Mean green fighting machine ready for action

The roll-out of interesting aliens continues at Fantasy Flight Games, where the recent debut of Cudgel (see note below) was followed by the first appearance of the new, improved Macron.

Now, normally, "Macron" and "interesting" aren't often found in the same sentence, but this is not your old-school Big Green Dude. No, this is Macron Mark II, brother, and he's here to turn your puny skeleton into pulp. And to take more cards, too: check out the one very key change to Big Mac's power.

(Fun note for CE Online players who have been around for a while: remember GodOfAtheism ... ?)

Cudgel strikes a blow for homebrews everywhere

Fantasy Flight Games recently unveiled the new Cudgel alien for the upcoming Cosmic Encounter boardgame, making it the first true homebrewed alien creation to be featured as part of the new game. You can check out what Cudgel is all about right here.

A number of aliens have been featured at FFG.com as the build-up to the new edition of CE continues, but none have been what I would consider true homebrews. Tripler will be new to many players, but he's been played about 25,000 times at Cosmic Encounter Online. Human is new, too, but I never published the idea anywhere for anyone else to see (not to mention that the original idea was later modified), so no one ever got a chance to play it for themselves. Remora is new, but I don't think CE designer Kevin Wilson would argue too hard that his alien creation would qualify as a homebrew.

So congratulations to Cudgel and creator Ken Hubbard. It's no longer a homebrew; it's an official alien!

Blogmic, meet Blogger. Blogger, Blogmic

After 30 months, 399 posts**, roughly 10,000 tries at getting standings to look good in league updates, and more than a few headaches, Blogmic Encounter has left TypePad for the greener (and free-er) pastures of Blogger.

All interested parties should update their bookmarks with the URL you see above. Also, anyone picking up any sort of RSS feed from the TypePad address will need to burn a new feed (sorry about that). The TypePad site — which is located here — will remain open for a few days, although it will not be updated.

And, best of all, once all the code is in place, Blogmic will be integrated into the front page of the new Cosmic Encounter Online portal! Can I get a "w00t!"?

**That's right, 399. I even had a "400th post!" idea for the next one, too ...

New alien previews aplenty at FFG.com

You can't swing a dead cat over at Fantasy Flight Games without hitting a new alien preview for the upcoming release of the new Cosmic Encounter boardgame.

A great mix of aliens has been featured so far: classic Eon era, online-only, new creations, and even well-known homebrews have all been put under the spotlight. A complete listing, with links, is over there on your right. No, your other right.

GeorgeOTC schools pretenders, claims league title

I could have sworn I followed up on this ... but I guess not.

Anyway, GeorgeOTC, congratulations on winning the recent Double Trouble League at Cosmic Encounter Online. And by "recent," I mean, "It ended in October."

For the record, the finalists who were handed a big serving of beat-down were AP, Conchad, and Sarry. Full details here.

Dune strategy, faction by faction

Note: This post is a consolidated listing of what was originally a series of posts in the previous version of this blog.

+++++

The following series of strategy articles are well worth a look for fans of the Dune boardgame. They are especially good for newcomers to the game, who often miss out on many of the subtleties each faction brings to the table.

1. Atreides
2. Bene Gesserit
3. Emperor
4. Fremen
5. Guild
6. Harkonnen

NEW COSMIC ENCOUNTER RULEBOOK IS LIVE!

Those tricksters at Fantasy Flight Games tried to get one by us by announcing the news on the afternoon of the day before Thanksgiving, but, by all that is holy in the cosmos, we are too quick for them.

Here's the scoop: the complete rulebook for the new edition of Cosmic Encounter is now available for download!

Hoody-hoo!

Jump back! New FFG.com is all up in your grill!

Holy mother of ... !

Fantasy Flight Games just improved its web presence from Old School Circa 1999 to Mega-Cool Eye Candy.

Words alone do not do it justice; check it out for yourself.

Zombie. Cosmic Encounter. I get it!

Okay, now here's a real zombie who enjoys Cosmic Encounter.

The image above is gleefully reproduced from Walking Dead #53, published by Image Comics. If you can't quite make out what all the fuss is about, click on the image for a bigger version.

Walking Dead is actually a pretty entertaining read. Head on over to the Image site and check it out.