JasonM

Undead are massive cunts to face. One the mummies regenerate so it's nigh-impossible to keep them down for the entire match. Then the Ghouls have dodge by default so they can just fly through your defensive line unscathed.

The only real weakness they got is that their non-mummies are squishy as hell, and the wights/ghouls are their main offensive players, so if you can get past those mummies and beat down their skilled players you can whittle them down. Another significant weakness is that they are all lumbering and will take a while before they reach your endzone, so you got plenty of time to try to break down their cage or even try to bumrush the carrier before they can even set-up a cage.

Basically they're a glass-cannon team, they can fuck you up big time when tackling, but if you on the other hand can gang up on their star players you can crush them equally as quick...

A human tactic I tend to use, which is risky as it is useful. Set up a defensive cage at the center, have my two catchers run up the pitch and hopefully end up next to each other for a defensive boost... And then get my passer into that defensive cage I set up.

During their defensive turn they will probably waste their Blitz on one of the catchers, which means that the other catcher can get open in the backfield for a pass to them.
Needless to say, it's risky, since the pass can easily go wrong and end up costing you the possession, but if you got a good pass/catcher combo they can be devastating by scoring an early point and then turtling up and grinding it out for the rest of the half.

Like all Marvel series, I will be watching JJ religiously despite never having read any of her comics... Which I probably should do.

Saw that the AOS S3 trailer wasn't yet posted...

How did I not even know about this, a god-damned X360 emulator. I'm so hype right now despite proper workign builds being a few years away still...
I will assume it's infinitely easier than PS2 emulating, because that generation used A LOT of loopholes and design tricks to get to make them work on said consoles. If you look at a game like Snake Eater on PCSX2 it will be an unplayable mess because the game wasn't made for the infrastructure and they were magicians in just getting it to work, let alone be the finest game of it's generation.

360/PS3 emulation is a whole lot more cut and dry compared to it's preceding generation. Most games are built on a recognisable engine and because the tech surrounding it was better (and more closely relating to PC hardware) the games themselves have been made a whole lot less ''tricky''. The only exceptions could probably be made for games like GTA5 and Last of Us, games that managed to push the system to it's limits long after people even expected advancements in said systems...

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Anyways, that was my tangent about emulation, now to talk about the actual topic...

Personally I think I will never stop playing games completely. I will dial down the amount of gaming I do depending on the situation (during holiday I played no games for 3 weeks), and with me doing a 40h/w internship (and all those awesome TV Series to watch) I got much less time to invest in playing games. But if I have a moment of boredom, I will pick up a game and will play it for a good time.

I'm still trying to get through Witcher 3, and it's epic fun because the game is amazing. After that I will probably pick up MGS5 or Mad Max depending on what i'm fancying.
On the side I also play some other games when I don't feel like playing through the Witcher; like Project CARS or Eastside Hockey Manager. And when FM16/NBA 2k16 comes out I'll no doubt pick those up too.

I'm 25 years old now, and I've been surrounded with videogames since I was a kid. First on the NES, then the gameboy, PS2, 360, and always the PC too. I can imagine a life with less games, but I can't imagine it without any because it's part of me. I can live without them, but why would I want to?

Yup, anything below GP2 is pretty much the territory of shoddy driving all around. I know a few months back an F3 race at Monza was red flagged purely because the racing was awful and the stewards didn't want to be the witness of something fatal happening.

KIIIIIIL MEEEEEEE

I think it's time to set up a Blood Bowl thread... Or at least necro a blood bowl thread if there's already one.

Norse are a very good team because all players have block by default, which means that in cases of ''both down'' you can pick that option because Block will keep your guy standing, also means less re-rolls which means generally goodness.

They are a bit squishy though and they all have the same Armor Value, so they can get injured quite a bit.

I am currently rolling with a Human run/gun team, got one passer and two catchers. Passer grabs the ball and runs behind the center-line crew, lineman form a diamond around him, and the blitzers go to work at clearing the backfield for a pass.

