioners, as such usually only one in a regiment would be fully loaded up with plasma cannon sponsons (and the crew is usually insane or have balls made out of cold hard titanium-steel alloy). The change is that they use Leman Russ Exterminators or Eradicators a lot more than Leman Russ Battle Tanks. They still use the Leman Russ Battle Tanks depending on the situation, for example, if there's a gun line, they'll make use of the Leman Russ Battle Tanks to accompany the Vanquisher's extreme range. They make use of plenty of Executioners, so a Steel Host formation would have up to 3 Executioners, where 1 is loaded up on plasma cannons sponsons (and the other crews would stay far, far away from that tank as much as possible), a single Leman Russ Eradicator with heavy bolters and a Tank Commander in a Leman Russ Vanquisher, also with a lascannon. They can't risk putting the tank commanders on the volatile Executioners because if they get blown up, who's going to lead the squadron of tanks?

That's the only change so far (and it's a lot lighter on my wallet, phew). The Draconians are famous for loading their Doomhammer up with Techpriest Enginseers and Servitors so that they can continually repair the super-heavy tank from within without worrying about getting blown up. Or so the logic goes, anyway. So anyway, these are the changes I'm making to the setting for the Draconis system and the Draconian Armored Dragons in order to keep them in line with my limited budget. Phew. I don't think I will actually buy 3 Vendettas. Having the Psykers should be more worth it.

The changes from Baneblade and Hellhammer to Shadowsword, Doomhammer and Stormsword goes in line with the theme of Draconis. Mass produce cheaper vehicles of inferior quality, much like Japan in the old days. Ryza has accused them of "stealing" or copying their technology for the Executioners, but Draconis produces more of them at a cheaper cost, but admittedly of inferior quality. Well, in the context of today, that's more in line with China than Japan, but then again the dragon is a sybol of East Asia, so I might as well incoporate Chinese elements into the Draconis system as well. Would be funny if every Draconian soldier is a martial artist with a power-sword and a weapon skill of 4 or 5, but......never mind. We'll see what I can do with Draconian soldiers and psykers in the army. It'll be fun.

Friday, January 30, 2015

The PURGE

I've pretty much decided what to buy. I'll probably finish buying my 3rd Imperial Knight and 5 Broadsides to complete my Adamantine Lance Formation and Tau Firebase Support Cadre. They make a perfect 1,850-point army that I can use in all tournaments. YAY! 3 Imperial Knights with 1 Warlord stomping away, while 1 Riptide and 6 Broadsides provide anti-air support, the Riptide even having Interceptor. Nice. Speaking of which, the story still holds. I still have an Ordo Xenos Inquisitor who requisitoned some troops from the Draconian Regiment (424th Armored Regiment, to be precise) to steal Tau battlesuits from the Tau Empire in the Damocles Gulf.

The Draconians are fun. They come from a system called Draconis, and their main primary planet is the Super-Earth Draconis III, which lies right smack in the habitable zone. Meaning lots of water, great Earth-like atmosphere with 24 percent oxygen. They are pretty much modeled after the Japanese (yeah, you saw that coming, didn't you?), with hi-tech stuff. The running joke is that their war cry is "Koutei banzai!" (「皇帝万歳!」) which roughly translates to "long live the Emperor!" in Gothic. However, if you literally translate their indigenous language, it literally means "Emperor, ten thousand years old!" Which is funny because the Emperor is literally ten thousands years old, having sat on the throne for 10 millenia (since the 31st millenium). It's an agri-world that produce trillions of tons of rice (well, it's a Japan-like world, after all) and offers lots of seafood as well. Yay.

