Code 8 (Part 1 and 2) Movie review

 Bored one night when I'd put all the kids to bed on my own and had cleaned the house the night before, I found myself with rare "free" time on my hands long enough to watch a movie. 

And it was so good, I watched the sequel too!

Code 8 is an alternative universe story about if people were super abilities lived around us. In the 30's and 40's they were helpful but when the age of machinery and innovation came, they weren't needed anymore and became hated and feared by the public. 

It centers around an "electric" who's mother is dying and he needs money for the hospital bills to get her well. He meets up with a gang of robbers and works with them to make the money. 

Along the way they are hounded by robot police in giant drones that fly all around the city as well as human cops and detectives. 

I won't spoil the ending in case you've never seen it but it's pretty good and got me interested in watching the most recent sequel which came out. 

It wasn't that good. 

Somehow the main character from the first movie was locked up in jail the whole time (which is not how the last movie ended) and has been released. During which time he meets a young girl with powers that can overthrow the corrupt chief of police and possibly save the supers who are being hunted down and killed secretly from the public's eye. 

Overall, watch the first one and leave it at that. It had a good ending and was never intended to have a sequel until the movie gained traction with fans. 

Delayed....forever.

 After all the hype on my blog and now I find out he had to refund my money back because he raised more than half a million dollars and Paypal won't release it to him all at once to pay for the printing, so its a no go. 

I'm bummed. Eternally bummed. I wanted this to happen. I wanted this fan expansion so bad and now I'm not getting it.

Super bummed. What a bad day. 

What this sign means

 It seems no one in Monroe understands what this sign means. I see people hitting the gas and cutting off those who have the right of way.

It's ridiculous! I don't know which state ranks in who has the worst drivers but I wouldn't be surprised if Louisiana is in the Top 10. 

T.I.M.E. Stories: New Dawn

 I know this board game series is probably dead in the water at this point. But if they ever finish off the Blue Cycle, I have an idea of what they could do for a 3rd arc. Maybe call is the "Yellow" Cycle. 

I have a feeling we are about to see a final showdown with the Elois in the final Blue adventure, so going from there, BOB is back and you're back at fixing the timeline in various stages of history. But the overall arc would have you discover one final Elois plan to disrupt the Time Continuity once in for all by attempting to reset all time with a device the agency must find and stop before all time is lost. 

It would have them traveling through the following timelines in order to complete there mission:

Prehistoric: Play as cavemen, avoiding dinosaurs, creating inventions and furthering along mankind's ability to survive. 

Knights of the Round Table: Welcome to the Alternative Timeline to King Author's world, where battling dragons, witches and other beast is a possibility. In line with the other 2 cycles this would be the only AT storyline in the 3rd season

Wild West: Survive in a small dusty town in the wild west where you can locate gold mines and old dig areas that continue to shape the landscape and reveal even bigger mysteries than ever before. But watch out! There's a gang out to get you if they encounter you between locations. Also, this expansion would have an Easter Egg of the same picture players save in the White Cycle for continuity purposes. (spoiler free post, so that's all I'm going to say!)

Jack the Ripper: The Ripper is really an Elois who gives your first clue in their overall plan to overthrow the timeline. But watch out! If you jump into the actual body of who the Ripper secretly is, your new mission is to go against your team and ensure they fail. The scenario would have different endings where you could be a double agent from that point forward.

 Roanoke: You're transported to the legendary colony from 1590 where you discover another sinister plot by the Elois that will wipe out the entire colony, including you! This will also be the first time players will be notified of a traitor in their midst (if Jack the Ripper outcome was played out in the last game) 

Across Time: This would serve as a "swan song" for TIME Stories as players will revisit locations from the first 2 cycles, jumping from one scenario to the next and even running into themselves at times. The Elois will finally be defeated and the Agency will get its "win"

(Sigh)

But this will never happen because it looks like no one's interested in the series continuing in the first place, so it's just a dream for me. 

Have a good weekend folks!

