mccoyed

Thanks for the compliments but... I think you're misunderstanding something with this build/story and how it fits into "spying". The whole idea is recovering intelligence, which is part of spying, to keep Kawashita secrets. It's not just literally showing your sigfig eavesdropping on people... that's an incredibly narrow understanding of what spying or espionage activities consist of. I'm certain Bob just listed a few easy examples and won't have a problem with this build, since it literally is Koro gathering intel. Part of the reason I added all the [REDACTED] bits was to reinforce the idea that Koro's Arium Major mission is a sensitive, secret one. In other words: espionage. That said, I totally forgot to add the "Spying" tag. Where would Koro be without Narbilu? Thanks Turtle. That's an awesome compliment to receive. Thanks Mike. He's a real trooper. Yeah I noticed the other one before I posted. Different enough that I didn't feel bad posting this. Thanks for the kind remarks, Aeralure. I think your stories are good. Thanks GG! Haha thanks, that was tough to do. Ended up using incredibly low-tech solutions. Koro is also a dangerous parasite. Do not swallow. Thanks Kodan. Check out my flickr for some of the scrubbed angles I could have used. I think I took 10+ alternate pics for each stage of the build. Thanks Pombe! I always said Koro was funny. Might be a bit gallows, but still! Thanks LJ. Those rocks drove me crazy. I don't know how you and SK and others do such great rockwork with seemingly little effort! Making something look easy is a sign of mastery!

Love the microfighter feel of the ships.

Haha funny and terrific build.

I get where you're coming from but Bob basically (with help) made the game up from scratch. It's to be expected that there'd growing pains, adjustments, and errata. Even venerable mechanics-based games with teams of experts working on them (Dungeons and Drag for example), have to fix stuff and redo stuff from time to time. I mean, then there's that we have a collection of people with different first languages and different writing/reading comprehension levels and a lot of stuff from the initial rules was misinterpreted. For example, the nuances of how planets could change hands was totally lost on me. That and I think we're all a little surprised at how extensive the tactics are here. I'm not 100% sure that AG is balanced so it's a good idea to massage the game through any growing pains and not stick to an initial set of untested rules if some of them don't work as intended. That said, I think a lot of the complaints wouldn't exist if more people played Settlers of Catan.

Clever setup and funny looking cactus monster. But wow, you are sooooo good at making those Lego-meets-pixel art backdrops. You should do a tutorial or something. That sunset one is breathtaking.