Yuuuup, best bet is to find a guide on YouTube...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MV3kQuapaTw

A few important tips:
You win by scoring more (Duh!)
Every roll of the dice is a chance to fail
Failed diceroll = end of turn
Do the non-diceroll moves first, they can't fail.
Expect every roll to fail, and think about what the worst case scenario might be in that case.
Roll from most dice to least dice, one-dice rolls are risky. 2-rolls are less risky etc. Risk is bad.
Don't use big guys to do anything other than stand around looking pretty.
Know the negatives of the players you're using, and never ''chance it'' with negatives because it'll mess you.
Cover the ball, make sure an AI can't run to your carrier without rolling and truck him over.

Most of these tips are from: https://fumbbl.com/help:The+Taoch!+of+Blood+Bowl%3A+A+Condensed+Guide+for+Newbies
It's mandatory reading.

Biggest motif of BB which you'll always see is: Take no unnecessary chances, winners are the ones with the least rolls.

Skinks are super weak, super un-agile players from the Lizardmen. The only thing that they got going for them is a lot of default movement points and some skills.

Basically the choice for a masochist.

You better finish the campaign with an all-skink team!

December race, crap that's getting really ridiculous. Why not slot it between Singapore and Japan.

Oh wait, Bernie's getting more money from the Malaysians to put it last, silly me!

For the people that are interested in Blood Bowl, it's a really really steep learning curve to learn to properly play the game. I've tried multiple times and never really got further than occassional wins against weak AI teams.

Tactics are a big part of the game, and every single race has their own playing style. Elves/Skaven are all about dodging the shit out of everything. Nurgle/Orcs are brawl&ball teams where you try to simply win by a small margin because most of the game is spent kicking the shit out of your opponents... Then you have a race like dwarves who are all about surviving whatever the opponent throws at you, they're not great at running/passing/smashing, but they can take a ridiculous amount of punishment before they break.

Of course there is a human race which is pretty much every human race in every RPG ever, but that doesn't neccesarily make them the obvious pick for a beginner.

Also, in BB1, don't expect the game to teach you anything concrete other than general gameplay, you'll still be swamped by the first team because you have no idea how most of the game works.

One you learn how the game works, its a really fun game even against AI because it's a challenge (especially if you ''like'' skewed RNGs). And against other people the fun and challenge is ramped up infinitely so.

So just look around the web, look on YouTube, there are a bunch of tuts and let's plays available for Blood Bowl.
 

PS: also don't expect you can just sit down and play for a bit, average games can take around an hour to complete.!

The Dean Ambrose picture looks brilliant. Same goes for Ryback and Aiden English. R-Truth looks completely devoid of a soul...

Just what we need, a shitty version of an epic rivalry
Obviously Nicky Prost has no chance of making it onto the F1 grid, in the past 3 years he's not gotten the required 40 points towards a superlicense, so he's SOL.

Grosjean staying is a no-brainer, he's French and has enough talent to challenge for podiums when the conditions are right like in Belgium, and a better car will only help that end. But I really don't want to see Maldonado in the F1 despite his high entertainment factor, he's a boon and makes a joke out of the sport with his mere presence, and I rather see him and moneybags go to a smaller team that'll be cash-strapped, like Manor, or Sauber... Really, after what Monisha Kalterborn did this season, she deserves a driver like Maldonado to bin every car they give him.

Next year I just really want to see Kevin Magnussen back in F1, because in 2014 he showed real talent in the McLaren and I think given a nice car will make him thrive. If it's possible, i'd also love to see Stoffel Vandoorne make his way onto the grid because he's simply the best non-F1 talent right now. Every series he's driven in he's been a title contender, his 2014 GP2 series had him come in second in his first year, this year he's running away with the title and he's leading 100+ points over Alex Rossi. Stoffel is as F1-ready as anyone can be, and if McLaren wants to keep both Button and Alonso, something will have to give and they'll have to hash out a deal with a midfield team to give Stoffel a seat and much needed F1 experience.

Takes place 2-4 years after MGS4, you're the character from MGS2 turned into a cyborg ninja, you cut the shit out of things.

That's it really, I wasn't really interested in MGR's plot at all.

Part of me feels he's innocent until proven guilty, but you can't ignore the gravity of the crime when he in fact drugged and raped his ex-girlfriend.

A shockingly terrible off-season for American Sports in general, and I don't know what's wrong with Chicago that turns superstar athletes into rapists... First Kane and now D-Rose, man shit can't get worse.

