On the Painting Desk 299: Underworlds everywhere

 The desk is filled with Underworlds this week, and that is due to a reason.

Because with work on the Mantrappers progressing very well, I asked Noshi to pick the next warbands I should paint.

Duly she looked over the models, and picked two warbands who are currently abundant in the meta: the Thricefold Discord and Lady Harrow's Mournflight.  So onto the table they went!

I also picked out Drepur's Wraithkeepers, as these might be rather swift to paint and I have a battle against the grey challenge running over on CDO, with the huge collection sinking the numbers far into the negative.  To break even alone, I would need to paint 80 models in the remaining 3 months, and add nothing... not happening.

 

 

Finally I also took Hedkrakka, because it is Orktober this month, so at least some Orcs need to get loving!

And somewhere in between all that, I should tackle those Blunderbusses as well...

Snowpiercer season 4

 So after being in limbo, the fourth season of Snowpiercer has been taken up by AMC.

 

 

 

So let's ride this train again for the final 10 episodes in the series.

And it begins again where we left off, with the place not frozen... they saw the rocket in the atmosphere, and set out to explore what is happening.  Ben and Till are captured while looking for the wreckage by the International Peacekeeping Forces, led by Anton Milius and whom also have taken over Snowpiercer.

The series then jumps forward nine months, with Layton and Josie now having a relationship but also being member of the settlement's, New Eden, council.  While Layton is heading an effort to repair the bridge, not everyone is fond of Snowpiercer returning.  A badly hurt Audrey arrives on a track scaler, warning them that someone is coming while strange events that look like sabotage occur in the settlement.

Liana is kidnapped with the help of mrs Headwood, Zarah tries to stop them and is thrown from a cliff, but before she dies she can manage to give Layton a message of what happened and he vows revenge.  In a flashback it is shown how ruthless Milius can be to get control of Snowpiercer, whom he lets dock in an underground bunker in Djibouti.  There dr Nima boards, telling them how his research team have found a way to undo the freeze, but they need the train in order to spread it globally, causing Melanie to struck a deal until she learns later on they want to ambush New Eden to get Big Alice as well, causing her to send Audrey to the settlement.

Layton tries to take Big Alice to go after Snowpiercer, but he will be on a very short schedule as it has consequences for the colony's power supply.  They set out after the train, and when they catch up Josie and Layton board Snowpiercer.  Back at the camp, Sykes and Javi find evidence there might be spies amongst them.  Layton is caught by Milius, who offers to him the trade of Liana for Big Alice.  At the silo it is revealed that Wilford was saved by Milius men and he is the mastermind behind the kidnapping.  Ben sacrifices himself when the others manage to break out and reboard Big Alice, in order to seperate the trains by the manual controls, whom are outside in the cold.  

Another flashback goes back 9 months, even before the founding of New Eden, as Milius and his men find Wilford.  In the present, Milius tries to have Layton and Wilford kill each other, but they reluctantly form an alliance to be able to escape.  Melanie returns as Alex figures out the chemical to break up the freeze, named Gemini, might be toxic and causes her nosebleeds.  It is also shown that 3 years ago, Milius had the reseachers poisoned, including his wife, to rise to power in the project.  In the present, Melanie has serious concerns about Gemini, based on the data she gathered.  Gemini causes atmospheric erosion that at first will create warmth spots, but then strip all life of Earth.  Wilford confronts Milius, freezing him to death beofre commiting suicide by poison and revealing all he knows to Layton.  As Nima hijacks Snowpiercer to set his plan in motion none the less, as he turns out to be the scientist that caused the freeze in the first place, as well as Alex's biological father.

 

Nima prepares to invade New Eden to retrieve Big Alice, which has safely returned there.  During the battle, Nima steals Big Alice but as the inhabitants discover the soldiers carry no bullets they overcome them swiftly.  Nima disables Big Alice, as the fight on Snowpiercer itself continues.  nearing the ocean, the train goes off the rails and deploys caterpillar tracks, which the passengers had to build during their time being captured to reach the launch point.  Nima finally realizes his error, allowing himself to freeze to death but the missile can't be stopped and launches.  But Alex had removed the control compartment screws, making it fall off and the systems freeze to pieces, causing it to fall harmlessly onto the ice.  

