
The Shadow Fold. To destroy it, we need a miracle. Shadow and Bone coming April 23, only on Netflix.
Reality Is The Playground Of The Unimaginative
Home Of Superheroes, Swords, Sorcery, Snowy, Sonic Screwdrivers, Supernatural Scares, Star Stuff, Simians, and Silliness
The Shadow Fold. To destroy it, we need a miracle. Shadow and Bone coming April 23, only on Netflix.
Looking to beef up your games of Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps?
Then you need this detailed model of the iconic M577 APC from the movie, to act as an eye-catching piece of terrain.
Available only direct from the Gale Force 9 webstore, for $50, this is a multi part resin kit, so assembly is required and it doesn't come pre-painted.
Produced to order, and in limited numbers, delivery of the APC may take up to 120 days from the time of ordering.
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Completed 160mm x 65mm x 60m model shown with figures for scale |
In Marvel’s M.O.D.O.K., the megalomaniacal supervillain M.O.D.O.K. (Patton Oswalt) has long pursued his dream of one day conquering the world.
But after years of setbacks and failures fighting the Earth’s mightiest heroes, M.O.D.O.K. has run his evil organization A.I.M. into the ground.
Ousted as A.I.M.’s leader, while also dealing with his crumbling marriage and family life, the Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing is set to confront his greatest challenge yet!
In Alien: Fate of the Nostromo, players take the role of Nostromo crew members Ripley, Lambert, Parker, Brett, or Dallas.
Over the course of the game, they collect scrap, craft items, and fulfill different objectives. The crew will lose and gain morale as they encounter the Alien and other situations.
If crew morale reaches zero, players lose the game.
Each turn has two phases. In the Crew Action phase, players creep through the Nostromo’s halls, gathering scrap, crafting items, trading scrap and items with other players, and using items and their special abilities. Brett, for example, can craft items with one fewer scrap than other players.
If the Alien is within three spaces of the player with the incinerator, that player can use the incinerator to send the Alien back to its nest.
In the Encounter phase, players draw and resolve an Encounter card. The Alien could be lurking behind any corner…
Once the players fulfil their initial objectives, they face one of five final missions, each with a unique set of requirements.
Players must fulfil the final mission’s requirements simultaneously to win the game.
Players can also introduce Science Officer Ash for a more challenging game. Ash moves through the ship, removing scrap and forcing the crew to lose morale.
Superman is a symbol for hope across the world. Hear the story of how the Man of Tomorrow will always be the hero we need today. Long Live Superman!
The cultural phenomenon picks up where we left off, with June’s fight for freedom against Gilead. But the risks she takes bring unexpected and dangerous new challenges, and her desire for justice and revenge threaten to consume her and destroy her most cherished relationships.
Written primarily for players of Amazing Tales - and its new, superheroic, iteration Amazing Heroes (currently being Kickstarted) - but, for my money, 10 good rules for getting the most out of any roleplaying game.
Following a zombie outbreak in Las Vegas, a group of mercenaries take the ultimate gamble, venturing into the quarantine zone to pull off the greatest heist ever attempted.Whatever you may think about his approach to superheroes, you have to admit that Zack Snyder knows zombies. His Dawn of The Dead remake was sublime.
Ablaze continues its publication of 'uncensored' adaptations of Robert E Howard's brutal and barbaric adventures of Conan The Cimmerian with the second issue of Iron Shadows in The Moon, on sale May 12.
As ever, the 32-page, full colour comic is available with a selection of variant covers.
Conan and Olivia escape to a remote island, attempting to flee their oppressors. But as they take refuge inside an ancient temple, avoiding the dangers that lurk in the nearby jungle, they may have awakened an ancient evil that humankind has yet to comprehend. Will they find a way to escape before they are overcome by threats inside and out?
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The Queue: down the front of the church building, then round the side |
Okay, confession time. I have a bit of a weakness for Bai Ling. I know she's not the world's greatest actress, but I find her alluringly watchable in whatever awful B-movie she turns up in.
And Lord of The Elves is a classic of that genre. Crafted by the masterminds at The Asylum as a mockbuster of Peter Jackon's first Hobbit movie, this was originally called Age of The Hobbits until the lawyers stepped in and its name changed to Lord of The Elves.
Then, without any warning or explanation, it suddenly underwent a bland renaming to Clash of Empires.
The Blu-Ray I have of this is entitled Lord Of The Elves, but for the sake of clarity I should point out at this stage that not only is the word "lord" never used in this 82-minute flick, but there are also no "elves" in it, nor is that word mentioned either.
Of course, both of these words do have connections with the rather popular Lord of The Rings movies, but that's surely a coincidence, right?
Inspired by real-world archaeology, the action of Lord of The Elves takes place 12,000 years ago on Flores Island, Indonesia (where examples of an early hominid, Homo floresiensis, were found in 2003).
But this is an Asylum movie, not a National Geographic documentary. As well as being populated with giant lizards, some of which can fly (like dragons), and giant spiders, the island is home to three types of human: the diminutive vegetarian Tree People, cannibalistic cavemen called the Rock Men (who ride the flying lizards on occasion), and a tribe of hunters that the Tree People refer to as "giants" but are simply humans.
