# dark angel (blogs) — RSS Amplifier Recent posts from the 2 feeds in the RSS Amplifier directory that cover dark angel. Page: Feed: --- ## [Necessary Evil: Third Time's the Charm - Session 1](http://towerofzenopus.blogspot.com/2026/08/necessary-evil-third-times-charm.html) _2026-08-22 · Blacksteel · Tower of Zenopus_ Our story begins in Star City, U.S.A. in the year 2004. The world has been conquered by alien occupiers for a couple of years now and hope is dwindling. The superheroes were blown away in the surprise attack that announced the V'sori's turn from savior to conqueror. They didn't have much trouble after that. As the bootheel grinds down though, other forces on the planet begin to reach their limit -… ## [40 Friday: Fixing Some Grey Knights](http://towerofzenopus.blogspot.com/2026/08/40-friday-fixing-some-grey-knights.html) _2026-08-21 · Blacksteel · Tower of Zenopus_ I had mentioned before that some of my GK Interceptors had lost their teleport vanes. This is one of the main things that marks them as "Interceptors" instead of just regular Strike Squads so I need to fix them. Also, all of these were intact a few years ago and they've been pretty lightly used these last few years. I suspect it happened in the move to this house a few years back but who knows?… ## [1987 - A Huge Year for Tabletop Games](http://towerofzenopus.blogspot.com/2026/08/1987-huge-year-for-tabletop-games.html) _2026-08-19 · Blacksteel · Tower of Zenopus_ You may remember 1987 from such films as ... It was a big year for this hobby of ours but I'm going to focus in on 3 things. To set the scene properly remember a few things true about the time ... No internet. We got our niche news via magazines mainly, which of course were delivered on horseback, via steam locomotive, and by hot-air balloons. We also found out about new stuff quite often by… ## [Bringing an Old Green Friend Home](http://towerofzenopus.blogspot.com/2026/08/bringing-old-green-friend-home.html) _2026-08-18 · Blacksteel · Tower of Zenopus_ I haven't talked about it a ton on here but I have been working on Warhammer fantasy stuff for The Old World - and just because I like it. That older aesthetic from the 80's/90's/early 2000's still means something to me because that's when I got into it and played it quite a bit. I've always loved the "Orcs & Goblins" army and I've worked on one quite a bit over the years but never quite finished… ## [40K Friday: Knights & Angels & Wolves Again](http://towerofzenopus.blogspot.com/2026/08/40k-friday-knights-angels-wolves-again.html) _2026-08-14 · Blacksteel · Tower of Zenopus_ I have managed to make steady progress on finishing up the Grey Knights unit by unit these last few weeks. This week it was the last of the 3 regular Dreadknights going into the display case and it did feel good. I also did some serious figuring on what unbuilt parts I had left and how I wanted to allocate them. Some serious reassessment of the options led me to believe I can fix my broken… ## [Savage Worlds vs. Mutants & Masterminds and the Importance of Dice](http://towerofzenopus.blogspot.com/2026/08/savage-worlds-vs-mutants-masterminds.html) _2026-08-13 · Blacksteel · Tower of Zenopus_ I know, but we'll get to it I promise ... Let's talk about two systems for a minute. I'm prepping to run a Savage Worlds game and I just finished running a short M&M campaign in May. At one point I figured I would still be running M&M for most of this year but given a break point and an off-ramp my players chose to change to a different system. Why might that be? In general, M&M is a more abstract… ## [40k Friday: Dark Angels, Grey Knights, and the Focus Thing Again](http://towerofzenopus.blogspot.com/2026/08/40k-friday-dark-angels-and-focus-thing.html) _2026-08-07 · Blacksteel · Tower of Zenopus_ Despite the sidetrack into Oldhammer this week which did take up some time and some budget I did manage to progress on the Dark Angels for 11th. One of the problems though is when you are part of the way into a project and find a piece that brings things to a screeching halt and forces you to reconsider how you want to proceed - and by "you" I mean "me". In this case I was