SpartanNerd Scoop…Marvel’s Star Wars Darth Vader #1

February 11, 2015 by SpartanNerd

Out sick on a Wednesday…giving me a chance to pick up a release day comic or two. I picked up Darth Vader #1 instead of that Harley Quinn kissing Batman thing…

I skipped on Star Wars issue #1. Don’t get me wrong, I have never been a fan of Star Wars comics. A huge movie fan. I read some EU novels, usually really enjoying them. But all the comics I have read have been lacking. Of course, the news about Disney owning Lucasfilm and rebooting the EU interested me, but didn’t disgust me as it did many other fans because I haven’t been that involved. But I can say that I have been turned off by some of the product offerings so far… Especially the new toys. (The new toys are reminiscent of “green army men”, but cost a ton.) And I haven’t been immersed in the clone wars cartoon, nor the new cartoon, but many of the represented characters haven’t appealed to me much. Probably Anakin’s apprentice most of all being what turned me off of that. (Ashoka Tano was far too “pre-teen brat” in the Clone Wars movie that kicked the whole thing off.)

But the cover of Darth Vader #1 looked cool, and the alternate cover looked cool as well, but not so much cooler that I bought it instead.

This story takes place right after the Death Star was destroyed at the end of “A New Hope.” It is about Darth Vader’s penance to the Emperor. Because it IS a new story today, I don’t know how much I should spoil. But it isn’t a resolved plot or anything.

The first thing I took away was Jabba the Hutt apparently considers himself EQUAL to Vader. I am saying “Vader just got downgraded.” I don’t like it. He is supposed to be THE VILLAIN. There is an opening scrawl on the back of the front cover, and it is interesting because it takes the Sith’s viewpoint in explaining things. I should think this would give us a Vader that is at least as strong as we saw him in the movies. But Jabba regards Vader as his chump. As does the Emperor. And he just took a defeat at the hand of Luke Skywalker.

This issue dwells on the situation.

But what annoyed me the most was that the story is told OUT OF ORDER. Apparently for no reason at all.

Out of order storytelling is becoming so CLICHE in comics. I’m about sick of it, to be honest with everyone out there in Hub City Geek land. Batman Eternal has been the CHIEF OFFENDER. But all of those titles are doing it more and more. And here Marvel’s first issue of Darth Vader tells us the present story, then two days ago, and then one day ago, and then NOW AGAIN. Why not just start the story at two days ago?

The art in this book was really good. The characters looked like their movie counterparts. Vader’s mask had the old school, more asymmetrical look to it. Jabba was a fat slob, the brief picture of the rebels looked good. There was an annoying scene where we saw ALL of Jabba’s entourage, as we see them in “Return of the Jedi.” And Bobba Fett was there. I always had the impression that Bobba Fett was a well traveled man. That he didn’t spend all of his time hanging out on Tattoine with the low-lifes.

So apparently Vader is on assignment from the Emperor, as a punishment. And there is a new agent who we have no details about. Everyone knows that there is jealousy from Vader. He suspects, of course, that there is another apprentice being brought up to replace him. And the gears for future story are set.

I am highly skeptical. Did reading Darth Vader #1 catch my interest enough to want to purchase more books in the series? I’m not sure. I told the sales-lady at the Tangled Web not to hold these books for me monthly, that I would try it out first. Maybe I will get to the end of this story arc. But if issue #2 doesn’t wow me, it will be another Star Wars title that I ignore.

The art gets a 5. The book gets a 2. My average rating must be 3/5.

SpartanNerd Thoughts…The Deckbox Situation

February 8, 2015 by SpartanNerd

This Friday night I took the Liliana deck to Friday Night Magic at The Tangled Web in Spartanburg, SC, but this time I did something that I haven’t done for a year. I used an inferior deckbox. When I top-8ed in February last year, I bought a premium box to reward myself, the Ultra Pro Satin Tower. That plastic box is green, with a smooth satin texture, and a storage compartment for dice. This box makes it easy to go from one place to another. Just put it together and grab your playmat. I chose green, as that’s my favorite color (in real life, not in Magic.)