When the Rock Men raid the Tree People village - to stock up on snacks for their cooking pot - one family escapes, fleeing to the land of the "giants", where they gain assistance from Amthar (Stargate SG-1's Christopher Judge), Laylan (Bai Ling), and a couple of disposable prehistoric red shirts.
Together, despite being severely outnumbered, they stage a rescue mission on the Rock Men's encampment in the hope of saving the captive Tree People.
Shot on location in the jungles and mountains of Cambodia, Lord of The Elves certainly looks mythic.
It just kind of falls apart when people get involved.
Eric Forsberg's script is simplistic, to say the least, and much of the acting is am dram level. While some bad dubbing contributes to this, I have a suspicion that Christopher Judge was the only true actor on set, and most of the rest were Cambodian locals randomly roped in because they 'looked the part'.
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I'm sorry, I can't help myself... |
Except for eye candy, I'm not exactly sure what Bai Ling or her character really contributed to the movie. Being generous, you could say that Laylan has a basic revenge arc, but she could easily have been excised from the movie and nothing would have changed.
Of course, I might not have been so keen to watch it. But that's a different story entirely.
The giant creatures, and the faux-dragons, are delivered as mediocre CG monsters, but actually they're not so poor that they take the audience out of the moment (come on, you're watching an Asylum joint, what were you expecting? Marvel Studios level CGI?).
The monsters help add some colour to the otherwise human-centric "fantasy" tale , which, barring its prehistoric setting, has an element of Willow about it as well.
Let's be honest, Lord of The Elves (or whatever you want to call it) is not a great movie, and bears absolutely no resemblance to any of the big budget Hobbit movies.
However, if you're a fan of classic cavemen movies, such as One Million Years B.C., Clan of The Cave Bear, Quest for Fire, When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth etc then you might be able to eke out some silly fun from this nonsense.
GAME MATERIAL
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Without warning, millions of mysterious alien “doors” suddenly appear around the globe. In a rush to determine the reason for their arrival, mankind must work together to understand the purpose of these cosmic anomalies. Bizarre incidences occurring around the sentient doors leads humanity to question their own existence and an altered reality as they attempt to enter them.
Another important element of our garden renovation arrived this lunchtime: the outdoor furniture for the 'stage' area, down in front of the old shed.
Because two of the three boxes it arrived in were too large for the delivery man to get the side of our house they were left out front for Rachel and I to open, and then heft the contents down to the garden ourselves.
The two tricky parts were the seats with backs (see picture above), which we had to carry over our heads, avoiding the raised fence posts on one side of the alley and the lighting fixtures on the other.
But we managed it all, stripped off the packing plastic, bubble wrap, foot guards etc and set out the seats as you can see.
Rachel was very pleased that, as she had hoped, the colour of the seating matches well with the paint on the garden room (which is the colour the shed will also be painted later in the year).
Below are a variety of shots Rachel took with the cushions in place, but we've left the plastic on for the moment.
This is, after all, England and it was raining!
Looking for an escape from her recurring nightmares, 18-year-old Sarah (Julia Sarah Stone) submits to a university sleep study, but soon realizes she’s become the conduit to a frightening new discovery.
Dreams twist and nightmares come true in this mind-altering new work of science-fiction from Anthony Scott Burns (Our House) that haunts the space between wakefulness and sleep.
Come True is an unforgettable cinematic dream well worth the submersion.I must confess to a weakness for films about the power of dreams and nightmares, fuelled by my own terrifying encounter with a 'night hag', the pleasure of escaping into vivid dreamscapes, and an unwavering love of the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise.
"... Davion, a renowned Dragon Knight devoted to wiping the scourge from the face of the world. Following encounters with a powerful, ancient eldwurm as well as the noble Princess Mirana on a secret mission of her own, Davion becomes embroiled in events much larger than he could have ever imagined."
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Cover art by Paddy Donnelly |
Exciting news: a magical new novel is on the way from my favourite author, Philip Reeve, this September: Utterly Dark and The Face of The Deep.
To be published by David Fickling Books, this is Philip's first novel since 2019's universe-spanning Station Zero.
He introduced the backstory of Utterly Dark to fans via his blog, explaining that it:
"...takes place in the early 1800s on the remote island of Wildsea. For centuries, the Dark family act as Watchers, keeping a look-out for mysterious islands which are believed to appear from time to time on the western sea, and guarding Wildsea against a terrible monster which is said to live on them. When the current Watcher mysteriously drowns, his young ward Utterly takes over his duties. Gradually, she starts to discover her strange connection with the forces which dwell in the deep ocean."
For my final random 'Adventurers Three' character, showing the three different ways to generate a character in my fantasy Frankengame RPG system, I knew I wanted to create a fighter, to complement the magician and scoundrel I rolled up over the last two days.
At the moment, I'm sticking with the four core classes (fighter, magician, scoundrel, berserker) and leaving the provisional 'expanded classes' (knight, preacher, minstrel, and beastmaster) until I'm happy with them.