The Zelian Purifier

 Abilities: When getting ship upgrades immediately build one at -2 cost. Exhaust planets to cast votes.

Flagship: +1 in combat when next to asteroid field. 

And finally, the last race we're going to talk about in the fan expansion is this one. Interesting the most is that incentive to research ship upgrades and get those ships out at the same time. Other than that, I'm not sure if I'm so wild about the rest of the planets. 

That being said, it certainly isn't the worst race I've seen. And I would play with this race than half of the others in the expansion if just for the ship upgrade bonus. 

Ok folks, that's all for now. Look forward to my review on YouTube later this summer when (and if) it comes in!

The Veldyr Sovereignty

 Abilities: You have 4 unique promissory notes to give out that allow players an extra planet resource or influence and in exchange you get one commodity or convert one to a trade each phase. 

Flagship: Roll +1 die each round that's completed. 

I like the idea that they tried to come up with a race for promissory notes but there's just one problem...people have to accept them first. And knowing what they'd know about this race, I can't think of many people who would accept these so their ability is really lame. 

However, that flagship....wow. Maybe that's why their ability is so lame. It's really the only saving grace this race has for someone playing with them. Even I'd take a chance playing with them to have that type of Flagship on my side!

The Vaylerian Scourge

 Abilities and Flagship: Players can't retreat unless they give you a trade good and if your flagship is with you, you can deny them retreating to one of the connecting tiles. They can also ready a planet by discarding an action card. 

This race scares me more than most of the ones on this list. I'm King of the Retreat. And against this race, I'd be a dead duck. 

I also love how action cards (which can be useless a lot of the time) serve an extra purpose with this race allowing them to ready planets. A really cool idea I would love to employ. 

The Vaden Banking Clans

 Abilities: Whenever anyone uses your 2nd ability of the strategy card, get one of their icon tokens. Cash is in for the exact ship they loose in battle later on in the game. Or at the begining or a phase, they pay you 1 trade to get it back. 

Flagship: If you hit during bombardment, gain one trade. 

They tried to give us another trading species but failed on this one I think. How often will ships be destroyed by all players? Some of these tokens you may never cash in on and no ones going to worry about giving you a trade to get it back. 

This race doesn't appear to be that much of a threat at all. I think the creators swung and missed on this race. On paper, it sounds good but the practicality of everything going as planned for your race to benefit from such a power seems unlikely in my opinion. 

I guess I won't know until I see them in action. 

The Tnelis Syndicate

 

Abilities: Grab 2 secret missions and keep one. Can complete 3 secret missions. Even if ships get destroyed in combat you can still invade with ground forces afterwards. 

Flagship: One ship from opponent rolls one less die (your choice)

Nice. I wish you could complete 4 secret missions, which would be double the normal player but I like the idea of a spy agency faction you get to play with. Some of the powers would be interesting to play with here. I like that you can still go after the planet even if your ship is destroyed. A strategy I would try is just send a carrier packed with mechs and troops to take a planet someone controls. 

Depending on how you play with them, they could be one of the biggest threats in the game. 

Roh'Dhna Mechatronics

 Abilities: Replace a space dock with a War Sun for 6 resources. Exchange ships for resource cost -1

Flagship: Spend 4 resources and convert non-fighter ship to flagship

Uh.....wow. Super powerful and I guarantee will be the most popular race in this expansion to my group. Everyone loves a War Sun. These folks may be TOO powerful, but I'll see for myself when we play the game. 

Sure, I think they have an awesome ability too and would love to have them in a game just so everyone else couldn't. I wouldn't use them the way others would too which would piss them off. But whoever gets it will surely be the envy of every other player in my game group.  

The Zealots of Rhodun

 Abilities: Vote after the speaker. Use planet technology to ignore 2 pre-requisites to tech and gain a commodity. 

Flagship: +1 per tech upgrade your opponent owns. 

I'm guessing for the flagship that's "ship" upgrade or else it would be too powerful. I don't care about the voting thing, that seems a little weak and tacked on to a race that doesn't appear to be political at all. But the ignore 2 prerequisites for tech is interesting. I rarely use planets for that reason yet with this species I would. 

