I have only been to one baby shower and it was for a mutual friend of my mother and I. So, we went in on a big gift (car seat) from the registry and then purchased some cute small things along side it (a bath gift set and baby bath). Our friend loved it.
I’m shopping for my sister in law’s baby shower and she has very reasonably priced essential items on her list. Is it necessary to buy the exact changing table on her list? Or can I get something more durable and a little nicer (but same color and general style) as long as I provide a gift receipt in case she’d rather exchange it for the cheaper one and use the difference to buy other items? Is it rude to throw in some baby clothes/a blanket/small things that aren’t on the list? A lot of the smaller things they’ve asked for have already been purchased and I feel like a couple gifts that are actually a surprise might be nice? I just want to do something nice but I’m not sure what the etiquette is.

I hope this is the right place and someone can tell me what may have been going on in my village. I moved here a few weeks ago. It's a small village in the heart of Russia and my parents and I came here because things start to get really bad in Moscow and my father lost his job. I don't know why we had to move to this isolated village, so far away from civilization. Maybe my parents wanted peace and quiet? To escape the things in that city, the poisoned minds?
The houses here had all been far below average in price. Almost everyone who lives here has moved here recently.
But, there are crazy rumors about this village that people tell each other. It was found abandoned in the mid-nineties. Where everyone went, no one knows. They say that no signs of people were found at all, nothing. But... everywhere in and around the village… strange patches of earth had been discovered, circular and smooth. Not only in the forest or on the road, but also in the dilapidated wooden houses. At our new neighbors' house, one of the mysterious spots had supposedly been found right in the living room floor, where the floorboards had been just cut away.
These rumors scare me. I am afraid of this village. But yesterday... I was redoing the floor in my room with my father and there... I found a notebook under the old boards. I hid it from my father, I don't know why... Someone must have left it there.
Last night... that's when I read it. I read it and now I'm incredibly afraid of this house and this village. Of the fields and the woods that surround me. The notebook apparently belonged to someone called Ilya Vasiliev. I have tried to translate what he wrote, hoping that someone here can help me find an explanation for the rumors. For this uneasy feeling that I have since I moved here...
***********
I am fine. I want that to be clear from the beginning. My story is strange and in huge parts troubling, but I am still in the best state of mental health.
I am fine!
My story begins seven months ago, in December 1979, when deep winter was upon our village. We were preparing for Christmas, the first Christmas to be celebrated publicly throughout the village, after years of having to practice our faith in secret because the Soviet government did not allow religions. Only in the last few years did the Reds' view loosen and they allowed small islands of faith. One of them was my village, which finally dared to celebrate and praise the Lord.
I have been a believer all twenty years of my life, an exemplary Christian, just like my parents. Faith had kept our family line alive in times of terror and misery. Death had always been close to us, as the fields where most of the population of our village had worked for generations had once brought the end of hundreds of people. Many years ago, on those fields, atrocities had occurred that had finally given them their present name: The Fields of Death.
I myself had not been born back then, not by a long shot, but my grandparents had spent their childhood there, a childhood full of hunger and depravity. My grandfather Fomenko often told me and my sister the stories he had experienced and how faith had saved everyone. There had been a long, cold winter and the grain had been confiscated by the government to be taken to the cities for distribution. After all, the grain belonged to all the people, not just those on the farms who planted it, tended to it, and harvested it. And so, the only food of that time left my grandfather's village and never came back. Some of his neighbors had once tried to hold back some grain, to hide some sacks, but when they were caught, a hail of bullets determined their fate. People lived in fear, not daring to stop working, not daring to keep for themselves the food that was destined for the common good. In those days, horrors happened in my village that I cannot truly picture today, not even when I hear my grandfather's usually clear voice begin to tremble. When I see in his eyes that he would rather forget, in order to experience a peaceful sleep once again… someday.
He told us about those horrors to warn us of how quickly life can plunge from safety into infinite terror. Winter had reigned. The grain was being hauled away. They still shot all those who tried to keep back pieces of it, be it a sack or some husks that had fallen from a cart. In time, hunger began to drive people in our village insane. Parents locked up their children so they wouldn't be taken by neighbors to feed their hunger. Friends turned their backs on each other and killed each other in fights for the last livestock that was still breathing. The streets reeked of decay and death, of misery and suffering. One day, my grandfather told us, he had hidden in the back room of his house while his parents dragged themselves, emaciated, to the fields to pick the last scraps of grain from the furrows with their dirty, half-frozen fingers. He had come across a book there, a book that had saved his life.
The word of God. An old Bible.
My grandfather had learned to read at an early age, one of the sad advantages of living in the Soviet Union.
It was in the room I now live in that Grandfather Fomenko had found the dusty book. Actually, he had been looking for something to eat, the days before he had found some sawdust. But despite his hunger and the grumbling in his stomach, eating the book was out of the question. Books were sacred, and no book as sacred as this one. He had begun to read and learned about the greatness of the Lord. Of the miracles his Son had performed. And of the magic of faith. His stomach had growled, but he had ignored it. The words gave him comfort.
The next day he immersed himself in the book again, disappearing into better worlds and times, hearing wisdom and encouragement. But around noon there was a knock at the door. My grandfather emphasized each time that he had not been afraid, that he had known that the Lord would protect him, when the old neighbor gained entrance to our house armed with a cleaver. It was clear what he wanted: Meat. My grandfather told us each time about how the neighbor had looked more undead than human, stinking and with sunken eyes, smelling like death from his mouth, the cleaver trembling in his hand.
"I'm sorry, boy," was all the man could get out.
My grandfather tried to mimic this poor man’s voice at the end of his wits, to express his pain through words so that we understood that poor fellow a little.
The Lord's words had given courage to my grandfather in his most terrible moments. He had stood up and firmly said:
"Away with you, the Lord protects the inhabitants of this house!"
But the intruder did not care, coming closer. And so, my grandfather again sought comfort and prayed. He prayed for mercy and peace and for his life. He would serve the Lord for the rest of his days. Trust Him blindly.
Suddenly, like a gruesome miracle, the famished intruder let out an inhuman groan and collapsed, lifeless and debilitated. There had been no hunger for my grandfather and his family for a week after that. My grandfather had been praying to the Lord since that day, thanking Him for His mercy. The story spread around the village and out of desperation or hope, in the next few days everyone secretly knelt in front of small wooden crosses they had made themselves and prayed to the Lord. A week later, like a miracle, the long-awaited delivery of grain arrived, along with spring. There had not been another bad time since then.
These events are the reason for the faith in our village... and our family. The psalm my grandfather had prayed as the hungry neighbor attacked had become the guiding psalm of our faith. All these years we had not been able to celebrate Christmas with the other families, but since the restrictions on faith communities had been relaxed, we had all finally decided to celebrate the holy festival in the village square. And so, we started the preparations.
There, in those evening hours, my part of the story begins. I and my younger sister Zarina, together with other youths and young adults, were fetching wood for the fire that was to burn in the center of our village. So, we went out into the night, dressed with thick pelts, to fetch logs from the edge of the fields that some men had prepared.
My breath could be seen as an icy breeze in the dawning darkness and I was already looking forward to dancing around the fire with everyone later, drinking good drinks and eating sumptuously. I was glad that we didn't have to walk across the fields themselves, but could stroll along their edge to get the logs.
You can feel death when it has hit a place. I was glad that I didn't have to work the fields myself, and had learned the carpentry trade. Therefore, I was spared from having to wander around there every day, among the echoes of past atrocities and sadness.
We were all in good spirits, strolling over the muddy ground, when all at once Zarina pointed up and into the clear night sky.
"Look, an angel is descending!" she exclaimed excitedly.
We all looked to where her outstretched hand pointed. A round light glowed in the night sky, glaring yellowish and shining strangely cold.
"It's singing! At Christmas! The Lord puts our feast under his sign!" Zarina cried.
We stopped and listened into the silence of the night. At first, I could hear nothing, at first, everything remained quiet, and only the distant beating of axes and the rustling of the wind in the treetops were audible.
But then, there in the wind, I could hear it, briefly but clearly. It was a kind of melodic whisper, joyful, yet also strange and otherworldly. It was heard only very briefly, and soon died away as the glow flew out of sight and disappeared somewhere far away.
"Let's go find the angel! Let's..." Zarina cried, continuing excitedly, but I interrupted her.
"We have to get the wood. We can report back to the village later, if it hasn't already been noticed there too," I said.
"You heard the singing! Surely that was an angel. Shall we leave it there? It may have gotten hurt, it must have hit something!" Sasha murmured.
Sasha was my oldest friend and one of the boys who worked on the fields. He had always been very caring and had always tried to help where he could. His parents were long dead and the old lady who had raised him was no longer around, either. So, he struggled along, working the fields, but the rest of us looked out for him.
"Shouldn't we go and look for it, Ilya?", Sasha continued to urge me anxiously.
We thought about it for a long time but decided to leave the decision to the others in the village. Trusting the Lord to guide our actions, we quickly moved on in the direction of the woodcutters to complete our task.
We were not the only ones who had seen the glow. When we returned to the village square loaded with logs, everyone was in great excitement and full of joy that the Lord had sent us this sign of His greatness. Not everyone agreed whether it was an angel or a return of the poinsettia that had been witnessed, but everyone was sure that the Lord had sent us encouragement. So, we celebrated our first Christmas full of joy and pleasure, with good food, dancing and singing, full of happiness and under the protection of the Almighty Lord. I will always think back to those days, always keep in my heart how I glimpsed a part of the Lord in the sky.
We all talked about the event and even the older people were fascinated and inspired. Even my grandfather and the others who had witnessed the worst death and misery in the world seemed to slowly find a spiritual peace they would never have dreamed of otherwise. They were happy and strengthened in their faith. However, we were not sure if it had really been an angel who had come down and so we hesitated to go and look for the creature of God.
But in the night, after the light had shone in the sky, I was awakened by Zarina crying in her sleep. I straightened up and slowly paced over to her bed, where in the semi-darkness she began to squirm, shaken by spasms.
"No, no, no..." she moaned painfully.
I began to shake her to wake her up. Zarina did not respond to me. Her face was like a distorted mask hiding something bad underneath. Her breathing became shallow, and she began to whimper. I was terrified and began to pray. The Lord had to save her, He just had to save her!
Zarina twitched more and more, started coughing and whimpering louder and louder. Slowly, the rest of the family woke up and my parents and grandfather huddled tightly around her, praying for her to open her eyes.
"Please, don't take our child! She has only been in your world for fourteen years..." my father cried, as panicked and desperate as I had ever seen before.
His thick, black mustache trembled with fear.
Then, abruptly, Zarina stopped convulsing.
For a terrible moment she just lay there, her hair disheveled, her face pale in the glow of the candle my mother held over her.
"Mom, Dad, Ilya, Grandpa... what's wrong?" she suddenly asked sleepily.
For a moment it was as if nothing had happened, as if I hadn't just seen my sister almost die, but then she began to cry.
"What's wrong, dear?" my father asked, just as pale in the face as Zarina.
It took a while before she found some calm and was able to talk to us.
Finally, she croaked:
"I saw the angel. I was with him."
A revelation? Had the Lord touched my sister?
We all said another prayer and finally, filled with awe, I asked:
"Where did you see the angel? Is it here? With us?"
She looked at me briefly, seemed to hesitate for a little moment, and then reported:
"I was with it… in a dream. It was in a white village, a village made of angel dust. I saw it. It didn't have wings and that's why at first I wasn't sure if it was an angel. However, soon it spoke to me."
"What did it say, Zarina?", I asked tensely.
"It said it was not God, but 'the Witness'. It sounded like a man and a woman and a child and a baby and... It felt peaceful. Calm and carefree. Then I woke up."
"An angel. Angels are the witnesses of God, that's how it must be!" my father said enthusiastically.
Suddenly, everyone seemed to be talking at once.
No one knew what Zarina's words meant, but we were sure that they contained something incomprehensible that we, as ordinary people, could not understand. But everyone was delighted. Everyone was caught in a beautiful dream.