working on a unit of… ## [40K Thursday: Retrograde or "7th Edition?"](http://towerofzenopus.blogspot.com/2026/08/40k-thursday-retrograde.html) _2026-08-06 · Blacksteel · Tower of Zenopus_ So after the game last weekend Blaster mentions that he's been looking into 40K again recently - he hasn't played a game since 9th - and while he despises 10th/11th edition (too many cards, too many changes for no good reason) he is interested in trying an old edition again. We discussed that option for a bit and settled on 7th, last of the 3rd edition inheritor generations. Now I won't try to… ## [Necessary Evil Session Zero Coming Up](http://towerofzenopus.blogspot.com/2026/08/necessary-evil-session-zero-coming-up.html) _2026-08-05 · Blacksteel · Tower of Zenopus_ This weekend we will wrap up or expedition to deal with The Emerald Enchanter in Variable Dave's Dungeon Crawl Classics campaign. It's been a lot of fun and since the 0-level funnel we've only lost one character. It happened to be the guy with the possessed sword so that initiated an immediate debate on who was going to pick it up to be the new unpredictable combat monster - right as we head in to… ## [Dungeons and Dragons and Warcraft](http://towerofzenopus.blogspot.com/2026/07/dungeons-and-dragons-and-warcraft.html) _2026-07-28 · Blacksteel · Tower of Zenopus_ I admit I was not expecting to see this . Similar things have existed before but it's been awhile ... The first edition from 2003 The second edition from 2005 It's an interesting concept. Notice the title on the first edition and the lack of "World of" - this was from 2003 and so pre-dates the whole WoW tidal wave of 2004. We had already had 3 games + expansions and there was clearly a lot of lore… ## [8.1% APY Plus Free Stock (Sponsored)](https://crawlproof.com/a/zg1rbQl37sLv) _2026-07-28 · **Sponsored**_ Claim 8.1% APY and up to $1,030 in SK hynix and Nvidia stock. ## [Miniatures, Bases, Beastmen, and Hassles](http://towerofzenopus.blogspot.com/2026/07/miniatures-bases-and-hassles.html) _2026-07-23 · Blacksteel · Tower of Zenopus_ One of the challenges of being involved with miniature wargames is basing. It's been a question for a long time, sometimes tied to questions of scale. Do you build your Pictish army in 15mm or 25mm? Then once you decide that are you going to base it for DBA/DBM, WRG Ancients, or some other game. if you're lucky your favorite game, or one of the popular ones, will be on smaller bases and some other… ## [Bottlecap Orcs - RPGs, Miniatures, and Terrain](http://towerofzenopus.blogspot.com/2026/07/bottlecap-orcs-rpgs-miniatures-and.html) _2026-07-21 · Blacksteel · Tower of Zenopus_ Still have these guys today I've been using miniatures in RPGs almost since I started playing them. We used tokens at first - boardgame pawns, chess pieces, monopoly tokens, bottlecaps, pieces of glass ... whatever we could find around the house. I had army-man type knights and cowboys and revolutionary war soldiers and space people and of course dinosaurs and some of the weirder monsters you'd… ## [40K Friday: Gathering the Dark Angels](http://towerofzenopus.blogspot.com/2026/07/40k-friday-gathering-dark-angels.html) _2026-07-17 · Blacksteel · Tower of Zenopus_ So I've spent most of the mini-time over the past week building the Armageddon set minis that I want to use for the new (ish) Dark Angels force. I built the Captain, the Ancient, and half of the Intercessor squad. I also started digging through what I have floating around various marine armies in an unfinished state - which is, fortunately or unfortunately, quite a bit. I added a Lieutenant from… ## [Laying Some Groundwork for Necessary Evil](http://towerofzenopus.blogspot.com/2026/07/laying-some-groundwork-for-necessary.html) _2026-07-16 · Blacksteel · Tower of Zenopus_ As much as I am enjoying the DCC campaign - and being a player for a change - I did commit to running NE as the next big game so it's time to start digging into it. I have tried to run it twice before - my notes say 2010 and 2014 - though we did not finish it either time. The first one we made it maybe halfway through. It was a lot of fun with an interesting mix of characters