The Draconians have access to a unique Forge World called Draconis IV, something like Mars in the Terran solar system. The Adeptus Mechanicus who live there aren't the dudes with mechadendrites or augmetic implants. They prefer to remain "human" (as if Techpriest Enginseers aren't humans), and as much as possible they strive to preserve their flesh and blood despite working in hi-tech environments. They usually try to experiment and innovate, occasionally ignoring restrictions until an Inquisitor comes down hard on them. They are aware of the dangers of artificial intelligence, having an experiment go wrong during the early years of Draconis's colonialization. Point is, they are usually more technologically advanced and "human" than most of the forge worlds in the Imperium, they are basically the closest thing the Imperium of Man has to the Tau. The Adeptus Mechanicus in Draconis IV relies on Draconis III for food, like all forge worlds, but they maintain a huge distance from their fellow Omnissah worshipping techpriests. The branch in Draconis believes in progress rather than rituals and the machine-spirit, almost to the point of heresy, and this ends up isolating them from the rest of the Adeptus Mechanicus. This suits the techpriests in Draconis fine, because islation means thay can indulge in whatever near-heretical work they want without Magos yelling at them for not respecting the machine-spirit or the Omnissah. Again, banzai. Thankfully, the Imperium of Man maintains their trade with Draconis because they are one of the few forge worlds other than Ryza to produce Leman Russ Executioners, and at a much cheaper price for many more models (but as you'll see later, these come at a cost). Plus the Imperium doesn't care what they do as long as Draconis continues to supply them with Baneblades, Hellhammers and the occasional Imperial Knight armor.

On top of that, Draconis is the only system where the Imperial Knights are not piloted by Nobles. As far as I know of, anyway. As I said, thanks to the advanced technology and research that often dangerously veers close to the limits of what the Imperium allows, Draconis IV is able to produce large numbers of Imperial Knights and even super-heavy tanks like Baneblades and Hellhammers. The pilots of Imperial Knights are not Nobles. There are no Nobles in the Draconis system, and the planetary governor rules by way of elections rather than bloodline or family connections (basically democracy!). The pilots are selected from the Draconis regiments, a large pool of volunteers who strive to pilot giant robot suits (admit it, it's every man's dream). The protagonist is also one of these eager volunteers who wants to pilot an Imperial Knight despite the high death rate and casualty list that come along with the job. These volunteers go through a similar Collegia Titanica, which trains the pilots to pilot Imperial Knights, but operate very differently from their counterparts across the Imperium of Man. They are trained to fight not by themselves but alongside their fellow soldiers in tanks and gunships. The concept of honor and glory is not in the dictionary of the Imperial Knights of Draconis. Friendship, brotherhood and duty are.

As such, the Imperial Knights of Draconis serve side by side their Imperial Guard battle-brothers, often counting themselves as among the Draconian Armored Dragons (the Imperial Guard regiment of Draconis) rather than as a separate division. They are usually given the rank of Lieutenant when commissioned to pilot an Imperial Knight, and answer to their commanding officers in the regiment. Sometimes said commanding officer might even pilot an Imperial Knight himself while he commands squadrons of Leman Russ tanks and Vendettas. Typically, Imperial Knights operate in squads of three so that they can execute the Adamantine Lance Formation to make full use of their overlapping Ion Shields. Of course, the Adamantine Lance Formation is always accompanied by a tank company such as the Steel Host (Draconian version). However, many times the Adamantine Lance Formation is broken up so that individual Imperial Knights would be sent to escort a Baneblade or a Hellhammer. Sometimes two Imperial Knights would escort the super-heavy tank, but very rarely all three will serve as escorts as they operate better alongside normal tanks rather than get in the way of the Baneblade or Hellhammer's prodigious firepower. Too many cooks spoil the broth, after all, and the explosion of either the Baneblade/Hellhammer or one of the Imperial Knight might trigger off a chain explosion that ends up destroying the rest of the exceedingly expensive super-heavies.

