Battle Of The Blogs: Aurora Vs. Skarre3

After a two week hiatus in table top gaming, I was able to get out last Tuesday night and put some CoC on the table again. 

EDIT: There's a rules error on my part of this game where I thought Aurora had Reposition 3 all the time, like Clockwork Angels. This is false, so my movement on Turn 3 was illegal. After talking with Kevin there is a possible way I could have achieved the same thing without having to have cheated (Apparition up to get LOS, cast the spray spell, then move away), but the mistake was still mine. I've apologized to Kevin and I want readers to know the error was made!

I ended up having a 'Blog Off' with Kevin who runs the Shoulda Boosted blog.  We're coordinating our posts, so you can go read this battle report from the other side of the table here! Kevin had only brought his competitive pair for the next Scrum and a few big tournaments coming up, and I was dead set on playing some jank.  I've really been wanting to try Clockwork Legions and Aurora out.  My goal is to play each caster in Convergence at least once and the only two I have left are Aurora and Iron Mother.   As a pair for Aurora I wanted to stay in a Champions restriction and had a Lucant double TEP list as my second list.  Kevin was running Skarre3 and Denny2.  After some discussion about how I'm just trying to learn my lists and Kevin is trying to practice, Kevin was kind enough to offer to play Skarre3 so that I could play Aurora. 

Lists:

[Skarre 3] Skarre, Admiral of the Black Fleet [+27] - Slaughter Fleet Raiders

 - Kraken [36]

 - Satyxis Blood Priestess [0(4)]

Axiara Wraithblade [0(6)]

General Gerlak Slaughterborn [0(6)]

Ragman [4]

Black Ogrun Ironmongers [6]

Blighted Trollkin Marauders (max) [15]

Bloodgorgers (max) [15]

 - Jussika Bloodtongue [5]

Bloodgorgers (max) [15]

Scharde Dirge Seers [6]

Aurora

-Corollary

-Prime Axiom

Obstructors

Obstructors

Obstructors

Optifex Directive

Clockwork Angels

Clockwork Angels

Clockwork Angels

Enigma Foundry

Enigma Foundry

Enigma Foundry

Enigma Foundry

So my initial thought on running Aurora in CL was that she offers speed and not much else. Given the recursion package I figured I'd need my heavies to do some hard hitting and decided that I really wanted a Prime Axiom in a Clockwork Legion list.  First, it hits hard and can drag in heavies, but more importantly it's a Scenario Cheat Piece.

What's a Scenario Cheat Piece? It makes a solo, for free, every turn. This lets me contest every turn the Prime Axiom is alive or score a flag regardless of whether or not my opponent kills my scoring solos.  The goal of the list is to focus on scenario, possibly swing to an attrition play if my opponent can't deal with my model count + recursion and still finish the colossal at the end.

Matchup Analysis

So my plan for a Lucant DI + Aurora CL pair gets put in a bad spot by Kevin's pair.  Denny2 makes me unable to play CL at all, and so Kevin can pick whichever list he feels is stronger into my pairing. This seems like it'd be true for any CoC pairing that includes an Obstructor-based CL list which I think is probably the most efficient CL build.

Talking it through with Kevin, he was nice enough to play Skarre so I can give Aurora her test game, and we started the game thinking it was roughly even. We were playing the Mirage scenario, so it was exceptionally live.

Deployment (After Advanced Move)

Not much to discuss here. Kevin had a unit of Bloodgorgers on either flank, with the Marauders dead center. Kraken was set to go around the building towards my right flank opposite of my axiom. I had won the roll to go first. 

My deployment was all the Obstructors up front and everything else behind.

My Turn 1

The plan was to take as much table space as possible, so Aurora casts Aerogenesis and Arcane Might and everything flies forward as fast as possible while trying to space well enough to avoid AOE's mulching everything up too hard.  I remembered to spawn my servitor with the Axiom as well, which is hard to remember every turn. 

Kevin's Turn 1 

Kevin knows he can't avoid getting punched in the face first melee wise, so he simply advances up the field to take as much space as possible while also using spacing and base size from preventing me from getting too much. 

Skarre shoots through a decent amount of my center Obstructor unit and the Kraken takes a pot shot at my right most Enigma Foundry and does about 6 damage. That hurt, but it wasn't so much that I couldn't replenish all of the losses. 

 My Turn 2

Not seeing a better time to feat, I go all in with Aurora first this turn. I had the idea to use her Bladed Gale SP8 spell to try and clear some of the Marauders out who were bunched up nicely, but tough checks and deceleration only netted me two casualties.  Auora then repostioned back behind the building.

I burned a TON of clock here, and I spent an excess of attacks and resources just to kill Jussika.  It was my first time playing with this much infantry especially while trying to use the feat to reposition in awkward spots while similarly preventing his Bloodgorgers from chewing through all my stuff. 

