Last year, the Google DevFest Tour gathered thousands of developers collectively around the world. Attendees heard from peers in the community already running their businesses on the Google platform. Googlers working on various Google developer products and APIs were on hand to talk about the latest and greatest, with best practices on how to improve the quality of web and mobile apps.
To continue giving you the opportunity to interact with us and get feedback, we’ve decided to announce another tour, in addition to the recently announced Google Developer Days. We’ve updated the 2011 DevFest site with tour cities and dates. We will continue to update the site with more detailed information such as venue location, agenda, and registration.
Please remember that space is limited at each location. We cannot guarantee that everyone will be able to secure a spot. We highly recommended you register early and check back for event updates. We'll email confirmations, which you can then use as your tickets to these events.
See you at DevFest!
Christine Songco Lau works with developers in Southeast Asia and on various global developer events such as Google I/O & Google DevFests. Christine likes to travel, scuba dive, and snowboard in her spare time.
Registration is now open for Google Developer Day in Prague, Czech Republic. Check out the website for the latest updates to the agenda. To register, visit the home page and click on the blue “Register Now” button.
Mark your calendars. Registration for our last GDD events, in Germany and Israel, will open on September 15th.
In the past four years, Monica Tran has been around the world, working as a Product Marketing Manager in Mountain View, London, and Tokyo. After a good run on Google I/O, Monica is back to lead the charge on Google Developer Day, happening in 8 cities worldwide in 2011.
After reading a story about how The Help had made over 100 million dollars domestically, it made me start thinking about that particular accomplishment.
There was a time when having a movie make 100 million dollars at the domestic box office was a huge milestone and an indication that the film in question had made a major impact with audiences.
But I don't think a movie crossing that threshold is necessarily news anymore unless there is an additional reason why it might be notable. For example, low budget thriller Paranormal Activity making 100 million dollars domestically was indeed worthy of notice because of just how little it cost to make the movie in the first place.
Or from another angle, when My Big Fat Greek Wedding crossed the 100 million dollar mark, it was also worthy of a story because it had a really small opening and word of mouth turned the movie into a hit after a longer run.
I know not every movie makes it to 100 million, but it seems to be much more common these days so perhaps this isn't something that everyone should be celebrating, and the goal posts should be moved to reflect the effect of higher ticket prices and production costs. Like maybe a quarter billion should be the new achievement level that movies should be striving for, especially given their increasing costs.
Then again, I remember fellow pop culture blogger Jeremy Barker tell me as people outside of the industry, we shouldn't really care about the business end of things. How much money a movie makes doesn't and shouldn't ultimately determine the value of the actual movie watching experience for any of us. If a movie made a profit, there is an increased chance that it may get a sequel, and if it is a movie we enjoy, that is a good thing or if it is doing well at the box office, there is a longer window to see a particular movie on the big screen, but other than that, it is a largely inconsequential matter.
By Greg Robbins and Tom Van Lenten, Software Engineers
Four years ago, we introduced an Objective-C library for Google Data APIs. At first, it supported a scant three services - Google Base, Calendar, and Spreadsheets. Perhaps more surprising is that it was written just for Mac applications; the iPhone SDK was still a year off. In the years since, the library has grown to support 16 APIs, and has been used in many hundreds of applications. In a fine example of unforeseen consequences, most of those applications run not on the Mac but on iOS.
The Google Data APIs were built on XML and the Atom Publishing Protocol, a reasonable industry standard for the time. But mobile, low-power, and bandwidth-limited computers are now the biggest audience for client software. Across the Internet, XML and AtomPub have given way to the lighter-weight JSON data interchange format.
Other fundamental changes have also shifted the API landscape. Password-based authentication is being supplanted by the more secure and flexible OAuth 2 standard. The number of APIs has grown dramatically, making it impractical to hand-craft data classes for all APIs and all languages. When services offer API improvements, developers want access to those changes as quickly as possible.
To support this evolving world, we are introducing a brand new library for Cocoa developers, the Google APIs Client Library for Objective-C. The library supports recent Google JSON APIs, including Tasks, Latitude, Books, URL Shortener, and many others. It is designed to make efficient use of the device’s processor and memory, so it’s a great fit for iOS applications.
The new library includes high-level Objective-C interfaces and data classes for each service, generated from the Google APIs Discovery Service. This lets the library model data not just as generic JSON dictionaries, but also with first-class Objective-C 2.0 objects. The classes include properties for each field, letting developers take advantage of Xcode’s code completion and syntax and type checking.