The Draconian Armored Dragons are known for their armored regiments rather than infantry. They try not to rely on infantry as much as possible, instead relying on their Leman Russ Tanks. The Draconians are proud of being one of the few Imperial Guard armies to field lots and lots of Leman Russ Executioner tanks. As I said, thanks to the advanced technology of the forge world Draconis IV, the Draconian Adeptus Mechanicus (who are eccentric when compared to most of their counterparts from other systems, always eschewing augmetics and mechadendrites to remain as human as possible) also produce a significant portion of the Imperium's plasma weapons. Hence they actually have a large number of Leman Russ Executioners. Of course, they failed to completely replicate the technology that the forge word Ryza possessed, so they don't have the advanced cooling and venting systems that Ryza Leman Russ Executioners boast of. On the plus side, Draconis makes their Executioners a lot more cheaper and thus are able to more efficiently mass-produce the Executioners, at the cost of these devastating tanks running the risk of having their plasma weapons blow up on them (read: Get Hot!). (Yeah, the reduction in costs from 190 to 155) Despite this, they usually slap on plasma cannons sponsons on their Executioners and throw them into formations (the Steel Host!) or have a Warlord-type tank commander take charge of them (Preferred Enemy rule!) so that they would have less risks of getting hot and blowing up on themselves. The logic is that experienced commanders know when to use these deadly plasma cannons, and how to maximize their destructive power through judicious timings and vast experience without resulting in self-destruction.

Needless to say, it's not all Executioners. They are usually accompanied by one Leman Russ Punisher because a few warlord-type tank commanders prefer Punisher tanks for the huge number of "Dakka" shots the Punisher Gatling Cannon throw out, or one Leman Russ Vanquisher because most warlord-type tank commanders are advised to sit back and blast off their armorbane Vanquisher Cannons from super-long range rather than risk going forward and dying in battle. Alternatively, Executioners are held back for defense as several Draconis Steel Host formations are famous for their long range and artillery-styled bombardment. The Draconians have a good many Vanquishers, and when they use them, they are usually accompanied by a couple of Leman Russ Main Battle Tanks for their equally long range and ability to bombard from afar like artillery and a couple of Executioners for plasma defence. A typical Steel Host formation could consist of a Tank Commander in a Leman Russ Vanquisher (because he's the only one with good enough aim to hit another tank or armored vehicle more than 50% of the time), 2 Leman Russ Main Battle Tanks to fire alongside the Vanquisher from long range, and 2 Leman Russ Executioners for plasma defence in order to melt deep-striking Terminators (we're talking about the Chaos Space Marines) into red-hot slag. Not to mention an obligatory Hydra for anti-air because none of the tanks can shoot air (well, the Vanquisher can, but with only one shot and needing a 6 to hit, it's going to be very lucky if it can score even one hit).

And as mentioned earlier, the Draconians are also famous for producing Baneblades and a second variant, Hellhammers. They wish they could produce the Shadowsword, but they lack the technology to do so (ouch). They usually try to support such massive super-heavy tanks with air units such as Vendettas (for some reason the Draconians don't produce many Valkyries, often preferring the anti-vehicle and anti-air roles the Vendettas take on). As a result, the Draconians excel at anti-armor, be it vehicle or Terminators, but they sorely lack in the department of anti-infantry and anti-hordes. They do have Hellhounds to accompany their precious Baneblades and Hellhammers alongside the Vendettas, but that's as much as they have for anti-infantry. Unless you count Imperial Knights as anti-horde and anti-infantry, but even then the Draconians show a preference for producing Knight Errants over Knight Paladins. Whoops.

A typical full Draconian regiment would often center around a single Baneblade or Hellhammer, with the rest of the support troops consisting of Leman Russ tanks, Hellhounds and Vendettas. Most of the times, they would lack the Hellhounds and so feature a single Imperial Knight or two alongside the Hellhammer instead. It also depends on the super-heavy tank. A regiment centering around a Baneblade would have more Leman Russ Battle Tanks and a Leman Russ Vanquisher while trying to keep the Hellhounds - if no Hellhounds are present (which happens most of the time) they will take on a Knight Paladin. A regiment centering around a Hellhammer would often eschew Leman Russ Main Battle Tanks and Vanquishers and instead support the Hellhammer with a Leman Russ Punisher and Leman Russ Executioner. They would often discard Hellhounds for a Knight Errant, which makes them dangerously reliant on the single Punisher for anti-horde and anti-infantry, but the Hellhammer is supposed to serve that role anyway with its Hellhammer Cannon and it's armed to the teeth with four twin-linked heavy bolters (or flamers) and four lascannons. Funnily enough, and as befitting the Draconian regiment, they use the Hellhammer to wipe out tanks or vehicles hiding in cover rather than destroying infantry camping in urban cover, so......

