So, with the release of the new Fortnite season. I figured it was a long time coming to properly go over fortnite scaling. I am aware that Fortnite scaling is a meme and that people know it's a meme. But there is still a large portion who isn't aware that it's a meme and believes it to be legitimate. This post is meant for those people, so they can know where Fortnite lies without memes.
I'll most likely keep updating this post as more information is released, but for now.
Not everyone is OuteBoundless, not even close
The loopers (which is like 90% of the verse) are town level with rela to ftl speeds via dodging laser. (This appies to most STW characters as well, but it's important to note STW is a separate canon.)
The loop drains powers and power level and places everyone at an equal level, so any character within the loop is town level as that is the strongest feat that exists on the loop.
Now, for the characters who scale higher than town, those do scale pretty high and some do reach OuteBoundless.
Characters who are important to the lore avoid this issue by having feats outside the loop, thus not under the power drain
People like Foundation physically prevented the Zero Point from collapsing multiple times. The Zero Point upscales a combined Marvel DC cosmology. He also called Superman insignificant and bodied Lex and BWL, but that pales to the cosmology thing.
Members of the Seven should be somewhat comparable to Foundation, Imagined defeated Captain Marvel without trying and scale to people like Storm and Thor. They should also scale to Marvel and DC Heralds in terms of speed, thus reaching MFTL to Imm, especially Foundation.
A casual blast from Geno one shot a stronger Hulk Buster and was directly stated to be comparable to Thanos by Tony. Geno should also without a doubt scale to Foundation
Cube Queen dubiously could scale to Foundation, but as destroyed universes before, making her at least Uni. In a scrapped Cutscene, the Zero Point bodied her whole army, further supporting she most likely doesn't scale to Foundation.
Ice King is wierd, his best feat is making a ice moon, but that moon is so cold it's potentially fatal to people like Thor and Dr. Doom.
The top tier IO people, such as Slone and Gunnar, Agent Jones as well are tricky to pin down. They are confirmed to be below Foundation, but can somewhat keep up with other members of the Seven with their tech. Gunnar even survived a hit from Doom. Although physically without their tech, they should be closer to the Loopers at around town. Jones was portrayed as pretty much even with Spider-Man which makes him surviving blows from Foundation most likely an outlier, although you can 100% argue it. Again they are the trickiest to pin down.
Herald is wierd, some people think she's Outer. But she actually isn't even close. She took out the Seven via Hax, not stats and didn't even damage the Zero Point with her most powerful move, which is a suicide move. Her best feat is beating all Loopers and destroying the Fortnite Island.
Stellan as a star level statement to his gear
The Devourer and Mecha Team Leader both upscale the regular members of the Seven, they potentially scale to the Zero Point as well.
The Nothing is 100% gearing up to be on the same level, if not even above Foundation and Geno. But we lack any information on him for the moment to definitely say.
Every characters not mentioned here is a Looper and thus Town FTL... yes this does mean crossover characters like Fortnite Goku are just Town.
So while yes, Fortnite does have some ridiculously strong characters, it is far from being the whole verse
Hope this helps!

To start off, I’m not entirely sure if this should be Hobby History or drama. I’m gonna need to give a lot of context to really explain the drama, and the drama is admittedly relatively minor. Apologies if this is an issue. I’m going to summarize the lore entries I link but I would strongly advise readers to read them both to get a better understanding but also because I just think they are some really enjoyable writing.
As the title says, this post is about the video game franchise Destiny developed by Bungie, best known as the original developers of another sci-fi FPS franchise, Halo. Bungie has always been known for their excellent talent at making fundamentally fun to play FPS games and Destiny is no exception, but this isn’t about gameplay, but instead about the story and universe of the game, specifically a bit of a conflict regarding specific characters and forces.
The Premise of the Game
Sometime in the not-so-distant future a mysterious and colossal white orb enters our solar system. Humanity dubs it The Traveler, and it’s arrival heralds an unprecedented Golden Age of peace and prosperity that lasts for centuries. However, the Traveler has enemies, a force identified only as Darkness, and those that serve it, that have pursued it across the stars and eventually arrive in Sol, bringing about the Collapse. Humanity is devastated and The Traveler is wounded. In its last conscious moments, it creates an army of small drones called Ghosts, each capable of selecting a deceased person and resurrecting them as a warrior armed with powerful abilities born of the Light. These warriors would eventually come to be known as Guardians, and with their help humanity barely survives the coming centuries and by the time of the game there is only a single safe city left on Earth.
If you’re thinking that all sounds a little vague well, you’re not alone and unfortunately there wasn’t a lot of elaboration to be found in the original version of the first Destiny. And of all the questions people asked, one of the big ones was “What is the Darkness?” What was our great enemy, the source of the downfall of the human race? And maybe most importantly, why did it do it? Like I said, not a lot of answers to be found at first, but there was…something.
The Darkness?
Vanilla Destiny
Ghost Fragment: Darkness 3 was a Grimoire card, or a text entry you had to access via Bungie’s website out of game after finding the requisite collectible in game. It is a journal entry from the heretical Guardian Toland detailing a philosophy of survival of the fittest taken to the absolute extreme. That everything is constantly competing to even exist, and that that competition will continue to escalate until something is so good at it that it will extinguish all other competition, before they can even begin to compete, and anything that comes to exist will do so only by its consent. This concept is important, and you should remember it. If you’re thinking this piece seems like it should have more context it didn’t really have much.
Destiny: The Taken King
The next really big piece of evidence comes in the third expansion to Destiny, The Taken King, in the form of the Books of Sorrow. Part history and part holy scripture, they detail the origin of the Hive, one of the four main enemy species. A very long time ago, they were known as the Krill and struggled with short, difficult lives. When a king of the Krill was overthrown, three of his children fled and were drawn deep into the oceans of the gas giant the Krill lived on. In the depths they discovered immense worms who offered them a pact: take their offspring into their bodies and gain eternal life and great power, but they must ensure to feed their worm with conquest and slaughter or be devoured from the inside. They accepted this deal and thus the Hive were born.
The Books of Sorrow give us two main contributions to better understanding The Darkness.
First off, it gives us further elaboration on this aforementioned philosophy of extreme natural selection, and a name for it: The Sword Logic. It is the guiding principle of the worms and thus the Hive, that only that which can defend it’s existence deserves to exist, and so it is the duty of the Hive to try their best to kill everything in pursuit of whittling the universe down to a perfect state, which is now given the moniker of the Final Shape.
Secondly, Oryx, king of the Hive, speaks with something he identifies as The Darkness in XXXII: Majestic. Majestic. . It gives its own explanation of the brutal ideology of the Sword Logic and affirms why the Hive’s crusade against all life is right and required, but it interestingly takes an oddly personal and familiar tone.
Destiny 2: Shadowkeep
The next big piece of information towards The Darkness and the identity of the true antagonist of the Destiny franchise comes years later, in the fourth expansion of the sequel Destiny 2. A long wait, I know. But more than worth it for Unveiling
Unveiling’s name is no accident, it truly does lift the veil of uncertainty in many ways around The Darkness. Or at least so we thought at the time.
It’s worth noting that the in-universe source of Unveiling is communications from a Darkness aligned artifact, which will be relevant later. I promise.
Unveiling is a collection of writings allegedly from an entity referring to itself as The Winnower. It tells a creation parable of sorts, that before anything else existed there was a garden (sort of) and in that garden there was a Gardener and a Winnower, and they played a game (sort of). The game is essentially Conway’s Game of Life which to give a brief description, is a simulation where you have a set of tiles and each tile is either alive or dead. Every turn, tiles change from alive to dead or dead to alive based on the state of the other tiles adjacent to them. It’s a real thing considered a decent really simple simulation of life.
This cosmic version of it represented all of existence, and the Gardener would plant the flowers that represented life and the Winnower would cull the ones that meant to die under the rules. They played this game countless times but every time it ended in the same result: a specific, unending pattern which would always outcompete all others and dominate the game. The Gardener did not like this and considered it boring and even unfair. The Winnower disagreed, opining that it was natural and beautiful to see something succeed because it was better. When the Gardener decided to propose additions to the rules to encourage complexity, the Winnower objected strongly, and they fought. Unable to resolve this difference, the garden was destroyed and they created the real universe and entered it as players in the “game.”
The Winnower was at the time strongly believed to be The Darkness given the story it tells and the congruency of its tone and storytelling style with the entity that spoke with Oryx. However, hints of the other being that would confuse this were also present in Shadowkeep. The final cutscene of the campaign featured an unknown being, who assumed the appearance of the player character, confidently declare “We are your salvation.” . This was the first possible appearance of The Darkness as a real, voiced character actually in the video game. It was unclear but most assumed this was the Winnower here (and that the Winnower was The Darkness) and more or less ignored the odd quirk of this being referring to themselves exclusively as “we” as opposed to the Winnower’s consistent “I.” Again, it would be several years before we received more information about this, and we learned of The Voice in the Darkness.
Destiny 2: The Witch Queen
The sixth expansion of Destiny 2, it introduced the concept of The Witness, a being previously hinted to as The Voice in the Darkness, formally introduced in this cutscene that plays at the end of the campaign. Note the usage of we also present here. This is a consistent trait of The Witness and they have yet to ever use the term I. We can also note The Witness appears to have a desire to totally exterminate life.
The “Drama”
The Witness is seemingly the true main antagonist of Destiny, being established as responsible for the Collapse, the creation of the Hive, and other events. This leaves lore aficionados with a real dilemma on our hands. How does this gel with the previous depictions of The Darkness, namely The Winnower? Not only do The Witness and Winnower speak and behave differently, their fundamental ideologies even feel different. The Witness seems far less interested in the purity of competition and survival of the fittest than in outright extermination. The Winnower would never express a desire for “no more life” just for life to be forced to earn its existence.
There are three main camps of answers to this question.
First: The Winnower is not real
This position holds that Unveiling is a fiction, created and distributed by The Witness and that Darkness is in fact a thoughtless force of the universe wielded by The Witness. The flaw in this position, in my opinion, is how to reconcile this with the entity that Oryx supposedly spoke with, who behaves and speaks very differently from The Witness. It is possible that account is also fabricated as The Books of Sorrow are noted to be potentially unreliable as a pseudo religious account of events written by the leader of a deeply dogmatic society. Out of universe, it feels a little unsatisfying for such a beloved piece of lore to be not true, but there is some precedent for lore being deception from characters in the universe.
The Winnower and The Witness are the same
This position holds that the two are one and the same. Generally the inconsistencies between the two are chalked up to retcons, that over time the direction and goals of the Destiny writing team shifted. Not impossible but it does seem unlikely given the seeds of The Witness were planted at the same time The Winnower was named.
Both The Winnower and The Witness Exist
This position holds that more or less everything we have seen is true. The Winnower is The Darkness, and The Witness is a distinct entity that wields Darkness abilities for its own ends. The seeming large ideological differences can be resolved by the self-reliant nature of the Winnower’s philosophy. It believes that it’s ideology is natural and inevitable, and so it is plausible that it would simply offer power and assume that anything capable of and willing to use that power would align with its beliefs. Or alternatively, that the fact that it could do so would make whatever it believes right. Might makes right for The Winnower, more or less.
Conclusion
Well, that’s more or less it. The drama is nonspecific and technically ongoing. If you spend any time in any community devoted to discussion of Destiny lore, you will come across an argument about this topic, and there is no conclusive answer as of now. I hope you have found this interesting and informative.
Note: I wrote this entire post on Apollo (a mobile 3rd party app) so apologies if any of the formatting is weird. This app will be shutting down on the 30th due to Reddit’s crappy API changes, and you should support the upcoming blackout.