My center Obstructors did some work, but at the same time the recursion guys simply jammed in to prevent the Marauders from getting shots off.  I was actually pretty pleased with spacing here, preventing a lot of meaningful attacks and sacrificing about 3 models to go behind the left 'gorgers to keep Gerlak from getting up into the forward part of my unit.  I did a significant amount of work on the right unit of 'gorgers, and in hindsight now I probably should have just focused on killing more of the left unit rather than killing Jussika, though vengence really will screw my list over pretty hard.

I spawned my servitor again and kept it on the center flag nestled behind the building and moved the first servitor spawned to my friendly flag and Aurora kept in the zone. Scenario play was going to be my main win condition here and I needed to be in place to start forcing it. 

Kevin's Turn 2

So the first thing you'll notice in this picture is exactly how few of my models are left. While I was quite good with my positioning here to prevent the blighted trolls from berserking through all my troops, the relatively low CMD of my units required my buffered back lines to be pretty well bunched up.  This let Skarre absolutely decimate my troops from guns alone. I believe by the time Skarre was done shooting, I had filled up all my Enigma Foundries on the left flank and then the units started activating.  What's worse is that Kevin killed the entire center unit of Obstructors, meaning I couldn't return any of them to play.  I need to remember to space properly with hiding/protecting a unit member all the way in my back lines to keep a unit going.

Kevin had feated this turn and reinforced the Marauder unit, with them contesting the center flag through the building. 

Poor spacing on my part on my right flank with the Angels allowed one Bloodgorger to chomp his way through to getting within 4" of my flag to prevent me from scoring. This ended up being a huge deal as we'll see later. Kevin still didn't have enough to get through my entire right unit, and so I prevented his scoring on his own turn. He did get a model onto his flag, but couldn't contest my zone so this turn ends with the score 1-1.

My Turn 3

The attrition, it is going badly. As such I try to make as hard a play on scenario as I can. 

Aurora doesn't cast Aerogenesis this turn (I don't need any distance), and uses Bladed Gale to start clearing out Marauders from contesting the center, she shoots her gun and repositions back behind the building again, keeping some focus on her for Arcane might. (See the edit at the top of the page, Aurora does NOT have Reposition 3 like the Clockwork Angels, this was a mistake on my part!).

I replenish as best I can on the red unit of Obstructors and they go in clearing out more contesting trolls and doing what work I can. Unfortunately I didn't really learn my lesson about spacing till after the game, so the same problem I had earlier with the blue unit is coming up on this turn. It's going to go poorly. 

On the right flank I send some of my Obstructors charging into the objective and I do minimal damage. I do clear out the contesting Bloodgorger and get in the zone.  The Axiom moves too close to the objective and starts pumping shots into it.  I nearly fail to kill it completely after multiple double 1 to hit and damage rolls (including on the tow cables!) after leaving it on one box.  That said, on my final shot on unboosted damage kills it before my spawned elimination servitor had to be relied on to kill it. 

All in all, I contest all of Kevin's pieces and score 4 points on my turn (my zone, two flags, and objective kill), ending the turn 5-1!

Kevin's Turn 3

Can you say swift kick to the dick? Cause that's what happened here. 


Kevin wipes out all of my Obstructor units and through a combination of flank with a reinforced Marauder, death field from Ragman, and Draconic Blessing, the Kraken takes advantage of my poor placement of the Axiom for its shots into the objective to one round the Axiom. It was...bad times.  

I had one hope going through the turn, the way I had placed my Obstructors to jam Kevin up, it was taking all of his activation's to clear them out and they were preventing anything from really getting to my flag. This hope died when Kevin took his kill shot off the Axiom, he shot at the servitor I had on my friendly flag - he missed, but the deviation stayed on the servitor and he rolled the 7 to kill it with blast damage.  Kevin also runs Axiara into my zone to prevent my scoring it and puts Gerlak on his flag, scoring two points to my nothing, bringing the score to 5-3.

As it turns out, killing the servitor was the key damage roll, since if that servitor had lived I would have scored a point on Kevin's turn, meaning I would only need to score 2 points on my turn to win which would have been easily doable on my flag and then clearing out Axiara with Aurora and the last two angels I had alive.  Hindsight says I should have moved my Enigma Foundry to sit on the flag and that could have won me the game.

But since he did kill the servitor and there was no way I was scoring 3 points on my next turn, and there was zero way I was going to run this game to turn 7, I conceded here.

Conclusions

Man what a fun game and it was a trove to learn from on how to play this kind of list as well as what I like and don't like about Clockwork Legions and Aurora specifically.

Kevin was great to play against as always and he was very kind to kick my ass with a list I could at least play into.

