Transmetropolitan

100 Graphic’s to read before you die – #1 Transmetropolitan

Before I commence with the review of this book I need to tell you a story, which should indicate, without question, my opinion of this book.

When I took over the Grinning Demon, a lot of customers were surprised to learn that I hadn’t read Transmetropolitan. Although I had touched base on a handful of more mature, non-superhero titles (Preacher, V for VeVendetta, From Hell, Black Orchid), the majority of my reading was firmly entrnched in the spandex genre. I was consistently nagged at for having omitted Transmet from my reading history so four months after starting at the shop I took home four volumes of Warren Ellis’ futuristic tale.  I started reading at around 7.30, shortly after putting the kids to bed, and was engrossed. Thus, upon completion, I put my trainers on and jogged down to the shop to pick up the remaining volumes, which I also devoured over the course of one evening. This, to date, is the only book that has left me clamouring for more in quite such an obsessive fashion. I genuinely NEEDED  to finish the story, and thank God, we had all the volumes in stock at the time.

Nationals Qualifier

This weekend, at 2.45, see’s the Grinning Demon’s first key event for the WoW tcg, a Nationals Qualifier.

A couple of the local players are conspicuous by there absence. Tommy has to work, whilst James Carter thinks he unlikely to make the event due to family commitments. However we have had three people from outside the local playgroup expressing an interest in competing, so far.

Playing in a serious event of this nature has left me in abit of a quandary as what to play. I’ve four options so far, two of which die to any deck with serious AoE effects, although they do have more raw power than the other decks I’m considering. The options are as follows

I’m Inspired!!

We had another of our invitational events at my house last night, with eight players present. It may sound odd but I was pleased not to win. As I mentioned in my ‘The game is afoot’ blog, the other players are now raising their games after my initial run of victories and this event their efforts finally came to fruition.

Canvas Challenge II

The next big WoW event in Maidstone is nearly upon us and the prize is truly awesome. Although the canvas for the for the first canvas challenge was cool, I think this one stands head and shoulders above it

The format for the event is one of our own creations, a tribal event. The basic rules for tribal state that each deck must contain at least 25 allies and all allies must be of the same race as the decks chosen hero. Straightforward you may think, but putting it into practice has proved to be somewhat problematic. Nearly every deck I come up with lacks a couple of support cards that other similarly affiliated allies can provide.

I’ve narrowed the possibilities down to two, either a human deck aiming to burst out allies early using Stormwind, Lorwynn and Anduin or a Blood Elf deck aiming to shut down an opponents options using Arcane Torrent, discard effects and stealing opposition dudes. The second deck plays out in a similar fashion to my Spritualist Sunshroud deck listed elsewhere on the blog.

Blood of Gladiators Sealed

A heads up for those participating in tomorrows BoG Sealed event.

How the format works.
Each player cracks open his five boosters then builds a deck of thirty cards or more from that card pool. To accompany these cards he/she can use any of the heroes from the BoG expansion (these cards are provided).

New Keywords:
Hardiness: (If this ally would be dealt damage, prevent 1 of it)
Arcane Torrent: (When this ally enters play, target opposing card in play loses and can’t have powers this turn)

Arena Cards:
A number of Allies and Quests have the type ‘arena’. Other cards will then have effects that key off the number of arena cards in play, your side of the field etc. In a sealed environment these cards are going to be relevant, big time, plus keep an eye out for the uncommon location Gurubashi Arena, which makes an ally an arena ally for the turn.

The game is afoot

The game is afoot:
An expression meaning the real business is at hand. Most would accredit the phrase to originating from the pages of Sherlock Holmes, ‘The game is afoot, Watson’, but it originates from Shakespeares Henry IV.
It’s particularly applicable to our current environment within our local WoW playgroup.

After a fairly comfortable time with my first 5 tourneys (only dropping 1 game, winning 4 events, second in the other), things should now prove a little different in upcoming events as the other local players all aim to raise their game.

Spiritualist Sunshroud Deck

This is the deck that I played in my first three events with, posting a 8-1 record, with it’s only loss coming against Tommy and his Gnomes.

The deck has since been upgraded, so I’ll post V1.3 after the 8th March tournament.

Deck Name: Sunshroud V1.2
By: maidstonedemon

Hero: Spiritualist Sunshroud – Blood Elf Priest

World of Warcraft TCG – Darnassus Duels

We held our third WoW TCG event on Thursday with Tommy making it to, and winning, his first event.  A smaller than expected field of just four, James and Amy couldn’t make it so no Dave either, meant three rounds of round robin swiss.

I had made three card changes to my deck since the previous event, adding two copies of Meltface and one of Salvation, whilst taking out a couple of allies and an equipment.

First opponent was Wayne and his Horde Warlock deck.

World of Warcraft TCG – Sha’tar Swiss

With the demise of VS System, The Grinning Demon will be upping the time and effort put into running WoW TCG events. This doesn’t mean that Vs will get kicked into touch, but it does mean we’ll be alternating events and all Vs events run on a Sunday will share time with other games.

We ran our first UDE day on Sunday past (01/02/09), with three tournaments running consecutively. The Yugioh event was well attended, immediately followed by the less well supported VS and WoW events. My son had a great day going 4-3, 2-1, 2-1 over the course of the day. This may not sound amazing but when you consider that he is only six years of age and was playing against all adults in the latter two events it does shed things in a more favourable light.

Anyway, it was our second WoW event to date as our first, The Ironforge Invitational for Noobs, was held ten days previous. That event had drawn six people, James, Amy, Dave, Cameron, Wayne and Myself with Wayne heavily touted as favourite as he was the only player with any real experience of the game. I went on to win that with my really badly built Priest deck posting a 3-0 record, despite the majority of the cards having no real synergy, plus the balance of Allies to Quests and Abilities was seriously wrong.

So I went into Sundays event (The Sha’tar Swiss) with a slightly more honed version of the deck. The deck still wouldn’t stand up to any serious competition due to the tiny card pool that I had to play with but at least now the principles behind the deck were sound.

PC Background – Aluvien

Aluvien, or Alun as he is known in human circles, was always destined to become an adventurer. The son of two renowned Silverymoon adventurers Alev Wainwright (Human Fighter L12) and Scullistrana Delave (Eladrin Wizard L11). Not wanting to choose between either parents profession, Alun decided to appease both by taking a different path, training with his parents adventuring companion, Garel-Kark (Firesoul Genasi Swordmage L9). He took to the sword well though initially showed little aptitude for the arcane nature of the craft until his fourteenth birthday when things all just seemed to fall into place.
Alun was used to being taken along with his ever active parents, spending a lot of time amongst illustrious circles within Silverymoon, that is until his life was changed catastrophically. After a days training with Garel-Kark, Alun returned to the family home to find it a hive of activity. It had been razed to the ground, with both his parents inside. Quite clearly no accident, it would appear that his parents had made some high powered enemies.