The Olradin League

 Abilities: Get power of 3 starting "policy cards"

Flagship: +1 to all ships which move with you. 

I love speed but the flagship doesn't sell me on this race. The policy card powers are nice but its purely based on luck of the draw. So it could be awesome or suck. Not sure how I feel about this race with that being said. 

It's not my least favorite but it is in the bottom tier of races for me because of my concerns. 

The Nokar Sellships

 Abilities: Start with 4 extra Destroyers that don't count against what you can produce per round, each destroyer is +1 in combat. 

Flagship: +1 for every 2 destroyers you control

Everyone loves warrior races it seems. The only difference between this and the other 12 I've seen so far is the specialty on Destroyers. I wish they'd come up with more tech and political races to play with but I guess the average fan doesn't care for those too much. 

There's another ability they have which can give 3 ships to someone at any time but with zero in return. I guess its there to make agreements and deals with other who made need help in battle. But I don't really see that being appealing to my gameplay. 

Have a good weekend everyone!

The Nivyn Star Kings

Abilities: Ignore Rifts and Nebula effects. "Wound" tokens create areas that are both rifts and nebulas 

Flagship: Instead of destroying a unit, remove it from the board

A space-faring race is something we haven't seen yet in this expansion so it's nice to see "wound" tokens making a big difference in where they're placed. You can really make opponents think twice before entering in your regions with them. It's about the only exciting thing about this race I can see since the Flagship ability only screws someone if they had a secret objective to take out one of your ships in combat. 

Other than that, I consider this a low-tier species. 

The Myko-Mentori

 Abilities: Gain commodity after combat or convert it to trade after battle. Value or commodities increase with each space dock built, 4 Omen dice can be rolled to replace one dice roll in battle. 

Flagship: Gain one commodity each time you destroy a ship in combat

An interesting mix of war and trade here. I like how you can manipulate commodities during the game and I believe the Omen dice are 4 generic 10 sided dice you place with the race. 

If it weren't for the trading aspect I would've said this is a boring race but with that element thrown in, it would be interesting to see the pathways to victory pursued while playing this species. 

The Glimmer of Mortheus

 Abilities: During battle use influence to build ships (while you're the defender) 

Flagship: When exploring planet place Dark Token in area. 

Interesting. Nice defensive measures, which I would gladly take advantage of but the ability to generate dark tokens would also allow you to study them in the next phase. Not the best race but one that would interest me in testing out to see how that would play out. 

The Mirveda Protectorate

 Abilities: Unlimited PDS cannons on planet. Fighters convert to troopers during invasion. 

Flagship: Produce one fighter each round of combat. 

Yuck! What were they thinking creating a race like this? No one cares about having multiple PDS cannons on a planet. Sure there's an advantage but in my opinion, not much. And where having fighters convert to troopers is awesome, fighters are the exact things you destroy in combat during a battle because they're so weak. 

This one looks like a hard sell for me and my group but if I get it, I'll try my best to discover a path to victory. 

The Li-Zho Dynasty

 Abilities: Lay out "trap" tokens on places you control. 

Flagship: Can only be destroyed by actual hit. (no action cards)

I can't find anywhere what the trap tokens mean. Looking at the tokens themselves, I can guess they are a mixture of both bad and good but am unable to find a reference sheet in the file for them. So at this moment I can't comment too much on this race. 

The Lanfir Remnants

 Abilities: Cannot get relics. Explore 3 planets you control instead. Use shards to sub in for tech requirements. When winning in combat explore one of your planets again. 

Flagship: End of turn, explore one planet you control. 

An interesting concept about exploring but one I ultimately find useless if you can't gain relics. Using shards for tech upgrades is interesting though. Theoretically you could gain certain tech faster than other but then again, that never interested me that much in the first place. 

Though I love exploration races, this one isn't for me. 