Here’s how easy it is to use the library and the new Google Books API to search for and print the titles of free ebooks by Samuel Clemens:
[service executeQuery:query completionHandler:^(GTLServiceTicket *ticket, id object, NSError *error) { // callback if (error == nil) { GTLBooksVolumes *results = object; for (GTLBooksVolume *volume in results) { NSLog(@"%@", volume.volumeInfo.title); } } }];
The library supports Google’s partial response and partial update protocols, so even items of data-rich APIs can be retrieved and updated with minimal network overhead. It also offers a simple, efficient batch model, so many queries can be combined into one http request and response, speeding up applications.
When we introduced the previous Objective-C library, it was with this assertion: When you trust your personal data to Google, it's still your data. You're free to edit it, to share it with others, or to download it and take it somewhere else entirely. We hope the new library and Google’s growing collection of APIs help iOS and Mac developers to keep that principle meaningful for many years to come. You can start using the Google APIs Client Library for Objective-C by checking it out from our open-source project site and by subscribing to the discussion group.
Since Google I/O 2010, we've been developing APIs that can provide descriptions of themselves via metadata. This new technique makes it easier to create and maintain client libraries that support more languages, work with more APIs, and are easier to use than ever before. This post announces one of several recent major milestones for our client libraries.
Greg Robbins writes code to connect Mac and iOS apps to Internet services. He chases dogs in the morning, and bugs in the afternoon.
Tom Van Lenten is a Software Engineer on the Google Chrome team. He is also hooked on the Google Toolbox for Mac open source projects.
This year at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) Online we have organized a Developer Day on Oct. 10th full of Google information for game developers. It will feature hardcore technical information on Google products and platforms delivered by Google engineers and developer advocates. We’ll discuss the latest projects we’re working on and how our online technologies can help you better create, distribute, and monetize games that reach a larger audience than ever before. We’ll present everything from how developers can build hardware accelerated 3D games for the browser with WebGL to the game framework used to bring Angry Birds to the Web.
In addition to the Developer Day, we will also have a booth on the Expo floor on Oct. 11th-12th where we’ll have representatives from the Chrome Web Store, Native Client, WebGL, App Engine, Google+, In-App Payments, Google TV, and AdSense/AdMob demoing technologies and platforms for game developers. Come by booth 503 to try out Google products and ask questions, or hang out in our Google TV lounge.
Not able to attend GDC? Check out Google Game Developer Central to get an overview of Google products and services that are particularly relevant to game developers.
Amy Walgenbach is the Product Marketing lead for the Google+ platform and leads developer marketing for games at Google.
Medium Mecha 14 Souped up engiens Heavy Armour 2x CCW Flamer
US ARMOURED INFANTRY PLATOON: "Anatoli"
Veteran + Body Armor 5RP 1x Sentinel 7RP 1x Command Squad 6RP (incl Sniper & Medic) 2x Armored Infantry squad with packed LMG & 3x explosives 14RP 1x Comanche with light armor, assault pod and flamethrower 4RP 1x M10 Wolverine with improved sights 7RP 1x M4 Sherman with improved sights 12RP
I knew that I would only have a chance in this scenario and against this enemy platoon if I knocked out the enemy mecha and somehow survived with my tanks. The infantry on both sides were just as sparse, but mine were more fragile and the APE squads had a hell of a lot more firepower than I could muster in any fire team.
The scenario itself called for a speedy advance towards the middle in order to grab the V-gas canisters. Again I was facing an opponent with initiative 10 vs my 8, so I could only expect to lose the turn initiative every turn.
The game begins with cautious movement on both sides. The APE Platoon chameleon snipers try to pick off my Wolverine but fail, but the second sniper inflicts a “immobilized” result almost immediately making my small flamethrower mecha stand useless out in the open. My Sherman tank would cement the difference in “crew quality” between itself and the M10 wolverine crew in this tournament by rolling like shit. The most this tank did was to kill 1 APE with LMG fire and score a lucky hit (the only one throughout the tournament) with its main gun and blow up some 4 more APE soldiers. After that it was hit and immobilized on the right flank – in a good position nevertheless overlooking a couple objectives and the enemy approach but also out in the open just waiting to be finished off.