 

 

The survivors all settle in New Eden, unknown how long the warm patch will last, as Snowpiercer has to continue making revolutions with a skeleton crew.  As everyone celebrates, a patch of flowers is zoomed in far away from New Eden, suggesting life might be returning an Earth startes warming again on it's own...

 

And so this rather fine series come to an end.  We won't know if and when Earth does warm up again, or how the lives of the passengers pan out, but that doesn't matter to be honest.  This was a fitting conclusion to a series I enjoyed watching and I'm glad the final season has been finished in the end after months in limbo.

 

Warhammer Underworlds casual night: Dance in the Vampire Bund

 Time for the weekly meet-up, and more efforts of getting the Crimson Court and Paths of Prophecy to work in some form or another.

I settled myself on taking these to Benelux Clash II, but I have low expectations for the combination, it just works to chunky.  But I won't be changing out now anymore, this is the band and deck that will have to do it, and the lower tiers will be my fate.  

I made peace with that...

The first game was against the Skittershank's Clawpack warband and the Hungering Parasite, a beast that is everywhere these days, and which scores smooth and swift all the time.

 

 

I opted for the longboard deployment, in the vain hope of trying to buy some time and score at least some points.

 

 

Duvalle managed to take down Skulck immediatly, but this found him a bit in a rough spot.

 

 The Skaven ganged up, including the Bane of Heroes wearing Snyp Padpaw, but I needed to keep that objective to score some decent glory in the first round.   

Vellas von Faine came to the aid of the prince, pushing back Slynk Skittershank after wounding him.

But all the Skaven wanted a piece of her, and a true train was formed to attack her and the prince.

 

It was in the last activation of the round Duvalle however who fell to the ping of the Bane of Heroes, and that meant the objective wouldn't be scored as I needed one within two hexes of no-man's land.  The gamble hadn't paid off, and the Skaven led 5-6 after round 1.

Vellas avenged the fallen leader at the begining of the second turn, taking down the Skaven leader Slynk Skittershank herself.

But that meant she now had to face an increasingly stronger Snyp Padpaw, who kept raking up the upgrades with the Bane of Heroes.

And she couldn't keep up against the onslaught, falling to his savage assaults.

As Gorath took hold of the objective on my half, the ratman raced into my territory, charging Ennais but missing him.

The second round ended on a hefty 7-11 lead for the Clawpack, and I needed to get first turn in the final round the save the whole affair.

But unfortunatly I didn't, and the Grievous 2, 3 wounds basic, gazillion dice Snyp took down Ennais in a single blow.

To add insult to injury, he also pinged away the last wound of Gorath thanks to the Malifec Siphon, tabling the Crimson Court and leaving the road wide open for a strong score of the Clawpack.

 

 They duly went on to do this, and I could only score a single point this round, resulting in a hefty 8-18 defeat against the Clawpack.

 

In maybe had one chance in the opening round to get a strong lead and take the game, but in the end the Bane of Heroes equipped, heftily upgraded Snyp just tore through the vampires and I doubt I would have been able to hold out.  

For the second game, the Thricefold Discord using Force of Frost faced my Crimson Court.

I didn't longboard this time, instead opting for a staggered boardplacement.  The bands set up, the Court holding back from the Discord, and battle commenced.

Lascivyr infiltrated my half, as the vampires went round to try and secure objectives.  

This all resulted in an impressive 1-1 score after round 1.

In the beginning of the second round, after Duvalle had taken down Lascivyr, Vellas swooped away using Quicksilver Advance to end up deep in enemy territory, as the lumbering Vexmor put himself on objective 3.

Vashtiss zapped Gorath off the objective, and after a barrage of spells the Vampire went down.  

 

Ennais in the meantime had infiltrated also into enemy territory, while Vexmor delved his objective down.  On the scorebord was now an 8-4 lead for the Crimson Court though, and I had some playable end of turn 3 cards in hand, so I had to make sure I could hold out.

Vexmor went after the Vampires, whom saw Duvalle also go and grab an objective in their lands.  

Ennais flipped the objective token he was on, before the Vashtiss took him down.

The rest of the turn only saw Vashtiss returning to an objective to score for the Discord, meaning I was lucky for Duvalle to survive as I needed him to score Death's Domain.  The result as such was an 11-9 victory for the Crimson Court, but once again the play wasn't impressive, let alone the score.

