Warhammer

Ottobre 21, 2010

This morning I went to class... we covered a lot of positioning prepositions, over, under, on top, below, on the floor, next to, between, in front, behind, inside, outside, ecc... honestly it's the hardest thing we've done so far just because there are a lot of them and some of them are interchangable with other prepositions that mean the same thing. I think I've got it figured out though, we'll see. We did a bit of practive in class, Marina seemed to pick up much quicker than everyone else, I was first confused because I didn't realize there was a legend of symbols we were using to answer the questions, so for my first attempt, I was just guessing at a preposition, improvisation. ;)

After class, on my way back to the flat, I stopped at a bar near the intersection of via Salaria and via Po and had a plate of gnocchi(pasta with potatoes inside) with sugo(red sauce)and pancetta (bacon) and a dolce...(I don't remember the name of the sweet, but it was like a crisp, flaky croissant with icing on it. Apparently good with dipping in your caffe'.) It was a new experience to order from the bar and then take the plate to the back to eat and enjoy before you paid... ***By the way, when people realize I'm not from Italy, they usually ask if I'm English. I don't know how many times I've said yes, at first thinking they're asking if I speak English, then realizing afterwords what they actually said...***

Then I walked through the street market on via Salaria, saw some cheap things that looked nice and I might go back and get but a lot of it was just random stuff... one guy wanted to sell me a hat really bad... I happened to walk by two or three times and he kept offering to sell it to me. I kept thinking, my head isn't THAT ugly. Rude. When I got back to the flat, I took a bit of a nap (only about 15 minutes) then it was time for Nic to get home, he was bringing his friend Claudio today.

When they got home, we had gelato for snack then we had a play date to go to a shop down the street to see if they would be interested in a new game. The game is called Warhammer. It is basically like the soldier game we play, you have your army versus another army and then you can roll di to see which armies can move, and attack, and damage ecc. They decided to play the Elves with Prince Altran, versus the Rat Horde... Daniele was our guide through the adventure... he explained all the directions, how you moved, and could attack, the benefits of some attacks, and then he played the Rat Horde against Nicolo' and Claudio's Elves. His descriptions of battles, attacks, defenses, near misses, and successful hits, were DM Matt Lamkin worthy, he even through in Jace Barrow-like acting to make it more realistic. ;) The Engineer Rat's pistol faltering and not being able to blast the Elf wizard... then the gruesome death of the "Capo di Clan" after being brutally eviscerated by Prince Altran's gryffin. They Elves ended the battle by killing all of the ranks of Rat Hordes, and only one fleeing to the mountains in fear... the boys REALLY enjoyed it... then Daniele took them and Marco (Anita's son 6 year old son who wanted to look in the store in passing and saw Nic and joined us for the end of the battle) to show them the other half of Warhammer, my favorite part... Unlike playing toy soldiers, with the armies in Warhammer, you can paint each soldier by hand. Daniele had a small studio set up in the back of the shop and let Marco, Claudio, and Nicolo all paint one soldier, one elf and two rat men... After donning their finite fighters with armour, weaponry, and fur/hair, we said our thank yous to Daniele and left. Each of them carrying their newly painted gifts from the shop with information about how to play Warhammer, and how to get started. I have a feeling by their conversations walking/running back to the flat, that we will be returning to the shop eventually.

Afterwards, at the flat, we had a marshmellow/toy sword battle (2 Davids vs. Goliath) there was much sneaking, ambushing, sniping with the marshmellow shooter, and full out charging assaults... minor injuries occured... but nothing that couldn't be handled with a more entertaining distraction, like hitting me with the plastic sword. When Raffa got home, they regaled her with the immensity of the Warhammer battles, and the painting, and the price of the starting box set... (75euro I think) I told her I wasn't sure if you HAD to have the starter box to play, but she said she'd just go down and ask about it sometime. Claudio was staying over for the night, so we had dinner, watched some TV, played some chess on my iPod, then went to bed...

all in all, a terrible day to be a member of the Rat Horde, but a good day to be 9.

FOR ALTRAAAAAAN!!!!!!!!!!