The next day, the adults sat together in the large barn near the edge of the village, which was used for community events. Most of them found seats on the lined up wooden benches and the rest stood crowded against the old walls, some of which were already rotten. Dimitri, probably the closest thing to a mayor, sat at a heavy pine table at the end of the room, staring at the crowd, while my parents and Zarina sat on old chairs in front of him. Tensely, the crowd looked at them, waiting for someone to say something. Finally, Dimitri cleared his throat thoughtfully.
"You... all saw or heard about the falling star. It was brighter than the others that keep crossing our sky and much more... melodic. Some even heard the singing. Whoever still doubted that the Lord sent us his messenger... doubts are now useless. Zarina has received a vision. She has seen how the angel, who was sent by God, walked on our earth, and visited a village and consecrated it with its grace. She has seen the angel marching to spread holiness in these lands..."
"Are we sure?"
Mary, the dressmaker, had stood up. She was still young, my age and Sasha's, and she always wore her blond hair carefully braided, her dresses self-made, blood red and flashy, with silver embroidery. As always, she wore makeup - a luxury not many could afford. In other places she would have been considered a lady, but she was also a skeptical person, and I had not liked her very much since childhood, because she often made insinuations that seemed to go against the Lord. Also, she had never played with us outside and had always thought of herself as someone… better. I was shocked that she now so obviously doubted the Lord's actions.
"Mary. Zarina has seen a vision. The Lord spoke to her through her dreams! An angel has joined us. How can you deny it?" my father asked coldly.
"I'm not denying it, I'm just saying, what if there is something dark that the angel was sent to fight? What if it is going into battle against some unknown evil? The angel may be spreading sanctities, but we have no idea if it is trying to redeem us or defend us..."
"It said it was a witness of God," I noted.
"That's what Zarina said when she woke up."
"Then it is benevolent to us! We must find it!" someone shouted from one of the back rows.
An excited murmur began to spread through the room.
"Silence!" Dimitri thundered.
His face looked hard but determined.
"We have to get to it! If it is a message from heaven that the angel wants to bring us, we must hear it! How many can we spare? Who would even want to voluntarily leave the village? We don't know how long the journey will be, and you yourselves know how dangerous this area can be..."
A loud commotion broke out. Everyone shouted at once and volunteered. I also jumped up and loudly offered to go out to look for it.
The angel. The Witness of the Lord.
I imagined meeting it in a clearing, under a full moon. Hearing its bright voice, gaze in awe at its graceful form, and fall to my knees in prayer before it.
"SILENCE!" Dimitri shouted.
"You can't all go. The kids wouldn't make it in the deadly cold out there. Let seven go. Seven is the Lord's number, there must be seven! Seven workers from the fields! We can't spare any more!"
"You can't be serious!" I cried out.
Cold anger boiled up inside me.
"I want to go, too. We all want to. You can't just stand there and make a decision like that!"
Others joined in.
"SILENCE," Alexeij now thundered, the master blacksmith.
"We need you! Daniil, Ilya, Nikita, you have a job to do! We can't get by without you! You can't go, be reasonable!"
"But if the Lord wills it, he will make sure that everything here will work out. That nothing will happen!", I tried to argue, still boiling with anger.
"No. Winter is tugging at our huts, we need you," my father said slowly.
"So do the others. Without you, it's going to be tight. The fields lie under the snow, but everything else will be weakened by time and storms. We can only spare the field hands. Besides, they're the ones most likely to withstand the cold and the wilderness; after all, they're constantly out on the Fields of Death, toiling in the wind and rain. They'll all make the trip!"
I tried to change his mind, and several came to my aid, all those who were also forced to stay.
"You can manage without a dressmaker! I want to go too!" Mary cried defiantly, her cheeks red with anger, her nose wrinkled.
This young woman really believed she deserved the sight of the angel! She really believed her hypocrisies would deceive the Lord, despite her obvious doubts about His divinity!
Others also complained, young and old, many who didn't deserve to go and even those who did.
But it didn't help.
Dimitri was in charge. Everyone knew that. If we started to contradict him, our village would soon end up in chaos. And deep down I knew that I had to stay. That I had to take care of my sister, who would not survive a trip in the snow. That I had to repair the huts that the storms would eat away at.
Sasha was a field worker, he was allowed to go. Sasha and Sofia, Anatoly and old Igor, Ivan and Yulia and Mikhail. When the decision was made, a decision many of us accepted only with heavy hearts and which brought out deep envy in several faces, some of the chosen ones began to cry. They were happy, fulfilled... satisfied. They would see the messenger of the Lord, hear its melodious voice, sing its hymns.
Why wasn't I allowed to go? Why was the world so unfair? I had always believed in the Lord, prayed to Him, been subject to Him and lived according to His will. Why hadn't he chosen me to see his messenger? I had been so proud back when I had been allowed to learn the carpenter's trade and thus had not to go to the Fields of Death to toil there. At that time, I had felt like someone better when I saw Sasha and Sofia setting out early in the morning with all the other workers, with their old-fashioned plows and thick, shabby clothes.
Was this the punishment for my arrogance?
The Lord knew everything. He had seen what repulsive thoughts I had had, how superior I had felt to the others. Perhaps it was my punishment that I was not allowed to go. Perhaps the Lord was no longer favorable to me and I would have to prove myself to Him.
The next day, the seven set out north. They were seen off with singing and dancing; they were the center of the village’s attention. Envy threatened to drown me.
Why not me? Why wasn't I allowed to go? Why did I have to stay here?
And I knew: it was because of these thoughts. I wasn't pure enough. I had to get better, work on myself.
As the others disappeared from sight, as the small group seemed to be swallowed up by a patch of forest between distant trees, an icy chill ran down my spine.
What if they really did encounter evil? What if Mary had been right?
I prayed to the Lord that they would return home safely: Even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.
He would bring them home safely, our pilgrims. I did not begrudge them their happiness. I was not a selfish person, was not complacent like Mary or some others in the village. I lived by the word of the Lord and I would not begrudge them.
They would all return home safely.
I continued to stare into the distance for a long time as my suppressed envy sought to consume me. But I was winning.
For darkness is as light to you.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Even though the days and weeks passed, I never forgot to think of all those who had set out to witness the glory of the Lord. The cold winter had passed and frost and cold left the land, so that soon we could begin to prepare the fields for sowing. Since the sighting of the angel had caused us to let some of the farm workers leave, and they stayed away longer than we had expected, I had to join others in helping to plow the Fields of Death. The work was exhausting and made me physically very tired, since I still had to work in the carpenter's shop as well. We could not afford tractors, so we still had to resort to older tools. So, it happened that one day I was driving one of the hand plows through the dirty ground and was lost in my thoughts and full of sweat.
I was quite far away from the village, as the nearby surroundings had been worked shortly after the beginning of the thaw. The fields were extensive, partly reaching further than the eye could see. Only in one direction the dense forest extended, which introduced the beginning of a dark hilly landscape, that finally merged northward into high, alien mountains, whose white peaks rose high into the sky and, like once the tower of Babel, blasphemously tried to penetrate the heavens. But next to these distant giants there was only the plain, the vast plain that had to be tilled.
I hated the field work. And I hated the fields.
Every time I even thought about this piece of hell that had become reality long ago, my stomach turned. All the events that clung to this dark place, all the human lives and suffering that had sown the ground with death and blood here many years ago....
It was even worse when you stood in the fields yourself, truly being there on your own. It was as if I could smell it in the air, the rot of the starving and the hot blood that had watered the soil. It was as if I could still hear in the air the cries and wailing of the people who had met their end here, who had pleaded for their lives and the lives of their children and friends. It was as if I could see them in the early morning fog banks that lay on the Fields of Death, the shadows of people past, crawling and cowering, weak and starved. I had to pull myself together and look away, into the forest. A place does not forget, a place always remembers the days gone by and the cries that had been.
The plow pulled through the ground, ripping a furrow behind it. It was almost a bit comforting to imagine I was gutting this place of horror with my labor, inflicting deep wounds. Hypnotized, I stared down over and over again, watching the ground swirl to one side, smelling the fresh earth being pushed to the surface. But never could I escape my terrible feelings and the forebodings, never could I forget what kind of place I was at.
The few times I looked to the forest beside me, my thoughts wandered enviously to all those who had set out to find the angel. Had they reached it yet? Had they already learned from it what needed to be done for God's power on earth to be strengthened so that false prophets and promises could be swept away? How to drown the selfishness of the state? What needed to be done to serve the Lord?
Oh, how I would have loved to be there! How I would have loved to go with them, but I also understood the decision not to send everyone, and I understood my family's objections. I was needed here. I could serve the Lord here by tilling the fields and taking care of the soil and the sowing. I had to care for my sister.
I had already made several furrows when noon came. The sun was almost not visible, just a murky spot behind the clouds, and the fog had not lifted either. The world looked pale and apathetic. But amongst all the desolation I could suddenly hear something, something that seemed to come out of the forest.
It was at first just like a rustling in the wind that sounded a bit too regular, such that it triggered a natural uneasiness in me. I looked into the forest, but could hardly make out anything through the dense plants and the still lingering fog. That is why it was left to my own thoughts to imagine what was there, what was producing this strange noise.
I could not remember any animal that made similar sounds, was at a loss.
Suddenly, a bang echoed through the forest, accompanied by a panicked scream that broke inhumanly from the trees and spread across the fields.
Then, something new joined the sounds in the air.
The trees and bushes rustled, almost seemed to be torn apart.
Something was running through the forest, something seemed to be... coming right at me.
Was it perhaps a startled bear, an elk, or a wild boar?
Had one of the hunters from the village accidentally startled an animal, scared it in the wrong direction and now wanted to warn us with their cry? But then, why this panicked sound...?
I paused, took my hands off the rusty handles of the plow, and turned toward the forest. Still, I could only see fog, I could only hear rustling, but slowly I could also make out grunts and groans coming to me from the fog. It sounded heavy and panic-stricken.
Was I in danger? I began to pray to the Lord and ask him for assistance. I was not a fighter and so I had to hope that nothing would reach me from the depths between the trees that could easily tear me apart.
Even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.
My baptismal motto gave me courage. The Lord saw me, even in my darkness, and would be with me.
For darkness is as light to you.
Then, someone burst out of the bushes and the fog and rushed toward me.
It was Sasha.
I almost didn't recognize him. His skin was pale, almost snow-white. His black hair stuck to his sweaty face. His pants and jacket were almost completely torn, so I could see his dirty shirt and his cut and bruised legs through the holes. There were also some small cuts on his face that worried me. Sasha's eyes twitched searchingly, panicked, and in his hand, he held the rifle that he had taken with him when he had once set out. Apparently, he had run through brush and thorns, had gotten scrapes and wounds from stones and branches.
When he saw me and looked at me with his big, panic-filled eyes, I became horridly afraid.
It was as if… behind his eyes there was no Sasha anymore, but only an animal. As if instinct had taken over his thoughts when an unnamable terror had entered his world. An animal inside him, which had enabled him to escape from... something.
Sasha staggered out of the forest, it was almost as if all strength left him now that he was back home. The rifle fell from his hand and dug into the mud beneath his feet. He limped slowly toward me, not taking his eyes off me. Then, suddenly, he wheeled around and looked back into the forest and the mist.
Only for a moment.
Again, he let out a shrill scream and sprinted the last few meters. When I looked into the forest myself, I saw nothing, only the fog.
But, didn't I feel a presence there, in the bushes? Between the trees?
I didn't see anything.
Sasha had reached me and collapsed. I quickly knelt down next to him and called for help. But the other field workers had already rushed over, obviously attracted by the rifle shot. I was in a trance, seeing only Sasha lying there, supporting his head. His eyes were still twitching around and despite my proximity he didn't seem to recognize me. He looked at me, confused.
"Sasha, what happened?", I asked, feeling his forehead.
Despite his paleness, he was uncomfortably hot.
A fever raged in his body. Who knew how long he had been running around there among the trees, his protective, warming jacket torn? With wounds that had not been tended and some of which were still bleeding?
Then another horrible thought occurred to me.
"Sasha, where are the others? Sasha, where are the others?"
This question apparently brought back some clarity that his gaze had not possessed before.
"They... they took them. Took all of them... All of them. All our brothers, all our sisters... all of them," he gurgled.
*********
So, this is the first part of what I found. I will hurry to translate the rest! But I will definitely stay out of the woods for now... They are still as creepy as described by Ilya in this document and fog ist still around every morning... Also, I don't know what to make of Ilya himself as well, is he just a religious nut and that is the explanation? I just don't know...