and encounters. The… ## [The DEATHBRINGER RPG Kickstarter, err, Backerkit is up and running](http://towerofzenopus.blogspot.com/2026/07/the-deathbringer-rpg-kickstarter-err.html) _2026-07-14 · Blacksteel · Tower of Zenopus_ Can't rally argue with that art ... Sure, I'll hype it because it looks interesting, I've been hearing about it for years, and I like what I see of the guy running it. It feels a little like Spaceballs - it's Deathbringer: The Crowdfunding ! I like a lot of what Professor DM puts out there. He's a YouTube guy but don't hold that against him. He's of a similar vintage as some of us who have been… ## [40K Friday: Orks, Grey Knights, and Dark Angels](http://towerofzenopus.blogspot.com/2026/07/40k-friday-orks-grey-knights-and-dark.html) _2026-07-10 · Blacksteel · Tower of Zenopus_ The focus has not been super-strong lately but I've accomplished a little bit. The Grey Knights have been one main area and, feeling that I have enough infantry to play something fun for now, I have mainly been working on the Dreadknight situation. This is mostly because I have 3 of them sitting on the table not-finished and 2 more in boxes waiting to be built as shiny new - Grandmaster -… ## [A Quick Anecdote on AD&D 2E and the 1993 Origins Convention](http://towerofzenopus.blogspot.com/2026/07/a-quick-anecdote-on-ad-2e-and-1993.html) _2026-07-09 · Blacksteel · Tower of Zenopus_ Mike Mearls posted an article today referring back to his introduction to AD&D 2nd Edition and it triggered a memory I do not think I have shared here before. As far as 2E goes my friends and I at the time thought it was pretty good - yes it changed up some things from what we had before but some of those we knew were going to be changing (thank you satanic panic) and we liked a lot of the rest.… ## ["Feel" and Old School RPGs](http://towerofzenopus.blogspot.com/2026/07/feel-and-old-school-rpgs.html) _2026-07-02 · Blacksteel · Tower of Zenopus_ Around here we've had a lot of talk comparing DCC and other old-school rules to D&D 5E and our recent Tales of the Valiant campaign. It has a very different feel from 5E D&D and its variants which tend to rapidly develop into superheroic levels of power. While that's fun, some of the group is very interested in the more bare-bones stuff where the answer to every problem is not "what class ability… ## [My RPG List Ten years On - 2016 vs. 2026](http://towerofzenopus.blogspot.com/2026/06/my-rpg-list-ten-years-on-2016-vs-2026.html) _2026-06-29 · Blacksteel · Tower of Zenopus_ I keep track of my RPG and miniature purchases as I go each year and I have done this for more than a decade. I was updating my list for this year and it occurred to me I ought to go look at what I was buying and what I was playing and compare it to now plus mix in some hindsight. What I was playing: The year started off with some Marvel Heroic Most of it was spent running my Pathfinder Wrath of… ## [Midsummer RPG Action](http://towerofzenopus.blogspot.com/2026/06/midsummer-rpg-action.html) _2026-06-27 · Blacksteel · Tower of Zenopus_ Things have been on hold for a few weeks while I was touring the local hospital but we are finally getting back in the saddle today with more Dungeon Crawl Classics. We're all level 1 and whoever survives will likely make it to level 2 after tonight which will be about as far as any of us have gotten in this game. it is a lot of fun regardless. One of the interesting things that has happened is… ## [Watch Chovy Code Live (Sponsored)](https://crawlproof.com/a/R6B1b57xXNlC) _2026-06-27 · **Sponsored**_ Join live coding streams with real-time collaborative screen sharing, open source and free. ## [40K Friday: Armageddon Updates](http://towerofzenopus.blogspot.com/2026/06/40k-friday-armageddon-updates.html) _2026-06-26 · Blacksteel · Tower of Zenopus_ I found myself forced to the sidelines here for most of June thanks to some hospital time - there's a first time for everything! - but I am getting back into the swing of things. I'll focus on the miniature stuff today and talk about the rest in another post. I did manage to order and receive the new big box set while I was entangled. It's good but I do have