Thursday, July 24, 2014

Eldritch Horror : 4th attempted on Yig, the serpent Ancient One

YIG!! It is a new Ancient One (AO) from Forsaken Lore expansion. He is hard to beat! Been fighting him for 3 round and received utter failure on solving his mystery. First attempt was last 2 weeks with 6 of us and we died on the Serpent Crown mystery (who appeared as our second mystery). Then both me and gf tried to revenge by controlling two character each and again, we failed to solve third mystery (we ignore most of the gate and rush for last mystery in result Yig awaken and killed us). Lastly on same day we tried again and failed again. The doom track just move too fast!

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Since then, I couldn't sleep well. My mind keep thinking a way to beat Yig. There must be some secret. The amount of players? The correct investigators? Improved stat and get better weapon first? Close gate first? Or rush all the way to solve mystery first? Finally few days later I decided to man up and take the challenge myself. I myself controlling 8 investigator (chosen by myself) which I think is the ingredient to counter Yig.

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The investigators are none other than Lola, Charlie, Akachi, Jacqueline, Norman, Lily, Diana and Mark. Here is my strategy :- Two high influence investigators stay at Tokyo, two fighters, three gate closer cum spell caster and one Cultist counter. Yup you can guess it who is whose role. I proudly said that I managed to complete the Yig mystery with still 6 cards left in the mysthos deck and also doom track was on seven. Not sure it is luck that I did not encounter the Serpent Crown mystery. But I have confident I can solve it too even it appear (unless it appear as first mystery.. This can GG).

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Check out my investigators end game stat and cards. Note that the health token and sanity on the character sheet indicated damage taken instead of what left.

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Mark Harrigan, The Soldier is my main fighter who roamed around the map and whack whoever he encounter. My first mystery are required to kill Winged Serpent and I managed to bring him and Lily to Tokyo (with some weapon ready) to whack it. I discard the Kerosene belong to Mark to do the final blow on Winged Serpent. He got the Lighting Gun from Charlie (Charlie got it from Tokyo encounter and pass it to Mark) for the final mystery, Child of Yig. Overall, nothing much strategy needed for Mark. Give him a good weapon, protect his sanity, he'll do the killing job.

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Charlie Kane, The Politician. He is fragile, can't fight and almost boring investigators. But he is essential for me because his passive ability to purchase any asset and pass it to others freely. Plus, he has high influence where he is suitable to stay in Tokyo to assist in damaging monsters. Combo with Blessed, Fine Clothes and Urban Guide, Charlie are almost unstoppable. I got him a Spirit Dagger just in case a monster ambushed him.

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Akachi Onyele, The Shaman. Another fragile investigators that easily die due to low health and backfired effect from Mist of Releh. But I love her. She is purely a gate closer in my team. I wish I could use her to get more spell cards but looking at my other investigators doing well, I just made her purely close gate and fly around. On mid game, I managed to increase her lore and gained Arcane Scholar for her to increase her success roll for Mist of Releh.

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Diana Stanley, Redeemed Cultist. She has one and only job. Stay at active expedition area and discard whatever cultist monster spawn due to Yig reckoning effect then just survive. That being said all her encounter are basically general encounter - wilderness. Before move her to active expedition, I managed to gained her some ritual and incantation spell to used since she has pretty high lore plus her Arcane Manuscript modifier. A must character to counter Yig Cultist monster spawn!

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Jacqueline Pine, The Physics. Reason I choose her are three : Spellcaster, gate closer and clue takers. She has pretty high lore and a good team support through incantation spell she gain. Not to mentioned her passive skill that able to gain clue token once per round once any of other investigator except herself gain a non-common condition. But her moment was truly shine once she gain a blessed and Blessing of Isis card.

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Yes I used Jacqueline action to blessed herself almost every turn and with that, I managed to flip her existing blessed card and perform the condition. Retreat Doom by 1 babe! This is how I almost managed make the Doom counter stop advancing.