Hi everyone, it’s been a little over 2 months since my last giveaway, so it’s time to drop some more credits on the community. I plan on starting today at 10 AM EST and while I don’t normally stream, will go live on Twitch at Caje7 to show the process and/or answer any questions should anyone want to join, and will adjourn for the day after I’ve hit my buy limit.
This time, assuming I haven’t waited too long for the AH purge to eat them, I’ll be targeting 2 billion credits, which should take at least a couple of days given the 50 car 24 hour buyout limit and the 2008 BMW M3 still being only 12.8 mil. (People seriously need to stop posting them up if they don’t have a deal in place, or for less than 12.8 mil, but I digress).
PLEASE READ
I want to distribute out a little more and not have a small number of players gobble it all up, so here’s how I want to do this…
Each requestor will comment here obviously, and as long as the credits hold out for me to continue I will buy 1 2008 BMW M3 that the requestor will buy for 48K in the autoshow and auction the car for max price - currently approximately 12.8 mil. Based on my knowledge of the AH tax, that should give each person that requests about 11 mil.
Now, if you want to just take the credits and run for just the 1 car, you’re welcome to do so. That will certainly help distribute the credits more. However, each user who navigates to my vinyls and adds at least one of my vinyls to the car before auctioning will be allowed to post a second car for me to buyout.

