The Conservative Zone

It seems that I have ignited a firestorm with my statement that the bunker is closing at the end of the year. It also turns out I am most likely wrong about this. There is a policy with Games Workshop-UK that states that every distribution center shall have a store. It turns out that GW-US almost closed our store, but GW-UK stepped in and said that the store stays open. This is most likely a rehash of that incident. I apologize for this statement and will continue to do the same level of business and continue to patronize the GW store, acting as if it is not closing.

Posted by Mark at 4:50 PM | Permalink

Well, I am extremely happy this morning. When I learned that Fanatic Games needed money, I made some calls to people who made some calls and the money has been raised. I learned last night that it is enough to keep them open until the end of the year, which is when the secret that I thought was secret turns out to be common knowledge. The Games Workshop Memphis Battle Bunker is closing at the end of the year. This will leave us with just one game shop in the area. That's why it was so important to keep Fanatic open.

I wish to extend a hearty "Thank You" to all of the people who donated to the cause.

Posted by Mark at 9:31 AM | Permalink

Okay, this was a battle that will be talked about for years to come. First of all, this was a final showdown between myself and my friend Greg for the title of SpecialistCon I Overall Champion. You can read more about my other battles at SpecialistCon here.

Anyway, Greg and I met at the Games Workshop Battle Bunker to play some Epic:Armageddon. So, we mixed up, his Feral Orks to my regular Orks. We should have fought this battle in the third round of the tournament, but we went way long and had to cut the Epic tournament to two rounds.

This is how we set up, myself on the right and Greg on the left. While the points were even, he had some very powerful stuff on his side. Transport animals that were almost impossible to kill, and for all of the powerful weapons I had, he had twice as many. For all of the air support I had, he had anti-aircraft weaponry galore. It looked to be a close game.

For all pictures, click on for full size:

We spent the first turn just getting into position. My Deth Koptas managed to kill a couple of things here and there out on the flanks. My Landa landed with it's Warband and wiped out a Warband and almost killed the Orkeosaurus with it, but got almost wiped out instead. I also didn't position my Supa-Stompa quite right for the shot that I wanted, but the first turn ended like this:

Turn 2 opened with a bang. His Steam Gargants opened fire on my Supa-Stompa mob, but failed to do anything to it. I fired back at another target with them and caused a lot of damage. My big warband came up a road and killed a Steam Gargant with a ton of firepower. I was needing 6's and 7's to hit (By the way, you can roll a 7 on a dix sided dice. You just have to roll a 6, then a 4+) and I was getting them. The other Gargant retreated, broken and never rallied. My Deth Koptas assaulted units on both flanks, breaking them, and forcing the vise to slowly close.

Turn 3 opened with the final movements of the game. Greg's slow Orkeosaurses couldn't make it past midfield, since my Warband I dropped in his backfield on turn 1 made him come after that instead of advancing across the battlefield. I did my classic mistake of going for low-hanging fruit. I attacked a unit with my Supa-Stompa that had already activated and no longer posed a threat to me. I should have waited to activate the Stompas because other more important targets presented themselves later in the turn. He couldn't protect his Blitzkrieg, so I advanced my main Warband to take it. Greg had given up on winning, so was going for the tie. He assaulted my Supa-Stompas, and failed in that. He then moved his bikes into position to try and keep one objective at least, but my Deth Koptas, which had been hiding, came around a forest and blasted the bikes, forcing them to retreat.

This is how the game ended up:

So, at the end of the game, I had his Blitzkrieg objective, and he had no unbroken formations on my side of the board, giving me a 2-0 victory. It was hard fought, and went literally down to the last activation. The dice were also on my side to a great deal, I was hitting things that I shouldn't have been able to hit, and saving like it was nothing. It got so bad, Greg started using my dice instead of his own!

So what do I get out of this? The SpecialistCon Trophy! I don't have it at this moment, because it's on order, but I should have it by late this week or early next week. When I get it, I will be sure to take a picture of it and show it in it's own post, and update this one with it as well.