That said, man there are so many things to draw from this game.

Clockwork Angels are Terrible

The original version of this list had points moved around so that I was running a unit of Reciprocators rather than the Angels. I swapped them out so that I could have Angels to use as Flank Triggers for Aurora.  This was a bad idea.  The Angels are pretty terrible on their own: MAT6 PS12 on the charge just isn't very impressive.  Similarly their guns just aren't that good to warrant their use.  They did very little for me this game and I'm not sure what they'd bring to other matchups. More bodies, specifically Reciprocators would have been way stronger in this match. What's worse is that the Angels don't have parry natively so they can't fly into position to allow Aurora to try and feat + assassinate an enemy caster (not that she was killing Skarre3 by any means).  They can get parry from her feat, but that requires Aurora to go before the angels can get in position to trigger flank, and so the entire thing just doesn't work.  It really is a shame since I happen to like the models a lot, and so does my daughter.

Play Better Noob

I've always wanted to play a recursion list and it was one of the things that had intrigued me about playing CoC, but man is there a learning curve to playing this kind of list. There must always be a grunt hiding in the back so as to be promoted and keep the unit alive to be replenished. That's a big deal and it will take a lot of playtime to get myself into playing that correctly.   I want to experiment with a medium based focused CL list, especially with Aurora and Lucant, but truthfully an Obstructor based list is really where Clockwork Legions is at its most efficient and so I need to get better with placement.

The Axiom is Limiting

So my theory about the Axiom contesting and making scenario cheat pieces is valid, but it didn't pay off in this list. It also didn't help that I had zero good drag targets in the matchup and so the real value in the Axiom got kinda wasted here.  That said, fitting the Axiom into a MK3 Clockwork Legions list really limits the amount of stuff you can take in a list where you want to maximize the amount of units you're bringing. It's also really a waste with Aurora who grants Apparition to her battlegroup.  Double Cipher or Cipher/Conservator may be the better vector load out (besides the mandatory Corollary).  It's definitely going to take some testing to see how I want to go forward with CL builds, as it is, I'm not sure which way I want to go with them yet.

The Clockwork Legion is an Enigma

As I said how to build a Clockwork Legion list is puzzling to me. In terms of Convergence the only two casters who can play CL and give the units Pathfinder are Aurora with flight and Axis where he gives it on the charge. In every other case terrain is going to be a major issue.  I can see trying CL with Lucant and going for attrition, but it's going to be a MUCH slower list. Aurora is possibly our worst caster but she does bring a ton of speed. I think in other matches this list could do very well, but it was going to be uphill into Kevin's Skarre3 list.  Another lesson is that while Obstructors are cheap, they are really not that strong damage output wise. They really need something to buff them up, and while Aurora brings speed, she doesn't do anything much for accuracy and damage, not consistently. Lucant is the most consistent in this area turn after turn, but again he lacks pathfinder for them.

I really do want to experiment with the theme however, since the amount of recursion that can be brought to bear is really something I think people might not be able to deal with in a number of matchups.  I just wish that we had more casters that could support it more directly.

MacDuff Counter Attacks

The scenario I chose to play was "Counterattack" from Thomas' One Hour Wargames. The rules were the updated version of With MacDuff to the Frontier. Prince August's series of homecasting moulds  provided the armies.

The Nordmark Naval Regiment stands alone.

The scenario gives "Red"(Maritime Alliance) 1 unit to hold the bridge with 5 more units arriving on turn 3. "Blue" (Rosmark) has 6 units on his baseline. Unknown to Blue (Theoretically - this is where Solo play often requires a bit  of dual personality or at least roleplay.) there are 2 fords, one near each board edge. The winner is the side that holds both bridge and town at the end.

Rather than roll on the 6 unit chart, I prefer to roll twice on the 3 unit chart. That way, there is at least a chance of having an all arms force.

In the event, Blue rolled up 3 infantry, 2 cavalry, and 1 gun while Red rolled up 3 infantry, 1 light infantry, 1 cavalry and 1 gun.

After what felt like an eternity of artillery bombardment, cavalry charges and musket volleys, the Nordmark Naval Regiment was relieved to see the rest of the Alliance forces arrive.

For the last few years MacDuff has offered a choice of activation methods. The new one that works best for straightforward battles is a simple initiative card draw or die roll to see who goes first each turn. The original one which was designed for the confused situations found in frontier skirmishes involved card activation by single units or groups of units under a commander.  I opted for the latter.

The battered Naval Regiment has pulled back into reserve while the Alliance cavalry has met a Rossish cavalry charge and smashed it.