 —-In the highly likely scenario that you have not followed me in-game or don’t know how to do any of this, navigate to “Creative Hub” in your game dashboard and select “Vinyl Groups”. At the bottom, select Search, change max layers to 3,000 and in creator, add Caje and then search. You should then see a selection of my current vinyls. Download one or more to your my vinyls list. When done, exit the “Creative Hub” and navigate to “Cars”. Select “Buy New & Used Cars” and you should be prompted to travel to your home or festival. Do so. Once there, select “Garage”, make sure you’ve gotten in the BMW you plan to auction and then select “Designs & Paints”. Now, select “Apply Vinyls & Decals”. Here you just select the area of the car you’d like to apply the decal, hit the “+” symbol and then “Load a Vinyl Group”. You should then see the vinyl(s) you downloaded previously. Select one and you will get a pop up that has “Load Vinyl Group”, “Like” (by all means, if you come across one you actually like, please like it), and also report. Choose “Load Vinyl Group”. You will then see a vinyl on the car. Repeat as much as you’d like with as few or many of my vinyls as you’d like. When done, exit and you will be prompted to save your work…choose “Save to Current Car". Back out of that menu to the “My Cars” menu and make sure to switch out of the BMW you modified (you can’t auction a car you’re in) and then post it up and let me know here. If I see my vinyls, I’ll buy 2 of your cars, which should give you a little over 20 mil. 

BONUS
I’m going to reserve the final 250 (actually 256) mil for 2 people, which will be 10 additional cars each. Whoever creates the best livery using mostly my vinyls will be chosen to post 10 additional cars. Again, I’m going to select two people to get 10 each. In the event nobody looking for credits is really a livery creator (there’s also the time crunch of how many people want in/how many credits remain, I’ll use a backup criteria for one or both selections based on “best use” and/or number of my vinyls used in the livery creation. So, good luck! Please keep in mind that due to the 24 hour 50 car buy limit, we may need to coordinate this final set of purchases over a 2nd or 3rd day.
So, as noted, I will start reviewing and buying @ 10 AM EST and at least to start broadcast the gameplay on Twitch…Caje7.

Good Afternoon /DetroitRedWings!
As we're sure many of you have seen, it has come to light that Reddit will be altering their API process to charge the providers of 3rd party apps at a level that will likely result in the death of most of these apps. It is believed this may also end up affecting Reddit bots, such as OctoMod, that utilize the reddit API to make the automated posts that it does.
Our subreddit will be joining a growing list of our fellow communities to protest this change by taking the subreddit private from June 12th through the 14th.
What can you do as a user?

• Complain. Message the mods of reddit.com, who are the admins of the site: message reddit: submit a support request: comment in relevant threads on reddit, such as this one, leave a negative review on their official iOS or Android app- and sign your username in support to this post.
• Spread the word. Rabble-rouse on related subreddits. Meme it up, make it spicy. Bitch about it to your cat. Suggest anyone you know who moderates a subreddit join the coordinated mod effort at ModCoord.
• Boycott and spread the word...to Reddit's competition! Stay off Reddit entirely on June 12th through the 13th- instead, take to your favorite non-Reddit platform of choice and make some noise in support!
• Don't be a jerk. As upsetting this may be, threats, profanity and vandalism will be worse than useless in getting people on our side. Please make every effort to be as restrained, polite, reasonable and law-abiding as possible

Hello There! I have an older Apple Watch Series 3 with a 38mm case with a broken display. As I have heard that display prices for Apple Watches have fallen, I am interested in repairing mine myself. However, I don't know which replacement display to buy, and the parts sold on iFixit look expensive because for the same price listed, someone can get a refurbished Apple Watch SE. If that helps, I live in Greece, but I might look into getting something from the US through family living there.

Figured I'd do another post of overrated bourbons to hopefully help some fellow whiskey enthusiasts from making mistakes and letting FOMO get the heat of them. My list of some of the overrated bourbons I've had. Might be some feelings hurt.
1.GTS - Dont get me wrong it's good but obviously it's not worth anywhere close to secondary. I used to pass on it at $500 by me. It's good but it's not that far off other well aged, full proof bourbons. Eagle Rare 17 gets a lot of dislike but honestly I liked it better but both are very close. Yet people say ER17 shouldn't exist and GTS is juice from God. The truth is both are good and very close in quality. Neither are worth more than $250 in today's market

1. William LaRue - To be fair I've only had the 2022 version which wasn't received as a great batch but honestly I was so disappointed it has to make my list. There are so many bourbons better I'll never feel bad for not owning this.