All I can say, is W-O-W. That was a battle for the ages and I will not forget it anytime soon. Greg commented that I was using every brain cell I had to analize the situation as the battle unfolded, and he has never seen me play on this level before. Greg should know, he's been playing Epic in its various forms for about 10 years now, and is an expert in his own right with this game.

This is a very proud day for me, and I shall cherish it for a long time to come. The trophy will go in a place of honor, where I can see it always.

Posted by Mark at 8:26 AM | Permalink

Boy, oh boy, what a day I've had today. If it wasn't after 10PM and me being wiped out by the experience, I would tell you about it now. But you'll have to tune in tomorrow morning to hear the great news, see the pictures and stuff like that.

Posted by Mark at 10:35 PM | Permalink

Michael J. Fox has ignited a firestorm over his ads. But there is more to it than just that. Read this article: Fox Stem Cell Ads at Center of Political Firestorm, Including Limbaugh Charge 'He's Acting'.

Now, Rush apologized for the "he must be acting" remark, but MJF has stated in his book that he went off his meds in order to testify in front of Congress.

And the premise that is stated in the ads is totally incorrect. President Bush has spent more money for Stem Cell Research than Clinton ever did, it's just that he doesn't want to sacrifice any more babies (and yes, a fertilized egg is a baby) on the alter of science.

Not to mention the restriction on stem cell research applies only to federally funded projects. If you don't have federal funding, you don't have any restrictions and you could sacrifice as many babies as you want.

The point is, Democrats and Liberals are again drastically distorting the facts and exploiting somebody who doesn't deserve to be exploited. I'm sure MJF is doing this willingly, but he has been sold the same package of BS that he is trying to sell to you. Don't fall for it.

Posted by Mark at 9:13 AM | Permalink

My friends, I need your help. Back in April, I talked about Fanatic Games. It's the FLGS (Friendly Local Game Store) for Memphis. Well, they are in dire straits and they will be closing at the end of the month unless some serious cash is raised. I'm asking you, if you know of any (legal) way to raise 5 figures worth of money, please let me know. That's the bad news.

The worse news is so bad I'm sworn to secrecy about it. But believe me, it's bad.

I'm asking again, if you know of or have a large pile of unused money laying around, please contact me immediately. The gamers of Memphis need your help.

Posted by Mark at 12:23 PM | Permalink

Mike put this up on his blog, and I thought I should also.

It's official. Harold Ford called Bob Corker a dog-kicker. And you just don't do that in the South. Dogs are considered part of the family around here, and there is nothing lower than a dog kicker. So, I do believe, the race is now over.

Harold shot himself in the head with this ad.

Posted by Mark at 9:06 AM | Permalink

I was with Mike helping him move some things and we stopped for a break while the news was on. Well, we were watching Katie Couric because that was the only channel that he could pick up clearly with national news, and as they transited from her to commercial, real quick they had a medium long shot of her desk and the display on the desk said, "Stock market report: Record high."

I remarked, "When the Dow jumps 100 points in a day, the mainstream media shows it, but doesn't talk about it. But let the Dow slide 100 points and the MSM is all over it."

This, again, shows the bias of the mainstream media, they only report bad news on the economy, never the good. This is the best economy we've had in 30+ years, and it's a solid growth, not a dot com bubble. But you can't get the people who report the news to say that. It would prove that President Bush is doing at least some things right. His tax cuts have spurred the economy to grow in a solid and consistent manner.

And what is "Speaker Pelosi" going to do in her first 100 hours of office? Why, raise taxes. She is going to "roll back" the evil tax cuts to the rich. Never mind that the top 1 percent of wage earners pays 34.27% of the total tax revenues collected. The top 25% of income earners pays 83.88%, and the top 50% pays 96.54%. She wants you to pay more.

If you are a Conservative, get out and vote. Don't sit home and whine about both of them being crooks. Sure they are, and you may have to hold your nose when you vote Republican. But you must look at the alternative. More taxes, cut the funding for Iraq to pull the troops out, and so on. One choice may be bad, but the other is worse.