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Lola Hayes, The Actress. She is versatile. But in this game, I made her Charlie bitch. Opss. Her stating item was included one improvement token and I just put it under influence. Throughout the game, I used her to gain some asset and also stay at Tokyo together with Charlie, to support him. Guess Tokyo really a good spot for both of them huh? :P

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Norman Withers, The Astronomers. One of the best character in my game play. He stay in Arkham for few round to gain quite number of spell cards. His starting spell, Feed the Mind helped in increasing his lore twice and later also strength (just in case he need to fight). Look at his spell card! He is one of the best support I had beside Jacqueline and I used him, he alone to complete the second mystery, the K'n-yan special card encounter in 4 rounds.

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Not to mentioned he had Blessed and Blessing of Isis as well. I used him to blessed himself none stop to gain more clues. He can get almost three clues each time (2 from the blessed and 1 from blessing of Isis). It would be cool if this blessed card was with Jacqueline.

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Lily Chen, the Martial Artist. Another pure brawler from my team. Give her a good weapon (in my case Double- Barreled Shotgun) she can easy make all monster pay even Epic Monster (thats it if you have alot success roll). I also get her an Axe asset. Weapon modifier couldn't stack, but the effect can be used! So even she miss in strength test, she can easily spend two of her sanity to reroll any number of dies.

Overall, I think the ingredients needed to win Yig is need 8 players. Anyhow, a Diana is needed to stay at active expedition to discard cultist, Akachi for gate closer, Charlie as buyer and two fighters. The rest such as Jacqueline, Norman and Lola are more on supporting which I think is important especially in preventing sanity and health lost. Most important task is to prevent the doom track from advancing!

This is my first time won against Yig after 4 attempt. Would love to encounter it again next time with new mystery. Serpent Crown mystery? Bring it on!

Tuesday, July 22, 2014

A day I am a fireman, explorer, gnome and conqueror

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I know I know I didn't update my blog again! Sigh has two important post to update and yet I am still slaking. Nevertheless, had fruitful weekend session with friends. Yup it is none other than another session of board games! Last Friday night Justin invited us to tried his newly bought game, Flash Point: Fire Rescue. It is a game players play as firemen to rescue victim! Yea main priority is to rescue 7 victims. However we could lost the game if the whole building collapse (due to explosion) or 4 victims died in the scene. Does this game give you a feeling of 烈火雄心 drama or 逃出生天 movie? :P Everyone wanna be Louis Koo lol.. ok I be minority I be Sean Lau can adi.

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Got a Hazmat Technician on my first game where the main duty is to remove the Hazmat in the map. Yes kinda useless but hey, I contributed! I minority ok? Very quickly once all Hazmat removed from play, I went back into the fire truck and change myself into Fire Captain. There is where I from Sean Lau became Louis Koo. I can give my team mate additional move! Yea basically just sit down in fire truck, chill around with drinks and doughnut maybe, then Instagram with hashtag #YOLO #firewey! #Seemyteammateisawesomeinsavinglife #iamsohandsome #sexy #asianboy while giving order to my team mate LOL

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Too bad we lost our first game. Explosion happened and we couldn't make it to save the last victim. Ouch! Very quickly Justin asked our feedback and we love the game. It is quick, easy to learn and could be very luck dependent also for the fire spread stage. A minute later, Justin quickly run to Meeples (we are playing at Flat White cafe) to get another expansion of the game, Extreme Danger! In the same time, Simon got himself A Game of Thrones and Jas got herself a Pandemic. OMG!! All this crazy board gamers!! Ok more games for me free to play!

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On next day, we went to Ik house for another session. This time around, Kim was with us and he brought his Betrayal at House on the Hill. A map based board game where a bunch of explorer trap in a house and now looking for an exit. When omen came, one of them will become a betrayal and gonna kill everyone off.

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Got myself a Missy Dubourde. Pretty well balance stat explorer. Oh if you're curious the character sheet are two sided. Same face, dif name and dif stats. What's make this game challenging and none repeatable was the betrayal always difference - Appear on dif scenario, different person and difference objective after he revealed.

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In the end all of us got killed by the betrayal - Ik with his insect army. Ouch! Damn pain lorrrrrr.. Next, we played Flash Point again with expansion this time. The new expansion map have 3 floors now and make it harder and challenging. Play both game and both also we lost. 4 victims died on first game and building collapse on last game. So sadddd!

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We also manage to play Saboteur card game. Sabo each other and win. Kinda straight forward game except it really test my patient to make my move whoever gnome characters I got. Meh I am sucks playing sabo game.