some comparisons and some thoughts. On… ## [40K Friday: More Orks](http://towerofzenopus.blogspot.com/2026/05/40k-friday-more-orks.html) _2026-05-29 · Blacksteel · Tower of Zenopus_ Progress was slow this week but I have another Grey Knight Terminator squad almost ready to go in the case. I'm still fighting the stupidly fiddly nature of the "almost done" model where the last 10% of finishing it takes as much time as the entire process before that. It's why getting to that clearcoat & flocking stage feels so good. Most of the time however went to Orks. I am trying to maintain… ## [May RPG Action](http://towerofzenopus.blogspot.com/2026/05/may-rpg-action.html) _2026-05-28 · Blacksteel · Tower of Zenopus_ With Variable Dave running his DCC interlude campaign - next session this weekend - it's a weird feeling to not be the one prepping stuff. I had forgotten how much less there is to do to be ready for a game as a player once you have a character ready to go. I mean, I'm relishing the chance to just play, especially with some of my regular crew, but it is a change in perspective. I think it's good… ## [RoboSapien: Full Circle](https://danballard.com/2026/05/28/robosapien-full-circle/) _2026-05-28 · Dan Ballard_ The RoboSapien was a high end premium consumer piece of robotics released in 2004. I don’t quite remember what it’s launch price was, but I think over $200 which was far too much for a teen like me. I got to see one once in action. I went to a electronics and robotics meetup at a local collage where the main event was mini sumo bots and competitions but someone had got their hands on a RoboSapien… ## [40K Friday: Orks!](http://towerofzenopus.blogspot.com/2026/05/40k-friday-orks.html) _2026-05-22 · Blacksteel · Tower of Zenopus_ I am still working on the GKs part of the time - got to move a terminator squad and a dreadnought into the "done" case last week - but as 11th edition draws closer I decided I ought to take a serious look at my Orks and try to get them into shape/fill in some gaps/grab some units that may be disappearing or getting replaced soon. On the Replacement Candidates front it matters because I like some… ## [The Perpetual Golden Age of RPGs](http://towerofzenopus.blogspot.com/2026/05/the-perpetual-golden-age-of-rpgs.html) _2026-05-14 · Blacksteel · Tower of Zenopus_ This post is driven by some YouTube stuff I saw recently but it's been showing up anywhere people discuss RPGs - forums, social media, reddit ... everywhere. The "it" is the shocking discovery that there are a lot of other games out there besides D&D! Really? Incredible! I know that new people come into the hobby all the time and that's a good thing. I know that D&D is the first encounter for a… ## [Fainting Goat's Pew Pew Returns](http://towerofzenopus.blogspot.com/2026/05/fainting-goats-pew-pew-returns.html) _2026-05-13 · Blacksteel · Tower of Zenopus_ Fainting Goat is running a small Kickstarter for the latest version of their Pew Pew game - see it here . I've posted about them before and went into the rules there but if you want a light, loose, Star Wars-ish RPG this is something you should look into. Each booklet is a one-shot adventure and there are a few of them out now already so it could be a recurring thing for your group if one goes… ## [40K Friday: Grinding Away at Grey Knights](http://towerofzenopus.blogspot.com/2026/05/40k-friday-grinding-away-at-grey-knights.html) _2026-05-08 · Blacksteel · Tower of Zenopus_ I should probably post something about all the new rule reveals but in my experience it's very difficult to draw any real conclusions when you only have part of the picture. Sure, we've seen the contents of the big box for the new edition, and some of the new combat rules, and WarCom is banging away every day now with details on some detachments and it's a lot of fun ... but it's not enough to… ## [Time of Crisis Completed!](http://towerofzenopus.blogspot.com/2026/05/time-of-crisis-completed.html) _2026-05-07 · Blacksteel · Tower of Zenopus_ Well we wrapped up our jump into Mutants and Masterminds last weekend and it went pretty well. I had one last minute miss (Providence's player) but Heavy Metal finally