This week I used the Legion Iconic 100-card box. This box is flimsy, and has a velcro latch. It looks cool with a skull on it, representing us Swamp people. (Black magic players.) The problems with this box…cramming it with 60 cards, plus 15 cards for the sideboard, and 15 tokens, all sleeved as well, and a divider. It was miserable. And everytime I needed to get a token, the sideboard was in the way, or vice versa. There was nowhere for the dice, so I had to carry a dice bag. This time I was using a pad and pen to write down revealed information (through Thoughtsieze or whatever). So I had to transport five items from place to place. That’s too much for two hands. Especially when you are also lugging a trade binder and SpartanKid’s Commander decks as well in a duffle bag.

I have used other boxes before…I generally keep my modern deck in an old event deck box and the Standard deck I am playing in the Satin Tower. Because I was switching between two Standard decks for the past week, I have put the Legion Iconic box to use. But It was miserable.

So it is fired. Just like Sultai Skullkeeper and Pain Seer.

SpartanNerd Review…Fate Reforged Pre-Release Sealed Deck Experience

January 19, 2015 by SpartanNerd

Fate Reforged, the second set in the Kahns of Tarkir block in Magic the Gathering, comes out this Friday,(1/23/2015) So naturally the Pre-Release was the weekend prior. How did it go for me? Read on, oh Hub City Geeks!

I decided to skip out on the midnight event at the Tangled Web in Spartanburg, SC. I have played in those kinds of events a few times, and figure I am just too old. My driving isn’t good at night, and my card playing isn’t either. At about 3:00, my brain feels like it’s going to melt. So I figured I would do better at the 1:00 tournament the next afternoon. (Incidently, the Tangled Web also had a Sunday tournament, but I skipped that one on account of church and some other business. Ah…Life.)

As in every Pre-Release I’ve been to outside of the core sets, I was handed a box with my materials for building a sealed deck. The box contained some promotional materials, a “Sultai” button. (Sultai was the color combination I chose. Blue, Black, and Green.) A life counter, four Fate Reforged booster packs, one Kahns of Tarkir booster pack, and a “seeded” pack meant to weigh the color choices towards Sultai. All this for $25 is a pretty good deal…basically six packs, and a counter, plus the entry fee. The box has long been in the trash…usually these are flimsy and useless.

But I do have pictures of the best cards of the night, and some commentary Here are the rares from Fate Reforged. (Destructor dragon is uncommon…sorry!)

And I got these two cards from Khans of Tarkir. What actually happened was that the Polluted Delta was packed in one of the Fate Reforged boosters instead of a basic land or a gain land. The wizards said that a lucky few would get a fetch land, I guess I am one of them!

And then the other significant cards…

I decided to keep my colors as Sultai, so any rare red or white cards were useless. Kind of a shame, really. Flamewake Phoenix would surely be a star in sealed deck.

I decided that in my main deck I wouldn’t play Tasigar, the Golden Fang. I probably made a mistake in that…I played him some in other decks since this tournament, and if you Delve him in, you have a fatty for only one swamp. His other ability is fun, but because the opponent gets to choose the card from the graveyard to go to your hand, there is an element of stupidity, and I think this is what threw me off of this card for this particular event. I decided to go with Archfiend of Depravity as my bomb instead.

Below are some cards with battle stories!

Sandsteppe Mastadon…the fatty of fatties. He has maybe the best war story of all from this tournament. Me and my opponent had full board states, with my side slightly better. Instead of combat, he casted a sweeper, “End Hostilities.” All creatures, bam. Gone. Leaving me with six lands. And his lands were all tapped. I only had this card in hand. I smiled as I drew a forest, and GG! (I had a 10/10 elephant as a response to that sweeper!) Moments like this keep you playing Magic.

This guy was pretty reliable. But because this is sealed deck, the only non creature permanents to destroy were generally lands.

The bomb of this deck, Archfiend of Depravity, was pretty good. He’s a big flyer with non-targeted removal. Unfortunately, usually the opponent didn’t have but two creatures on the battlefield. If I was going to fire someone, it would be Sultai Skullkeeper, who causes you to mill two cards when he enters the battlefield. Guess who got milled more than twice during the tournament…(this big demon, that’s who.)

And one more honorable mention…sorry, no big photo. You’ll have to look at the collage above. Archers of Qarsi. 5/2 with defender and reach. These guys were just good deterrent. So many people were playing big flyers…the dragons, Wingate Roc, etc. The archers caused them to hold off. Which let me find time to get out my bombs.

SO HOW DID THE SPARTANNERD DO WITH THIS LIMITED POOL OF CARDS?

