Word of the Day: Widdershins

Essentially, ‘Widdershins’ is old British world meaning to move in a counter-clockwise direction, although ‘to move contrary to the movement of the sun’ might be a more appropriate definition.

I’ve encountered the word twice in the last few weeks. The first was in an old English story about the young Charlemagne, in which his sister runs widdershins around a church and is whisked off to fairyland.  The second time was in Poul Anderson’s The Broken Sword, which I’m currently reading, where an elf dances widdershins around a troll as part of the process for creating a changeling.

It is notable that both uses involve the fey or fairyland. There seems to be a connection between the unnatural movement of widdershins and the other world. In fact, the movement seems to have been considered so unnatural, that there isn’t a clear opposite to the word. That is, there seems to be no equivalent word for moving clockwise. Apparently moving around something was only worthy of mention if it was done ‘otherworldly’.

The Hobbit:The Desolation of Smaug

Sunday morning, my wife and I caught the early (non-3D) showing of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. Even with the 11 AM start time, the theatre was mostly full. Three hours later, we emerged, slightly bleary-eyed and packed with popcorn*, but with big smiles on our faces. Put simply, we both really enjoyed it and thought it significantly better than the first instalment of the trilogy.

It was beautiful, action-packed, and filled with more fantastical elements than any of the previous Peter Jackson, Middle-Earth films. True, in some places it wandered rather far from the source material, but I actually believe it was a better movie for it. The ending was a little sudden and seemingly arbitrary, but we all know it is a trilogy, so that’s not a major issue for me.

If you are a fan of high-fantasy and can accepted that the movie is not the book, then I think you would be hard-pressed not to enjoy the movie.

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* British cinemas generally offer two types of popcorn, salted and sweet. Neither tastes as good as American buttered popcorn, but then neither leave you feeling quite so queasy either. Salted is a bit too bland for my taste, so I go with sweet. I'm not sure what the 'sweet' flavour is, but it is pretty light.

Frostgrave – A Call for Playtesters

Several months ago, I announced that Frostgrave, my wizard-focused, fantasy skirmish wargame rule set was going to be published in the Osprey Wargames series in early 2015.  Sometime later, I posted up a little piece of completed artwork for the game and talked about why I had decided to base the system around the d20.

Today I’m taking another step forward and opening the game up for playtesting. I actually finished writing the first draft of the manuscript a couple of months ago. Since then I have been playing around with it and tweaking little things here and there. But you can only do so much by yourself. Wargames such as this are too complicated for one person, even the author, to explore all corners. So, I’m asking my fellow wargamers for help.

If you would be interested in helping out, getting an early look at the game, and even getting your name in the book, please send me an email.

It is slightly nerve-wracking sending the game out in draft form, unsupported by beautiful artwork and nice design. Even worse asking people to critique it and mean it. (Usually authors ask for critique, but secretly just want praise.) But, it must be done. This time I really need the criticisms.

In the meantime, enjoy some cool little Necromancer sketches. These were quick concepts made by the artist to get a feel for the game before he started on the full colour artwork.

Quick Shot Movie Reviews

Gravity (Seen in the theatre in 3D)
A very enjoyable space disaster/survival movie. It packs it’s (refreshingly short) 90-odd minutes with breath-taking, 0-gravity, 3D destruction. There isn’t really a huge amount of story, but the solid performances, by the very small cast, pulls the viewer along; although sometimes Clooney sounds a lot like Buzz Lightyear.

Pacific Rim (Seen on DVD)

Several of my friends went to see this in the theatre and really enjoyed it, so I was looking forward to it. Now, I don’t expect too much from a movie about giant robots fighting giant monsters, but I expect better than this. The story was like a cliché convention. The main character is a hot shot robot pilot whose brother/wingman is killed in battle. He quits, but is called back into duty by his old commander, who is contaminated with robot radiation and will die if he ever pilots a robot again. He is also the surrogate father of the...oh, never mind. That’s actually the better part of the movie. The subplot involving the two semi-comedic scientists is agony. Combine that with mediocre battle scenes and you have a movie not worth watching.

Babylon AD  (Seen on TV)

I don’t know if this movie was ever released in theatres. If so I missed it. Basically, Vin Diesel is a fugitive/mercenary living in post-apocalyptic Russia who is hired to smuggle a young woman and her minder into America. I really enjoyed the first half of the movie, but after that it seemed to lose its way a bit. I’m still not sure I completely understand the ending, and I kind of feel there was a piece missing. I believe it claimed to be based on a book which might be worth checking out. Not a bad film, but could have been better.  