“You dare steal from the king, peasant?” The Demon King screeched, flames erupting from the empty eye sockets of the skulls on his throne. He pulled himself to his feet. The King digging his boney fingers into the empty eye sockets, pulling himself up. “I guess I need to make an example of you. How is our castle wall looking today, Xea?”
The buff demonic guard crossed her arms, pretending to think about the condition of the wall. After a minute of tossing her from head side to side, she grinned, showing those dangerously sharp teeth.
“I believe the castle wall is spotless. Not a cloud in the sky, either. The peasants will get a good view of the torment you’re going to put this man through. Will I make the arrangements, my lord?”
“Please, please no. I needed food for my family. I wasn’t about going to steal anything other than food. Please. They need me.”
“Oh, they need you? Did you hear that, Xea? His family needs him. Gather his family then.”
“As you instruct, my lord. I will make sure they join him.”
The man’s face went pale, falling to his knees. The strength in his body getting sapped by the news that his family would join him on the wall. His head hit against the hard stone floor, sobbing at the feet of the Demon King, who appeared unmoved.
“Take the idiot with you, too. He’s getting my floor dirty.”
A few hours passed, and they gathered the family on top of the castle walls. The peasants down below didn’t appear too frightened. Only looking on in confusion, never having seen the king make such a spectacle like this. Had their luck run out? Perhaps the Demon king was going to put them on pikes like the previous king had done? Leaving them to rot in the sun as a message to all the other villagers.
“Greetings, my lowly boot lickers. Today, I caught one of your villagers stealing from me. Not only is this an offence against me, it’s also an offence against my guard’s honor. Poor Xea, felt horrible knowing a human snuck past our defences, didn’t you, Xea?”
“Oh, I did. The shame’s awful, only their screams will make me feel better. So, my lord? Will you please do the honors of making me feel a little better?” Xea asked, putting her hand on the father’s shoulder, glaring at the family. “I don’t enjoy being embarrassed.” Her grip got a little tighter, pushing against his joint, threatening to pop it. “Just kidding.” She said, releasing it.
“Of course, I treat my soldiers with kindness and my thieves with a glimpse of hell. Ready to witness hell?” The Demon King walked towards the edge of the wall, holding his arms up.
“WAIT, PLEASE NOT MY FAMILY. KILL ME, KILL ME AND LET THEM LIVE.” The man went back to sobbing, even though his family appeared to be taking the chaos rather well. Even the smallest of the children didn’t appear scared. Instead, she reached over and gave her father a pat on the back.
“It’s ok. Mr. Demon isn’t bad. He’s just confused. That’s what the villagers said.” She whispered.
Xea rolled her eyes when she overheard that. Her pointed ears twitching as she crouched behind the pair, putting her face between the two. “Whatcha talking about? Care to share that with me? I hope you weren’t talking about my glorious leader.”
That shut the pair up, as they went back to looking at the village. The Demon King raised his arms, and the Earth began rattling. The ground shaking as though hundreds of imps would soon burst from the soil. Villagers were getting nervous now, rushing to make sure their cattle were secure as things shook around them.
When the king lowered his arms, the ground stopped shaking, leaving everyone bewildered. Had he done something? A villager stepped onto his farming land, getting smashed onto his back by a barrage of carrots. The carrots shooting from the soil, littering the land. All the farms shared a similar fate, harvests sprouting all around them.
“Hahahaha. Now you will have all the food you want. Good luck getting rid of all those rotting vegetables. How will you deal with all the dangers that come with that?”
“Excellent work, my king.” Xea clapped, even if she missed her usual role of torturing souls in hell. Something about doing acts like this was fun to her. Did she just enjoy scaring the peasants before the deception revealed itself? Enjoying that moment of utter fear they felt in their souls?
“Wait. I don’t get it?” The man said, wiping his eyes. “Isn’t this a good-“
“HERALD. Shut up!” His wife hissed, giving him a small smack on the back of the head.
The villagers all fell to the ground, acting as though an invisible arrow had struck them all in the knee. Some rubbed dirt on their faces to look more pitiful, while others pretended to cry.
“SAVE US GOD. This foul man has cursed us.” One wept.
“How evil can you be?” another called out.
“Hey John, can I borrow your hoe?” One whispered, using this time to ask for a favor.
The Demon King turned away, walking back to his throne room. “Xea, mind throwing them back into the village for me? I’m bored now.”
“Certainly, my lord.” Xea raised her hand, shooting a wave of air at the family, sending them hurtling over the side of the wall. Just as they were about to hit the ground, they stopped. Being gently put onto the floor with Xea’s abilities.
“Again! Again!” The little girl cheered, looking up at the demonic guard who was peering over the wall.
“Shush dear. You weren’t meant to enjoy it.” The mother said, covering her child’s mouth. She couldn’t help but smile at Xea. For such an intimidating demon, she appeared to be a big softie, too.
“I don’t get it. What they did was a good act? Shouldn’t they have put my head on a spike or got a bunch of horses to run over my body?” Herald said, scratching his head.
“You’re new here, right? We should have told you this earlier. The demon kings a little backwards in his ruling. He thinks he is doing evil acts, but most of the times he’s giving us a smack on the forehead or something equally soft. This is the first time in a while he’s done a good act.” The villager explained.
“So, he’s a good ruler?”
“Yes, don’t let him know that, though. I wouldn’t want him to copy our last king.”
“That guard of his was kind to let us down. Maybe I’ll bake her something. Do you think she likes cakes?” Herald’s wife asked, putting an arm around her husband.
Meanwhile, Xea was licking her lips as she went to the throne room, hoping she was going to get that cake that was promised. When she got to the throne room, she bowed before the Demon King.
“Sir, you know you’re doing righteous acts, correct?”
“Do you think I’m an idiot? I know what I’m doing is good. I was the king of hell.”
“May I ask why you are choosing to rule like this, then?”
“Boredom, mainly. I came to Earth fully prepared to put this village through hell. I had all these ideas that would make them suffer. Then I saw the previous kings, each one a waste of humanity’s potential. All these people knew was horror. What more could I do to a world already filled with hate and bloodshed? So, I’m going to give them two hundred years of peace. Then let them handle whatever comes after that.”
“I see, so you plan to get their hopes up, only to let humanity bring itself down again when you leave. You would get to see their torment without even having to lift a finger. You could watch it all happen from hell. That’s so devilish, my king.”
“It is. Though, I will admit. I’m not disliking my time being gentle. Even a king of hell enjoys some change in his life. We have both spent hundreds of years tormenting souls. We should enjoy our vacation.”
“Are you suggesting I treat this as a vacation?”
“I’m suggesting you allow yourself to interact with the villagers. Befriend them, join in their festivities. Enjoy seeing humanity at its best, before it all comes crashing down.”
“I’ll do that, sir. Thank you.”

Please note that the ticket links are usually for general admission; for VIP tickets, if available, you may have to go to the band's website.
Friday, Jun 9, 2023

Grass is Dead, The Coppertones	Underbelly - Jacksonville

Saturday, Jun 10, 2023

Halo Scars, Mind Virus, Cypher Machine, Re-Birth	Brass Mug - Tampa
Maul, Tombstoner, Plasmodulated	Conduit - Winter Park
Downswing, Falsifier, Bottomfeeders	Manna Tea & Kava Bar - Sarasota

Sunday, Jun 11, 2023

My Children My Bride, Extortionist, No Cure	Conduit - Winter Park
Bury Your Dead, Thirst, Edict	Tipsy Tiki - Fort Pierce

Monday, Jun 12, 2023

Maul, Tombstoner	Brass Mug - Tampa
Spotlights, Skyliner, The Darling Fire	Jack Rabbits - Jacksonville

Tuesday, Jun 13, 2023

Halocene, Lauren Babic, Alphamega	Hooch & Hive - Tampa

Wednesday, Jun 14, 2023

Drain, Drug Church, Magnitude, Gel	Brass Mug - Tampa
Halocene, Lauren Babic, Alphamega	Level 13 - Orlando
The Convalescence, Summoner's Circle	Jack Rabbits - Jacksonville
pulses., With Sails Ahead, I Met A Yeti	Will's Pub - Orlando

Thursday, Jun 15, 2023

Halocene, Lauren Babic, Alphamega	Jack Rabbits - Jacksonville

Friday, Jun 16, 2023

Roxx, Re-Birth, Cyber Machine, Haloscars	Conduit - Winter Park
Hollow Leg, Clamfight, Moat Cobra	Will's Pub - Orlando
Every Avenue, Makeout, Say We Can Fly	Orpheum - Tampa

Saturday, Jun 17, 2023

Crossbreed, Cultus Black, Cypher machine, Davey Partain	Orpheum - Tampa
Defy the Tyrant, Losing Daylight, Shadow the Earth	Kona Skate Park - Jacksonville
Breed, Gillian Carter, Audible Parts	Will's Pub - Orlando

Sunday, Jun 18, 2023

Crossbreed, Cultus Black, NoSelf, The Dev	Level 13 - Orlando
Bodybox, No Zodiac, High Pressure	Conduit - Winter Park
Dikembe, Camp Trash, Glazed	Will's Pub - Orlando

Wednesday, Jun 21, 2023

Dream Theater, Devin Townsend, Animals As Leaders	Ruth Eckerd Hall - Clearwater

Thursday, Jun 22, 2023

Garbage, Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds, Metric	MIDFLORIDA Credit Union Amphitheatre - Tampa

Friday, Jun 23, 2023

Dream Theater, Devin Townsend, Animals As Leaders	Hard Rock Live - Orlando

Saturday, Jun 24, 2023

Misfits, Megadeth, Fear	MIDFLORIDA Credit Union Amphitheater - Tampa
Intoxicated, Vacuous Depths, Ebullition	Conduit - Winter Park
black midi, YHWH Nailgun	Orpheum - Tampa

Sunday, Jun 25, 2023

No/Mas, Knoll, Shock	Conduit - Winter Park

Monday, June 26, 2023

We Are the Union, Kill Lincoln, Catbite	The Social - Orlando
No/Mas, Knoll	Orpheum - Tampa

Tuesday, Jun 27, 2023

Yungblud, The Regrettes, Caspr	Jannus - St. Petersburg

Wednesday, Jun 28, 2023

D.R.I., Metalriser	Underbelly - Jacksonville
Peter Frampton	St. Augustine Amphitheatre

Thursday, Jun 29, 2023

The Cure	Amalie Arena - Tampa
D.R.I., Metalriser	Will's Pub - Orlando

Saturday, Jul 1, 2023

D.R.I., Metalriser	Brass Mug - Tampa
Liliac, Fortune Child	The Twisted Fork - Port Charlotte

Sunday, Jul 2, 2023

Godflesh	Conduit - Winter Park

Thursday, Jul 6, 2023

Sad Summer Festival	Daily's Place Amphitheatre - Jacksonville

Friday, Jul 7, 2023

Sad Summer Festival	Coachman Park - Clearwater
Subdivisions, Violence System, The Fallen Sons	Jack Rabbits - Jacksonville
Days Of Summer festival	Conduit - Winter Park

Saturday, Jul 8, 2023

Memphis May Fire, Norma Jean, Secrets	The Beacham - Orlando
Days Of Summer festival	Conduit - Winter Park

Sunday, Jul 9, 2023

Memphis May Fire, Norma Jean, Secrets	High Dive - Gainesville
Crown The Empire, Varials	Orpheum - Tampa

Monday, Jul 10, 2023

blink-182, Turnstile	Amalie Arena - Tampa
Orthodox, Cell, Chamber	Crowbar - Tampa

Tuesday, Jul 11, 2023

Analepsy, Cognitive, Wormhole, Nectoricgorebeast	Conduit - Winter Park

Wednesday, Jul 12, 2023

Analepsy, Cognitive, Wormhole, Nectoricgorebeast	Crowbar - Tampa

Thursday, Jul 13, 2023

Staind	Seminole Hard Rock - Tampa

Friday, Jul 14, 2023

Staind	Hard Rock Live - Orlando

Saturday, Jul 15, 2023

Obituary	Brass Mug - Tampa
Flag On Fire, Scatter Shot, Backslide, Regions	O'Malley's Alley - Ocala

Monday, Jul 17, 2023

Cenotaph, Horrific Visions, Architectural Genocide	Conduit - Winter Park

Tuesday, Jul 18, 2023

Agents of Chaos, Black Clash	Jack Rabbits - Jacksonville
Buckcherry	Underbelly - Jacksonville

Friday, Jul 21, 2023

Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, Bryan Adams	Amalie Arena - Tampa
Mudvayne, Coal Chamber, Gwar, Nonpoint, Butcher Babies	MIDFLORIDA Credit Union Amphitheatre - Tampa
The Final Sound, Abbey Death, Layne Lyre	New World Music Hall - Tampa
Yosemite In Black, Endbringer, Murder Afloat	Orpheum - Tampa

Saturday, Jul 22, 2023

Yellowcard, Mayday Parade, Story of the Year	Daily's Place Amphitheatre - Jacksonville
Less Than Jake, Voodoo Glow Skulls, Devon Kay & the Solutions	House of Blues - Orlando
Rising Up Angry, Tragic, Legions Blind	Kona Skate Park - Jacksonville

Sunday, Jul 23, 2023

Yellowcard, Mayday Parade, Story of the Year	Yuengling Center - Tampa
Endbringer, Yosemite In Black, Heavy Hitter	1904 Music Hall - Jacksonville

Tuesday, Jul 25, 2023

Fall Out Boy, Bring Me The Horizon, Royal & The Serpent	MIDFLORIDA Credit Union Amphitheatre - Tampa

Thursday, Jul 27, 2023

Havok, Toxic Holocaust, I AM, Hammerhedd	Conduit - Winter Park

Friday, Jul 28, 2023

Between the Buried and Me, Rivers of Nihil, Thank you Scientist	Jannus - St. Petersburg
Round Eye, No Fraud, Caffiends	Will's Pub - Orlando

Saturday, Jul 29, 2023

Between the Buried and Me, Rivers of Nihil, Thank you Scientist	Beacham - Orlando
Southpaw, Highest Crown, Fortitude, Dead Mirrors	Born Free - Tampa

Sunday, Jul 30, 2023

Crobot, Rickshaw, Billie's Burger Patrol	Orpheum - Tampa

Thursday, Aug 3, 2023

Underoath, The Ghost Inside, We Came As Romans	Yuengling Center - Tampa

Saturday, Aug 5, 2023

Disturbed, Breaking Benjamin	MIDFLORIDA Credit Union Amphitheatre - Tampa
Underoath, The Ghost Inside, We Came As Romans	St. Augustine Amphitheatre
Sanguisugabogg, Kruelty, Vomit Forth	Conduit - Winter Park

Sunday, Aug 6, 2023

The Queers, The Radio Buzzkills, The Jasons	Jack Rabbits - Jacksonville

Wednesday, Aug 9, 2023

Pyrexia, Cerebral Incubation, Atoll	Conduit - Winter Park

Friday, Aug 11, 2023

The All-American Rejects, New Found Glory, The Starting Line	MIDFLORIDA Credit Union Amphitheatre - Tampa
Black Flag	High Dive - Gainesville

Sunday, Aug 13, 2023

Alesana, Vampires Everywhere, Limbs	Level 13 - Orlando

Wednesday, Aug 16, 2023

The Offspring, Sum 41, Simple Plan	MIDFLORIDA Credit Union Amphitheatre - Tampa
hed p.e., Lydia can't Breathe, Razorz Edge	Jack Rabbits - Jacksonville

Saturday, Aug 19, 2023

Left to Suffer, Distant, Justice for the Damned	Conduit - Winter Park

Sunday, Aug 20, 2023

The Smashing Pumpkins, Interpol, Rival Sons	MIDFLORIDA Credit Union Amphitheatre - Tampa

Tuesday, Aug 22, 2023

The Mezingers	Underbelly - Jacksonville

Wednesday, Aug 23, 2023

Bless The Fall, Caskets, Kingdom of Giants	Orpheum - Tampa

Thursday, Aug 24, 2023

Clutch, Giovanni & The Hired Guns, Mike Dillon	Jannus - St. Petersburg

Saturday, Aug 26, 2023

Rob Zombie, Alice Cooper, Ministry	MIDFLORIDA Credit Union Amphitheatre - Tampa

Wednesday, Aug 30, 2023

Ghost, Amon Amarth	Daily's Place Amphitheatre - Jacksonville

Thursday, Aug 31, 2023

Ghost, Amon Amarth	MIDFLORIDA Credit Union Amphitheatre - Tampa

Saturday, Sep 2, 2023

Baby Metal, Dethklok, Jason Richardson	Orlando Amphitheater

Sunday, Sep 3, 2023

Spitalfield, Rookie of the Year, The Future Perfect	Conduit - Winter Park

Tuesday, Sep 5, 2023

Bad Omens, ERRA, I See Stars	Jannus - St. Petersburg

Wednesday, Sep 6, 2023

Bad Omens, ERRA, I See Stars	House of Blues - Orlando

Friday, Sep 8, 2023

The Waning Moon, Palace of Tears, Rux Vendetta	Hooch & Hive - Tampa

Saturday, Sep 9, 2023

Kamelot, Battle Beast, Xandria	Hard Rock Live - Orlando

Sunday, Sep 10, 2023

Angelmaker, Vulvodynia, Flasifier	Conduit - Orlando

Tuesday, Sep 12, 2023

Black Veil Brides, VV, Dark Divine	Jannus - St. Petersburg

Wednesday, Sep 13, 2023

3 Doors Down, Candlebox	Daily's Place Amphitheatre - Jacksonville
Dance Gavin Dance, SiM, Rain City Drive	Hard Rock Live - Orlando