So how did I do? At the conclusion of round five I had two wins and THREE DRAWS… Basically, me and a slew of people were all tied after the fifth round, according to the standings. So all of us were destined for ninth place or worse, and the top eight were locked in. Sadness! I gave a half hearted effort and called it a day after losing round six.

I didn’t get an Ugin. But if I had, I doubt I would have been able to play him. He would have broken up the creature stalls I suppose. (I didn’t see an Ugin all day. Is he real?)

SPARTANNERD’S RATING

I am glad to see dragons in Magic finally. There have been an odd few every now and then, but they haven’t been a focus so much since I began playing. The experience of the sealed deck box is OK. The box leaves a lot to be desired. The seeded pack did its job, but I probably could have gone red-white/ splashing black with my card pool and ignored Sultai. (I chose Sultai because I thought the cards were stronger, when looking at the gallery on the Magic website.)

Still, I think this is a weak set. Maybe even weaker than Born of the Gods from last year. The dragons are nice, but the uncommon ones are take-it-or-leave-it. I only saw one rare dragon all night. He was no chump, but he steered clear of TWO archers. A weak set that is designed to shake up the Standard environment. At the Tangled Web, Jeskai is the deck to beat. There may be more diversity ahead. I have found places for a few of my cards in other decks already, including Tasigur.

I’m a little underwhelmed. But not too much. So I’m going to give the set based on my pre-release experience a 3/5. I have read very little in the way of spoilers, and haven’t played the new Standard yet. We’ll see if I’m wrong…

SpartanNerd Dual Deck Matchup…”Liliana” vs “Divine”

January 15, 2015 by SpartanNerd

Sorry for the break. I actually have to work. Anyways, the SpartanKid has been blogging away, and it has been no problem for me to feature him as a guest. A little cutting and pasting, and it’s magic!

So now I get to tell everyone how awesome Liliana is AGAIN! There are some decks that we just get…and I just “get” Liliana.

We have played four matches of Liliana vs. Divine. The angels are just too slow. While their synergy is very dangerous in certain combinations if they happen to get it right, Liliana’s less mana-hungry deck generally prevents this from happening. Twilight Shepherd is a problem. Luminous angel continual threatens to get flying chumps out. You would think that there was no re-animation in the Divine deck, but Reya Dawnbringer does just that. And that is sometimes a problem. Otherwise, Liliana has ways of taking out virtually all of the angels. including Akroma. Mutilate is just beast, and you can Enslave another angel to block for you. Lilliana is also pretty good at life gain, Maybe even better than the angels, with Tendrils of Corruption and Corrupt. And if you are able to reanimate everything with Liliana, (difficult in this match because the angels are big flyers,) then you have won the game.

Of the four matches between the two decks, Divine has one win, and Liliana has three.

I have been looking into taking the Liliana deck to a modern tournament sometime. Apparently most of the cards are legal in modern, with the exception of Snuff Out and the cycling lands. Cool, because more Mutilate and Liliiana cards would be needed. I don’t know if if it would be competitive against, say, say Pod, or Kiki Jiki. But still it would be fun. I have been playing a standard Liliana deck made of lots of discard effects and Waste Not. It is something NOBODY ELSE is doing. It’s good to be different. But Jeskai is the match to beat right now in my meta-game.

SpartanNerd Vintage Toy Review…”Masters of the Universe Wolf Armor He-man and Snake Armor Skeletor”

January 1, 2015 by SpartanNerd

This is one of the longest titles I’ve typed on this blog!

Today you get the final pictures taken with my iPhone 4s. Good riddance, after seeing how good the iPhone 6 camera is! (I can hear Skeletor from the MYP cartoon saying “Good Riddance!”

This item was originally meant to be a gift set. You are getting two figures, both with an action accessory, and a VHS tape. (GASP)

The front of the box is a nice window where you can see the figures and the video inside.

I love the SpartanWife…If it weren’t for her, I probably never would have got these!

Here’s the back…

Everything all over this packaging is in three languages. English, Spanish (or Italian?) and French.

Probably Spanish, aimed at the Mexican market. Sorry Europeans. (Seriously. There are mega fans in Europe. Especially Italy and Germany.)

The back of the package gives you instructions, and also shows off some other figures and vehicles from 200x.

I do miss the 200x show!

On with the review. This packaging is just landing in the trash. I’m not sure this could have counted as Mint On Card anyways. The box has had some abuse.