3.1792 - All there products get hype for some reason and I don't get it. The best bottles are the store pick full proof but even they are ok and only worth $50 give or take. They drink very hot and flavor is ok. Problem with most of 1792 for me is the flavors all seem turned down a lot. Like someone lowered the volume. I never chase these and quite frankly don't buy them. There Small Batch for instance there's I'd rather have so many other bottles in same or lower price range.
4.Four Roses SB - not as bad as others on this list but suffers from same thing as 1792 maybe even more. Flavors are just so muted and turned down.
5.High West Rendezvous Rye - newer stock from last several years is awful. Drinks like a $20 hot mess.
6.Henry Mckenna 10yr SIb - Dont listen to whiskey awards. There a lot of Barrel variation and it's simply $30-$40 whiskey.
7.EC Toasted - Beem said on here a million times but has to be on list. Stop tapering this bottle. It's over priced even at MSRP.
8.Buffalo Trace Products - Too many to list but they all belong here for one reason or another. They are all wayyy overhyped. Idk why everyone feels like THEY HAVE too buy buffalo trace. Most of there products are good but that's it, there just good and prob worth near msrp.
9.Angels Envy - Overpriced and not that good. There Rye almost certainly has additives for flavoring to it too. Just pass all of it.
10.Four Gate Products - I don't care gow good there barrels are there whiskey is not worth $200 a bottle. They have some good bottles but should prob be priced between $80-$120 at most. But let's not forget there bottles aren't all hitters. They got there fair share of flops and these ones prob worth like $40-$60 at most.
11.Michters - now I actually like there products but the price on all of it is wayy too high. There products over $100 should be cut in half. The Toasted series should be lower by $10-15 but I can live with these but your prob paying secondary for them.
12.Craft Distillery Whiskey under 4yrs old- You always here it's good for a 2 year old whiskey. Hmm well I expect 2yr old whiskeybto taste like crap so this is slightly better crap. I'm all for supporting craft Distillers but the 2yr-3yr old whiskey hype got to stop. It ain't good. Hell even alot of 4yr craft whiskey isnt that good. Try it at a bar or the distillery but don't buy a bottle blindly. Especially when there selling it for $50-$80.
There's plenty more to list but hopefully this help some of you fellow whiskey nerds fight FOMO that we all deal with.

Link to the previous D3D pinned thread
We know that this will conflict with the release of Act 4, Ch 2 Pt 1 chapter, but we believe in doing our part in this protest, especially since in the end we are a mobile-based subreddit.
If you need help with the event, I ask that you check the guides and such posted by our amazing community members beforehand or jump in on our Discord Server.
Feel free to use this post to discuss this subject.

What's going on?

A recent Reddit policy change threatens to kill many beloved third-party mobile apps, making a great many quality-of-life features not seen in the official mobile app permanently inaccessible to users.
On May 31, 2023, Reddit announced they were raising the price to make calls to their API from being free to a level that will kill every third party app on Reddit, from Apollo to Reddit is Fun to Narwhal to BaconReader.
Even if you're not a mobile user and don't use any of those apps, this is a step toward killing other ways of customizing Reddit, such as Reddit Enhancement Suite or the use of the old.reddit.com desktop interface .
This isn't only a problem on the user level: many subreddit moderators depend on tools only available outside the official app to keep their communities on-topic and spam-free.

What's the plan?

On June 12th, many subreddits will be going dark to protest this policy. Some will return after 48 hours: others will go away permanently unless the issue is adequately addressed, since many moderators aren't able to put in the work they do with the poor tools available through the official app. This isn't something any of us do lightly: we do what we do because we love Reddit, and we truly believe this change will make it impossible to keep doing what we love.
The two-day blackout isn't the goal, and it isn't the end. Should things reach the 14th with no sign of Reddit choosing to fix what they've broken, we'll use the community and buzz we've built between then and now as a tool for further action.

What can you do as a user?

• Complain. Message the mods of /reddit.com, who are the admins of the site: message reddit: submit a support request: comment in relevant threads on /reddit, such as this one, leave a negative review on their official iOS or Android app- and sign your username in support to this post.
  
• Spread the word. Rabble-rouse on related subreddits. Meme it up, make it spicy. Bitch about it to your cat. Suggest anyone you know who moderates a subreddit join the coordinated mod effort at /ModCoord.
  
• Boycott and spread the word...to Reddit's competition! Stay off Reddit entirely on June 12th through the 13th- instead, take to your favorite non-Reddit platform of choice and make some noise in support!
  
• Don't be a jerk. As upsetting this may be, threats, profanity and vandalism will be worse than useless in getting people on our side. Please make every effort to be as restrained, polite, reasonable and law-abiding as possible.
  

What can you do as a moderator?

• Join the coordinated effort over at /ModCoord
  
• Make a sticky post showing your support, A template has been created here you can use or modify to your liking, and be sure to crosspost it to /ModCoord.
  

Thank you for your patience in the matter,
-Mod Team

Looking for a used car to drive daily and I’m finding a lot of 7th gen accords (2003-2007 I believe) going for a decent price and within my budget but most have well over 100,000 miles. I know these cars are very reliable but my question is at what mileage would be too high for you to consider not buying or showing interest? 130k-180k I’m seeing a lot of. Some of these sedans I’ve seen listed have 230-250k miles, so when do they start to lose life? If I bought one with ~150-160k miles and it was well maintained, it’s realistic I can get another 60-70k out of it?

This post is a compilations of tips I saw on BoardGameGeek, Jack Reda's Youtube videos, and personal experience. Feel free to comment your own tips so I can add them to the list. I only cover the base game and first extension (in advance game mode), but I might add the other factions later if I ever have the opportunity to play with them. English is not my native language, so pardon my French if I made mistakes.

General tips

Shipping, resurrecting, fighting is expensive (unless you play Fremen). Dune is a game of opportunity, you have to be ready to attack at the right moment, and recognize these moments (from experience, and with the help of this tips).Each faction advantage is very strong, so you should abuse them at every moments. Choose your traitor wisely : Picking the strongest might give you more spice, but player are usually less likely to use them all the time because of the traitor risk. But bluffing/double bluffing your traitor choice will also depend on the table, who are the players, how often do you play with them... Avoid keeping an Atreides traitor, because once the KH is out, it might be a dead card. Choose your alliance by looking at the board for a quick win if you see that you might be 1 stronghold away from victory with someone. Or choose your alliance by combining fancy powers for the long game. Also look at who owns what tech tokens, you might want to avoid allying with someone who has some when you have some as well.