Friday, Sep 15, 2023

3 Doors Down, Candlebox	MIDFLORIDA Credit Union Amphitheatre - Tampa

Saturday, Sep 16, 2023

Movements, Mannequin Pussy, Softcult	The Ritz - Tampa

Sunday, Sep 17, 2023

Avenged Sevenfold, Falling in Reverse	MIDFLORIDA Credit Union Amphitheatre - Tampa
Wave to Earth, slchld	Orpheum - Tampa

Tuesday, Sep 19, 2023

Scowl, Militarie Gun, MSPAINT	Conduit - Winter Park

Thursday, Sep 21, 2023

Scowl, Militarie Gun, MSPAINT	1904 Music Hall - Jacksonville

Friday, Sep 22, 2023

Cavalera Conspiracy, Exhumed, Incite	Beacham - Orlando

Saturday, Sep 23, 2023

Boys Like Girls, State Champs, Four Year Strong	House Of Blues - Orlando

Sunday, Sep 24, 2023

The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus	High Dive - Gainesville

Tuesday, Sep 26, 2023

nothing, nowhere., See You Space Cowboy, Static Dress, Unitytx	Orpheum - Tampa

Friday, Sep 29, 2023

CIRCLE JERKS, TSOL, Negative Approach	Underbelly - Jacksonville
Shinedown, Papa Roach, Spiritbox	MIDFLORIDA Credit Union Amphitheatre - Tampa

Saturday, Sep 30, 2023

NOFX	Vinoy Park - St. Petersburg
Flogging Molly, The Bronx	House Of Blues - Orlando

Thursday, Oct 5-7, 2023

Absolution Fest	Crowbar - Tampa

Tuesday, Oct 10, 2023

Ne Obliviscaris, Beyond Creation, Persefone	Orpheum - Tampa

Wednesday, Oct 11, 2023

Ne Obliviscaris, Beyond Creation, Persefone	Conduit - Winter Park
Fit For a King, The Devil Wears Prada, Counterparts, Landmvrks	The Ritz - Tampa

Thursday, Oct 12, 2023

Dawn of Ouroboros, Fires in the Distance, Somnent	Conduit - Winter Park

Saturday, Oct 14, 2023

Beast in Black, Dance with the Dead	Orpheum - Tampa
Fame on Fire, Kingdom Collapse	The Social - Orlando

Sunday, Oct 15, 2023

Beast in Black, Dance with the Dead	Conduit - Winter Park
Motionless In White, Knocked Loose, After the Burial, Alpha Wolf	Hard Rock Live - Orlando

Tuesday, Oct 17, 2023

Atilla, Gideon, Until I Wake, Ten56	Underbelly - Jacksonville

Wednesday, Oct 18, 2023

Atilla, Gideon, Until I Wake, Ten56	Orpheum - Tampa

Friday, Oct 27-29, 2023

The Fest	Gainesville

Tuesday, Nov 7, 2023

Protest the Hero, Moontooth	The Abbey - Orlando

Wednesday, Nov 8, 2023

Protest the Hero, Moontooth	Orpheum - Tampa

Friday, Jan 24, 2024

Kansas	Florida Theatre - Jacksonville

Hi guys, I'm new to Disciples of Tzeentch and would like some help with my first 2k points list.
+++ New Roster (Age of Sigmar) [1,990pts] +++
++ **Pitched Battle GHB 2023** 2,000 (Chaos - Tzeentch) [1,990pts] ++
+ Core Battalion +
Core Battalion: Battle Regiment
Core Battalion: Command Entourage: Extra Enhancement: Artefacts of Power, Magnificent
+ Leader +
Curseling, Eye of Tzeentch [200pts]: Arcane Suggestion, Battle Regiment - 1 Commander, Cult Demagogue, General
Fluxmaster, Herald of Tzeentch on Disc [180pts]: Command Entourage - 2-3 Sub-Commanders, Staff of Change, Tzeentch's Firestorm
Gaunt Summoner on Disc of Tzeentch [280pts]: Command Entourage - 1 Commander, Nine-eyed Tome, Treason of Tzeentch
Ogroid Thaumaturge [170pts]: Bolt of Tzeentch, Command Entourage - 2-3 Sub-Commanders, Timeslip Pendant
+ Battleline +
Flamers of Tzeentch [380pts]: 6 Flamers of Tzeentch, Battle Regiment - 2-5 Troops, Reinforced
Horrors of Tzeentch [250pts]: 10 Pink Horrors, Battle Regiment - 2-5 Troops, Hornblowers, Icon Bearers, Split and Split Again
Horrors of Tzeentch [250pts]: 10 Pink Horrors, Battle Regiment - 2-5 Troops, Hornblowers, Icon Bearers, Split and Split Again
Tzaangors [180pts]: 10 Tzaangors, Battle Regiment - 2-5 Troops, Musician, Pair of Savage Blades, 2x Savage Greatblades, Standard Bearer, 2x Tzaangor Mutant
+ Allegiance +
Allegiance: Tzeentch: The Eternal Conflagration
+ Game Options +
Game Type: 2000 Points - Battlehost Grand Strategy: Master of Destiny
+ Malign Sorcery +
Endless Spell: Burning Sigil of Tzeentch [60pts]
Endless Spell: Tome of Eyes [40pts]
Created with BattleScribe (https://battlescribe.net)
The game plan here is to put the flamers in the Silver tower from the gaunt summoner with probably the Ogroid. The Gors could also be put into reserve depending on the matchup and how many D2 weapons my opponent has. I'm thinking that one of my first summons would be an exalted flamer on the turn I drop my flamers in. That should be painful enough that my opponent won't focus on my casters.
This is my first attempt at a good list using the models I have. I haven't played many games of AOS and would love any feedback. Thanks!

Dédalo moved frantically around the control room, overturning rocks, checking behind the screen, looking for any kind of hidden button. “Ninian, are you just going to stand there or are you going to help me!”
“What do you want me to do, cut her out?!” Ninian gestured to the screen of Perdita’s face.
“There must be a button or lever somewhere here!” Dédalo snapped, refusing to believe there was nothing he could do to help Perdida’s predicament.
Perdida’s mind was occupied, having accessed the system and the dormant data stored in it. As she scanned through memories and visions, the relevant information unscrambled itself for her. Piece by piece, the memories played in series.
Her first memory, the birth of her artificial soul, heralded by the priests that created her as the greatest experiment they have succeeded in. “May the MAKS-0 bring peace to Pieduro forevermore!”
Next were the lives of the Piedurons she was tasked with maintaining peace over. Teaching the children how to use and play with their Temples responsibly, assisting the Piedurons through their everyday lives.
Then watching over the construction of the Ring, the key to unifying and connecting the use of all Temples to a single source.
Then the Piedurons slowly turned their attention to the world around them, visions of expanding past the island. With the construction of the Ring, they had the means of using their Temples much further beyond their island. Tools originally used to create were beginning to be seen as potential tools of destruction and oppression against adversaries. Visions of expansion and conquest filled the mind of a small, but growing population of Piedurons.
“War is not peace.”
“War goes against the idea of maintaining peace.”
“War can not happen if there are no Temples to fight with”
Pedida watched her original decision play out in; the construction of the Ring allowed her to shut down every single connected Temple. What happened after was a terrible oversight, the energy in each Temple overloaded rather than being simply shut down. The Ring that connected the Temples shared and distributed the energy of all temples between each other, but once disconnected they had no way to regulate the remaining excess energy.
The fallout wiped out the Piedurons as a civilization and destroyed the vast majority of Temples. The remaining few priests sealed Perdida away, and that was the last memory she could see in the database.
Perdida’s attention turned toward Electra and 2095, still fighting in the ring, using the carts to chase each other in a perpetual circle. The thought crept into Perdida’s mind; with the Ring under her control, she could turn off the Temples and stop the fight. She could prevent Temples from being used by the wrong hands.
No.
Perdida stopped herself. Not falling into the same logic that her previous self could not reason past. Her journey with Dédalo had allowed her to grow and understand, she would make a different choice this time.
The fight only took a bit longer to finish, the streaks of light made it difficult to tell what was happening, but the fight ended with a chain of explosions and both bodies falling out of their carts.
2095 falls to one knee, glare softening as Electra’s body goes limp while smoking from so many orb explosions. Her stare reaches thousands of yards, still processing her personal discovery before a speeding orb barely grazes her cheek and snaps her back. She sprints to the unconscious body and scoops her up, draping her over her back nestled underneath [Yours Truly] and holds the skater’s arms as she continues dodging to the best of her ability.
Her legacy wouldn’t end in this place, but neither would Electra’s.

2095, with a score of 76 to Electra’s 59!

Category	Winner	Point Totals	Comments
Popularity	2095	20 (6.5+2) - 10 (4.5+2)
Quality	2095	25 (8-9-8) - 18 (6-6-6)	Reasoning
JoJolity	Tie	21 (7-7-7)- 21 (7-7-7)	Reasoning
Conduct	Tie	10-10	Nothing to report!