Things started to get real interesting as my M10 wolverine started to inflict kills with its only (and pintle mounted) HMG, this attracted more Chameleon sniper fire and the enemy mecha. The chameleon sniper hit the turret and damaged it so it could not traverse anymore. The mecha ran at full speed and tried to trample some of my infantry but failed to kill anyone, then attacked with a flamethrower but only killed a single soldier and my targeted fire team passed its cool check. Trying to knock out the heavy mech one of my fire teams attacked the mecha from behind with their explosive charges but failed to do any damage –the short fuse killing one of the men as he tried to retreat making his squad panic and disorganize. This in turn left the flank to be saved by Liberty, so she charged around the back of the mecha and punched it in the kneecap resulting in the mecha being immobilized and without the possibility to change traverse. One headache less.
Things actually looked bright for about a turn and a half. My fire teams advanced along the frontline taking (acceptable) casualties. My idea was to storm the objectives , grab them and run back towards my tanks for protection fast as hell. This did not really work out. The enemy Chameleon snipers persistent in their attacks kept shooting at both Wolverine and Sherman. Bailing my Wolverine and my Sherman, APE squads moved forwards slowly and with Slugger Murphy within constant LoS to keep them utterly fearless. Around turn 4 I had fought my way towards the middle and started grabbing the first objectives. First objective was fine, but moving on towards the second one spawned a “twitcher” zombie which attacked my fire team and locked them in close combat. Same thing happened on the left flank. Another of my fire teams grabbed 2 objectives but spawned a twitcher zombie on their second pickup. The slow moving but crazy dangerous APE’s started to come into LoS and the short range would make their HMG’s even more painful. Preparing myself for some close combat I lined up my only decent fighter, Liberty, behind a wall- completely overlooking the fact that the enemy had an APE perfectly lined up to pepper her with his Packed LMG resulting in her premature death and dooming both fire teams on her flank.
APE squads rushed in to assault, and I moved up both fire teams to overwhelm the APE troopers. The close combat went on for 2 turns but as more APE’s arrived my two fire teams were beaten to a pulp and I lost control of my two captured V-gas canisters. On the right flank I was still tied up with that damned zombie. I tried to salvage the situation by moving up my platoon sniper and a lone soldier to grab the two rightmost objectives but the soldier was killed and while the sniper grabbed the last objective he had to stay out of sight not to be killed instantly by the approaching APE’s.
The Sherman crew decided to remount but their tank was blown up along with them. My M10 Wolverine had a couple crewmen picked off out in the open but remounted only to get blown up as well. Slugger Murphy appeared from around the corner and attacked my soldiers who had just fought off the damn zombie on the right flank and chased them away (I made a failed tactical fall back resulting in them being disorganized). The following turn Slugger attacked again and crushed their skulls in with his spiked baseball bat. At this point I gave up because it would have been pointless to keep playing as we both realized the result would not change.
The scenario was not limited in the amount of turns played but rather had a 3hour limit/until 1 side is defeated. This is the only thing I could really say made me slightly annoyed, because if it had been 6 turns I would have most likely won. As it was I lost half my platoon going for the objectives, 25% near the objectives and the last 25% in a war of attrition where I had zero chance of surviving.
It should be mentioned that the Chameleon snipers fired at my tanks each turn scoring something like 16 hits in total, but only 3 of them were penetrating. The enemy bazooka also failed to do any damage. The enemy mecha was likewise neutralized. My own force suffered from shitty performances as well. My Sherman which had been taken out of action immediately during my first game killed 5 APE’s in total during this game. Though you have to take into account that this vehicle has 2 LMG’s and 1 HMG. I fired like a madman but only inflicted 1 single machine gun kill with this vehicle! On the opposite flank my single HMG Wolverine killed at least 4 APE’s (including a really great roll of double sixes to hit followed with killing two APE’s that was hit).
But with the vehicles knocked out in both platoons the APE platoon had the upper hand with their durability and firepower outclassing my own remaining infantry.
The game ended a 7-3 to “Holma” and his APE platoon. We had both killed over 50% of the enemy platoon but I held only 1 V-gas canister while he held 5. He was out of luck when checking the quality of those canisters however. Looking at the score board after Day 1 I saw that I had no chance of placing anywhere near 1st place so this might have contributed with my relaxed approach during the 2nd day and the last 2 games to come. You can also tell that this game was really tense and pretty fast paced as the amount of pictures for this battle report is the lowest out of all 4 games I played during the tournament.
