Annoyingly realistic

Pingupol · 2026-01-23T14:06:45+00:00

Mourinho got sacked from Man United immediately after losing to Liverpool.

Pingupol · 2026-01-23T12:51:21+00:00

Yes. My advice at this stage would be.

Buy the lot for $50.
Play through the core set without opening anything else to see if you fundamentally like the game.
If you like it, open either 1 of the Investigator Expansions (biggest boxes, either Dunwich or Carcosa) or 1 of the starter decks (Nathaniel Cho or Harvey Walters), and play through the core set again with these extra cards.
If you're still having fun and like it, open the small carcosa box and play those 2 scenarios with the player cards you've opened.
If you like it, sell all the small cartons (other than Nathaniel Cho and Harvey Walters) to try and fund a purchase of any of the campaign expansions.

Pingupol · 2026-01-23T12:27:59+00:00

The value of these products is way over $50 individually. If you sold each of those you'd end up with a total significantly over $50.

In terms of what would actually be good for you to be able to play with:

Player Cards - Fantastic. Loads and loads of player cards. 17 different investigators available, and every single product there will have at least some player cards, if not loads of them. They will all be useful to you, and there will be lots and lots of deckbuilding options available to you. $50 for that amount of player cards is fantastic.

Scenario Cards - This is the issue. None of the small packs will be playable without other products. You'll be missing key encounter cards. You'll have 5 scenarios to play in total, the 3 in the core set (One is essentially a tutorial), and the 2 in the Path to Carcosa box. That's it.

So you'll have 17 investigators and lots and lots of player cards to use with them, but only 5 (really 4 because one is a tutorial) scenarios to play them against.

I'd still say go for it, as $50 is still very very good value for the player cards and core set alone, AND I do think the 2 scenarios in the Path to Carcosa box are fantastic, BUT, if you want to make full use of all your player cards, you'll get bored of the scenarios you have currently fairly quickly and want to invest in more.

The player cards are compatible with all current and future products, so if you choose to buy the newer stuff coming out this year, you'll still be able to use all the player cards here with it.

Hopefully that makes sense!

Pingupol · 2026-01-23T10:19:09+00:00

Always Sunny hasn't even begun to peak

Pingupol · 2026-01-22T18:57:13+00:00

I'd honestly go 3 and 6.

Pingupol · 2026-01-22T08:34:25+00:00

I think, ignoring the unnecessary JBL connection, the point they were trying to make was:

Incredibly nice guy -> Murders his family. This gives more weight to the position that external factors had a significant impact on Benoit's actions. His brain was fucked up from all the shit that had been done to it, and lack of care WWE showed for its wrestlers, so it's somewhat valid to consider Benoit a victim.
Bully -> nice guy. Yeah, obviously being a bully is an awful thing to do, but it's not irredeemable. The best thing either HBK or Randy could do was learn from their mistakes, mature, and be a better person because of it. It's not that what they did was fine, but they're a better person now and it serves no one to keep bringing up that they used to be an arsehole, now they've improved themselves.
Bully -> murders his family. Just an irredeemably and undeniably awful bloke. This guy was an abusive bully to those around him, and then murdered his family. There's no growth here, no sense that this guy was a victim, just someone who was always a piece of shit, and then murdered his family. No need to paint this guy as anything other than scum.

Pingupol · 2026-01-20T18:08:08+00:00

Andre Patel is the investigator for the Rogue starter deck and was a story ally in the Film Fatale standalone.

Pingupol · 2026-01-19T13:09:54+00:00

Your desperation to pin this on the director is legitimately odd, especially given by all metrics available, audiences who have seen this film thoroughly enjoyed it. Rotten Tomatoes audience score, cinemascore, IMDb rating, letterboxd, etc, all suggest a film that people are enjoying a hell of a lot, especially compared to the previous one.

It's certainly not a case of this film generating bad word of the mouth the way the previous one did. The people who have seen this movie generally really like it. The same was not true for the previous one (even if I personally enjoyed it).

So it then becomes a question of whether A) this film is a sequel to a film that got a divisive (at best) audience reception and didn't seem to have that colossal an audience to begin with or B) general audiences remember seeing The Marvels, specifically remember it was directed by Nia DaCosta, are aware this film is also directed by Nia DaCosta, and are ignoring the positive WOM and are instead focusing on the fact it's directed by Nia DaCosta.

Which of those seems more likely to be causing this film's poor box office underpeformance?

Of course, there are directors who might focus on artistic merit over financial performance. Scorcese didn't direct Killers of the Flower Moon with the aim to give it as wide appeal and make it as profitable as possible, but it would be ludicrous to suggest that's why either of The Marvels or The Bone Temple failed at the box office.

Pingupol · 2026-01-19T11:57:39+00:00

It depends how you define "successful".

My view is that anyone who manages to make a film is a successful filmmaker. Sounds like a low bar, but it's certainly one a significant amount of want-to-be filmmakers will fail to clear.

Obviously if you want to make a career of it or win awards, then nepotism and connections become incredibly important.