So yeah, Benelux Clash II will be a very hard affair with this combination, and I hope to win at least one or two games out of I believe the six rounds that will be played.  It is best of one, so maybe the fact the combination itself might suprise people allows to avoid some counterplay beforehand, but I make no illusions for that day.

But first let's see what this weekends reveals on Warhammer Day will bring for Underworlds.  If the game "remains sort of the same", I will be having a whole set of builds ready for going into 2025, and slowly I will be started to try them out, leaving the Crimson Court / Paths of Prophecy go down in my notes as an intresting, but not succesfull, experiment.

Idoneth Deepkin Akhelian Allopex

 It's Sharkanado time!!!

 

 

Granted, the Allopex is one of the reasons I love the Idoneth so much, their unique visual appeal of flying fish is just "different" from a lot out there.

 

 But what is more, by painting up this ferocious beast, my Spearhead was ready on time for the play afternoon we had a while back, and where you could read a battlereport for on this blog.

 

 

These Sharkanado's (or with my dice rolls, Baby Shark's) are ferocious beasts on the battlefield at 190 points each, coming with options to be either more effective against monsters or against infantry, the former being the version in Spearhead.  Which is a bit sad though, as monsters aren't that many on the field of battle...

 

 

But, it is such an awe inspiring model, and some sort of automatic "kill that beast" effect takes place in an opponents mind, because nobody wants to see Jaws flying towards their lines on magical currents...

 

 

 

 

Entering the final quarter: september yearly goals update

 Already three fourths of the year have passed by, meaning it is time for the overview of how much progress I made in the yearly goals.

And honestly, it looks like the year will have a lot of "failures" at the way things progress...

The "sure fails" from the previews overview are still at that point, with nothing painted so far for either Warmaster of HOTT, and unlikely I'll start that in the next and final quarter either, so I already marked them as red.

The same goes for painting 250 heroic Chaos Dwarf models.  That tally has increased now, standing at 10 out of 250, but the end total is unreachable.  Add to that as I already have a rough idea for the goals next year, being to focus and complete tournament sized armies for various games.  That means I've already began painting towards those ends, to have the required amount of work lowered, and the Chaos Dwarfs being (far over) tournament participation size anyways.

Painting the remaining Underworlds warbands won't be a succes either.  While I already finished 7 this year, there have been just as much (actually, even more) added to the collection so that particular goal even is further from achieving then it was at the beginning of the year, that happens if you buy a whole collection half of september...

One goal I might still make though is the Idoneth army, now standing at 650 out of 2000 points with the AoS 4 points change (850 if legends are allowed), but with work underway to at least finish my Spearhead force, these points are still rising.  That means perhaps at least single painting goal might be achieved this year...

On the watching movies and series level, it is still all to play for, with movies standing at 15 out of 20, while series is now at 13 out of 20.  These will depend mostly on wether me and Noshi will binge through some backlog or not in the final quarter still.  

The same can be said for both the anime challenges.  While for the reasons I mentioned in the previous update I can't fully complete the OVA challenge, now standing at 20 out of 85, it can still significantly add to the total anime challenge of viewed anime this year, which now is at 37 out of 100.

For all three reading challenges, I believe it will work out in the end, even though the numbers currently are a bit low.  The rulebooks / books are at 5 out of 10, so no problems there to reach the goal.  The manga are now at 14 volumes read of the target 25, so that will also be fine.  For the magazines / fanzines, some reading time will be needed to be made free, but at 11 out of 50 that actually is still do-able, even though it looks like a huge gap.

The complete the Date A Bullet cards remained at 9 out of 19, but that is because I don't want to shelf down a few hundred euro's for the signed rares and such so far.

The final goal, which was already succesfull, is the yearly beer discovery, as the numbers have rissen and now stands at 90 new beers out of 50, but cruelly put that is almost a sureshot goal.  Last holiday for example, I tasted no less then 20 beers on the various stops we made, and there is still a beer festival on the horizon.

 

So there we have it, the raw data for the yearly goals, in what is looking like an unfortunate year in achieving those.  But heck, whatever we can obtain, we will still push forward for, and then we will see how the ship sails into the harbour... 

See you at the finale for this year!