The great thing with the current state of our group, The Tuesday Knights, is we're only a couple of sessions into Pete's new GURPS campaign, so there's no sense of urgency about my work on this project, no need to rush things for a tight deadline.
Using the "veteran" method of character generation I rolled 4d6 (drop the lowest) six times, then re-arranged the scores as I wanted.
Of course, this means the character only starts with a single Hero Point, to get him out of sticky situations, but hopefully he will be handy enough that he won't need to rely on that 'get out of jail free' card anyway.
I rolled 11, 10, 17, 12, 13, 15, and immediately decided to put the three highest scores into my physical stats and the rest into the mental ones.
The fighter's stats thus started as:
STR: 17
CON: 15
DEX: 13
INT: 10
WIS: 12
CHA: 11
Hit Points: 12 (maximum, plus two for CON bonus)
As a first level fighter he can choose two 'combat techniques':
Invincible is an Amazon Original series based on the groundbreaking comic book from Robert Kirkman, the creator of The Walking Dead.
The story revolves around 17-year-old Mark Grayson (Steven Yeun), who’s just like every other guy his age - except his father is the most powerful superhero on the planet, Omni-Man (J.K. Simmons).
The hour-per-episode series also stars Sandra Oh, Zazie Beetz, Gillian Jacobs, Zachary Quinto, Jason Mantzoukas, Melise, Mark Hamill, Mahershala Ali, Seth Rogen and more.
The first three episodes are coming to Prime Video on March 26, with weekly releases through April 30 after that.
For the second of my random characters, created using my Frankengame fantasy RPG mechanics, I opted to create an "experienced" character, meaning she would be a bit older than Einar, and generate her basic statistics - still in order - by rolling 4d6 and dropping the owest.
STR 12
CON 16
DEX 14
INT 13
WIS 11
CHA 14
Her age was rolled as 17 and already you can see that her stats are significantly better than my first character.
She starts with THREE hero points to help get her out of sticky situations, but later on I will boost this to FOUR by randomly rolling her hit points, instead of opting to start at maximum for her chosen class.
For nationality I got a 27, making her Teklish (the campaign begins in Tekralh, meaning she's a local girl).
Her social class is "middle" (I rolled a '9' on 3d6) and her star sign is Libra.
Her birthplace and birth sign reduced her STR slightly, and upped her DEX and WIS, as well as giving her a bonus to find traps and for reaction rolls, but a knock on resisting charm.
Her secondary skill is rope/net maker (which also boosts her CON), suggesting her family possibly comes from the docks in the starting town of Coggershall.
For Life Skills, she got +1 in Riding, but can't swim (a big, fat zero in Swimming Skill).
But it was her Boons & Banes roll that completely upended the character creation process, as she rolled a 66, indicating that she had been sired by a mysterious demon. Not only did this give her a strange and mysterious countenance, and tendency towards chaos, but bumped all her stats by two points and gave her an extra 1d8 hit points at first level.
Hit Points: 13
Base Save: 14
ABILITIES:
When it came to languages, she totally fluffed her literacy roll (a nat '1'), so she's illiterate, but speaks the following languages:
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Beth in action, with Quido in the background |
In anticipation of her forthcoming spotlight special, I thought it would be worth revisiting the first 'modern' appearance of Rebellion's savage warrior woman, Black Beth, from the 2018 Halloween Special edition of Scream! & Misty.
Black Beth's first 21st Century outing was a dynamic six-page offering from the same team as will be tackling March's Black Beth and the Devils of Al-Kadesh; that is the gorgeous artwork of DaNi coupled with the words of Alec Worley.
Spawned from similar backgrounds as Red Sonja and Conan The Cimmerian, clad in her trademark, imposing black armour, Beth operates in a pseudo-Medieval fantasy world, driven by a rage to eliminate the forces of darkness.
Aided by her blind companion Quido, and guided by the witch, Moldred, who - for a fee - finds Beth her next target, the warrior's adventure, The Magos of Malice, begins in media res with Beth and Quido bursting into the ruins of Tallon's Keep to rescue kidnapped children being held by the sorcerer Koshoi.
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An unlettered Magos of Malice panel from DaNi's Deviantart page |
Before confronting the Big Bad, we see Beth carving up Koshoi's animated skeleton guards, and then get a flashback to learn more about how she got there, her motivations, and hints at her backstory.
The story comes with a twist that ultimately serves to turn the whole piece more into an exploration of Black Beth than a straight-forward action adventure.
The Magos of Malice fires the imagination and immediately inspires a desire to know more about Beth, her blind companion, and the mercenary witch feeding her leads.
Prior to this I believe Black Beth had only made one previous appearance, back in a Scream! special in 1988, so Alec Worley has a lot of wiggle-room when it comes to crafting the character's full backstory, then building on it for future yarns.
I really hope that Black Beth and the Devils of Al-Kadesh is a success for Rebellion (they must have chosen this character for a reason to headline her own one-shot) and she either earns her own on-going title, or a regular spot in Rebellion's flagship title, the veteran weekly anthology magazine 2000AD.
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2018 Halloween Special |