The Tease of Things I Don't Need

Someone else was in work today...

...besides me and, most likely, Mark Gibson, since someone at Wizkids slipped in another, unannounced, sneak peek. In the quirky spirit of their previous announcement, Arnim Zola, it's another character who popped up in the 1970's, set to make the DC fans and young'ens say "Who?!" Why, it's an aristocratic vampire with a bizarre fashion sense: Baron Blood. While I'm sure the sculpt is going to look goofy, I can't help but think that some of it's due to the perspective. With a name like that, still, looking goofy is just in keeping with a theme. It may be important to be aware that this was one of those retroactively inserted characters, created in stories written in the 1970s for tales set in the WWII era in the Roy Thomas series, The Invaders. Anyone who's visited the real comics from the so-called Golden Age knows that someone like this wouldn't stand out.

Still, hey, given '70s fashions the Baron was perhaps a better fit than intended. From this angle he almost looks like John Travolta. (Oh, sure. As if this would be a worse role than he had in Battlefield Earth.) The headgear could be there to keep his hair from being mussed...

Seeing the character isn't so much a flashback for me as remembering that when he first came along he had to share space in my memory with a film of the same name from just a few years earlier.

I'm guessing the Baron is the second one, for all the difference it'll make to anyone.

It's another of the unique slots filled (4 down, 8 to go) , and another one that's not going to be a game-breaker. Even at 95 points, though, he has several things to offer. A seven-click dial isn't especially deep, but he leads with Impervious and then Invulnerability before getting into five clicks of Toughness. Whittling him down will be difficult without using Outwit to his damage-reducers. A flyer, he starts off with three clicks of Charge, the frist two paired with Blades/Claws/Fangs, so he can potentially swoop in and do severe damage to an opponent. On his remaining five clicks he has Steal Energy -- appropriate enough for a vampire; with this power he can heal himself a click each time he does some damage to an opponent. Sending him out with Armor Piercing, so he'll be able to deliver that damage and take the bonus even through an opponent's damge-reducing powers. Of course, by then he's a 105 pt piece; if someone had a problem with his cost before...

On his first four clicks he also has Battle Fury, which keeps him from being Mind Controlled. Oh, and like Arnim Zola, the Baron's been given the Hydra team ability, so placing him next to someone with a ranged attack will help the shooter hit his target.

As for my day, as expected it took about four hours at work to get a particular project to a good spot, so I can hopefully spend a short time with it at the start of tomorrow, then pass it on up the chain and forget about it as soon as possible.

The chili went over well, but after getting done at work I was feeling the holiday a little, so I did some shopping on the way home. I put the remainder of the chili away - it freezes and thaws well - cleaned that pot and used it to boil water to cook some white corn. I seasoned some ground beef and grilled some burgers, sauteeing onions and mushrooms to go along withi them. I also made up a salad, though that'll be for later. All are full, and I wouldn't be surprised if I went to sleep early tonight.

If people can just leave me to get work done during the week it should go smoothly. With my taking this Friday off, though, odds are that one or more people will do their best to complicate my week. I'd like to be able to take a day off without having to put in extra long days one or two days before it.

While I'm thinking of it, it's time for me to pull up the train schedule for Friday. Eric and I will probably do as we did last year, catching it in Ambler. I'd like to aim for as early as we can reasonably manage, so we'll be packing into the train with the working stiffs and those commuting to school at Drexel or Temple. That'll come together as the week rolls on.