Malazan Empire: Blend - Viewing Profile - Malazan Empire

Alright, so as to give Gnaw however much time he needs to deal with whatever is going on in his life, but to still give those of us who need it a TI4 fix in the mean time, I figured we could start another game on the side.

I'd very much like to play so if like Khell or Drek want to mod that would be great (always happy to help with map updates regardless)! If not, I'll be happy to mod the game!

So who's in?

1. D'rek
2. Nom
3. IH
4. Jazzarm
5. Twelve
6. Khell
7. Morgoth
8. Tattersail
9. ToasTer86


Game Map:




Ban Phase Results

With a whopping 7 votes against them, the Sol race is the first to be removed from the game.

Then, with 6 votes each, Jol-Nar and Mentak are also removed.

Next, with 3 votes each, we have Hacan, Muaat and Saar.

Finally, with only 2 votes, the Yssaril.



Selection Phase Instructions

We will now begin the selection phase, which will proceed as follows:

The randomized selection order is Toaster > IH > Tattersail > Khellendros > ItWasNom > Jazzarm > Twelve > Drek > Morgoth.

We will be doing a snake draft. This means that Toaster will first choose his race, his starting position OR if the Speaker chip. We will then move on to IH, then Tattersail and so on until we reach Morgoth. Morgoth will choose first one of the three above choices, then a second one and we will make our way back through the list backwards until we reach Toaster.

Once everyone has done two selections, whatever is left at the end will be assigned appropriately (if the speaker token has been taken by someone, the person who chose it will be allowed to choose either their race or their starting position, whichever one they have not yet chosen; if no one has taken the speaker token by the time everyone has chosen two things each, then the speaker token will be assigned randomly).

Snake Draft Choices:

Toaster - picks HS #2
IH - picks HS #8
Tattersail - HS #5
Khellendros - HS #9
ItWasNom - HS #3
Jazzarm - HS #4
Twelve - Speaker Token
Drek - HS #6
Morgoth - Creuss
Morgoth - HS #1
Drek - Nekro
Twelve - Arborec
Jazzarm - L1Z1X
ItWasNom - Xxcha
Khellendros - Letnev
Tattersail - Sardak N'orr
IH - Yin
Toaster - Naalu
Twelve - HS #7


The following races are available for race selection:

Arborec
Creuss
L1Z1X
Letnev
Naalu
Nekro
Sardakk
Winnu
Xxcha
Yin

The starting locations are numbered from 1 to 9 on the map in the OP of this thread. This post will be added to the OP of this thread. Please post your race/starting positon or speaker token selection in this thread.

My buddy has had me watching Cricket with him for the last few weeks, and though I still only half understand what is happening most of the time, I've been getting pretty into it!

We're cheering for India, but today's beatdown of New Zealand by the English team was astounding! So far England is the only team to beat India, though the India vs NZ game was rained out so who knows how that could/would have went. It's looking like semis will be India, England, Australia and NZ - hoping for an India vs England finals here!

Anyone else watching?

If anyone has noticed over the past several months we have been playing Twilight Imperium 4th Edition on the Games Forum.

We are currently between games, and signups are open! We have space for at least 2 more players, more if new players are willing to team up with experienced players for their first game!

We encourage new blood, the game is very complex, but a lot of fun! In general, it's a lot to learn at the front end of the game, but once you've gotten through a round or two, the game is more or less understandable!

If you're interested, hop on over to the Game thread and let us know! We'll slot you in to one of the games that are going to start in the next couple of weeks!

So there's an article going around Facebook today that kind of has my back up:

Read here!

I'll start this out by declaring that I am a very gay man who has no particular love or dislike for the police. I have never had a negative altercation with them, nor have I ever really had to deal with the police directly for anything having to do with my own well-being or life. For that reason, I try not to get involved in the whole police at pride debate very often. That being said...

I don't really know that I can disagree with the police chief in the above article. We can't tell police they're not allowed at Pride, and also be angry that they're not at pride.

From what I read in that article, they were trying to respect organizers' wishes that police not have a visible presence at their parade. That resulted in them not being able to immediately respond to the violence because they, frankly, were not as near to the incident as they would have been were they welcome there.

I understand the desire not to have police in the parade, but if we're going to ask them to not participate, it's a bit disingenuous of us to also expect them to be there against our wishes.

Here's an actual quote from Pride Hamilton's acting president Terri Wallis:

“We want that to be a very friendly, very open, very safe and secure environment. And we feel that if the police were present, that wouldn’t happen.”

That, paired with not allowing the police to have a recruitment booth at the pride events, says to me NO POLICE ALLOWED AT ALL.

I just think it's ridiculous and hypocritical to say NO POLICE BECAUSE THEY MAKE US FEEL UNSAFE, then get angry that the police that were asked not to be present were not doing enough to make us feel safe. You can't have it both ways.

I just think that if we're going to be angry at police, it should be because they're actually working against us. I just don't see it being the case here, at least not from what I have read in this and other articles about the unfortunate events at Pride Hamilton.

Wallis also said this:

“If members of the Hamilton Police force want to show up at Pride, they’re more than welcome, but they cannot show up in uniform,” said Wallis, adding that they may call on police to do their job if protesters become disruptive or threatening.

So it wasn't an outright ban on police presence. That being said, it's kind of ridiculous to expect a police person who is not in their uniform, therefore not equipped with any of their regular safety equipment, to deal with a mob of violent protesters.

It's okay for us to ask these people to risk their lives for us, but not okay for them to actually wear the things designed to protect themselves in case of dangerous situations because it makes us feel unsafe?

Like I said, I understand the police ban, there's good reason for it. But I think having outrageous expectations like these (and there are certainly ridiculous expectations on both sides) are what make this whole thing so controversial.

And to top it all off, here's another article about the town hall meeting following the incident at Hamilton Pride:

Read here!

The thing about all this is that we don't really know how long it took for them to respond. The police chief has said that they responded "very quickly" and the community has said that they didn't. So, it seems pretty we said/they said to me.

The police chief has also mentioned that additional officers were asked to come in on their day off to provide additional security to the event and also to be debriefed about the event, so they didn't just completely ignore the gays like some would have us believe, they actually increased their presence while still trying to respect the community's wishes to have them not be visible. It was also stated that one of the reasons for the delayed response is that some police had been pulled away to deal with another protest incident at City Hall. So what, they should have ignored this other protest so that they could protect us? What makes us more special than anyone else?

Following the Pride incident, the police were present to listen to the complaints at the town hall event, despite being told to fuck off. From all I've seen in this situation, the police are trying, and people like Cedar Hopperton have no interest in reconciliation, they just want to cause trouble and continue widening the rift between the community and the police force.

Continuing to play the blame game doesn't get anyone anywhere, and from where I'm standing, from the various articles I've read about it (and I've read many as I find this specific situation particularly interesting), the police in Hamilton are TRYING, despite the fact that they're being blamed for things, as far as I can see, we have no right to be blaming them for. They were doing their jobs AND trying to respect our community, and we're still not happy with them. The road to reconciliation between the gay community and the police force has to start somewhere, and telling police to go fuck themselves in a public forum, or blaming them for something that they couldn't help because they were trying to respect your wishes in the first place, isn't where that starts.