One last thing. To date, in three and-a-half years of fighting in Iraq, we have lost 2,236 troops in combat. In 2001 30,622 people committed suicide. 20,000+ were murdered. 16,694 died in drunk driving crashes in 2004. Put just those three numbers together and you have 67,000+ deaths, in one year. And we've lost an average of 639 a year in combat deaths. That's just 1% of the number of deaths I just gave. And the people who are dying in Iraq are doing something when they die. Their lives aren't wasted by senseless deaths like over here. But you'll never see the MSM put those deaths in context.

Bah. A pox on them and their houses.

Posted by Mark at 8:21 AM | Permalink

Let me tell you, today was a great day for me! I attended a Warhammer 40k Rouge Trader Tournament, and let me tell you how it went.

First of all, I faced David and his world eaters, which are a chapter of Chaos Space Marine, think Marines who have gone over to the dark side. He came from the far side of Little Rock to attend. The scenario was Unplanned Assault, where you figure out what you're supposed to do in the middle of the game. You also start out with very little of your troops on the board, and you have to bring them on according to die rolls. Anyway, we set up and went at each other. It was a blood bath, mostly Ultramarine blood being spilt. What won me the match was the fact that because this scenario was written under 3rd edition, I could use transports to hold objectives. In 4th edition (the current ruleset) you can't use dedicated transports to hold objectives. My opponent thankfully ignored my Rhinos, and I was able to contest two objectives with them. My command squad managed to contest a third objective. What won me the game was one squad of his marines (who was trying to hold onto an objective) did what is called "blood rage". This meant he had to charge forward toward the nearest enemy unit. So he had to advance them 5 inches, before they realized, "Hey, aren't we supposed to protect that building?" and they moved back 6 inches. Well, this left them exposed to my Predator and it killed 3 marines which prevented them from holding the objective. So I zipped my landspeeder over to grab the objective. Score, Mark 1, David 0.

Second round, I faced Boomer and his generic CSM. The scenario was The Hunted. This is where you nominate an enemy unit that you get bonus points for killing it. I nominated Boomers Predator tank, he wanted one of my Dreadnoughts. We might have well been beating each other with 10 pound sledgehammers, it was bloody and both sides paid the price. When the smoke cleared, both of our hunted units were still alive. When the points were tallied, Boomer was on top by 221 points, just enough to eke out a win. If you're within 10% of the total points value of the game (which was 2000 points), it would have been a draw. Both of us poured so much firepower into the chosen units and how both of them survived is a mystery. I hit his tank multiple times, but failed to do any permanent damage.

3rd round, I faced down William, who faced Boomer in the first round. This scenario was Arch Rivals.The thing here is the two Headquarters units really hate each other and need to kill each other, in hand to hand combat if at all possible. If your general kills the enemy general in hand to hand combat and survives, you get 200 bonus points. I set up a killing zone with my Predator pointing straight down a street, and had a Devastator Heavy Bolter squad set up 90 degrees on a side street, setting up a nasty cross fire. I killed everything that came down that street, he might as well been marching in line, assaulting machine guns. I killed both his HQ's this way. By the time the points were tallied, he killed 530 points of mine, he stopped counting at 750 when it became clear that I had won.

Now all of the point tallying was done, and as a surprise and complete shock to me, I came in 2nd (!!!) only 5 points behind the overall winner. I had a total of 81 points, and I took the Best Sportsman (again).

This now makes *three* Best Sportsman awards that I have on my wall. One from the Bunker back in October of '05, one from Fanatic from May, and now this one:

In case you forgot, I placed in 3rd place in my prior RTT, now in 2nd place here. When I first started attending these events I thought I could never actually win one of them. Now, I have the hope that I can.

Posted by Mark at 10:34 PM | Permalink

Well, well, well. It seems that North Korea is sorry it conducted a nuclear test. Report: N. Korean leader regrets test. Yeah, right.

