Reid Main

One day we will get Astartes II.

Played Warcraft Remastered Battle Chest

I purchased the Warcraft Remastered Battle Chest which contains Warcraft I: Remastered, Warcraft II: Remastered, Warcraft III: Reforged, as well as all of their expansions.

The first two games have not aged well. They control poorly and the level design is frustrating at best which is not surprising as I am looking at them through a modern lens. I remember playing these games 25 years ago and being absolutely blown away because they were unlike anything I had seen before. But the RTS genre has been refined so much that it is really difficult to go back to these early games. Personally I put a game like Doom in the same vein. It is obviously a seminal title that has literally reshaped the world and how we look at computers. But going back and playing the original Doom isn't as fun as when it first came out. Compared to something like Super Mario Bros which, in my opinion, is still as enjoyable today as when it first was released.

That being said, Warcraft III: Reforged is still one of the best RTS games on the market today. I had forgotten how many things Blizzard pioneered in 2002 that we still expect to see in any modern RTS. It is easy to forget that games like Dota 2 and League of Legends exist because of the groundwork laid by Warcraft 3.

I am super happy I took the time this month to replay Warcraft III: Reforged and I would recommend everyone else do the same.

Trying to read Elantris

I have been trying to read Elantris for nearly two months. I am 44% of the way through and find it so easy to put this book down and forget about it. I assumed it would be similar to other Sanderson standalone books such as Warbreaker or Tress of the Emerald Sea. By the time I was 10% of the way through those books I was completely enamoured with the characters. I had no idea where the story was going but I was invested in the journey. In Elantris all of the point-of-view characters are so bland and their motivations are so transparent that I really do not care about the journey they are on. Everyone is so sure of themselves and set in their ways that I am completely unaware of any supposed growth. I can see what every character is building towards but maybe that's because I have read so many Brandon Sanderson books. This technically was his first published novel so perhaps if I had read it first I would be finding it much more enjoyable.

At this point in time I'm not sure if I am going to be able to will myself to finish Elantris. It looks like the last time I read it was 10 days ago and even after writing this retrospective I have no plans to pick it up tonight before bed.

Beat Tactical Breach Wizards

I beat Tactical Breach Wizards on my Steam Deck this month and I am of two minds about it.

Based on the Steam Store page and interviews with the developer I expected this to be an XCOM type of game. Not like the mainline Firaxis games but something more akin to XCOM: Chimera Squad. Unfortunately, it has absolutely nothing to do with XCOM and I'm not really sure why it is marketed as such. In reality this is a puzzle game and the players have recognized that because it is the top user-defined tag on Steam. Generally I would be upset when a game is marketed one way and plays entirely different. However, Tactical Breach Wizards is a fantastic puzzle game.

You are in control of between one and five characters depending on the level. Each character has their own unique set of skills which you must use to complete certain objectives. I am not joking when I say unique. Even though the art style gives off the vibe of a SWAT team only one character actually has a gun that shoots bullets. For everyone else their "basic" ability varies from pushing people backwards to throwing a beaker full of chloroform. The way all of the abilities synergize so well with one another is the most admirable thing about this game. Nothing feels out of place and the more you play the more your brain starts stitching together these powerful combos that you instinctively want to use. You may be thinking this sounds like XCOM but only in practice because there are so many ways to dispatch enemies in a single move and the game allows you to infinitely rewind and replay any move. So you aren't generally positioning your squad so you can do enough damage to take out two enemies and survive a counterattack. You are constantly trying different moves until you can negate all of your enemies in a single turn. This is why I view it as a puzzle game and why I absolutely loved playing it.

I haven't even mentioned the writing yet which is far better than it has any right to be for an indie game of this nature. It's funny and witty while still having a surprisingly deep and dark story. This isn't going to be the type of worldbuilding you find in a JRPG but it gives each level more weight as they chain seamlessly from one to the next.

The only real problem I had was that Tactical Breach Wizards is listed as Steam Deck verified and I would consider it playable at best. The UI was designed around a mouse and keyboard and you can tell that controller support was bolted on at the last minute. Most of the time you are using a virtual mouse controlled by the right thumbstick. There are dozens of examples of how these sorts of games can properly support controllers but I'll give Tactical Breach Wizards a pass as they are true indie developers who chose to focus on the PC crowd and we seemed to have gotten Steam Deck support as a nice bonus.

So the long and the short of it is I highly recommend Tactical Breach Wizards, especially if you see it for sale on Steam.

The Carpenter Bee War

Last year we noticed a small hole in one of the pillars of our deck and learned that it was caused by a carpenter bee, most likely an eastern carpenter bee. We didn't immediately know what we were dealing with so I flushed out the hole with water which caused a bee to fall out and enabled me to kill it. The next day I saw another one pulsating its stupid butt inside the hole as it attempted to dig deeper so I shishkebabbed it with a screwdriver before leaving the corpse there as a warning. We had an exterminator come out and apply an insecticide which seeps into the wood and theoretically kills any bees that attempt to gnaw at it. This appeared to work and we had no more incidents that year. I considered my war with the carpenter bees to be over.

But they had other plans and this Spring they opened up another front. I am still not sure where they came from but I have personally killed at least seven carpenter bees and chased off several more. They managed to eat two more holes into the deck before we could get the exterminator back out to reapply the insecticide and enable me to seal all three holes with dowels and wood filler. It looks like we may have won this battle but I am not considering the war to be over just yet.

The main thing I have learned from all of this is to never build anything outside out of wood. Just find whatever composite deck boards that you like the look of most and use that. If something is made of wood some sort of pest is going to eventually destroy it so just save yourself the hassle and go plastic from the start.

Priming miniatures with an airbrush

Not much to say here other than I finally used my airbrush for priming some miniatures with Vallejo's matte black primer. This was the first time I ever primed using an airbrush and I'm not really certain I want to do it again. That's not to say the final result wasn't satisfactory. The Vallejo primer gave great coverage and feels very sturdy. But getting it thinned properly and moving through the airbrush with consistency was a real pain. For the Kill Team I plan to build in July I am going to try using Vallejo's spray can primer instead because from what I've read it should provide just as good coverage while taking a fraction of the time to apply. Also it won't immediately gunk up the filter of my spray booth and force me to replace it.

Watched Cologne Major 2026

I am only writing about the Cologne Major 2026 to remind future me to not buy any more Major Viewer Passes because they are a waste of money and Pick'Ems are always destined to fail. Maybe if Valve gets off their butts and puts in an actually engaging Viewer Pass I'll come back. But the weak Viewer Pass combined with Saudi Arabia buying a Major victory has soured me on watching any Counter-Strike in the immediate future.

Review June Goals

• ✅ Run 10K.
• ✅ Eat 6+ hot dogs at Blue Jays Loonie Dog Night.

July Goals

• Run at least 100 kilometres.
• Build a Warhammer Kill Team.
• Paint an Ultramarine.
• Play a new boardgame.
• Get to level 50 in EverQuest Legends.