Steelers linebacker James Harrison will carry a semi-automatic weapon onto the field during early-season games, the team announced Wednesday. The 33-year-old Harrison has been battling fatigue as he recovers from off-season back surgery.
"This should back up the offensive linemen a bit and give James some room to do his work," said Coach Mike Tomlin. "If necessary, James will unleash hell during the football game."
Teammates suspect the move is only temporary and that Harrison will sheath his weapon once he regains his legendary strength but are afraid to ask.
Phew! It's a busy time over here. We're moving across the country tomorrow, so I have to do a one-day-early round up of entries so far. Here's everything we've received in August as of the 30th! If you enter your game on the 31st, expect to see it in one last round up after we arrive in Durham and have internet access again. But heck, there are plenty of games to check out in this post alone, so let's get to it!
Nomad by Kirk Mitchell Kirk describes Nomad as "a game of topographical manipulation, balance and nonviolence, inspired by geological strata, Go and other difficult games." I certainly like the materials used in his prototype! Quite lovely.
ZoxSo by David Weinstock David enters this two-player abstract he bills as a "new ancient" game. David home-produced a run of prototypes for this game, but I let it slide past the "not-previously-published" restriction since it was such a limited run.
Tricala by Myles Wallace Text rules for Tricala can be found here. I haven't played enough of the mancala family to really figure out the deeper strategies, so I'm curious how we'll handle a version with additional dimensions and colors. Should be interesting!
Arena of Heroes by Jeremy Southard This is one of the few straight-up card games in the challenge. Looks like this one was already in development (even has a Kickstarter page) and tossed into this Challenge much like a gladiator into the arena. Fitting!
Hand Covers Bruise by Andy Clarke and Grethe Mitchell This two-person team enters a game based on bluffing and guessing of raised fingers. They say, "We have tried to devised the simplest possible game." I'm surprised there aren't more entries using hands and other elements of physicality, but hey there ya go. This one will definitely be easy to prep!
Muros by Enrique Sánchez Enrique enters another two-player abstract, this one with lots and lots of bits n' pieces. Multi-colored stones, colors, and so forth. Curious how Megan and I are going to find enough props around the house to play, but it'll certainly be colorful! You can also find a Spanish version of the rules on his blog here.
Turning Points by Joseph Kisenwether Well, Joseph sure knows how to make a game look like it's been played for a thousand years! Take a look at those sea shells on the beach. The rules are quite minimal, which gives me some hope for emergent complexity. You can also play an online demo on the link above.
Sygo by Christian Freeling Christian describes Sygo thusly: "Sygo is a territory game based on the Symple mechanism and Go-like capture with an 'othelloanian' flavor. It is designed to be much faster than Go, and finite, and without the ambiguities regarding life, death, multiple ko's, four-bend-in-the-corner and the like, that make its ancestor such a great game to argue about." Example Game | Playable Online
Rule of Three by Chris Sakkas This is one of the few non-board games entered into the challenge. So far, those outliers have been very interesting variations on storytelling motifs. Chris offers some insights into his thought process in this post on the Story-Games forum. There he also links to a longer document explaining the game and an example game, too. The only document we'll use to judge is the shorter rules doc linked above.
Hunters & Haunts by C. Casey Gardner Casey didn't just design his game, he also elaborated on the world in which the game exists. Speaking of the game's murky 1,000-year history, he drops little hints of the world of 3091 and some major historical changes between now and then.
Kickbones by Frywire, LLC Ah, a blissfully minimal rules set! "Kick Bones is a dice game for two players. Each person starts with 25 points. Your goal is to make your opponent's points go below one (1). When it's your turn, you roll the dice. If you don't roll doubles, then you pick one die to add to your points. With the other die, you kick your opponent, and they subtract this amount from their points. If you roll doubles, then you refer to the Specials Sheet to see what you have to do! It's then your opponent's turn to roll the dice."
Flume by Mark Steere Mark easily takes the prize for the most boastful entry into the challenge. He says, "I haven't looked at the other games in the contest, but, that being said, I'm sure they will all be obsolete in well under 100 years. Never mind 1000. Flume is here to stay, as are many of my games, which I designed for the centuries."
Bluffing Style Chess by Tyler Tinsley Tyler says, "I'm entering a chess variant because the games that will last 1000 years are the games that we were playing 1000 years ago, just changed a bit by time and taste. This game is more inline with modern values then chess, you win with lies and half truth instead of planing and reason. In 1000 years I imagine this game will still be played face to face with physical pieces, the pieces just have a strange way of changing shape and color to fit whatever game you want to play. That person your face to face with, maybe they are just a projection made from the same stuff as the pieces."