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Finally, we play A Game of Thrones as our last game in the night. Got myself House of Martell. Oh I did not watch the series before so I have no idea what's others called, what's their story behind and so on so forth.

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As far as I concern I think my Martell character abit sucks ball in battle LOL.. I am being minority again and just stay away from huge battle and build my army and kingdom on east side LOL

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In the end, House of Stark (Ik) won with his Iron Man suite and technology. Pretty nice game but that night I am just too tired to think and make decision (we started to play this on 12am all d way until 4am!).

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Now I am eye-ing on Mice & Mystics. Very heavy story based co-op game! Too bad only 4 players max. Hopefully can get it on next month :D That's all my weekend story. Managed to play quite alot game on Saturday and have fun with friends.

p/s I think I should bring along my compact camera to have a better photos. Been using phones cam only to shoot and meh.. it is not good enough in low light.

Sunday, July 13, 2014

Weekend

Dear blog, I miss writing you like the way last time. I used to write alot shit inside be it happy, rant or sad post. But as time pass by I think I am going towards more on event base and now I am trying to go for photography and gadget review based LOL.. Not to mentioned the quantity of blog post for this year is getting lesser and lesser.. sad life! Now I am trying to write as much as I can, be myself and honest post. I am wondering too that will there still people read my blog? LOL.. not that I have a fans base to begin with anyway

I have been spending my several weekends on board games with friends. I am huge fans of board game and the only problem is no one play with me. Not after the kaki for board games started to expand. I have Eldritch Horror, DiXit and Anima at the moment. So whoever wanna have a games with me, feel free to let me know ;) Talk about Eldritch Horror, it is one of my favourite game at the moment because it can be play with alot people (8 players) and is a co-op game. Click here for more info about the game.

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* Measuring *
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* The compartment *
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* Ta daa! The Eclipse inside contains all the tokens *

Last weekend hand very itchy so I tried to DIY a space to puts all the cards in the original box (previously I separated the cards and board into difference boxes). Doing all this thing remind my suffered that I faced during my uni time because it is not easy to cut the board (Shit I forgot what it call!) because it is thick. I am using white glue to glue the board and make it as compartment.

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* Forsaken Lore *
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* Have to edit the compartment in my box *

Few days later, I went to bought Eldritch Horror first and only expansion, Forsaken Lore. I didn't know it came with so many new encounter cards and FML.. My newly made DIY box can't fit in all the cards. So I have to remodelled it abit and tadaaa.. Done! In exchange every tokens will be put into separated box but with larger space!

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* Little Fat Duck truck *

Last Friday few of us decided to challenge the new Ancient One from the Forsaken Lore expansion, Yig. Before heading to the meeting point at Flat White cafe for the session, I went to dinner with deary at SS15. We spotted the "Little Fat Duck" truck nearby. I seen alot my friends insta this truck before and feeling curious, we decided to drop by for dinner. Was expecting they sell all foods related to ducks but ended up it is spaghetti and chicken... No duck at all D:

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* Carbonara Spaghetti *

Ordered the Carbonara spaghetti for myself which topped with beef. The portion is small but then, it is RM5 what do I expecting? The cream not exactly very thick but still bearable for me. Beef doesn't taste as awesome as I wish. Overall, just average. But heard Chicken Confit is their best seller. Perhaps I shall try that next time. Done our dinner, we went to Flat White to meet up with other investigators for Eldritch Horror session.

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* Investigators of the night *
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* Alex reading on his encounter *
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* My investigator *

On that night, we have me, deary, Simon, Justin, Alex & Zhao to play the games. Manage to get Leo Anderson as my investigator character and fuh, love him so much because practically I just collecting ally to help my encounters.

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* Unique mystery *

Unfortunately towards the quarter of the game, my Anderson was killed by rumors card that deduct health and also poison condition card. Not to mentioned we failed to solve the second mystery and in result Yig awaken to the world. Our game stopped there because Flat White was closing. Damn it so close in completing the second mystery! We have all the requirement ready just need to meet up at one point and pass it to Simon to solve it. I will come back and challenge you again Yig!