Here is everything assembled, for your photography pleasure. The video is going to stay in cellophane. I believe I will display it with my 1987 movie VHS tape. Because neither is EVER going back into a VCR to be eaten. That’s why. And besides, I have “The Courage of Adam” on DVD.

Here are the accessories. I activated the action feature of both shields this time. I prefer to display them like this. Skeletor’s activates by press of a button. You reset it by pushing that skull back up, and then the blades retract. He-Man’s works by turning that wolf head. His isn’t spring loaded, unfortunately. But it looks way cooler with the blades out.

This is the first He-Man I’ve ever owned that didn’t come with a sword!

Also notable, He-Man’s helmet is removable…Skeletor’s is not.

He-Man has a wolf claw weapon. And I’m not sure WHAT Skeletor’s weapon is. A gun? A sword? I tend to think those silver pieces are meant to be long retractable tentacles. So more of a gun. But then again, it could be that the two silver pieces are meant to mirror Skeletor’s double sword. I just don’t know.

As far as I know, there is no extant fiction for either character…

Here’s Skeletor. His shield is really heavy. 200x Skeletor tends to be sort of hunchbacked as it is. But in order to have him stand and hold the shield, you have to bend him backwards, pretty severely.

The figure has a snake head on top of his helmet. I thought this must be a button for an action feature. Nope. Maybe the Horsemen intended it to be so? The armor is removable, but it looks to be two pieces. I don’t feel the urge to take it off…you can’t remove his helmet, so you would have a shirtless Skeletor with a snake hat. And what if I have trouble getting that armor back on?

I have to add that the snake hat is glued to the hooded head that was on the original, non-variant version. Mattel really cut corners on this figure. And I don’t necessarily appreciate it. I do think these are cool designs. I might not understand them. But stuff like the mess that is on Skeletor’s head is pretty infuriating. Why isn’t that removable. Or at least, not GLUED TO HIS HOOD.

Skeletor is fine below the waist. His loin cloth is elaborate. His toes look ever creepy. To bad he didn’t have claws on his feet, as he had in the cartoon and the Vintage figure from the 1980s. I wish they at least painted the nails black as a compromise.

Skeletor also doesn’t have the torso punch. How did that get left out.

I can make a comparison this time. We have what I believe to be Battle Armor/sound Skeletor from the 200x line. He has a spring loaded waist twist. And you can remove his hood. I’m just saying.

Onto Wolf Armor He-Man.

He-man is superior to Skeletor in every way. He has the same problem as Skeletor in that his shield is too heavy for him to stand and hold it as usual. I am not necessarily a fan of the way the He-Man holds his shields in 200x. Shields should strap to the arm. Not be held in hand. But this is an overall style criticism. He-man’s waist twist works great. His armor is removable. I generally have a hard time standing 200x He-Man. His legs are sculpted in an odd way.

He-Man’s armor is a nice gold color. His furry shorts come complete with the little pouch that hangs from his belt.

I tried out the sword from the 200x Castle Grayskull playset. This sword has good symmetry with the shield, matching the other shiny silver pieces.

Here’s Skeletor with the other 200x villains in my collection. Too bad we can’t see Two-Bad’s faces. (get it. “Two Bad.”

SpartanNerd’s Rating

Here goes. Whhhhhh…..(sigh)

What these figures ARE is kind of a mystery. Snake Armor Skeletor kind of makes sense. Skeletor is the enemy of the Snake Men. But we never saw him in the cartoon wearing this. On the other hand, He-Man was decked out especially for the Snake Men. But what was Wolf Armor He-Man? There were no wolf enemies. I guess this was just a variant like the “Jungle Attack He-Man” or “Smash Blade He-Man.”

Skeletor’s figure has a very compromised feel to it. Like they intended for it to be more than it is. But had to cut corners. So there is no action feature. And the helmet is not removable. And they didn’t bother with a new head sculpt…hence the hood is still there under the helmet.

Add to these problems the fact that the figures can’t stand properly because of the weight of the shields, and the fact that He-Man doesn’t come with a sword. And the score is pretty low.

But I don’t dislike these figures. They are fun! I think the shields’ action features are cool. Especially Skeletor’s with the spring loaded blades. He-Man’s shield, with the blades sticking out around it is especially cool looking.

I rate 200x Wolf Armor He-Man at 3/5. His sculpt is great. He has a cool shield. It is a nice variant. He looks cool on the shelf. With the downside of not coming with a sword, or being able to stand holding the shield without being contorted.