FREMEN TIPS

You are like the Zergs is SC2, you come with a massive number of forces, and even if someone destroy you, you can still come back. Often underestimated, use the overconfidence of the players to your advantage. You might lose lots of battle due to the lack of combat abilities, but you can win the war (the game) with your ability to recover very easily. In order to make your enemies commit to you to lose resources, you must be annoying, all over the place (thanks to your 2-territory movement).
SETUP: Start with 5 in Sietch Tabyr (because it's a stronghold, you should already occupy it) and 5 in False Wall South (because you can't really deploy in this side of the map so it's always good to have some options here). No need to split more.If you play with tech token, then you also have an interesting thing to do after the first storm: Bribe someone for 2 or 3 spice. No matter what it is for, you will get this right after the CHOAM Charity. Try buying a card at the beginning, before everyone gets too much spice, and after some have spent their starting spice. You don't need to keep any spice to deploy or fight so all your spice can be spent into treachery cards.
INCOME: Harvest Spice ! This is your best source of income. And with spice harvest comes the worm riding possibility. This is where the Atreides come to be helpful. If you manage to get a deal with the Atreides player, in order to know when he sees his first sand worm in the spice deck, you will have multiple information at once: As long at the Atreides does not see any sandworm : only the second spice blow per turn can have a worm, so focusing on this location give you more chances to get to ride it. Plus, if a sand worm does appear, you can move your troops to the location of the first spice blow of the turn. This mechanic makes you focus on only half of the spice blow, so you might still want to harvest both spice blows per turn if you can. You can also pretend to make a deal with another faction to let them the first spice blow in exchange for bribes. But in the end, if you control the spice blows, and don't let anything to Atreides/Harkonnen/Ixians, you have the advantage and weaken them. Last way to gain spice if by selling information. Same as everyone, you could know safe leaders, of cards in hand, but you also have the storm deck, and that can be valuable especially to Harkonnen and Atreides who might also be trying to harvest spice. Once your hand is full, you don't need spice anymore, so use it to bribe players.
COMBAT: You can bring large amount of troops, and make them fight full strength, at no cost, so you are a force of nature. You also have the strongest leaders if they are not killed in battle. Keep your best ones for when you have defense cards, but also be careful: Stilgard is 7 spice to whoever have the Traitor card corresponding, he is almost never put aside if a player draws him.
ALLIANCE: Gain spice harvesting control with Atreides, or Ixians (More secure income, and less obstacles for spice harvesting, good card knowledge that can be leveraged in combat).Gain the ability to become a never-ending wave of troops with Emperor or Bene Tleilaxu revival bonus (Better income, can heal lots of troops). Gain combat supremacy with Harkonnens traitors or card knowledge, or with Bene Gesserit's voice (low income, but still great in combat). Or play the long game and prevent others from winning with the guild (good income, but not very beneficial for the Fremen)
BONUS: Using a Karama card to bring a worm to an enemy army is devastating. Using it to reposition your own army could also be worth it, but be careful not to go too far or you won't be able to reinforce. You can also use your ability to only lose half your troops in storm to cancel a victory when a stronghold is inside the storm. Once the game is at turn 9-10, start to think about your alternative win condition, with the help of you ally.

ATREIDES TIPS

You are the scholars, the Littlefinger of this game. If you keep your notes clean, you won't even need prescience in combat, because at some point, you can know the entire hand of every player. Your factions advantages are great, but not always easy to take advantage of. Atreides are social, you can manage good relations with players by selling information, but don't give too much or your advantages will be worthless.
SETUP: Start by finding both kinds of attack and/ or defense, buy the right treachery cards in order to better use your prescience. If you have both options for killing a leader or protection yours, you can start battling. Going for spice in the first turn is great for either... getting spice or battling others for it and losing the 7 troops needed for KH.
INCOME: Sell Intel! People going for spice blows want to know about the next, people buying treachery cards want to know what they are bidding on, people going into battle want to know if they have a safe leader. You also want to harvest spice, and win battle, but you have economic faction in the game so they are your main market for selling intel. You can make deals with some players where I wink to them if a specific card they ask is on the auction, but make sure that the bribe is worded in a way you can keep information from them, or high enough so you can have a steady income.
COMBAT: Once you have both kind or weapon or defense, you can kill enemy leader or protect your own. But if you keep track of what cards each opponent have, you might know that some players don't have both kind, and that using prescience to see their weapon/defense is useless. This is when you can ask for the numbers they put in combat and minimize the troops you will lose. You can also step up in other players combat before they reveal to sell valuable information about the opponent hand of treachery cards, and even make the opponent pay you more to not give the information. Knowledge is power.
ALLIANCE: Gain the ultimate combat power with Bene Gesserit (Voice + hand knowledge of you opponent is the most powerful ability in the game), but I would advise not to make this alliance, not because it's not strong, it's obviously the strongest, but because it's less fun for opponents as every battle you play take away their control on the game, and this can be VERY frustrating for the other 4 players. Gain the perfect card knowledge with Harkonnen or Ixian (They will know what cards are not seen by your prescience).Gain the market control with Emperor (buying all the good cards, leaving the others to the poor ones).Gain the spice blow monopoly with the Fremen (and be sure to let none to other factions).Other alliances might not be very beneficial to you.
BONUS: Use Karama cards for disabling other powers, because your cunning effect is not that useful once you have a clean note on hand knowledge. I would mostly keep a Karama to instantly buy a powerful card I can't afford since I know I won't waste it. Because the bidding phase is your moment to shine, you can influence other players to spend more or less on a card, by bidding yourself. The player before you just bid 4 and you know it's worthless, bet 6 so the next think it's worth it. You see a great card and bid second, pass this time and hope the bid make another round to make people think this is worthless. Making players spend spice on bad cards is how you get the good ones.

HARKONNEN TIPS

You are the mean antagonist, the space Orcs, and your abilities make players afraid to lose a battle against you, or even fight you at all. You might not have a lot of spice income, but once you can spend a little on treachery cards, you become a killing machine. This faction is train that is harder and harder to stop once it gains speed, but very hard to put back on rails if stopped once (I find this faction to be the most unforgiving)
SETUP: Stay in Carthag with your troops until you have enough resources to fight. If a spice blow is near, you can take a small number of troops to harvest it. But if you leave it with too little troops, you might lose it. Buy 1 or 2 cards on the first auction, so your hand is almost full, you will have options, or at least make people afraid of fighting you.
INCOME: Win battles! If you win battle, you harvest the spice of the killed leaders. And if you don't capture a leader, you send it to the tanks for 2 spice. So winning your battles is your way of gaining a lot of spice, as well as suppressing lot of enemy leaders. You don't even need spice to get your leaders back if you capture some of your enemies. You can also look for spice blows, but splitting your army is risky because without army to win battles, you lack income, and without income, you can't heal/deploy your army back. Every victory is a heavy loss for your opponent if you capture a good leader, so you can also receive bribes to not fight them. You can also sell information on your traitor hand, but that might make you lose power.
COMBAT: You don't have combat ability, so you must bring lot of forces in order to be sure to win. Try attacking players that played before you in storm order so they can't run away from you. Focus on faction with traitors you own, for an easy fight without sacrifice. You don't choose your traitors, but you can bluff enemy players on how to make them pick the leader you want. If you have a low strength traitor, harass this player to make him think you have a traitor of him, so he might avoid using his high strength leaders. If you have a high strength traitor, you can bait this player into attacking you, but be careful to have enough forces to make him use the high strength leader in question. Sometimes you might not call traitor (if you win anyway, if you lose but only 1-2 troops) in order to make the player think his leader is safe against you... but you might not get the chance to call it again, so be careful with this bluff.If you have the Cheap Hero traitor card : Ally with Bene Gesserit for some funny wins (since BG can use the voice to force your opponent or their opponent to use a Cheap Hero card)Without using traitors, you still have lot of treachery cards to assassinate and protect. And Atreides can't really sell info on them to help your opponent.
ALLIANCE: Gain all the money you need to fight with Emperor and Guild (Getting Treachery cards even when you got destroyed can really help you get back on track, it's your golden parachute).Gain the ultimate card knowledge with Atreides, but an even stronger alliance is with Ixians and their ability to setup the best card on the top of the deck for you to get when you buy any card. Gain the Traitor monopole with Bene Theilaxu (up to 7 leaders out of 20, that's a third of you opponents leaders that they "can't" play, this is very frightening), and it's also an economic faction that will help you. Gain some help in battle with the Bene Gesserit, but unless you have the Cheap Hero traitor card, it's not the best choice, you will lack income. On the other hand, having the voice in battle is always helpful. I don't see any reason to have an alliance with Fremen.
BONUS: You can use a Karama card to force a treachery card exchange, this can be used in 2 ways : Exchange worthless cards with your Bene Gesserit ally, or exchange your worthless cards with an enemy (except BG) that is not in an alliance with Atreides, in order to mess with the note of the later. Once the Atreides player has 2-3 unknown cards (in addition to your bonus cards), your hand is a mystery to him, and you can really surprise him. You can also simply use a Karama to steal a Poison blade or a Shield Snooper from another player in order to win even more combats. And if using a Karama card gets you a free card during bidding for someone, for you this is 2 free cards, so it’s worth it.