For whoever feels like ''wasting'' 4 and a half hours, here is a Youtube vid of someone that edited all the cutscenes into one epic length movie.

The same guy also made a ''movie'' for Peace Walker, and all the other MGS games. So if you feel like catching up, and don't want to play yourself, and don't like Let's Plays. This is your best bet.

I can't wait for a WCW 1999 mode. So I can play as 3 Count!

Vaudevillains!

Snail sections must die!

Merc dominated, but cripes what was the race a spectacular affair throughout!

Drama at the start with Hulkenberg's car dying at the end of the first warm-up lap, and then Sainz having to pit and returning after being lapped twice (before retiring anyways).

Maldonado's car died, which was par for the course. And Ricciardio had a moment of heartbreak as he was doing pretty damn great up until that, and it hurts to see such a nice guy suffer like that.

Vettel's tyre exploded with 2 laps to go, ultimate drama and the gamble of trying to stretch the Medium's past their limits proved to blow up in their faces (pun intended). Glad to see a different driver finish third with Grosjean getting some sort of penance after the drama start he had at Spa in 2012.

Hamilton drove his own race, Rosberg had a shaky start and recovered impressively and got close a few times before Hamilton simply blazed off again.

Verstappen was also on an absolute stormer all race, going from 18 all the way to 8 to grab 4 points despite every random thing conspiring against him this weekend. Dude was bossing around the track like he was a 10 year veteran, and that overtake through blanchimont on Nasr had me holding my heart in suspense (after de Jong crashed there yesterday).

Good race, obvious winners but anything from #3 and beyond was great action.

I didn't even know I used a sig anymore, lol. That one is quite a few years old, right now I just have sigs turned off across the board.

I had been planning on playing some sort of racing game in the diary, but I don't think i'll have the time for it and it'll probably end up being like 2-3 posts long and then ends up being nothing at all...

Also, F1 fandom is a little bit of both. Some people are die-hard fans of particular racers, like Raikkonen, Vettel, Hamilton etc. And some people are simply die-hard fans for a team. Big example are the 'Tifosi', who live and breathe everything Ferrari.

Some teams have test drivers, like Lotus and Williams. They go out in the first practice on Friday and they'll drive the car around. This is often done for multiple reasons, including sponsor money (Sponsors pay the team to let the driver do practice), experience (younger drivers with little/no F1 experience can pick up real world experience with a car), and of course testing the car itself and trying to improve it.

In the case a main driver is unable to drive himself, they're either replaced by one of those test drivers, unless the team has a designated ''reserve driver'', the latter is often an F1 experienced driver who can take over in a pinch. Example for this season is Esteban Gutierrez at Ferrari, who drove for Sauber in 2013 and 2014.

An example of a driver being replaced by a reserve driver was when at last pre-season testing Fernando Alonso had a horrendous crash and spent multiple weeks on the mend with a heavy concussion. For that race Kevin Magnussen (who drove for McLaren in 2014) took over, but he never started the race due to technical issues with his car. After the race Alonso came back and Magnussen returned to his role of being a reserve driver.

Whether they get promoted or not depends on the need of the team, and the talent of the driver. A lot of test drivers became full-time drivers after a year or so of testing. Biggest names to have done so are Sebastian Vettel and Valtteri Bottas, the former is a 4 time driver champion (2009-2013), and the latter is touted as one of the biggest talents on the grid currently.

Also currently Max Verstappen has set the record at being the youngest ever driver on an F1 grid. Last season he set the record for youngest test-driver at the age of 16! And this season he has made his debut in the F1 at age 17 (2.5 years younger than the previous record-holder). Lots of people didn't approve of letting a driver with only 1 year of minor-league experience (He's a dominant Karts champion, but Karts don't count as a 'feeder class'). Nobody will ever break the record, because after his signing by Red Bull and placing at Toro Rosso, the FIA (the governing body of racing) created a new rule that states new drivers must be older than 18 and they need significant success in feeder leagues. Under the new system Max would've had needed to have at least one more year in any feeder (with success) to be able to qualify for such a license.
Needless to say, he's the first and last of a new breed of drivers and highly touted. His season has been up and down due to some lack of experience and general car issues, but when both the car and him have been on he's truly been a spectacular driver to watch. Naturally he has set the record for youngest ever point-scorer in the second race of his career. He almost also became the youngest ever podium driver 3 weeks ago in Hungary, when he came in 4th in a crazy exciting race.