It seems that China is already starting to build a wall to block out all of the North Koreans defecting over the border. But I'll bet that China promised to turn off the money tap if NK carried out any more nuclear tests.

Which seem to be in doubt. I don't have the link and don't remember the details, but it seems that the wrong particles were emitted by the "nuclear" test by NK. So it seems they loaded up the chamber with 500 tons of dynamite, threw in some plutonium for good measure, and set it off.

But back to the wall. China putting pressure on NK is the only possible reason why NK is acting the way they are. So it looks like the Bush Administrations policy of "wait it out and let China do the talking," is starting to work. Just remember, the North Korean weapons building program was in full swing under the "agreed framework" negotiated unilaterally under the Clintons.

Which puts another burr under my saddle. Liberals decry about "going in unilaterally" (even when we didn't) when they don't like it, but cry "unilateral" when it suits their purpose. Can somebody amongst the Liberals please make up their mind and stop being hypocritical?

Posted by Mark at 8:36 AM | Permalink

I just finished visiting one of the message boards I frequent, and I found a wonderful battle report by my second opponent in the Epic tournament. Here it is:

Mark was a very pleasant chap who I got to meet on my last trip to Memphis and I was reminded of his intriguing smile, which seems to infer that he knows what you are thinking…in my case, this turned out to be true.

As is customary with a drop pod force, I plotted up my stuff and Mark set his units up. As is also customary, we kicked things off with a bang, the orbital barrage hammering two separate formations, one of which was a mob of boyz with jet packs waiting to ambush someone in a body suit. The drop pods came down, added a little icing to the cake, I deployed out of my drop pods and proceeded to apply the coup de main to a couple of Mark’s larger formations. With one big mechanized mob, and a battle wagon mob sent off with their tails between their legs, it looked like the space marines were on to something good.

Not so.

Mark had a Stompa mob with a Supa stompa that fired tactical nuclear weapons from its belly and before you could say, “Shazaam!”, I had lost two tactical formation, one devastator formation, a chaplain and a librarian.

Somewhere off in the distance, a lone Ork stompa commanda was shouting, “YOU WANT A PIECE OF THIS?”

Needing to apply a severe readjustment to my battle plan, I dropped my terminators in behind the stompa mob and wiped out three stompas and put two DC on the big guy, but just missed wiping him out, so he waddled off a fair bit, turned around and reloaded. Not a good deal.

I air assaulted one of Marks Deth copta formations and wiped it out save one unit, but began to see a bit of a struggle ahead as I was out of activations and Mark was just getting started. Did I mention that he had two formations of 6 fighta bommas? He did and they were a pain in the neck.

Needless to say, by the end of turn two, the only thing I had left on the board was a single unit of terminators with my Supreme Commander. I don’t have to tell you how torqued off he is and that he can’t wait to pick a fight with some more Orks. Now, lest you think that all this damage went unanswered, it did not, but the reality is that Mark had enough units left over to score a rather commanding 5-0 win over the good guys.

A great game as well, very much akin to two contestants standing at arms reach, battering each other with 10 lb sledgehammers. I greatly look forward to the next Mark!

As you can see, the gentleman who wrote this has a wonderful sense of humor and a great sense of sportsmanship. I wish to thank Jim for the battle and the battle report.

Posted by Mark at 9:52 PM | Permalink

Due to an error in billing that has now been fixed, If you tried to get here between midnight and now, you were greeted by a placeholder page. Sorry about that, as you see the problem has been rectified and I'm back up and running.

Thanks for your patience.

Posted by Mark at 1:09 PM | Permalink

I couldn't believe it.

Daily Kos, a noted Waaaaaay Left Blog, had some buried news on the earthquake in Hawai'i. You have to search for Hawaii, then scan down through the comments, but two of those wingnuts are blaming the earthquake on Bush. You see, the nuclear test in North Korea is Bush's fault, and the test started tremors which triggered the earthquake.

So you see, Bush is responsible!

Sheesh.

Posted by Mark at 11:27 AM | Permalink

...And it's not over yet!