Catchup Playable Online Catchup is an interesting stone placement game set on a hexagonal board. The quirky part of it is the conditions on which you can place one, two or three stones on your turn. It's playable against human opponents in realtime here, where the game is known as "Catchup 4.0"
Yodd Luis describes Yodd thusly: "It's a very elegant connection/territory game with no draws. You can place stones of both colors. The object is to end up with less groups than your opponent. At the end of a turn, there must be an odd number of groups on the board. This is a very intuitive and fluid game. The odd groups restriction spices up tactics in an unexpected way, without interfering with clarity. "
Neighbors by XiFeng XiFeng has one of the few non-board game entries to the challenge. This one is a hand gesture game in the tradition of Rock-Paper-Scissors. He says, "When Daniel Solis announced the thousand-year game design contest, I saw in it an opportunity and a challenge to design a game that could capture a few of the things that make my favorite games special, in a form that is not encumbered by technology (like video games) or expensive equipment (like change ringing)."
GUCKOY by Mark A. Tiroff Mark enters the challenge with this game full of colorful stones on a board made of concentric rings, rays, and nodes at the intersections. As with Muros, I suspect that this may be somewhat cumbersome game to construct on our own, but perhaps the actual play experience will justify the setup.
Millennium Saga by Brian Suda Throughout the competition, I was curious when someone would enter a game that actually takes a thousand years go play. Here comes Brian with this game. "Millennium Saga is a long term game design to draft a poem describing and spanning 1,000 years of history. The framework is to guide the participants into creating a collective work to be publicly performed as a form of oral history." Here is further background information about the thought process in designing it and his inspiration.
Hexiles by Derek Hohls Derek enters an abstract game comprised of custom shaped tiles with abstract patterns. These tiles form a new kind of deck of universal gaming props with which you can play many new games. Like C. Casey Gardner, Derek constructs a whole backstory behind the creation of these bits n' pieces. As with the other entries that require special props, we're eager to see if the play experience justifies the prep work.
Hot Wire by Phil Leduc Phil says of Hot Wire: "It is a simple game the requires pencil, paper and a straightedge for neatness. As long as there are study halls and long car or plane rides this game will have a niche. The game is played on a 7 x 7 grid, players connect points of the grid and try not to be the last to draw a line."
Crowns by Sovereign Games This is one of the few (possibly only) entries that comes from a group! Sovereign Games says of Crowns, "It requires 598 words to explain (plus 307 in this little intro), but allows for more unique games than there are atoms in the observable universe (email us if you’re interested in the math). It’s a kill-the-king type game with a historical battlefield theme, and the rules are quite robust for competitive play. We like to play sets of games, best 3-of-5, to make setup strategy more impactful."
Well, if hurricanes are on one side of the meteorological spectrum, what is on the other?
Recent fog picture courtesy of the Seattle Times
You guessed it...fog, and folks the Northwest is entering fog season. In fact, September and October are the foggiest time of the year around here, NOT the middle of the winter.
On Sunday I got to experience fog first hand--I was heading to Bellingham to do some kayaking near Lummi Island (Elakah kayak). Seattle was densely fogged in, but every time we gained a few hundred feet elevation on I5 we escaped the shallow fog. This was quite shallow stuff...a few hundred feet at most. On the water near Lummi we were in dense fog until it lifted around noon. Here is the visible satellite picture before it burned off.
One thing we have learned from satellite imagery is that fog burns in from the sides.
The irony is that REALLY dense fog, like on Sunday, is generally a good indicator of clearing later in the morning.
So why is the fall our big fog season? The nights are getting long...that certainly helps, allowing more time for the air to cool to saturation (the dew point). Relatively clear skies, since the storm season has not arrived yet. Clear skies allows infrared radiation loss to space from the earth...giving us the needed cooling. The atmosphere is relatively stable this time of the year, since the air aloft is relatively warm compared to the surface at night. Warm air above cool, dense air is stable, and fog loves stability.
A sample of this foolish piece: why do we need the National Weather Service when we can get our forecasts from the Weather Channel? Folks, who do you think gathers all the observations and runs all the computer models? Where do you think the Weather Channel gets this information from? I could list a dozen more, but you get the idea. We are talking completely brain dead. How could Fox News publish such trash?
