Thursday, October 6, 2011

Musings on minis

For the longest time, including occasionally up to now, I've been involved with playing various miniatures games, ranging from RPG's with miniature components to my most favored game, Heroclix.  I've played Heroclix since about 2004, and considering it's only been around since 2003, I'm comfortable saying I've been there since the start.

For those of you that don't know, Heroclix is a miniatures game, usually about a half inch or less tall, representing licensed comic book characters, both DC and Marvel.  The game is a derivative of Wizkids original game, Mage Knight.  They have an included base that has their stats and abilities included in them, in two pieces, a top piece that includes that figure's name, point cost, team abilities, etc, and a bottom piece on which the stats are printed.  The 'clix' bit comes from the fact that the stats are displayed through a window on a top piece, showing one set of stats at a time, and each time that figure is dealt damage by an opponent the bottom of the piece is 'clicked' clockwise to represent this.  In any event, I've played the game both casually and tournament-wise. 

Lately, relating to my not so fantastic employment situation, I have been entirely unable to afford this game or any others.  One of my favorite things to do with these, or lots of other kinds of minis has been to repaint or modify them.  I might link to some of them in a bit, but we'll get there.  But lately, I've come to realize that these, while entirely pointless, may have served as a real creative outlet for me.

So lately, I've been trying to find an alternative to Heroclix, Reaper Miniatures, Warhammer, Warhemmer 40k (something I would love to get in to, but please refer back to funding issues), or Battletech.  So, betting that there's probably nobody out there reading this, I suppose that no service is actually done by asking, but if anyone is, do you have any suggestions about what might be a good choice?

Monday, October 3, 2011

First post for a new blog

Welcome to the Parallax View, a different perspective.  This is my first blog, and while I have an idea of what it will end up being about I imagine I'll still be feeling it out. 

To those of you who may somehow come across this, I want you to know what you're looking at.  People always say to write what you know or do what sells.  In my case, I'll probably be crafting this into a geek culture block, giving my perspectives of popular nerdy culture ranging from my waning interests in video games to comic books, science fiction, and tabletop gaming.  Many of the posts you will see here will tend toward a stream of consciousness kind of rambling for the first several posts, but I will be making an effort to organize and streamline as time goes by. 

Additionally, I hope to be making at least a post a week here.  They may not always be long posts, at times, considering my habit of going off on a rant, I may even turn out some painfully long articles.

All of that said, I hope anyone who accidentally happens across my tiny little mind dump enjoy it.