Perdida opened a service door for 2095 to escape through, hoisting Electra over he shoulder. With a bit of guidance, 2095 made her way into the control room where they were now all gathered.
After getting everybody settled, Perdida managed to convince Dédalo that she was ok and relayed the story for the rest of them to hear.
“So I have a new plan. I figured out how to control the output of energy of each Temple to ensure that Temples can only be used when I allow them to be used…But in order to do that, I will have to stay within this mainframe.” Perdida looked toward Dédalo with a sad smile.
“Don’t worry Perdida, this will only be goodbye for now. I still have to find you a physical body after all.” Dédalo gave a warm chuckle as he walked up to the screen.
Dédalo pressed his hands against the screen and the image of Perdida pressed her hands against his. “We’ve learned a lot over the course of our journey. I’ll promise to tell you all about my next adventures when I get back.”
“...your mascara’s running.” Electra looked at a sniffling Ninian.
“It said it was waterproof, guess that was a fucking lie”; Ninian hide her face with her hands, quietly using Endless Rest to dry her face and fixed her make-up.
2095 looked on at the scene and ruminated on Perdida’s story. The similarities she shared with Perdida were not lost on her. Striving to become more than their programing, more than someone made to serve a higher purpose, but never losing sight of the joy of collaboration and connections to others. 2095 put a hand over her chest, she herself had also come a long way to be here hasn’t she.
To Be Continued…
Scenario: Sliema, Malta — 8:00 PM
On the island of Malta, in the center of one of its busiest cities, was a building. A decrepit, abandoned building, rusted and cast in reddish shadow by the taller structures that surrounded it. It was once an apartment building, but it had long since lost that use.
The rest of the city was filled with noise. Screaming, car alarms and barking dogs. But around here, where no one bothered to come around, it was quiet. Butterflies dotted the railings of the building, watching. Waiting for something to come. Not like the people inside could stand guard, with the boards over the windows. Still, they didn’t seem very concerned about the state of things.
“I was expecting to be impressed when you said you got a new place to stay, but this...” Ninian stared at the walls of Mari’s room, trying her best not to wince. They weren’t really in the best shape. Nothing here seemed to be, really, aside from the extremely comfortable bed she was taking a seat on. She turned to stare at Mari. “Shouldn’t you clean up a little? I bet it could use a new paint job, at least.”
“Geh. I don’t have time for painting.” Mari clacked away on her computer, hunched over in a garish (but surprisingly comfortable) gaming chair. Alarmingly loud EDM blared from the cat-ear headphones hanging around her neck. “Do you know how many things I would have to unplug to do that? It’s impractical.”
She gestured to the mass of wires emerging from her computer setup. Indeed, it’d be pretty difficult to move that around. Mari sat in front of a large array of computer monitors hung from the wall, all different shapes and sizes, all displaying different things. She swapped from keyboard to keyboard, not even taking the time to look at Ninian as she spoke.
“Besides, it’s better for me if my place looks like shit. Better that it doesn’t look like anybody lives here, right?”
“That only really matters on the outside...” Ninian sighed. “You could at least get some lights.”
“The screens are enough light.”
“...I suppose.”
The two sat in silence for a moment. Ninian turned to stare at the other person in the room; Nadine Sokenna laid on the other side of the bed, fast asleep. “I’m glad the two of you are doing alright.”
“Mmm.” Mari grinned. “Me too.” She exhaled, finally finishing whatever business she was handling on the computer and spinning the chair around to face the bed. The short shorts, thick blanket, and extremely oversized Hatsune Miku shirt she wore certainly weren’t that flattering, but at least her hair finally looked pretty nice. The bags under her eyes weren’t quite gone, but they seemed to glimmer with newfound lust for life.
She looked happy. That wasn’t something Ninian had been able to say about her before.
“I take it work’s been good?”
“Mmm!” Mari gestured widely to the screens behind her. “It’s an age of information, Ninian! No better time to be an info broker! Business is booming! Ehyeheheh!”
The swordswoman chuckled at that. She was silent for a moment, her smile turning into a frown, her eyes narrowing.
“Anyway... I assume you didn’t call me here just to talk.”
“Huh?” Mari tilted her head to the side. “Whaddya mean?”
“Well, you called me to deal with ‘that’, right?” She pointed up. “Truth be told, my schedule’s really packed right now, and I’m not sure how much I can do-”
“Oh, no, that’s not it at all.”
“Huh?”
“I just wanted you around.” She shrugged. “It’s a bit tough to relax right now. Super hard! Having big strong Ninian around makes me feel a little better. Ehe.” She was visibly blushing. “S-Sorry if that’s stupid, but I figured you’d like to catch up anyway.”
Ninian paused. “...So if you didn’t bring me here to, uh, deal with ‘that’... Are you just leaving that be?”
“Ah?”
“I mean, it’s kind of a problem for you, isn’t it? Doesn’t seem too convenient to leave it be...”
“Well, the plan was to leave it.” Mari shrugged. “But I got a bit lucky.”
“You invited me here... Just to sit around and chat while someone else does all the work?” The swordswoman raised an eyebrow, arms crossed. “As I said, I’ve got a packed schedule-”
“Nah, trust me.” The info broker snickered, spinning around in her chair as she spoke. “Youuuu... Are really gonna wanna see this one. I got somebody totally wild to help out.”
Ninian scoffed.
“Okay... And who would that be?” She tilted her head to the side. “I’ll be the judge of that.”
“You’re not gonna believe this one...” Mari cleared her throat. “I called in -”
*Scenario: A lonely boat, on the Mediterranean Sea — *
Wah watched the sun bob on the edge of the horizon. Their hair billowed in the wind, and seafoam sprinkled their face; they didn’t particularly seem to mind. Considering all they’d done with their ability, being on a speeding boat was probably the last thing to phase them; they’d just wrapped up a fight in a walking house, after all.
They stood in silence, a light smile on their face, eyes pleasantly half lidded. There was pleasure to be found in the small things. The sunset on the open sea, for one, was quite nice. Indeed, despite all the troubles it would no doubt cause, COLOSSI's shift to humanitarian aid was doing wonders for their mental. Now if only Solsbury and the rest of them would stop nagging...
But now wasn’t the time to worry about that. Nay, there were far more important matters. Wah pushed themself off of the boat’s railing, moving towards the driver's seat of the boat. It wasn’t a big boat; probably just used for leisure, but the owner had been nice enough to give them a ride.
A large sum of money was involved, of course, but that was neither here nor there.
“Oh, cappy-tan!” Wah leaned on the side of the boat behind the driver’s seat. A balding, sun-tanned man chuckled at the name. He wasn’t really much of a captain, but he did like to feel important.
“Howst long does thou think it will be before we arrive?” Wah tapped on the side of the boat a few times. “Wah has places to be, you see! Tis of utmost importance that I arrive quickly! Utmost! You understand, yes?”
“Yeah, yeah, I getcha...” The boater sighed. “It’ll be about ten minutes... Honestly, I don’t get why you’re in such a hurry to get there, anyway. Everybody else seems to be clearin’ out.”
“Oho?” Wah raised an eyebrow. They lowered it, and raised the other one, performing what could perhaps be called an ‘eyebrow wiggle’. “And why is that?”
“Dunno. Nobody’s said much, and everything they’ve said hasn’t been too, er, what’s the word...”
“Comprehensible?”
“Yeah. That one.”
“Wah sees, Wah sees!” Wah nodded a few times, bouncing off of the boat’s side and meandering back to the front, wobbling from side to side as the vessel rocked. “From what Wah understands, it’s quite a situation out there! No normal soul would find it any sort of comprehensible. A true predicament... And that is why Wah must go. To assist poor souls who cannot assist themselves! This predicament falls within Wah’s expertise, you see.”
“...Right.”
“Mmm!”
“Ain’t you just a normal soul, too? ‘Sides the ears, you don’t look all that special. Kinda twiggy.”
Wah paused. In the past, being called ‘kinda twiggy’ would’ve surely resulted in a violent tirade. But those were the demons they swore to leave behind speaking. Now, without them, Wah simply laughed. “Nay! Twiggy as Wah may be, you can rest assured, fine citizen!”
They turned, the boater catching the briefest glimmer in their eye. “Wah’s soul is the furthest from ordinary one could possibly get.”
“...If you say so...” He turned his attention back towards driving, and Wah turned theirs to the open sea once more.
Eventually, land came into view. The boater looked upon Malta with some confusion. Everything in the distance seemed perfectly normal. Wah, on the other hand, seemed extremely focused on something in the sky, something the poor man couldn’t seem to find no matter how hard he squinted.
“No need to make it all the way to the island.” Wah’s frown felt out of place on such a naturally silly face. “Park the boat near here. Wah can go the rest of the distances Wahself.”
“Ah..? It’s pretty far from here, though-”
“Verily! But it is nothing Wah cannot handle!” They snapped their fingers, jumping on top of the boat’s front railing, almost seeming to glide.
“Say, Cappy-tan! Have you ever seen a magician at work?”
Ninian gaped. “You... You called in... The head of COLOSSI?”
“...That’s what I said, yes.”
“Whuh...” Ninian frowned. “You’re fucking with me.”
“I’m not.”
“You so are.”
“I’m not! You underestimate the greatest info broker on the planet, my dear Ninian!” Mari jabbed a thumb into her chest as she gloated. “With my Stand ability: ｢Today is a Beautiful Day｣, my surveillance is simply unmatched! You see, the pins that make up my ability, when thrice jabbed into something, create a ‘butterfly within a frame’, but that’s only the basest applic-”
“I know what it does, Mari.” The swordswoman’s confusion briefly made way for the usual moodiness. If you let Mari start, you’d never get her to stop, after all. “I’m more... I mean, how did you even...?”
“I heard through the grapevine, as it were, that COLOSSI was making some big changes. All just rumors of course, so take that all with a grain of salt. But word out there is that their boss has gone completely mad! They’re big into justice and stuff now! Something like that. So I tracked them down, used my butterflies to establish communication, and made them a deal they simply couldn’t refuse.”
“And what could you possibly have to offer someone like that?”
“Information is the new money, Ninian.” Mari chuckled, staring at the wall of her room. “It didn’t take much. I just told them... I knew where a certain someone they quite liked was, and if they took care of my business, I’d sell ‘em the info for free.”
Ninian, after a few moments of stunned silence, simply sighed, scratching the back of her head. She smirked.
“...And you’re absolutely not fucking with me.”
“Aw, c’mon.” She chuckled again, turning her attention back to Ninian. “Have some faith in your best friend, will you? Just sit back and watch.” She raised a thumbs up, grinning from ear to ear. “I don’t have to do any work at all today! As long as no complications arise, it’s as good as dealt with! Wa ha ha!”
Elsewhere, in Sliema, a complication arose.
His name was Errok, and for once, he felt a bit too awestruck to open his mouth.
As rare of an occurrence as this was, most of his brain power was dedicated solely to figuring out what exactly he was looking at. After a large amount of deducing and such, he eventually came to the simple conclusion that he had no idea.
It’s not like anyone else who could see it, though. You couldn’t even see all of it. Only sections, massive spherical tubes of undulating red poking out from the cloudy sky, constantly moving ever so slowly. The wind whipped through his greasy hair as his eyes, wider than they’d been in years, observed what could only be described as a massive, floating worm, made entirely of bright red strings.
Now that he had given up entirely on trying to figure out what the thing was, Errok could dedicate his incredible intellect to other thought processes. Eventually, he arrived at a conclusion, one that was without a doubt something only someone as academically gifted as him could come up with.
“That thing is going to be my horse.”
Indeed, using whatever that was as a noble steed was the only logical idea. Wherever a powerful being resided, there too was opportunity to be found. And as a self proclaimed ‘Weapon To Kill The Soul’, there was surely no beast he could not tame.
He spent the next few minutes idly chuckling to himself.
It felt a bit off, admittedly. The city was pretty empty. The chaos caused by the thing no doubt led to a mass evacuation; he could tell from the buildings that had collapsed around him that it’d done quite a number on the place. Occasionally he’d hear someone screaming for help or something, but he couldn’t figure out where that was coming from, so he didn’t bother. But not having someone to monologue to felt strange. This was the part where he bragged about his incredible plan to some oafish bystander! Where were the oafish bystanders!
“I suppose...I could talk to myself.”
He nodded a few times. An excellent idea.
“Yes! This’ll do just fine. I can just talk to myself! Ha!”
Errok marched forward, a pep in his step that made his gait particularly loud.
“Now then... Clearly, the right answer... is to elevate myself! Aha! Yes!” He looked around at his surroundings. The stairs inside the buildings probably weren’t reliable, even if he could fit through the doors.
“No matter! I’ll just, uh, hrnmm...” He stared at a nearby building. It was pretty tall. “Well, I guess I could climb up that.”
“AHA! With my incredible strength, I’ll climb this building! That’s what I’ll do!”
His head swiveled around: still nobody around. He sighed, though you wouldn’t have been able to hear it from within the helmet, and began his ascent. With a grin, he unearthed the grotesque arm that was ｢You Are Blood｣ from its gauntlet. The arm shot forth, worms spraying from the mottled surface. Yes, they would be his ideal audience. He cleared his throat a few times.
“All living things tremble at the sight of Errok, Apostle of Rot, Destroyer of Souls! I need no weapon, for I am the blade which cleaves life itself!” His body shot forward with a cacophony of clanking, as he howled along with another bout of laughter.
“The world is my, uh, whetstone! I shall sharpen my blade on each fallen fool that tries to stop me, and become a better knight, a better god, a better trickster, than all those fools that I’ve destroyed!”
Hitting the side of the structure with a clatter, Errok stuck his sword into the side of the building. Again, his arm lashed out to grasp the next floor of the building, before yanking himself outwards. This cycle repeated itself, floor by floor, as Errok launched himself higher and higher towards the heavens, and towards the worm that would become his knightly steed.
“Then, when I have conquered all of life and every soul with the absolute, supreme power of rot and decay, then!”
With one last pull, Errok ascended into the air, his massive form silhouetted by the sun. “Then, I will finally tear that flamboyant freak a new one!”
With a CRASH, Errok landed on the roof of the building as it cracked around him. He gave a clumsy flourish to his wormy audience, grinning with menace and delight.
…and received a slow clap in return. Looking around in confusion, as worms do not have hands, Errok’s eyes fell upon the environment around him. The sun was slowly making its way towards the horizon line, casting the ruined skyline of Sliema in shadow, a golden light shining through gray clouds. It was absolutely beautiful; anyone with any sort of care for the world around them would simply have to stop and admire the view.
Errok didn’t have any of that. He was far more concerned with something else, as you’d expect. There on the roof stood another figure, a fae-like being with pale hair, pointed ears and teeth, and gleaming eyes.
“Oh hey,” Errok greeted, pointing with the finger of ｢You Are Blood｣. “Do I know you from somewhere? Might’ve seen you at the races... You look pretty important, though! I bet you’re super important! As am I! Pleasure to meet you!”
Wah just stopped clapping, giving Errok a look. Their nose wrinkled. “Wah is…charmed.”
Not picking up on the sarcasm, Errok beamed.
“Of course you are! I’m sure that you’ve heard about me! Errok, Apostle of Rot! I’ve committed more sins than one could possibly imagine! I’ve conquered all sorts of bozos and losers to get here! And now that I’m here, I’m gonna ride! That! Worm! Oh yeah!!!”
“…Uh huh,” Wah hummed, clearly not listening as they peered up at the worm. “There isn’t really much time for jokes right now, so-“
Suddenly, Wah stopped speaking. Errok stared at them for a few seconds. “...You gonna finish that sentence, or-”
“Shut up.”
The “Apostle of Rot” was fully prepared to go off on yet another monologue, but at that moment he thought to maybe see what exactly this mysterious weirdo stared so intensely at. He turned his gaze to the sky, and his eyes widened.
The clouds that obscured the form of the worm had split, only slightly, and something had descended from the hole produced. It was small, so it was a bit difficult to make it out at first, but if he squinted really hard, he could begin to see the silhouette of a young girl, holding loosely onto a balloon.
“Eugh.” He spat. “Hate kids.”
The figure was silent until it landed, never quite touching the ground. It wore a soft expression; a pure white girl, with a sundress that fluttered in the wind. The string in her hand led to a red balloon, just as red as the pupils concealed in her thin eyes. On the surface, she looked human, but just by looking at her you could tell that it was no human being. The way it seemed to lightly pulsate, skin forming briefly into strings that wrap endlessly around each other.
She smiled upon the two of them. It was not a friendly smile.
“Good evening, you two.” She raised her hands to the two of them. “Wah-Chan, leader of COLOSSI, overlord of the criminal underground the world over... And... Errok...San...”
“Hey. Wait.” Errok raised his hand. He turned to Wah. “That’s who you were? Oh, man, I’m a big fan of your-”
“Tell me. Do you know what ‘time’ it is?”
Errok stifled. He didn’t like this lady very much.
“8:01 PM, is it not?” Wah rudely ignored Errok’s plight. “What’s it matter.”
“Not quite what I meant. It’s almost the ‘Golden Hour’.” She chuckled. “The ‘Golden Hour’, as it’s called, is the most beautiful part of the day. It occurs in the last hour before sunset, and the hour directly before sunrise. It usually lasts only twenty to thirty minutes, but those twenty to thirty minutes are incomparable. Truly, there is beauty in the world.”
SIlence. Neither Errok nor Wah could figure out how to respond to that. Right as Errok was about to open his mouth anyway, the girl continued.
“If you couldn’t tell, ‘Golden Hour’ is about to start, in about two minutes, give or take. I only found this out recently. You see, I have lived my recent life in someone else’s eyes. I’ve never had the chance to learn about the world on my own. I was only recently able to learn about things on my own time, rather than on someone else’s. There was so much I was denied a chance to see. Do you know how cruel that is? Most of the knowledge I’ve gathered... Is completely useless to me now.”
She pointed at Wah. “Did you know that the Monogatari anime being released out of order was originally completely unintended?”
Silence.

“Originally, the series was planned to release in the order of the books; Bakemonogatari came first, and its prequel, Kizumonogatari, was planned to release in 2012. However, due to production issues, it was delayed until 2016, while the other parts of the anime were released on schedule, resulting in an out-of-order release. The bizarre watching orders of Monogatari that the series is somewhat internet famous for are completely unintended, and only exist due to production issues. Did you know that?”