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* Zombicide *

Yesterday we had another board game session again in Ryan house. We are playing Zombicide this time. One of my favourite game too with a very straight forward game play. But sometimes life can be a dick too when you failed to roll success dices and got killed. Nevertheless, I love and enjoy this game. It would be better if the figurine was colored instead of having mono tone only. Custom paint it maybe?

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* Bang! *

We play DiXit as well with house rules. Set any condition as we want and everyone gotta follow it for the whole round. One of the most ridiculous condition set by Samantha was "tell story with three different languages". This is the part where everyone struggle and make up alot funny story out. Couldn't stop laughing during the game. Finally, we play Bang! A game might be put stress to the sheriff because s/he has to guess who are his/her deputy and who are the outlaw.

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* Anima box *

Oh yea, I talk about Anima earlier. I just bought it recently and haven't have change to play it. It is two to five player game based where you as the main guys need to collect members into party and also solve quest.

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* Character cards *

One of the reason I got it is because of the artwork. It is awesome and look very anime-ish. There are two more expansion available for the Anima and know I might grab it :P

Yup! That's basically how I spend my weekend recently with friends. I always believe playing board game can increase the bond with everyone. Also can make people get addicted to it :P (pointing to those guys who collecting X-Wing now HAHA). I am interested with Betrayal at House on the Hill now. Seem fun and awesome.

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* Just in case you guys miss me *

Sunday, July 06, 2014

Shoot with something different

It has been almost a month since d last time I joined street shooting with Robin. Today I decided to tag him along at Oudu Wet Market and nop, I am not using my Olympus gear. I am using something different. Something I am just being curious and wanted to test it out and I believe the wonder of street shooting is you get to test alot stuff. Plus, you get free subjects everywhere.

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* Breakfast of the day for Robin *

Hence, photo speak thousand words. All photos are SOOC and without any editing beside watermarked and resize.

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* Wall with light *
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* Basket *
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* Red Chili *
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* with yellow background *
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* They don't like to smile.. *
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* Cherry *
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* Flowers. Look at the BOKEH! *
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* Macro shot at minimum focusing distant *
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* Chicken *
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* Another side *
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* Overexposed background *
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* Pushing *
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* Dusty shoe *
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* feeling hot? *
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* Look pretty creepy *
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* Doggieee *

From the shooting, I can give a very quick impression and also conclusion about the camera ability. I have no doubt that the camera has very fast auto focus. But it failed miserably on low light where the auto focus become slow (and look delayed to me). Purple fringing are obvious where the camera software seem never bother to correct it. Unfortunately the LCD screen from the camera itself look more vivid than my own monitor. Not a big deal since easily fix with software editing if I want to. On the other hand, the red color on the chilli photo seem over saturated and look luminance. The macro is pretty impressive but only it will focus correctly if I use manual focus (the white color flower photo). Somehow the camera will have higher chance to back focus when I am shooting close up/macro with auto focus on.

Other than that, I am actually very satisfy with the camera performance. It provide very rich dynamic range (of coz not comparable with mirrorless or DSLR camera), very fast AF and great color reproduction. Done with our shooting, we went to The Gardens mall to have our lunch, Hotogdogu! Knew this shop from instagram and I am curious of it because it seem it has alot good review. Of course, photos taken by this camera as well.

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* The menu *

This were what we ordered.

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* Simple packaging *
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* Beef BBQ Crunch *
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* Onion Ring from set *
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* The Hotodogu *
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* Salmon Teriyaki *

Went to my grandma house as well and have a chance to shoot kitty. Too bad the kitty was very active and keep move around. I have no choice but to pump the camera ISO.

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* High ISO with failed focusing *
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* Paint me like one of your French girl *
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* The mother of the kitten *

Unfortunately the auto focus failed to keep track with the highly moving speed kitty. 9/10 of my photos are not in focus! Feeling frustrated I went to use manual focus again and try set it the minimum focusing (macro) and shoot! Tadaa ok I got one shot. Once I nailed it, it really produce pretty sharp photo.

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* Now it looks scary *

Alright that's all my very first and quick impression on the camera. Eh wait, I haven't reveal what camera is that isn't? I think it is pretty obvious :P Answer are everywhere. Else, stay tune to my coming post! By d way what do you think about the camera performance? Look convincing to you? Comment and let me know what do you think :)