This past weekend was SpecialistCon I, a convention where tournaments were played for all of the games published by Specialist Games. It was held at the Memphis World of Battle here in Memphis.

Friday afternoon opened the Con with a Battlefleet Gothic tournament. We had a total of 4 players, and not enough time or space to play the necessary games, so we had a four way "last man standing" kind of scenario. We had two Ultramarine Space Marine Fleets, a Chaos fleet and an Ork fleet.

The Ultramarines formed a loose alliance, and the Chaos/Orks did the same. As the fleets came together, the battle became intense. As the Chaos fleet came around a gas cloud, my fleet hammered it. My Battle Barge (think Battleship) opened up on the Chaos Battleship, and destroyed it with one salvo, from one group of weapons. I didn't even fire everything I had at it. My strike cruisers with help from the other Ultramarine fleet, destroyed 4 other cruisers coming around the other side of the gas cloud. Then both of the Battle Barges opened fire on all of the Ork ships coming around the planet in the center of the board, sweeping them away. Then, the other Ultramarine player broke the truce and rammed one of my cruisers with his Battle Barge. So, I came about and obliterated the other Battle Barge.

The game was called when there was very few ships left. The winner was the Ork player, who was so slow that it took until almost forever to get to the battle, let alone to participate in it. He had the most points left on the board, with his Space Hulk and 4 Roks on one side of the planet. I came in second, with my Battle Barge, and two cruisers left, one of them crippled on the other side of the planet. Chaos came in third, with two cruisers left, and staying out of the battle. The other Ultramarine player ran off the board with his two remaining cruisers.

Saturday had the Epic tournament, and that was a blast! We only had enough time for two rounds, as a couple of the games ran very long.

My Ork list is one that is currently 3-0 before this tournament, so it was well tested. My first game involved a new Epic player. Although I tried not to, I obliterated him and won 5 points to 0. He was familiar with the game, but hadn't played with the borrowed army he played. He said he figured out how to beat me, but he did it three turns too late.

My second battle was a lot more difficult. This time I faced an all drop Space Marine Army. First turn he performed a bombardment and then dropped troops from a Strike Cruiser. He then assaulted my largest warband, and managed to break it, so it ran away. Then came the surprise. I watched my opponent play this army on Friday while I was playing BFG, and I watched him use the same tactics. So I figured what he would do and I was ready. My Supa Stompa was ready and pointed in the direction that I thought he would land. I opened with a macro-weapon attack and obliterated most of that force. He then landed his Landing Craft on my flank and obliterated a unit of Deth Koptas. I retaliated by attacking with my Fighta Bombas to put blast markers on the Landing Craft, then attacked with my Landa and Warband. I ended up obliterated him, except for the Landing Craft which was fearless.

My opponent then teleported in some terminators, which attacked my Supa Stompa and his Stompas. The Termies killed the Stompas, but not the Supa Stompa. The Supa then ran away, turned around and fired on the termies, severely hurting them. His landing craft then tried to assault and kill the Supa Stompa, but failed and died.

By this time, it was turn three, and he only had two broken units, while I had about half of my force. I ended up wiping his Break the Spirit off the battlefield and again I won 5-0.

With two perfect wins, and a Painting and Army Composition score of 9.1 out of 10, I handily won the tournament with a score of 49.1 out of 50.

Sunday had Blood Bowl (fantasy football) and Warmaster. We only had two players for Blood Bowl, so that tournament didn't count (you needed at least 4 players). The game of BB I did play, I won 3-0, playing my Amazons against his Undead team. Greg ended up winning the Warmaster tournament.

So, while Greg has more points than I do, it's only because he participated in three scoring tournaments, while I was in two. We both won one tournament, and I came in over him with BFG. Which means we have to play off. I won't play him in Blood Bowl, and he won't play me in BFG. So that leaves Epic. We are working out a date and time to meet and play in Epic. We will be playing our tournament lists, so it will be an Ork vs. Ork slugfest.