“No,” Wah glared, “Wah did not know that. To be frank, there is no circumstance or situation in which Wah would want or need to know that information.”
“Exactly!” In her first showing of genuine emotion, the girl threw her hands into the air. Her voice remained perfectly monotone. “There’s no reason for me to know that information, either. But instead of important things, I’ve only been shown information like that. My brain, despite being far superior to that of a human being, is filled with useless information that serves no purpose to me. Do you know what it’s like? Having a vessel that doesn’t care for you? Even after all the work I went through to make her do what I wanted, she refused to show me anything worthwhile. I had to learn about things such as the ‘Golden Hour’ myself. Isn’t that cruel?”
“Excuse me, but-”
“But anyway, back to the ‘Golden Hour’. It is frequently utilized by film mak-”
“Stop fucking doing that!” Errok slammed his boot into the ground, producing a loud clang that finally managed to silence the mystery girl. He huffed and puffed for a few seconds before clearing his throat and continuing. “What’s the point of talking to us about any of this? You just prattle on, and on, and on, without any purpose to it! You’re annoying! What’s your deal!”
“There is no point.”
“What?”
“There’s no point, really. I’m just making small talk.” The girl looked over her nails. “Human beings engage in ‘conversation’ to gain a grasp of each other’s personalities. To establish who is worthwhile to have around, and who is not. I simply wanted to do the same. While I’m in this form, I may as well play at humanity.”
“Anywho, from our conversation—” Errok scoffed. “—I have deduced something. You see, I was originally planning to take the ‘strings’ of every Stand user in the world, taking their abilities and adding to my own power. But I have unfortunately vastly underestimated how many Stand users are in the world. Frankly, it would be a lot of work to do myself. So I’ve decided to take on another vessel. Someone far more suited for this kind of work, and who will show me plenty of things.”
“Wah-Chan.” Wah rolled their eyes at that. “From this conversation, I have deduced that you are patient, calm, and rational. From observing the work of your organization, I can come to the conclusion that you are cruel and calculating. My name is Disappearance Addiction. I am the strongest ‘Miracle’ currently present in the world. And I would like for you to become my new vessel.”
“No thankies.”
“...”
“...What?”
“Wah doesn’t really care for that sort of thing.” Wah shrugged. “You seem annoying to have around. Wah actually came here to get rid of you, to be honest. ‘Tis my duty! Wah is on the side of justice, now, as is COLOSSI as a whole! It would be immoral to take the power of something like you.”
“You would refuse the power of a ‘Miracle’?”
“Wah doesn’t know what that is.”
Disappearance Addiction seemed well and truly stumped at that. Eventually, her head began to turn, slowly, as if she was afraid of what her gaze would land on.
“Errok... San...”
“Yeah?”
“You... Would you like... Power?”
“That’s the first interesting thing you’ve said all day.” Errok nodded. “Fuck me up, lady.”
“...You’re not going to think it over, or anything?”
“Nope.”
“Are you sure?”
“Can you just give it to me already? C’mon.”
“...” Disappearance Addiction was silent for a few moments. On one hand, this guy smelled very bad. He was incredibly impatient. And he generally seemed like a big idiot. On the other hand, he did scale the building pretty easily...
“Alright.” She sighed. “I’ve come to a decision. Errok-San. If you kill Wah-Chan before the ‘Golden Hour’ ends, you may become my vessel. Does that satisfy you?”
“How long till Goldy Hour ends?”
“Twenty to thirty minutes.”
“Ha!” Errok unsheathed his sword and swung it onto his shoulder. “I’ll end it in three!” He smirked beneath his armor, pointing his massive blade at Wah. “You there! Wah! Leader of COLOSSI, was it?”
“...That is me, yes.”
“Get ready for the fight of your life, bub! After I kill you, I’m gonna be the boss of COLOSSI! I’ll be on top of the world! God King Errok! Everyone’ll bow to me! That kinda power ain’t something a little pacifist baby face like you’s worthy of having! So I’ll just take it right out of your hands! Ha ha ha! Thinking about it really amps me up! Oh, man!”
He paused, staring at Wah.
“I was really expecting you to cut me off there. It’s been happening all day. You just gonna sit there?”
Wah’s brow furrowed.
“Tell me...” They stepped forward, the dust around them kicking into the air, beginning to circle around them. “...Do you honestly believe... That you can beat me? Is that something... You think you’re capable of?”
“Course it is. I’m a weapon to kill the soul.”
“Hmph.” Wah sighed. “So be it.”
Disappearance Addiction smiled upon the two as she rose further into the air, wind whipping through her hair. A golden glow illuminated the cityscape, the sun reaching its final moments in the sky. “I feel like... I should say something here...Ah, that’s it!

”OPEN THE GAME!”

Location:
In the city of Sliema, Malta, currently with thick strings hanging overhead.
The area here is 32 by 40 meters with each tile being 2 by 2 meters. Wah and Errok start on top of buildings, as represented by their character tokens.
The yellow rectangles are clay buildings, each numbered to represent their elevation level.The (1) marked buildings are 5 meters tall, the ones marked with a (2) are 10 meters tall, and the ones marked with a (3) are 15 meters tall.
The White Rectangles are Laundry racks with nearby baskets, folding chairs, cleaned clothing, and towels.
The Green Circles are palm trees that are 20 meters tall.
The Magenta Lines across the map are Strings produced by Disappearance Addiction and are attached to the buildings and trees. These strings are thick enough to balance on and have B Durability.
The brown rectangles are wooden benches. The blue circles are fountains.
Goal: RETIRE your opponent!
Additional Information:
Players are not allowed to enter the buildings for the purposes of this match and will be Retired if they are unable or unwilling to leave the “out of bounds area”
There is enough space between buildings for either player to move through the alleyways
Wah starts next to a large umbrella with a hooked handle, a portable grill, and a cushioned lawn chair

Team	Combatant	JoJolity
Bastards of Barcas	Errok	“The word “ignorant” has a nice ring to it, so I don’t mind being called that, but “incompetent” is going just a bit too far…” Establish superiority over your opponent through your movement and positioning!
COLOSSI	Mx. Wah	“A creature like you having a brain residing in his skull…is already a miracle in and of itself.” Establish superiority over your opponent through your movement and positioning!

Link to Official Player Spreadsheet
Link to Match Schedule
As always, if you would like to interact with the tournament community and be among the first to get updates for the tournament, please feel free to PM a member of our Judge staff for an invite to our Official Discord Server!

Hi guys, I'm new to Disciples of Tzeentch and would like some help with my first 2k points list.
+++ New Roster (Age of Sigmar) [1,990pts] +++
++ **Pitched Battle GHB 2023** 2,000 (Chaos - Tzeentch) [1,990pts] ++
+ Core Battalion +
Core Battalion: Battle Regiment
Core Battalion: Command Entourage: Extra Enhancement: Artefacts of Power, Magnificent
+ Leader +
Curseling, Eye of Tzeentch [200pts]: Arcane Suggestion, Battle Regiment - 1 Commander, Cult Demagogue, General
Fluxmaster, Herald of Tzeentch on Disc [180pts]: Command Entourage - 2-3 Sub-Commanders, Staff of Change, Tzeentch's Firestorm
Gaunt Summoner on Disc of Tzeentch [280pts]: Command Entourage - 1 Commander, Nine-eyed Tome, Treason of Tzeentch
Ogroid Thaumaturge [170pts]: Bolt of Tzeentch, Command Entourage - 2-3 Sub-Commanders, Timeslip Pendant
+ Battleline +
Flamers of Tzeentch [380pts]: 6 Flamers of Tzeentch, Battle Regiment - 2-5 Troops, Reinforced
Horrors of Tzeentch [250pts]: 10 Pink Horrors, Battle Regiment - 2-5 Troops, Hornblowers, Icon Bearers, Split and Split Again
Horrors of Tzeentch [250pts]: 10 Pink Horrors, Battle Regiment - 2-5 Troops, Hornblowers, Icon Bearers, Split and Split Again
Tzaangors [180pts]: 10 Tzaangors, Battle Regiment - 2-5 Troops, Musician, Pair of Savage Blades, 2x Savage Greatblades, Standard Bearer, 2x Tzaangor Mutant
+ Allegiance +
Allegiance: Tzeentch: The Eternal Conflagration
+ Game Options +
Game Type: 2000 Points - Battlehost Grand Strategy: Master of Destiny
+ Malign Sorcery +
Endless Spell: Burning Sigil of Tzeentch [60pts]
Endless Spell: Tome of Eyes [40pts]
Created with BattleScribe (https://battlescribe.net)
The game plan here is to put the flamers in the Silver tower from the gaunt summoner with probably the Ogroid. The Gors could also be put into reserve depending on the matchup and how many D2 weapons my opponent has. I'm thinking that one of my first summons would be an exalted flamer on the turn I drop my flamers in. That should be painful enough that my opponent won't focus on my casters.

Hey guys,
I had opened a similar thread before, I still keep losing against my friend who plays BoK.
I played a big Waage list with focus on ironjawz:
Army Faction: Orruk Warclans - Army Type: Big Waaagh!
LEADER
1 x Breaka-boss on Mirebrute Troggoth (180) - Artefacts: Spiker Seeds - Mount Traits: Smelly ’Un
1 x Orruk Megaboss (140) - Artefacts: The Boss Skewer
1 x Orruk Warchanter (120) - Artefacts: The Boss Skewer - Warbeats: Fixin’ Beat
1 x Orruk Warchanter (120) - Artefacts: The Boss Skewer - Warbeats: Get ’Em Beat
1 x Orruk Weirdnob Shaman (90) - General - Command Traits: Master of Magic - Artefacts: Armour of Gork - Spells: Da Great Big Green Hand of Gork
1 x Wurrgog Prophet (170) - Artefacts: Glowin’ Tattooz - Spells: Squiggly Curse
BATTLELINE
10 x Orruk Ardboys (160)
10 x Orruk Ardboys (160)
5 x Orruk Brutes (150)
ARTILLERY
1 x Beast-skewer Killbow (100)
OTHER
3 x Man-skewer Boltboyz (120)
3 x Man-skewer Boltboyz (120)
3 x Orruk Gore-gruntas (170)
His list is approximately as follows:
Army Faction: Blades of Khorne
LEADER
1 x Bloodmaster (110)
1 x Herald of Khorne on Blood Throne (160)
1 x Lord of Khorne on Juggernaut (170)
1 x Slaughterpriest (110)
BATTLELINE
10 x Blood Warriors (190)
10 x Bloodletters (180)
10 x Bloodletters (180)
10 x Bloodreavers (80)
5 x Flesh Hounds (100)
5 x Flesh Hounds (100)
OTHER
3 x Bloodcrushers (180)
3 x Mighty Skullcrushers (200)
I keep losing. I don’t know what to do, at the end of round 2 my army was nearly destroyed. I placed my boltboyz & the beastbow in a building far away from the enemy line, tried to kill his heroes because he can summon new units with every hero. The rest of my army stood in front of the line ready to push forward and charge. I got the first turn, the wurrgog mask failed, hand of gork put my gore gruntas charge ready in the front line. They were the only unit which was able to charge in the turn, I managed to nearly kill a unit of Bloodletters. In his turn, he healed the unit up with his Blood Throne, moved and charged with everything he could, killed my megaboss and one unit of ardboyz in the first round, his blood and skullcrushers nearly killed units with their charge ability (mortal wounds) and so I kept losing fight after fight. In round 2 I only had 10 ardboyz and a warchanter left. He had 2 new units on the field which he summoned with his points.
Guys seriously, I am broken. I didnt win one out of about 8 matches. I got destroyed in every single match till round 3/4. Please help me 🙁 what can I do against BoK? Maybe focus on only Ironjawz?
Thank you in advance !

