So this afternoon my friend John came round to play. I acknowledge this makes me sound like an eight year old, but that’s what happened! This was booked about a week in advance and was much anticipated (by me, not sure about John).
We got snacks, and then sat and played Spartan Ops on Halo IV for about an hour and a half. This involved a lot of swearing (although not quite as much as usual for either of us), a lot of dying, and I lot of me saying ‘Heh, killed HIS ass’ which is sort of a misquote from one of the Southern Vampire Mysteries books.
Halo’s one of my favourite games, although as with all video games, my performance is patchy. Very patchy. I win matchmaking games (where I’m playing against people I don’t know) sometimes, and then another day I’ll lose so thoroughly that some twelve year old kid will send me a kindly message saying “Get the fuck off Xbox and never come back” which is, y’know, flattering. Twelve year old gamers are Lovely, y’all.
Star Wars Risk: Clone Wars Edition
After a period of Spartan Ops, where we played together, we were now ready for something a bit competitive, so we broke out the Star Wars Risk (hence the post title – see what I did there?). I ended up playing as the Republic, while John took control of the Separatist armies.
We set out slowly, each taking one or two territories from each other per turn, and then I slowly started to make inroads into his territories. I built ships and used them to capture vast sections of the galaxy from the Separatist Scum, while trying to ignore the steady progress of Darth Sidius up the Order 66 trail.
When it seemed like three quarters of the galaxy was mine, disaster struck – Darth Sidius reached the top of the trail, and John declared Order 66. Sidius came out of the closet of evil, and announced that the Jedi had betrayed the Republic. What followed was a massacre. John rolled an eight sided die for each of my territories, and if he rolled two or higher, he got the territory and the troops on it.
I ended up with two territories. Down from about 25.
Nonetheless, my two territories, side by side in the Colonies, fought back. Dathomir and…somewhere else…managed to retrieve three more territories before being attacked by a massive onslaught of Imperial forces. After all, all it takes for evil to conquer is for good women to roll snake eyes.
All in all, it was a great afternoon, even if I did lose catastrophically.
All three of my books are still ongoing, plus one more. I’m going to add in random quotes I picked out, because I like quotes. Ask my friends. They’ll be all ‘archaic form of Big Brother!’ and then you’ll know.
Ongoing Books:
A Dance With Dragons: Part I by George R. R. Martin
Snuff by Terry Pratchett
“He heard the voice of Feeney saying, more frantically this time, ‘What are we going to do commander?’
And Vimes blinked and said, ‘Everything!‘”
For The Win by Cory Doctorow
Terrier by Tamora Pierce
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