Our New Section: What We're Playing

What We're Playing: Zack brings a Knight to a Bowfight

The sun shines brightly on the walls of a mighty stronghold, each of it's towers bristling with bowmen.  The farmers and woodcutters go about their business, spending their days working in honest labor under the watchful eyes of their liege lord.  The peace is broken by the ringing of a bell, a warning of imminent attack.  The castle gate is closed, villagers huddle together within the walls of the castle, and Men-At-Arms begin prepare to face the invaders.  Movement is seen in the distance. To the increasing horror of the soldiers on the walls an army of hundreds of half-naked men bearing torches go about putting the surrounding farms to the torch.  This will be a long siege.

Lately I've been replaying a classic game from Firefly Studios Stronghold Series, Stronghold Crusader.  The game is equal parts RTS and City Builder where managing how many peasants you have working farms becomes just as important as the number of units you have manning the walls.  I'm personally a fan of their system of unit recruitment where individual peasants can be converted into soldiers for war or turned into the farmers and laborers that keep your Stronghold's economy running, making prospective Crusaders question whether their burgeoning kingdom can support another ten bowmen with only a few farms to support the growing population.

Stronghold Crusader also gives your newly minted kingdom with a few new units and an interesting way of getting them.  While Crusader kept it's predecessor's system of having certain production buildings convert resources into weapons before you could turn you peasants into bow wielding, sword swinging defenders of the realm, you know also have the option of hiring Arabian-themed mercenaries from your population by paying the cost in gold.  While some of the Arabian units aren't as strong as their European counterparts (I'm looking at you Arabian Swordsmen) they can make an effective early-game harassing force or help your kingdom survive when your enemies come knocking on the gates with a couple battering rams.  I never get tired of sending a handful of horse archers to harass an opponents pastures, lazily shooting off arrows at farmers and picking away at an enemy lord's defenses.  Another addition to the mercenary roster, the Slave, is a cheap cannon fodder unit that's a great deal like a Moth in regards to it's life cycle.  It's born, runs for a bit, and then lights itself on fire while hopefully lighting your opponents buildings with it (DISCLAIMER: moths may not do that last thing, hopefully).

While Crusader doesn’t offer as cohesive a story when it comes to it's Single Player campaign, I can appreciate the amount of content they have available.  Four historical campaigns give you some historical background on the Crusades themselves, putting you in the role of various leaders from both the Crusader States and the Arabian forces in challenging scenarios.  Alongside that you have the option to play the "Crusader's Trail" (a Fifty map campaign with a variety of enemies, allies, and resources available to you), "Warchest Trail" (another Thirty map campaign similar to the aforementioned trail), custom skirmishes, Multiplayer, and the Castle Builder mode for your inner pacifist to create a burgeoning kingdom free from war and strife (but not safe from the occasional mountain lion attack)

I'm a fan of Stronghold Crusader, and for all of it's faults ("I just want to put archers in this tower IT SHOULD NOT BE THIS HARD TO CONNECT WALLS TO TOWERS") it's still a pretty great game.  There's an element of realism to it, and the mechanics are balanced in such a way that the combat and economic gameplay both seem to balance out instead of having one overpower the other (which a lot of RTS titles do).  You can still pick it up for 9.99 on Steam (if your castle's treasury seems a bit full, the Stronghold collection goes for 19.99 and it gets you the original Stronghold, Stronghold 2, Stronghold: Crusader, Stronghold: Crusader EXTREME (really), and Stronghold: Legends) and it retains its status as a fantastic Castle simulator for when you want to get out and enjoy the Knight-life

The Talk Box Plays Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel - Part 2

The next episode of Harry and Chad's Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel playthrough is out! Join them as they navigate Elpis and take on the jump-pad-loving scav, Deadlift!

Khans of Tarkir Booster Box Unboxing - Part Two

The epic conclusion of Harry and Adam opening the Khans of Tarkir booster box!

The Talk Box Plays Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel - Part 1

Hey everyone! First episode of our Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel Let's Play is out, so go check it out! Come join us as Harry and Chad explore the story behind Elpis, Pandora's moon.

Khans of Tarkir Booster Box Unboxing - Part One

Join Harry and Adam as they open a booster box and explore the new Magic set, Khans of Tarkir!

Part Two will be coming soon!

The Talk Box Presents: CONSPIRACY! - Part One, Pod Two

If you'd like to listen to the podcast featuring the drafting process, click here!

Pod Number Two: Chad, Matt, Jared and Morgan

In the pod containing Chad, Matt, Jared, and Morgan, the match escalated quickly and never slowed down, with flashy spells and big plays being made all over the place. Chad was playing Orzhov (white-black), Matt was playing Mardu (red-white-black), Jared was playing Jund (black-red-green), and Morgan was playing Izzet (blue-red). And now, decklists!

Chad's Orzhov

Matt's Mardu

 Jared's Jund

(Sadly we didn't get a photo of Jared's deck)

Morgan's Izzet

Before dice could even be rolled to see who went first, Morgan revealed his Power Play conspiracy, making him the player to start the game. The game began tame enough, with a few creatures played and a Tyrant’s Choice from Jared clearing the board early.

Eventually, Chad made the first big move, dropping a 15/15 Lurking Automaton that caused everyone’s chairs to shift unsettlingly towards him. The hidden agenda conspiracy of Secret Summoning allowed him to tutor up another one, and he eventually had two giant Automatons that threatened to end the game within a few turns. Luckily, Jared and Matt both had removal spells to respond to his threat, Jared casting a Tragic Slip and Matt casting an Assassinate.