No matter what, I picked up a lot of swag and bragging rights. I have posters for BFG, Epic and Blood Bowl, plus a signed copy of an Epic Rulebook.

But I really want that trophy for the Con. So in my next game with Greg, I'll give it everything I got and hopefully I'll get it.

Stay tuned and I'll let you know how it turned out.

Posted by Mark at 10:00 AM | Permalink

It seems that the Democrats are starting to take lessons from Reuters. They are not being totally honest with pictures that they put up on their web site. Let me demonstrate. Here is a screenshot of the website of Democrats.org. Of course, because of publicity like this, the image I am telling you about was taken down.

It at least implies that there is a Democrat soldier who agrees with the article. But there is more than meets the eye.

Here is the real photo:

As you look back and forth between these two images, you will notice that the beret badge on the soldier was photoshopped out of the one on the website. Why would it be 'shopped out? Because this is a photo of a Canadian soldier.

It is pitiful to see such things, when you have to stoop to such levels to get your message out, it says a lot about your message. If you lie about something innocuous, what else would you lie about?

10/16/06 UPDATE: I found out a couple of days ago that the picture at the top of the page, the one with everynody holding their arms up? It's a stock photo. Which means they purchased it and it is not a picture of some Democrat rally as you would ass-u-me it is.

Posted by Mark at 10:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I found out the other day that only a quarter of Americans vote. They didn't specify "voting age" or not, but no matter how you slice it, that number is abysmal. If you are of voting age and you don't vote, you should be ashamed of yourself. Voting is a sacred thing, and you should partake of it. It has been said that, "Those who enjoy the blessings of Liberty should undergo the fatigue of supporting it."

Now that I hopefully have convinced you to go down and register to vote and actually take the time to engage in this right, let's talk about who to vote for.

In todays political climate, I realize that you must increasingly hold your nose to make your pick, and pick the lesser of two evils, but please consider this: Who is doing at least something, and who is obstructing.

Which party is mischaracterizing the NSA wiretap program? Which party is for giving terrorists rights under the Geneva Conventions and US law? Which party is threatening to cut funding of the war to force us out of Iraq? Democrats, Democrats, and Democrats. Now, let's look at those specific questions.

Which party is mischaracterizing the NSA wiretap program? The NSA wiretap program is an international project, not a domestic one. Sure, it looks at calls that terminate in the US, but originate from known international terrorist phone numbers. The tangle of paperwork required to get a warrant is long and difficult. Sometimes it takes too long to get a warrant, and so the NSA listens first and then gets the warrant. All but one of the present and former FISA judges says this is within the scope of the law. So who do you believe? Democrats, or a majority of the people who made it their job to issue warrants for this program?

Which party is for giving terrorists rights under the Geneva Conventions and US law? The Geneva conventions stipulates that combatants, "... have a well-defined chain of command, are clearly distinguishable from the civilian population, carry their arms openly, and obey the laws of war." The people we are fighting do not meet this standard in any way. They do not have status under this Convention, so why should we give them such status? AND, our illustrious Democrat members of Congress actually want to extend US citizenship status to these animals. This is not how you treat prisoners of war. This is not how you treat enemy combatants that do not follow the precepts of war. And if you want to talk torture, look at what Saddam did with his own people. Rape the women, cut off fingers with wirecutters, acid baths, electrical torture. That's torture. What we do is at most make them uncomfortable.

Which party is threatening to cut funding of the war to force us out of Iraq? This is the back way of "Cut and Run." If Democrats win the house, they control the spending and can refuse to fund the war. This would effectively force us out of Iraq and damage our international status and leave Iraq to another dictatorship, or worse an Islamic Sharia state. That would deeply and permanently damage our credibility world-wide, and show our enemies that if they hold out long enough, the peaceniks will win and force us to lose.

Now, I don't like a lot of Republicans any more than you do. They haven't addressed a lot of the issues that need addressing, like border security, but they are a damn sight better than the alternative.

So, vote like your future depended on it. It does.

Posted by Mark at 8:24 AM | Permalink