Second announcement: just a reminder I will start my new weather program on KPLU-FM at 9 AM this Friday. And I plan to talk about hurricanes...OUR HURRICANES. You can listen on the web, at 88.5 in the Puget Sound area, and additional frequencies at other locations (check their web site for the repeater stations--link to the right).
TV viewing continued to wither in August, and syndicated game shows were no exception. TVNewsCheck brings the limp results for the week ending August 21...
Wheel of Fortune 6.0 - off a tick
Jeopardy 4.8 - down a couple ticks to season low
Family Feud 2.3 - off a couple ticks to tie...
Millionaire 2.3 - flat
5th Grader 1.0 - flat and almost gone
Lyrics 0.7 - down a tick and out
Not the best week, but next month's debuts should perk things up. Other websites don't bother much with syndies of any kind any more. But if anything shows up, I'll let you know.
UPDATE: Maybe TV by the Numbers is getting serious again about posting syndie ratings. Their viewership averages:Wheel of Fortune 9.4 million (weekend repeat 5.0 million) and Jeopardy 7.5 million. Steve and Meredith didn't make TVBTN's top 25 list.
We're on the road for the next several days, on our way to Durham. Our internet might not be up yet for a few days after we arrive, so posts will be a little less frequent, too.
Re: The Thousand-Year Game Design Challenge, it's unfortunate timing that our move begins the same day as the last day of entries. But hey, that's how things happen. I'll post a round up of entries as of the 30th tonight and a later round up with the entries as of the 31st. That post will come as soon as we have internet access again.
Re: Game Design: I'll tinker with some stuff for For The Fleet as well as other games in the lab while we wait for internet access. There is no shortage of stuff to work on, so I suspect there will be plenty of new developments to discuss.
Wish us well on the long drive! We'll see you in North Carolina!
By Jeetendra Soneja and Nick Mihailovski, Google Analytics API Team
Today we are releasing two new versions of the Google Analytics Management API into public beta: a brand new version 3.0 and a backwards compatible version 2.4. Both new versions migrate the Management API from the existing Google Data Protocol to Google’s new discovery-based API infrastructure. This impacts the way you request and handle data from the API.
All future development of the API will be done to version 3.0, so we also added some interesting new data, including:
Event goals are fully represented.
An internal web property id that can be used to deep-link into the Google Analytics user interface.
Profile configurations for the default page and site search query parameters.
With this change, we are also announcing the deprecation of the legacy version 2.3 of the Management API. It will continue to work for 2 months, after which all v2.3 requests will return a v2.4 response.
The biggest changes in switching to the new versions are that you now need to register your applications via the Google APIs Console and use a developer token. Also, the URL endpoints have changed, which influence how you request OAuth authorization tokens.
There is one truth, and we both usually know what it is. But on rare occasions, one of us knows the truth and the other one doesn't. Today, there is a divide about the Michael Vick contract -- 6 years for $100 million, with $41 million guaranteed. For comparison's sake, Ben Roethlisberger signed for 8 years/$100 million in 2008 with around $36 million in guaranteed money.
I just want to thank God that I signed that contract in 2008 before I was implicated in two sexual assaults. Again, I apologize, although I didn't do anything wrong. But I'm still sorry. God is great. If I had signed that contract in 2010, I may have gotten less money. But God had a plan for me all along: have great success at a young age, nearly kill yourself in a motorcycle accident, sign a $100 million contract, be falsely accused of multiple sexual assaults, play in that game against Baltimore with a broken nose which showed the world how much heart I have and how everything I do I do for God and for my offensive line, and then wear a t-shirt to my wedding rehearsal dinner. That's essentially the story of Abraham from Genesis. Band of brothers.
My position is that this contract is going to be a huge letdown for the Eagles. It's not that Vick isn't a good QB -- he is -- but expectations have risen to the level that anything short of a Super Bowl and the Vick Reclamation Project will be an enormous bust. The problem is that Vick's ribs are like hearts on the Bachelor: you may not know when it will happen, but you know they're breaking. And even though he's supremely athletic, good coaches can game-plan to stop him. What you can't stop is a guy slinging darts. Witness, Aaron Rogers.