The main thing I wanted to do was to test my newest attempt to get my rally rules working smoothly. The rally rule has caused me  the most problems over the years while also doing exactly what I wanted it to do. At its most basic, the idea back in 1995 was that  not all "hits" were dead and wounded but included all those things that lower a unit's efficiency from men who have frozen up or been temporarily stunned, to disorder and confusion in the ranks to temporary ammo shortages  and so on. Therefore I allowed units to try to recover casualties when the unit rallied. I got a lot of push back from people who could only see wargame casualties as dead and wounded  but that wasn't the problem.

The problem was twofold. One issue was the logistics of tracking an increasing trail of bodies while waiting for a unit to rally and needing to differentiate between those who failed their rally and were out of the game and those who were still waiting for their chance. The second, more important issue, was that successful rally rolls prolonged the game, 5 hours was not unusual for larger games but having to make a decision about who won when time ran out was even more common.

After some fierce fighting the Rosmark forces have been flanked and driven back with heavy losses.

I won't bother trying to list all of the ways I tried to resolve the issues to my satisfaction but eventually I almost gave up altogether. Having a rally phase at the end of each turn simplified the logistics and rolling once for each pair of 'casualties' kept the recover rate reasonable but since rallying and reforming the ranks were tied together in my mind this meant that disorder was almost meaningless as  it was often removed before the enemy could take advantage and almost always removed before it affected the unit's own actions.

An attack by the Rossish reserve regiment has driven the Alliance cavalry back over the ford but Rosmark has taken many more casualties and half of their units have been driven from the field.

Recently, an obvious solution finally occurred to me. All I had to do was separate "reforming", which is an action which is done instead of shooting or moving, from "rallying" which has to do with morale and losses and can be done at the end of each turn and can be at the end of a turn without taking much away from the game.

The Garrison of Smalltown make a brave stand to give the army a chance to escape.

This was the first MacDuff game using the new approach though I used it successfully last week in my non-MacDuff 54mm game. It worked again in this game.  Its not perfect, and sometimes the end of turn rally seems little different from a traditional saving throw made immediately when the hits are taken but if a unit takes hits early in a turn, the difference can be critical  and from a purely "game mechanic" perspective, it works and is close enough to the original idea for me.

Op Compass - Game 4, Last Stand

Our trip through the actions at the beginning of WW2 in the Western Desert continue this week with our 4th adventure in the sands of North Africa.

If you want more information on the Campaign I have set up a separate page which is updated regularly with updates on rules along with links to all the previous games,

 https://yarkshiregamer.blogspot.co.uk/2018/04/opcompass-1940-resource-page.html

The games are based on an excellent book by Robert Avery which is available from The Toofatlardies, there is a direct link to purchase the book on the Resource Page.

We use 28mm figures with this scenario taking place on an 8 x 6 table using a home brew set of rules, based on Iron Ivans Disposable Hero's.

Matildas lead the charge (ok walk) into the Fort

Historical Background

It's the 9th of December 1940, the Italian advance into Egypt has stopped, the forces of Mussolini happy with the ground taken have started to consolidate and form a series of forts across the area.

The British Commander General Wavell decided that the next move of the war would be a British counter attack. Part of the plan involved the 4th Indian Division (consisting of British and Indian Infantry) supported by the heavy Matildas of 7RTR passing through a gap in the Italian lines and then turning North towards the sea attacking and neutralising forts along the way.

Our game represents the final stand of a group of Italian Troops in the Fort of Nibeiwa.

Table Set Up and Terrain

The above photo shows the table before any troops have been added, I have just used 8 x 6 of our table. As described in the briefings below this represents one corner of the Fort. There are three trenches and a series of low buildings to represent huts and buildings. In addition to that there is a large open walled area along with some tents to the bottom of that.

The roads and tracks give no bonus to movement, they are just well trodden paths within the Fort area. There are no special rules in force.

Turn 2 and Mole breaks down, it didn't move again until the last turn of the game

British Briefing and OOB

As British Commander you have the simple job of cleaning up the last defenders of Nibeiwa, the majority of the Fort has been subdued however the last pockets of resistance are holding out in one corner of the base.

Minimise your casualties as there is plenty more work to be done today, your forces for the attack are listed below,

Italian Defenders under artillery fire.

Force Commander - 1 Officer, 1 Sgt and 1 Radioman in Truck
Artillery Observer in Daimler Dingo
7th RTR Troop - 3 x Matilda 2 tanks
1 x 25pdr (Off table)

Bren Gun Carrier team with 1 vehicle carrying 1 x Vickers HMG and crew, other two with standard 1 x Bren or 1 x Boyes AT.

Bren Gun Section (HQ is force commander)
1 x Support Section with 1 x 2" Mortar and 1 x Boyes AT Rifle
3 x Infantry Sections with 1 x Sgt with SMG, 2 man Bren Team and 7 Rifles

Truck Borne Section (as Brens) but 1 truck with HQ and Supports with 3 further trucks each with an Infantry Sections.