And both regiments are always accompanied by at least one Vendetta, and sometimes up to three. Plainly aware that their Baneblades and Hellhammers lack anti-air, a single Hydra often not being up to the task, and losing a single super-heavy tank is a more crushing blow than losing 5 tanks (logic, sigh), the Draconian commanders will always insist to have at least one Vendetta to blow enemy aircraft out of the sky so that the super-heavy tanks and Leman Russ tanks can finish the job on the ground below. That's their creed, their mantra, their strategy. Who needs infantry when you have loads of tanks rolling across the ground to crush countless foes? And having lumbering behemoths such as Baneblades, Hellhammers and destructive super-heavy walkers such as Imperial Knights? Above all, the Draconians crave overwhelming destructive power over anything else. They don't rely on numbers of infantry. They rely on armored units with overwhelming firepower.

They are often called upon to provide fire support for more experienced and prestigious regiments such as the Valhallan Ice Warriors or Cadian Shock Troops. The Draconians, on their own, probably have trouble handling hordes of countless Orks, but they can be relied on to take out a Gargant or Stompa. Similarly, they have trouble against the Tyranids because they have so few Hellhounds, but they can take out the big guys such as Hive Tyrants, Tyrannofexes, Carnifexes, Trygons and even the Tervigons. They can even take out the Hive Crones, Flying Hive Tyrants and Harpies, but their Vendettas would probably get taken out by broods of Gargoyles.

The Draconians are best suited for battles against enemies such as the Tau or Necrons, where they have huge targets to shoot at (Riptide? Hammerhead? Monolith? Doomsday Ark? Annihilation Barges? No problem). They also for some reason excel at fighting against forces of Chaos because the population seem to have developed some sort of psychic resistance. Mind you, they aren't Blanks or full Psykers, but they seem to be partway to Psykers, which explains why the Adeptus Mechanicus on Draconis IV are loath to lose their human selves and thus the psychic connection. It is this psychic connection that allows the pilots to pilot their Imperial Knights without needing weird stuff (neural interface sockets) inserted into surgical neural holes poked into their skulls or brains (cerebrum and cerebellum). Meaning anyone can just jump into an Imperial Knight and control it without needing to go through surgery and stuff. Of course, it's a more complex process because you need the Draconians' innate psychic potential AND there's the bonding ritual or imprinting process with the Imperial Knight (yes, I've read the Codex) that slightly differs from Knights of other worlds such as Alaric Prime, etc. so the pilots have to take note of that, and the Imperial Knights don't fall into enemy hands that easily (unless they're Orks. Sigh). The Throne Mechanicum for Draconian Knights resembles a Gundam's cockpit more than an Imperial one.

Speaking of which, the story for this particular Draconian regiment begins when an Ordo Xenos Inquisitor, who happened to be born in the Draconis system and thus share the hi-tech ideals of her fellow Draconians, requisitioned them in order to capture Tau battlesuits from the Damocles Gulf. The idea was to bring them back for study, research and reverse engineering so that the Draconians could produce similarly advanced, destructive and effective weapons to further the Emperor's cause of taking back the galaxy. And so the story begins from there. Originally I wanted to throw in Grey Knights with them, the Grey Knights love working with these guys because of their mild psychic resistance, and often Draconians orphans with great potential would be ferried off by the Black Ships to be trained as Grey Knights in Titan (not that they ever remember they come from Draconis, since they have been brainwashed by the Ordo Malleus).