Advent Home
trigger warnings
rape, suicide, physical abuse, emotional abuse.
https://www.wvgazettemail.com/news/legal_affairs/more-former-students-sue-over-alleged-abuse-at-boarding-school/article_db70c152-c8db-5711-82dc-52e3d26303ab.html
chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/WEST-VIRGINIA.pdf
note: Several organizations share a name with the Advent Home. I am specifically referring to the now defunct group home near Calhoun, Tennessee.
We talk a lot today about trauma in a way I don't remember it being discussed even in the broader cultural consciousness when I was young. Mental health was just viewed differently. Adventists have always had a weird relationship with mental health, but I think rarely more strange and harmful than the ideas of Dr. Senior and the Advent home. Through most of this I will use fake names but as Dr. Senior's name is intrinsically and publicly tied to the school he is my one exception. Also, if any reading this had the misfortune of also attending the school, you will know we were told to call him Dr. B or Dr. Blondel but we are adults and his title was Dr. Senior.
I've wanted to write about this for some time and this will likely be a first draft of a larger discussion. Psychology isn't my field of expertise and I've never felt I found the right platform to talk about such a niche subject but finding the Ex Adventist sub and with more being said about mental health I at least feel qualified to discuss where I feel Adventism was used to twist psychology into something harmful by Dr. Senior.
Before I continue, I wasn't there for the worst of what was to happen nor did I receive the worst of what happened in my time there. I also cannot entirely claim innocence of some of the emotional bullying that was tolerated if not encouraged. I hope I have grown since then and have learned from mistakes I made when I was 13 and do believe I am largely innocent of the physical bullying and certainly the sexual assault.
First, I want to address the lawsuit. As I say, I wasn't there for most of this as by 2014 the Advent Home and Miracle Meadows seem to have become much more closely related, swapping students to hide them from law enforcement and deposition. The school closed around 2014 , the time a lawsuit was filed. More lawsuits have since been filed and the director of the sister school miracle meadows was imprisoned. I will link the lawsuit and articles above. As the events detailed in it represent a massive escalation from what was happening while I was there, but I do think the events described are merely the codification of the policies being unofficially implemented on a smaller scale in my time. In short it lays out regular forced sexual assault by students and staff, duct taping students in rooms for days if they were violent and forcing them to study the bible for days at a time as punishment. Thinking back, I can see how the deference to authority and refusal to treat mental health as anything other than a religious failing could lead to the behavior detailed in these allegations. To be clear I am linking the allegation and articles below though I wasn't part of any of these trials and don't know which charges exactly stuck.
Even though the school is closed and from what I can tell Dr. Senior is retired, I think there is a larger discussion to be had about how the Adventist Church handles mental health and firebrands. So, what was the Advent Home? The Advent Home was a young men's reform school begun by Dr. Blondel Senior in Calhoun, Tennessee. There isn't much left to find on it as it shut down around 2014 and never had a great online presence. I suspect a lawsuit around the same time was to blame, as, if any of its allegations were proven, it would have cost the advent home, Dr Senior, and the conference a lot of money and embarrassment. More on this later.
The Advent Home advertised a range of services from treating ADHD and general misbehavior to serious developmental disorders and outright criminals. Basicall, he wanted it to be everything from a more structured middle school to a juvenile detention center, and predictably, it would fail at both.
I don't know how my mom found out about the Advent Home, but I know her reasons for sending me. A nasty divorce between my parents caused me to lose interest in schoo, so I barely passed 8th grade, and I had started listening to Eminem. That's it. it seems so laughably tame but that's all it took for Dr. Senior to be able to convince my mom that this behavior would escalate and the only recourse was his school which was built on and advertised correction through a strict adherence to Adventist principles. Every student came with fundamentally different problems. Some, like me were struggling scholastically while several had been ordered there by courts for violent offenses and several had what I cannot give another name other than a complete stall in mental development (one student thought and acted like a toddler, mentally and emotionally well below his age).
We were all, however, given the same treatment regimen, Maturation Therapy. This I will argue is the root of the problem. Dr. Senior claimed to have gotten his PHD in psychology from the University of Jamaica. I am not going to cast aspersions on this institution, but if he did have this degree he missed some crucial lessons and did not keep up on developments in the field. Dr. Senior had identified 70 ideals he believed every young man should emulate as he matures. I could not possibly list them, but they ranged from keeping a clean room, respect for staff to whether you used harsh language to how often you prayed. These would have made for fine rules for a religious correctional facility, but this was the entire treatment plan. Each of the 70 points would have you ranked 1-5, and you graduated by achieving a 4.5 average. 230 points overall. An important note here is all of these points were external. There was no mention of healing trauma or discussion of past actions. We were seen as immature children and by forcing mature behavior our other issues would right themselves. Right? In short, Dr. Seniors idea of therapy was entirely about becoming presentable, respect for authority, and respect for God. I want to go through these because in each I see a failing not only of the school but Adventism's handling of mental health in general. Also while I cannot speak to the lawsuit I will be linking it below as I believe sexual assault survivors and I want to say what these points contribute to how this environment may have developed.
His entire idea of personal growth was based on becoming outwardly his idea of a respectable man. He was willing to cross any number of boundaries violating others' religious taboos, disregarding the desires of the parents and showing no interest in the students as individuals. We were broken and needed only to be put in his mold and recast. One student was Rastafarian and his father wrote a letter explaining their faith and why he shouldn't cut his hair. His father had barely left town when the boy was forced to get his hair shorn off. Our 'civilian' clothes were confiscated on arrival and sorted for how appropriate he felt they were. Anything he didn't like we would get back when we left. I never did. As for speech we were strictly regulated on what words we could say. Cuss words, and even adjacent words like darn, would result in a loss of points and thus longer before we would be able to go home. Instead of psychological healing, his priority was always to make us look healed on the outside.
The most egregious example of this was a boy I will call Zach. Zach had a severe developmental disorder that in my opinion Dr. Senior was woefully ill-equipped to treat but that never dulled his confidence. Because of his neurodivergence Zach was habitually unpresentable. Zach would frequently have food dripped down his shirt, throw temper tantrums in public areas and speak loudly about bodily functions that would have been amusing from a four year old but Zach was almost 14 and just beginning puberty if you get my meaning. At every turn, Zach was not met with treatment but ridicule. To the Advent Home staff, he wasn't sick, he was misbehaved and punished severely for it. We all had to run up to 3 laps of 1/3 of a mile as discipline regularly, but Zach's condition often racked him up more laps than could be humanly run. at one point, a new staff member refused to allow Zach to eat at all until he completed a number of laps I doubt would be humanly possible, let alone for a confused neurodivergent. One of the proudest moments of my life is that I stood up for Zach and pointed out, whatever punishment was meted out, food was an illegal method of punishment in the state. My shame, however, is how often I joined in the ridicule and bullying of Zach when the staff made punishments for his misbehavior punishments for all of us. As I say, I hope I have grown.
Dr. Senior saw scruffiness and cultural differences very much the way the Dursleys from Harry Potter did. These were not the markers of young men expressing themselves or of cultural differences but of moral failings to be stamped out or hidden until they faded into normalcy. We didn't need to discover ourselves, we needed to learn the joy of conformity
The real problems would come with his reliance on authoritative structures. Both the staff and students had clear hierarchies within them. New students would be Group Members, GM, while you could be promoted to Assistant Group Leader, AGL, a Group Leader, GL, with a possible Super Group Leader SGL at the top All leaders had the authority to report misbehavior and physically restrain violent students. Here, we start to see the problems. What constituted violent behavior was entirely up to the authority figure, and unless there were witnesses who ranked equally, Dr. Senior would implicitly believe the higher ranked individual. Keep in mind that some of these kids had real criminal records, and as I've established, we were not getting our problems treated.
I want to use one student as an example. I'll give him a fake name (James) as I hope he's reformed and also should not be judged entirely on his actions when he was 16 but these are actions I either witnessed or saw the fall out of so believer their veracity. I was walking by him one day. he had been given a job he didn't want to do. Instead, he was sitting talking to a group he bullied but passed for his friends. He called out to me to do the job for him. I laughed and kept walking. he took offense and deciding I had disrespected him, chased me down, hit me, tackled me into the gravel road, and held me there until I begged to be released. Those words; I beg you to release me. I was cut, bruised, crying and bleeding. James was unharmed, but when I told Dr. Senior, he believed James because he was a group leader and I a lowly Group member.
One of the students who had been sitting on the steps with James, who I will call Sam, would get caught performing oral sex on James only a few months later. James assured Dr. Senior Sam had asked practically begged to do it, and here again, James authority had him taken at this word. They both received punishment, but Sam got the lion's share as he had initiated and must be gay. I firmly believe James pressured Sam into this, and likely not just this once.
Dr. Senior said the word "manipulative" more than anyone i have ever known. often as we lowly students tried to explain actions or avoid discipline for petty offences, he would accuse us of manipulating. In hindsight, this is how he viewed the relationship between those with power and those without. There were those the system had put in power and those below who now would try to manipulate those who had the power. from the bottom of the ladder, he was incapable of seeing sincerity or pain. only manipulation. To be clear, I don't know how much of the reality reached Dr. Senior's ears, but enough had to he had to be actively ignoring warning signs in favor of authority. I talk about this to show how Dr. Senior felt strongly that respect for authority was essential regardless how abusive the authority figure might be. Hold on to that too.
The final point is religion. It should not need said, but Dr. Senior wanted all of us studying the bible and practicing a very conservative faith even for SDA. This is fine(ish), but he also believed that Christ had predictable healing powers and that mental health was only a failing of the individual to have the faith necessary for healing.
We were all encouraged to discontinue any medications we might be taking. For me, with ADHD and Ritalin this was probably fine, but for one student with borderline schizophrenia this led to several violent episodes he was blamed for despite the staff convincing him to get off his meds. A diabetic student was eventually pulled from the program after his 4th hospitalization when he was allowed to opt out of his insulin/ blood sugar checker. Christ, as a placebo alongside medicine, is silly but fine, but as a replacement for lifesaving drugs, it can have dangerous consequences, and Dr. Senior refused to see this. In Dr Senior's mind, I believe, these boys weren't sick, they were failing to let Jesus in to heal them and that's what needed to change.
Furthermore, behavioral incidents were often met with explicitly Christiaan remedies. Issues of bullying and cursing would require not time out but a scripture reading. sometimes alone sometimes publicly, along with a public admission of what we did. This was done at a weekly meeting when Dr. Senior came down from his literal house on the hill to play mediator and in no metaphorical sense moral arbiter of our actions. in essence, he got to play God for 2 hours a week.
The most heinous example of the use of religion however was, Mr. V who I believe saw jail time. This man was a thousand walking red flags. He went to boys' rooms to pray alone, and he insisted on a separate bible study with a group of boys he was particularly close to. Outwardly, however, he was fanatically religious, and this was enough to assuage Dr. Senior of concerns. Mr. V was the guy who when the pastor said kneel for prayer he would stand with his arms to heaven, when the pastor asked for a moment of silent reflection he would exclaim AMEN! every five seconds, He played moral police intervening in behavioral issues after considering a matter settled if a student agreed to a private prayer session (yup, nothing sus here). Dr, Senior employed and sung the praises of Mr. V's work even as this concerning behavior began to escalate to the point that some students, formerly in his inner circle, began to actively distance themselves from him but were unwilling to discuss why.
Dr. Senior could not, however, ignore when Mr. V took a kid off campus without telling anyone to a small mountain cabin to "diet" for three days. Only once the police were involved could Mr. V. 's behavior no longer be ignored and his religious authority be given priority. If you are wondering Mr. V gets a fake name because, while I am telling the truth to the best of my knowledge, we were never told the full story. The student in question was withdrawn before he was willing to talk about it, and Mr. V was not seen again. I don't know what he was charged with or what stuck but I think we can put the pieces together.
Fortunately, other than some more bullying and getting through a nasty flu with nothing more than pepper water as medicine, I graduated. Yeah, shocker, he also didn't like doctors. The shock of seeing how normal people practiced Adventism after a year of this cult like fanaticism has a lot to do with why I'm on this sub and not the SDA sub, but I got off easy. For the criminals and really troubled kids recidivism was high, with several being in a proper prison weeks or months after. Several would turn around and be back at the Advent Home in months because the behavior never stopped, they just learned to act like it did. But the real harm was a boy I'll call Dan. He had depression when he arrived, it was never treated but pushed down. He pushed it down so far he became the best of us. he was very nice and a bit of a mentor to me. he worked hard and became SGL (the highest one remember) with one of the highest scores that an Advent home graduate had had. One year after leaving the school, he committed suicide by diving into an empty pool. Only then, did I realize he wasn't fine. He was never fine. He had mastered acting fine. The furthest I got in Psychology was a single college course and some youtubers (and the small bit of real therapy I've had) but even with this, I can see how Dr. Senior was out of step with the psychological practices even of the early 2000s. He was so much more focused on appearance and behavior than he was ever interested in the root cause, his system often became a new trauma rather than treating an old one. An excessive respect for authority led to abusive behavior being overlooked if not encouraged, and Jesus was treated in a professional setting as a supreme healer despite real medical issues. I saw these issues in the church I left, and my mom and extended family still practice in. This is why I really feel compelled to write this. People like Dr. Senior may seem like an Adventist version of Godwin's law. "Oh, yeah? If we can look at Jesus to heal, it'll end up like the Advent Home!" (Or Miracle Meadows) I know this sentence has never been uttered by anyone but me and maybe Sam, hope you're ok buddy, but the fact is Dr. Senior is the end stage of the ideas put into their most harmful practice, and some like Dan paid with their life.
Finally, through all of this, I remember how Dr. Senior was treated by outsiders. Entire churches prayed for his good work to continue, meetings were held for him to teach others to copy his program, he was featured multiple times in the herald and other Adventist publications. Like Mr. V his religiosity was a shield despite all the red flags, and like Mr. V he was given the respect and admiration that came with his position all the way up until there were consequences. It isn't that no one could see there were problems. He flew his red flags high. Its that the church didn't want to see the problem and didn't care until the outside world took action.
Please, if you take anything from this, look out for your SDA relatives who struggle with mental health. The church sure won't. But on a larger note, I hope this to be part of a larger discussion about bringing awareness to the churches failing on mental health and how they overlook monsters in their ranks who just haven't embarrassed them yet. Dr. Senior never sexually assaulted a kid as far as I'm aware, but he enabled and protected abusers in service of pushing his ideology all while the church sang his praises. Disclaimer: At no point in this do I feel I deliberately lied or exaggerated, but these are 20 year old memories of a traumatized 13 year old who was never given the full story. I tried to leave hearsay out, but I did find out what happened to Dan through the grapevine, though from someone I believe completely. If there are minor inaccuracies, I do apologize, but I believe I have been accurate in the larger points.
Names are changed for obvious reasons, though my change style switched cause I am bad at coming up with names when stressed, my D&D group will confirm, and this is stressful to write about even now.
The Advent Home I attended is shut and a very attractive hotel now. My research showed he partnered closely with miracle meadows, which is also now shut. If by chance Dr. Senior is still practicing somewhere, or has appointed a successor, please persuade family to look closely and critically at his practices before signing anything. He used to complain kids were manipulative but, as with all projectors, he was the master manipulator. He convinced people to consent to incredible things. I believe everyone can change if they want and as far as I know he had the education to do good work. Instead, he chose to ignore that education in service of his biases. Unless he has updated his treatment, please at the very least accompany his work with another well regarded psychologist.

The victim of yesterday afternoon's deadly shooting has been named as "Adib Fazal", a 29 year old Arab refugee.
Shortly after midday, Fazal had been on a lunch break and had been driving along the A146 when a collision occurred and an argument ensued. The driver of the car involved in the collision with Fazal's car is then said to have pulled out a handgun and shot Fazal in the head, "killing him instantly" according to police.
"This was an extreme crime and we are still investigating whether there was also a hate crime element to this incident, given the victim's Arab background," DCI Solomons said this morning.
Police confirmed that a 42 year old white male had been taken into custody and charged with reckless driving, possession of an unlicensed firearm and murder.
Friends of Fazal told The Herald of their shock at the news.
23 year old housemate Ella Malden, who lives with Fazal in a shared house in Norwich, told the paper that Fazal was "a very hard-working man who worked 13 hours a day, seven days a week as a tree surgeon in locations across East Anglia and the Midlands" and that he had just received his Level 6 diploma in Advanced Forestry and Advanced Arboriculture from the Chartered Institute of Agroforestry and Arboriculture just days before the shooting. Whilst asylum seekers are not allowed to be in employment whilst their applications are being processed by the Home Office, refugees are allowed to work as much as they want to and are placed in the same tax rate bands as residents and citizens in Britain.
"It's just crazy," she said. "Fazal was a talented tree surgeon and he has been through hell. He fled the Central African Republic after the new black government began to target, persecute and kill the non-black Arab population. His brother was killed as well as his cousins. His mother has also been imprisoned and he was still fighting for her release. He claimed asylum in Britain and his application was accepted and he has been trying to make a life for himself here ever since. He's an even more productive member of society than most born-and-bred Brits I know. I just can't believe he was shot dead over nothing."
Asylum International estimates that more than 21,500 Arab people have been displaced from their homes in the Central African Republic, a landlocked country in central Africa, with more than half of that number escaping to Europe to seek asylum in western European countries. More than 2,700 people - mostly Arabs - have been killed in what UN Secretary-General Timothy Vincent labelled "the worst ethnic violence seen in central Africa in over a decade".
The country's new President, William Djotodia, has also been labelled by world leaders as an "authoritarian dictator" after he conferred extra powers to his position, effectively enabling himself to bypass the requirements for votes in the national senate when making new laws and signing "overreaching" executive orders. A national security executive order for instance, signed by him last year, gave the security services and police extra powers to spy on "at-risk" groups in the population and raid homes and neighbourhoods in "problematic areas" without warrants and detain suspects - mostly of Arab descent - indefinitely and without requirements for charges to be brought within a certain period of time. Djotodia's rhetoric has been described as "vitriolic" and "evil" after he said "Arab people are not African; they should not even be in this country".
Relations with the Arab world also reached an all-time low last year after Djotodia ordered the shootdown of a Global Emirates cargo plane which had deviated slightly off course on a preplanned route. The CAF government insisted that the modified 747 cargo plane, which had flown out of Riyadh in Saudi Arabia and had been bound for the CAF capital, became "unresponsive" following a course deviation and following the shootdown, Djotodia quickly declared the airspace closed to cargo planes flying from 6 Middle Eastern countries, shortly before countries such as Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the UAE issued an advisory to freight companies and other businesses advising them that the airspace over the Central African Republic was "unsafe" and the "threat of a shootdown was high".
Meanwhile, the accused of yesterday's shooting is expected to appear before magistrates in Norwich Magistrates' court tomorrow morning where he will be named and asked to confirm his date of birth and address and be asked to enter a plea before the case will then be escalated to the Crown Court for a jury trial or sentencing, given the serious nature of the crimes he is accused of. He is not expected to be granted a bail hearing, given the serious nature of the crime.

What's everyone's opinion on the Herald Leader? I'm just trying to stay informed, especially regarding local elections and candidates.