I rate 200x Snake Armor Skeletor as 2/5. He has a compromised feel. Unremovable Helmet. Dubious removable armor. A strange weapon. And can’t stand naturally holding the shield. On the other hand, the action feature on the shield is fun, and the overall look of the figure is nice.

I’m not even going to bother rating the tape.

Because these figures look so cool on the shelf, and that is their main function, I am going to rate them probationally 3/5 as a set.

That’s right. The SpartanNerd rates the dubiously named:

200x Masters of the Universe Wolf Armor He-Man and Snake Armor Skeletor Gift Set *

3/5.

Do you agree? Let me know in the comments!

*I added the colon because it is supposed to be funny.

SpartanNerd Tech Review…WinClone

July 4, 2014 by SpartanNerd

I am going to offer my experience with WinClone. First, a few details.

I use a mid-2010 MacBook Pro Unibody. This is one of the last machines to offer a SuperDrive, and to not have ThunderBolt or a Retina Display.

(I had a slight case of buyers remorse after seeing the models that were introduced right after I made my purchase.)

My machine has been good to me…but I have had a few incidents. These are not generally the fault of the manufacturer. They are MY fault. The first had to do with migrating from an older mac to the newer one, and sort of messing things up. I got a freeze at the startup screen. I had to call Apple, and their tech helped me free of charge. He totally didn’t have to, either.

The second issue was a major physical fall that the mac took in May of 2013. This caused the mac not to boot correctly…It generally would crash on the login screen, and when I learned to disable the login screen, it still would crash after about 45 seconds of use. This had me thinking I was going to have to buy a new model for awhile. But then I figured out how to fix the crash. What was actually damaged in the fall was the battery sensor and indicator. I figured out that simply unplugging that from the motherboard was a sufficient fix. It disabled the battery indicator light, but I rarely used that anyway.

Tinkering around inside my mac for hours and hours eventually afforded me the bravery to upgrade the hard drive. I opted to go for a hybrid drive, a classic hard drive with a flash drive component. I have been pretty happy with that so far, but it doesn’t make your computer as responsive as an iPad or anything, as sort of advertised.

In upgrading drives, though, I lost my Windows Partition. Which brings me to WinClone. (My old Windows had Magic Online, Digitech GNX4 software, and Steam. This is why I wanted that back so badly.)

I explored a few different options before arriving at WinClone. Ever the cheapskate, I considered what I perceived to be free options. I tried to clone the partition with Disk Utility…Nah. I tried to get Windows to boot from a USB powered Drive Caddy. Nah. (It just doesn’t work with Windows. Mac OSX can boot from USB!) I read forums…The name that kept coming up was WinClone. So I finally dished out the $30.

After the transaction was complete, and the download, I had to activate the software with a key they e-mailed to me. So that is how that went down. I didn’t realize it, thought until I was already trying to clone my drive! It gave me a warning! That was nothing, though.

After authenticating, it still wouldn’t work. I tried several times. NADA.

So I sent an e-mail expressing regret over spending $30 on a product that doesn’t work.

The company that makes WinClone is called TwoCanoes Software. A girl from TwoCanoes named Sarah began e-mailing me the next day, and telling me to try a few different things. None of her suggestions were working, so she passed my problem up to another technician, one who I gather is more high powered named Russell. Russell insisted more or less that I run “ChkDsk” on my source drive. I rolled my eyes as I borrowed my computer from work and tried to circumvent the restrictions and access the command line. But it worked!

When I ran WinClone after using ChkDsk, it worked like a charm. It cloned my 25GB Windows Partition onto a new roomier 200 GB partition! No setup hassles, buy a new copy of Windows, nothing. I was very pleased!

I bought the software on Sunday night. It was Wednesday before I got it straightened out. I suppose that could be a strike against WinClone. But it isn’t because I wasn’t running “ChkDsk” when it actually instructs you to in the software. (I’m not sure why it helps…the disk had no corruption on it whatsoever.) The great thing about this whole experience, though is that the help from the company was really nice. They told me off the bat that they would refund my money if it didn’t get up and going. But they were e-mailing me constantly. That is a great thing!

WinClone does what it advertises, just be sure to run “ChkDsk” first.

I give WinClone a 5/5. 4 of those points come from the product. The other point comes from the customer service. Let me know what you think, oh Hub City Geeks!

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