Morale, Basic 5, Corporal 7, Sgt 9, Officer 11

British Forces arrive at the top of the table (defined by the set up photo) the Matildas move on in move 1, the British may bring 2 sections or supports per turn. Artillery is available when the Artillery Observer is on table.

Reinforcements may be available on request.

British HMG lays down support fire from a rooftop

Italian Briefing and OOB

Things are not going well, the British attacked Nibeiwa early this morning and so far they have captured most of the Fort, you are our last, best hope. Protect the radio room at all costs and hope that they can raise the required reinforcements before you get over run.

Your forces are as follows,

Force Command  - 1 x Officer and 1 x Radio Operator with 1 additional Radio Operator.

1 x L3 Tankette
2 x 75mm Field Gun and crew 
1 x HMG and crew
1 x 81mm Mortar 
1 x 47mm ATG

4 x Italian Squads each with 1 x Sgt with SMG, 1 x Corporal with Rifle,  1 x 2 man LMG team and 6 Rifles.

Italian Artillery in action

Morale Basic 4, Corp 6, Sgt 7, Artillery 8, Officer 9

All Italian Units are hidden and only placed on table if they are spotted or fire. The Italians secretly chose one of their buildings as their Radio Room and place their additional Radio Operator in that structure.

Umpire Notes 

Other than the hidden Italian deployment this is a fairly straightforward scenario, the British are expected to over run the Fort and for me unless they loose next to nothing a winning draw should be the best result they could expect. The Italians earn a draw if they cause a reasonable number of British casualties, a winning draw if they cause enough damage for the British to call for reinforcements (there aren't any !) and a win if they can hold the British off.

The game should last one full gaming day, call the result at the end of your gaming day.

Bren Carriers to the front.

How did we get on.

Another fun game, initially the Italian players, their morale dented by the last games drubbing, were quite resigned to being quickly over run but soon realised that the game was going to be a much closer affair, they chose quite a deep defence, leaving the buildings at the top of the table, instead choosing to defend the walled area and the trenches, the latter having the best fields of fire.

Looking cool, but still broken down.

The first significant action took place fairly quickly, a Vehicle Breakdown card was drawn as an event and the last vehicle to move was the Matilda called "Toad", dice rolled, a serious engine problem, cue much frustration as it took the whole game to fix !

Hide and Seek

Taken out by a Bren, embarrassing !

The "tank" battle was quite amusing, the faster but frankly useless (vs another tank) L3 Tankette, spent most of the game using it's greater speed to hide from the two remaining Matildas, hiding behind building after building with the British Infantry Tank plodding behind, this worked fine until it got bogged down in sand and shot up from the rear, quite embarrassingly by a Bren Gun.

Bren Attack !

Dismount and Charge

Run Away !

The Infantry fighting in the buildings and around the walled area was fierce, close range firefights and hand to hand combat was the order of the day. The British Infantry slowly capturing a building at a time with the Italian Infantry giving a fine account of themselves.

One Italian Artillery unit in trouble

2nd one in more trouble.

The Italian Commander had set up their two Artillery units fairly far forward in the shadow of the walled area and in the early part of the game they gave some excellent support to the front line, however both were to fall. The first Gun lost a figure to a stray round but was finished off from the machine gun on a Matilda.
The second gun was caught by a section of British Infantry, they had just cleared the walled area and ended up streaming out of the gated entrance into the Italian Artillery men, they put up a fight but there was only going to be one winner.

"I keep hitting it Sarge, it ain't doing no good"

"Ratty" proving invincible again

The Italian player fired AT after AT round into the remaining 2 Matildas but to no avail, there is a slim chance of causing some track damage with a 47mm against these beasts but rounds just kept hitting and bouncing off the hull, turret and mantle.

The last stand

The final group of Italian Infantry held out for a couple of turns in the last trench, supported by a Mortar and a HMG, but the British had ended all Italian resistance bar a AT gun and the HMG and more importantly the Radio Operator who was still busy calling for reinforcements oblivious of the carnage going on around him.

Final losses where as follows,

British - 16 Infantry and 1 Bren Carrier
Italian - 32 Infantry, 8 Artillery crew, two guns and one Tankette.

Italian Commander minding his own business when a 25pdr lands next to him.

A tough one to call, result wise and I did give a winning draw to the British on the day however on revision I think the Italians did much better than they did historically and caused a decent number of casualties, plus they put up a damn fine fight, so I have revised the result to a draw.

The draw gives 2 points each giving us a running total, after 4 games as British 11 points and 5 points to the Italians.

Game 5 coming up soon when the British will be trying to push deeper into the Italian Forts.