Today on the other hand he's starting at the back of the grid due to a so-so qualification that had him sit out the second qualifying session due to already having gotten a grid penalty due to a gearbox replacement before hitting even more issues in the latter part of the first qualifying.

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Qualifying:
As I might've said, qualifying is split up in three parts which all ends up taking place in one whole hour. First there is Q1 where all cars on the grid drive to get into the top 15, the bottom five qualify in their respective positions and are knocked out. In Q2 the 15 cars drive to determine the best 10 drivers on the grid and so-forth, if a car doesn't set a time in Q2 (or Q3) they'll qualify on the lowest spot in that session. So if a driver can't set a time in Q2, they'll start 15th instead of 20th... Finally there is the shoot-out, which is a 10 minute session with the ten best drivers, they'll determine who gets on pole and who starts where.

After qualification is over the penalties are applied, so for example even though McLaren beat out Manor in Q3, they will start on the last two grid-places due to the two drivers/cars having gotten a combined 105 spots penalty (50 and 55). You might say that's ridiculous, and you're right it is. I'll explain further.

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Tokens and car parts.

In an attempt to curtail teams from spending billions of dollars, F1 has started using a ''token system'' in the sport. Which means that across a 19/20 race season teams may use a maximum of 4 engines throughout the entirety of the seaosn. Aside from the whole engine, there are also multiple parts they may replace a set amount of times during the season. It can range from gearboxes to the kinetic motors (MGU-H and MGU-K) which give the cars an extra boost.

This has been done to prevent teams from swapping out engines every single race (or even every single session, back in the day!) and using their vast financial sums to simply pay to success (it's not as easy as that). But it's been shown in the past that Ferrari simply took 6 engines to a single race weekend and split them between the two cars to give them a new engine every single session.

Because Honda is a new engine supplier, they've given McLaren one extra token all-across the board and one extra engine to use. But it hasn't helped since they've been mired in technical issues every single racing week. So they've gone over the token limit in a truly spectacular way and are now racking up grid-penalties left right and center like it's going out of style. But it's not like they can sit out the rest of the season now that they've run out of tokens, they need to eat the penalties and somehow manage to perform come race-day and fight back from last place.

Other teams are also in trouble, but in general cars with Renault and Honda engines have been the most prone to those issues. Toro Rosso and Red Bull are also at the limit of their tokens, and as a result drivers will pick up technical grid-penalties purely because Renault isn't able to make their cars sturdy enough.

Really... Renault has really fucking fucked up hard.

This is Ricciardo on the final 500 meters of the Bahrain Grand Prix (seriously, home stretch!) (And no, it's not the jet-turboboost)

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So yeah, I can talk about F1 until the cows come home. So if you need to know more, just ask and i'll conjure up a wall of text.

Pretty sure it's NBC's paid sports channel which airs it live.
I also added a whole slab of text to my previous post, with a lot of information concerning the competition, this year's championship, and a few things about next year.

Also like Rich said. Every race is around 1:45 to 2 hours long without accounting for stoppages due to safety cars and potential red flags. Every race will be 300Km (190mi), the last lap will be the one that crosses that 300km margin. So even if the lap starts at 299km, there will be a final lap added to that to break that 300km margin. There is one exception, that is the legendary Monaco Grand Prix, which is the shortest (and slowest) track on the calendar and it would simply take too long to complete 300KM on such a small and slow track.
 

Tomorrow is the feature race of the Belgian Grand Prix, and it's the first race after the 3-week summer break. With tomorrows race there are 9 races left in the 19 race season.
25 october is the annual race in the USA at Circuit of the Americas, Austin, Texas. Which is a pretty fun race too.

Like Rich said, tomorrow is the race at Spa Francorchamps, the track is the longest one on the calender (7km/3.4mi) and also one of the oldest and most prestigious. The track itself is amazing all on it's own with crazy straights, awesome corners, and probably the most exciting section on the entire calendar.