In any case, I did have a story where the Grey Knights worked with the Draconian Steel Host and Imperial Knights. Despite their relationship with the Grey Knights, the Draconian Armored Dragons surprisingly get along well with the Space Wolves as well. I'll probably write a story where the Draconian Armored Dragons swoop in to save the Space Wolves from a tide of Chaos Daemons, and in return the surviving armored troops were under the protection of the Space Wolves when the Ordo Malleus Inquisition arrives to purge them. Thankfully, most Ordo Malleus Inquisitors wouldn't bother purging, mind-wiping or killing Draconian Armored Dragons because they recognize the innate psychic potential (and resistance) in Draconian soldiers. Obviously, they are not used against Chaos Daemons very often because armored vehicles and Imperial Knights often suck against the forces of Chaos, and it is rumored that the reason why the Draconians have such psychic protection is because they might be under the influence of Tzeentch, who encourages them to ever strive further to test the limits of the restrictions the Imperium imposes on their technological research. Such is Tzeentch's schemes and plans that the Draconian Armored Dragons will survive the onslaught of Chaos for now, only to eventually bring about the change that he so desires. Said change will be done from within the Imperium of Mankind, the unsuspecting Draconians unknowingly aiding the Changer of Ways as he laughs and schemes from the Warp, awaiting the day they break the ancient laws and restrictions safeguarding their technological research and changing humanity forever.

The color scheme for the Draconian Armored Dragons are black and gold, with splotches of red. Only because it looks cool (and it helps them camouflage in night-fighting). They probably have watched too many holo-vids of Gundam and Kamen Rider, and so prefer such fun colors. They often bear a black dragon against a gold background, or the other way round, as a symbol of the Draconian Armored Dragons. Both the Imperial Knights and the Leman Russ tanks (and of course the Baneblades and Hellhammers) proudly display their system symbol alongside the aquila, and even the Adeptus Mechanicus unique to Draconis reveres this symbol more than the cogwheel of the Omnissah worship their bethren from other systems possess.

Speaking of which, this dragon seems very ominous because it very much resembles the dragon the Emperor defeated so many millennia ago and sealed on Mars......perhaps, Draconis's "progress" is a lot more foreboding than the Draconians would like to believe?

Wednesday, January 7, 2015

My new Imperial Knight

Today I finished building my Knight Paladin. Good, about half of my army done now. I only have one Knight Errant and 5 Broadsides left. The Broadsides are pretty easy to build when compared to the Knight, and I can build 2 of them in a day (maybe even 3), so no worries.

Tuesday, January 6, 2015

Alien: Isolation and Psycho Break (The Evil Within)

Two of the leading horror games of 2014, Alien: Isolation and Psycho Break, were released in October. As I waited until I finished my exams and duties before I started on them, I only played them in December (and Psycho Break spilled over to this year. Whoops). The verdict? Alien: Isolation is a far superior horror game.

By the way, I played both on Hard and Survival difficulty respectively. You know, because real men play the hardest difficulty available at first (subsequent unlocked or patched difficulties aren't counted). Kidding. I mean, there's no way I'm playing Alien: Isolation on Nightmare mode. Hell, no. Hard was scary enough for me, I was barely scraping enough ammo, um, I mean flamethrower fuel, and I really relied on my motion tracker throughout. With a broken motion tracker, even scarcer ammo (flamethrower fuel again), and a much smarter Alien......hell, no. No way in hell. I ain't playing Nightmare mode. Hard was more than enough.

Alien: Isolation was terrifying. Every time I saw the motion tracker beep, hear the familiar sound of the Alien slithering down from the vents, my heart jumped, I walked straight for the nearest locker (or crouch-walked - because running would draw the Alien's attention to me) and hid in there until I know EXACTLY where the Alien was. And I wouldn't dare to come out of the locker until the motion tracker told me it was far, far away. The Alien was that terrifying. I did get all the achievements, it was pretty enjoyable, and I loved reading all the Archive Logs and Nostromo Logs. Not to mention collecting all the ID tags, running to save at the save station, and then breathing a sigh of relief before fearfully proceeding to where my motion tracker pointed me.