EMPEROR TIPS

You are not the enemy people see in battle, but you are the puppet master pulling the strings. Your lack of fancy abilities is why you pay players to do the dirty job for you. Use your large amount of spice to bribe the game in your favor in order to strike when you really need to. Patience is your second-best ally, the first one being money.
SETUP: Don't do much at the beginning. You don't have to be on the planet, you don't have to combat early, you can take Habbanya Ridge Sietch if you like but don't need at first.
INCOME: Make the bids go high ! Your income may be passive, you should be active during the bidding phase. Try to never have your hand full, in order to be able to bid, and raise the price a little higher. If only one player can bid, it's only 1 spice for you, so be the other buyer that tries to steal that card. And if you pay the Atreides to know the card, it's even more realistic if you try to have the card and it will make the opponent want it even more. Remember that the spice you spend is even more spice you don't get. Once in an alliance, you can have the help of your ally to influence the auction. And if your hand is full but have a cards can be used instantly (Ghola, Truthtrance,...) you can use it to free a hand slot and manipulate the auction again. Keeping the other players poor is your way to victory.
COMBAT: You have the advantage in battle, your Sardaukars, and your spice. You can "doomstack" on a territory and be sure to win even with your leader killed (and if you dial high enough to win like that, don't put your best leader in battle, it would be a shame to lose it for nothing). But your best option is to make players kill each other’s by bribing them, and then get the strongholds once their remaining forces are low. Just because you are rich, does not mean you should waste your spice.One last thing people often forget about spacing guild, is that you can ship from Dune to Dune, this can be an opportunity for you to get 2 stronghold with 10 forces each on 1 turn, and at the end of every players round, ship 9 of them to a 3rd stronghold for the win on an easy target.
ALLIANCE: Gain the fancy power you don't have with any faction that is not economic and allow them to shine with your spice. Or you could even ally with another economic faction and crush the other players with your wealth, but that's not always the best strategy. In general, players will ask YOU for an alliance so pick the one you prefeis in best position for the win.
BONUS: You can use a Karama card to get troops back (or a Leader but that's less valuable), that is only useful if you failed something (or got a traitor card played on you) and need to get back on your feet, but it's even more impactful if you prevent a fancy combat ability to bring others to your level and beat them with spice.

GUILD TIPS

You are the French policeman of this game, you maintain order and prevent players from taking too much power, but if you like you can shoot their eyes and explode their hands to take the win for yourself. Your control of the turn order makes you able to slow down some players that might win. This is a very valuable power but also your only (besides, of course, being rich).
SETUP: With only 5 forces in Tuek’s Sietch, you might want to reinforce, but you can also wait and see if someone tries to attack you. With only 5 spice at the beginning, it can be difficult to have a lot of treachery cards, but after turn 1 you might have more to spend.
INCOME: Make them fight! You don't have a lot of control over your main source of income, since if you attack someone to make him ship reinforcement, you also lose spice in the process, you can't really take advantage or your own combats with such a low revival rate. But influencing players into fighting each other’s (by bribing or just convincing them) is great for busyness.
COMBAT: You have the lowest strength leaders, you must "doomstack" if you want to win, by bringing lot of forces and paying them with your spice, so even if you don't kill the opponent leader you still win. On the bright side, your leaders are so bad and you are so underestimated that they might never be a traitor (except if Harkonnen drew some, or if they are facedancers).
ALLIANCE: Gain the fancy power you don't have with any faction that is not economic and allow them to shine with your spice. Or you could even ally with another economic faction and crush the other players with your wealth, but that's not always the best strategy (unless maybe Bene Tleilaxu, that can help other players to get back more troops to ship and benefit you both, but no need to be allies for him to do so). In general, player will ask YOU for an alliance so pick the one you prefeis in best position for the win. One alliance is particularly great in order to win with your alternative victory condition: Bene Gesserit. You can use your ability to go first to put 1 troop against someone in a stronghold, so no one else can attack him, in order to "protect" him against someone that might want to win this turn. The Bene Gesserit can also do the same by flipping an advisor. Together you can hold some strongholds in stasis in order to stall until the end of turn 10.
BONUS: Your cunning effect of a Karama card is one of the best! Preventing a player from shipping this turn can turn a perfect winning plan into a waste of spice if they all in elsewhere. But like the emperor, you can prevent a fancy combat ability to bring others to your level and beat them with spice.

BENE GESSERIT TIPS

You are the ninja of this game, staying in the shadow until you want to strike, and Leto II knows you strike very hard. The hardest faction to play, and the strongest (judging by its win rate). You have lots of very fancy abilities that can really turn a game in your favor, but in beginners’ hand they might not get you anywhere. These tips are the hardest to write because there are so many things to be said about this faction, and yet not a single easy receipt for victory.
SETUP: With 1 advisor wherever you want, you might want to target a stronghold, and maybe one where there will be lot of shipping (Carthag or Arakeen for example). At turn 1, you don't really care about keeping spice for shipping or fighting, don't think about it until turn 3. You are 5+2 spice at the first round, and you want weapons and defenses to kill leaders with your voice. You begin as the 4th most fortunate player, so buying a card can be crucial in turn 1, because after some spice harvesting and battles, you might end up the poorest. And since no card is really worthless to you, you risk nothing by bidding blindly during auction.
INCOME: It's complicated! 2 spice per turn with CHOAM Charity can't be your only source, you need alternative ways of earning spice. First and most obvious, is combat, because the voice can make you 100% sure to kill the opponent leader, and if you also win, you get the spice from it. But there is also another way to use your abilities for money: You can threaten a player and expect spice for not executing the threat. For example, you can say to a player "I could flip my 5 advisors for the movement phase, and then you will have to fight me and spend a lot of spice into this combat, or you can bribe me a little less so I won't do it this turn". Or make players pay for your services, with the opposite mechanic "if you pay me 5 spice I flip this advisor to a warrior and leave the territory at the end of my turn, so the [insert a faction playing before you] cannot attack you here". This can be quite complicated to pull, but you may find a lot of creative ways to make spice out of your powers. If you manage to take Carthag or Arakeen, this also could be your solution for your lack of spice and mobility.
COMBAT: Your best field is the battlefield. If you manage to get even 1 weapon, you become a killing machine, and if you have a poison blade or a shield snooper, you are the ultimate killing machine (and don't even need Atreides to be sure to kill the opponent leader without losing yours). If you manage to remember some cards played in previous battles, you can be very creative with your voice, by making them play worthless cards in order to choose between playing a weapon or a defense, or making them play a worthless hero so you only have to protect your leader. You can also bluff (especially at the beginning of the game) to make players thing you can kill their leaders ("don't play a poison defense") when you don't even have a weapon, in order to make them play a low strength leader and have a chance to win anyway. But don't prevent an enemy from playing a type of defense, if you have a high strength traitor of your opponent, because if they know their leader is going to die, they will sacrifice a low strength one. Speaking of traitor, the cheap hero traitor card is a great pick if you have it in your starting hand, this can lead to very funny battles against armies if you manage to know who has a cheap hero treachery card. Sometimes, if you are sure to win a fight and know some cards if you opponent’s hand, you might force them to play a specific card you can counter (like a projectile weapon) in order to make them lose it.
ALLIANCE: Gain the ultimate combat power with Atreides (Voice + hand knowledge of your opponent is the most powerful ability in the game), but I would advise not to make this alliance, not because it's not strong, it's obviously the strongest, but because it's less fun for opponents as every battle you play take away their control on the game, and this can be VERY frustrating for the other 4 players. Gain the leader eraser alliance with the Harkonnen (that can remove 2 leaders per combat with the right treachery cards).The rest of the alliances might not benefit you very much, but since you have the best alliance power, player will ask YOU for an alliance so pick the one you prefeis in best position for the win.
BONUS: You have a very funny alternative victory condition, that I will try to give tips about. Ixians, Atreides, Harkonnen and Fremen can have an early win (turn 3-5) since they start with strongholds and have great combat abilities. Guilde, Emperor, Bene Thleilaxu on the other hand, may not win before turn 5. As for the rest, it's more about the players than the factions. Aim for the most experimented, and on a not too early turn. Once you set your prediction, you have two ways: 1. Wait for an alliance (that's why you don't set it too early, once in an alliance you have twice more chances of successful prediction on the faction), focus the alliance you prediction is not in, and hope the faction you predicted come out on top after your battles. For this to happen, you can influence a bit in its favor the same way the Guild can prevent a player from winning: you can protect the stronghold they own by flipping an advisor and leaving after your turn. 2. Ally with the faction you predicted (my favorite strategy, but not the easiest), and try to win normally but on your predicted turn, so you can steal the victory away from you ally and win 1v5 mouhahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahaha If you play against a Bene Gesserit player, that can be fun to ask them if the faction they are in an alliance with is part of their winning condition. If they answer yes, their ally may become paranoid if they are about to win, and if they say no, their ally might lose trust.But your prediction is not only useful to steal a victory, but also to prevent a victory with a good bluff. You see someone going for the win this turn and can’t really win one of the battle ? If it’s not the last battle, you can say “I don’t use the voice” and never say why, the player might think that’s you let him win in order to fulfill your prediction, and might throw this battle or the next one just in case.About shipping advisors, it’s better to not go all overs the board, focus only on 2-3 strongholds because if you even have 2 advisors on each, it’s already half your army that is split.Your ability to avoid combat when another faction enters a territory you are in makes you the best at keeping tech tokens, so going tech token hunting during the game can be an excellent strategy.