Growing Up With Shonen Jump

They say that every generation has a magazine that defines them: Mad, Fangoria, Playboy, National Lampoon, Rolling Stone, Nintendo Power. At the time, such magazines were just another exciting and informative distraction to look forward to, but looking back, you realize how much they shaped the thoughts and dreams of your youth. For me, whose fondest memories were defined by Dragon Ball after school, Yu-Gi-Oh duels on the weekends, and sneaking Bleach manga in-between classes, that magazine was Shonen Jump.


Now, just to clarify, when I say, Shonen Jump, I don't speak of the original Japanese weekly that's been in publication since 1968, but of the monthly American adaptation that launched in 2002 and ended in 2012. For many kids born in the early 90's our gateway into the world of anime was through the Saturday morning cartoon line-up: Pokemon, Digimon, and a little later, Yu-Gi-Oh, as well the evenings on Cartoon Network with Dragon Ball Z, Yu Yu Hakusho, and Rurouni Kenshin. Out of all of these stories, only Yu-Gi-Oh kept a sustained hold on me, due to my interest in the trading card game, and many exclusive rare cards were included with Jump magazine. My very first copy of Jump included the Trap Card "Embodiment of Aphosis", which was later stolen, but I at least still had the magazine to read, and what a magazine it was.

Initially, my brothers and I only begged our parents to buy Jump to get the next rare card. We were like aficionados of Playboy who saw only the centerfold, but once the shock of a naked woman fades, you start to read the articles. I naturally only read the Yu-Gi-Oh manga, which told a more uncut story than the sanitized version we got from 4Kids, but from there, I began to read some of the other manga that also had appearances on 4Kids, like One Piece and Shaman King. Then when Naruto and Bleach went on Cartoon Network, I found myself searching past Jump issues for any missed chapters. I read so much Jump in those days, that nearly all of my early manga purchases were based on what I read in the magazine. I even pushed myself to read stranger manga like D-Gray Man, Black Cat, Gin-Tama, and Claymore, based on their Jump debut specials. Not to mention Death Note, which while being very dark for my age, was still extremely popular for debates around the middle school playground.

While Jump did a rather short run in print, I think that the impact it had on the otaku community is not to be understated. Drawing them in with trading cards and the hottest anime, Jump introduced a new generation of otaku to manga, one of Japan's highest literary arts. Manga translations, of course, existed before Jump's launch, but they could be a hard sell, especially to young people. They were black and white, not splashing with color like American comics, and had to be read from right-to-left, as opposed to left-to-right. Of course, the strength of a manga belongs to the artist alone, but Jump was a cheap way for curious readers to take a dip into the pool. This popularity was also helped by the fact that the magazine printed one of the most accessible genres in manga, one which had palpable parallels to the superhero comics of Marvel and DC. Jump came right at the perfect time, when young otaku were starting to grow out of Pokemon and Digimon, and in need of stories more mature and action-packed. The time was ripe for shonen's "The Big Three": Naruto, One Piece, and Bleach, to take command of the anime scene, which in turn reverberated to sales of their respective manga. Millions of volumes were sold. Jump was the lifeline that kept many of us in the world of anime and manga through our adolescence, and our springboard into more diverse and challenging stories.

Of course, every thick issue of Jump didn't thrive on manga alone. The front covers were always exciting and colorful, commonly with an image of Goku, Yugi, or Naruto. The introductory and ending color pages had the latest news on upcoming manga, anime, and merchandise. There were exclusive interviews with creators and fans, and a small Japanese vocabulary lesson each issue. There were also useful tips and strategies included with each rare card, and articles exploring the themes of particular manga, my favorite was their commemorative issue on Dragon Ball. Yet with the rise of online manga translations, it only seemed inevitable that Jump, like so many other magazines, would also have to go digital. This was probably their smartest decision business-wise, but it's also a sad thing. There was something about the freshly printed paper, flipping through the new manga, and claiming that shiny new card which doesn't quite translate in today's digital world. It was an exciting ride, however brief, and I never forgot one thing: that true ninja, true soul reapers, true pirates, true duelists, true spirit detectives, true shamans, true rurouni, and true super saiyans always read manga from right to left.

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3. CPMlink: CPMlink is one of the most legit URL shortener sites.You can sign up for free.It works like other shortener sites.You just have to shorten your link and paste that link into the internet.When someone will click on your link.
   You will get some amount of that click.It pays around $5 for every 1000 views.They offer 10% commission as the referral program.You can withdraw your amount when it reaches $5.The payment is then sent to your PayPal, Payza or Skrill account daily after requesting it.
   