Artistry thinks Vick has a lot of impact on a lot of games. He also points out that $100 million is the going rate for quarterbacks. What he doesn't point out is that I had first waiver pick in fantasy last year after week one and Artistry had last pick. I told him I'd pick up Vick and then work a trade. Artistry declined, even though his QB's were Brian St. Pierre and Peyton Manning's backup. I stupidly passed on Vick, and just assumed he'd be gone before the 12th waiver pick. Well, 10 other people are as dumb as me so he fell to Artistry and the rest is history. The bottom line: bias.
No matter which way you come out, one thing is for sure. The NFL is lucky to have Vick and Big Ben.
Just wanted you guys to know that I contected Wendy over at West Wind again to check how things are going with the demo scenario and the rules themselves. The rules seem scheduled for November, the demo scenario rules were due "within a few weeks".
I also mentioned that I was willing to demo them at SydCon here in Sweden at the end of October so I really hope they show up before then. I promise that I will let you guys know the second I have the demo rules in my hand.
In the meantime I'll think of making some terrain for the demo, which could also be used for some of my other skirmish games. Things are very busy this week but I have a few cool ideas.
“Escorting thru enemy lines” US Armoured infantry vs Swedish partisans
This was my first game during the tournament, check the mission briefing for full details about the scenario. Army lists for both armies are below.
US ARMOURED INFANTRY PLATOON: "Anatoli"
Veteran + Body Armor 5RP 1x Sentinel 7RP 1x Command Squad 6RP (incl Sniper & Medic) 2x Armored Infantry squad with packed LMG & 3x explosives 14RP 1x Comanche with light armor, assault pod and flamethrower 4RP 1x M10 Wolverine with improved sights 7RP 1x M4 Sherman with improved sights 12RP
SWEDISH PARTISAN BAND: "Defender of Sweden"
Green 3 RP Lion of the North, Mounted 5 RP Rå 5 RP Swedish partisan band, Mounted, SMG 6 RP Swedish partisan band, SMG 4 RP Swedish partisan band, SMG 4 RP Heavy machine gun team 3 RP Heavy machine gun team 3 RP Sniper team 4 RP Sniper team 4 RP Saboteur team 5 RP Saboteur team 5 RP Anti mech rifle team 1 RP "Light" Mortar team 3 RP
The Swedish partisans, or any partisan list straight out of the book with no changes, is a rather fragile bunch of units. No long range AT weapons except for 1 single Anti Tank rifle, the platoon relies heavy on the explosive charges each member of the platoon carries – the saboteur specialist units are pretty much a pair of one trick ponies that will use deep insertion to deploy in your face and then use their infiltrate movement to get close enough to your vehicles so that they can be blown up before you can react. This of course makes the partisans also rely heavily on their “hero” character – in this case the Lion of the North with his Cool 10. So they pretty much had the turn initiative in their pocket for as long as he was alive.
The scenario wasn’t ideal for any of us, night fighting with 18” LoS limit made it extremely dangerous for my tiny 6 man fire teams to get into enemy range as they would be massacred by the 30 SMG shots fired by each partisan unit! On the other hand the partisans were unarmored, had no grenades and no vehicles. My initial plan was to use my Sherman and my Wolverine to squeeze my opponent from both flanks - my Sherman was supposed to lead the way as it had machinegun power enough to kill 1 unit per gun.
Now as the game starts, I had of course completely forgotten about the enemy saboteur units. The first thing I see is one team deploying and moving up to my tanks on both flanks so that no matter who won turn initiative one tank would be in serious trouble. True enough, the partisans won turn initiative and picked the prime target and the most dangerous unit in my platoon – the Sherman – and immobilized it with explosive charges to the soft side armor. This also blew up half of my nearby fire team making them disorganized and made the crew bail out!
Not wasting any time I activated my Wolverine, but realized that I would not have enough killing power with just 1 single pintle mounted HMG to kill the nearby saboteurs so taking no chances I made full speed backwards and backed away as far as possible then opened fire – indeed only managing to “Down” one out of the two saboteurs. At least I was out of assault range.
The interesting thing now was that my left flank was basically neutralized and in a deadlock. I still had the saboteur team near my bailed Sherman, Swedish cavalry partisans totting SMG’s riding towards me, an Anti tank rifle team in my face and a sniper lurking about holding my 2 fire teams, Liberty and the platoon medic at a safe distance and in place. My right flank was too weak to do anything more this turn. My center moved cautiously forward, wary of the SMG hordes. My pregame thoughts about a relatively easy game were pretty much smashed with that bailed Sherman and I would have to be very careful with the tiny amounts of men I had as they were my only way of controlling the prisoners that were escorted and had to be brought at least into “no man’s land” but preferably into the enemy deployment zone to score full VP’s.