Alien: Isolation was simply the best horror game I had ever played. I'm not sure if it's realistic but it definitely felt real to me. Terrifying, real, immersive, atmospheric. IGN and Gamespot screwed up their reviews (or I just don't agree with their reviews). PC Gamer has a more accurate review. I'm not being biased. Well, maybe I am. Personally, I think Alien: Isolation is the best Alien game ever made, probably slightly better than the first two Aliens vs. Predator games because I love shooting with my Pulse Rifle and Flamethrower, but it is much better than the 3rd Aliens vs. Predator game, and perhaps Aliens: Colonial Marines (can't say for sure because I haven't played that one but I'm sure it's much better after the disaster it turned out to be - so much so I boycotted the game, refusing to give my money to the deceptive Gearbox).

On the other hand, Psycho Break was a little disappointing. Yeah, it plays like Biohazard and has all its annoying flaws. Stupid camera angles, throwing hordes of Haunted at you in an attempt to be scary (that's not scary, that's frustrating and downright annoying). Hamstrings you in ways that irritate the hell out of you, and some of the puzzles and traps just....sigh.....I really hate that trap where you have to hit the blue spot out of the red spot because it's very difficult to hit it. Anyway, that's how it is. Rather than horrifying, it was more frustrating than anything. The only thing that's scary is when you're faced with unkillable bosses, but when you're forced to kill them over and over again, it loses its fear factor. I mean, the Keeper! He was scary at first, especially the part where I was trapped inside with him. But when I faced him again in the meat locker, and TWIN Keepers at the last chapter, it was just irritating. I was forced to empty my precious Magnum rounds into one of the Keepers just to kill the bastard so that I had an easier time fighting his stupid twin.

Laura was probably the only other scary boss. The Sadist? Stupid. I actually laughed when I first had to kill him, and I lured him to the various traps inside the village, sent spikes shooting up his body four times before he died. And I found out I could even sneak kill him. Damn it, what a waste. And the Quell? Not scary at all. In fact, it's the best enemy for farming. I would run and hide in the corner, wait for it to spawn exploding leeches, shoot the leeches and farm near infinite handgun ammo and shotgun ammo. Some kind of funny exploit. Ha ha ha ha. Oh well. Once I maxed out my ammo stock I could kill the bastard at my leisure.

Tell me, when compared to Alien: Isolation, how can Psycho Break be scary? The story's confusing as well, I never found out what happened to Myra, who killed Sebastian's daughter, who Kidman really was, and whether Joseph Oda was still alive. At least the nurse Titania or however it's spelled is still alive. But there's a lot of loose ends that aren't tied up properly. And what happened to Leslie? Did Ruvik take over his body? I don't know. I fear these will never be answered unless in a sequel, and that's dependent on the sales of Psycho Break. Unfortunately, sequels tend to fare worse than their predecessors, if we judge by Biohazard. The first four games were good, but the next 2 were bad. Sigh. Dead Space 2 was better than Dead Space, but while I like Dead Space 3, I can't honestly say it was better than the first two games. Co-op and crafting my own weapon were great, but somehow I didn't like the Alien temple in the end. It just didn't feel like Dead Space anymore. And Brother Moons? Really? Sigh.

So verdict: Alien: Isolation is the best horror game of 2014. I'm not counting PT - it's only a teaser and not a full game, and it's too repetitive for me. Okay, I know there's plenty of changes every time I go through it, but I kind of got impatient and sick and tired of seeing the same place (even with the changes) over and over again. I wanted to explore more places. But never mind. I'm sure a lot more people like it much more than I did.

I wonder what games will be released this year. Unfortunately, I'll be saving my money for my Warhammer 40K army rather than for games this year. FOR THE EMPEROR!

That reminds me, there's a new game coming out in 2015 called Warhammer 40,000: Space Hulk: Deathwing. Now I'm getting that game. Not for horror, but because I'm a fan of FPS with alien enemies. Like Aliens vs. Predator, Dead Space series, Doom 3 (technically they're demons and not aliens). Well, basically I love sci-fi horror FPS games with alien/inhuman enemies. Not because they're scary, but it's fun to shoot down alien horrors and demons with hi-tech weaponry. This is probably why I don't like Psycho Break. It doesn't play like a shooter, it doesn't have hi-tech weaponry like flamethrowers, plasma guns and stuff, the camera angles annoy me, and it has way too many puzzles and too little ammunition. This is personal taste, by the way. I like survival horror that gives me a chance to fight back, but my deaths in Psycho Break feel very cheap. Like they're forcing me to die with cheap tactics, hordes and stuff. If they've given me, I dunno, a plasma rifle and a first person perspective with enough ammo to take on the hordes they forcibly throw at me (seriously, I want to sneak past them, sneak-kill them, but they force me to kill hordes by trapping me in a freaking room with these things, and the only way to proceed is to kill all of them to unlock a stupid door. And I've to do that with limited ammo. REALLY?!).