   • The payout for 1000 views-$5
   • Minimum payout-$5
   • Referral commission-10%
   • Payment methods-Paypal, Payza, and Skrill
   • Payment time-daily
   
   
4. Adf.ly: Adf.ly is the oldest and one of the most trusted URL Shortener Service for making money by shrinking your links. Adf.ly provides you an opportunity to earn up to $5 per 1000 views. However, the earnings depend upon the demographics of users who go on to click the shortened link by Adf.ly.
   It offers a very comprehensive reporting system for tracking the performance of your each shortened URL. The minimum payout is kept low, and it is $5. It pays on 10th of every month. You can receive your earnings via PayPal, Payza, or AlertPay. Adf.ly also runs a referral program wherein you can earn a flat 20% commission for each referral for a lifetime.
   
5. LINK.TL: LINK.TL is one of the best and highest URL shortener website.It pays up to $16 for every 1000 views.You just have to sign up for free.You can earn by shortening your long URL into short and you can paste that URL into your website, blogs or social media networking sites, like facebook, twitter, and google plus etc.
   One of the best thing about this site is its referral system.They offer 10% referral commission.You can withdraw your amount when it reaches $5.
   
   • Payout for 1000 views-$16
   • Minimum payout-$5
   • Referral commission-10%
   • Payout methods-Paypal, Payza, and Skrill
   • Payment time-daily basis
   
   
6. Clk.sh: Clk.sh is a newly launched trusted link shortener network, it is a sister site of shrinkearn.com. I like ClkSh because it accepts multiple views from same visitors. If any one searching for Top and best url shortener service then i recommend this url shortener to our users. Clk.sh accepts advertisers and publishers from all over the world. It offers an opportunity to all its publishers to earn money and advertisers will get their targeted audience for cheapest rate. While writing ClkSh was offering up to $8 per 1000 visits and its minimum cpm rate is $1.4. Like Shrinkearn, Shorte.st url shorteners Clk.sh also offers some best features to all its users, including Good customer support, multiple views counting, decent cpm rates, good referral rate, multiple tools, quick payments etc. ClkSh offers 30% referral commission to its publishers. It uses 6 payment methods to all its users.
   • Payout for 1000 Views: Upto $8
   • Minimum Withdrawal: $5
   • Referral Commission: 30%
   • Payment Methods: PayPal, Payza, Skrill etc.
   • Payment Time: Daily
   
   
7. Linkbucks: Linkbucks is another best and one of the most popular sites for shortening URLs and earning money. It boasts of high Google Page Rank as well as very high Alexa rankings. Linkbucks is paying $0.5 to $7 per 1000 views, and it depends on country to country.
   The minimum payout is $10, and payment method is PayPal. It also provides the opportunity of referral earnings wherein you can earn 20% commission for a lifetime. Linkbucks runs advertising programs as well.
   
   • The payout for 1000 views-$3-9
   • Minimum payout-$10
   • Referral commission-20%
   • Payment options-PayPal,Payza,and Payoneer
   • Payment-on the daily basis
   
   

A New Hairstyle

Hey everyone!

So, after sooo many months of not cutting my hair, I finally updated it. And I sort of love it, so I wanted to share it with you guys. Of course, it's not what I asked for, but it never seems to be when I go get my hair done. I even brought pictures this time, but she did everything opposite of what I showed her.

But I guess it's okay, because it turned out nice, and the woman cutting my hair was very friendly. Even if she told me my hair would look funny if I got my bangs cut at an angle like I wanted them, so she cut them straight across. (I don't really like straight bangs on myself, ha. I think I look a little dorky in it, which makes me jealous of all the beautiful ladies that can pull them off!)

Although, straight bangs are nice for hiding my forehead! I think it flatters my face to hide my forehead. It makes it look like a better shape. What do you think? Here's a comparison:

Of course, the first picture was from a little after Christmas, but that's basically still how my hair looked a few days ago. Just longer. And I got about 3 (or maybe a little more) inches taken off the length. It was a very difficult thing to allow the woman to do. I've been trying to grow my hair out for so long, that even though it was ridiculously long, I still felt the compulsive need to grow it out even more.

But she promised me it would be much healthier if I cut off that much, so I agreed to it. I think it's time to take better care of my hair and not allow to get too dry, so I don't have to take off so much next time!

(Also, I know it looks like it, but the color isn't different! Just the lighting.)

A few more pictures too!

Wow, it feels so much nicer. And my profile looks much better with the bangs. Ha! Can you tell I'm really happy? I just really love bangs.

I also have a new favorite hairstyle I've fallen in love with recently! But I'll share that with you next time.

What's your opinion on bangs? Straight, side swept, or no bangs? Let me know in the comments!