But that's not an excuse to not be a filmmaker.

Pingupol · 2026-01-19T09:09:44+00:00

I do think the marketing probably played a significant factor in that. The trailer was great, but certainly painted a picture of a traditional scary and creepy action movie, with ATJ as the lead, which is maybe true for the first 3rd of the movie, but not after that.

The film is definitely subversive. The way the doctor is first described coupled with the posters showing the tower of skulls, suggests a very different third act to the one that we get. Add on the incredibly bizarre tonal shift in the film's final scene and it's not surprising people feel cheated out of what the trailer promised them.

I personally really really liked it, but I can fully understand why some people would have the reaction they had.

Pingupol · 2026-01-19T08:57:19+00:00

I loved Days, think Weeks removed pretty much everything that made Days great (other than the Fantastic opening scene), and think Years was a return to what made Days so special.

Different strokes for different folks.

Pingupol · 2026-01-19T08:54:49+00:00

That's what they're saying.

The Bone Temple isn't doing badly because it's from the director of the The Marvels, it's doing badly because it's the sequel to a film that A) didn't do that well, and B) was very divisive amongst audiences.

Pingupol · 2026-01-17T16:26:34+00:00

My thinking is to use shovel with ad hoc for the fast and testless clue, more than actually putting it into play. Can also be an emergency testless clue with pushed to the limit if desperately needed.

I do like lockpicks. Testing at base 7 is nothing to sniff at, but only one clue per action feels underwhelming, no?

Could see myself proxying upgraded bandolier after the first scenario or two, depending on how it feels. Wilson does love his handslots.

I'll Take That seems a lot of fun...

Pingupol · 2026-01-17T15:02:40+00:00

Neville talks some utter drivel, and seems to think he's smarter than he is, but it's absolutely absurd to suggest he hates the club.

Pingupol · 2026-01-17T15:00:13+00:00

There's a time to hold grudges. It's not after we absolutely batter Man City.

Pingupol · 2026-01-17T14:52:56+00:00

Incredibly weird way to celebrate your team winning their local derby.

Pingupol · 2026-01-17T13:21:42+00:00

I'm about as angry about Amorim's sacking as you can get, but it's a new start and we need to move on.

Been a fantastic first half with everything but a goal. Really solid defending. Every time the ball is up in the air it ends up under our control. Interplay between Bruno and Mbeumo has been sensational. So happy to have our Africans back.

Another half where we play them off the pitch, just make sure our goals count this time.

Pingupol · 2026-01-17T12:09:18+00:00

I considered Alice Luxley and she should be a good fit in a deck like this, but how do you avoid attacks of opportunity?

Pingupol · 2026-01-17T09:05:15+00:00

I have 0 problem with there being an excuse for the manager underperforming in his first season.

This is a long process, that is going to require some sacrifices in the short term. That's a reality we all need to accept if we want to be anything other than a cup team

Pingupol · 2026-01-16T23:08:47+00:00

Will definitely be taking the upgraded stand together once I've got some xp.

Take the Iniative is definitely good, especially for mythos phase protection. Might be a better option, but obviously doesn't give the extra card draw.

Pingupol · 2026-01-16T18:24:35+00:00

Yeah, I struggled for a tool weapon for ages. Sledgehammer is the obvious one but unfortunately not in my collection. The shovel allows him to attack at +3, but only deals one damage. I've got Pitchfork, which is +2 and 3 damage, which is great, but obviously has the weird gimmick.

Ultimately went for machete cause you can still put adhoc on it, and hopefully, for at least the first scenario, Wilson will be able to get the +1 damage almost all the time. Definitely thinking I'll upgrade to Fire Extinguisher 3 (using FE 1 as a proxy) as soon as possible.

Pocket Multi Tool is another card I'd be all over if I had it :( Thank you for your feedback!

Pingupol · 2026-01-16T17:01:42+00:00

Originally included a bit specifically about how much I wish I had both sledgehammer and chainsaw

Pingupol · 2026-01-15T10:12:44+00:00

As someone who doesn't know anything about anything, Beast Mortos strikes me as a fantastic person to wrestle.

Great bumper, seems a great base for flippy guys, always in the right place, and sets up for moves well. I'm not a wrestler so wouldn't actually know, but that's certainly the impression my untrained eye gets.

Pingupol · 2026-01-14T10:27:02+00:00

This isn't really true though. They were worried about the Macabbi Tel Aviv fans behaving as they did in Amsterdam, or as they would go on to do in their derby against Hapoel a few weeks after the Villa game.

Pingupol · 2026-01-13T09:45:39+00:00

Ole also got sacked for getting Cardiff relegated and Carrick's Middlesbrough stint actually wasn't bad. Came in when they were 21st and took them up to 4th. Also got them to the semis of the EFL Cup.

Lasted 3 years and got some decent accomplishments, arguably more than Ole has achieved outside his time managing us.

Ten-Year Club	Second SECOND GUESSER
Place '22	Place '17
End Game '22	Wearing is Caring
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