Eau Rouge/Radillion is a chicane that has a run-up that has the car and driver drive downhill at full speed, before taking the kink without lifting and sweeping it back up the hill. It's an insane corner and it would never fly on a modern track, but due to the prestige of the track you simply can't mess with it.

As you can see, it's a spectacular section that you will find nowhere else apart from maybe the corkscrew of Laguna Seca.

In the USA NBC Sports is the official broadcaster of F1 races, in the UK you have Sky Sports (and occassionaly BBC). Naturally, for the people that don't have those channels there are also lower quality streams that aren't exactly legal.

A great place to start and get information is also the ''official'' reddit page of Formula One (www.reddit.com/r/Formula1, which closely follows the coverage. They're also very welcoming to new users and you can get a lot of information from their FAQ's.
The Wikipedia page also has a bunch of information about the current season (which I will also describe further) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Formula_One_season

Of course, there are plenty of people on EWB that also know a fair deal about F1, so feel free to ask any of us for more info.

As you can see, Formula One is split up in two championships. One is the World Driver Championship, which is awarded to the best driver over 19 races. And the other one is the World Constructor Championship, awarded to the team with the most points over 19 races.

Points are awarded to the top 10 finishers of every race, NO extra points for fastest laps or pole positions. The scoring is as following... 25-18-15-12-10-8-6-4-2-1 (The #10 driver gets 1 points, everyone from 11 onwards gets nothing).

As you can see, Mercedes is currently top dog in the standings, and they've been dominating since the start of the ''Second Turbo Era" of F1 which started last season in the 2014 season. Between 2009 and 2013 Red Bull was dominant with 4 championships in a row for Vettel (who now has moved to Ferrari as of this season.)

One thing that's interesting about F1 is also that there are factory teams (like Ferrari and Mercedes) who fund their own team out of their own factory. Aside from that there are "Customer teams'', these are teams that aren't tied to a car brand and drive independently, they buy a B-Spec engine from a manufacturer and compete in Formula One. B-Spec engines aren't as good as the ones the factory teams like Ferrari and Mercedes use themselves, often they're an older model, cheaper for the teams to buy, and it means Mercedes and Ferrari aren't shooting themselves in the foot. But it has happened many times where factory teams have been beaten by teams that have bought their own older engines, it's very much a sport about driver prowess and engineering skill at creating the best chassis and such.

Thirdly there are also "Feeder Teams", currently there is only one in Formula One and that is Toro Rosso, which is a sister-team to Red Bull. Red Bull is officially the main outfit, and Toro Rosso is home to young up-and-coming drivers, this year it's two second generation drivers in Carlos Sainz, Jr - And Max Verstappen.

This season also marked the return of Honda as an engine supplier, working together with McLaren with whom they've worked together in the past. Sadly for the team and Honda, they've been mired with technical issues left right and center, and the all-star duo of Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso (both former WDC's!) haven't been able to will their dissapointing car to many point finishes.

Some news about next season.
There will be an 11th team on the grid next season, and the first official American team since the 1980's, as Haas F1 will make it's entry into the sport. Led by owner Gene Haas, the same owner of the NASCAR outfit Kurt Busch is driving for. It's speculated that they will be a feeder team to Ferrari in the same vein as Toro Rosso to Red Bull, but it's also reported that they might be hiring young American talent Alex Rossi (currently driving in GP2, the main feeder series to F1) and other drivers to start their 2016 season, they will be driving with Ferrari engines.

Also, Renault might be returning as a constructor themselves, they have had multiple falling out's this past season with Red Bull (and Toro Rosso by proxy) over poor technical performances and a lot of broken down cars. The cash-strapped Lotus F1 team has been reported to be the target of a buyout by Renault, which would no doubt see the team rechristened as Renault F1. Whether this means Red Bull and Toro Rosso will stop using Renault engines, switch over to Mercedes/Ferrari power, or perhaps take a B-Spec Renault engine for 2016, that isn't certain yet.

Anyways, big wall of text. And I know you've got some catching up to do. F1 is awesome when you get into it, despite the recent domination of Mercedes. Races like Hungary 2015 (the previous one) have shown that anything can happen in F1.