Ahh.
The time to lead another lesson approached a lot faster than the son of Boreas had anticipated. It was already time for him to lead some sort of activity, lesson, camp… event thing?
In all honesty, Aput had taken to leadership a lot easier than he had expected. There was definitely a small handful of people who still didn’t think he had the quality to lead a cabin, especially one as difficult as the Anemoi. But, he felt like he was doing just fine. Actually, his cabin was doing SO well, he hadn’t had a single issue since his leadership started three months ago.
Growing up with Mack, and having such a close relationship with the previous, and longest-reigning counselor had played a large role in Aput’s success. He knew how most things were handled in his cabin, and the roles and duties a leader had to complete. His cabin was harder to run than a lot of others. He was in charge of the children of five different gods. And these gods were all as opposite from the other as one could be. The Gods have such a vast differences in personalities and qualities reflected in their children. Aput found the children of Notus the hardest to get along with. He wouldn’t lie about that. But, being their counselor he had to put aside those personal differences to ensure the success and happiness of his campers.
This inner dialogue that Aput had worked through was done while he lounge in the most comfortable beanbag chair in the main common space of his cabin. It was literally made out of clouds. Or… so he was told. That’s when he had a lightbulb moment.
Above all his skills, what skill did Aput have a true master's degree in? Yeah, he was a pretty good archer. Sure, he was charming and had his ways with the ladies. Was he also the best winter athlete at camp? Without question. But this skill, this skill alone outshines them all.
Aput was by far, the most laid-back, down-to-earth, chilled-out dude within at least the closest 20 cabins. It would be quite the challenge to find a camper more relaxed than Aput. Perhaps, a child of Hypnos, but like being permanently tired, isn’t the same as being calm and relaxed.
The counselor had also gotten word about that psycho-hottie from the Aphrodite cabin, and her personal swarm of rats unleashed in the Hermes cabin. Talk about a major headache for Sofia and Teagan. Perhaps, camp needed a lesson in relaxation. Just letting shit slide.
THAT WAS IT. Aput would lead a camp lesson on being chill.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Later that afternoon, Aput set up the most chill, of chillzones.
Shaded underneath a group of large trees, the son of Boreas set up a few activities to harbor in the best relaxation.
Taking the comfy beanbags from the Anemoi cabin, Snipping some cozy blankets and pillows, he created a mound of cozy.
Next to Nap Mountain, Aput had stacked up some books and comics for kids to read, while they lounged.
Aput also laid out some colouring and simple art tasks for those who like to keep their hands busy but like to turn their minds off. This station was perfect for them.
Finally, Aput hung some hammocks for kids who wanna just hang.
Around each space, Aput hung signs that read,‘SHHHH. No talking!!’The son of Boreas was happy with his work. If this didn’t chill out some of these uptight weirdos, he wasn’t sure what would.
With a confident nod at his work, Aput fell into one of the hammocks and passed out.
Sweet dreams icy-prince.

New to BB and loving the game. After several tries, just now finally "completed" first campaign. Only in the sense that I got through the first crisis (Undead) and the game says "congrats! you've won! retire?".
Which I'm not; definitely continuing this run. Day 116, my highest bro is level 9. Most of my guys still in the raider gear. One toon has better stuff (I think looted from a bandit leader). But nothing famed other than one decent shield. I did "camp-bust" a good bit looking for such as I'd read on here, but didn't find anything. 73 battles. 12 fallen bros in the Obituary (one of whom was with us 99 days...that one was depressing lol).
I've read many comments that early "fight density" is important, I probably should have more fights than 70-ish by now, and that's why my highest guy is still only at 9. Tried to do that, but sometimes just don't run across anything "attackable" for a while. lol or lose a lot of time running from Lindwurms (yeah, THAT encounter was an unabashed save-scum moment).
In any case, no doubt a n00b-ish run, but even at beginnebeginner, challenging nonetheless. Great game.

Well, I've finally played a whole five turn game of Age of Sigmar, with the latest General's Handbook and everything! I want to get into the habit of writing up battle reports, so here goes.
The Armies
My 1000pt list was the following:
Bloodline: Vyrkos
Leaders Wight King on Skeletal Steed (Warlord) ++General (Hunter's Snare)
Necromancer (Warlord) ++Waste Away ++Ulfenkarni Phylactery
Vampire Lord (Warlord) ++Spirit Gale ++Vial of Manticore Venom (bonus from Battalion)
Battleline 20 Skeletons (Galletian Veterans)
10 Skeletons (Galletian Veterans)
10 Grave Guard (Galletian Veterans) ++Greatblades
Other 5 Black Knights (Warlord)
3 Vyrkos Blood-born (Warlord)
Grand Strategy: Empire of Corpses
Total Points: 975
This is the list I used in my last game, with the intent that I don't need to learn any new units this way. I still don't have any Dire Wolves, so that's an aspect of Vyrkos I won't be able to take advantage of.
My opponent was running Kharadron Overlords. As I recall, it was something like this:
Sky-Port: Barak Murder-you-on-the-charge
Leaders Admiral ++Arcane Tome
Aether Khemist ++ Spell in a bottle (Purple Sun)
Aetheric Navigator
Battleline (I assume) 3 Skywardens
3 Skywardens
3 Endrinriggers
Behemoths Frigate ++Cannon ++Flagship
Grand Strategy: Keep the Frigate Alive (and also kill all enemy flying units)
It's sort of the opposite of my list - everything is fast and small units, while mine's slow and large.
Mission and Deployment
The mission ended up being Jaws of Gallet, the one where each round after the first the player going second can nominate an objective to be removed. I set up the table as a ruined city, with quite a lot of small pieces of ruins terrain laid out on a mat covered in cobbled roads. I'd intended for this to be a way to get the terrain out of the box prior to my opponent arriving, but he was happy with the layout (and naturally got to pick territory). Plus it's nice to play on a map that makes cohesive sense!
I deployed somewhat conservatively - the small unit of skeletons hanging back to hold my home objective, Black Knights and the Wight King on the left flank to run up and take the Northwest objective on turn one, the Necromancer and large Skeleton unit on the right flank to push for the Southeast objective, and the Vampire Lord and Blood-born taking the centre. The Grave Guard went into the grave, having been too slow to really help in previous games.
My opponent put his Navigator and Frigate on his back objective (Northeast), and everything else in the boat. I immediately worried about how I was ever going to catch these jerks.
Round 1
My opponent got priority, and gave me the first turn. I immediately advanced on both flanks and up the centre, taking four Objectives and scoring the Cunning Manoeuvre Battle Tactic (for getting my Necromancer onto the Southeast objective, which was in both our territories). Spirit Gale and Mystic Shield both failed to cast, heralding a depressingly familiar start to my spellcasting for the game.
I jumped the Grave Guard out 9" away from my opponent's Navigator, hoping for a long charge to take him out early. Alas, a 7 rerolled into a 7, and they sat around in front of the entire enemy army looking very vulnerable instead.
My opponent got things rolling on his turn, disembarking the Admiral and Khemist and moving them towards the centre objective, taking it from me (as the Admiral counts as 2 models, and either not all of my vampires were quite in range or we miscounted). Meanwhile, the Frigate itself advanced on my Necromancer's contingent, blasting away some of his defensive Skeletons. The Navigator sat on the Northeast point, and started slowing/damaging my units and giving a movement boost to the Frigate like a jerk. Also, the Khemist killed some of my Grave Guard and dropped the Purple Sun on my Blood-born.
The frigate charged my Skeleton Horde (with some of them reassembling in front of it), and both units of Skywardens piled out. Here I made another mistake, forgetting that the Necromancer can offload wounds onto nearby Summonable units, and one unit of Skywardens decided that they weren't having any of that 5+ Ward nonsense and murdered him. Ah well, he wasn't much of a minion anyway. The Skeletons held out though, and put a wound on each of the Skywarden units.
Round 2
My opponent won priority and decided to go for the double turn. Oof.
The Navigator chipped a few more wounds off the Blood-born and the Grave Guard, the Khemist likewise fumigating my wights. The Frigate remained in combat, though one unit of Skywardens peeled off to deal with my backline Skeleton unit. The Admiral charged my Blood-born, killing them outright but straying into pile-in territory of my Vampire Lord, who proceeded to beat him around the head with a mace for a little bit. The Skeleton Horde remained "strong", recovering plenty of models in the combat phase and then being reduced to a single unit champion remaining. This could have gone a lot worse. (Good thing that conniving Necromancer was dead, I might have lost the Skeletons if he'd been offloading wounds onto them!)
On my turn, I removed the objective my opponent's Navigator was sitting on. That'll tech him! I also used the Genera's Handbook Heroic Action Strike At The Opening to fight in the Hero Phase with my Vampire Lord, dealing a little more damage to the enemy Admiral. That guy is very durable! More skeletons regenerated, though tragically my Grave Guard weren't close enough to my Vampire Lord to recover any models. I also managed to actually cast Spirit Gale this time, chipping wounds off every enemy and slaying one Skywarden from each unit thanks to previous damage.
My cavalry swept in from the left, taking back the centre control point and giving me more lovely victory points. I had the Wight King hang back an inch or two to continue contesting the Northwest objective too. In the combat phase, many Skeletons reassembled, and my Vampire Lord weathered a beating but finally finished off the Admiral (immediately recovering damage taken thanks to The Hunger), scoring me The Choicest Vintage. Also, the sole surviving Grave Guard charged the Khemist, though failed to do anything of note.
Round 3
I won priority. Time for a counter double turn!
This turn I forgot to pick a Battle Tactic. My opponent was kind enough to let me pick one randomly when I remembered at the start of the combat phase, but there was no chance of completing This One's Mine by then.
A few key things happened this turn. First, I was reminded that Objectives in Age of Sigmar are sticky, and you don't have to leave units on them. Second, my opponent removed my backline (Southwest) objective, freeing up my Skeletons to move even if it wasn't sticky. Thirdly, my opponent got fed up of the Purple Sun and dispelled it - it was sitting in the centre of the board and making it risky for him to move his troops nearby, while I was basically ignoring it. (I failed to cast anything so his Navigator had a dispel left.)
I began moving my Skeletons towards the centre, while the Skeleton Horde continued to regenerate itself (and also move to retake the Southeast objective, now that it had enough models again). My Black Knights continued to sweep eastward, flattening the Khemist with 7 Mortal Wounds on the charge, and my Vampire Lord charged back South to deal with the separated unit of Skywardens, wiping them out in a single round.
My opponent Flew High with the Frigate, transporting the remaining unit of Skywardens and the Endrinriggers close to the Northwest objective. His Navigator slowed my cavalry contingent to a crawl, and plinked the last Wound off the Grave Guard in the Hero phase - I responded by immediately re-summoning them at the end of the Movement phase to contest the Northwest objective (and to distract from everything shooting my Wight King).
The Grave Guard ate a lot of fire, though not enough to save the mounted Wight King from taking enough fire to kill him too. That hurt, I needed units that can actually do damage. There wasn't much (or any?) combat this turn, just a lot of my important units getting shot. Ouch.
Round 4
I won priority, and so we didn't have a double turn this time!
On the other hand, my opponent removed the Southeast objective, leaving my Skeleton Horde hanging around a big hole in the ground rather than delicious loot. This turn, with thin pickings for Battle Tactics, I chose Endless Nightmare - unfortunately, my big unit of Skeletons was up to 14 models by this point; I'd need to revive four in the Hero Phase and then pass the 25% chance to reassemble the other two in the Combat Phase.
I pushed my forces towards the centre of the battlefield, my Vampire Lord flying 11" to catch up with the two units of skeletons, and my Wight King popping back out of the grave to get even more control on the central point. The Black Knights attempted a long charge at the Frigate, hoping to wipe out one of the units inside with a good set of Mortals, but even with a reroll they couldn't make it in. To make matters worse, I only revived one Skeleton in the combat phase, failing my Battle Tactic. All in all, I scored only a single point this turn, and things started to look grim.
In my opponent's turn, he chipped wounds off my cavalry with the Navigator again, shot the Black Knights off the table, and disembarked the Skywardens to take the central Objective. There was also a bunch of shooting at my Wight King, but in cover and with Finest Hour up he weathered the storm this time.
Round 5
My opponent won priority again, leading to the most double turns I've seen in a single game of AoS. I also completely forgot to remove an objective this round, leading to extra points scored for my opponent - whoops.
The Skywardens went Northwest to contest that objective against emerging Black Knights - my opponent had to choose between running (and preventing my Knights from taking the objective from him if they emerged on his turn by contesting it) or not running (and hoping that their ranged weapons would be enough to sweep the Knights if they showed up this turn). He chose not to run, resulting in only a single Skywarden being within 6" of the Objective. As it was, the Black Knights did not emerge this turn (I rolled for it though, which was probably a mistake).
The Frigate and the Endrinriggers then charged Wight King and both units of Skeletons. With everything together, (and a series of unlucky saves) the Wight King died again, leaving my opponent in control of both objectives. It was going to come down to the Vampire Lord to save the day.
On my turn I selected Eye for an Eye as the only Battle Tactic I really had a hope of completing. I needed to kill either the Frigate (unlikely, but wins me the game at this point) or the Endrinriggers (much more likely, but I wasn't sure it'd be enough), while also getting enough skeletons onto the central point to take it and getting my Black Knights back to take the Northwest objective. Yikes.
I started strong by casting Grinding Teeth of Gallet on the central Objective, catching the Frigate, Endrinriggers, and my Skeletons (oh no, not the skeletons). And then I flubbed all the rolls, resulting in no Mortal Wounds to anybody. Total effective spells cast this game: 1.
Next up, I moved the Vampire Lord into position for a 3" charge into the Frigate and successfully brought back the Black Knights! That's the Northwest Objective taken care of, along with my Grand Strategy.
Finally, the combat phase. The Vampire Lord made his charge, and immediately rolled five misses for his attacks. Oof. So much for taking out the Frigate. Due to poor positioning on my part, both units of skeletons had to split attacks between the Frigate and the Endrinriggers, though the Horde did manage to pile in close enough to the objective to take that for me too. It came down to the wire, but with Crimson Feast and All Out Attack active, the Horde also managed to kill off the last two Endrinriggers, scoring my last grasp of points!
Final result: 22 - 22, Draw
Phew!
I definitely made mistakes this game, but so did my opponent. I'm happy with the result - there were a lot of things that happened that could have swung it one way or the other, and in the end a draw honestly feels like a hard-fought victory!
Learning points
Battle Tactics are a really fiddly part of the game. I don't even have the six Vampire ones memorised, never mind the eight other options! That's definitely going to be a sticking point for me learning this game properly.
I really like the Vampire Lord, though I can definitely see why people like taking Legion of Blood for them - extra casting ability and more attacks would both have been very useful in this game. They're also not quite as damaging in combat as I keep thinking they are, which is something I'll have to keep in mind.
On the topic of casting: oof. One successful spell over the course of the game is not what I'd been hoping to see. Granted, some of those were dispelled by the Navigator, but I think I missed casting well over half of them in the first place - and losing the Necromancer early on didn't help with that. I feel like I'd like to be the magically dominant faction in most matchups (outside Tzeentch or Lizardmen), so more wizards might be the way to go. Or at least the Arcane Tome on the Wight King.
Vyrkos really didn't do much for me this game, though what it did do may have kept me in it. The 5+ Ward on the Skeleton Horde helped out on turn one, when the most damage was incoming; while the Wight King counting as seven models forced my opponent to make some riskier plays to take the central objective from me. I never managed to chain activate heroes and units, and as mentioned earlier I don't have the models for summoned wolves yet. I think I'll try out Legion of Blood next time for better Vampires.
I almost completely wasted the Grave Guard this game. A unit of ten Skeletons would have done better in their position. I think I need to keep them in the grave a little longer - if I'd brought them out a turn later they could have easily deleted the Navigator for me. (They were still useful for taking fire, but I'd rather not spend 140pts to do that when 85 would suffice!)
Kharadron Overlords are frustrating to fight against, but also Skeletons seem to be a great counter to them - coming back in the Combat phase means you can regenerate a lot of the damage that they do with shooting.
The Navigator is an incredible utility piece too - moving ships, dealing Mortal Wounds, and most annoyingly halving the speed of my units to stop them getting where I needed them to go. I know it's only based on rolls of one and six, but with a reroll each turn (from a command, I think? Or possibly an artefact.) he was able to get both effects off every round damaging multiple units.
The Frigate was cool, if infuriating. My opponent attempted to drop bombs with it in the movement phase exactly once, and came to the same conclusion I did about moving across enemy units: it's basically impossible. Doubtless there's some professional strategy for doing it consistently, but it looks to me like you'd have to start 3" away and fly over no more than 1" of model to get the frigate to fly over a unit given its base size.
We completed the game in somewhere over three hours. Not bad given that I'm still learning all the rules, but definitely something to work on.
Anyway, thanks for reading, and I hope this was enjoyable. I'm always open to advice - I know I've got a lot to learn about how the army works!
Next step: paint all the skeletons!