The L'Tokk Khrask

 Abilities: Votes are counted with resources not influence on the planets you control. +1 to resources on planets you control, during bombardment instead of applying hits, add more troopers to battle. 

Flagship: During battle 2 non-fighter ships are given Sustain Damage ability

Overall this race doesn't appear that interesting though to be honest there are a few things here I like. +1 on planet resources is great. You can build a lot that way. Also you'd be covered in battle with your flagship making it harder to be defeated. 

Again, overall I'm not too impressed with them. But I don't doubt anyone would be happy to have them if given in random selection. 

The Kyro Sodality

 Abilities: When taking 3 action, gain 2 troops and place them anywhere you control. During combat, attack them in ground battle before they invade (once)

Flagship: Produce one troop on planet your at (if you control it) 

Another trooper based race and the first I've seen in this expansion so far. The only thing I find interesting with them is the ability to battle on the ground before an invasion. Which means, anyone who tries to take planets from you better come well prepared with ground troops. I like that. 

And even though this wouldn't be a race I'd like to play with, I can certainly lean in on that strategy to win. 

The Kortali Tribunal

 Abilities: When taking 6 action, take the primary instead of the secondary. During invasion you're leading, assign one hit and one army before invasion. 

Flagship: After battle, damage your ship to get one command token. 

Oooooooh....I love this one too. One of my favorite strategy cards is 6. With this race, I don't have to worry about grabbing it and could still use it each round (because 6 is ALWAYS chosen by someone in our games) Plus an extra command token for damaging my own flagship which will repair end of the round? YEP! I'm all in on this one!

The Monks of Kolume

 Abilities: Space cannons and 3 non-fighter ships have Space Cannon tech and can fire once per round when it isn't your turn. Never re-distribute your command tokens but gain 1 when you pass. Spend 1 command token as an tech upgrade action.

Flagship: Hits from space cannon action cannot be canceled. 

The flagship and most of the abilities are ho-hum. Space Cannon race. Got it. Not interested. BUT then you talk about the action where they can receive tech upgrades as actions....I'm in. We haven't reviewed a "tech" savvy race yet and this one is excellent. Currently my #1 as I run down all the species for you here. 

That's it for this week but I'll be back next week with plenty more folks, stay tuned! 

The Kollecc Society

 

Special Ability: When producing units, keep 2 on your player board and distribute them out at any time to a planet you control. Look at top of all exploration decks and relic deck at the beginning of your turn. 

Flagship: When retreating "capture" your fleet. 

Interesting race. Knowing what planets to hit first and get the max benefit from them appeals to me. And I really like "capturing" your pieces and laying them out anywhere on the board you control. Since I'm the only one I've ever seen retreat in this game, this race would really only benefit me, but I believe others in my gam group would love to have some of these special abilities in the game as well and would play as them if given the opportunity. 

Berserkers of Kjalengard

 Special Abilities: Place "glory" token on battlefield after win and research one ship upgrade, redeploy up to 4 fighter/army units per glory token on board when you "pass" Battles with a glory token on it where a "10" is rolled get +1 hit on opponents

Flagship: After 1st round, return 2 destroyed units back on the board

Warrior race. Love the idea of glory tokens and the power they bring you, but how many there are and once deployed do they stay there forever? Those are questions I'm still looking at. You do have to spend a strategy token when upgrading a ship but still, it's a pretty good ability. Another one my gaming group will go ga-ga for while myself will just make do with what I have if ever put in the position to play as them.

The Augurs of Ilyxum

Special Ability: Look at the next objective card that will be revealed in the next round. 

Flagship: Roll Extra die equal to the number of Secret Objectives completed. 

The flagship one is good. I'd take advantage of that a lot. And the actual rule for their ability is ANY objective card but you'd most likely want to take a gander at the upcoming one and have the advantage of achieving it before anyone else. 

I've talked to a few of my friends about this race and we all agree, its a pretty cool concept. Giving someone inside information each round makes the game that much more interesting. As you're making moves and EVERYONE is watching. You can also "sell" your information to others at a cost too I'd imagine. 