Ammo conservation only works, like in Alien: Isolation, when you're given the freaking option to sneak past enemies, use traps on them or a lot of other options. Locking me in a room with a horde and expecting me to kill them to unlock the door to the next stage is not giving me options. It's irritating, especially when I don't have much ammo because of supposed survival horror. And it happens many times. And there's a lot of times my sneak kill fails because for some reason the prompt fails me when I hit space, and they turn around despite my repeated hammering of the space button! Worse, if they're all patrolling the place, and I'm shoeshorned into a linear path to go past said patrols of HORDES, how am I supposed to sneak kill them?

If you're forcing me to kill them, I might as well play FPS like Doom 3, and hopefully Space Hulk: Deathwing. Not much of a survival horror when I save up my ammo, only to be forced to spend them all on hordes that block my progression and no way of sneaking up on them or sneaking past them. Sigh. May Deathwing be a good game.

As a disclaimer, this is all my personal opinion and personal preference. I am not a professional gamer or reviewer, and I do not expect people to agree with me. If you feel that Psycho Break was a far superior game, then great. By all means enjoy it. If you hated Alien: Isolation with a vengeance because you hate locker simulation or whatever criticism you have, then it simply isn't for you. And if you liked PT, great. I don't like it, but unfortunately I am not you and having different opinions is to be expected.

Riptide, Broadside and Hammerhead Gunship

I didn't update yesterday, but basically I finished building my Riptide yesterday. Today I returned to Battle Bunker and finished building my Hammerhead Gunship and a Riptide. Yay.

Apparently I have another Imperial Knight waiting for me, much sooner than I expected, and this is going to burn a hole in my pocket. Still, I'll build it tomorrow and paint all of them on Friday. Next week, I probably won't show up much because the new semester has begun and I'll need to do stuff. I'll do my job properly and won't get distracted (won't stop me from visiting once a week or once a fortnight, though). We'll see. If I have time, I'll go, otherwise I'll concentrate on my duties and my thesis. I think.

Otherwise my army is half-done. Now I only have one Imperial Knight and five Broadsides left. And I'll have to order the Broadsides. I'll order a couple of them next month or March, and the last three on March or April, depending on what happens next month. Sigh. Sorry, scratch that. I'll buy the last Imperial Knight first, and then I'll buy the first couple of Broadsides in March or April, and the final three on April or May. I'll have finished my army just in time for the summer holidays. Yay.

I'm also thinking of using the final 150 points for a Vindicare Assassin because his Ignore Cover and Shield-breaker bonuses will help me a lot greatly, but we'll see. I'll finish building my current army first, and then we'll see where it goes. I have a Hammerhead which I don't know how I can use unless I play Unbound (I probably will play Unbound until my Broadside armies are complete). Again, we'll see. I hope I can get a Vindicare Assassin too as he will probably widen my options much more than Markerlight and Shield Drones anyway. Hmm......

Saturday, January 3, 2015

For the Emperor!!!! IMPERIAL KNIGHTS GALORE!

Never mind, screw all that. I've got a funnier idea. I'm going to build an Imperial Knight army. I'll slowly save up and buy one Imperial Knight per month, so it'll take me a while, but it doesn't matter. They're probably the only ones I need to buy along with 2 more Broadsides. I will go with the Adamantine Lance Formation and keep my Knights closely packed together so that I can re-roll their Ion Shield saves. Not sure if that's a good idea, but I'll probably do that for the fun of it.