A Cyclical Universe

"Creation myth? Hoo boy. First off, that whole phrase smacks of Monkey Talk; and we thank Talos to this day for their turn at Glenumbria – or the Wheel-Eyed Wonderment of the east devils – who at least have the wheel part right, but that's so obvious as to offend your own navel, which is to say, wasting the time of even wasting time; but I guess that's what you want to hear about, really: time.” – On the Nords Lack of Creation Myth

This post arose from a desire to create a comprehensive alternative to the Vivecian/(Dun)Merish/Monomyth brand of cosmology popular on this sub. Instead, I have as core Ancient Nordic-inspired texts. Most of these are by Kirkbride, and most of these are out of game (just like many of our scripture on CHIM and the Towers), but they do seem to mesh with what we know of the ancient Nords.
So, what is this alternative? It’s a cycle of eternal Kalpas, without a moment of creation. In fact, Mundus has always existed, and will continue to do so until Alduin finally achieves total victory; just as it will always be destroyed until Shor achieves total victory. As long as the battle rages on, the wheel will keep turning. The gods as we know them now, including the Daedra, are all ascended mortals that only came to be during the Merethic Era. Auriel was a King of the Aldmer, Xarxes was his scribe or priest, Arkay was a shopkeeper, and Akatosh only came to be through monkey-magic. I am not alone in this, as the Psijics believe that these “not-our-ancestors” are just as much ascended mortals as Talos is:
​

“The Daedra and gods to whom the common people turn are no more than the spirits of superior men and women whose power and passion granted them great influence in the afterworld.” – Celarus the Loremaster, The Old Ways

Most cosmological theories of TES lore begin with Anu and Padomay, who beget the Aurbis, who begets the Time-Dragon and all the other Et’Ada. Eventually Lorkhan comes, makes Mundus, and the Kalpic cycle starts; restarting each time in the Dawn Era of the material plane. Wrong. Elf-logic.
Many of us have grown up with a very linear perception of time and both secular and religious stories of a "moment of creation", so we strongly desire for all things to have “a beginning”. We already believe that the Elder Scrolls universe is more cyclical than our own, but I feel that the story of the Monomyth, the Anuad, and a Mundus-only view of Kalpas is cope to reintroduce linearity into the universe; neatly packaging all cyclicality in a larger linear shell. For the races that only exist in this Kalpa, like the Elves and Nedes, that makes sense. They have no true knowledge of the past worlds, after all. The Nords, however, as a trans-kalpic race (I will get to this later), do have this knowledge.

The End of the Old Cycle

“Talos’ totem is the newest, but is everywhere … of all the gods, he will be the one that survives in whole into the next cycle.” – The Nords’ Totemic Religion
“The Moot looked to the tribe of Ald son of Ald but he would break no oath of the Pact” – Shor son of Shor
“Assume the Dawn Era was the End of the Previous Kalpa. The new Kalpa begins with the first day of the Merethic Era. Then put on your lore-hats and start looking hard at the ramifications of that.” – World-Eating 101

So, the ancient Nords believed that all gods are to be at least partially destroyed in the end of the cycle, and this does not mean only the Aedra (Herma Mora is named as one of the Testing Gods, after all). Therefore, Alduin destroys both Mundus and Oblivion and as Ald son of Ald (the son of this Kalpa’s Akatosh), he becomes the Akatosh of the next cycle. But how can this be when Talos – like Líf at the end of Ragnarök – is supposed to be the only one to survive this war at the end of time? As the Dragonborn God, it might be natural to think that Talos should thus be the new Akatosh. I considered this, but that makes “Ald son of Ald” more complicated than it needs to be (as it more naturally refers to Bormahu and Alduin). In addition, because Talos is so Lorkhan-like in his status as protector of humanity, it is much more natural to make him Shor son of Shor. But this raises a second question: If the new Kalpa starts with the Merethic Era (after convention), how can Shor be the one to survive into the next cycle, when his death is the defining moment of creation?
​

“Seeing the strength of King Wulfharth, Orkey summoned the ghost of Alduin Time-Eater again. Nearly every Nord was eaten down to six years old. Boy Wulfharth pleaded to Shor, the dead Chieftain of the Gods, to help his people. Shor's own ghost then fought the Time-Eater on the spirit plane, as he did at the beginning of time, and he won” – The Five Songs of King Wulfharth, Old Knocker

I will get to these answers soon, but let me first describe how I believe the end of time will go down. That which is commonly called the “Dawn” Era. It begins with the awakening of Alduin and his dragon-siblings, the other children of Bormahu, the World-Eater of the last turning. First, Alduin literally eats the mortals and destroys mountains and trees in dragonflame; but with each soul consumed, he grows stronger. As the Song of Old Knocker tells us, Alduin does not only eat literally. As the embodiment of “the end”, he can also eat concepts. After many years of hopeless battle in the Evgir Unslaad, with the world growing more and more destroyed, Alduin begins his concept-eating. He eats the names of mortals who haven’t yet managed to escape to the Far Shores, and these mortals begin to lose their identity and memory, slowly returning to a more spirit-like state of the Ehlnofey. Alduin also eats the names of Aedra and Daedra. Et'Ada are so thoroughly bound to their concepts that when their names are eaten, their identities are utterly destroyed. Only the idea is left: Hircine no longer exists, or Dibella, or Mara, but the Chase, Beauty, and Love still exist in the deepest reaches of Aetherius, which acts much the same as Plato’s realm of ideas. Eternal, unthinking and unchanging; this is the end-state that the Old Ehlnofey want to reach, who are still too mortal and self-aware for their own tastes. They join Alduin in his rampage to destroy all creation. The Wandering Ehlnofey like being real though, even if it means dying; and they join the one God that has managed to evade Alduin’s name-eating: Talos.
​

"Nirn originally was all land, with interspersed seas, but no oceans." – The Annotated Anuad

In eating all the Et'Ada, Alduin also eats the Earth-Bones. With their passing, Mundus itself becomes destabilized and mythic. The world of the Dawn is an endless magical wasteland, a post apocalyptic Mad-max scenario devoid of most life; and without Memory, it's seas recede as well. This wasteland has expanded into a fully depopulated Oblivion, shattering any boundary between them, and the border between the void-Mundus and Aetherius becomes blurry too as Alduin becomes stronger and stronger. The Far Shores are hidden away deeper in Aetherius, but as Skyrim tells us: Sovngarde is within Alduin's reach. And so, as Alduin begins to eat away at the edges of Aetherius, he also eats the dead gods – Shor and Tsun – and attacks the Hall of Valor.
Talos, however, has escaped Alduin's wrath, and he breaks the siege. He takes Shor’s throne in the underworld, and the Hero-Nords join his armies against the World-Eater. The Nords of Sovngarde’s Hall still were safe from Alduin, and thus still know their names. This is how the Nords (and Redguards) keep their knowledge of the cycle, where the other races don't. Talos is thus the only god that “survives in whole”, because he – like the Nords – still knows his name (though Alduin, as the only existing time-god, still knows his name as well). Kalpas are generally said to go from mythic to mundane and back to mythic again, and with the name-death of all spirits except for Talos and the Nords, we have reached peak mythic. From now on, things will only get more “normal”.
​

The Beginning of the Beginning

Though they are not yet truly like the mortals we know, the Wandering Ehlnofey slowly start to become more human-like, and the Old Ehlnofey more elven, as they begin forming new identities based on their opposition to the other. We are still in the Dawn Era, but through the influence of the war of Shor son of Shor, the spirits start to self-reflect and become more “real”. Mortal once again. But as Ehlnofey, they had no memory, so they wrongly believe that they must’ve always been like that, and that the Nu-Lorkhan had turned them mortal; which is where we get the Elven mythologies from. The next cycle has not yet begun, so even though there are powerful spirits on both sides, these spirits cannot yet truly be gods (except for Talos and Alduin). Perhaps that’s because it is only possible to speak of a division between gods and spirits once the boundaries between Mundus, Oblivion, and Aetherius are reestablished.
Eventually, however, the fighting must stop.
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"Kyne had taken the head of Magnar, the jarl that betrayed the weakness of our spear-lines and fled the field. Shor shook his scaled mane. "That isn't Magnar," he said, "Magnar, I fear, fell at sunrise and became replaced by mirrors. The other chieftains are using our forms to lead us astray." – Shor son of Shor

The new cycle begins at convention, called because of Magnus’ departure. But I just said that there aren’t yet any boundary between Mundus, Oblivion, and Aetherius – Alduin has eaten those – so where has he departed to? Well, the deepest Aetherius, where the pure ideas live, is still separate. It is only upon Alduin’s total victory that there is nothing left but pure forms. Magnus thus departed to that one place that all elves wish to reach: He lost himself and became nothing than a mere idea, eternal and unchanging. “Magnar fell at sunrise”. When the Sun appeared in the sky, Magnus was gone. Not just out of reach, but fully lost, replaced only by the mirrors of other people’s memory (which may be Meridia). This revelation that one can escape is why convention was called, and Shor’s loss in battle because of it is why he accepted. Convention is a confusing event, but in my version, it has a few important cornerstones.
Remember, there are no gods but Alduin and Talos here. It’s a meeting between the tribe of Ald son of Ald, and the tribe of Shor son of Shor. Both sides want to win, to fully destroy the other, because that is the only way that they can either all become ideas or creation can live on in peace. However, if Alduin was to ascend like Magnus did, creation would still continue on as it exists now, and Talos would win. His nature as “the End” cannot allow that, so a compromise is reached. Alduin will end this cycle, but only on the condition that Talos dies. Talos thinks that – after the loss of his Cycle's Magnus – Alduin will eventually win, so he accepts. Alduin eats his own concept, and time is now nameless, but he has laid an egg for the next world: with his self-destruction, the dragons are born, including the Alduin of the following cycle. Talos’ heart is removed, and is forced to be reincarnated this new world for eternity as the leader of humanity: the Dragonborn-Shezarrine (though he still knows his name).
With this, we have finally reached the new Merethic era, and there is room for new gods. A few of the most powerful spirits on each side uphold this Moot by sacrificing part of themselves to stabilize creation. They partially ascend in the way of Magnus, and bind themselves to existing Platonic ideas in a manner not dissimilar to mantling. They form the bridge between Aetherius and the new Mundus, either concepts (Aedra) or laws (Earth-Bones) depending on their own strength and the totality of their sacrifice. Just as the Psijics believe, mortals came first, they became gods only later. Not all concepts immediately have a god though, for that is not necessary for these concepts to exist. This leaves room for other mortals to do the same later on, like the story of Arkay the shopkeeper, or of the High King Auriel ascending to become the new Time spirit:
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“So could the High King of Alinor, who was the one who broke it in the first place.” – Mannimarco, Where were you when the Dragon broke?

By ascending, the new gods become more idea-like, and thus lose a part of their self-awareness and individuality (the comatose status of the Aedra). However, there are other powerful spirits who do not want to abide by convention. They don’t want to be mortal on Mundus with the weaker spirits, and they don’t want to lose themselves, so they hide in the voids in-between Mundus and Aetherius; now finally Oblivion. To do so, they bind themselves to an idea as well, but less thoroughly than the Aedra do; and thus, they retain at least some individuality (though less than mortals). These are the Daedra, and – though many of them became one through their refusal to sacrifice themselves – what truly defines them is this partial idea-ness. Any spirit who chooses this in-between state in Oblivion can become a Daedra, no matter if they were mortal or Aedra before; which is why Malacath is a Daedra in the current Kalpa. As Shor son of Shor describes, after the death of Shor, Kyne shouts the Nords in Sovngarde back atop High Hrothgar; and – as her first action as a deity – Talos’ newly ascended wife does the same for this new Kalpa. The Nords are thus brought relatively unscathed through the Kalpas, and that is why they still tell this tale in their oral tradition, and why they know more than the Altmer.
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“And the awful fighting ended again.” – Shor son of Shor

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Monke Dances and Other Fun Things

At least, that is what would’ve happened if the Kalpa we’re playing is ever going to end. It won’t, we made sure of that as Last Dragonborn. Together with explanations on the Shezarrine-Dragonborn thing and the Selectives dancing atop the tower, I will explain why this Kalpa is different in Part 2, eventually.