Dew Update

Not only did USA Food Store provide me with real American Mountain Dew, they delivered it about 20 hours after I ordered it. It looks like it will be a sweet and syrupy Christmas after all!

The Great Mountain Dew Betrayal

For the last couple of years, I have ordered myself a Christmas treat of a case of Mountain Dew from Americansoda.co.uk and used it as my own super-caffeinated advent calendar. This year’s order arrived today, but my excitement quickly turned to disappointment when I discovered that the Dew was actually from Poland! I gave it a try, but at best it can be described as vaguely similar. Not the taste of home I was after!

I wrote to American Soda asking for an explanation. I received a quick, if curt, reply saying that that the website made this clear. I checked the website again. Here is the page for Mountain Dew. Now if you click on ‘More Information’, it is true that they do say that it is a European product, ‘based on’ the American recipe.

Now I ask you, gentlemen of the jury. If I am shopping on a site called ‘American Soda’, that has, in the past, supplied American Mountain Dew, is it really fair to expect customers to go looking for a change that they have no reason to suspect?

After another email, I got American Soda to offer to refund my money if I ship the soda back to them. Of course, they know full well that the cost to an individual to ship 24 cans of soda would cost as much, or more, than the soda itself.

Live and learn. I will not shop with American Soda again. I have already ordered a replacement case from USA Food Store. Note how theyproclaim that they have the genuine article! I’ll let everyone know if they deliver on the promise.     

Update!

On the third email, American Soda has informed me that American Mountain Dew is now banned in the EU.  A quick search reveals this to be true. One wonders why they didn’t mention this in the first email (it also makes me wonder about the case I have on order?). The plot thickens, and I am given one more reason to dislike the European Union.

The Sirens of Kickstarter

If I can make it another twelve hours, I will have successful resisted my forth kickstarter! Hurry up and end Battle Systems!

Now don’t get me wrong, I love Kickstarter. I think it is the most interesting development in the use of the internet in years and probably within the whole of capitalism. The idea of using crowd funding to create products that would otherwise be impossible or ignored by traditional funding methods is very appealing.

However there I think there is a dark side, a psychological danger in kickstarter that has been successfully exploited by a lot of miniatures companies. (That makes it sound a bit more sinister than I intended, but depending on the individual in question it is very true).

Take two examples. A year ago, both Reaper Miniatures and Mantic Games ran extremely successful kickstarters. Both companies were blown away by the success, and all of the participants received loads of freebie extras. This year both companies ran second kickstarters, but this time, if the various forums were any indication, people were backing the project, not for what it was, but for what it might become if the amount of funding went way above what was actually required. There is a thrill in watching the numbers roll up, seeing what new prizes you win. It is, dare I say it, addictive.

I was able to resist both of those kickstarters, although especially with Mantic’s Deadzone, it was by the skin of my teeth. Two questions have saved me. First, would I buy that if I walked into a store and saw it right now. Since most of these companies have determined that the ‘sweet spot’ for getting people’s money is £75, the answer is almost always no. I very rarely spend that much in one go on my miniatures hobby. I’d rather space the spending out with more little purchases. The other, related, question is, do I want that much stuff all at one time. Again, with minis, I don’t want to buy too many at once, because I know I will likely lose interest before I finish painting them all. I resisted both kickstarters and in retrospect, I am happy about.

The Battle System kickstater has been especially tough. It looks like a great product. I love good card stock terrain. It doesn’t need painting. It’s good to have a lot of it, and I always return to sci-fi at some point. But why buy in now? The project is well over its funding, so it doesn’t need my help to become a reality. Yes, if I invest now, I’ll get more stuff for less money than if I buy in later. Of course that’s just an ‘if’. It’s not due out for six months, a lot can change in that time.

Would I walk into a store and plunk down £75? Maybe, probably not. I’d probably get the £30 set to see if I really like it and then go back for more if I did. This strikes me as a wiser and more fun way to do it anyway.

This isn’t a criticism of people who back these kickstarters; far be it for me to tell people how they should spend their hobby money. But there is a type of person, myself included, who are prone to obsessive thinking, and I think they need to be careful with kickstarter.