made it back after missing an entire arc. To recap the structure of Time of Crisis: There is a kickoff involving a robbery by a team of villains at a casino. It's well done but I replaced it with a bank robbery involving fewer… ## [40K Friday: The Imperial Fists Update](http://towerofzenopus.blogspot.com/2026/04/40k-friday-imperial-fists-update.html) _2026-04-24 · Blacksteel · Tower of Zenopus_ Well I talked about it briefly in this post and as it turns out an update was entirely achievable by adding a pair of Redemptor Dreadnoughts ... so I did! It ends up with 3 characters, 3x shooty Terminator squads, 3x Assault Terminator squads, a Land Raider, and the two dreads. There is room to add an enhancement or two, or I could change Darnath to a regular Terminator Captain and take either… ## [Persona-led AI publishing (Sponsored)](https://crawlproof.com/a/oftNnIc72t75) _2026-04-24 · **Sponsored**_ Generate drafts, schedule subdomain publishing, and keep human review where needed. ## [On the Merits of Distro Package Managers vs Language Package Managers](https://danballard.com/2026/01/31/packages-disto-or-language/) _2026-01-31 · Dan Ballard_ I’ve been journaling more and this is something that was percolating in my head the last bit of time and I finally dumped to there. It seemed adequate enough to then further dump to my blog, so it’s presented more as thoughts in progress than a strong argument C never had a package manager, and it’s always been a bit hard to include packages, usually need to get the precompiled and supplied… ## [Generating Android 16kb Page Size Libraries from Go](https://danballard.com/2025/09/28/generating-android-16kb-page-size-libraries-from-go/) _2025-09-28 · Dan Ballard_ Google is requiring all new submissions to playstore have 16kb page size support/alignment . This is I assume for new devices anyways so is what we should all be doing and aiming towards. If you have an android native project, just using newer SDKs should do it. If you’re compiling some C code for android to bundle, using NDK 28 or later “should” take care of it for you. However at Open Privacy we… ## [Jekyll and Multiple Sites With Target](https://danballard.com/2025/08/23/jekyll-target-sites/) _2025-08-23 · Dan Ballard_ I have a problem where I look at software and want to add onion service support to it because they have a lot of useful properties including making self hosting from residential easier, and just generally being a good tool for making some software more p2p capable. And making distributed and p2p software is another life long interest of mine. To that end, I’ve been hosting this site, made with… ## [Coping with Impossible Situations](https://danballard.com/2025/04/12/coping-with-impossible-situations/) _2025-04-12 · Dan Ballard_ Originally stream of conscioused on social media and reposted here with minor edits and formatting. I’m still trying to recover from a friend telling me about the “tech lead” at their security job who wouldn’t merge my friend’s Merge Request because “why does it have all these functions? i can’t read it, just make it flat and put it in one big try catch? here I redid it for you, see with out the… ## [2024 in review](https://danballard.com/2025/01/27/2024-in-review/) _2025-01-27 · Dan Ballard_ The last year was good for me but tiring. Been enjoying some time off doing just about nothing to charge up for the new year. To that end, as much as I like doing these, gonna whip through it with some briskness. General As I said, the year was good to me, as much as could be, but tiring. A lot going on. Direction and trends wise, it continues to be clear that for app development, despite my… ## [Shows I Like (2024)](https://danballard.com/2024/11/09/top-shows-2024/) _2024-11-09 · Dan Ballard_ A bunch of folks are feeling, to put it mildly, off balance, in need of distraction, or recentering. I’ve been asked by a few people this week about shows I like, so here’s a quick list of shows I am attached to, in alphabetical order: Babylon 5 : Peak space politics and anti-facism. Some of the best character arcs on TV. Slooow start tho. Being Erica : Cute show about finding self acceptance by…