BENE TLEILAXU TIPS

You are spider that waits for its web to trigger, you are patience, you are scary, you are Bene Tleilaxu. Your face dancers presence makes every fight dangerous.
SETUP: Wait. You don’t need to rush anything; you can wait until you have good treachery cards. Some people try to force combat at the beginning to make enemies lose troop and start your economy, but you might lose your tech token, so I won’t advise it unless you are sure to win the combat.
INCOME: Make them fight! Same as the Guild, you win more spice if the other players fight each other’s. But you can also increase the number of troops your enemies can revive, and allow them to revive their leaders early, and you can make them pay for it. Leverage this favor for spice, or information. Your face dancers are another source of information that can be sold, these are “safe” leaders from traitors, and you can see a lot of them during the game. Keep track of them and if you see a high strength leader, you might want to keep it.
COMBAT: You can wait until a face dancer is revealed, or you can put troops yourself. Zoal is a tricky leader to use, but his simple presence in your roaster will make your enemies paranoid when fighting you. Bluff about your hand, your ability to kill your enemy leader and make them think you will play Zoal, and they might use a low strength leader against you to minimize the spice you will gain. If you manage the early leader revivals of your enemies well, they might only have good strength leader to put into battle. Since you don’t have fancy combat abilities, make your stronghold difficult to take by reinforcing them with lot of troops. You can always use them to replace another army after a face dancer reveal, if needed.
ALLIANCE: Gain the Traitor monopole with Harkonnen (up to 7 leaders out of 20, that's a third of your opponents’ leaders that they "can't" play, this is very frightening). Moreover, you can offer to early revive opponent leader that are you ally traitors for even more treacheries. An alliance with the Bene Gesserit could be good if you have the Cheap Hero Traitor card, but other than that there is not much synergy here (It’s always nice to have the voice in combat, but will you combat often ?) Or you could even ally with another economic faction and crush the other players with your wealth, but that's not always the best strategy (unless maybe the Guild, since you can help other players to get back more troops to ship and benefit you both, and the more troops you allow to be back on the planet, the longer the game last). In general, players will ask YOU for an alliance so pick the one you prefeis in best position for the win.
BONUS: You can use a Karama card to prevent a player from doing revival can be strong against the Emperor (and their alliance), but in the end it’s your source of income, and that might not change a lot.If you draw a face dancer from your faction, or the cheap hero, you will want to discard them at the mantat phase. But keep this information, it might become useful for you. Once you reveal a face dancer, this leader is in the tanks and on the next turn, you can revive it (if you have less than 5 leaders) to enjoy a safe leader on your side.

IXIANS TIPS

You are the rich kid that has all the fancy toys before everyone else in middle school. You start hard and need to focus on staying at the top before other factions get their moment to shine. You can’t take notes like the Atreides, so you must focus to remember the cards you see, and the cards played by other players, in order to take advantage of your starting card (or in case you even get in an alliance with the Atreides to complete his notes in order to know the full hand of everybody).
SETUP: Out of the 6 cards you will see, you can look for a couple of them that might be the most helpful. The poison blade and the shield-snooper are the best attack/defense of the treachery deck. But a simple projectile weapon can be as deadly if there are no shields in the other 5 cards. So even if there are no special treachery cards, you can try to maximize your efficiency in combat by keeping track of the potential defenses from your cards. And at every auction, you can put away one of the cards that might cause you trouble. Keeping this “monopoly” on what can counter you is the best way to keep your starting advantage long enough to win. A weapon “monopoly” is better than a defense “monopoly” for you. Then you place your Hidden Mobile Stronghold (IMS), away from Carthag and Arakeen so no one can ship there, steal Ornithopters and get into your IMS. The first key to keep it is to make it expensive to get into. One of your first target might be the Fremen, to steal their tech token, and since they have so little spice, they might not get a lot or treachery cards to defends themselves against you at first.
INCOME: Vacuum it hard! Your IMS is the main source of spice for your faction, but sometimes you will have to get some alternative income since you won’t always be 3 territories away from remaining spice. You could make deals with other spice harvesters, but they might not let you. Protecting your IMS is crucial to keep your spice income. This is where killing heroes come handy and having great treachery cards is a nice advantage.
COMBAT: If you get the right set of cards in the starting 6 and can put aside the right one on the first auction, your combat will be easy since you can kill enemy leader for sure (because you know that you can waste less troop in dial if you don’t have to worry about the enemy leader). You also have the Cyborg/suboid mechanic to reduce the cost of battles. To make it simple, use your cyborg only in battle, but ship 1 suboid for each cyborg you put in battle to absorb the loss. So, to fight with 8, you ship 4 cyborg and 4 suboid, pay 4 spice for the cyborg, and only lose 4 suboid if you lose. The first turn is difficult for everyone because they have so little spice to dial high, you won’t need that many cyborgs.
ALLIANCE: Gain some overwhelming cyborg revivals (3) with the Fremen faction (and together you can share the spice blows each turn in order to maintain control over spice income). Or ally with the emperor to make him pay to resurrect 3 more cyborgs, or the Tleilax to only pay them half price.Gain the perfect card knowledge with Atreides, or on the opposite, because the perfect counter to Atreides by allying with the Harkonnens (giving them the best cards on the top of the deck).Gain a better advantage in battle with Bene Gesserit, if you don’t fear being broke. Gain some economic support from the Guild, but you might both be better with someone else.
BONUS: You can use a Karama card to move your IMS, but it's even more impactful if you prevent a fancy combat ability to bring others to your level and beat them with better treachery cards.