The possibilities of playing with this species is endless. 
 

The Gledge Union

 Special Ability: Place "core tokens" on certain planets to give the 2 production (not Mecatol Rex) Gain 1 trade good when exploring planets instead of the card reward. 

Flagship: +1 dice rolled for each mech in or next to that system.

WOW. This is a good explorer race! Gaining a trade instead of a card you really don't want/need would be great. The Core tokens give the planet some value though the "influence" goes to zero. I wouldn't mind having this race in the game. And its surely a "mech" race too. The extra dice would be great to have in combat. 

Very well rounded race!

The Ghoti Wayfarers

 Special and Flagship Ability: You don't have a "home planet" your Flagship is your home planet and the place you can do "production" on wherever its located on the board. 

What this means is NO ONE can ever stop you from obtaining Objectives in the game. SUPER helpful for me because everyone's strategy lately to stop me has been to go after my home planet and prevent me from scoring any objectives. 

This would make me upstoppable and I think I'd win every time. Definitely one that would be overlooked by others but not me. Perfect for my gameplay.  

The Ghemina Raiders

Special Abilities: Get 2 Flasgships and 2 Heroes. Get +2 in combat if only 2 vessels in your fleet. 

Flagship: If structure destroyed in same system as flagship, gain 1 trade good. 

What a boring Flagship ability. Really Worthless. But I guess it's to offset the super powerful "rule of two" they have for combat. And since heroes are some of the strongest actions on them, I guess that's pretty good too. 

I think this is one I could work well with since I rarely carry large fleets on my own. I'm wondering if the same can be said of other species from people who play the game. For example, whoever designed this race, has a similar style to mine and made a race that fits that gamestyle. 

Either way, all of these races are impressive.  
 

The Free Systems Compact

 Special Ability: Use one undiscovered planets resources each phase. Each action produce up to 2 ships on any planet you control. 

Flagship: +1 for battle within a planet with a single trait.

This is another neat mix up for what I would consider a "warrior" race. Another one that my gaming group is going to enjoy but I'm lukewarm over. Producing ships everywhere is nice sure, but it seems to me you'll also need to be expanding you fleet every phase in order to reap the benefit of their abilities. 

But I'm sure the rest of my group won't see it like that at all. 

The Florzen Profiteers

 Special Ability: Remove 2 fighters from your fleet and allow another player in combat to receive those fighters. When getting relics, get 2 cards and choose one. When exploring planets choose which colors you want them to be. 

Flagship: Other players are unable to play action cards against you in combat. 

Another powerful race in my opinion. The ability to choose which cards you get during an explore action and which relic can be a game changer. Not being able to play action cards against their flagship in battle is amazing. 

This is another race myself and everyone else would love to play as. Pretty powerful abilities in this one as well.  

The Edyn Mandate

 

Special Ability: As an action each "Action Phase" you may resolve a primary objective and a secondary objective of a lesser value. You can also predict the outcome of a vote and win a command token if correct. 

Flagship: +1 to battle for each law  in effect. 

I think this may be the most powerful race I've spoken about yet. The ability to take 2 Primary Strategy Actions in one phase is epic. I also like the Flagship getting stronger with each law that is elected. I know for a fact people will fight over this one if given the chance to choose. I won't lie, that's me included!

Super good race!

The Dih-Mohn Flotilla

 Special Ability: They get to explore one planet next to a tile they've just explored that turn. Destroyers count for 1/2 a ship in armada. 

Flagship: When moved, produce ships with a cost of 4 or less.

This is going to be a wildly popular race for my group. With lower Destroyer counts and the ability to multiply their armada on the go, this race is geared to having the biggest fleet in the game. 

I'm not much of a warrior race guy and building an army isn't my thing, but I can see the advances they've set forth here. The thing about gathering extra exploration cards on a turn is interesting in that you'd probably find more artifacts in the game than usual. (like 2 or 3) 

I'm guessing the strategy here would be to put as many token in your fleet supply so that your army can continue to grow. And interesting species to be sure. 