Turn 1 was over and the partisans won turn initiative for turn 2 as well. The left flank saboteurs wasted no time so they attacked again this time blowing up 4 out of 5 crewmen from my bailed out crew as they were caught in the blast from the partisan explosive charges! Seeing that the Partisans moved towards the center of the table I rushed up with my flamethrower mecha to set the nearby forest on fire – catching their supernatural unit, the “Rå” in the fire and killing her before she could pull off her nasty psychic manipulative attacks. Sniper and anti tank rifle fire started picking off my left flank troops and the Swedish cavalry moved close but still kept out of visibility range.
I destroyed the right flank saboteurs with my M10 Wolverine and threw a grenade in the face of the left flank saboteur team killing them as well. I realized my only chance to not get killed was to stay behind obstacles out of LoS and throw grenades at them. This became my prime tactic of dealing with the partisans in the center.
I took my right flank escorting unit and moved it into cover behind the forest and positioned my M10 Wolverine to cover them – behind the forest the Partisans had set up a HMG team in overwatch and held a relatively unscathed unit of SMG totting partisans behind the small building. Again the danger of moving too close or be left out in the open with tank or infantry made me try to wait for next turn to see how things evolved.
The light mortar fire from the enemy was luckily scattering wild all over the place and kept missing vital units. Ironically I was still too weak to push through in any of the 3 sectors and started to be pretty worried about the smashed up left flank.
The following turn the Swedish cavalry moved up and mowed down soldiers from various units as they had LoS to different targets, keeping that flank in a constant disorganized and weakened state. I moved up Liberty to bring some order back to the troops but that did little to help. I held one fire team in reserve up to this point but moved them up now and tried to kill some of the mounted partisans but only managed to kill and down a pair. I then used my last model from one of the fire teams to throw a grenade at the horses and managed to kill a couple more reducing the unit to just above half strength. In the middle the partisans rushed out from behind the wooden fence and blasted me with a bucketload of SMG fire but I was extremely lucky with them only inflicting 1 killed and 1 wounded, I also passed the Cool check following that shock treatment. My flamethrower mecha and that same fire team joined their efforts and together destroyed the partisan unit with a mix of flamethrower and grenades.
Partisans secured further progress in that direction by moving up a HMG team. Now on my right flank I was certain that time had come for me to punch through – I moved up my fire team escorting the prisoner into the forest and came under light mortar fire again. I took 1 down and 1 goner but passed my cool check. I did not anticipate the partisan HMG team in the area charging me – but they did and they won! They killed 1 soldier and scared away the remaining troops who left one of their wounded buddies behind! My Wolverine had to divert from attacking the partisan unit behind the house to trying to get rid of the partisan HMG team in the forest instead wasting another turn.
The following turn things went south for the partisans as I managed to run up with my unharmed fire team and throw a bunch of grenades in their faces – killing the Lion of the North and most of his unit! This was avenged by the anti tank rifle team which sniped Liberty and killed her amidst her troops, partisan sniper also crept forward and reduced my fire team by 1 man as he inflicted a headshot.
The right flank regrouped and attacked the HMG team with grenades again to make sure they were hit in the forest killing them and allowing for the prisoner to be brought some distance into “no man’s land”, the M10 Wolverine guarding their flank from any potential partisan attack. In the center my mecha was attacked by a partisan with explosives which blew off the assault pod arm and made the pilot bail out – luckily just out of LoS from the enemy sniper in the water tower.
I was still locked in the center, but cleared the partisan HMG team standing in overwatch with a grenade bundle leaving the HMG team members dead or wounded. Left flank was completely FUBAR as the partisan remnants closed in on my remnants in a war of attrition between single soldiers trying to take control of the prisoner. I rushed forward with what was left on my left flank only to get them all killed. I had to grab that loose prisoner with my fire team in the center to prevent him from ending up in enemy hands and the game was basically over after a extremely hard and bloody fight.
The end result was my platoon still holding the 3 prisoners, but I only reached no man’s land so I scored just 1 VP per prisoner. Both players scored 2VP for killing 50% or more of the enemy platoon.
So my first tournament battle ended a 5-2 victory, earned in blood. My opponent, though being a relative newcomer to the game played his platoon very well - especially taking into account how difficult the partisans are to play.