As the game progressed, Jared kept his hand full with not one, but two Deathreap Rituals, benefiting from the mass amounts of removal getting slung around the table. Eventually, Jared drew enough cards and ramped enough mana to cast Phage the Untouchable, the next big threat to appear. With all combat drawn to a stalemate with Phage out, everyone began bolstering their defenses. Chad played multiple copies of Rousing of Souls, giving his opponents some diplomatic card advantage while he built up an army of 1/1 flying spirits. Matt kept himself protected with multiple defenders such as Vent Sentinel, Cinder Wall, and Pride Guardian, doing what he could to find an answer to this clogged board state.

Morgan was the one to break the silence, first casting a Dack’s Duplicate to copy Jared’s Phage. He immediately began swinging away to force blocks and build up +1/+1 counters with his copy’s dethrone ability. In the following turn, Morgan cast Mana Geyser to amass 16 red mana, all of which he filtered in to a multikicked Deathforge Shaman that instagibbed Chad, dropping him immediately to zero life.

With Chad and his army of spirits out of the way, the focus was now mostly between Jared and Morgan, each with a Phage and ready to strike for lethal. Jared was unable to draw a removal spell for Morgan’s, and Morgan dropped a Marchesa’s Smuggler, making his copied Phage unblockable and killing Jared. Meanwhile, Matt was busy durdling and pinging with his Vent Sentinels, hoping to draw into an answer. In a topdeck of the ages, Matt drew into the Assassinate that he then cast to kill Morgan’s Phage, and proceeded to ping him down with his Sentinels over the next few turns for the victory.

Overall, the game was chaotic and fun, and was finished much quicker than Pod Number One's game. Everyone got the chance to be a supervillain mastermind and make a big flashy play, and the consensus of the group seemed to be that the game was hilariously enjoyable.

Why The Trolls Actually Won: Satire, Offending Material, and The Internet in General

Ladies and gentlemen, I hate to break this to you, but those internet trolls that everyone warns you not feed have actually won. And no, I don't mean those people you see in the comments sections, purposely trying to get a rise out of people. I speak of a new breed of troll, coming out from under their respective bridges. The kind of people who will probably be offended by the fact that I am calling them a troll because it offends troll culture as a whole.
Cheapshot jokes aside, the internet has gave birth to a new and terrifying group of people. Everyone knows one. The grandma on Facebook who links an article not realizing that it's not real. The aunt who believes every rumor they see and pass it along as fact. The people on various who take things out of context and get outraged. The people who make comments on articles and posts that have nothing to do with the original post at all. Everyone knows at least one and sigh with a mixture of disbelief and embarrassment for that person.
In my own personal opinion, I believe that it takes almost nothing for people to be offended these days. There are countless amounts of posts about things that get people all riled up over nothing. Before I start digging into these people, let me start by saying this (by putting it in bold so I don't get roflstomped about being just as bad as the people I am talking about): I think that it is great that people have opinions about things. That people are supportive about things. That people have issues they care about. Everyone should have them and spread them if they are supportive and caring in nature. I love people like that. The group of people who I am talking about are the kind of people who don't care or don't bother to do the research or actually read what they are commenting on. It's like a plague on the internet these days. In the age of Google and other search engines, you would think that people would go, "Wait, this doesn't sound right. Let me do a quick internet search on one of 5 devices that have internet access around me before I post about this." But my good people, they do not. No research, no reading, not one thing. It's all headlines, quick skims and rumors with this group. If anything looks offensive or scandalous, they will be the first ones to post about without bothering to see what it is they are talking about. My favorite examples of these include the "original Statue of Liberty the US turned down", the "joke out of context here", and basically the whole anti-vaccine campaign (which baffles me to as why that is an actual thing).
I myself have been a target of this phenomenon. One day, I was just scrolling through Tumblr, minding my own damn business about things. That week, I had been seeing a lot of posts telling people not to listen to Robin Thicke's song Blurred Lines because it was going to be number one on some sort of chart. Being the person that I am, I got upset. Not because I like the song, but because this website prides itself on telling people to stop telling people to not listen to something because they don't like it. So I pointed out the hypocrisy of those posts, telling people to chill. (Quick sidebar: I don't thing anyone on that site was listening to Blurred Lines anyway and the popularity of the song can be contributed to the following: People confusing Robin Thicke for his father, the catchy beat that middle aged white people can dance too, and the other two points combined. End side bar.) No more than five minutes had gone by, when someone re-blogged my post , replying to it "Says someone who has never been sexually harassed," not only missing the point of my post entirely, but starting an argument over something I wasn't even talking about. I can only assume that the person saw the words Robin Thicke, Blurred Lines, listen and to. Luckily, I had a friend reblog the person's response, calling them out on it.
So what does satire have to do with all this? The people I have been talking about do not get it. The point of it is lost to them. As a quick example, some may believe that The Colbert Report is actually for real and not the genius piece of satire that it is. This causes a lot of problems for the rest of us. People are up in arms about offensive jokes that are actually making fun of the people who do the real thing. If anything sounds slightly offensive, they will jump on and start a crusade against the "offensive" person. And then when it's pointed out that it was a joke/satire, they go "Oh yeah. I knew that." NO. NO YOU DIDN'T.
As much as I would like to say that we can stop these...I'm gonna call them trolls again...I fear that we cannot. We can provide links to accurate information. We can show them the wrongs they made in a civil manner. Sometimes they will apologize and correct their mistakes. Sometimes they will spit venom back at us like that dinosaur with the frill thingy in Jurassic Park. As long as there are things to stand for, there will be people who make the other people look bad by screwing up royally and not admitting it.
The trolls won people. We might as well start listening to Gangnam Style and What Does the Fox Say again. Because trends and memes are beautiful things. Right? Right? Guys where are you going.....
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Adam Bento, The MC of The Talk Box Podcast
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