Small-game Fallacies

A small-game fallacy occurs when game theorists, economists, or others trying to apply game-theoretic or microeconomic techniques to real-world problems, posit a simple, and thus cognizable, interaction, under a very limited and precise set of rules, whereas real-world analogous situations take place within longer-term and vastly more complicated games with many more players: "the games of life".  Interactions between small games and large games infect most works of game theory, and much of microeconomics, often rendering such analyses useless or worse than useless as a guide for how the "players" will behave in real circumstances. These fallacies tend to be particularly egregious when "economic imperialists" try to apply the techniques of economics to domains beyond the traditional efficient-markets domain of economics, attempting to bring economic theory to bear to describe law, politics, security protocols, or a wide variety of other institutions that behave very differently from efficient markets. However as we shall see, small-game fallacies can sometimes arise even in the analysis of some very market-like institutions, such as "prediction markets."

Most studies in experimental economics suffer from small-game/large-game effects. Unless these experiments are very securely anonymized, in a way the players actually trust, and in a way the players have learned to adapt to, overriding their moral instincts -- an extremely rare circumstance, despite many efforts to achieve this -- large-game effects quickly creep in, rendering the results often very misleading, sometimes practically the opposite of the actual behavior of people in analogous real-life situations. A common example: it may be narrowly rational and in accord with theory to "cheat", "betray", or otherwise play a narrowly selfish game, but if the players may be interacting with each other after the experimenters' game is over, the perceived or actual reputational effects in the larger "games of life", ongoing between the players in subsequent weeks or years, may easily exceed the meager rewards doled out by the experimenters to act selfishly in the small game. Even if the players can somehow be convinced that they will remain complete strangers to each other indefinitely into the future, our moral instincts generally evolved to play larger "games of life", not one-off games, nor anonymous games, nor games with pseudonyms of strictly limited duration, with the result that behaving according to theory must be learned: our default behavior is very different. (This explains, why, for example, economics students typically play in a more narrowly self-interested way, i.e. more according to the simple theories of economics, than other kinds of students).

Small-game/large-game effects are not limited to reputational incentives to play nicer: moral instincts and motivations learned in larger games also include tribal unity against perceived opponents, revenge, implied or actual threats of future coercion, and other effects causing much behavior to be worse than selfish, and these too can spill over between the larger and smaller games (when, for example, teams from rival schools or nations are pitted against each other in economic experiments). Moral instincts, though quite real, should not be construed as necessarily or even usually being actually morally superior to various kinds of learned morals, whether learned in economics class or in the schools of religion or philosophy.

Small-game/large-game problems can also occur in auditing, when audits look at a particular system and fail to take into account interactions that can occur outside their system of financial controls, rendering the net interactions very different from what simply auditing the particular system would suggest. A common fraud is for trades to be made outside the scope of the audit, "off the books", rendering the books themselves very misleading as to the overall net state of affairs.

Similarly, small-game/large-game problems often arise when software or security architects focus on an economics methodology, focusing on the interactions occurring within the defined architecture and failing to properly take into account (often because it is prohibitively difficult to do so) the wide variety of possible acts occurring outside the system and the resulting changes, often radical, to incentives within the system. For example, the incentive compatibility of certain interactions within an architecture can quickly disappear or reverse when opposite trades can be made outside the system (such as hedging or even more-than-offsetting a position that by itself would otherwise create a very different incentive within the system), or when larger political or otherwise coercive motivations and threats occur outside the analyzed incentive system, changing the incentives of players acting within the system in unpredictable ways. Security protocols always consist of at least two layers: a "dry layer" that can be analyzed by the objective mathematics of computer science, and a "wet layer" that consists of the often unpredictable net large-game motivations of the protocols' users.  These should not be confused, nor should the false precision of mathematical economic theories be confused with the objective accuracy of computer science theories, which are based on the mathematics of computer architecture and algorithms and hold regardless of users' incentives and motivations.

A related error is the pure-information fallacy: treating an economic institution purely as an information system, accounting only for market-proximate incentives to contribute information via trading decisions, while neglecting how that market necessarily also changes players' incentives to act outside of that market. For example, a currently popular view of proposition bets, the "prediction markets" view, often treats prop bets or idea futures as purely information-distribution mechanisms, with the only incentives supposed as the benign incentive to profit by adding useful information to the market. This fails to take into account the incentives such markets create to act differently outside the market.  A "prediction market" is always also one that changes incentives outside that market: a prediction market automatically creates parallel incentives to bring about the predicted event. For example a prediction market on a certain person's death is also an assassination market. Which is why a pre-Gulf-War-II DARPA-sponsored experimental "prediction market" included a prop bet on Saddam Hussein's death, but excluded such trading on any other, more politically correct world leaders. A sufficiently large market predicting an individual's death is also, necessarily, an assassination market, and similarly other "prediction" markets are also act markets, changing incentives to act outside that market to bring about the predicted events.