Have a good weekend folks! 

The Savages of Cymiae

Special Ability: Whenever they draw action cards, they may draw from the discard pile. 

Flagship: When they win a battle they take one of their opponents action cards. 

This was one of the first races I read about when I first discovered news of the game. An "action card" race that's very interesting and I think would be very popular with my group. The only thing about drawing from the discard pile for them is they purge the card from the game afterwards so as not to pick the same one over and over again.

I love that. With so many great action cards out there their power would grow over time but not be too powerful because by then (probably) the game would end. Another interesting species created by this group.  

The Cheiran Hordes

 Special Abilities: You start with 2 extra dreadnaughts you can produce for free. When you win in a defensive battle you can produce one non-fighter unit and mechs can count as "structures" to achieve objectives in the game. 

I feel that this is a species (that looks awesome by the way) was tinkered with a lot until someone finally said "Ok, I think that's enough things to add to this race now, we can stop."

It's a hodge-podge list of abilities that aren't bad but nothing to make them stand out in any one category when you look at them as a whole. 

Flagship: Rolls an additional die if next to or on one of your structures. 

Interesting, this is a "defensive" powered race? I'm not sure but it seems that may be what they're trying to define this species as but it's still a little unclear. 

HOWEVER, this race is right up my alley! I hardly ever start a battle and am usually the defender in the ones I am. This race would benefit my style of play over others. And though it's not the best race I've discussed so far, it's certainly one I could work with. 

The Celdauri Trade Confederation

 Special Ability: Space Docks receive anti-fire barrage even from one space away. 

Flagship: Can use "production" through another players "captured" Space dock. 

And here we have a "space dock" race. Anti-fire barrage is interesting. It'll surely help you in guarding the planets you feel are most important. The ability to produce on someone else's space dock is interesting too yet I'm not sure how often that would happen in an actual game. 

That being said, this is one that I wouldn't want to play with. I feel there's not enough there to make it worth my while. Of course if randomly selected, I would try my best and I love how someone attempted to make space docks more relative to a race but this species doesn't sound like its for me. 

See you with another later today! 

The Bentor Conglomerate

 Special and Flagship Ability: Every time you explore a planet gain one commodity. And when discover you first Green/Red/Blue/Black fragment your flagship becomes more powerful. 

This is VERY interesting! An explorer based race that lets you stock up on commodities. Making "5" a great action to get after a while because you stand to get a lot of trade if next to other players. BUT searching for one of each shard in order to make your flagship more powerful?

That's what makes things interesting to me. 

Amazing that fans were this insightful when coming up with unique never before seen abilities like this. Yet another I'm interested in trying out. 

See you tomorrow with more folks!

The Shipwrights of Axis

 Special Abilities: They can spend their commodities to pay for cards within a private deck called "Axis cards" which carry various special one time abilities in the game. 

It's interesting because they don't need to trade with anyone and can also receive specific benefits related to their goals. 

Flagship Ability: When they sustain damage they can repair another ship within that zone. 

Another interesting ability in that you can repair a dreadnaught during the battle which may lead to a much needed victory in close battles. 

Nothing too powerful here but enough to make them an interesting species to play. 

I'll be back with more later today! 

Discordant Stars

 The order for this fan-made expansion has been put in but won't be available to me until later this summer. But until then, I thought I'd break down each new species and give my thoughts on each one. 

Yeah I know what you're thinking. Months or TI4 related posts???

I agree. Awesomesauce. 

The Final Blog Post

 Well folks, it's been a good run. I opened this blog years ago while blogs were going out of style. While people moved on the MySpace and later to Facebook, I remained faithful in the desolate land of Blogs. 

But the time has finally come to say goodbye to the blog! I've had a great time over the years having my own little space to post my random thoughts. And to the few who've faithfully been checking my posts every day, I thank you. 

Life's getting busier and I don't really have the time to keep up with this so I'm letting this be my final post and move on. I just want to say to all of you before I leave that it's the first of month and I'll see you tomorrow with another post.