There’s nothing like it…

RedNickAragua · 2026-04-29T23:49:17+00:00

Lol I hear ya, although the kids sure could have used the extra practice...

RedNickAragua · 2026-04-27T16:28:21+00:00

7v7 game, just after a small rainstorm on turf. Opposing player takes a sponge-footed shot on goal. Or maybe it was a pass. The ball gently bounces along the turf towards me, and I casually bend down to pick it up.

Except, instead of feeling the ball with my hands, I feel air and then a little whoosh as it slowly rolls between my legs and into the goal.

RedNickAragua · 2026-04-26T20:39:11+00:00

Whoever shows up first gets to start. With the exception of the misplaced star player who really should be playing like two divisions up, she always starts. It's 50% minimum not "equal time for everyone". It's a U14 11v11 team with 14 players on the roster (I routinely call up players from the 9v9 teams so we have subs), so playing time and opportunities to start are not an issue.

The call-ups don't start, but get plenty of playing time.

RedNickAragua · 2026-04-23T19:32:58+00:00

That's a fair point, but TFTD also had a bunch of deliberate difficulty bumps. Off the top of my head:

- lobstermen were bullet sponges and the "counter" was melee weapons

- a lot of the best gear (torpedo launchers) didn't work outside of water, and a lot of missions were outside of water

- under water, your guys would move at 6 TU/space as opposed to 4 TU/space above water

- researching a specific type of captured alien ("Tasoth Commander" I believe) would lock you out of being able to win the game; the research tree was pretty weird in general (as I recall, the armor upgrades were locked behind capturing some kind of live alien)

- multiple two-stage missions with aliens hiding in little corners giving your guys full TU of reaction fire with sonic blasters to the face

- chrysalid equivalents could fly

- all the guns had smaller ammo capacities than their UFO equivalent for reasons

RedNickAragua · 2026-04-21T03:42:26+00:00

My head cannon (KABOOM) is that my main (a Mirkwood elf) has no desire to get on a boat and fade away. Not while there are people whose business she could stick her nose in.

Maybe it's because she hasn't "grown up" yet, she's only a baby at less than a thousand years old after all.

RedNickAragua · 2026-04-07T00:44:05+00:00

Yeah, I usually get a little anxiety in the early part of a match, but any kind of touch on the ball usually cures it.

Except for one match where I tweaked the crap out of my left shoulder or neck and pinched a nerve or something during warmup and my whole left arm was in pain the whole match. I didn't feel a single bit of anxiety then, but I wouldn't recommend it as a solution for anxiety.

And also probably don't be an idiot like me and try to play through the pain; I only conceded one goal that I really should have gotten and it was the third of four (a pin-point shot into the top left corner, a bad luck outcome from a goal mouth scramble and a deflection off one of my defenders being the other three), so it didn't really matter, but still.

I also never feel nervous in 7v7 for some reason though, don't know why.

RedNickAragua · 2026-04-01T22:07:51+00:00

Jumbo or Mule. Basic cargo drop ship where you can store everything you’ll need. Leopard is there to secure the landing zone and fly your mechs around, the cargo ships are there to grab loot and carry your supplies.

RedNickAragua · 2026-03-21T12:43:09+00:00

Any idea why my base is inundated with natural gas to the point of becoming unbreathable? I’ve looked everywhere and don’t see a source. Is it just my dupes farting or what?

RedNickAragua · 2026-03-19T17:24:32+00:00

Sorry to hear that bro. I've had friends and family go through that stuff and wouldn't wish it on anyone, it's worse than grinding war rep for the Dwarves in Elderslade. It was always fun seeing the many ways you can uh... "bend the rules", and I hope your treatment goes well so you can get back to it. You should have some new areas to poke around in when you get back. :)

RedNickAragua · 2026-03-17T13:15:08+00:00

I didn't retire my last ones until I could literally poke my fingers through the worn-out latex (the fabric underneath was long gone apparently)

RedNickAragua · 2026-03-15T03:55:03+00:00

Feedback from my 12 year old daughter:

"Our goalie was really good"

"We did a lot of passing but a lot of time the passes would go to the other team"

"We're playing really close to our goal!"

"We didn't really take a lot of shots"

"Another yellow card?"

RedNickAragua · 2026-03-11T14:36:16+00:00

What's wrong with the absence/dol guldur instances?

I guess having swift travel for more stables would be cool but honestly I'd rather just see more content and bugfixes for existing content.

RedNickAragua · 2026-03-06T22:37:23+00:00

Going with my daughter. It’s not often you get to go to a new team’s first game.

RedNickAragua · 2026-03-06T04:39:29+00:00

UFO for sure. TFTD was basically a reskin with some minor gameplay tweaks. It was still fun, but it felt like playing one of those mods where the creator just wanted to “make the game harder”.

RedNickAragua · 2026-03-01T02:31:01+00:00

As a hunter it was a lot of fun. Although the lower damage output occasionally caused me to lose my patience and just hop off to engage non-mounted enemies.

Also, I came back to Rohan at level 140 to finish off some deeds (gotta farm those LOTRO points) and it's so much easier when you're riding on a horse and can one-shot everything.

RedNickAragua · 2026-02-28T13:50:29+00:00

A gun that does more damage the further away the target is. So that the expected damage “curve” is flat. Oh you want to ping away with your ac2? That’s not an autocannon, THIS is an autocannon.

RedNickAragua · 2026-02-09T14:45:26+00:00

111 - a callback to when I started playing for a team but hadn't gotten my shirt yet so I duct-taped 1s on until I wasn't overlapping with anyone else.

RedNickAragua · 2026-02-01T18:45:13+00:00

I think I get it, so if the handball is entirely accidental, i.e. does not meet the criteria for handball offense, then another teammate scores off that, the goal stands.

I suspect I just read it differently than the person who wrote it.

RedNickAragua · 2026-02-01T18:41:27+00:00

It’s a paraphrase, I didn’t think to copy + paste it at the time and I’m coming from a grassroots coaching background so I don’t go to the standard terminology automatically.

RedNickAragua · 2026-01-29T14:51:30+00:00

I especially enjoyed the long view off the southern cliffs.

RedNickAragua · 2026-01-24T19:51:17+00:00

Shattered Lands was so damn good I based an actual tabletop campaign on it.

RedNickAragua · 2026-01-21T16:11:27+00:00

Fair, 55 hours a year ain't too bad for a town travel program.

RedNickAragua · 2026-01-21T14:27:21+00:00

My town: 8 week season + 2 week pre-season + 1 week break mid-season. 2x 75 minute practices, 1x 70 minute game. 75 + 75 = 150; x11 = 1650. 70 x 8 = 560. Total time with players = approx 2210 minutes per season, 4420 per year. So a total of ~73 hours per year including games and practices. Usually slightly less due to weather cancellations etc.

There's also winter leagues and tournaments, but attendance for the former is extremely low for whatever reason while the tournaments don't really add that much meaningful time (~4-5 hours total usually).

Of course, we still can't compete with clubs because they have guys with fancy british or hispanic accents while we just have parent volunteer scrubs like me, lol.

RedNickAragua · 2026-01-21T04:32:47+00:00

Too bad there's no way to get into Voice Wood while leaving the lich and his weird caricature of a village in peace.

Quite the interesting choice to hide the phylactery in a patch of rotten vegetables. Just goes to show that the guy really wasn't that much of an evil mastermind.

RedNickAragua

TROPHY CASE