Somewhere in the equatorial ocean... Arium Major - 3185 Having hit a dead-end on Lesser Direstan, Koro was called back to his safehouse on Orinshi to receive new instructions. The brass have issued a recall of all planetary probe memory chips from certain unclaimed planets such as Arium Major, [REDACTED] and [REDACTED]. Some kind of IT slip-up had [REDACTED] and left the chips with a [REDACTED[ sensitive [REDACTED] , and are thus considered military [REDACTED] to be recovered by operators with extreme priority. Looked like the Dust Demons and their mysterious Commodore would have to wait. Of course, it wasn't like Koro was going to have it easy. His HUD pinged in the equatorial ocean and he piloted Less Than Zero to a safe place before navigating the treacherous rocks that may once have been some kind of island. Suddenly, the signal was moving rapidly toward him and he got a funny feeling. "This better not be another trap." And that's when he saw the giant water worm, rising up out of the ocean like, well, like a giant water worm. Koro crossed his fingers and said prayers to anyone listening, but it was useless because that pinging was definitely coming from the inside of the water worm. Of course. And of course, now is when Narbilu would message for a status update. "Koro. Please report." "Narbilu-sama. Are you aware that the memory chip has been ingested by one of the local fauna?" "That doesn't sound so bad. Can you retreive it?" "Uhhh... I can try?" "You'll do just fine, I'm sure. Narbilu out!" "Sure. What could go wrong?" Koro, being a loyal servant of Kawashita Group, did his best to attract the worm's attention. It must have been hungry, because he didn't have to try very hard. It dove at him, its tendrils tasting the air for the unfamiliar, but surely delicious new prey. Koro's last thought before it swallowed him was that he hoped he gave the beastie indigestion... ... ... ... ... ... ...some time later... Because Koro did in fact give the beastie indigestion, it thrashed around with a great deal of ferocity as he sliced up its innards, searching for the memory chip's signal. Finally, he got his hand around it just as the creature tore its flank open on the same spike of rock Koro had been standing on. This left him, rather worse for wear, deposited on the broken shards. He was assessing his line of work and life choices when he heard a familiar tone in his ear... "Koro. Please report." "Narbilu-sama. I'm here. More or less." "You recovered the chip?" "Yes. Remind me to tell you about it sometime. It was a lot of fun." "You sound... a bit strained. Everything okay?" "Everything's great. I lost some fabric, a sword, my dignity, and an arm." "Oh. Sounds like you'll need to see The Mechanic. I'll make him aware that you'll be visiting. Can you make it to your extraction vehicle?" "I guess I'll have to. But... Narbilu-sama?" "Yes, Koro?" "Please stop trying to kill me, Narbilu-sama." END. BUILDER'S NOTES: -The lengthier story and injection of more humor is definitely owed to MANTIS's team and their tendency for funny, story-heavy builds. You guys are stepping up everybody's game. -This is my first time making a "tire-beast" but I've seen a lot of them out there on Flickr and this is my take on one. I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. -Had a lot of problems with light this time. Hopefully it didn't mar my photos too badly. -Oh look, first look at Koro's hair! -Can someone tell me why, on Eurobricks, hitting backspace after enabling bold or italics causes my cursor to bounce back a bunch of characters and otherwise behave oddly? Been an issue for a while. Getting sick of it.

Great collection of Kawashita figs. Also like the martial arts feel of this!

Great presentation here!

Amazing. Would not want to run into that thing!

That yellow base for the lava is just inspired. It really does create a facsimile of the lighting effect some builders get by lighting trans bricks from below!

Mark, with weekly build requirements and serious consequences if teams don't meet those... I kinda think we already have the problem of an active group of fig-on-plate builders. Except you can see from the builds so far that few people are putting out low-effort builds. There's a variety of skill level and presentation quality thus far and I don't think anyone's been really "phoning it in". If that happens, we're gonna see it later as some of the initial momentum of AG subsides. Hope that makes sense.

Equipment Purchase. Koro buying Spying Outfit for 500 credits.

I totally forgot credits make you a Branch Executive. Wait... is that how it works? Haha.

Somehow missed this one. A definitive lava world build!

Awesome. That mech is just crazy and I love the environment you've put it in. Those big flowers are cool enough, but the white leaves along the rocks are an inspired choice.

Great tower but I love that base. I think that's the greenest build I've seen from you in a long time, Gunman! Best thing about the tower is its realistic proportion. It's hard to commit the Lego and even harder to photograph towers that have as much walking room as they usually did historically, but you managed that beautifully.

I think this is my favorite "Hab" build so far.

One of the best ships on AG so far, hands down. That landscape is no joke, either.

That looks very nice. The shape you got with the front part is incredible, you should do a tutorial as I'm sure the ideas behind it would be useful in all kinds of ways.

This is cute all over. Love the Padd and the probe. The way you structured the story, even if it's not strictly true to the idea behind Alien builds, is awesome.

Great action. Looks like Koro has some competition for pulling off the sweet anime scenes!

Amazing. That ship is just amazing for being used as a derelict. I love the reptilian look of it, kinda like some kind of dragon or the Ragnarok from Final Fantasy 8. Excellent work.

Awesome build LittleJohn. Really enjoy the colors and parts use and sense of whimsy in your scifi builds.

Awesome build. Don't worry about the SW feel of it, since it's hard to avoid when SW has been so influential for so long.

Awesome, definitely as a MAERSK ocean liner kinda feel.